Search Results

METHODS: We analyzed 3917 women with 1 to 3 pregnancies in the prospective US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, from 1979 to 2012. We compared the estimated obesity prevalence between 2 scenarios: gestational weight gain as reported and under the scenario of a hypothetical intervention that all women with excessive gestational weight gain instead gained as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (2009).

RESULTS: A hypothetical intervention was associated with a significantly reduced estimated prevalence of obesity for first (3.3 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.0, 5.6) and second (3.0 percentage points; 95% CI = 0.7, 5.2) births, and twice as high in Black as in White mothers, but not significant in Hispanics. The population attributable fraction was 10.7% (95% CI = 3.3%, 18.1%) in first and 9.3% (95% CI = 2.2%, 16.5%) in second births.

CONCLUSIONS: Development of effective weight-management interventions for childbearing women could lead to meaningful reductions in long-term obesity.

Design and Methods: Adjusted mean BMI changes were estimated by race-ethnicity, baseline BMI and parity using longitudinal regression models in 3943 young females over 10 and 25 year follow-up from the ongoing 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth cohort.

Results: Estimated BMI increases varied by group, ranging from a low of 2.1 BMI units for white, non-overweight nulliparas over the first 10 years to a high of 10.1 BMI units for black, overweight multiparas over the full 25-year follow-up. Impacts of parity were strongest among overweight multiparas and primaparas at ten years, ranges 1.4-1.7 and 0.8-1.3 BMI units, respectively. Among non-overweight women at 10 years, parity-related gain varied by number of births among black and whites but was unassociated in Hispanic women. After 25 years, childbearing significantly increased BMI only among overweight multiparous black women.

Conclusion: Childbearing is associated with permanent weight gain in some women, but the relationship differs by maternal BMI in young adulthood, number of births, race-ethnicity and length of follow-up. Given that overweight black women may be at special risk for accumulation of permanent, long-term weight after childbearing, effective interventions for this group are particularly needed.

The young woman, dependent on public assistance, having child after child has reemerged as the favorite symbol for politicians decrying the U.S. welfare system. Since the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program provides support to poor families with children, with larger grants going to households with more children, concern over AFDCs pro-natalist effects have a strong theoretical foundation--AFDC lowers the cost of having children. Research in this area has focused on first births to unwed teenagers and has found scant evidence supporting the contention that AFDC promotes out-of-wedlock births. This paper seeks to re-evaluate the relationship between AFDC and childbearing by focusing not just on births to teenagers but also on births to women in their mid-twenties using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Using discrete time hazard models, I examine the impact of AFDC on births directly associated with welfare receipt, on out-of-wedlock births, and on all births. I also examine the importance of AFDC on subsequent births--births to women who already have a child. I find that AFDC generosity has very modest pro-natalist effects at best on first births and virtually no effect on subsequent births. Furthermore, exposure to AFDC does not encourage future childbearing although mothers who received AFDC in the past are more likely to receive AFDC upon having a second child.

Design/methodology/approach: This work utilizes a difference equation to estimate the returns to education for workers who pursue additional education after time spent out of school and in the labor force.

Findings: The results indicate a sheepskin return of approximately 14% for those who remain in the labor force and a return of approximately 9% to years of additional education for those who drop out of the labor force. This contrasting pattern of returns is robust to sample selection correction and a variety of checks.

Research limitations/implications: This work does not fully account for all threats to causation. Further research could pursue these and make use of data from more clearly defined periods of education.

Practical implications: This work finds key differences between the internal labor market faced by those remaining in the labor force and the external labor market faced by those dropping out of the labor force. A policy focused on re-training workers should account for these differences.

Originality/value: This is the first work to compare workers who pursue additional education while remaining in the labor force to workers who pursue additional education and drop out of the labor force.

