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I use PSID, NLSY, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), and Census micro data to estimate the parameters of the model. I find that differences in higher education account for a higher percentage of the intergenerational correlation in earnings than do differences in early education. Liquidity constraints do not seem to be important for early or higher education. I also show that there exist complementarities between the two periods of investment in education. Finally, I find that early education is more important for the upward mobility of low-income families.

This collection of papers on early adolescent sexual behavior includes seven papers in two parts. Part 1, "Papers from Nationally Representative Data Sets," includes (1) "Dating and Sexual Experiences among Middle School Youth: Analyses of the NLSY97" (Elizabeth Terry-Humen and Jennifer Manlove); "(2) "Dating Behavior and Sexual Activity of Young Adolescents: Analyses of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health" (Hannah Bruckner and Peter Bearman); and (3) "Sexual Activity among Girls Under Age 15: Findings from the National Survey of Family Growth" (Christine M. Flanigan). Part 2, "Papers from Small Area Data Sets," includes (4) "The Development of Sex-Related Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceived Norms, and Behaviors in a Longitudinal Cohort of Middle School Children" (Cynthia A. Gomez, Karin K. Coyle, Steve Gregorich, Barbara VanOss Marin, and Douglas B. Kirby); (5) "Youth with Older Boyfriends and Girlfriends: Associations with Sexual Risk" (Barbara VanOss Marin, Douglas B. Kirby, Esther S. Hudes, Cynthia A. Gomez, and Karin K. Coyle); (6) "Community Concerns and Communication among Young Teens and Their Parents: Data from California Communities" (Susan Philliber); and (7) "Sexual Behavior among Young Teens in Disadvantaged Areas of Seven Cities" (Susan Philliber and Michael Carrera). The data come from surveying 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds as one group; surveying a group of 12-year-olds and then following them over time as they turned 13 and 14; and surveying older teens about their experiences when age 14 and younger. Among the findings of the studies: nearly one in five adolescents has had sex before his or her 15th birthday; contraceptive use among young adolescents is relatively low; and sexually experienced youth age 14 and younger are much more likely to smoke, use drugs and alcohol, and participate in delinquent activities than youth who have not had sex. (Papers contain references.)

Methods: Participants (N=8,984) were from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 aged 13-17 at baseline in 1997, and 29-32 in 2013. We examined the prevalence of family deaths by age group and race/ethnicity, and used covariate-adjusted logistic regression to assess the relationship between a family death and college degree attainment.

Results: 4.2% of white youth experienced a family death, as did 5.0% of Hispanics, 8.3% of Blacks, 9.1% of Asians, and 13.8% of American Indians (group test p<0.001). A family death from ages 13-22 was associated with lower odds of obtaining a Bachelor's degree by ages 29-32 (OR=0.65, 95%CI=0.50, 0.84), compared to no family death. The effect of a death was largest during college years (age 19-22) (OR=0.57, 95%CI=0.39, 0.82).

Method: The NLSY97 longitudinal survey and a battery of novel fixed effects models are used to identify the consequences of paternity on diverse health outcomes, controlling for selectivity based on unobserved characteristics and unobserved trajectories of men who become fathers and accounting for heterogeneity of effects.

Results: Becoming a father induces weight gain and a decline in self‐reported health, but reduces alcohol consumption. Effects on weight and alcohol use varied across strata defined by race and education, but changes in self‐reported health were consistent across sub‐groups.

Methods: Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (follow-up from 1997 to 2015), were used to determine BMI trajectories from age 14 to 29 via group trajectory modeling. At age 29, respondents described whether pain interfered with their work inside and outside the home over the past four weeks (not at all, a little, or a lot). Multivariable ordinal logistic regression was used to evaluate pain interference according to BMI trajectory and study covariates.

Conclusions: Obesity and rapid weight gain during the transition to adulthood were associated with higher risk of pain interference among young adults.

METHODS: This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 7335), a population-based longitudinal study of individuals who were age 12 to 16 at the study outset. A typological measure was created where individuals were categorized as: (1) non-victims, (2) childhood victims (victims below the age of 12), (3) adolescent victims (victims between the age of 12 and 18), and (4) chronic victims (victims before age 12 and between age 12 and 18). The repeat bully victimization variable was then associated with several offending and victimization legal outcome measures experienced in late adolescence and adulthood.

RESULTS: Experiencing repeat bully victimizations was associated with an increase in respondent’s likelihood of engaging in substance use, delinquency, arrest, conviction, and incarceration. Experiencing repeat bully victimizations was also associated with an increase in respondent’s perceptions and experiences with violent victimizations. The association between these measures was consistently stronger for females while there were few differences across categories of race.

