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In this study I focus on one under explored set of factors - individuals' life course expectations - which may condition these associations. Although a large body of research and theory in developmental psychology emphasizes the importance of expectations in shaping identity development and consequently, well-being, sociological and demographic research on family status and mental health has, with a few exceptions, largely ignored this perspective. I integrate these two research traditions to develop and test a theoretical model which argues that the mental health effects of role acquisition or absence, and the timing and sequencing of role entry, likely depends on expectations for role acquisition, timing, and sequencing.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) I find substantial variation in individuals' ability to meet their expectations for the occurrence, timing, and sequencing of marriage and parenthood. For the most part, recent increases in permanent singlehood, age at marriage, childlessness, age at first birth, and pre-marital childbearing were not expected. OLS regression on respondents' reported depressive symptoms at age 40 indicate that expectations for the occurrence, timing, and sequencing of marriage and parenthood generally moderate mental he alth outcomes associated with the transition into marriage and parenthood, producing significant variation not only in mental health outcomes but also in mental health differences across marital and parental status. The fact that most of the demographic changes in family formation were not expected indicates that for those at their forefront these changes resulted in a substantial degree of structural strain, leaving few in this cohort psychologically unaffected.

Introduction / Benjamin M. Friedman -- Inequality, too much of a good thing / Alan B. Krueger -- Human capital policy / Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman -- Comments / George Borjas, Eric Hanushek, Lawrence Katz, Lisa Lynch, Lawrence H. Summers -- Responses / Alan B. Krueger, Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman -- Rejoinders / Alan B. Krueger, Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman.

This paper uses factor models to identify and estimate distributions of counterfactuals. We extend LISREL frameworks to a dynamic treatment effect setting, extending matching to account for unobserved conditioning variables. Using these models, we can identify all pairwise and joint treatment effects. We apply these methods to a model of schooling and determine the intrinsic uncertainty facing agents at the time they make their decisions about enrollment in school. Reducing uncertainty in returns raises college enrollment. We go beyond the "Veil of Ignorance" in evaluating educational policies and determine who benefits and who loses from commonly proposed educational reforms. We consider the information on these individuals from age 19 to age 35. For our analysis, we use the random sample of the NLSY and restrict the sample to 1161 white males for whom we have information on schooling, several parental background variables, test scores and behavior.

Copyright of Journal of Econometrics is the property of Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. 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)

[…I use these data to construct an indicator for whether a respondent was likely to have attended Head Start at age five (see Appendix).^40
40These data were used in Garces, Thomas, and Currie (2002). The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth also asked respondents retrospective questions about Head Start enrollment in the mid-1990s, but covers only cohorts born 1960 through 1964 and does not ask about ages at which enrolled. ]

Schooling Outcomes and Family Income

• Raw difference in college enrollment between highest and lowest income terciles is greater than 30%
• After controlling for achievement test scores during adolescence, the gap declines considerably (especially among most able)
• Most of the gap is eliminated when further controlling for family background

Conclusions

Employer-provided health insurance and labor supply of married women. This work presents new evidence on the effect of husbands' health insurance on wives' labor supply. Previous cross-sectional studies have estimated a significant negative effect of spousal coverage on wives' labor supply. However, these estimates potentially suffer from bias because wives' labor supply and the health insurance status of their husbands are interdependent and chosen simultaneously. This paper attempts to obtain consistent estimates by using several panel data methods. In particular, the likely correlation between unobserved characteristics of husbands and wives affecting labor supply--such as preferences for work--can be captured using panel data on intact marriages, and potential joint job choice decisions can be controlled using fixed-effects instrumental variables methods. The findings, using data from the Current Population Survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, suggest that the negative effect of spousal coverage on labor supply found in cross-sections results mainly from spousal sorting and selection. There is only a small estimable effect of spousal coverage on wives' labor supply.

Health insurance tax credits and health insurance coverage of low-income single mothers. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 introduced a refundable tax credit for low-income families who purchased health insurance coverage for their children. This health insurance tax credit (HITC) existed during tax years 1991, 1992, and 1993, and was then rescinded. We use Current Population Survey data and a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the HITC's effect on private health insurance coverage of low-income single mothers. The findings suggest that during 1991-1993, the health insurance coverage of single mothers was about 6 percentage points higher than it would have been in the absence of the HITC.

METHODS: Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1990 to 1998, were used to analyze reported television viewing at 0 to 35 months of age and to follow the trajectory of a child's viewing from infancy through age 6. Logistic regression models were used to determine risk factors associated with greater television viewing at 0 to 35 months and the association of early viewing habits with school-age viewing.