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We use our identification results to develop a sequential estimation algorithm for the joint dynamic process of investment and skill development, correcting for the biases due to measurement error in skills and investment. Using data for the United States, we estimate the technology of skill formation, the process of parental investments in children, and the adult distribution of completed schooling and earnings, allowing the production technology and investment process to freely vary as the child ages. Our estimates of high TFP and increasing returns to scale at early ages indicate that investments are particularly productive at these ages. We find that the marginal productivity of early investments is substantially higher for children with lower existing skills, suggesting the optimal targeting of interventions to disadvantaged children. Our estimates of the dynamic process of investment and skill development allow us to estimate heterogeneous treatment effects of policy interventions. We show that even a modest transfer of family income to families at ages 5-6 would substantially increase children's skills, completed schooling, and adult earnings, with the effects largest for low income families.

The current literature has demonstrated the strong association between the co-occurrence of illicit drug use and sexual behavior. However, tantamount to this relationship are, psychosocial factors which, when examined concomitant with health risk behaviors grouped by maternal educational attainment, will help elucidate differences between categories of youth at risk for compromised mental and physical well-being. The Bronfenbrenner ecological framework is utilized to substantiate the relevance of health risk behaviors, environment and the importance of studying psychosocial factors in multivariate models.

The data selected for analysis to both demonstrate these relationships and identify risk profiles originate from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), Young Adult 1998 cohort. Partitioning the NLSY 1998 cohort by mother's education tests how risk proneness as a mediator differs by maternal highest grade completed, as it affects adolescent deleterious behavior. These data are renowned for an oversampling of African Americans and are nationally representative of other ethnic groups such as Hispanics and Asians, requiring the application of an algebraic weight to normalize against the US population. Therefore, the key findings discovered in this study are: (1) the mediational effect in the pathway to health risk behaviors is risk proneness; (2) reported depressive illness symptoms are the underlying mechanism of risk proneness; (3) the path model is robust when tested among different groups using the Bronfenbrenner ecosystem paradigm; and (4) the weighting technique is vital to preserving the original distribution of the population, since the study sample needs to reflect the actual proportion of racial/ethnic groups in the US population.

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Risk tolerance and liquidity constraints are widely believed to be key determinants of self-employment, but their independent effects have proved difficult to identify. In the second essay, I specify a theoretical model that illustrates how individual risk tolerance and liquidity constraints affect the decision to become self-employed. I then tackle the empirical identification problem by constructing a measure of risk tolerance that is corrected for reporting error, varies with age and assets, and allows for the endogeneity of assets. In contrast to previous studies that use regional variation in housing prices as an instrument for assets, I address the fact that housing appreciation affects homeowners and nonowners differently. I find that risk tolerant workers are more likely to be self-employed than are their less risk tolerant counterparts. However, net asset levels have an insignificant effect on self-employment entry once absolute risk tolerance is properly taken into account.

The absence of successful businesses owned by minorities, and by blacks in particular, is a concern for policy makers. In the third essay, I exploit detailed work history data in the NLSY79 to provide new evidence on the reasons behind the race gap in self-employment. My analysis of an "age uniform" sample of men, all of whom are observed from age 22 to age 40, reveals that racial differences in cross-sectional self-employment rates are largely due to the fact that minority workers' self-employment spells are relatively short-lived. Moreover, I find that minority workers' relatively high exit rates from self-employment are caused primarily by transitions to nonemployment. Estimates from a multinomial logit model of self-employment exits suggest that minority workers' weak attachment to the labor market prior to entering self-employment is an important determinant of their self-employment to nonemployment transitions, while lack of prior industry and self-employment experience contributes to minorities' transitions to nonself-employment.