CONCLUSIONS: Being the victim of a bully during childhood and adolescence serves as a marker for subsequent legal problems and victimization in adolescence and adulthood. Prevention and intervention programs aimed at reducing involvement in delinquency, crime, and victimization would benefit by targeting bully victimizations as a risk factor.

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Americans whose first job was in travel went on to earn a maximum average salary of $82,400 by the time they were 50 years old--higher than workers whose first jobs were in manufacturing, health care and most other industries.

The travel industry is one of the top 10 largest employers of middle-class wage earners in the U.S.

Of the 6.1 million Americans working part time while pursuing higher education in 2018, more than half were employed in travel-related industries.

Among workers who began their careers in the travel industry, nearly one-third (32%) eventually earned at least a bachelor's degree.

Background: Previous research indicates that penalties only persist into mid‐life for mothers with three or more children without distinguishing by race. The timing and age range in which parenthood wage gaps occur for fathers and mothers of different racial backgrounds are unknown. We develop a theoretical framework based on the gender‐ and race‐specific interplay between labor market dynamics and family demographics over the life course to derive hypotheses.

Method: Age‐specific parenthood wage gaps from ages 20-40 are estimated using 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data and fixed effects models.

Results: Only White women with three or more children suffer large and persistent adjusted motherhood penalties up to age 40. For Black and Hispanic mothers, penalties are concentrated in a brief age range of 5-10 years around age 30 and then attenuate irrespective of the number of children. Adjusted fatherhood premiums only occur for White men and are confined to brief periods in early adulthood, suggesting that they result from complex selection effects into education, employment, and fatherhood.

The second chapter draws on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort to investigate how men's and women's economic trajectories influence the transition to marriage among cohabitors. I find that growth in earnings and increased schooling hastens the transition to marriage, whereas a loss in earnings or employment encourages separation. The relationship between economic status and marriage varies little across gender and parental status, though the associations are more consistent among men and especially, fathers. The results of this study provide further evidence that having limited economic resources presents a significant barrier to marriage.

The first chapter examines how married couples' migration decisions differentially impact men's and women's earnings and the role that policy can play in improving post-move outcomes for trailing spouses. I use a difference-in-differences methodology to show that access to unemployment insurance for trailing spouses increases the likelihood that households move by 2.3 p.p. and improves the post-move labor market outcomes of women. I then build and estimate a structural model of dual-earner couples' migration decisions to evaluate the effects of a series of counterfactual policies. I show that increasing the likelihood of joint distant offers substantively increases migration rates, increases women's post-move employment rates, and improves both men and women's earnings growth at the time of a move.

The second chapter explores the role that joint geographic constraints play in dual-earner household migration decisions. I develop a measure of joint geographic constraints adapted from a pairwise occupational co-agglomeration index and demonstrate that being well-matched to one's spouse in terms of occupation clustering is positively associated with earnings for women and secondary earners. I show that higher values on the co-agglomeration index is associated with higher mobility rates for dual-earner households as well, consistent with the theory that occupational sorting impacts married couple's ability to overcome dual-earner migration frictions.

The first chapter uniquely documents the emerging role of education in the well known decline in U.S. male working hours. An insignificant hours difference between high school and college graduates becomes a highly significant 2 hours/week advantage for college graduates within a generation. This growing college hours premium is confirmed in alternate data over a longer time period. Moreover, the growing premium exists throughout the distribution and is not generated by the tails. The increasing premium persists across a wide variety of robustness checks and presents as a widespread phenomenon. The emerging college hours premium increases the overall college earnings premium despite recent trends in the college wage premium.

The second chapter uniquely shows that the returns to drinking in social jobs exceed those in non-social jobs. While workers’ social skills yield higher returns in social jobs, controlling for these skills does not change the returns to drinking. This suggests a return beyond sorting on measured social skills. The higher returns in social jobs remain when including individual fixed effects and in a series of robustness exercises. The findings fit the hypothesis that drinking assists the formation of social capital in social jobs. The social capital associated with drinking represents both general and specific capital with a higher return to each in social jobs.

The third chapter examines the relationship between education and the changes to occupational sorting in the US. I show a college degree is associated with sorting into all high skill occupations, but is less associated with sorting into high social skill occupations within one generation. I uniquely show that when considering the importance in skills in job sorting, the relationship between both social and math skills determines sorting for the latter generation.

Ordinal regression models confirm the selection hypothesis that high-BMI adolescents are less likely to complete higher levels of education. Selection has primarily to do with the fact that high-BMI adolescents tend to come from socioeconomically disadvantaged families and tend to have low grades and test scores. Among high-BMI girls there is also some evidence that educational attainment is limited by bullying, pessimism, poor health, and early pregnancy. About half the selection of high-BMI girls out of higher education remains unexplained.