RESULTS: Seventeen percent of 0- to 11-month-olds, 48% of 12- to 23-month-olds, and 41% of 24- to 35-month-olds were reported to watch more television than the AAP recommends. Compared with college graduates, less-educated women were more likely to report that their children watched more television than recommended. Children who watched >2 hours per day at age 2 were more likely to watch >2 hours per day at age 6 (odds ratio: 2.7; 95% confidence interval: 1.8-3.9), controlling for maternal education, race, marital status and employment, household income, and birth order.

CONCLUSIONS: A substantial number of children begin watching television at an earlier age and in greater amounts than the AAP recommends. Furthermore, these early viewing patterns persist into childhood. Preventive intervention research on television viewing should consider targeting infants and toddlers and their families.

Background: The literature about the link between the parenting status of having an adult child with a serious condition and maternal wellbeing can be advanced by systematic analysis of the cumulative role that this parenting status can play in maternal health over the life course as opposed to at any one point.

Methods: Propensity score reweighting models of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 and its linked child and young adult data estimated disparities in midlife health among mothers of adult children with serious conditions (disabilities, developmental disorders, chronic diseases) and mothers of typically developing children, including examining variation by how long mothers had been in this parenting role and moderation by maternal education and marital status.

Results: Mothers of young adult children with serious conditions had poorer physical (but not mental) health at midlife than other mothers, especially when more years had elapsed since the child was diagnosed with or developed the condition. These patterns did not differ by maternal education and marital status.

This study was conducted to explore the effects of early exposure to maternal depressive symptoms on a trajectory of child internalizing and externalizing behaviors over time. In the past, it is evident that not all children of depressed mother fair worse than other children. Actually, many of children of depressed mother exhibit competent adaptation to other circumstances, so it is also important for us to explore what makes these children resilient to the adverse environment, and fathers' role in family study has been neglected. And this study examined father's positive involvement and a fact modified in this association of interests.

The data results for this study come from the mother/child data center national longitudinal survey of youth, which I refer to as NLSY79. The study period I chose is between 1992 to 2002, given that the maternal depressive symptom was first measured in this longitudinal study starting in 1992. At baseline, child age ran from zero to ten years old, and mothers' ages range from 27 to 34 in 1992. NLSY 79 was conducted every two years. Mother and children were both followed up every two years. And most of the survey were in-person survey, computer assisted. The study inclusion criteria include complete data on exposure, which is maternal depressive symptom in this case, and children have to have lived with the mother in 1992. And since this is a longitudinal study, the child outcome data has to have at least more than one wave of data between 1992 and 2002.

Design Secondary data analysis using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Setting A nationally representative household sample of men and women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Participants The study sample includes 6552 mother-child dyads interviewed biennially between January 1, 1992, and December 31, 2002; children were 0 to 10 years old at baseline.

Main Outcome Measures Maternal self-reports of child internalizing and externalizing behaviors were assessed repeatedly using a modified Child Behavior Checklist.

Results Linear growth curve models indicate that the adverse effects of maternal depressive symptoms on child problem behavior trajectories become negligible after controlling for the father's involvement and other covariates, including the child's age, sex, and race/ethnicity; the mother's educational level; maternal age at child birth; number of children; poverty status; urban residence; and father's residential status. Positive involvement by the father was inversely associated with child problem behavior trajectories. The effects of maternal depressive symptoms on child problem behaviors varied by the level of the father's positive involvement.

Conclusion When the father actively compensates for limitations in the depressed mother's functioning, the child's risk of problem behaviors may be reduced.

This editorial argues that welfare policies decrease incentives to work and cause out of wedlock births. It cites Mark Rosenzweig's study of NLSY79 data, which demonstrates that a 10% increase in welfare benefits corresponds to a 12% increase in out of wedlock births.

Charen's column argues against the validity of the wage gap, citing National Longitudinal Survey data indicating that childless women aged 27-30 earn 98% of men's wages.

The second essay concentrates on how health affects labor market outcomes. Past empirical work establishes a wage penalty from being overweight. In this essay, I exploit variation in an individual's weight over time to determine the age when weight has the largest impact on labor market outcomes. For white men, controlling for weight at younger ages does not eliminate the effect of older adult weight on wage: being overweight as a young adult only adds an additional penalty to adult wages. However, for white women, what they weigh in their early twenties solely determines the existence of an adult wage penalty. The female early-twenties weight penalty has a persistent effect on wages, and differences in marital characteristics, occupation status, or education cannot explain it. It also is not a proxy for intergenerational unobservables.

For simplification and motivated by the data set from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we only consider a bivariate linear regression model with β = (β 1 , β 2 ), where β 1 and β 2 are both p × 1 vectors. We show that if β 1 ≠ β 2 , then it degenerates to a univariate linear regression model which is classified as case 1 in here. On the other hand, we show that if there is a linear restriction on β, for instance, the two column vectors in β are the same, that is β 1 = β 2 , it is a bivariate linear regression model which does not degenerate to a univariate linear regression model and is classified as case 2.