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This paper focuses on three countries with distinct policies towards the dilemma of combining motherhood with an employment career: the United States, Germany and Sweden. We investigate how the parental leave policies in these countries work with regard to (a) fostering mother's labor market attachment; (b) securing mother's status as labor market insiders during employment interruption; and (c) buffering the negative career consequences resulting from mothers' time out. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the German Life History Study, and the Swedish Level of Living Survey, we analyze how different types of welfare states produce and institutionalize different patterns of return to the labor market after childbirth and how these structures stratify the subsequent career trajectories of women. Using event-history techniques we first explore how long women in the different institutional contexts interrupt employment after the birth of a child. Second, we examine what their career prospects upon return are: Do mothers on leave retain their status as labor market insiders and return to a job similar to the one they had before, or are they more likely to become outsiders and experience a downward occupational move? What role do individual characteristics and institutional context play in this process? Finally, we assess whether the time women spend away from work after child birth affects their subsequent careers. We find that the timing of return and the consequences for the occupational career are highly dependent on the policy structure these careers are embedded in. In the U.S. – promoting a 'primary earner strategy' – three quarters of all women are back at work only six months after the birth of the first child. In Sweden – the country with an 'earner carer strategy' – three quarters are back after five years, and in Germany – with its 'primary caregiver strategy' – not even after eight years. Parental leave policies seem to impact the timing of reentry, rather than the type of reentry: In all three countries most mothers return to a job with a prestige level comparable to their previous position. These women also tend to interrupt for shorter periods than their peer compatriots, as the majority returns to their previous job. Across countries we find a 'memory effect' of previous time out, though: In the U.S., with few women taking parental leave, we identify a career punishment in terms of a higher downward mobility risk, also for short times out. In Germany, where the legal parental leave period is long and mother's time out the norm, we find a negative linear relationship between time out and women's return to their previous occupational position; the longer the time out, the greater the risk to change to a new job, be it associated with an upward or downward move. In Sweden with a policy allowing shorter but financially compensated parental leaves, we find a negative effect of time out on upward moves. Hence, even in 'woman friendly' Sweden, mothers are better off if they return sooner rather than later to the labor market.

In the second part of this paper we use multiple datasets to provide empirical support for the two predictions of the model and we employ an identification strategy that enables us to isolate this particular mechanism empirically. First, we use annual data on state expenditures for child support enforcement and on natality for the period 1985-1994 to estimate the impact of increasing the probability that fathers will have to pay child support on non-marital child bearing and maternal investments in children born outside marriage. We find that more stringent child support enforcement results in fewer births, especially among less educated single women, and conditional on education, a greater use of early prenatal care (a measure of the underlying propensity to invest in children) both of which suggest positive selection on mother quality....We also estimate a duration model of time to first birth for a cohort of young women of child-bearing age from the NLSY79 and find that single mothers in states with stricter child support enforcement delay the time until first birth.

Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the self-reported quality of eyesight among heavy marijuana smokers compared with youths who never used marijuana or are light marijuana users. Among heavy marijuana smokers, males and high school graduates have decreased odds of reporting a poor quality of eyesight, whereas blacks have increased odds of reporting a poor quality of eyesight.

This paper explains upward job mobility and observed patterns of unemployment by skill as an economy recovers from a recession. Skilled unemployment is due to rational waiting by workers looking for long-term jobs when there is a 'lock-in' effect. Lock-in occurs if the conditions in the labor market when a worker first accepts a job have a persistent effect on wages. Using data from the NLSY, the authors provide empirical evidence of the cyclical pattern of wages predicted by the theory and also of lock-in.

To address these questions, this study uses four data sets; three birth cohorts (1942, 1945, and 1949) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Men in these samples served during different historical periods from the beginning of the Vietnam War to the early period of the all-volunteer force. Statistical methods were used to account for potential differences in selection and the presence of unobserved heterogeneity. Results suggest that there is an important influence of military service on later criminal behavior, but the specific direction of the effect depends on the historical period in which service occurred. In particular, serving in the military during the Vietnam era was related to reduced offending, and service during the volunteer era was related to increased offending. These results were significant even after controlling for race, education, socioeconomic status, age, and prior criminal behavior patterns.

Methods: Multiple GEE models were generated utilizing demographic, pregnancy-related, educational, poverty, and wealth-related variables. Substantive comparisons across GEE models were done based on an estimate of the percent reduction in the baseline odds ratio for low birth weight in comparing non-Hispanic Blacks to non-Hispanic Whites associated with individual and collective socioeconomic related adjustments.

Results: Despite documenting a substantial socioeconomic disadvantage among non-Hispanic Black births relative to non-Hispanic White births, accounting for differentials in wealth-status produced only minimal reductions in the elevated odds of low birth weight observed among non-Hispanic Black births when compared to non-Hispanic White births.

