Search Results

Author: Olsen, Randall J.
Resulting in 19 citations.
1. D'Amico, Ronald
Hills, Stephen M.
Lynch, Lisa M.
Morgan, William R.
Nestel, Gilbert
Olsen, Randall J.
Parsons, Donald O.
Willke, Richard
Pathways to the Future, Volume VI: A Report on the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience of Youth in 1984
Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, January 1986
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): All-Volunteer Force (AVF); Children; Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA); Earnings; Education; Educational Costs; Employment, In-School; Family Resources; Job Training; Labor Market Outcomes

This report describes the work experience of a nationally-representative sample of 12,000 Americans who were age 14-21 when first interviewed in 1979 and who have been surveyed annually since then. Willke - Chapter One examines welfare, education, and labor market outcomes for CETA participants and non-participants. Lynch - Chapter Two aims to identify the influences on the length of time young people are unemployed. Olsen - Chapter Three examines a method for determining the existence and impact of selection bias, which is known to affect outcomes of labor policy discussions depending on how the bias is corrected. Hills - Chapter Four examines the long-run impact of teen-age unemployment on later labor market success. Morgan - Chapter Five examines variation within families in investment of resources in their children's educational and occupational attainment process. D'Amico - Chapter Six adds evidence to other studies showing how pervasive employment is among high school youth. Parsons - Chapter Seven provides information about the on-the-job training provided to young men by private employers. Nestel - Chapter Eight compares the post-school work experience of youth who served in the All-Volunteer Force and those who did not.
Bibliography Citation
D'Amico, Ronald, Stephen M. Hills, Lisa M. Lynch, William R. Morgan, Gilbert Nestel, Randall J. Olsen, Donald O. Parsons and Richard Willke. Pathways to the Future, Volume VI: A Report on the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience of Youth in 1984. Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, January 1986.
2. Olsen, Randall J.
Desirability of Partner Traits and Two Decades of Change in the Marriage Market: A One-and-a-Half Sex Model of Marriage
Presented: Washington, DC, Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center, NLSY97 Tenth Anniversary Conference, May 29-30, 2008.
Also: http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/Research/conferences/NLSYConf/pdf/olsen.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: U.S. Department of Labor
Keyword(s): Fertility; Gender; Labor Market Outcomes; Marriage

One of the unique features of the NLS program has been its continued interviews on the people originally sampled with proxy interviews being very rare. The individual, not the household or family unit, is the focus of the study and this makes the surveys powerful instruments for the study of lives over the long-run. As we look at ten years of data from the NLSY97, the project enables us to look at these lives through young adulthood, we can look at this new generation's experiences in the context of evolving opportunities and social norms and how those changes shape our society and the labor market.

One of the most significant decisions a person makes is the decision to marry, and while this decision may not affect the labor market immediately, in the long run it is a decision with such powerful effects that its impact on shaping the labor market is substantial even if not immediate. Marriage has important effects on fertility. At one time decisions on fertility and decisions on marriage were inextricably entwined. Over the past half-century, this connection has loosened considerably. … the focus of this paper is not on the change in the marriage rate. Instead, the question we seek to answer is whether the process of matching potential spouses with one another has fundamentally changed or not.

Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Desirability of Partner Traits and Two Decades of Change in the Marriage Market: A One-and-a-Half Sex Model of Marriage." Presented: Washington, DC, Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center, NLSY97 Tenth Anniversary Conference, May 29-30, 2008.
3. Olsen, Randall J.
Effects of Computer Assisted Interviewing on Data Quality
Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1991
Cohort(s): NLS General, NLSY79
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI); Data Quality/Consistency; Interviewer Characteristics; Interviewing Method; NLS Description

