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Resulting in 61 citations.
1. Abma, Joyce C.
Mott, Frank L.
Pregnancy Wantedness and Pregnancy Resolution: Profiling the Population from an Interventionist Perspective
Presented: Pittsburgh, PA, International Symposium on Public Policies Toward Unwanted Pregnancies, 1990
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Attitudes; Childbearing; Family Background and Culture; Fertility; First Birth; Household Composition; Mothers; Mothers, Behavior; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Racial Differences; Self-Esteem; Wantedness

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

Issues related to the well-being of mothers and children from pregnancies that the mother deems unwanted are of continuing concern to researchers and policy makers. Using data on a cohort of young mothers from the NLSY, this paper investigates the determinants of wantedness among women whose first pregnancies resulted in live births. A nontrivial proportion of women reported that they did not want their pregnancy at that time--34 percent. Multivariate analysis tested for the independent effects of demographic factors as well as the mother's family background characteristics, other attributes and behaviors at the time of the pregnancy, and maternal attitudes and aspirations, including fertility and education/work expectations. The analyses showed that family background characteristics were not independently related to pregnancy wantedness, but being black, young and never married retained their importance for a lower likelihood of pregnancy wantedness. It appears that motivation to limit or postpone childbearing exists for white women, but for black women, orientations toward work are less incompatible with childbearing. Regardless of motivations for childbearing, large numbers of white and especially black women continue to have unwanted pregnancies, a phenomena which deserves continued research and policy attention.
Bibliography Citation
Abma, Joyce C. and Frank L. Mott. "Pregnancy Wantedness and Pregnancy Resolution: Profiling the Population from an Interventionist Perspective." Presented: Pittsburgh, PA, International Symposium on Public Policies Toward Unwanted Pregnancies, 1990.
2. Akerlof, George A.
Rose, Andrew K.
Yellen, Janet L.
Waiting for Work
NBER Working Paper No. 3385 (June 1990). Also Working Paper, University of California - Berkeley, April 2002.
Also: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/waitwork.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Business Cycles; Mobility; Mobility, Job; Skilled Workers; Unemployment

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

This paper was prepared for Imperfect Economics: Essays in Honor of Joseph Stiglitz. It is adapted from our earlier unpublished paper with the same title, NBER Working Paper No. 3385, May 1990.

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.

Bibliography Citation
Akerlof, George A., Andrew K. Rose and Janet L. Yellen. "Waiting for Work." NBER Working Paper No. 3385 (June 1990). Also Working Paper, University of California - Berkeley, April 2002.
3. Aliaga, Oscar A.
Post-School Training of Young Adults
Presented: Columbus, OH, Academy of Human Resource Development International Conference (AHRD), February 22-26, 2006.
Also: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED254638.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Characteristics; High School Completion/Graduates; Schooling, Post-secondary; Training, Post-School

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

This descriptive study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97).

In this study the training of young adults after their high school experience is analyzed. Using data from a national longitudinal survey, the amount of training and the type of training they receive are reviewed. Different family background characteristics and school outcome information are also used in the analysis. [For complete proceedings, see ED491487.] (Abstract by the author.)

Bibliography Citation
Aliaga, Oscar A. "Post-School Training of Young Adults." Presented: Columbus, OH, Academy of Human Resource Development International Conference (AHRD), February 22-26, 2006.
4. Appelbaum, Eileen
Determinants of Early Labor Force Experience Among Young Women: The Role of Work-Related Attitudes
Mimeo, Philadelphia: Temple University, 1976.
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Labor Force Participation; Women; Work Attitudes

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

Included in Work Attitudes and Labor Market Experience: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys, by Paul J. Andrisani, et al., New York: Praeger Publications, 1978.
Bibliography Citation
Appelbaum, Eileen. "Determinants of Early Labor Force Experience Among Young Women: The Role of Work-Related Attitudes." Mimeo, Philadelphia: Temple University, 1976.
5. Argys, Laura M.
Peters, H. Elizabeth
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Smith, Judith R.
Contributions of Absent Fathers to Child Well-being: The Impact of Child Support Dollars and Father-Child Contact
Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Support; Children, Behavioral Development; Cognitive Development; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Involvement; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Welfare

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

In this paper we address three questions. First, other than its role in increasing income, does the receipt of child support have additional beneficial effects for children with absent fathers? Second, do the effects of child support differ when child support awards and payments are made cooperatively as opposed to non-cooperatively (eg., court ordered). Third, how do family policies affect the probability of child support awards and payments, and, in particular, the probability of cooperative awards and payments? In regressions that control for family income and other socio-economic family background characteristics, we find that child support receipt has additional positive effects on some measures of children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. The effect varies by the type of outcome, race, and reason for father's absence. Cooperative child support awards and payments appear to be more beneficial than child support that is court ordered. Turning to our policy variables, we see that child support guidelines promote awards that are cooperative, while increases in the paternity establishment rate increases court ordered (i.e. non-cooperative) awards. More generous state welfare benefits reduce court ordered awards, but do not reduce cooperative awards.
Bibliography Citation
Argys, Laura M., H. Elizabeth Peters, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Judith R. Smith. "Contributions of Absent Fathers to Child Well-being: The Impact of Child Support Dollars and Father-Child Contact." Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996.
6. Ashenfelter, Orley
Solon, Gary
Longitudinal Labor Market Data: Sources, Uses, and Limitations
Report, Washington DC: Assessment of Labor Force Measurements for Policy Formulation, National Council on Employment Policy, 1982
Cohort(s): NLS General
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Longitudinal Surveys; Research Methodology

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

This study investigates the major sources of longitudinal data and their relative merits. This type of data has proven especially useful for three types of research: measurement and analysis of changes in individuals' status over time; analysis of intertemporal relationships; and analysis that must control for unobserved variables. These data have enabled other areas of research to be developed--which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. In addition, longitudinal data have increased research findings of previously unstable analytical assumptions.
Bibliography Citation
Ashenfelter, Orley and Gary Solon. "Longitudinal Labor Market Data: Sources, Uses, and Limitations." Report, Washington DC: Assessment of Labor Force Measurements for Policy Formulation, National Council on Employment Policy, 1982.
7. Averett, Susan L.
Gennetian, Lisa Anoush
Peters, H. Elizabeth
Fathers as Providers of Child Care
Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Care; Child Development; Cognitive Development; Family Studies; Fathers, Involvement; Maternal Employment; Part-Time Work; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; Sex Roles

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

Fathers are an important, but understudied, source of child care. In this paper we address two questions. First, what are the patterns of father care, and second, what are the cognitive and socio-emotional developmental consequences for children with working mothers whose fathers provide care? We find that father care is often used in conjunction with other forms of child care. Fathers are most likely to provide care when the mothers are working a non-day shift or are working part-time. The consequences of father care for a child's cognitive development differ by the age of the child. Father care during the first year of a child's life has a positive impact on developmental outcomes relative to other types of child care. In contrast, children in nonparental modes of child care have better cognitive outcomes in the second and third years. Nonparental care during the second or third year provides opportunities for cognitive stimulation and social interaction with peers and no nparental adults that may be less available to children who are cared for by their fathers.
Bibliography Citation
Averett, Susan L., Lisa Anoush Gennetian and H. Elizabeth Peters. "Fathers as Providers of Child Care." Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996.
8. Ballen, John
Freeman, Richard B.
Transitions Between Employment and Nonemployment
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
Also: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6283.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Employment; High School Dropouts; Inner-City; Job Turnover; Poverty; Racial Differences; Teenagers; Unemployment, Youth

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

Data from both the NLS and NBER-Mathematica Survey of Inner City Black Youths are used to analyze patterns of movement to and from employment of out-of-school youths. The major finding is that the increase in employment with age for blacks, particularly high school dropouts, is quite small early in the work life. The authors trace the problem to a relatively low transition from nonemployment to employment rather than a high transition from employment to nonemployment. It is found that the transition probability from nonemployment to employment is adversely affected for inner city black youths by the incidence of nonemployment not only because many have shorter spells of employment and longer spells of nonemployment, but also due to the large number of inner city youth who are never employed. Also, it appears that those youths have higher employment-nonemployment transitions and do not experience the same positive duration dependence in that transition as do other youths. All told, the evidence suggests that for inner city black youths, high nonemployment is likely to extract a significant cost in the future because the dynamics of their transition to work is notably worse than those for other groups of youths.
Bibliography Citation
Ballen, John and Richard B. Freeman. "Transitions Between Employment and Nonemployment." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
9. Bernal, Raquel
Essays on Household Economics
Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 2003
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Child Care; Maternal Employment; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

In the first essay, I develop and estimate a dynamic model of employment and child care decisions of women after birth in order to evaluate the effects of mothers' decisions on children's cognitive ability. I use data from the NLSY to estimate the model. A common limitation of previous studies that have used data from the NLSY to assess the impact of maternal employment on children's outcomes is that they have failed to fully control for potential biases that may arise as a result of the fact that women that work/use child care are may be systematically different from women that do not work/do not use child care, and the fact that child's cognitive ability may influence mother's decisions. In order to deal with these sample selection issues I develop a model of work and child care choices of women after birth and estimate it jointly with the child's cognitive ability production function. The results suggest that the effects of maternal employment and child care use on children's cognitive ability are rather sizeable. In fact, having a full-time working mother who uses child care during the first 5 years after birth is associated with a 10.4% reduction in ability test scores. The second essay uses a general equilibrium model of marriage and divorce to assess how public policies on maternity and paternity leave and leave benefits affect intra-household decision making, family structure, intergenerational mobility and the distribution of income. This research is motivated by the fact that the U.S. has a parental leave policy that is not as extensive as in other industrialized countries. We calibrated our model to replicate some characteristics relevant to the interaction between the marriage and labor market. We stark with a benchmark economy in which only women are allowed to take time off with their children. We then analyze how this economy is affected by three different parental leave policies: availability of paternity leave, paid maternity leave benefits and paid paternity and maternity leave benefits.
Bibliography Citation
Bernal, Raquel. Essays on Household Economics. Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 2003.
10. Bianchi, Emily C.
Worse Off But Happier? The Affective Advantages of Entering the Workforce During an Economic Downturn
Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Degree; College Enrollment; Income; Job Satisfaction; Unemployment Rate; Wages

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

Recently economists have shown that people who graduate during recessions earn less money (e.g., Kahn, 2010) and hold less prestigious jobs (Oyer, 2006) even decades after entering the workforce. This dissertation argues that despite these suboptimal outcomes, these graduates are likely to be happier with their jobs, even long after these economic conditions have changed. Four studies found that people who entered the workforce when the economy was sputtering and jobs were difficult to secure were more satisfied with their jobs than their peers who entered during better economic times, even decades after these early workforce experiences.