Conclusion: Differentials in current wealth status appear to have little impact on observed disparities in low birth weight between non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White births independent of traditional socioeconomic indicators such as income and maternal education.

The second essay takes a different approach to investigate the intensive margin effects of SNAP on adult obesity. To mitigate the severity of endogenous participation and misreporting biases, I employ a strategy that examines only individuals who report participating in SNAP. I utilize a quasi-experimental variation in SNAP amount per adult due to the timing of school eligibility for children. The identification examines intensive margin changes SNAP benefits due to changes in household composition. This study finds that increases in SNAP benefits available to adults actually reduce BMI and the probability of being severely obese.

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The analyses revealed a variety of differences in locus of control development and criminal involvement for men and women, whites and blacks. The findings lead to the general conclusion that the social origins of locus of control follow a different path for African Americans than for whites, and different still across categories of gender. The empirical findings suggest that African American men were particularly disheartened. The findings also suggest that it would be promising for future research to explore the "self-reliant social psychology" surrounding locus of control development of African Americans.

FIGURE 2, page 9, displays "Distances between the row-column associations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. mobility tables and how their row-column associations differ from independence. NLSY79 = National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979. OCG = Occupational Changes in a Generation, 1973. GSS = General Social Survey, 1977–90."

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Setting: We used data from the US National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY) and the UK National Child Development Study (NCDS); most of both studies completed a cognitive function test in youth.

The second chapter, which is work performed jointly with Tatiana Baron and Pengpeng Xiao, studies the drivers of the differential wage growth between men and women. We document the widening gender wage gap and the gender differences in the transition rates into and out of employment and human capital dynamics over the life cycle in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1979 (NLSY79). We then develop an equilibrium search model to assess the extent to which labor market frictions, human capital accumulation, and motherhood contribute to the differential wage growth between men and women. In our framework, men and women have exogenously different transition probabilities and diverging human capital processes. Furthermore, women's careers can be impacted by maternity leave coverage policies. Firms respond to these gender differences when posting wages in market equilibrium. Results are in progress.

The second chapter uses a life cycle model to evaluate the role of occupational study in providing information about occupational preferences. The model is estimated using a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. The results suggest that the opportunity to gain preference information is an important advantage of occupational courses of study. Furthermore, consistent with Chapter 1, the productivity gain from occupational study is greater than the gain from general study.

Methods: This study analyzed data from 11,506 children from the United States. We used generalized linear models to assess the relationship between the use of CP and behavior problems among biological siblings raised in the same home.

Results: At the population level, CP was significantly associated with the development of internalizing behavior problems (β = 0.134, SE = 0.03, p < .001). When comparing siblings, this relationship was no longer significant. In contrast, CP was significantly associated with externalizing behavior problems at both the population (β = 0.233, SE = 0.02, p < .001) and sibling comparison level (β = 0.107, SE = 0.03, p < .001).

First, we discuss why trends in obesity, and childhood obesity in particular, are of interest from an economic perspective....Next, we document changes in obesity over time in the United States for adults and children....Third, we discuss changes in children's lives over the last three decades that may be causally related to weight gain. In particular, we examine the increase in mothers working outside the home. It may be that mothers who work outside the home may not have time to prepare nutritious low-calorie meals and supervise their children's outdoor, calorie-expending play. We use National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data to examine whether mothers who work more hours per week, on average, or more weeks over their children's lives are more likely to have obese children. The data contain information on many socioeconomic characteristics of families and multiple observations over time on all of a mother's children. This allows us to control for many observable and unobservable differences between mothers who work and mothers who do not that might be correlated with children's weight. For example, we can examine whether siblings' obesity status differs depending on whether their mother worked more during one sibling's life than the other's. This holds constant all of the (fixed) family characteristics that might be correlated both with children's weight and mothers' labor supply.

My research reveals a complex picture. On average, mothers who reenroll attain more educational credentials, work more, and earn more than similar mothers who do not reenroll. However, mothers who reenroll are less likely to be married, family income declines, and they experience some negative physical and mental health effects.