While paper and pencil is the traditional mode of in-person data collection, computer assisted personal interviewing is emerging. Evaluation analysts must decide how to collect their data and whether data collected by computer are comparable to data collected using paper and pencil. Using data from two experiments with parallel paper and pencil and computer assisted modes from Rounds 11 and 12 of the NLSY, it was found that computer assisted interviewing suppresses the most common kinds of interviewer error, but otherwise has no significant effect upon the data collected in a large longitudinal interview. Interviewer characteristics and whether the interview is done by telephone are more important factors than the use of a computer.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Effects of Computer Assisted Interviewing on Data Quality." Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1991.
4. Olsen, Randall J.
Future of the NLS: A Report from the NSF Conference on the Future of the NLS and the NLS Technical Review Committee
Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1989
Cohort(s): NLS General
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): NLS Description

This report summarizes the proceedings of a National Science Foundation (NSF) conference on the future of the NLS held in Washington, D.C. on October 21, 1988. Attended by representatives of government agencies, academic institutions, private research organizations and foundations, conference attendees reviewed the early history of the NLS and the current design structure of the various surveys, listened to presentations on the usefulness of the NLS to researchers in the fields of sociology and labor economics, and explored possibilities for future NLS data collection efforts. Key recommendations generated from both this conference and a subsequent meeting held by the NLS Technical Review Committee are presented as is an edited transcript of the October NSF meeting.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Future of the NLS: A Report from the NSF Conference on the Future of the NLS and the NLS Technical Review Committee." Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1989.
5. Olsen, Randall J.
Labor Market Behavior of Women 30-44 in 1967 and Women 14-24 in 1968: The National Longitudinal Surveys
Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1987
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Children; Educational Attainment; Labor Force Participation; Labor Supply; Marital Status; Occupations; Racial Differences; Unemployment; Wages

This report consists of a series of over 250 descriptive tables detailing by age, race, and varying other characteristics the labor force participation, occupational distribution, and wage rates of respondents in the Mature Women and Young Women cohorts for the survey years 1967-1984 and 1968-1983 respectively. Section I presents an overview of the two cohorts and describes the organization and contents of the series of weighted and unweighted tables that follow. Each of the subsequent sections examines a key topic (labor supply and unemployment [Section II], occupations [Section III], and wage rates [Section IV]) and depicts results for all respondents within each cohort as well as differences by such factors as age, race, marital status, presence or absence of spouse or children, age at first birth, number of children, educational attainment, and extent of labor force attachment.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Labor Market Behavior of Women 30-44 in 1967 and Women 14-24 in 1968: The National Longitudinal Surveys." Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1987.
6. Olsen, Randall J.
Measuring Economic Dependency for Children: Persistence of Poverty Across Generations
Statement to the Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, Senate Finance Committee, United States Senate, March 1991
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
Keyword(s): Absenteeism; Child Development; Children; Gender Differences; General Assessment; Geographical Variation; Household Structure; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Poverty; Racial Differences; Welfare

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

In his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, Professor Olsen addresses the need for relevant indicators to assist policy makers in identifying those factors related to continued economic dependency or poverty across generations. He discusses the availability of multigenerational data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). These permit not only analysis of poverty over time for this representative group of 12,000 young American men and women but assist in pinpointing characteristics of the youths' family background, high school environment, and community likely to affect the probability that these young Americans and their children will be able to move out of poverty. Professor Olsen identifies the following four factors as related to reductions in poverty persistence measured at two points in time (1979 and 1988): (1) greater educational attainment of a young person's mother; (2) presence of two parents in the household; (3) attendance at high schools which reported, for the young men studied, lower absenteeism rates and, for young women, fewer numbers of economically disadvantaged students; and (4) residence in a community with low rates of unemployment, crime and welfare recipiency. The impact of persisting poverty on child development is also examined using detailed information on the cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral development of children born to women in the NLSY sample. In his concluding remarks, Professor Olsen stresses the need for continued funding for such national data collection efforts as the NLSY which provide a wealth of information for policy analysis.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Measuring Economic Dependency for Children: Persistence of Poverty Across Generations." Statement to the Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, Senate Finance Committee, United States Senate, March 1991.
7. Olsen, Randall J.
Perspectives on Longitudinal Surveys
Presented: Montreal, Canada, Conference on Longitudinal Social and Health Surveys in an International Perspective, January 2006.
Also: http://www.ciqss.umontreal.ca/Longit/index.html
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY97, Young Women
Publisher: Conference on Longitudinal Social and Health Surveys in an International Perspective
Keyword(s): Digit Span (also see Memory for Digit Span - WISC); Event History; General Assessment; Geocoded Data; Longitudinal Data Sets; NLS Description; Overview, Child Assessment Data; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Perspectives on Longitudinal Surveys." Presented: Montreal, Canada, Conference on Longitudinal Social and Health Surveys in an International Perspective, January 2006.
8. Olsen, Randall J.
Problem of Respondent Attrition: Survey Methodology is Key
Monthly Labor Review 128,2 (February 2005): 63-70.
Also: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/02/art9exc.htm
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: U.S. Department of Labor
Keyword(s): Attrition; Longitudinal Surveys; Methods/Methodology

