The NLSY97 data were used to explore the patterns of developmental trajectories of body weight in adolescence and how they affected the likelihood of college completion in young adulthood among 2,275 youths aged 13 and 14 in Wave 1. A strong weight trajectory gradient was found for rates of college completion. The study further explored the role…

In this study I hypothesize a larger penalty of obesity on teacher-assessed academic performance for white girls in English, where femininity is privileged, than in math, where stereotypical femininity is perceived to be a detriment. This pattern of associations would be expected if obesity largely influences academic performance through social…

We study the effect of preferences for boys on the performance in mathematics of girls, using evidence from two different data sources. In our first set of results, we identify families with a preference for boys by using fertility stopping rules in a large population of households whose children attend public schools in Florida. Girls growing up…

In this sexcerpt from their book, "Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids," Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti discuss the phenomenon of helicopter parenting, in which parents spend more time monitoring their kids' activities. They present empirical evidence for a rise in parental involvement and…

Why do men in the United States today complete less schooling than women? One reason may be gender differences in early self-regulation and prosocial behaviors. Scholars have found that boys' early behavioral disadvantage predicts their lower average academic achievement during elementary school. In this study, I examine longer-term effects: Do…

Over half of the children in the U.S. experience adversity early in childhood. These experiences, along with conditions in their families and neighborhoods, have profound developmental effects. The bioecological model of development includes these proximal contexts in a theory of development that incorporates the threats and supports present in…

Data for three Peabody achievement tests and for the Peabody picture vocabulary test administered to children of women in the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show that the black-white difference did not diminish for this sample of children born from the mid 1970s through the mid 1990s. This finding persists after entering…