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Objective: The objective of this study is to understand the effect of obesity on wages. Although other studies have linked obesity to wages, the validity of their estimation results remains questionable due to potential weaknesses in the strategies employed to control for the endogeneity of obesity. I identified the effect of obesity on wages with exogenous state-level variation in multiple variables. The over-identification of obesity with exogenous instruments will provide valid parameter estimates if the identification is supported.

Methodology: This study employed an amplified dataset based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). NLSY79 provides ongoing panel information with a nationally representative sample of 12,686 young men and women who were 14 to 22 years old when first surveyed in 1979. I have augmented the publicly available data by obtaining confidential geographic information for individuals.

Body-mass index (BMI) was used to measure the extent of obesity. Wages were assessed separately by gender as a function of BMI splines and interactions of BMI splines with two race dummies (non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic).

This study used two-stage estimation techniques to identify the effect of obesity on wages in conjunction with individual fixed effects model. I specified an overidentified first-stage equation using exogenous state-level variation to instrument individual obesity. Instruments for obesity included the following state-level variables: cigarette prices, per capita number of restaurants, per capita number of food stores, fast-food price, cost of alcoholic drinks (inclusive of beer, wine, liquor), and cost of food.

A Heckman selection model was used to control for the selection into the labor force with the following state-level identifying instruments: unemployment rate, number of business establishments, and number of Social Security Program beneficiaries.

Results: Specification tests support the exclusion of the instruments from the main equation and the strength of the instruments in the first-stage equation. Preliminary study results indicate that an increase in BMI after being overweight has a negative effect on wage earnings for both males and females, even after adjusting for selection into the labor force.

Conclusion: The results will support the understanding of the economic cost of obesity to an individual that arise from sources other than adverse health effects. This spillover effect will increase the total cost of obesity to both individuals and society as a whole. The negative effect of obesity on labor market outcomes could raise further attention to the epidemic of obesity.

Study Design: We present an empirical model that predicts wages as a function of BMI (the direct effect), education and occupation choice (indirect effects of BMI), and other factors. The effect of a unit change in late teen BMI on the logarithm of wages in the early career stage is the full derivative of the logarithm of wages in the early career with respect to late teen BMI, taking into account the indirect effect of late teen BMI through education and occupation choice in the early career. To calculate the indirect effects, we estimate the effect of late teen BMI on the stock of education accumulated by the time an individual reaches their early 30s using OLS. We specify education in the early thirties as a function of late teen BMI and other factors in the early thirties. We then estimate reduced form models of the effect of late teen BMI on occupation choice among white-collar, service, sales, managerial or professional specialty jobs, and blue-collar jobs (based on Census occupational codes), and choice of jobs requiring social interactions with colleagues or customers (based on the Dictionary of Occupation Titles).

Also presented at Seattle WA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2016.

Methods. We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (NLSY79) to examine our research questions. NLSY79 follows a nationally representative sample of United States men and women between the ages of 14 and 22 when first interviewed in 1979. The participants were then interviewed annually until 1994 and then biennially thereafter. We first conducted a sequence analysis to examine work schedule patterns between ages 22 and 53 (n = 7987). We then used a multinomial logit regression to examine the factors contributing to specific work schedule patterns, with attention to social position.

Results. Our sequence analysis results suggest five work schedule patterns during 31 years of adult life: working only standard hours (25%), mainly standard hours with some portions of nonstandard hours (38%), standard hours during early working years but transitioning to either largely variable or mainly evening or night hours (14% and 13%), and mostly not working (10%). Our multinomial logit analysis indicates that being non-Hispanic Black, having a high school degree or below, or having ever experienced poverty or welfare by age 23 were more likely to have a nonstandard work schedule pattern than their counterparts.

A vast literature has examined the effects of marital disruption on child well-being, but medically attended childhood accidents/injuries has not been considered an outcome. This paper investigates this association as well as possible intervening pathways using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Findings reveal that marital disruption decreases girls' accidents/injuries. Boys are not directly affected. For boys, the positive relationship between marital disruption and accidents/injuries is mediated by maternal parenting practices, namely, use of discipline and display of approval.

In this paper, we formulate and estimate an economic model of educational attainment of American youths where young adults optimally choose between school and work based on their own abilities, preferences and opportunities. The behavioural parameters are estimated using data from NLSY79 and NLSY97, which makes this study one of the first researches that compare educational attainments between the two cohorts in the context of the labour market outcomes of children of immigrants in U.S.