Longitudinal surveys will suffer from attrition and nothing will change that; however, years of lessons learned in the field show that straightforward survey methodology can minimize the impact of losing respondents.

The central problem of longitudinal surveys is attrition. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 1979 (NLSY79), which this issue of the Monthly Labor Review features, is the gold standard for sample retention against which longitudinal surveys are usually measured. However, we cannot understand how the NLSY79 has done so well without considering what was done differently in the other cohorts of the NLS and what we have learned by formal evaluations of attrition aversion measures that evolved over a quarter century of field work. The lessons here are hard-won and, to some, unconventional.

Background
The NLS began in 1965 at the urging of an Assistant Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He believed that although the Current Population Survey provided crucial snapshots of the Nation's labor force and labor market, the Nation needed a data source that was more dynamic and capable of tracking the long-run evolution of careers. The task of starting the study went to Howard Rosen at the Department of Labor, who enlisted Herb Parnes from Ohio State University, to assemble a team, design the surveys, and analyze the data. This team comprised representatives from the Census Bureau, Ohio State University, and the Department of Labor.

The original plan was to follow the cohorts for 5 years to study some of the pressing questions of the time—the shrinking labor force participation rate of older men, the problem of youth unemployment and the transition from school to work, and the growing labor force participation of women whose children were entering school, leading to steady growth in the number of working mothers. Childcare was an important issue along with the problem of how the family would pay for a college education for the children of the baby boom.

Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Problem of Respondent Attrition: Survey Methodology is Key." Monthly Labor Review 128,2 (February 2005): 63-70.
9. Olsen, Randall J.
Respondent Attrition Versus Data Attrition and Their Reduction
In: The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research. D. Vannette and J. Krosnick, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018: 155-158
Cohort(s): NLS General
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Keyword(s): Attrition; Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002); Longitudinal Data Sets; Methods/Methodology

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

Panel attrition, or the loss of recruited members from a panel of respondents from whom longitudinal data are being collected, poses a serious risk to the validity of the results produced by panel data. Panel attrition is costly both monetarily and in terms of the effects on data quality and this chapter argues that there may be some benefit in shifting focus from minimizing respondent attrition from a panel to minimizing data attrition from the panel dataset. Using examples from important panels such as the Educational Longitudinal Survey (ELS) and the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS), it also proposes a number of strategies for minimizing the negative effects of panel attrition on longitudinal datasets, including targeted monetary incentives and long-term recontact strategies.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Respondent Attrition Versus Data Attrition and Their Reduction" In: The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research. D. Vannette and J. Krosnick, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018: 155-158
10. Olsen, Randall J.
The National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience Merged Child-Mother Data
Journal of Human Resources 24,2 (Spring 1989): 336-339.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/145861
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLS General, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): General Assessment; Longitudinal Data Sets; NLS Description; Overview, Child Assessment Data; Tests and Testing