Fixed-effects models control for selection and suggest that the causal effect of education on BMI, though significant, accounts for only one-quarter of the mean BMI differences between more and less educated adults at age 29. Among young adults, it appears that most of the education gradient in BMI is due to selection.

Methods: Combining a repository of U.S. tobacco policies at all geographic levels with the nationally-representative geocoded National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and Census data, we use multilevel logistic regression to examine the impact of total vending machine restrictions on any past 30 day smoking and past 30 day smoking of one pack per day among young adults (ages 19-31), while accounting for other tobacco control policy, community, and individual covariates.

Results: We find that total vending machine restrictions decrease any recent smoking (OR=0.451; p<.01), net of other covariates. Though the passage of a restriction does not alter an individual’s smoking over time, living longer in an area that has a restriction lowers the propensity that an individual will smoke at all (OR=0.442; p<.05). We find no effect of total vending machine restrictions on smoking a pack daily.

Methods: We combined a repository of US tobacco policies at the state and local level with the nationally representative geocoded National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (2004–2011) from ages 19 to 31 years and Census data, to examine the impact of tobacco policies on any current and daily pack smoking. The analytic sample amounts to 19,668 observations among 4341 individuals within 487 cities.

Results: For current smoking, we found significant effects for comprehensive smoking bans, but not excise taxes. We also found an interaction effect, with bans being most effective in locales with no or low taxes. For daily pack smoking, we found significant effects for taxes, but limited support for bans.

Conclusions: Social smoking among young adults is primarily inhibited by smoking bans, but excise taxes only deter such smoking in the absence of a ban. Heavy smokers are primarily deterred by taxes. Although both policies have an impact on young adult smoking behaviors, their dual presence does not intensify each policy's efficacy.

Methods: Combining data on tobacco and cannabis policies at the state, county, and city levels with the nationally-representative geocoded National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and Census data, we use multilevel regression and fixed effect analyses to examine the impact of cannabis policies on any past 30-day cigarette smoking, frequency of smoking, and past 30-day near-daily smoking among young adults while accounting for community and individual covariates.

Results: Tobacco control policies, including significant effects of comprehensive smoking bans, total vending machine restrictions, single cigarette sale restrictions, and advertising restrictions, remain robust in reducing young adult smoking, net of cannabis policy liberalization, including the legal status of possession, penalties for sale, and medical cannabis. Cannabis policies do not directly affect young adult smoking patterns in an adverse way.

Methods: Prospective data was used from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), a U.S.-based representative sample of persons born between 1980 and 1984, who were first interviewed in 1997. Sleep duration was assessed in 2002, 2007/2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Random-coefficient models were estimated to examine gender and racial/ethnic disparities in trajectories of sleep duration across early adulthood as a function of educational experiences, employment, and family relationships.

Results: Sleep duration declined during early adulthood. Women reported shorter sleep than men from age 18 to 22, but slept longer than men by age 28. Young adults of black race/ethnnicity reported sleep durations similar to those of young adults of white race/ethnicity until age 24, after which blacks slept less than whites. Educational experiences and employment characteristics reduced gender and racial/ethnic disparities, but family relationships exacerbated them.

Methods: Data come from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The main analytic sample includes 4714 respondents who were ever enrolled in college and who reported on sleep duration in 2010. Most respondents had completed their college education by 2010, when respondents were 25 to 31 years old. Multivariable linear regression models assessed the cross-sectional association between student loans accumulated over the course of college and sleep duration in 2010, as well as between student debt at age 25 and sleep duration in 2010.

Results: Black young adults with greater amounts of student loans or more student debt reported shorter sleep duration, controlling for occupation, hours worked, household income, parental net worth, marital status, number of children in the household and other sociodemographic and health indicators. There was no association between student loans or debt with sleep for white or latino adults and other racial/ethnic groups.

Conclusions: Student loans may contribute to racial inequities in sleep duration. Our findings also suggest that the student debt crisis may have important implications for individuals’ sleep, specifically and public health, more broadly.

Methods: A review of database studies available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) website identified 10 longitudinal studies with prospective self-report data on parental control/support, peer delinquency or deviance, and future offending in participants 18 years of age and younger.

Results: A multiple group analysis revealed that while there was mild to moderate evidence of measurement invariance or consistency of results across gender and race, there was no evidence of consistency of substantive relationships across the 10 studies. A review of findings from each individual study revealed that while the parent and peer main effects were each significant in 9 out of the 10 studies, the parent x peer interaction was significant in only 1 out of 10 studies.

Methods: The first mechanism tested in this study proposed that a positive parent-child relationship enhanced parental knowledge, which, in turn, inhibited delinquency. The second mechanism started with parental knowledge, which then led to improved parent-child affiliation, which, in turn, reduced delinquency. These two pathways were evaluated in 5102 mothers (2631 sons, 2471 daughters) and 3999 fathers (2117 sons, 1882 daughters) of adolescent members of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97).