In this thesis, we propose to estimate the regression coefficients by a modified Buckley-James estimator and show that the modified BJE is consistent and has asymptotic normality under certain discontinuous regularity conditions for both case 1 and case 2. Moreover, in case 1, various non-normal asymptotic distributions of the BJE are presented when the regularity conditions are violated. In case 2, we further carry out simulation studies to compare the asymptotic properties of the modified BJE under different sample sizes and various continuous underlying distributions. We also perform data analysis to the NLSY79 data.

We further consider the estimation problem in case 1 with missing covariates involved, which is denoted as case 3. The extension of the BJE based on the generalized maximum likelihood estimator (GMLE) of the underlying distribution is discussed. The Newton-Raphson (NR) method is not feasible in computing the GMLE due to the large sample size of the real data example. We propose a self-consistent algorithm to bypass this difficulty.

Chapter two studies the impact of housing wealth on college enrollment in the housing boom and the housing bust. I take advantage of the recent housing boom and bust as an exogenous source of variation. I find that a $10,000 increase in home equity increases the probability of initial college enrollment by 0.19 percentage points. Housing wealth has a larger impact on college enrollment during the housing bust than during the housing boom. The asymmetry is only economically and statistically significant for families with lower annual incomes. According to my estimates, the decline in home equity during the housing bust would have caused a drop in college enrollment of 3.5 percentage points, or 9.6%, for families with income less than $70,000, other things equal. My results provide important implications for government financial aid policy. If the goal of the government is to maximize the college enrollment impact of a given level of financial assistance, it is useful for the government to implement a need-based counter-cyclical financial aid policy.

Chapter three studies the long-term effects of kindergarten enrollment on individuals' educational and social outcomes.

© The Author 2012. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved

In the second essay, I use an index based on Roemer [1998] to study the effect of education policies on health inequality in two exercises. First, I use the British Household Panel Survey to estimate the effect of compulsory schooling reform on health inequality. Second, I use NLSY79 to study the effect of the court-ordered education financing reforms in the United States. My results indicate that the British reform does not have any significant effect on equality of opportunity for health. The U.S. reform, however, appears to be equality enhancing under our framework. In the third essay, I discuss the optimal level of cigarette tax under the equal opportunity framework. Using cigarette taxation as policy instrument, I compute the level of health inequity under different tax rates. I estimate an empirical model in which return to smoking is allowed to vary across individuals. Policy simulations are performed to estimate the optimal cigarette taxation to equalize opportunity for health.

The objective of this study is to examine women's and men's decisions to participate in demanding physical activity and attain a healthy weight. To achieve this, a productive household model of investment in health is first derived. Second, both trivariate probit and seemingly-unrelated-regression models of decisions on physical activity and BMI or obesity are developed. These outcomes are hypothesized to be related to health attitudes, prices of food, drink and health care services and products, the respondent's personal characteristics (such as education, adjusted family income, opportunity cost of time, occupation, marital status, race and ethnicity) and the respondent's BMI or being overweight at age 25. Third, data from the 2004 round of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) are used to fit the models.

Due to basic physiological differences in men and women, separate analyses are undertaken for men and women. Also, two physical activity equations, one for participating in moderate physical activity and the other one for participating in vigorous physical activity, are fitted. Findings include: an individual who ha s a higher adjusted family income has a lower current BMI or a lower likelihood of being obese; females with higher education are more likely to be obese or have higher BMI, while males with higher education are less likely to be obese or have lower BMI; older males within our cohort have higher BMI or higher likelihood of being obese; higher prices for fresh fruits and vegetables and non-alcoholic drinks increase BMI and likelihood of obesity for females but not for males; and higher prices for processed fruits and vegetables reduce BMI and likelihood of obesity for females but not for males. In a joint test of the null hypothesis of no food and drink price effects on the possibility to be obese, the hypothesis was rejected for women but not for men. When exercise is measured in minutes and weight as BMI, the hypothesis of no effects of the prices of food and drink on BMI is rejected for women but not for men. When individuals are classified as over-weight or not over-weight at age 25 and exercise is measure in minutes and weight is measured as BMI, the null hypothesis of no impact of food and drink prices on these outcomes is rejected for early non-overweight females, but not for males or early overweight females.

Copyright of Social Service Review is the property of University of Chicago Press 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)

Methods: Data for this study were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (1979-2016). Three self-reported racial/ethnic groups were examined: Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic. The final analytic sample was 8,773. The primary dependent variables were the child behavior problem index (BPI). We constructed a median-dichotomized standardized BPI measure in addition to using the antisocial subscale and depression/anxiety subscales. Parental wealth, defined as net worth, was a time-varying variable calculated as assets minus debt, adjusting for inflation. We further created net worth quartiles within each racial/ethnic groups. To account for the within-person and within-household clustering effects, three-level logistic regression was used. We first conducted the analyses using the whole sample, followed by subgroup analyses by race/ethnicity.