This article describes the new child data currently being distributed by the Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University. In 1986, a battery of child assessment instruments was administered to the approximately 5,000 children born to mothers of the NLSY cohort. These child assessment measures included: (1) measures of the home environment and mother-child relationship; (2) measures of early verbal ability of young children; (3) memory tests; (4) math ability; (5) reading ability and comprehension; (6) temperament and behavior problems; (7) the child's self-perception of academic ability and sense of self-worth; and (8) motor and social development. These data are distributed as a Child Assessment Raw Item File. In addition, data from these child assessment were combined with data collected on the NLSY mothers during the 1979-1986 surveys to form a Merged Child-Mother File. This second data set contains information on the mother's family of origin, marital history, income, health history as well as information on each child's family background, family employment and education history, household composition, pre- and post-natal health care, child care experiences, and selected items from the 1986 child assessments.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "The National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience Merged Child-Mother Data." Journal of Human Resources 24,2 (Spring 1989): 336-339.
11. Olsen, Randall J.
The Relation Between the Rate of Return to Tenure, Earnings Growth, and Job Switching
Presented: San Diego, CA, Western Economics Association Meetings, 1990.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Western Economic Association International
Keyword(s): Earnings; Gender Differences; Illegal Activities; Job Tenure; Job Turnover; Mobility; Quits; Racial Differences; Substance Use; Wages

The problem of estimating the rate of return to job-specific versus general human capital is attacked by specifying a model for the duration of job holdings based upon an underlying Weiner process for the evolution of the wage rate on the incumbent job, and another Weiner process for the wage on the best alternative job. The model jointly estimates job duration and the change in starting wages across job holdings. Drift in the incumbent wage process reveals the rate of return to job-specific plus general human capital, whereas the drift in the alternative wage reflects only the return to general human capital. The model estimates the importance of firm behavior that might reflect bonding to retard mobility. The duration of job holdings and the presence of incomplete spells for the duration until a voluntary job change become an essential part of separating the return to job-specific versus general human capital.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "The Relation Between the Rate of Return to Tenure, Earnings Growth, and Job Switching." Presented: San Diego, CA, Western Economics Association Meetings, 1990..
12. Olsen, Randall J.
The Relation Between the Rate of Return to Tenure, Earnings Growth, and Job Switching
In: Survival Analysis: State of the Art. J. Klein and P. Goel, eds., Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992: 435-448
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Keyword(s): Earnings; Gender Differences; Job Tenure; Job Turnover; Wage Rates

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

Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "The Relation Between the Rate of Return to Tenure, Earnings Growth, and Job Switching" In: Survival Analysis: State of the Art. J. Klein and P. Goel, eds., Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992: 435-448
13. Olsen, Randall J.
Who Starts Ahead and Who Moves Ahead? Achievement, Social Adjustment and their Production in Children
Presented: Washington DC, Symposium and Festschrift in honor of T. Paul Schultz, Center for Global Development, May 2010
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Center for Global Development
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Bias Decomposition; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; Parental Influences; Parental Investments; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

A great deal of T. Paul Schultz’s professional career was spent looking at the forces behind economic development. As Adam Smith pointed out, the wealth of nations is in their inhabitants, making the development of children central to economic development and progress. Schultz made the case several times that there is a payoff to educating women in less developed countries. Many of the “gateways” through which children must pass on the way to adulthood can be characterized as sorting children into an ordering on social, emotional and especially cognitive outcomes. While economic development reflects aggregate child development, for individual economic outcomes, where a child ranks in their peer group has significant impacts. Here we use data from the Children of the NLSY79 to examine the process that sorts children by their cognition and behavioral problems. We can explain the ordering of children by cognitive and behavioral outcomes better before they enter school than their movement subsequent to entry. If the place a child occupies among their peers is largely set before entering first grade, changes to the educational environment due to policy measures may influence how a cohort fares, but may have very modest effects on which children attain the top of the cognitive distribution and hence have a chance to enter their careers from the most selective universities and all the advantages that follow from there. While not from a less-developed country, the evidence here points to the centrality investments in women in the development process.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. "Who Starts Ahead and Who Moves Ahead? Achievement, Social Adjustment and their Production in Children." Presented: Washington DC, Symposium and Festschrift in honor of T. Paul Schultz, Center for Global Development, May 2010.
14. Olsen, Randall J.
Cooksey, Elizabeth C.
Measuring Internal Migration Prospectively Using Longitudinal Data
In: Selected Topics in Migration Studies. F.D. Bean and S.K. Brown, eds., Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023: 217-219
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Migration