Mothers' reenrollment relates to small, short-term gains in children's vocabulary and reading scores, but also more behavioral problems that persist into early adulthood. In the long term, children of mothers who go back to school have better academic outcomes, but this does not manifest in earnings gains in their early careers. There is no effect on children's probability of getting married, but children have some negative health impacts on average. Results vary somewhat by subgroup.

Policy and practice can help women and their families balance education, family, work, and personal responsibilities. This is particularly important for women of color, who are more likely to experience education disruptions and return to school later in life and who represent an ever-growing share of college students.

Data are from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the period of 1980-1987

Design/methodology/approach: Simple econometric theory is used to make the main point of the paper. Supporting empirical evidence is also presented.

Findings: Disregarding the persistence of current earnings implies a bias in the estimation of the wage return to schooling both at labour-market entry and in the rest of the working life.

Research limitations/implications: The use of current earnings as a dependent variable in wage-schooling models may be problematic and requires specific handling.

Social implications: The impact of schooling on the between-groups dimension of wage inequality may be different than previously thought.

Originality/value: The paper is the first to show that, when current earnings are used as a dependent variable, the identification of a wage-schooling model with the standard (time-invariant external instrument-variable) approach may lead to misleading conclusions.

Recent theoretical work has shown that uninsurable labor income risk likely reduces the share of risky assets in an investor's portfolio. Little empirical work has been done to examine this effect. The first study of this dissertation fills the void by investigating the relationship between portfolio shares and labor income risk in the NLSY79 data. The work has three novel features. First, the long labor income history in NLSY79 is used to estimate the labor income risk. Second, the study distinguishes between permanent labor income risk and transitory labor income risk, and estimates them for each individual rather than for groups. Third, I explicitly consider human capital as a component of an individual's portfolio. Human capital is treated as a risk-free asset and estimated by applying signal extraction techniques to individual labor income data. The study finds strong empirical support for the theory that labor income risk indeed significantly reduces the share of risky assets in an investor's portfolio. Furthermore, as economic theory suggests, permanent income risk has a significant effect on portfolio choice while transitory income risk has little effect. By implication, empirical work that does not distinguish between permanent income risk and transitory income risk will underestimate the effect of labor income risk on portfolio choice.

The second part of the dissertation is to fill the gap in the empirical literature on banks' interest rate risk management. Using a rolling sample of bank holding companies from 1986 to 2002, the study investigates how banks adjust their balance sheet maturity structure according to their perception of current and future interest rate changes. Banks tend to lengthen the maturity of net assets when the yield curve is steeply sloped and shorten it when they expect the interest rate to increase in the future. To account for the off-balance-sheet activity effect on banks' interest rate risk exposure, the sample is divided into those with high and low interest rate derivative activities. For banks with little off-balance-sheet interest rate derivative activities, the cross-sectional variation in responsiveness of maturity structure to interest rate changes explains the stock market risk and returns of banks' common equities. The interest rate risk management strategies reflect the extent of risk taking and are priced in the stock market. This finding contributes to the asset pricing literature by linking banks' stock market characteristics to their interest rate risk management strategies.

The years following high school are often characterized by uncertainty with regard to career and education decisions. The literature reviewed during this study suggested that a period of meaningful work experience between secondary and post-secondary education might reduce this uncertainty. The literature reviewed suggested that students who choose to leave full-time, formal education temporarily often return later with a greater sense of direction and motivation. The purpose of the study was to explore the association, if any, between work experience preceding college and persistence to degree completion. Data was extracted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Data (NLSY79), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, and managed under contract by the Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) at The Ohio State University. Predictor variables were analyzed for their effects on undergraduate persistence using binary logistic regression. The dependent variable was whether or not subjects earned a baccalaureate degree. The predictor variables included: (a) an intervening work experience between high school and college, (b) income, (c) dependents, (d) years required to attain the bachelor's degree, (e) age at the time of earning the degree, (f) gender, (g) race, (h) SAT/ACT scores, and (i) military experience. The likelihood of persistence of those who did not have the intervening work experience was about 12 times greater than that of those who had the work experience. Subjects who had no active duty military experience were nearly 10 times more likely to persist. The single predictor variable that appeared to validate the literature was the variable that referred to the number of years it took a subject, from the time of first entry into college, to earn a bachelor's degree. With the addition of each such year, it appeared that subjects were approximately 2.3 times more likely to persist to eventually earn a bachelor's degree. This suggested that many non-traditional students reach their bachelor degree goals through combinations of entry, departure, and reentry into undergraduate studies, interspersed or combined with periods of full-time and part-time work and study