Study 1 utilized a large cross-sectional national survey of working adults in the United States and found that college graduates who first looked for work during difficult economic times were more satisfied with their jobs well into their careers.

Study 2 found that people who graduated from both college and graduate school during times of higher unemployment were happier with their jobs both early in their careers and years later, even when they earned less money.

Study 3 replicated this effect in a different country, the United Kingdom, and among a more diverse educational population. Study 3 found that economic conditions at workforce entry predicted life satisfaction as well.

Finally, Study 4 explored potential mediators of this effect and suggested that people who entered the workforce during economic downturns were less likely to entertain upward counterfactual thoughts about how they might have done better. This tendency fully mediated the relationship between workforce economic conditions and job satisfaction. While past research on job satisfaction has focused on dispositional and situational antecedents, these findings suggest that strong experiential factors also may have an enduring effect on how satisfied people are with their jobs.

Bibliography Citation
Bianchi, Emily C. Worse Off But Happier? The Affective Advantages of Entering the Workforce During an Economic Downturn. Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2012.
11. Borker, Susan
Makarushka, Julia Loughlin
Marital Status, Early Childbearing and Income Achievement of Mature Women
Mimeo, Syracuse University, 1977
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior; Childbearing; Discrimination, Sex; Earnings; Educational Attainment; Marriage; Occupational Status; Teenagers; Wives

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

This analysis resulted in three major findings. First, the characteristics of the women in the labor force are changing. Mature women employed in 1972 have more education and higher occupational status than those employed in 1967. Women are investing in educational programs and career development at a much later age than is "normal." Second, among women there are differences in the extent to which they are obtaining incomes commensurate with their educations and occupations. While factors such as discrimination affect all women, we find it most difficult to predict the incomes of one group, married white women. This suggests that their own behavior is effective. Third, women who become mothers before their eighteenth birthday earn less than other women in their middle years. This is primarily because of the effect of adolescent child-bearing on high school completion. For these women, the economic effects of the timing of childbirth are negative and persistent.
Bibliography Citation
Borker, Susan and Julia Loughlin Makarushka. "Marital Status, Early Childbearing and Income Achievement of Mature Women." Mimeo, Syracuse University, 1977.
12. Brien, Michael J.
Willis, Robert J.
Estimating the Child Support Potential of Nonresident Fathers and the Partners of Welfare Mothers
Working Paper, University of Virginia and University of Michigan, August 1997
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Influence; Poverty; Welfare

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

This paper attempts to measure the extent of the potential resources that could be provided by the fathers of children born to women who either subsequently participate in welfare programs or do not reside with the father of their child. We construct a profile of the potential support available to a child over the first 18 years of the child's life. To circumvent problems associated with the lack of data on absent partners, we use a statistical matching procedure that allows us to link mothers and fathers. The analysis uses data from the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The evidence suggests that these men are able to provide a substantial level of support. This support could help alleviate the high level of poverty among these families and defer public expenditures on their behalf.
Bibliography Citation
Brien, Michael J. and Robert J. Willis. "Estimating the Child Support Potential of Nonresident Fathers and the Partners of Welfare Mothers." Working Paper, University of Virginia and University of Michigan, August 1997.
13. Brown, Wyatt
Delinquency: A Trajectory Analysis of African-American Males
M.S. Thesis, University of Louisville, 2011
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Black Studies; Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations

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

The initial goals of this study include locating and identifying the taxonomic groups mentioned in Moffitt's (1993) (i.e. life-course persistent offenders, adolescent-limited offenders) using data from the National Longitudinal Survey 1997 (NLSY97). Further, this study compares the social demographics with the predictions of Moffitt (1993,1994) as her theory describes race, particularity those of African-American offenders. This study also examines the role of parental and peer relationships and their effect on the offender disparity among the typologies defined by Moffitt (1993). This study explores one hypothesis: there is a relationship between social bonds, particularly peer association and admittance into Moffitt's (1993) trajectory groups. The results of this study find that of the variables tested, peer relationships are particularly influential in predicting criminality. These findings support prior research on delinquent peer group association and criminality (Bjerregard & Lizotte, 1995; Dishion, Patterson, & Griesler, 1994; Patterson, 1993; Patterson, Dishion & Yoerger, 2000; Lacourse et aI., 2003).
Bibliography Citation
Brown, Wyatt. Delinquency: A Trajectory Analysis of African-American Males. M.S. Thesis, University of Louisville, 2011.
14. Cameron, Stephen V.
Heckman, James J.
Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Blacks, Whites and Hispanics
Working Paper, University of Chicago, April 1992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Black Studies; College Enrollment; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Ethnic Studies; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Hispanics; Parental Influences; Tuition

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

[First draft: September 1991]
This paper examines the role of family background, family income, labor market opportunities and college tuition in accounting for differences in educational attainment by age among black, white and Hispanic males. This study differs from the previous literature in two important ways. (1) Previous influential work by Hauser (1991), Kane (1990) and others is based on Current Population Survey (CPS) data. These data suffer from major limitations of special importance to analyses of the role of family background on educational choices. The CPS data report parental family characteristics of persons only if they are living in the parental home, or, for those attending college, for those living in group quarters. Parental background and income information is not available for nonstudents not living with parents or for students not living in group quarters. Virtually all of the evidence on the importance of family background and family income on schooling choices is derived from samples of "dependents" i.e. persons living in the parental home or students in college living in group quarters. Using the NLSY (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) data we demonstrate that as a consequence of this data generation process previous studies tend to underestimate the contribution of family income and financial resources to schooling decisions. (2) The NLSY data contain richer background information than does the CPS data. We demonstrate the value of access to such information in accounting for schooling decisions. Exploiting the longitudinal structure of the NLSY data, we model educational choices as decisions made sequentially at each age. Unlike previous cross-sectional studies that focus attention on explaining years of schooling completed, we consider the determinants of educational choices at each age.
Bibliography Citation
Cameron, Stephen V. and James J. Heckman. "Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Blacks, Whites and Hispanics." Working Paper, University of Chicago, April 1992.
15. Casady (a.K.A. Nievar), M. Angela
Luster, Thomas
Correlates of Academic Achievement Among African-American Children
Presented: East Lansing, MI, Paolucci Symposium, IV Annual, April 2002
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): CESD (Depression Scale); Depression (see also CESD); Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Parenthood; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Poverty; Racial Studies; Welfare

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

This study focused on hypotheses about the contributions of socioeconomic disadvantage, maternal depression, and parenting to the academic achievement of African American children. Most research on the effects of the environment on African American children has focused on those living in densely populated inner cities. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, we obtained a sample of 853 children that is more closely representative of the diversity that exists among African American families.

We adapted McLoyd's (1990) model of economic hardship and socioemotional development of African American children in order to examine correlates of academic achievement in African American families. McLoyd's model, based on a review of previous literature, suggested that economic hardship increased parental psychological distress and which in turn resulted in less supportive parental behavior. Our data analyses examined correlates of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test, two standardized measures of children's language ability and academic achievement, for African American children between the ages of 4 and 9. Because chronic poverty tends to have different effects than transitory poverty (Duncan et al., 1984), we combined three consecutive years of poverty status as a measurement of economic hardship. The Center for Epidemiological Studies--Depression, a self-report measure of maternal depression, and a short form of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, an observation and survey of the home environment, measured parental psychological distress and parenting practices. A series of multiple regression analyses indicated that African American children's academic success is related to lower maternal depression, fewer years in poverty, and a positive home environment.

Bibliography Citation
Casady (a.K.A. Nievar), M. Angela and Thomas Luster. "Correlates of Academic Achievement Among African-American Children." Presented: East Lansing, MI, Paolucci Symposium, IV Annual, April 2002.
16. Chirikos, Thomas N.
Nestel, Gilbert
Job Characteristics and Health Status Effects on Retirement Behavior
Workign Paper, Department of Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, 1986
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Labor Force Participation; Markov chain / Markov model; Occupations; Retirement/Retirement Planning

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

This report investigates whether job characteristics are significant determinants of the labor force attachment of older workers and whether these characteristics have an even more pronounced effect on work activity when they interact with poor health. A continuous time-Markov model of interrelated work and functional status profiles is used as the general framework for the research. The model includes several different measures of job characteristics, an intertemporal index of physical and mental capacities, and control variables characterizing the financial incentives and sociodemographic status of these workers. The parameters of the model are estimated with panel data covering the 17-year period (1966-1983) of the Older Men's cohort. The statistical findings present a mixed picture of the importance of occupational factors on labor market attachment. Some effects of occupation or occupation-related factors such as job conditions, on the functional histories of older men are detected. These effects, in turn, generally translate into the reduced likelihood of continuing attachments to market work; consequently, they are of some interest to policy-makers dealing with the rapid historical decline in the labor force participation rates of men over 45 years of age. On the other hand, the net influence of job factors is generally very small relative to other determinants of retirement, and their measured effects are not always consistent. Thus, they do not appear to offer policy-makers much leverage in dealing with declining trends in male participation rates.
Bibliography Citation
Chirikos, Thomas N. and Gilbert Nestel. "Job Characteristics and Health Status Effects on Retirement Behavior." Workign Paper, Department of Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, 1986.
17. Coleman, Priscilla K.
Reardon, David C.
Cougle, Jesse R.
Child Developmental Outcomes Associated with Maternal History of Abortion Using the NLSY Data
Presented: Berlin, Germany, 1st World Congress on Women's Mental Health, March 2001
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Abortion; Birth Outcomes; Child Care; Fertility; Health, Mental/Psychological; Parenting Skills/Styles