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

Internal migration may be defined as a change in residence from one geographical unit to another.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. and Elizabeth C. Cooksey. "Measuring Internal Migration Prospectively Using Longitudinal Data" In: Selected Topics in Migration Studies. F.D. Bean and S.K. Brown, eds., Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023: 217-219
15. Olsen, Randall J.
Reagan, Patricia Benton
Expanding the Scope of the NLS Surveys: Merging Data from Other Sources Based on Geographic Identifiers
Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, August 2004
Cohort(s): NLS General
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Research Methodology; Statistical Analysis; Statistics

This segment is designed to give an overview of implementable research techniques for incorporating external data with the NLS data based on geographic identifiers. We will proceed by discussing a number of examples. For each example there is a SAS program and a list file.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J. and Patricia Benton Reagan. "Expanding the Scope of the NLS Surveys: Merging Data from Other Sources Based on Geographic Identifiers." Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, August 2004.
16. Olsen, Randall J.
Titma, Mikk
Kallas, Raoul
A Comparison of Inequality in the United States and Estonia
Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1991
Cohort(s): Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Center for Human Resource Research
Keyword(s): Assets; Behavioral Problems; Cross-national Analysis; Earnings; Estonia, Estonian Labour Force Survey; Family Income; Gender Differences; Income; Income Distribution; Life Cycle Research; Marital Status; Racial Differences; Wages; Wealth

Data on income and asset holdings in the NLS of Young Men's and Young Women's cohorts from the late 1960s and early 1980s are compared with similar data taken from a longitudinal survey done in Estonia that covers the same time period and the same approximate age cohort of young persons. Cross-country inequality comparisons are dangerous, especially because the Soviet system provides an important part of income in the form of subsidized housing and food. However, both the U.S. and Estonian data show a common pattern of time-invariant income distributions when we follow a cohort through the early years of the life-cycle. Asset inequality, as measured by Gini coefficients, is larger in the U.S.; however, there are serious problems in measuring asset values in Estonia.
Bibliography Citation
Olsen, Randall J., Mikk Titma and Raoul Kallas. "A Comparison of Inequality in the United States and Estonia." Report, Columbus OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University, 1991.
17. Reagan, Patricia Benton
Olsen, Randall J.
You Can Go Home Again: Evidence from Longitudinal Data
Demography 37,3 (August 2000): 339-350.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/b5j14454n6147r76/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Economics, Demographic; Immigrants; Migration; Migration Patterns; Residence; Skills; Variables, Independent - Covariate; Welfare

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

In this paper we analyze the economic and demographic factors that influence return migration, focusing on generation 1.5 immigrants. Using longitudinal data from the 1979 youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY79), we track residential histories of young immigrants to the United States and analyze the covariates associated with return migration to their home country. Overall, return migration appears to respond to economic incentives, as well as to cultural and linguistic ties to the United States and the home country. We find no role for welfare magnets in the decision to return, but we learn that welfare participation leads to lower probability of return migration. Finally, we see no evidence of a skill bias in return migration, where skill is measured by performance on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test.
Bibliography Citation
Reagan, Patricia Benton and Randall J. Olsen. "You Can Go Home Again: Evidence from Longitudinal Data." Demography 37,3 (August 2000): 339-350.
18. Reagan, Patricia Benton
Salsberry, Pamela J.
Olsen, Randall J.
Cumulative Relative Deprivation, Race/Ethnicity and Birth Weight
Working Paper, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University. Revised, February 2006.
Also: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/reagan/docs/submission_revised.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, The Ohio State University
Keyword(s): Birthweight; Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Family Income; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Racial Differences

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

This paper examined three broad theoretical relationships between absolute income, relative deprivation and income inequality and how they affect health. We demonstrated that if the income distribution is log normal, as has been shown to be approximately true in U.S. data, then the three effects cannot be separately identified. We focused on testing for associations between absolute income, cumulative relative deprivation and health, using state level fixed effects to control for time-invariant state differences income inequality.