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Think your job hunt is long? For those who have been to prison, it is probably even longer.

In one recently published study, an economics professor said it took more than twice as long for people who had been in jail to find employment than those who had never been to jail. Criminals also earn about 20 to 30 percent less than those not convicted of a crime, and were about twice as likely to lose a job as those who had not been to jail.

"The job market for those previously incarcerated is significantly different, and tougher, than for those not incarcerated," said College of the Holy Cross professor Bryan Engelhardt in a report from the Journal of Labor Economics' July edition.

Engelhardt also found that those who found work faster were less likely to go back to jail. He said a job placement program that could place those released from jail in a job in half the time -- three months rather than six months, for example -- could reduce recidivism by more than 5 percent. Recidivism, or a relapse into crime, is common. The Department of Justice has said that about half of adult released inmates are convicted of a crime again within three years.

Engelhardt analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government survey of 24- to 32-year-olds from 1989 to 1993. During that period, there was a recession from July 1990 to March 1991. More recently, other studies have shown that finding a job is hard for those fresh out of jail. A study by the Urban Institute think tank tracking former male prisoners from 2002 to 2005 found that only 45 percent of those who were eight months out of prison were employed. That study also found that holding a job made reincarceration less likely in the first year out of prison, said Nancy La Vigne, an expert with the institute. The higher the person's wages were, the less likely he was to commit another crime, the report said.

While data from the downturn and current period isn't yet available, it is likely that with more competition for jobs, it is even harder now for former prisoners to find employment, La Vigne said.

NEW GRADS PAID LESS: Recent college graduates lucky enough to nab jobs are earning even less than their counterparts did a year ago, according to a recent survey.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers said in its quarterly report on salaries that 2010 graduates' average starting salary was $48,661, down 1.3 percent from the initial salaries of 2009 graduates.

People majoring in general studies saw some of the biggest drops in compensation, said Mimi Collins, communications director for NACE. The average offer for them tumbled 17.7 percent to $37,356.

A few industries bucked the trend, however, raising compensation for new hires. Offers for economics majors rose 2.1 percent to $50,885, while those studying finance got a 0.8 percent bump to $50,356.

In the technology field, salaries dropped slightly for computer science majors and those studying engineering. Information sciences grads' salaries increased 5.7 percent, however, to $55,084.

The biggest increase was in hospitality services management, where the average offer rose 10.6 percent to $44,397, said Collins.

NACE received information from the career services offices of 115 colleges nationwide in the nine months through June.

A JOBLESS SENTENCE: Think your job hunt is long? For those who have been to prison, it is probably even longer.

In one recently published study, an economic professor said it took more than twice as long for people who had been in jail to find employment than those who had never been to prison.

Criminals also earn about 20 to 30 percent less than the unconvicted, and were about twice as likely to lose a job as those who had not been to jail.

"The job market for those previously incarcerated is significantly different, and to ugher, than for those not incarcerated," said College of the Holy Cross professor Bryan Engelhardt in a report from the Journal of Labor Economics' July edition.

Engelhardt also found that those who found work faster were less likely to go back to jail.

He said a job placement program that could place those released from jail in a job in half the time -- three months rather than six months, for example -- could reduce recidivism by more than 5 percent.

Recidivism, or an alleged relapse into crime, is common. The Department of Justice has said that about half of adult released inmates are convicted again within three years. Engelhardt analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government survey of 24- to 32-year-olds from 1989 to 1993. During that period, there was a recession from July 1990 to March 1991.

