Search Results

Author: Fiel, Jeremy E.
Resulting in 7 citations.
1. Diaz, Christina
Fiel, Jeremy E.
How Young Mothers Manage: Is There Evidence for Heterogeneity after an Early Birth?
Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Childbearing; Educational Attainment; Fertility; Heterogeneity; Income; Motherhood; Pregnancy, Adolescent; Propensity Scores

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The socioeconomic consequences of teenage childbearing have received much attention over the past 40 years. While some argue that teenage fertility substantially hinders women’s educational attainment and earnings, others claim that the socioeconomic prospects of these women are often limited regardless of early motherhood. Recent methodological advances have resulted in more plausible estimates of the effect of teenage childbearing, but these studies focus on average treatment effects and overlook systematic variation. We ask if there is evidence for heterogeneity in the effects of teen birth on educational attainment and income, and whether the sources of this heterogeneity are tied to the resources and attributes of young mothers. We use propensity score-based methods to assess effect heterogeneity, but go further to test theoretically relevant explanations of such heterogeneity. Our findings help identify the types of young women who are likely to struggle as mothers and help us learn how others succeed.
Bibliography Citation
Diaz, Christina and Jeremy E. Fiel. "How Young Mothers Manage: Is There Evidence for Heterogeneity after an Early Birth?" Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014.
2. Diaz, Christina
Fiel, Jeremy E.
The Effect(s) of Teen Pregnancy: Reconciling Theory, Methods, and Findings
Demography 53,1 (February 2016): 85-116.
Also: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-015-0446-6
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; College Enrollment; College Graduates; Earnings; Educational Attainment; High School Completion/Graduates; Methods/Methodology; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Instrumental Variables; Modeling, Logit; Pregnancy, Adolescent; Propensity Scores

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although teenage mothers have lower educational attainment and earnings than women who delay fertility, causal interpretations of this relationship remain controversial. Scholars argue that there are reasons to predict negative, trivial, or even positive effects, and different methodological approaches provide some support for each perspective. We reconcile this ongoing debate by drawing on two heuristics: (1) each methodological strategy emphasizes different women in estimation procedures, and (2) the effects of teenage fertility likely vary in the population. Analyses of the Child and Young Adult Cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,661) confirm that teen pregnancy has negative effects on most women's attainment and earnings. More striking, however, is that effects on college completion and early earnings vary considerably and are most pronounced among those least likely to experience an early pregnancy. Further analyses suggest that teen pregnancy is particularly harmful for those with the brightest socioeconomic prospects and who are least prepared for the transition to motherhood.
Bibliography Citation
Diaz, Christina and Jeremy E. Fiel. "The Effect(s) of Teen Pregnancy: Reconciling Theory, Methods, and Findings." Demography 53,1 (February 2016): 85-116.
3. Diaz, Christina
Fiel, Jeremy E.
When Size Matters: IV Estimates of Sibship Size on Educational Attainment in the U.S.
Population Research and Policy Review published online (8 October 2020): DOI: 10.1007/s11113-020-09619-2.
Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11113-020-09619-2
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult, Young Women
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Size; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Children with additional siblings appear to fare worse on a variety of developmental and educational outcomes across social contexts. Yet, the causal relation between sibship size and later attainment remains dubious, as factors that influence parents' fertility decisions also shape children's socioeconomic prospects. We apply instrumental variables methods that treat multiple births (e.g., twins, triplets) and same-sex composition as natural experiments to test whether increases in sibship size have a causal effect on the educational attainment of older siblings in the U.S. We pool several nationally representative datasets, including the Child and Young Adult Cohorts of the NLSY79 and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to obtain adequate sample sizes for these methods. Although results indicate that the presence of an additional sibling has a trivial effect on the attainment of older siblings for most families (those with two to four siblings), a large penalty arises with the introduction of a fifth sibling. Our findings imply that the costs associated with sibship size are likely concentrated among the largest families.
Bibliography Citation
Diaz, Christina and Jeremy E. Fiel. "When Size Matters: IV Estimates of Sibship Size on Educational Attainment in the U.S." Population Research and Policy Review published online (8 October 2020): DOI: 10.1007/s11113-020-09619-2.
4. Fiel, Jeremy E.
Different Sides of the Track, or Different Tracks? Socioeconomic Disparities in Processes of Development and Educational Attainment
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2015
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birthweight; Depression (see also CESD); Digit Span (also see Memory for Digit Span - WISC); Educational Attainment; Educational Outcomes; Grade Point Average (GPA)/Grades; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Motor and Social Development (MSD); Parental Investments; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC); Siblings; Skill Formation; Socioeconomic Background; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Temperament

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Most educational stratification research treats social background as an indirect influence operating through disparities in factors that more directly affect educational outcomes. Children from disparate backgrounds are born on "different sides of the track," with unequal opportunities to acquire what it takes to succeed. I argue that social background also modifies the attainment process, as the contexts of children from disparate backgrounds alter the ways they develop important skills and transform them into educational success. Children from unequal backgrounds are thus born on "different tracks," facing distinct routes to educational success. Analyses of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Child and Young Adult cohorts (NLSCYA) indicate that early skill development has stronger effects on long-term educational achievements such as high school grades and college completion among more socioeconomically advantaged youth. This appears due to the fact that early skills are better reinforced by complementary investments in more advantaged homes.