Our data analysis shows that family environment is important in shaping young individuals' educational decisions. In each ethnicity group children of immigrants acquire more schooling, on average, than children of natives. These differences remain, and are even magnified, after controls for family characteristics, test scores and ethnicity are included. Preliminary results from our structural analysis indicate that father's educational attainment and AFQT scores are more important to Hispanic children of immigrants' educational decisions. According to our revealed preferences, children of immigrants also value education more than children of natives regardless of their ethnicity backgrounds.

By comparing our results from NLSY79 and NLSY97, we found that children of immigrants as a group experienced more significant improvement in educational attainment than native children over the decades. Second generation White Non-Hispanic immigrants increased their years of schooling the most across all immigration and ethnic groups, the reason lies in two aspects: significantly improved family backgrounds and AFQT scores; much higher returns to education. On the other hand, Second generation Hispanic Non-White immigrants not only obtained more schooling than native Hispanics in both NLSY79 and NLSY97, they also increased their educational attainment over twenty years. Furthermore the improved family backgrounds for Hispanic children of immigrants were not accompanied by a significantly higher return to education.

Simulated educational outcomes based on experimental policy changes suggests that, compared to White second-generation immigrants, Hispanic children of immigrants are more responsive to subsidized high-school and college attending. Moreover, by increasing the educational requirements of immigrants to U.S. economy, second-generation Hispanics are more likely to have higher education as well. Improved family environment together with education support programs have larger impact on educational attainment of children of immigrants, especially for Hispanics.

We believe that these results are important given the concerns that have been raised about deteriorating quality of recent immigrants in the U.S., most of whom are of Hispanic origin, combined with the fact that a majority of the immigrant children in our sample have Hispanic origins.

Also available as:
NBER Working Papers 9881, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Working Paper Series 2003:13, IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation.

Also: Rand Repritnt, http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/Abstracts/e-getabbydoc.pl?RP-425

Also: Rand Reprint, http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/Abstracts/ordi/getabbydoc.pl?doc=RP-489

Materials and methods . Two longitudinal datasets are utilized to address this potential causal association. The first is an ongoing longitudinal survey of 12,686 males and females beginning in 1979 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a nationally representative sample from the United States. In the 1994 follow-up interview, 8,759 adults (age range 29-37 years) had complete data on past-year adult cannabis use and current depression. Individual's probability to use cannabis was predicted through a propensity score approach using over 50 baseline covariates. The second dataset is from an observational prospective cohort study of 2,311 first-grade children enrolled in 1985-1986 as part of the Johns Hopkins University, Prevention Research Center (PRC) randomized trial of classroom-based preventive interventions. In the young adult follow-up interview, 1,494 adults (age range 19-24 years) had complete data on early-onset cannabis problems and young adult major depression. Both studies utilized new causal inference statistical techniques, known broadly as propensity score techniques. Observed confounding covariate differences were controlled through the estimation and application of propensity score techniques. Numerous propensity score techniques exist, yet few guidelines are available to aid researchers in choosing the best technique for a specific dataset and research question. Propensity score estimation and application techniques are described and a taxonomic approach is proposed to guide selection of the best techniques for these data.

Results . In the NLSY dataset, after using propensity score adjustment, the odds of current depression among past-year cannabis users was only 1.1 times higher than the comparison group (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.8, 1.7). After applying the best propensity score technique to use for the PRC dataset, the risk of young adult depression for the recent-onset cannabis problem using females was not statistically significantly different from the risk among the comparison females (Odds Ratio (OR): 0.68, 95% CI: 0.20, 2.34). The risk of young adult depression among the early-onset cannabis problem using males was positive, but still not statistically significantly different from the comparison males (OR: 1.72, 95% CI: 0.77, 3.60).

Discussion . Similar inferences may be drawn from both studies testing the potential causal link between cannabis and depression. After adjusting for differences in baseline confounders of cannabis use and depression, past-year cannabis use was not a significant predictor of current depression among adults. For adolescents, although the estimated association was higher for males, the qualitative difference in risk for males and females and the lack of statistical significance for either gender did not support claims of a causal association.

Conclusion . These data do not support the hypothesis that there is a causal link between cannabis and depression.