Results: Nearly 42% of the non-Hispanic black respondents were in debt or had zero net worth and had the lowest level of net worth compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Wealth was significantly, negatively associated with all of the BPI indicators. Compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanic children were less likely to have an above-median total BPI score (OR=.740, 95% CI .592-.925); Non-Hispanic Black children were more likely to have an above-median antisocial score (OR=1.533, 95% CI 1.311-1.792); Non-Hispanic black children were less likely to have an above-median anxiety/depression score (OR=.737, 95% CI .634-.857). For Non-Hispanic white children, greater wealth was significantly associated with lower odds of having poor behavior outcomes, compared to those in the lowest wealth quartile. For Non-Hispanic Black children, wealth was only protective against the three different behavioral problem indicators among those in the highest wealth quartile. There were no significant associations between parental wealth and child behavior problems for Hispanic children.

Chapter 3. While more risk averse individuals are less likely to become entrepreneurs, theory predicts that more risk averse entrepreneurs pick ventures with higher expected returns and so they should survive in business longer than their less risk averse counterparts. Using successive entry cohorts of young entrepreneurs in the NLSY79, we find contrary to theory that the most successful entrepreneurs are the least risk averse. This surprising finding suggests that commonly used measures of risk aversion are not indicators of taste toward risk. Instead, measured risk aversion signals weak entrepreneurial ability--the least risk averse are apparently those who can best assess and manage risks. Indeed, our interpretation is consistent with recent experimental evidence linking cognitive ability with a greater willingness to accept risk.

Chapter 4. The fourth chapter investigates the stability of measured risk attitudes over time, using a 13-year longitudinal sample of individuals in the NLSY79.

Chapter 4 turns its attention to the family, and examines the marital transition of remarriage, an outcome unexplored in previous work. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I find that the gap in remarriage rates found between Black and White men in the United States disappears in the military context. Such results suggest that socioeconomic prospects are the culprit for differences in remarriage rates found at large, and that the relatively equal socioeconomic standing of service members, irrespective of race and ethnicity, help promote remarriage rates. Taken together, my research helps update and expand our understanding of the impact of military service on the life course specifically for racial and ethnic minorities, and what these differences might imply for social stratification and inequality.

From the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, 3,280 injured workers involving 5,204 events during 1988 through 2000 were followed up. Longitudinal analyses with 29,520 observations were conducted using SAS 9.1.

Different types of job insecurity at different level (e.g. at macro local economy level, job characteristics level, company level, and social structure level) were explored. Moreover, how different job insecurity measures at different levels are empirically related to workers' compensation outcome in the NLSY79 data was investigated.

Many covariates including education, income, occupation (measured by either injury risk or psychosocial factors such as decision latitude, job satisfaction), industry, and type of injury were considered. Both GEE logistic regression results (OR predicting filing by insecure contract = 0.55, 95% C.I. = 0.34_0.89, OR recent unemployment experience = 0.79, 95% C.I.= 0.65_0.96, OR combined job insecurity =0.75, 95% C.I. = 0.63_0.90) and panel data analysis results (beta = -0.18, p<0.0001) showed that workers in the low job security group are less likely to file for workers' compensation when they were hurt on the job.

Out of the filed cases, 53.5% were denied. The results showed that workers who have severe injury (OR = 1.85, 95% C.I. = 1.71_2.01), job insecurity (OR=1.82, 95% C.I.=1.52_2.17), low income (OR = 1.94, 95% C.I.=1.60_2.36), and manual jobs (OR =1.84, 95% C.I.=1.51_2.24) were more likely to lose wages when they filed claims.

The study found that there exist negative effects of workers' compensation filing such as lost earnings, employment disadvantages, and under-compensation by workers' compensation insurers. The study suggests that workers with low job security need to be protected from any reprisal action against their employment when they were filing for workers' compensation.

In the second chapter, I study the effect of alcohol consumption on youth fertility. Alcohol consumption is often believed to be a cause of risk-taking behaviors. Despite a well-established correlation between alcohol intake and various risk-taking sexual behaviors, the causality remains unknown. I attempt to establish a causal effect of alcohol use on the likelihood of pregnancy among youth using a variety of models ranging from a fully parametric to a semi-parametric discrete factor approximation method. Using data on 17-28 year-old women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I find that even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of pregnancy by 4.7 percentage points. This positive effect was observed in the semi-parametric model where the cumulative distribution of heterogeneity was approximated by a 4-point discrete distribution. Quantitatively similar but statistically weaker estimates were obtained from the two-stage least squares model and the bivariate probit model. Finally, models that ignore the effect of unobserved heterogeneity failed to establish this relationship.

The second essay, "The Career Prospects of Overeducated Americans," explores the incidence and persistence of overeducation for workers in the United States, using the NLSY79.