More recently, other studies have shown that finding a job is hard for those fresh out of jail. A study by the Urban Institute think tank tracking former male prisoners from 2002 to 2005 found that only 45 percent of those who were eight months out of prison were employed.

That study also found that holding a job made reincarceration less likely in the first year out of prison, said Nancy La Vigne, an expert with the institute. The higher the person's wages on the job, the less likely he was to commit another crime, the report said.

While data from the downturn and current period isn't yet available, it is likely that with more competition for jobs, it is even harder now for former prisoners to find employment, La Vigne said.

Though many researchers have investigated the effectiveness of the Medicaid and SCHIPS programs at increasing health insurance for children, the link between other policies and health-care coverage has been largely unexplored. In this paper we focus on the effect that child-support policies have on health insurance for children. The adoption of policies aimed at increasing child-support awards and collection has bolstered the living standards of many children with absent fathers and reduced the welfare caseload. In addition to the direct increase in income, child-support awards and payments may alter health insurance for children either because the legal divorce agreement may include the provision of health insurance, or because the increase in income allows residential parents to afford health insurance premiums. We exploit differences in child-support policies across states and over time to determine whether improvements in child-support establishment and enforcement efforts have any impact on insurance coverage for children.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults Survey we estimate a multinomial logit model of having no insurance, public insurance or private insurance and find that child-support policies have some potential for easing the incidence of non-insurance for children with a nonresident father. Our results suggest that more vigorous child-support efforts by the state have the potential to increase insurance probabilities among children whose parents divorced or separated. Increases in the vigor and efficiency of child-support collection efforts can move children who previously had no insurance to privately-provided insurance. Such a move can have important implications for children's health.

For children born outside of marriage child-support efforts do little to increase insurance, but may ease the public burden by moving children from public insurance to privately-provided insurance. The impact of this shift in coverage on children's health is not clear. There is some evidence that publicly-provided insurance increases the probability that children receive regular preventive care although children with private insurance were found to have more frequent visits to a doctor for the treatment of an illness. In contrast, other researchers found that patients enrolled in Medicaid were twice as likely to report lack of access to necessary care than patients covered by private health insurance. Another study found that among children with chronic conditions, Medicaid enrollment was associated with more lab tests and office visits than similar children with private coverage.

The substantial health and nutritional benefits of breastfeeding may be especially important for disadvantaged women and their children, who suffer higher morbidity and mortality than non-poor populations. Yet poor women in the U.S. are less likely to breastfeed than non-poor women. This paper examines the impact of the federally-funded WIC program on the infant-feeding decisions of poor women, using logistic regression analysis and proportional hazards models on data from the 1990/91 round of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Thirty percent of the WIC recipients in the sample report breastfeeding, compared with 52 percent of women who did not receive WIC. Women who received WIC breastfed on average for 11 weeks, compared with almost 18 weeks among women who did not receive WIC. Receiving WIC decreases the odds of breastfeeding by 32 percent. These findings suggest that participation in WIC is associated with lower rates and shorter durations of breastfeeding among poor women.

The data we use come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) linked mother-child records. The data enable us to test for the presence of gender bias by examining a number of maternal behaviors during an infant's first year of life. We consider outcomes in the realms of both health and social care. In terms of health, we look at (a) infant feeding decisions (whether the child was breastfed and duration of breastfeeding and timing of introduction of solid food); and (b) immunization records (measles, DPT, polio). In terms of social care, we consider: (c) fostering (whether child lives with other than biological mother in first year of life); and (d) how often mother reads to child; and (e) the restrictions and rules that parents place upon their chi ldren. Do women invest more heavily in terms of time, love and attention in boys than in girls?

We also control for a wide range of maternal and household outcomes that both may affect child outcomes and may affect infant-feeding and childcare decisions. Our controls include child's birth order, mother's age at birth, mother's race and ethnicity, mother's education and household poverty status. We restrict our sample to full-term infants with a normal birthweight. We use OLS and multiple logistic regression to test the effect of child's gender on maternal behavior, controlling for maternal characteristics.