The first chapter uses in-depth interviews with 61 junior and senior high school girls to show how social class shapes educational and occupational aspirations and plans through the availability and use of social networks. These interviews reveal that middle class adolescents are embedded in resource-rich social networks that facilitate high educational and occupational attainment while limited social ties, family instability, and parental disengagement produce disadvantages for working class and poor youth. The second chapter uses survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) to explore the relationship between events in the transition to adulthood and fulfillment of one's educational and occupational expectations. Findings reveal that the order and timing of family formation and dissolution events can disrupt young people's paths to attainment in early adulthood. The final chapter uses NLSY79 and NELS datasets to test the relationship between falling short of one's expectations and emotional and psychological outcomes in early adulthood. Results indicate that occupational expectations can serve as baseline standard with which to judge later accomplishments--falling short of these goals leads to lower emotional and psychological well-being in adulthood. These findings support the claims of relative deprivation theory, which argues that dissatisfaction arises from the gap between what one has and what one wants.

METHODS: I use marital histories for women in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) to examine the current status of their first marriages and also carry out a survival analysis that takes into account right censoring and the competing risks of death and widowhood.

RESULTS: It is likely that at least half of the first marriages of the women in the NLSY79 sample have already ended in divorce, a level notably higher than those implied by analyses based on period rates.

Methods: Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult data, this study retrospectively examined a cohort of 4114 women and 8668 children. In addition to questions focusing on maternal smoking and general demographics, each survey included the Behavior Problems Index (BPI), a 28-item questionnaire with six subscales measuring childhood behavior problems (antisocial behavior, anxiousness/depression, headstrongness, hyperactivity, immature dependency, and peer conflict/social withdrawal). Responses to the BPI, completed by mothers with children ages 4–14, were summarized on a QALY scale using published preference weights.

Results: Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy experience additional QALY losses of 0.181, on average, per year due to increased behavior problems. Boys suffered larger QALY losses associated with maternal smoking (0.242) compared to girls (0.119; p value = .021), regardless of age. Moreover, heavier smoking during pregnancy (i.e., 1 or more packs/day) was associated with larger QALY losses (0.282; p-value < .001).

Conclusions for Practice: These findings illustrate the burden of maternal smoking during pregnancy on child health, namely behavioral problems. The losses in QALYs may be incorporated into economic evaluations for smoking cessation interventions during pregnancy. Future research will investigate how maternal smoking following childbirth is associated with child QALYs.

In no cases did date of birth relate to individual differences in personality or general intelligence.

A further goal was to test Eysenck's notion of possible relationships between date of birth and the popular Sun Signs in astrology. No support could be found for such associations.

We conclude that the present large-scale study provides no evidence for the existence of relevant relationships between date of birth and individual differences in personality and general intelligence.

Methods: Panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to describe intended family size (recorded at age 22), completed family size (recorded at age 42 and above), and the likelihood that these numbers match, for Hispanic and White women and men. Regression analyses are used to understand why the correspondence between intentions and outcomes varies across groups.

Results: Although Hispanics come closer to achieving parity intentions in the aggregate (Hispanic women fall short by a quarter of a birth, compared to more than two-fifths for Whites), at the individual level they are not more likely to meet their intentions (33% of Hispanic women achieve their desired parity, compared with 38% of Whites). Hispanics have higher fertility than Whites both because they intend more children at the start of their reproductive lives and because they are more likely to exceed these intentions.

The study uses four waves of a national data set, permitting a panel data analysis of the relationship of owning a home to three child outcomes: math achievement, reading recognition and behavior problems. Using panel data allows us to control for household and child-specific, unobserved, influential factors. We also use a treatment effects model to address the problem of sample selection bias.

We find that owning a home compared with renting leads to a higher quality home environment, the improvement being 16 to 22 percent. Considering both the direct and indirect effects of home ownership on child outcomes, we find that for children living in owned homes math achievement is up to seven percent higher and reading achievement is up to six percent higher, ceteris paribus. We also find that the measure of a child's behavior problems is up to four percent lower if the child resides in an owned home. Existing literature suggests that these youths' greater cognitive abilities and fewer behavioral problems will result in higher educational attainment, greater future earnings, and a reduced tendency to engage in deviant behaviors

The analysis begins by distinguishing between the length of stay in a particular dwelling and the duration of stay in one or more owned homes. All existing published studies focus on the length of stay in a dwelling (either owner or rented), or on the time to mortgage default. These studies focus on the time spent in a particular dwelling unit, not the length of time in a particular “state of the world” such as owning or renting. While these studies are of interest for some questions, they do not provide the needed information to determine whether different lengths of continuous spells of owning or renting contribute to racial gaps in homeownership rates.