Results: Causal mediation analysis revealed that both pathways (positive relationship → parental knowledge; parental knowledge → positive relationship) were significant in all four dyads (fathers-sons, fathers-daughters, mothers-sons, and mothers-daughters).

The simulation results showed that the proposed model can recover the true trait levels more accurately than the selected alternative methods and the estimation of the person trait levels is more accurate with more items and lower proportions of zeros. Regarding the accuracy of the item parameter estimates, middle proportions of zeros, larger sample size, and more items provide more accurate estimates under the tested conditions. When sample size was larger than 2000, the item parameters were estimated accurately in most conditions. The simulation results also showed that both marginal maximum likelihood estimation method (MMLE) and Bayesian estimation (BE) methods can provide accurate item parameter estimates with large enough sample sizes. Each estimation method had its own advantages and disadvantages in computation ti me and convergence rate.

The empirical results included many outcomes that were not obtained using previous methods, especially in investigating the psychometric properties of the multiple substance use items from both propensity and level perspectives. Limitations and future directions of this study are discussed.

Results indicate that "ladder jobs" demonstrated a significant crime-decreasing effect, while employment exhibited a crime-increasing effect. In addition, the magnitude rate of "ladder jobs" versus employment increased as youth aged; that is, the advantages of "ladder jobs" gradually outweigh the disadvantages of employment in the sense of crime prevention. Furthermore, job income partially mediates the crime-increasing effect of employment on delinquency, and job stability partially mediates the crime-decreasing effect of "ladder jobs" on delinquency. However, parental control, which is measured as direct supervision, does not play a mediating role between employment and delinquency. In sum, from a crime-prevention standpoint, a job that pays little now, but improves the chances of a long-term career appears to better than a dead-end job that pays comparatively well in the short-term. The findings also imply that the discussions of employment and of internships among youth should address the importance of future-oriented feature of occupations, and not just the immediate monetary gains from the employment.

Method: Data are drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a sample of 8,984 young adults born between 1980 and 1984. Event history analyses are used to examine the timing of home‐leaving (n = 810,274 person‐months), and among those who leave, the timing of home‐returning (n = 630,394 person‐months). Criminal justice contact is measured via self‐reported arrests and spells of incarceration.

Results: Across both the short term and long term, there is a robust association between criminal justice contact and residential transitions out of and back into the parental home. The risk of experiencing home‐leaving or home‐returning is considerably higher in the month an individual is arrested or completes a spell of incarceration, compared to individuals with no contact. Additionally, especially for arrest, the risk of each residential transition remains elevated in the months and years that follow contact.

Subjects/Methods: A meta-analysis of a nationally representative sample (N = 73,891) of US children and adolescents drawn from three datasets (i.e., National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, & the Early Childhood Longitudinal Program) which included 14 cross-sectional waves spanning 1971-2014 was conducted. The exposure was household income-to-poverty ratio (low income = 0.00-1.00, middle income = 1.01-4.00, high income >4.00) with prevalence of overweight or obesity (body mass index ≥ 85th percentile) as the outcome.

I find the financial proposition of attending college is a sound investment for most individuals and cost scenarios, although some scenarios do not pay off until late in life, or ever. I estimate the present discounted value of attending college for the median student to vary between $85,000 and $300,000 depending on the student's major. Most importantly, the results of this paper emphasize the role that risk (e.g. the nontrivial chance that a student will not eventually graduate) plays in the cost-benefit analysis of obtaining a college degree.

We use 1997-2011 longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth [NLSY97], including restricted geocode data, to further analyze the implications of a minimum wage increase on college enrollment for older teens. Using a multinomial logit model we find that an increase in the minimum wage leads to a lower likelihood of college matriculation among potential applicants. This adds an important factor to the ongoing discussion of minimum wage laws.

RESULTS: Overall, no relationship was found between students' first sexual intercourse and GPA. For black females and Latinos of either gender, having had first sexual intercourse was associated with a lower GPA (coefficients, -216 and -161, respectively, corresponding to grade point decreases multiplied by 100). For black females, this association was observed only in the context of romantic relationships (-243). The predicted GPAs for black females aged 14 or 15 who reported first intercourse in a romantic relationship were significantly lower than those for their counterparts who had not had intercourse, whereas at 18 this was reversed. For Latinos, the predicted GPAs of 14‐ and 15‐year‐olds who had had sex were also lower than those of their sexually inexperienced counterparts.