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

For the abstract, see, COLEMAN, P.K.; REARDON, D.C.; COUGLE, J.R. "The Quality of the Caregiving Environment and Child Developmental Outcomes Associated with Maternal History of Abortion Using NLSY Data".
Bibliography Citation
Coleman, Priscilla K., David C. Reardon and Jesse R. Cougle. "Child Developmental Outcomes Associated with Maternal History of Abortion Using the NLSY Data." Presented: Berlin, Germany, 1st World Congress on Women's Mental Health, March 2001.
18. Couch, Kenneth A.
Lillard, Dean R.
Parents Marital History and Intergenerational Transmission of Earnings and Income
Research Paper No RP93-16 [NLS]. New York, NY: Cornell University, Department of Consumer Economics and Housing, 1993
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Earnings; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Marital Disruption

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

Bibliography Citation
Couch, Kenneth A. and Dean R. Lillard. Parents Marital History and Intergenerational Transmission of Earnings and Income. Research Paper No RP93-16 [NLS]. New York, NY: Cornell University, Department of Consumer Economics and Housing, 1993.
19. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles, December 1993
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Education; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Welfare

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

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles, December 1993.
20. Daula, Thomas
Fagan, Thomas
Smith, D. Alton
Supply of Enlisted Personnel to the Armed Force
Presented: Ithica NY, Econometric Society Meetings, June 1982
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior; Earnings; Job Patterns; Military Enlistment; Unemployment

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

Using the NLSY, the authors estimate a structural model of enlistment behavior, relating the probability of enlistment for male high school graduates to military earnings relative to potential civilian earnings, unemployment conditions, and variables representing tastes for military job. Potential civilian earnings are derived from an earnings function estimated with the civilian subsample. This function is estimated along with the choice equation to account for possible sample selection bias. In contrast to previous enlistment studies, which use aggregate time series or cross-sectional data, substantially higher relative pay elasticities were found and attributed to the errors in variables problem inherent in using aggregate data to characterize individual behavior. This finding has important implications for the future manpower costs of the armed forces, especially given the declining proportion of 17 to 21 year olds in the population and the armed forces' increasing demands for more intelligent youths to work with sophisticated weapons systems.
Bibliography Citation
Daula, Thomas, Thomas Fagan and D. Alton Smith. "Supply of Enlisted Personnel to the Armed Force." Presented: Ithica NY, Econometric Society Meetings, June 1982.
21. Freeman, Richard B.
Who Escapes? Relation of Church Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Poverty Tracts
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference in Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavioral Problems; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Family Influences; Inner-City; Poverty; Racial Differences; Religious Influences; Unemployment; Unemployment, Youth

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

This paper examines factors which determine "escapes" from the socioeconomic spiral of a ghetto with data from the 1979-80 National Bureau of Economic Research-Mathematica surveys of inner-city black youth (NBER) and from the 1979-81 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men. The NBER Survey had the advantage of gathering information on youths' allocation of time in a day and on socially deviant behavior (crime, drug use) in addition to standard school and work questions. The NLS data permit comparison of young blacks and whites not possible with the NBER Survey. The primary finding is that even in relatively homogeneous inner city poverty areas there is enough diversity in the measured backgrounds of youths for certain aspects of youths' background to provide remarkably good predictions about 'who escapes.' There is also some indication that at least part of the background- achievement relation among young black men represents a 'true' causal link rather than a sorting of yo uths by background and achievement. The principal variable on which the paper focuses, church-going, is associated with substantial differences in the behavior of youths, and thus in their chances to "escape" from inner city poverty. It affects allocation of time, school-going, work activity, and the frequency of socially deviant activity. In addition to church-going, the background factors that most influenced 'who escapes' are whether other members of the family work and whether the family is on welfare. Youth's allocation of time and other activities are significantly influenced by market opportunities (or perceptions thereof), with those who believe it would be easy to find a job if they had to find one more likely to engage in socially productive activities than others, and youths who see many opportunities to make illegal money less likely to engage in socially productive activities than other youths.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "Who Escapes? Relation of Church Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Poverty Tracts." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference in Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
22. Gordon, Rachel A.
Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study
Presented: Washington, DC, Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Research Data Files, October 1999.
Also: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cnstat/workshop_confidentiality.html#P42_4124
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Child Care; Children, Well-Being; Geocoded Data; Neighborhood Effects; Residence

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

Paper presented at the "Improving Access to and Confidentiality of Research Data". http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9958&page=59

The paper provides three examples of the use of confidential geocodes attached to the Children of the NLSY79: (1) collaborative work on the general association between neighborhood characteristics and young children's well-being, and how such associations may be mediated by family processes, (2) a study of the ways in which such associations may depend on the region of the United States in which the family lives, and (3) a study considering the associations between local child care availability and families' arrangements for maternal employment and child care..Throughout, I note several reasons why these analyses were uniquely possible with the geocoded Children of the NLSY79. In short, in contrast to what had typically been small, localized studies of child development, the Children of the NLSY79 was the first attempt to provide a large, national sample of young children with detailed psychological assessments. With the family's physical location of residence geocoded, these data provided a unique opportunity to have sufficient sample sizes and sufficient geographic variation to examine how neighborhood context mattered for child development within different sub-groups of conceptual interest, including children of different gender and ethnicity and families living in different regions of the county and in communities of varying urbanicity. Our collaborative research revealed that looking within these sub-groups indeed mattered. Namely, we found that associations differed by ethnicity and gender in some cases, that associations between neighborhood characteristics and children's cognitive and behavioral well-being were stronger in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West regions of the United States, and that there were both co nsistencies and differences by urbanicity in the associations between the availability of child care centers and families' use of center-based child care.

Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. "Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study." Presented: Washington, DC, Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Research Data Files, October 1999.
23. Gregory, Paul R.
Thomas, R. William
A Model of Educational Choice Responses to Economic, Attitudinal, and Family Responsibility Factors
Working Paper #3. Houston, TX: Fertility, Education, and Labor Force Project, University of Houston, 1975
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Fertility; Parental Influences; Racial Differences

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

This paper examines the impact of socioeconomic background, attitudes, and family responsibilities on the educational choices of women. Women who undertake family responsibilities early in life tend to sacrifice education and acquisition of human capital. Striking differences occur when comparing black and white educational choice models: (1) rural blacks acquire one year less education than rural whites; (2) different black-white attitudes exist toward children: (3) the black model fails to be affected by the father's occupation; (4) black females' education is retarded more by early births and less by early marriage than is white female education; and (5) parent's education has similar effects on both black and white educational choice.
Bibliography Citation
Gregory, Paul R. and R. William Thomas. "A Model of Educational Choice Responses to Economic, Attitudinal, and Family Responsibility Factors." Working Paper #3. Houston, TX: Fertility, Education, and Labor Force Project, University of Houston, 1975.
24. Gritz, R. Mark
The Impact of Training on the Frequency and Duration of Employment
Working Paper, University of Washington, 1990
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Employment; Employment, Youth; Gender Differences; Job Training; Labor Force Participation; Private Sector; Training; Work Histories

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

The purpose of this study is to determine whether training will increase the amount of time an individual spends in employment over an extended period. Training can influence this quantity through an effect on either the frequency or the duration of employment spells. A natural framework for modeling the influence of training on both the number and length of employment episodes is provided by continuous time duration models. Using data from the NLSY, the estimation results obtained indicate that participation in a private training program improves the employment prospects of women by increasing both the frequency and duration of employment spells. The implications are less clear for men in that participation in private programs increases the length of both employment and nonemployment episodes. In the case of government programs, participation in training leads to a decline in the amount of time spent employed by both women and men; however, this effect is based upon a small number of observations.
Bibliography Citation
Gritz, R. Mark. "The Impact of Training on the Frequency and Duration of Employment." Working Paper, University of Washington, 1990.
25. Hamil-Luker, Jenifer
Differential Participation In and Returns to Education Over the Life Course
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Education, Adult; Educational Attainment; GED/General Educational Diploma/General Equivalency Degree/General Educational Development; High School Completion/Graduates; Life Course; Training, Occupational; Training, Off-the-Job; Training, On-the-Job; Wage Growth; Welfare

This dissertation assesses trends in adult education and maps learning across the life course for three cohorts from the National Longitudinal Surveys born between 1923 and 1965. Highlighting the cumulative age-, cohort-, and period-related effects of learning over time, I study how different forms of adult education influence trajectories of wage growth, public assistance receipt, and physical health among women and the undereducated. Analysis chapters examine three main questions. First, how does the skewed distribution of who participates in adult education contribute to social inequality within cohorts? Second, how does adult education alter life course patterns initiated by earlier experiences? Finally, how does the trajectory-altering (or concretizing) effect of education vary across birth cohorts? In the first analysis chapter, I examine differential participation in and wage returns to occupational training among NLS Young Women and NLSY79 Women as they aged from their early twenties and thirties into their early thirties and forties. Among NLS Women, only those who engaged in on-the-job training experienced real wage growth between 1977 and 1987. Participation in on-the-job training, but not off-the-job training, reduced the earnings gap by educational background. In contrast, continuing investments in training, whether on or off the job, increased earnings inequality within education levels between 1988 and 1998 for the more recent cohort.

In the second analysis chapter, I map trajectories of public assistance receipt between 1984 and 1998 among a sample of high school dropouts from the NLSY79. I find that dropouts who complete a GED decrease their risk of welfare receipt across young and middle adulthood. Among welfare recipients, obtaining a GED within four years of dropping out of high school increases the probability of a permanent exit from public assistance.

In the final analysis chapter, I examine how the relationship between education and health changes over time by following two cohorts of women between 1967 and 1995. Longitudinal analyses show that health advantages of high educational attainment and disadvantages of low educational attainment diverge with age. Women in both cohorts who continue formal learning in middle and older ages reduce their chances of declining health over the decades.