A simple example confirms that the lengths of time spent as a renter and owner affect the overall ownership rate. Assume that African Americans and whites have the same residence history over a 40 year period, consisting of four spells: first the individual rents, then owns, then rents, then owns. If African Americans spend 9 years in each rental spell and 11 years in each ownership spell, then their average homeownership rate will be 0.45. If whites spend 6 years in each rental spell and 14 in each ownership spell, then their average homeownership rate will be 0.70. In this case, the sole cause of the 25 percentage point gap in ownership rates is the difference in the durations of spells of owning and renting.

The study of duration of renting and owning should lead to important policy implications. Policies that promote only temporary spells of homeownership have little impact on the national homeownership rate. What is important is promoting new ownership spells that are sustainable. Policies that lengthen existing ownership spells also will raise the national ownership rate, even if the rate of attaining first-time or subsequent spells of ownership is not affected.

"Much empirical analysis in The Bell Curve is based upon two data sets, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (a large sample of American youth, aged 14-22 in 1979, who have been followed annually since then) and the Children of the NLSY, which matches women in the NLSY with their children. Both data sets contain good measures of cognitive ability, but, say Hauser and Carter, are used poorly by Herrnstein and Murray. Most of the original analysis in the book consists of graphical displays of reduced-form logistic or linear regression equations in which some measure of educational or socioeconomic attainment, contact with the criminal justice system, or child-rearing success has been regressed on two variables, AFQT score in the IQ metric, adjusted for age at administration, and a composite measure of the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family of orientation. This measure is limited in content to father's and mother's educational attainments, father's occupational status, and family income in 1979, the first year of the NLSY. This is a minimally adequate specification, but it tends to understate the effects of social background by omitting such variables as number of siblings, intact family, rural or metropolitan origin, and regional origin. Thus, in Herrnstein and Murray's analysis, the social background variable becomes a straw man, largely used to highlight the effects of ability. From the study of stratification, it is known that the explanatory power of measured social background is modest, but it is also known that the effects are important and worth understanding. No measures of the explanatory power of the equations are reported in The Bell Curve, so that the inexpert reader never learns tha t most of the variation remains unexplained.

The following is an explanatory excerpt from this article:
"Much empirical analysis in The Bell Curve is based upon two data sets, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (a large sample of American youth, aged 14-22 in 1979, who have been followed annually since then) and the Children of the NLSY, which matches women in the NLSY with their children. Both data sets contain good measures of cognitive ability, but, say Hauser and Carter, are used poorly by Herrnstein and Murray. Most of the original analysis in the book consists of graphical displays of reduced-form logistic or linear regression equations in which some measure of educational or socioeconomic attainment, contact with the criminal justice system, or child-rearing success has been regressed on two variables, AFQT score in the IQ metric, adjusted for age at administration, and a composite measure of the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family of orientation. This measure is limited in content to father's and mother's educational attainments, father's occupational status, and family income in 1979, the first year of the NLSY. This is a minimally adequate specification, but it tends to understate the effects of social background by omitting such variables as number of siblings, intact family, rural or metropolitan origin, and regional origin. Thus, in Herrnstein and Murray's analysis, the social background variable becomes a straw man, largely used to highlight the effects of ability. From the study of stratification, it is known that the explanatory power of measured social background is modest, but it is also known that the effects are important and worth understanding. No measures of the explanatory power of the equations are reported in The Bell Curve, so that the inexpert reader never learns that most of the variation remains unexplained.

The population used in the survey is from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY): parents in this survey are generally younger aged 20 to 27 than the majority of parents who purchase child care services...Data from the 1985 NLSY showed that child care expenses were 30 to 50 percent of the family incomes of those earning under $5,000 per year...Because the NLSY collects detailed data on the youth experiences of males and females, it permits comparisons of patterns of family formation and parenting in conjunction with education and labor market experiences.

• The success of modern economies depends in part on well-educated and
  adaptable workers who are capable of learning new skills so that
  they remain competitive in a continually changing global market.
• Families are major producers of the skills that promote schooling
  and adaptability.
• Behavioral research confirms that the early years are foundational
  for a full range of human competencies and are a period of
  heightened sensitivity to the effects of both positive and negative
  experiences.

[From pdf at: http://jenni.uchicago.edu/Invest/FILES/dugger_2004-12-02_dvm.pdf.] This paper presents a productivity argument for investing in disadvantaged young children. For such investment, there is no equity-efficiency tradeoff. The web appendix for this paper can be downloaded from http://jenni.uchicago.edu/Invest/.