Second, this dissertation is also one of the first studies to examine whether the relationship between residential mobility and desistance from crime depends on the context of the move. Although the average effect of moving may be protective, the effect likely depends on a number of factors. Two factors may be especially salient to residential moves during the transition to adulthood: (1) whether the move occurs in the presence of other adult social roles and (2) whether the move results in improvements in community context. There are reasons to expect residential mobility to have stronger or weaker effects depending on these features.

This dissertation uses public and restricted geocode data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). These data contain a wealth of information about the transition to young adulthood, including respondents' residential mobility, crime and substance use, adult social roles, and community context. In addition, restricted geocode data allows me to construct residential mobility patterns of respondents from 1997-2013 and determine the county-level characteristics of every residential location respondents reported living at during the survey.

Methods. We used 1997 to 2015-2016 data from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (n = 7740) to examine the associations between arrest and incarceration at ages 18 to 27 years and cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure screenings at age 29 years. Explanatory mechanisms included blocked access (health care coverage and medical checkup) and economic (education, employment, and income) factors. We used logistic regression to model main effects.

Results. Arrest was associated with lower odds of getting blood cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure tests; incarceration was associated with lower odds of getting cholesterol and blood sugar tests; blocked access and economic factors mediated 42% to 125% of these associations. These associations were mostly consistent across race/ethnicity.

Conclusions. Mass incarceration contributes to decreases in preventive health care use, which are explained in part by blocked access and economic factors.

Methods: Using public and restricted data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and U.S. Census data, we employed Bayesian random-effects models to examine the within-individual associations between the percentage of the population that is foreign-born in respondents' county of residence and two indicators of criminal offending during adolescence and early adulthood.

Results: Findings indicated that percent foreign-born was associated with subsequent reductions in criminal arrest but not self-reported offending. Moreover, we found that these effects were similar regardless of whether respondents moved or remained in place over time. Finally, for self-reported offending, the effects of percent foreign-born were stronger for first-generation immigrants, but for arrest, they were similar across generation.

Methods: Using 15 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort, a sample of youth followed from ages 12 to 32, we used mixed-effects models to examine whether frequent moving, between-county moves (a proxy for long-distance), and moving distance are associated with within-individual change in self-reported offending and arrest.

Results: Findings indicated that frequent moving was not associated with persistent offending. In addition, individuals who made between-county moves showed significant within-individual reductions in self-reported offending and arrest, with those reductions emerging immediately after the move and persisting over time. Finally, individuals who moved further in distance were more likely to experience reductions in self-reported offending, although any moving distance reduced arrest.

Methods: OLS regression was used to measure the association between income-poverty, household net worth, racial status, and level of youth's criminal and delinquent behavior. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), 1,218 American adolescents (26.6% African American, 21.1% Hispanic, and 52.3% White) between 14 to 18 years old completed computer-based modules on criminal and delinquent behaviors at each of the first four waves of the study (1997-2000). Youth reported whether they had run away from home, carried a handgun, joined a gang, stolen items worth more than $50.00, assaulted someone, or sold illicit drugs. Youths' criminal involvement was coded from 0 and 10 for each wave, with higher numbers indicating higher levels of criminal and delinquent activity. Scores for each wave were summed to create an overall scale measuring level of criminal involvement among youth during late adolescence. First wave baseline characteristics were collected, with the dependent variable measuring youth's criminal and delinquent activity over the first four study waves. Control variables measured demographic characteristics, youth's behavioral and emotional problems (using Achenback Youth Self-Report questions), past experience of bullying victimization, family functioning, maternal awareness of youth activities, neighborhood risk factors, and percentage peer involvement in gangs.

Results: The results found no significant association between youth's household net worth, income-poverty, racial status and level of criminal involvement. Mean level of criminal involvement was 18.57% higher among those who had been bullied by age 12, b=.19, t=3.79, p<.001. Mean level of criminal involvement was 35.79% higher for youth who perceived that nearly all peers were involved in gangs than among youth who perceived that none of their peers were involved in gangs, b=.36, t=4.27, p<.001. Mean criminal involvement was also 35.18% higher for youth reporting high levels of substance use than among youth who reported the lowest level of substance abuse, b=.35, t=18.14, p<.001.

Implications: These results suggest a tenuous connection between crime and poverty among older adolescents. By contrast, youth characteristics, family dynamics, and peer influences significantly predicted level of criminal activity. These findings suggest that self-control and social control theories, which emphasize the role of parental influences on the development of criminal propensity, better explain criminal offending than social disorganization or strain/anomie theories, which emphasize poverty and dysfunctional cultural norms. Further research is needed among youths to determine whether the findings in this analysis apply to all youth at risk of engaging in criminal behavior.

Methods : The estimates in this report were derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97...Cross-sectional estimates were calculated using the SAS 9.2 statistical package to account for the complex survey design. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was conducted on the weighted data.