Bibliography Citation
Hamil-Luker, Jenifer. Differential Participation In and Returns to Education Over the Life Course. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003.
26. Harris, David R.
Sim, Jeremiah Joseph
Who Is Mixed Race? Patterns and Determinants of Adolescent Racial Identity
CCPR Working Paper, California Center for Population Research - UCLA, Draft, January 28, 2000.
Also: http://www.ccpr.ucla.edu/harrispaper.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: California Center for Population Research (CCPR)
Keyword(s): Delinquency/Gang Activity; Education; Health Care; Racial Differences; Substance Use

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

The mixed-race population has long been the subject of myriad academic theories and folk wisdoms, none of which are based on analyses of nationally-representative samples. Instead, beliefs about this population have persisted with little more to support them than anecdotes and conclusions drawn from biased samples. In this paper we embark on a research project designed to address this oversight by assessing mental health, educational, substance abuse, delinquency, and social network outcomes for nationally-representative samples of mixed-race adolescents. However, before assessing outcomes for the mixed-race population we must first address a simple question--Who is mixed race? As this paper shows, identifying the mixed-race population is not straightforward. We show that there is not a single mixed-race population. Instead, there are overlapping mixed-race populations whose membership depends on how and where identity is measured. Moreover, we argue that there is no a priori reason for privileging one definition of mixed race over all others.
Bibliography Citation
Harris, David R. and Jeremiah Joseph Sim. "Who Is Mixed Race? Patterns and Determinants of Adolescent Racial Identity." CCPR Working Paper, California Center for Population Research - UCLA, Draft, January 28, 2000.
27. Holzer, Harry J.
Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration and Job Search
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August1983
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Inner-City; Racial Differences; Self-Reporting; Unemployment, Youth; Wages; Wages, Reservation

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

This study analyzes lengthy durations of nonemployment spells that are observed for young black males relative to those of young white males, and focuses particularly on reservation wages as determinants of duration. Self- reported reservation wages are compared for blacks and whites before and after controlling for various indicators of labor demand such as received wages, weeks worked, and the personal characteristics which determine them. The effects of these reservation wages on duration of nonemployment spells and on subsequent wages are also analyzed. Finally, some evidence on the determinants of reported reservation wages for blacks and whites is presented as well. The data used in the analysis are taken from the NLSY and the National Bureau of Economic Research Survey of Inner-City Black Youth. Reported reservation wages of young blacks for the job which they are seeking, as well as the jobs themselves, are fairly comparable to those of young whites. But after controlling for labor market characteristics of individuals such as received wages and weeks worked, the reservation wages of blacks appear to be high. The jobs which are sought also appear to be more unrealistic for blacks than for whites relative to those which are ultimately obtained. Reservation wages for specific, low-wage jobs are generally lower for blacks than for whites, and they appear to be more comparable only after controlling for weeks worked. An overall picture emerges in which young blacks seek and aspire to jobs and wages which are comparable to those of young whites, but less realistic for the blacks. Whites with higher reservation wages are more likely to actually obtain higher wages while their black counterparts are relatively more likely to gain longer spells of nonemployment.
Bibliography Citation
Holzer, Harry J. "Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration and Job Search." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August1983.
28. Huang, Fali
Essays on Social Capital and Human Capital
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2003
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Pre-natal Care/Exposure

Estimation of child development production functions. In the essay production functions of child cognitive and social development are estimated using the tree-structured regression. A sample of eight- and nine-year old children from NLSY(79) child data is used, containing over two hundred home and school inputs starting from mother's prenatal tare period. The estimation is conducted under various specifications used in the literature, including value-added and within-child difference methods. The estimation results show that in most cases earlier scores are not sufficient statistics for historical inputs. Child's innate abilities have large effects on child development. The effects of race and maternal employment are also discussed.
Bibliography Citation
Huang, Fali. Essays on Social Capital and Human Capital. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2003.
29. Jackson, Peter
Montgomery, Edward
Layoff, Discharge and Youth Unemployment
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Inner-City; Job Tenure; Job Turnover; Layoffs; Mobility, Job; Occupational Status; Quits; Racial Differences; Unemployment

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

Three different data sets (NLSY, CPS, and the NBER Survey) were used in this analysis of the unemployment experience of black youths. Blacks are found to be less likely than whites to quit or be temporarily laid off and more likely to be discharged or permanently laid off. The high rate of job loss for blacks appears to be the result of low tenure or seniority and lack of employment in sectors and occupations which seem to have lower turnover, layoff, and discharge rates. This difference in the incidence of job loss was found to be a major factor in explaining the difference between whites' and blacks' unemployment rates.
Bibliography Citation
Jackson, Peter and Edward Montgomery. "Layoff, Discharge and Youth Unemployment." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
30. Keith, Kristen K.
McWilliams, Abagail
Mobility, Job Search, and Wage Growth: Are There Gender Differences?
Preliminary Draft, Arizona State University West, June 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavioral Differences; Childhood Education, Early; Discrimination, Sex; Gender Differences; Job Search; Job Skills; Mobility; Wage Differentials; Wage Gap; Wage Growth

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

It is well established that some gender differences exist in employment in the U.S. The most widely researched and discussed is the difference in wages. Men, on average, earn more than women. Additionally, there is evidence that the gap widens over the work life of men and women. There is still a great deal of controversy over the causes of this wage gap. While the evidence on wage differences in both consistent and persistent, we still do not know why this gender difference exists. Explanations of the gender gap usually fall into two broad categories: sexual discrimination and gender differences in behavior. In this paper we add to the explanation of the gender wage gap by extending the research on gender differences in behavior. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to examine the mobility patterns of young men and women, the effect of different types of mobility on wage growth, the job search propensities of young men and women, the effect of job search on wage growth, and the wage growth of young men and women.
Bibliography Citation
Keith, Kristen K. and Abagail McWilliams. "Mobility, Job Search, and Wage Growth: Are There Gender Differences?" Preliminary Draft, Arizona State University West, June 1994.
31. Kumazawa, Risa
Essays on Behavioral Responses to Welfare Generosity
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Marital Disruption; Migration; State Welfare; Welfare; Women; Women's Studies

This research investigates the effects of women's behavioral responses to welfare generosity in the United States during the years prior to the welfare reform. While policy makers argued that welfare-induced migration and marital breakups were likely to promote subsequent dependence on welfare in more generous states, the literature continued to show insignificant behavioral responses to differential state benefit levels. Despite such results, the welfare reform of 1996 was designed to reduce the disincentive effects of the welfare system. Chapter 1 introduces an alternative measure of welfare generosity that sheds light on the insignificant results of previous literature. The "replacement ratio" measures how much of each state's welfare benefit levels can be replaced by typical wages of a homogenous group of workers. This measure is an improvement over the conventional measure that only indexes benefits to the Consumer Price Index as there are significant cost-of-living differences across states and over time. In subsequent chapters, the replacement ratio is used as an alternative measure of welfare generosity to show greater behavioral responses due to its greater interstate and inter-temporal dispersion. Chapter 2 investigates whether women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) who have a higher propensity to migrate to a more generous state are at-risk of becoming welfare dependent over the long term. Unlike the previous studies that did not link the two behavioral responses, this paper finds that there is a direct link between welfare migration propensities and welfare duration, if a sample of welfare eligible women are considered. The results support the action of policy makers to introduced time limits, despite a lack of strong empirical evidence that linked welfare dependence to welfare migration propensities. Chapter 3 studies how heterogeneity of marital status affects welfare participation. While years since divorce does not matter, the predicted hazard rates of first and second marriages are correlated with the race/ethnicity variables and affect welfare participation by reducing the significance of these observable differences across women.
Bibliography Citation
Kumazawa, Risa. Essays on Behavioral Responses to Welfare Generosity. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 2002.
32. Laughlin, Teresa Laine Clarke
Solberg, Eric J.
The Gender Pay Gap, Fringe Benefits, and Occupational Crowding
Working Paper, California State University - Fullerton, April 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Benefits, Fringe; Discrimination, Employer; Wage Gap; Wage Rates

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

Canonical correlation analysis is used to construct an index of total compensation for work that includes measures of the wage rate and fringe benefits using the 1991 NLSY. Earnings equations are estimated for seven occupations using both the logarithm of the wage rate and the index of total compensation. The results indicate that the pay gap is much smaller when the index of total compensation is used. An estimated gender coefficient is statistically significant for the traditional earnings equation in all occupations except for the most female dominated occupation. However, when the index is used as the dependent variable, the gender coefficient is statistically significant in only one occupation which contains relatively heterogeneous jobs. Regressions by occupation for male and females are used to test the equality of structures between models separated by gender, and the gap is decomposed into a part due to differences in traits and a residual part The results are consistent with a hypothesis that occupational assignment is the primary determinant of the pay gap, and this is consistent with the "crowding" explanation of the gender gap. The preponderance of evidence is against the employer "taste" discrimination explanation of the pay gap.
Bibliography Citation
Laughlin, Teresa Laine Clarke and Eric J. Solberg. "The Gender Pay Gap, Fringe Benefits, and Occupational Crowding." Working Paper, California State University - Fullerton, April 1994.
33. Lee, Ji-Youn
A Multilevel Analysis of Young Adult Migration, 1980-1998
Ph.D. Dissertation, Utah State University, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Earnings, Husbands; Earnings, Wives; Education; Educational Status; Family Resources; Migration