Additional analyses link these differences to ways SES modifies within-family developmental dynamics. Disadvantaged families invest more in developmentally advanced than less advanced children in early childhood, while advantaged families invest more equally across children. Such dynamics may exacerbate socioeconomic inequality among children who face early developmentally challenges. As children mature, these differences either disappear or reverse, reinforcing socioeconomic disparities among more skilled children.

Decomposition analyses using these same data trace a substantial degree of inequality in educational outcomes to the fact that high-SES children not only have more of the skills, resources, and experiences that promote educational success, but also derive greater benefits from these factors. The same holds in an experimental analysis of a social capital-building developmental intervention, wh ich primarily benefitted the most socioeconomically advantaged families and children in the study.

In sum, efforts to understand and address intergenerational inequality must account for the fact that socioeconomic disparities between families alter integral aspects of the processes that shape children's developmental and educational trajectories. Whether the goal is to promote upward mobility, reduce inequality, or make educational and developmental interventions more efficient or effective, it is important to consider how socioeconomic background modifies children's environments and experiences.

Bibliography Citation
Fiel, Jeremy E. Different Sides of the Track, or Different Tracks? Socioeconomic Disparities in Processes of Development and Educational Attainment. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2015.
5. Fiel, Jeremy E.
Great Equalizer or Great Selector? Reconsidering Education as a Moderator of Intergenerational Transmissions
Sociology of Education published online (2 June 2020): DOI: 10.1177/0038040720927886.
Also: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038040720927886
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A long-standing consensus among sociologists holds that educational attainment has an equalizing effect that increases mobility by moderating other avenues of intergenerational status transmission. This study argues that the evidence supporting this consensus may be distorted by two problems: measurement error in parents' socioeconomic standing and the educational system's tendency to progressively select people predisposed for mobility rather than to actually affect mobility. Analyses of family income mobility that address both of these problems in three longitudinal surveys converge on new findings. Intergenerational mobility is significantly lower among high school dropouts than among others, but there are no significant differences in mobility across higher education levels. This is consistent with compensatory advantage processes among the least educated in which individuals from advantaged backgrounds use family-based resources to compensate for their lack of human capital.
Bibliography Citation
Fiel, Jeremy E. "Great Equalizer or Great Selector? Reconsidering Education as a Moderator of Intergenerational Transmissions." Sociology of Education published online (2 June 2020): DOI: 10.1177/0038040720927886.
6. Fiel, Jeremy E.
SES-Based Effect Modification and Intergenerational Educational Stratification
Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Academic Development; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Educational Attainment; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study claims that an important aspect of intergenerational educational stratification is the way socioeconomic background modifies the effects of important determinants of attainment. With longitudinal data on recent cohorts of children, I use semiparametric decomposition methods to show that differential returns to children's skills and circumstances, beyond disparities in these attributes, are important contributors to intergenerational educational inequality. This is particularly consequential for bachelor's degree attainment, as the weaker returns to the attributes of low-SES than high-SES youth exacerbate inequality and may stifle efforts to promote upward mobility. The findings also show that problematic parametric assumptions in typical linear models obscure this modification.
Bibliography Citation
Fiel, Jeremy E. "SES-Based Effect Modification and Intergenerational Educational Stratification." Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016.
7. Fiel, Jeremy E.
Diaz, Christina
When Size Matters: The Influence of Sibship Size on Attainment
Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, Mature Women, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Size; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Children with more siblings fare worse on a variety of developmental and socioeconomic outcomes. Because socioeconomically disadvantaged children tend to have more siblings than their more advantaged counterparts, sibship size is considered a significant driver of intergenerational inequality. However, recent scholarship outside of the U.S. context has challenged these causal claims, arguing that effects of additional siblings on attainment are trivial. Such studies use multiple births as a natural experiment—where increases in sibship size are used to estimate the human capital accumulation among older children. We follow these recent developments (e.g. De Haan 2010), and use multiple births to isolate the causal effect of additional siblings on older siblings' educational attainment. We pool five nationally representative surveys in the U.S. to meet the necessary data requirements. Results indicate that the presence of an additional fourth or fifth child significantly decreases older siblings attainment between one-fourth and three-fourths of a year.
Bibliography Citation
Fiel, Jeremy E. and Christina Diaz. "When Size Matters: The Influence of Sibship Size on Attainment." Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016.