Results : Within the sample, the estimated prevalence of psychological distress (PD) among young adults within the U.S. population in 2008 was an estimated 11.34%. Those who reported life satisfaction scores of 1 - 5, were more likely to self report PD (COR 14.83; 95% CI, 10.66 - 20.62). The association remained significant in the adjusted analysis. Persons reporting being uninsured (COR 2.04; 95% CI, 1.66 - 2.49) or having partial-year unknown source (COR 2.37; 95% CI, 1.80 - 3.11), or having partial-year government coverage (COR 2.93; 95% CI, 1.84 - 4.67), or classified as full-year government coverage (COR 3.51; 95% CI, 2.74 - 4.50) were more likely to experience PD than full year private coverage. However, the associations were not significant when controlling for covariates. Significant associations were observed between young adults who had military experience, incarceration experience, or were past victims of violent crimes when compared to those who were not in the crude analysis only. Health insurance coverage status generally did not significantly influence young adult's psychological well-being in the study.

Conclusions : The associations between mental health status and health insurance coverage status may have been strongly influenced by socio-demographic characteristics. Young adults, who reported poorer social health and poorer overall health when examining health insurance coverage status, were more likely to report poorer mental health status. It is important to understand ones mental, social, and physical health, in order to truly detail one's comprehensive health. Integration of mental health screening, screening for social health and the implementation of health care reform may help to improve mental health outcomes among young adults, especially the disadvantaged.

Results: Racial/ethnic differences in heavy drinking trajectories have changed over time in men and women. In the older NLSY cohort, Hispanic men and Black women surpassed White men's and women's heavy drinking frequency by age 31. This crossover was absent in the younger cohort, where trajectories of all racial-sex groups converged by age 31. Normative trajectories have changed in Hispanics and Whites of both sexes, with a delay in age of peak frequency, and greater levels of heavy drinking in the younger cohort of women.

Conclusion: Changes in heavy drinking trajectories over time suggest the need for targeted interventions during young adulthood. While disparities in young adult heavy drinking were no longer apparent in the more recent birth cohort, continued monitoring is important.

I address these questions by conducting an empirical analysis of young adults nationally using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). I begin with a breakdown of the race and gender patterns in delinquency, suspensions, arrest, and attitudes. Then I conduct two survival analyses to identify how race and gender impact time to suspension and time to arrest for all respondents in the NLSY97. Finally, I run a series of Cox regression models to identify how factors such as race, socio-economic status, educational attainment, and attitude impact students’ risk of suspension and incarceration.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97) is used in this study to test hypotheses derived from Hirschi's (1969) social bond theory and Baumrind's (1966) parenting typology. These hypotheses examine the effects of family process variables and parenting styles on adolescent delinquency moderated by the effect of the child's race/ethnicity and gender, and class of the family. Based on OLS Regression results of the study revealed there was a negative relationship between most, but not all of the family process variables and delinquency. As hypothesized, as parent-youth relationship, communication, monitoring and limit setting increased, delinquency decreased. In other analyses authoritative parenting compared to authoritarian and neglectful parenting resulted in less delinquency. When separate equations were estimated this pattern of findings held for Whites and Blacks but not Latinos. White and Black adolescents with a neglectful or authoritarian mom were more likely to be delinquent than White and Black adolescents with an authoritative mom. Dad parenting was only significant for Whites indicating that adolescents with authoritarian dads were more likely to be delinquent than Whites with authoritative dads. There was no effect of parenting on Latino respondents.

Similar results were revealed when separate equations were estimated for males and females. That is, males and females with a neglectful or authoritarian mom were more likely to be delinquent than males and females with an authoritative mom. Dad parenti ng was only significant for males indicating those with authoritarian dads were more likely to be delinquent than males with authoritative dads. T-statistics indicated there were no significant differences between males and females.

Class of the family did not have an effect and there was no interaction between the parenting styles and class. However, this could be attributed to its poor measurement.

We conclude that the following data sources are most promising based on our selection criteria: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health); Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) 911 Database and RSA's Longitudinal Study of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR); state administrative data (multiple states); National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88); National Longitudinal Transition Study of Special Education Students (NLTS); National Longitudinal Transition Study of Special Education Students-2 (NLTS-2); and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: 1997 (NLSY97).

Given the longitudinal approach, this study starts with a comparison of patterns of school-to-work trajectories in four distinct welfare state regimes: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. By aligning the individual pathways of individuals between age 16 (enrolled in high school) and age 25, social sequence analysis enabled us to reveal sharp differences in school leaving pace, school enrollment, and instability of early work careers. The analyses suggest that the variation in selection and sorting within youth careers can be largely explained by indicators of the different welfare state regimes. Based on comparisons of younger and older birth cohorts there is evidence supporting convergence theory of welfare states – early careers liberal states are becoming less volatile, while those in social-democratic states are becoming more insecure.