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the propensity to migrate the destination choices of young adults, and the importance of individual, household, and community characteristics in these migration choices. Using cohort data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth79 from 1980 to 1998, this study specifies the set of individual-, household-, and community-level of determinants on migration and then incorporates these variables in multivariate analyses to test their direct and relative effects on the migratory behavior of young adult groups. A Cox proportional hazard analysis suggests that among three levels of factors, individual characteristics are the most important determinants of migration, but the migratory behavior is more fully explained by multilevel variables rather than a single-level variable. This research had three foci within the primary objective. This research these issues using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 (NLSY79) from 1980 to 1998. This study employs two multivariate analyses: First, logisitic regression model techniques are used to determine the effects of individual characteristics (age, sex, race and ethnicity, marital status, education, employment status, income, and status inconsistency), household characteristics (family size, young children, total net family income, and power relations between husbands and wives), and community characteristics (population size, the percent of the white population, the percent of 4-years college-educated, per capita personal income, and unemployment rate) on the probability and the direction of migration. Second, a Cox proportional hazard model helps to correct for the censoring problems in the longitudinal data and to explore the simultaneous effects on the hazard of migration by variables specified at the individual, family, and community levels.
Bibliography Citation
Lee, Ji-Youn. A Multilevel Analysis of Young Adult Migration, 1980-1998. Ph.D. Dissertation, Utah State University, 2002.
34. Lerman, Robert I.
Do Welfare Programs Affect Schooling and Work Patterns of Young Black Men and Women?
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Family Income; Family Influences; Inner-City; Parents, Single; Poverty; Racial Differences; Transfers, Financial; Transfers, Public; Welfare

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

This paper discusses the role of income transfer programs in searching for explanations of the poor labor market outcomes for black and low income youth. For young black men, the significant predicted welfare effects indicated that much of the negative outcomes are actually due to the welfare experience. However, the larger and more systematically significant effects of actual as opposed to predicted welfare suggests that some negative youth outcomes are attributable to unmeasured attitudes and other characteristics associated both with welfare participation and low employment related capacities of the youths' family. Young black women interact with welfare programs in a much larger and more direct way than do young black men. Effects on young men are found to take place mainly as a result of benefits received by parents or other relatives. In contrast, young women seem to be affected both indirectly as a result of a parent's or relative's benefit and directly when they become an unmarried mother and head of their own welfare family at the time of normal entry into the labor market. The empirical results show clear negative effects from welfare programs on the employment and earnings of young black women. Unlike the case of young men, it is possible to identify mechanisms through which welfare programs influence young women. The evidence goes beyond welfare's influence on young women to become unmarried mothers. Even among unmarried mothers, the receipt of welfare benefits tends to reduce employment and earnings. A measure of the young women's employability, predicted welfare, exerted a substantial negative impact on the labor market performance of unmarried mothers. Racial differentials in the share of young living with a family on welfare appear quite large. With 20-30 percent of black youth and only 5 percent of white youth interacting with the welfare system, any welfare effects on youth employment could account for a significant part of the overall and surprisingly high racial differentials in employment levels.
Bibliography Citation
Lerman, Robert I. "Do Welfare Programs Affect Schooling and Work Patterns of Young Black Men and Women?" Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
35. Lerman, Robert I.
Sorensen, Elaine
Father Involvement with Their Nonmarital Children: Patterns, Determinants and Effects on Their Earnings
Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Child Support; Coresidence; Earnings; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Involvement; Fertility; Welfare

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

Ensuring that nonresident fathers are financially responsible for their children vial a major theme of the recent welfare reform legislation enacted into law this summer. One segment of that population--fathers who had their children outside of marriage--has been particularly difficult to incorporate into the formal child support enforcement system. Many practitioners who work with unwed fathers argue that this population can be reached, however, by connecting them to their children. The purpose of this research project is to ascertain whether we can identify a causal link between father involvement with their nonmarital children and increased earnings in a national survey of young men. This paper describes our preliminary findings. We define father involvement somewhat differently than previous research, by including co-residence as well as visitation in our measure of father involvement. We find that most fathers of nonmarital children in their late twenties and early thirties are highly involved with at least one of their nonmarital children. We also find that cohabiting relationships and frequent visitation are often unstable, sometimes changing toward lower and higher degrees of involvement. Our preliminary findings with regard to earnings and father involvement suggest that visitation by itself, is unlikely to generate the earnings gains that living with the child seems to accomplish.
Bibliography Citation
Lerman, Robert I. and Elaine Sorensen. "Father Involvement with Their Nonmarital Children: Patterns, Determinants and Effects on Their Earnings." Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996.
36. Loury, Linda Datcher
Loury, Glenn C.
Effects of Attitudes and Aspirations on the Labor Supply of Young Black Men
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Employment, Youth; Inner-City; Job Aspirations; Occupational Aspirations; Racial Differences; Work Attitudes

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

This study uses not only the Young Men's cohort of the NLS, but also a sample from the 1979 NBER survey of inner city black youth. The NLS sample of black men 17-19 differs considerably from the NBER 20-24 year olds because the latter is restricted to individuals living in low-income, inner city areas of three large northern or midwestern SMSAs whereas the former is a nationally representative sample of all individuals of the relevant age group living in any SMSA. Furthermore, labor supply for the NLS group was measured as of 1972 compared to 1979 for the NBER sample. Nonetheless, the magnitude of the aspiration effects are similar. The results obtained indicate that attitudes and occupational aspirations have a large, significant effect on the hours worked by young men. These effects seem to be stronger for black men than for white men. Evidence from the NLS further suggests that occupational aspirations are not merely a reflection of past labor market contact but may instead be causal factors altering labor supply.
Bibliography Citation
Loury, Linda Datcher and Glenn C. Loury. "Effects of Attitudes and Aspirations on the Labor Supply of Young Black Men." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference on Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983.
37. Luster, Thomas
Boger, Robert
Hannan, Kristi
Infant Affect and Home Environment
Presented: Montreal, QC, Seventh International Conference on Infant Studies, 1990
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior; Bias Decomposition; Child Development; Children; Children, Home Environment; Family Influences; General Assessment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Self-Esteem; Temperament

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

The present study is concerned with the relation between infant affect and quality of the home environment. Past research examining the relation between infant irritability and parenting behavior has produced inconsistent findings. The hypothesis that infant irritability is most likely to be negatively correlated with the quality of the home environment in families which would be considered to be "at-risk" based on characteristics of the mother (e.g., low self-esteem or low maternal intelligence) or contextual characteristics (e.g., living in poverty or having several other children to care for) was tested in this study. A second hypothesis tested in this study is that positive affect on the part of the infant is more strongly related to the quality of care the infant receives in high-risk environments than in low risk environments. In other words, a cheerful disposition may be a protective factor in high-risk environments. These hypotheses were tested with data from the Children of the NLSY. Little support was found for the first hypothesis. Infant irritability was negatively correlated with the quality of the home environment in both high-risk and low-risk families. Support was found for the second hypothesis among infants who were greater than 12 months of age.
Bibliography Citation
Luster, Thomas, Robert Boger and Kristi Hannan. "Infant Affect and Home Environment." Presented: Montreal, QC, Seventh International Conference on Infant Studies, 1990.
38. Magnuson, Katherine A.
McGroder, Sharon M.
The Effect of Increasing Welfare Mothers’ Education on their Young Children’s Academic Problems and School Readiness
Working Paper, Northwestern University, [N.D.] .
Also: http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/jcpr/workingpapers/wpfiles/magnuson_mcgroder.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Children, Academic Development; Children, Well-Being; Educational Attainment; Family Environment; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Modeling, Multilevel; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

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

Does an increase in a mother’s education improve her young child’s academic performance? Positive correlations between mothers’ educational attainment and children’s well being, in particular children’s cognitive development and academic outcomes, are among the most replicated results from developmental studies. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the causal nature of this relationship. Because conventional regression (e.g., OLS) and analysis of variance (e.g., ANOVA) approaches to estimating the effect of maternal schooling on child outcomes may be biased by omitted variables, we use experimentally induced differences in mothers’ education to estimate Instrumental Variable (IV) models. Our data come from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies Child Outcomes Study—an evaluation of mandatory welfare-to-work programs in which welfare recipients with young children were randomly assigned to either an education or work focused program group or to a control group that received no additional assistance. We find that increases in maternal education are positively associated with children’s academic school readiness, and negatively associated with mothers’ reports of their children’s academic problems. Our estimated causal effects of maternal education on children’s academic school readiness and academic problems are large enough to be of considerable importance for policies that affect the work, welfare, and training of low-income mothers.
Bibliography Citation
Magnuson, Katherine A. and Sharon M. McGroder. "The Effect of Increasing Welfare Mothers’ Education on their Young Children’s Academic Problems and School Readiness." Working Paper, Northwestern University, [N.D.] .
39. McCartan, Lisa Marie
Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Offending Over the Life Course
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2003
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Behavioral Problems; Children, Behavioral Development; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Genetics; Life Course; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations

Judith Rich Harris has proposed a controversial and innovative theory in Group Selection Theory. Within the field of criminology, the socialization processes that occur early on in the life course, particularly those within the family, are viewed as being crucial to the development and persistence of antisocial behavior. Instead of arguing along these contemporary lines, that parenting is a critical factor in the development of behavior, Harris argues the opposite: parents have no lasting effect on behavior. GS theory contends that genetic and peer factors are the critical causal variables in the development of behavior. To discern the existence of genetic influence and the strength of the influence, two statistical techniques are employed: Random Effects Regression and DeFries-Fuker (DF) analysis. Using the NLSY-child, the current analysis examined this theory at three points in the life course: childhood, mid-adolescence and late adolescence. Each developmental stage has yielded different results with only some lending support to Harris' theory. The results indicate that both genetic and parental influences are predictive of early child behavior problems and late adolescent delinquency. During mid-adolescence, both genetic and parental measures fail to predict delinquency. However, delinquent peer influence strongly predicts delinquent behavior. These results offer only partial support of GS theory. However, the results strongly support findings from within life-course criminology. The theoretical implications of these results for both GS theory and life course criminology, as well as future research suggestions, are discussed.
Bibliography Citation
McCartan, Lisa Marie. Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Offending Over the Life Course. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2003.
40. McCrate, Elaine
Discrimination, Returns to Education, and Teenage Childbearing
Working Paper, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1989
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Discrimination; Discrimination, Age; Discrimination, Job; Educational Returns; Employment; Poverty; Schooling; Teenagers