We provide empirical evidence that relative deprivation but not absolute income was associated with birth weight in full term infants, controlling for tract poverty rate, maternal education, marital status, urban residence and maternal age. The findings provided qualified support for acceptance of an independent association between cumulative relative deprivation and full term infant birth weight, when not controlling for race/ethnicity. Evaluated at mean birth weight, a one standard deviation increase in cumulative relative deprivation led to a decrease in birth weight of approximately 1.5 ounces. We also provided evidence that the association between cumulative relative deprivation and birth weight was confounded by race/ethnicity. The mechanisms emphasized in the literature for a plausible relationship between health and relative deprivation, such as psychosocial stress and diminished purchasing power of a given level of income, were equally plausible as mechanisms through which race effects individual health. We found evidence that two behaviors which reduced birth weight (decreased weight gain during pregnancy and increased smoking during pregnancy) were positively associated with cumulative relative deprivation. The negative impact of cumulative relative deprivation on birth weight operated directly, when not controlling for race/ethnicity, and indirectly through its effect on decreased weight gain during pregnancy and increased smoking during pregnancy.

Bibliography Citation
Reagan, Patricia Benton, Pamela J. Salsberry and Randall J. Olsen. "Cumulative Relative Deprivation, Race/Ethnicity and Birth Weight." Working Paper, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University. Revised, February 2006.
19. Reagan, Patricia Benton
Salsberry, Pamela J.
Olsen, Randall J.
Does the Measure of Economic Disadvantage Matter? Exploring the Effect of Individual and Relative Deprivation on Intrauterine Growth Restriction
Social Science and Medicine 64,10 (May 2007): 2016-2029.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953607000548
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Birth Outcomes; Child Health; Geographical Variation; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Income Distribution; Life Course; Mothers, Health; Poverty; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

This paper examines the relation between health, individual income, and relative deprivation. Three alternative measures of relative deprivation are described, Yitzhaik relative deprivation, Deaton relative deprivation, and log income difference relative deprivation, with attention to problems in measuring permanent disadvantage when the underlying income distribution is changing over time. We used data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, a US-based longitudinal survey, to examine the associations between disadvantage, measured cross-sectionally and aggregated over the life course, and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). We reject the hypotheses that any of the economic measures, whether permanent/contemporaneous or individual/relative, have different associations with IUGR in terms of sign and significance. There was some evidence that permanent economic disadvantage was associated with greater risk of IUGR than those on the corresponding contemporaneous measures. The fitted values from logistic regressions on each measure of disadvantage were compared with the two-way plots of the observed IUGR-income pattern. Deaton relative deprivation and log income difference tracked the observed probability of IUGR as a function of income more closely than the other two measures of relative deprivation. Finally, we examined the determinants of each measure of disadvantage. Observed characteristics in childhood and adulthood explained more of the variance in log income difference and Deaton relative deprivation than in the other two measures of disadvantage. They also explained more of the variance in permanent disadvantage than in the contemporaneous counterpart.

[Copyright 2007 Elsevier] Copyright of Social Science & Medicine is the property of Pergamon Press - An Imprint of Elsevier Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts)

Bibliography Citation
Reagan, Patricia Benton, Pamela J. Salsberry and Randall J. Olsen. "Does the Measure of Economic Disadvantage Matter? Exploring the Effect of Individual and Relative Deprivation on Intrauterine Growth Restriction." Social Science and Medicine 64,10 (May 2007): 2016-2029.