Methods and findings: We used data from four United States general youth population cohort studies: the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY-79), the NLSY-79 Children and Young Adult, the NLSY 1997 (NLSY-97), and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS); a total of 12,250 siblings from 5,602 households followed from adolescence up to age 62. We used random effects within-between (REWB) and residualized quantile regression (RQR) models to compare between- and within-family estimates of the association between adolescent cognitive ability and adult BMI (20 to 64 years). In REWB models, moving from the 25th to 75th percentile of adolescent cognitive ability was associated with −0.95 kg/m2 (95% CI = −1.21, −0.69) lower BMI between families. Adjusting for family socioeconomic position reduced the association to −0.61 kg/m2 (−0.90, −0.33). However, within families, the association was just −0.06 kg/m2 (−0.35, 0.23). This pattern of results was found across multiple specifications, including analyses conducted in separate cohorts, models examining age-differences in association, and in RQR models examining the association across the distribution of BMI. Limitations include the possibility that within-family estimates are biased due to measurement error of the exposure, confounding via non-shared factors, and carryover effects.

Chapter 3 examines the relationship between student loan debt and post-graduation living arrangements for college graduates in the United States, taking labor market factors into account. Using data from NLSY97, I explore both the parent-youth co-residence outcomes at a point in time and the dynamics of college graduates' movements back home. I estimate a random effects panel probit model and a discrete time proportional hazard model. The estimation results show that an increase in the amount of student loan debt owed at the time of graduation significantly increases the hazard of moving back home after graduation.

Chapter 4 uses NLSY97 data to investigate the factors that affect the amount of educational loans students borrow to attend college, with a particular interest in whether parental divorce would affect a college student's educational debt burden. The estimation results indicate that youths from divorced families are more likely to have a higher debt burden upon leaving school than youths from intact families. Among the youths from divorced families, those whose biological parents lived in states that permit courts to extend child support beyond the age of 18 for college expenses (post-majority states) do not seem to take fewer loans than those whose biological parents lived in non-post-majority states.

Chapter 2: "Early vs. Late Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy: When Should Mothers Quit Smoking?" This paper provides new evidence on when pregnant smokers should quit to nullify the adverse impact of smoking on infant health. I address this issue using a large panel dataset of about 80,000 mothers with multiple births between 2003 and 2006, which is much better than the small and selective cross sectional samples used in previous studies. I use a mother fixed effect model to find the adverse impact of smoking on birth outcomes is nullified for those who quit in the first trimester. Mothers who smoke up to the second trimester will have remarkably worse birth outcomes. In particular, two third of the overall fetal growth rate slowdown is due to smoking within the second trimester. These results suggest that pregnant smokers should be advised to quit as early as possible especially before the second trimester. Finally, the estimated effect of smoking on birth weight and low birth weight would be biased downward by a third and over a half respectively if a researcher codes late quitters as nonsmokers when applying a fixed effect model.

Chapter 3: "Youth Health Behaviors, Health Knowledge and Educational Attainments". Are young teenagers who are more aware of the risks in substance abuse less likely to later on become binge drinkers or smokers when they are high school seniors? What are the consequences of teen heavy drinking or smoking on their educational achievements? I address these questions using NLSY 97 which provides unique information on health knowledge of young teenagers and track them over high school education. I find young teenagers who had higher level of risk perception were less likely to be substance abusers by the time they were high school seniors. Heavy drinking and smoking were associated with a lower probability of college entrance by 13 and 18 percentage points, respectively. Twelfth grade smokers were 20 percent less likely to graduate in the next year. This study therefore indicates that middle childhood health education can be an effective policy to curb youthful substance abuse by modifying teen risk perception. Due to the key role of schooling in adulthood labor market outcomes and the adverse impact of teenage heavy drinking and smoking on their educational attainments, my paper highlights the importance of direct intervention on early age substance use.

Methods: Using a sample of men and women drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a series of wage models are estimated that account for both the timing and frequency of job changes over the first decade of the working career as well as for complex interactions between job mobility, actual work experience, and job tenure.

Results: The wage estimates indicate that workers who demonstrate moderate job-changing in the first 2 years after labor market entry but then taper their mobility thereafter actually raise their log-wage path above that of either immobile workers or persistent job changers.

Method: Life table analysis of 6,501 individuals from the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth is used to estimate overall and race/ethnicity‐specific cumulative risks of first home‐leaving using two measures of home‐leaving: one that relies exclusively on household rosters and a second that incorporates information about departures for institutions beyond the family and household. Multinomial regression is then used to estimate young adults' likelihoods of first home‐leaving for different types of arrangements and institutional settings.