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

Widespread teenage childbearing among some subpopulations of U.S. women, particularly black women, has been taken as evidence of a "culture of poverty." According to this theory, the poor do not take advantage of existing opportunities, such as school and work, to improve their economic circumstances. Utilizing data from the NLSY, this paper provides an empirical critique of such a notion. It demonstrates that returns to education are lower among the women who become teenage mothers, and that these lower returns are not due to the birth itself. Rather, they are due to poor quality schooling or jobs. Hence, since education does not pay off for these women, this research questions a key assumption of the culture of poverty theory: that education is a viable means to economic betterment. The paper also concludes that premarket discrimination in schooling and discrimination in employment contribute to teenage childbearing, rather than deficient culture.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Discrimination, Returns to Education, and Teenage Childbearing." Working Paper, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1989.
41. Menaghan, Elizabeth G.
Mott, Frank L.
Cooksey, Elizabeth C.
Jekielek, Susan Marie
Work and Family Patterns: Effects Across Generations
Presented: East Lansing, MI, Social Capital Conference, April 1998.
Also: http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~internat/soccap/Abstracts.htm#menaghan
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birthweight; Family Structure; Maternal Employment

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

Recent research suggests that childhood and adolescent rates of behavior problems have been rising in the US over the past two decades. At the same time, family composition and parental, especially maternal, employment patterns have also been shifting. While research has focused on how maternal work and family patterns affect pre-school and younger children, we are less well informed about effects in early adolescence, and in particular, how stability and change in parents' work and family circumstances over time may alter their children's risks for behavior problems. In this analysis, we focus on one aspect of behavior problems, propensities to oppositional action, and study its trajectory from middle childhood (ages 6-7) to early adolescence (ages 10-11), linking this trajectory to maternal employment and family composition patterns over the same time period. We study these trajectories for a national sample of 1,917 children aged 10-11 drawn from the Child-Mother data set of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. This is a synthetic cohort constructed by pooling children aged 10-11 in 1990, 1992, and 1994. All multivariate models include controls for cohort membership to capture effects of unmeasured secular changes which may affect the cohorts differently.
Bibliography Citation
Menaghan, Elizabeth G., Frank L. Mott, Elizabeth C. Cooksey and Susan Marie Jekielek. "Work and Family Patterns: Effects Across Generations." Presented: East Lansing, MI, Social Capital Conference, April 1998.
42. Mott, Joshua Adam
Family Environment, Child Behavior, and Child Injury Propensity
Presented: Indianapolis, IN, Health and Families Conference, November 1994
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Accidents; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birthweight; Child Care; Child Health; Children, Behavioral Development; Children, Well-Being; Family Background and Culture; Family Environment; Fathers, Absence; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Injuries; Mothers, Health; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care

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

Bibliography Citation
Mott, Joshua Adam. "Family Environment, Child Behavior, and Child Injury Propensity." Presented: Indianapolis, IN, Health and Families Conference, November 1994.
43. Nigmatullin, Eldar Ayratovich
Estimation of Markov Decision Processes in the Presence of Model Uncertainty
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2003.
Also: http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/ER/detail/hkul/2921331
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Bayesian; Data Analysis; Demography; Markov chain / Markov model; Modeling; Neighborhood Effects; Statistical Analysis

The Bayesian approach provides a coherent framework for accounting for model uncertainty and it takes form of Bayesian model averaging (BMA) when there are finitely many models under consideration. In my first essay I develop the BMA technique for moment conditions models. My work extends the existing theory on BMA that has been limited to the parametric case. I develop a methodology, grounded in information theoretic and Bayesian arguments, which allows implementation of the BMA technique by means of nonparametric likelihood methods in situations when all information that is available comes in the form of moments conditions. Moment conditions models arise naturally in the context of estimation of Markov decision processes because first-order conditions for agents' optimization problem produce population moment conditions. I consequently consider an application of my methodology to the problem of optimal portfolio choice in the presence of partial predictability of assets returns. In my second essay I analyze the effects of neighborhood interactions on the pre-marital fertility decisions by women of NLSY79 in the framework of Cox proportional hazards. The empirical analysis finds that out-of-wedlock fertility dynamics vary systematically with neighborhood characteristics when counties of residence are taken as individuals' neighborhoods. I find the contextual effects to be well pronounced. The data do not reveal the presence of significant endogenous social interactions. The empirical analysis indicates the presence of significant uncertainty in the choice of explanatory variables. Bayesian model averaging is applied both to account for model uncertainty and the subsequent inference.
Bibliography Citation
Nigmatullin, Eldar Ayratovich. Estimation of Markov Decision Processes in the Presence of Model Uncertainty. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2003..
44. Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincaid
Kalmijn, Matthijs
Lim, Nelson
Men's Career Development and Marriage Timing During a Period of Rising Inequality
Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles and Utrecht University, October 1996
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; Earnings; Education Indicators; Event History; Job Analysis; Marriage; Racial Differences; Schooling; Transition Rates, Activity to Work; Work Experience

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

Bibliography Citation
Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincaid, Matthijs Kalmijn and Nelson Lim. "Men's Career Development and Marriage Timing During a Period of Rising Inequality." Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles and Utrecht University, October 1996.
45. Pierret, Charles R.
The National Longitudinal Surveys Program
Presented: Budapest, Hungary, 10th Sienna Group Meeting, November 2003
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLS General, NLSY79, NLSY97, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Disadvantaged, Economically; Hispanics; Home Environment; Longitudinal Surveys; NLS Description; Sample Selection

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

The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), are a set of surveys designed to gather information at multiple points in time on the lives and experiences of six groups of men and women. Each of the six cohorts has been selected to represent all people living in the United States at the initial interview date and born during a given period. This selection allows weighted conclusions to be drawn about the sample group that can be generalized to represent the experiences of the larger population of U.S. residents born during the same period. Sample design procedures ensure that the labor market experiences of blacks, Hispanics, youths, women, and the economically disadvantaged can be examined. The NLS also include surveys of the children born to women who participate in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Detailed information is gathered biennially on the child's home environment and cognitive, socio-emotional, and physiological development; as they get older, these young adults report on their education, workforce participation, and fertility. This unique set of national surveys offers researchers the opportunity to study large panels of men, women, and children over significant segments of their lives.
Bibliography Citation
Pierret, Charles R. "The National Longitudinal Surveys Program." Presented: Budapest, Hungary, 10th Sienna Group Meeting, November 2003.
46. Regan, Tracy Lynn
Microeconomic Essays on Market Entry, Optimal Education, and Measured Experience
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Arizona, 2003
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Earnings; Educational Attainment; Family Background and Culture; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Labor Force Participation; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Schooling; Skills; Wage Gap; Wage Levels; Wages; Work Experience; Work Histories

This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics. The first essay investigates the effects of generic entry on post-patent price competition in the prescription drug market using NDC Health data on 18 oral solids that lost their patent sometime between February 1998 and 2002. I am able to characterize the impact of endogenous generic entry on branded and generic prices, conditional on payment type (i.e., cash, Medicaid, third party). Based on the findings in this paper, the overall, long-term impacts of the 1984 Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act (Waxman-Hatch Act) are yet to be determined. The second essay develops a theoretical model of earnings where human capital is the central explanatory variable. The analysis and estimation strategy stems from the Mincerian simple schooling model. Human capital investments (i.e., schooling) are incorporated into a model based on individual wealth maximization. We utilize the conventional economic models of supply and demand to derive an optimal level of schooling function. Using the NLSY79, we stratify our sample into one-year work experience intervals for 1985 data from the NLSY79 and the PSID and extend our findings to a data set in which actual measures of work experience are not available
Bibliography Citation
Regan, Tracy Lynn. Microeconomic Essays on Market Entry, Optimal Education, and Measured Experience. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Arizona, 2003.
47. Rodgers, William M., III
Spriggs, William E.
Klein, Bruce W.
Do the Skills of Adults Employed in Minimum Wage Contour Jobs Explain Why They Get Paid Less?
Working Paper, College of William & Mary and US Dept of Labor, March 1997
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Job; Job Skills; Minimum Wage; Monopsony Employers; Wage Differentials; Wage Gap

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

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we compare the pay of workers employed on the minimum wage contour defined by Spriggs and Klein (1994) to the pay of similar workers in other jobs. We also examine whether the minimum wage increases in 1990 and 1991 change the wage gap's size. Our findings suggest that workers on the minimum wage contour are paid less than similarly qualified workers, and that the minimum wage increases helped to narrow some of this differential. This is consistent with Dickens, et.al. (1994) who theorize that low-wage firms have monopsony-like power in setting wages.
Bibliography Citation
Rodgers, William M., III, William E. Spriggs and Bruce W. Klein. "Do the Skills of Adults Employed in Minimum Wage Contour Jobs Explain Why They Get Paid Less?" Working Paper, College of William & Mary and US Dept of Labor, March 1997.
48. Rosenzweig, Mark R.
Wolpin, Kenneth I.
Are There Increasing Returns to the Intergenerational Production of Capital? Maternal Schooling and Child Intellectual Achievement
Working Paper, Prepared for the Workshop "Economic Well-Being of Women and Children" Minneapolis, MN, February 21-23, 1991
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Child Health; General Assessment; Human Capital; Mortality; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Siblings; Well-Being

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

A common empirical finding obtained from data sets describing both high and low-income households is a strong positive correlation between the educational attainment of mothers and measures of the human capital of their children, such as birthweight, survival, educational attainment or health. This relationship appears to be robust to "controls" for various measures of income. Two principal hypotheses have been suggested for why maternal education and offspring human capital outcomes are related. First, education may improve the efficiency of human capital production, so that there are increasing returns, intergenerationally, in parental human capital. This idea is embedded in the human capital (self) production model of Ben-Porath (1970) and is incorporated, for example, in the recent growth model of Becker et al. (1990). A second hypothesis is that the educational level of mothers is a function of their endowed or innate human capital, which is positively correlated with that of their children. More generally, it is suggested that unobservables affecting maternal education are correlated with the human capital of children net of any human capital investments in them.
Bibliography Citation
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "Are There Increasing Returns to the Intergenerational Production of Capital? Maternal Schooling and Child Intellectual Achievement." Working Paper, Prepared for the Workshop "Economic Well-Being of Women and Children" Minneapolis, MN, February 21-23, 1991.
49. Rosenzweig, Mark R.
Wolpin, Kenneth I.
Rational Expectations and Ex Post Rationalizations: The Value of Subjective Measures of Excess Children
Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1988
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior; Birthweight; Children; Fertility; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Wantedness