Adverse environments place children at risk for social and economic failure. The accident of birth plays a powerful role in determining adult success.3 Many have commented on this phenomenon, and most analyses have cast the issue of assisting children from disadvantaged families as a question of fairness or social justice.

This paper makes a different argument.

The Perry Preschool Program was an early childhood education program conducted at the Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during the early 1960s. The evidence from it is widely cited to support the economic argument for investing in early childhood programs.

Only disadvantaged children living in adverse circumstances who had low IQ scores and a low index of family socioeconomic status were eligible to participate in the Perry program. Actual participation was determined by a toss of a coin. Beginning at age 3 and lasting 2 years, treatment consisted of a 2.5-hour preschool program on weekdays during the school year, supplemented by weekly home visits by teachers. The curriculum was based on supporting children's cognitive and socio-emotional development through active learning in which both teachers and children had major roles in shaping children's learning. Children were encouraged to plan, carry out, and reflect on their own activities through a plan-do-review process. Follow-up interviews were conducted when participants were approximately 15, 19, 27, and 40 years old. At these interviews, participants provided detailed information about their life-cycle trajectories including schooling, economic activity, marital life, child rearing, and incarceration. In addition, Perry researchers collected administrative data in the form of school records, police and court records, and records on welfare participation. Schweinhart, Montie, Xiang, Barnett, Beleld, and Nores (2005) describe the program and the available data.

We investigate the effects of birth order on child cognitive development, using large child and sibling samples obtained from the mother-child data of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Controlling for various determinants of cognitive development we find that having a high birth rank is detrimental and that the gap between adjacent siblings is larger for children early in the birth sequence. The pattern is strongest for non-Hispanic white and Hispanic children. Among African-American children no difference between the first- and the second-born child is found. The negative birth order effects are robust to specification that control for family fixed effects, use a sibling first difference approach, or account for subsequent siblings.

The second chapter furthers the first chapter's analysis by using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) in order to reconcile the varying estimates of estimated wage gaps in the previous literature using the NLSY. Results suggest that differences in sample design as well as control variables used have a large impact on the size and sign of wage gap estimates. Estimates that take into account differences in test scores are typically positive in previous studies implying a Hispanic wage advantage. However, results presented show how accounting for state fixed effects produces negative estimates even with test score controls, further suggesting the importance of location in examining Hispanic wage outcomes.

The last chapter analyzes the effect of selection bias on estimated Hispanic-white women's wage gaps. Previous studies generally find the wage disadvantages experienced by Hispanic women are explained by relatively low levels of human capital. These results are based on observed wages of working women, however, and there are ethnic differences in who selects into labor force participation. Using the NLSY, results presented find that accounting for the wages of non-participant women widens the disparity in wage offerings between Hispanic and white non-Hispanic women than what is normally estimated using the wages observed by working women alone.

Methods: Analyses was based on adolescents born between 1975 and 1991 to women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth data set (N=4762). Three types of family-level stressors were captured from birth to age 15: family disruption and conflict, financial strain, and maternal risky health behaviors, along with a total cumulative risk index. Body mass index was constructed on reference criteria for children outlined by the Centers for Disease Control. Multivariate logistic regressions were conducted for the three types of family stressors and for the total cumulative index.

Results: The accumulation of family disruption and conflict and financial stress was positively related to female adolescents being overweight/obese. Childhood exposure to maternal risky health behaviors was positively associated with higher weight status for male adolescents. Total cumulative stress was related to overweight/obesity for females, but not males.

Conclusion: Different family-level stress indices are associated with the weight status of female and male adolescents. Combining types of family-level stress into one cumulative index appears to mask these differences.

Methods: Data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 was used to estimate the odds of being overweight in young adulthood based on family instability experienced during childhood (n = 5139). Family instability was measured by young adults’ exposure to family structure transitions from birth to the age of 18 as defined by mother’s formation and dissolution of romantic unions. Body mass index was directly assessed in young adulthood.

Results: A series of logistic regression models predicted the odds of young adults being overweight or obese. Results indicate that cumulative family structure transitions during childhood increase the odds for young adult females born to married mothers to be overweight by 19%. Family instability, however, does not increase the probability for young adult females nor males born to single mothers to be overweight.

Conclusions: Experiencing family instability has a negative accumulating impact on the weight status of young adult females born to married mothers. Interventions during childhood are important to prevent females who experience multiple family transitions from becoming overweight as young adults.