Results: An institution‐inclusive definition of home‐leaving yields higher estimates of the risk of leaving the parental home by age 31 than a roster‐based definition. The institution‐inclusive measure also estimates greater racial/ethnic variation in the timing of first departure and provides insights into the racial/ethnic differences in the types of transitions experienced.

Also presented at Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Washington DC, March 31-April 2, 2016

Methods: Using 17 rounds of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we fit discrete-time event history models predicting men's and women's pace of childbearing.

Results: The analysis indicates that relatively disadvantaged young adults, such as those with low education or parents with low education, tend to delay childbirth in response to high local unemployment rates but are less likely than the more advantaged to defer childbearing when facing their own unemployment.

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY 97), a non-experimental database, to evaluate the effects of U.S. youths' school-based learning (SBL) program participation on early labor market outcomes. Estimates from ordinary least squares regression, the linear regression with probabilistic matching or instrumental proxy, are compared to those obtained from bootstrapping regression analysis. Four outcome variables, including employment in college, employment, total worked hours and hourly wage rate, are used to gauge the early labor market outcomes of youth from the NLSY97.

Findings, at an alpha level of .05 when the first type of instrumental variable (IV) correction method is adopted, reveal that SBL program participants are significantly less likely than non-participants to enroll in college, and that SBL program participants have a lower probability of enrolling in college than do non-participants.

In comparison with college enrollment, findings from the analysis of employment and total worked hours outcomes on SBL program participation are not statistically significant with selection bias corrections. Rather, only the estimates derived from the Tobit regression for the correction of the censored data show that SBL program participants have a lower number of total worked hours than do non- participants. Due to evidence which shows that youths' wage differential is small in the early labor market, the findings from Heckman's two-step correction with an alpha level of .10 show that SBL program participants are more likely to have higher hourly wages than non-participants.

In addition, in looking at the seven specific types of SBL program participation, the significant likelihood of enrolling in college or being employed, all of the estimates derived from Heckman's two-step correction show no significance.

For the total worked hours outcome, the correction of the censored data using the Tobit regression shows that internship/apprenticeship program participants have lower total worked hours than non-participants, with an alpha level of .001.

Due to the small wage rate differential for youth in the early labor market, a significance level of .10 is used for this outcome. Heckman's two-step correction reveals that SBL program participants are more likely than non-participants to have higher hourly wage rates. In view of the seven types of SBL program participation, the findings from Heckman's correction reveal that internship or apprenticeship program participants are more likely than non-participants for all SBL programs to have a higher hourly wage rate.

In summary, this study shares corrected estimates from alternative approaches. Based on criteria from the 200-time and 500-time bootstrapping, the best selection bias estimation among these four corrections uses Heckman's two-step correction.

Methods: This is the first investigation of the “Freshman 15” to use a nationally representative random sample, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). The data are analyzed using descriptive statistics, regression analysis, simulations, and longitudinal analysis.

Results: Freshmen gain between 2.5 to 3.5 pounds, on average, over the course of their first year of college. Compared to same-age noncollege attendees, the typical freshman gains only an additional half-pound. Instead of a spike in weight during the freshman year, college-educated individuals exhibit moderate but steady weight gain during and after college.

Conclusion: Anti-obesity efforts directed specifically at college freshmen will likely have little impact on obesity prevalence among young adults.

The results indicate an inverse gradient in SSB consumption with respect to both income and wealth, controlling for education. However, we do not find evidence that changes in income and wealth correlate with changes in SSB intake. This finding suggests that SES influences the development of SSB consumption patterns, but changes in income and wealth generally do not alter them in adulthood.

The dissertation consists of three papers. The first paper examines how initial legal status affects lawful permanent residents' (LPRs) asset building by investigating three types of financial assets--bank account ownership, investment account ownership, and retirement account ownership. The second paper tests the impact of being banked at an earlier stage of immigration on immigrants’ subsequent asset holding, with self-selection bias addressed by using a nationally representative data set. The third paper examines wealth trajectories of children from immigrant and native-born families from their mid-20s to their mid-30s, with a focus on the role parental financial assets play in shaping these trajectories.

Overall, the results show that how immigrants fare financially in the United States largely depends on what resources they can access in the United States. Institutional-level support in asset building and quality social networks may help them to achieve better financial outcomes. In addition, the findings reveal that children of immigrants were disadvantaged in wealth growth during their young to mid-adulthood compared to their peers from the native-born families. Together, these three papers turn new ground in extending asset-building research and policy to immigrant population, an important segment of the U.S. economy and society. The findings may inform inclusive asset-building policies, immigrant econo mic integration programs, and immigrant tailored financial services.