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

This paper assesses the usefulness of an attitudinal fertility variable describing the "wantedness" of children. The authors formulate a dynamic model of fertility behavior which incorporates uncertainty about child traits in order to assess the informational content of retrospectively-ascertained measures of wantedness. Utilizing data from the NLSY, the authors test for bias in wantedness information that may arise from both parents' responsiveness to the observed characteristics of their children as well as from biases in their expectations about their children's endowed traits. Results indicate that reports of wantedness obtained after children are born are significantly influenced by children's traits (ex post rationalization) and that mothers exhibit overly optimistic expectations regarding their children's endowed qualities. As a result, the retrospective measure of wantedness commonly collected and used to measure the principal consequence of imperfect fertility control overstates substantially the actual incidence of unwanted births. The authors conclude that the incidence of unwantedness based on information obtained from cross-sectional fertility surveys neither measures appropriately the family size or resource-allocation consequences of imperfect or costly contraceptive technology nor is a reliable indicator of child neglect.
Bibliography Citation
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "Rational Expectations and Ex Post Rationalizations: The Value of Subjective Measures of Excess Children." Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1988.
50. Rosenzweig, Mark R.
Wolpin, Kenneth I.
Sisters, Siblings and Mothers: The Effects of Teenage Childbearing on Birth Outcomes
Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, November 1991
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Behavior; Birth Outcomes; Birthweight; Childbearing, Adolescent; Heterogeneity; Kinship; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Siblings; Sisters

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

The use of kinship data, particularly sibling information, as a means of reducing the effects of heterogeneity on estimates of the determinants of human capital is becoming increasingly common in economics. The most common applications have been directed to the questions of the returns to and determinants of schooling attainment. In this paper, we set out a statistical model incorporating the features of recent theoretical models of the family that highlight the roles of heterogeneity in endowments, endowment heritability and dynamic intrafamily investment behavior. The framework is used to show the nested (implicit) restrictions that characterize the statistical procedures that have exploited family and kinship data to obtain estimates of the determinants of children's human capital and thus to establish tests that discriminate among them. We show that information on the investments in and human capital outcomes of at least two children for mothers who are sisters is required to test among all possible estimators, although such data are not required to obtain estimates of the behavioral determinants of human capital outcomes with desirable properties. However, we show that such data can also reveal the intergenerational correlation (heritability) of endowments without the need to have information on outcomes or investments characterizing two generations.
Bibliography Citation
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "Sisters, Siblings and Mothers: The Effects of Teenage Childbearing on Birth Outcomes." Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, November 1991.
51. Rosenzweig, Mark R.
Wolpin, Kenneth I.
The Effect of the Timing and Frequency of Marijuana Use on Fetal Growth Based on Sibling Birth Data
Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Birthweight; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Deviance; Drug Use; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Siblings; Sons; Substance Use

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

A sample of 5669 births obtained from the NLSY is studied to investigate the effects of marijuana usage on fetal growth and the sensitivity of findings to the existence of both measured confounding risk factors associated with pregnancies and mothers and unmeasured risk factors characterizing mothers. In the bivariate relationships, infants born to women who smoked marijuana every month of the first trimester weighed 6.7 ounces less than women who did not smoke marijuana in the first trimester. Introducing controls for a large number of measured confounding risk factors identified in prior studies reduces the marijuana effect to 3.3 ounces. However, controlling in addition for all unmeasured attributes of the mother that are invariant across births using information on sibling births increases the estimated impact of marijuana use net of measured risk factors to 5.1 ounces, a value which is 52 percent higher than the standard multiple regression estimate. Further, the estimated marijuana effect obtained from this measure of use, which takes into account frequency and timing, is more than three times as large as the effect based only on a measure of ever-use in the first six months of pregnancy. The authors conclude that it is important to take into account unmeasured risk factors characterizing the mothers of infants in estimating the effects of substance use on fetal growth. Lack of controls for mother characteristics appear to lead to underestimates of the impact on fetal growth of the use of marijuana early into a pregnancy.
Bibliography Citation
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "The Effect of the Timing and Frequency of Marijuana Use on Fetal Growth Based on Sibling Birth Data." Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990.
52. Sepulveda, Facundo
Essays in Quantitative Economics
Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Environment, Pollution/Urban Density; Skills; Time Preference

This dissertation contains three essays in quantitative macroeconomics. The first chapter, "Precautionary savings in general equilibrium," uses a calibrated stochastic OLG model to address three questions about US savings and wealth accumulation: first, does an equilibrium display buffer stock savings by agents? Second, is this equilibrium consistent with savings behavior of US households? And finally, what level of precautionary savings arises when general equilibrium effects are accounted for? I find that given observed earnings risk, the rates of time preference that are consistent with the equilibrium are very close to the interest rate, so no buffer stock behavior is observed. Moreover, the equilibrium reproduces important facts about savings behavior of US households. Finally, accounting for general equilibrium effects lowers the size of precautionary wealth to about 35% of aggregate wealth, or 30 to 50% less than partial equilibrium estimates. The second chapter, "Green taxes and double dividends in a dynamic economy," asks whether a tax recycling experiment would deliver a double dividend in the US economy. According to the double dividend hypothesis, environmental taxes may raise revenue that can be used to lower other (pre-existing) tax distortions apart from decreasing pollution externalities. This hypothesis is evaluated using a dynamic general equilibrium model of capital accumulation. I find that, although in the long run pollution may worsen, the green dividend-higher discounted utility from a cleaner environment-would be obtained under all tax changes, due to a better environment during most of the transition. The efficiency dividend however-higher discounted utility from consumption of traded goods-will obtain only for target levels of the green tax below a critical number. In the third chapter, "Training and business cycles," I examine the behavior of skill acquisition through training at business cycles frequencies. First, a time series of training is constructed using individual data from the NLSY79 database. After documenting the cyclical properties of the series, I discuss what features are needed for a RBC model to successfully reproduce them. I find that training is weakly countercyclical, leads the cycle, and has a standard deviation of about ten times output. A model where employment, but not weekly hours, is costly to adjust, is able to account for most of the documented regularities.
Bibliography Citation
Sepulveda, Facundo. Essays in Quantitative Economics. Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2002.
53. Shapiro, David
Mott, Frank L.
Long-Term Employment and Earnings of Women in Relation to Employment Behavior Surrounding the First Birth
Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Donner Foundation - University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center Workshop on the Economic Well-Being of Women and Children, 1991
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Children, Well-Being; First Birth; Labor Force Participation; Maternal Employment; Mothers; Racial Differences; Wages; Well-Being; Work Histories

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

This paper examines the extent to which the employment activities of women overtime are linked to their work behavior during the period immediately before and after the birth of their first child. Utilizing data from the NLS of Young Women 1968-1987, the authors find that, for the women studied, employment behavior at first birth tends to be a significant independent predictor of lifetime work experience. Differences in current and recent work behavior according to first-birth employment status were found to persist but diminish over time. However, such differences were still evident 14-19 years after the first birth particularly for women who returned to work shortly after the child's birth. These differences in employment behavior translate into improved economic well-being, although somewhat differently for whites and blacks. Other things being equal, the greater lifetime work experience of whites who worked both just before and just after the first birth is associated with an average wage premium of nearly 18 percent compared to those who were not employed during this period of time. The corresponding wage premium for the most strongly attached whites as compared to those who worked just before the birth but not immediately after was approximately 13 percent. Among the blacks studied, there was a distinctly smaller wage premium, amounting to 6 percent at the most, associated with greater lifetime work experience. The authors conclude that policies aimed at facilitating retention of employment at the outset of childbearing might not only contribute to a greater supply of female workers but could eventually lead to demand-side changes that would enhance women's opportunities for advancement in the labor market.
Bibliography Citation
Shapiro, David and Frank L. Mott. "Long-Term Employment and Earnings of Women in Relation to Employment Behavior Surrounding the First Birth." Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Donner Foundation - University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center Workshop on the Economic Well-Being of Women and Children, 1991.
54. Silverman, Daniel Susman
Non-market Determinants of Human Capital Accumulation: Theory and Evidence
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Behavior, Violent; Crime; Gender Differences; Human Capital Theory; Labor Market Outcomes; Labor Supply; Modeling; Racial Differences; Time Preference; Underclass; Welfare

Crime and reputation. A model of social interaction is developed in which individuals with varying payoffs from street crime meet in an environment with incomplete information. The value of a reputation for violence is demonstrated. Those who do not gain from street crime directly nevertheless invest in violence and thereby build a reputation that will earn them deference from the rest of the community. It may be that even when the fraction of the population with a direct interest in street crime is small a larger proportion will necessarily participate in violence in pursuit of reputation. Thus the model explains how a social force (reputation) can support an "underclass" culture of violence in communities where the incentives for such behavior are otherwise weak. The model also reveals how the social structure of a community interacts with returns to crime to determine the value of a street reputation. On the compassion of time-limited welfare programs ( with H. Fang). Supporters of recent welfare reforms argue that time limits and other eligibility restrictions serve recipients. We present a simple model of present-biased preferences to investigate the theoretical validity of this claim. We first identify four types of outcome that describe the behavior of a present-biased agent in the absence of time limits. We then show that the behavioral consequences of time limits are contingent on which outcome characterizes the agent's behavior in the absence of time limits. Under some conditions the imposition of time limits may improve the well-being of welfare recipients evaluated both in terms of long-run, time-consistent utility and the period-one self's utility. This benefit of time limits may come either from allowing the welfare eligible to start working earlier than they otherwise would or, contrary to the intent of the reforms, from allowing them to postpone working. Time-inconsistency and welfare promgram participation: Evidence from the NLSY (with H. Fang). This paper applies a model of potentially time-inconsistent preferences to the problem of dynamic labor supply and welfare program participation. From panel data on the choices of single women with children, we provide estimates of the degree of time-inconsistency, and of its influence on the welfare take-up decision. Estimates of time-discount parameters suggest present-bias in preferences. Simulations of the estimated model indicate that, in states with relatively low welfare benefits, commitment problems lead to significant under-investment in human capital. However, policies such as welfare time limits and work requirements, that provide imperfect commitments to future human capital investment, appear unlikely to generate substantial utility gains for the welfare eligible. The effect of adolescent experience on labor market outcomes: The case of height (with N. Persico and A. Postlewaite ). Consistent with prior studies, we find that taller workers receive a wage premium, and that the disparity in wages is similar in magnitude to the race and gender gaps. Our contribution is to exploit the variation in an individual's height over time to identify the channels through which height affects wages. We show that for white males, the effect of adult height is essentially eliminated when adolescent height is taken into account. We take this as evidence that adolescent height has important economic implications long after the time that it is observable to others, and we explore the channels through which the effects might be manifested.
Bibliography Citation
Silverman, Daniel Susman. Non-market Determinants of Human Capital Accumulation: Theory and Evidence. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
55. Teachman, Jay D.
Day, Randal D.
Carver, Karen P.
Call, Vaughn R. A.
Paasch, Kathleen M.
Sibling Resemblance in Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes: The Role of Father Presence
Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Differences; Cognitive Development; Family Structure; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Involvement; Modeling; Parents, Single; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Siblings

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

Using longitudinal data on sibling pairs from the NLSY, we investigate the influence of father-presence on behavioral and cognitive outcomes. Our results indicate that children who live in one-parent families exhibit more behavioral problems and have lower mathematics and reading ability. The differences across time between children in two-parent and one-parent families are very stable for behavioral problems and mathematics ability. For reading ability, however, the difference between children in two-parent and one-parent families increase over time. In addition, there is a drop over time in the percentage of between-family variance in reading scores, particularly for younger siblings. This pattern suggests an increasing sensitivity of reading ability to extra-familial sources of influence as children age. That this increased sensitivity to extra-familial influences results in lower reading scores only for children in one-parent families suggests that a different set of non familial factors are operating for these children.
Bibliography Citation
Teachman, Jay D., Randal D. Day, Karen P. Carver, Vaughn R. A. Call and Kathleen M. Paasch. "Sibling Resemblance in Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes: The Role of Father Presence." Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996.
56. Thompson, Jennifer Susan
Effects of College Major on Work Outcome: Gender Differences and Change Over Time, 1960s/1970s--1980s/1990s
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): College Education; College Major/Field of Study/Courses; Earnings; Education; Gender Differences; Occupational Choice

Education contributes to gender stratification in the labor market through the types of education that men and women receive. This dissertation examines how college major affects gender differences in work outcomes, and how this relationship has changed over time. Recent analysis of the relationship between major, and occupation and earnings uses a college-educated sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79). To examine the change in major and its effects over time, I utilized the National Longitudinal Study-Original Cohorts, producing two independent cross-sections. I examined the effects of major using OLS regression and decomposition analyses. Men and women continue to be segregated into majors in the 1980s/1990s, particularly in Engineering and Computer Science ("male" fields) and Education and Nursing ("female" fields). Male majors tend to lead to male occupations (and female majors to female occupations). Sex differences in major explain one-quarter to one-third of the sex gap in occupations. Major affects earnings, in that female majors have lower hourly wages (the exception is female Nursing majors). Occupation cannot fully explain the effects of major. Men seem to benefit more from male majors than women. Over time, men and especially women have left Education majors and increased among Business majors. This change in the sex distribution of majors, along with the change in slopes, contributed to about one-third of the narrowing of the sex gap in occupations over time. The change in the sex distribution of majors explained 25% of the shrinking sex gap in pay. It was a larger explanatory factor than the change in returns, which generally benefited men (most notably the increase in returns to Science majors). Occupational aspirations and institutions were examined for their effects on major, occupation, and earnings. The findings demonstrate that college major contributes to gender stratification in the labor market. Major had direct effects on occupation, and in most cases on earnings. This may indicate differences in skills and productivity (human capital approach), and what majors signal to employers. Sex typing of field occurs prior to entry in the labor market and female fields (like female occupations) tend to be devalued.
Bibliography Citation
Thompson, Jennifer Susan. Effects of College Major on Work Outcome: Gender Differences and Change Over Time, 1960s/1970s--1980s/1990s. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
57. Tzeng, Meei-Shenn
Mare, Robert D.
Sibling Models for Panel Attrition Bias in the Analysis of School Transitions
Prepared for the Conference on Attrition in Longitudinal Surveys, Washington DC, February 24-25, 1994
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Attrition; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Modeling; Parental Influences; School Completion; Siblings

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

Studies of the effects of families, schools, and labor market on young persons' decisions to continue in school tell us about the intergenerational transmission of inequality and policy efforts to alter the level and distribution of schooling. This paper examines the effects of parental status and cohort on school continuation decisions of young persons, using models that take account of the potential effects of sample attrition on estimated parameters of our models, This paper proposes alternatives models for sample attrition that exploit an unusual feature of the NLS Surveys, namely, the availability of data on the school transitions and sample attrition of siblings.
Bibliography Citation
Tzeng, Meei-Shenn and Robert D. Mare. "Sibling Models for Panel Attrition Bias in the Analysis of School Transitions." Prepared for the Conference on Attrition in Longitudinal Surveys, Washington DC, February 24-25, 1994.
58. Vandell, Deborah Lowe
Ramanan, Janaki
Effects of Early and Current Maternal Employment on Children from High Risk Families
Presented: Montreal, QC, International Conference on Infant Studies, 1990
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Bias Decomposition; Children; Children, Academic Development; Earnings; Family Income; General Assessment; Maternal Employment; Memory for Digit Span (WISC) - also see Digit Span; Mothers; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Sex Roles; Welfare

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

Patterns of early and concurrent maternal employment were examined in 224 second graders from "high risk" families using data from the Children of the NLSY. Extent of early maternal employment was related to the families' current finances and to the mothers' education. Families in which there was moderate or extensive maternal employment during the first three years were less likely to be living in poverty four years later; and maternal education was higher when mothers were extensively employed during the first three years. In addition, differences in the second graders' academic achievement were associated with extent of early employment, after controlling for differences in family poverty and maternal education. Children scored lower on reading and math achievement when their mothers were either not employed or minimally employed as opposed to when mothers worked more extensively during the first three years. Extent of early employment was more highly associated with second grade achievement than was concurrent maternal employment.
Bibliography Citation
Vandell, Deborah Lowe and Janaki Ramanan. "Effects of Early and Current Maternal Employment on Children from High Risk Families." Presented: Montreal, QC, International Conference on Infant Studies, 1990.
59. Waldfogel, Jane
Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay
Presented: Ithaca, NY, Cornell University, Conference on "Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace", April 1995
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Benefits; Family Studies; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Marital Status; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Income; Parental Marital Status; Wage Differentials; Women's Studies

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

Bibliography Citation
Waldfogel, Jane. "Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay." Presented: Ithaca, NY, Cornell University, Conference on "Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace", April 1995.
60. Wetzell, David Larson
Three Papers in Labor Economics
Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2002
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s):

The first paper demonstrates that the time-allocation generalization of labor supply can generate interesting and surprising predictions regarding labor supply behavior. These predictions follow from the assumptions made about input combinations available for final consumption. When goods cannot be produced strictly from time or money then either input could curtail the substitution effect. The second paper shows that Korenman and Blackburn's (1994) finding of a ten-percentage point drop in the Male Marriage Earning Differential (MMED) over the years 1967-1988 is biased upwards. It presents evidence that the bias may be due to the imputation procedures used before 1976. Then, it uses a residual-based trimmed estimator to remove the bias and construct a more consistent MMED series. The new series supports the conclusion that both changes in selection and married female labor force participation affect the MMED. The paper concludes that, while the MMED does not appear to have changed significantly, as of the late 1980s, the composition of the MMED has become more due to selection. The third paper surveys investigations into the causality of the MMED. Gray's (1997) comparison of the returns to years of marriage with the NLS and NLSY and Stratton's (2002) estimation of the return to years of marriage and cohabitation using the NFHS are reexamined with the assistance of a residual-based trim and then compared with other longitudinal studies' findings. Then, a qualitative comparison is made of recent MMED studies' findings of the prevalent direction of causality for the MMED. There appears to be evidence that being married had an effect on earnings before 1970 and 1970-1979. However, more recent studies either support the selection hypothesis or fail to find evidence that the household division of labor enhances the husband's market productivity. Finally, a meta-analysis of cross-sectional estimates of the MMED across time and age groups is made. The meta-analysis finds a four-percentage point decline in the MMED in recent years, after controlling for how the MMED rises with age.
Bibliography Citation
Wetzell, David Larson. Three Papers in Labor Economics. Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2002.
61. Yankow, Jeffrey Jon
Horney, Mary Jean
Employed Job Search Among Young Women: The Role of Marriage and Children
Working Paper, Department of Economics and Business Administration, Furman University, February 2004.
Also: http://irving.vassar.edu/MIEC/Yankow_Horney_GenderSearch.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Behavior; Job Search; Marital Status; Modeling, Multilevel; Modeling, Probit; Modeling, Random Effects

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

The purpose of this study is to explore the employed search behavior of young women....The data for this analysis come from the 1980, 1984, and 1996 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Using information on employed job search from all three years, we estimate a series of models: i) a binary probit model of employed search for each year; ii) a random-effects probit model that accounts for unobservable preferences for employed search; and, iii) an ordered probit model measuring the intensity of search by young women.
Bibliography Citation
Yankow, Jeffrey Jon and Mary Jean Horney. "Employed Job Search Among Young Women: The Role of Marriage and Children." Working Paper, Department of Economics and Business Administration, Furman University, February 2004.