Many developmental theories have not been sufficiently evaluated using designs that control for unobserved familial confounds. Our long-term goal is to determine the causal structure underlying associations between early environmental conditions and later psychosocial and health outcomes. Our overall objective in this study was to further evaluate…

We study the correlation between parental gender attitudes and the performance in mathematics of girls using two different approaches and data. First, we identify families with a preference for boys by using fertility stopping rules in a population of households whose children attend public schools in Florida. Girls growing up in a boy-biased…

Teaching is often assumed to be a relatively stressful occupation and occupational stress among teachers has been linked to poor mental health, attrition from the profession, and decreased effectiveness in the classroom. Despite widespread concern about teachers' mental health, however, little empirical evidence exists on long-run trends in…

Theories suggest curricular tracking is linked to racial/ethnic inequality. However, prior studies largely examine cognitive outcomes like standardized test scores and neglect behavioral outcomes. They also overlook potential racial/ethnic differences "within" curricular tracks. This study asks the following questions: (a) Is curricular…

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…

The purpose of this study was to identify latent classes of college-educated late-baby-boomer generation women's economic attainment (income) patterns during mid-career and examine the family and job satisfaction characteristics within each latent class. Longitudinal latent class analysis was used to analyze income data from the National…

This article shows that the traditional narrative of Black-White high school graduation gaps is inverted among economically disadvantaged female students. Two nationally representative surveys and statewide administrative data demonstrate that low-income White females graduate at rates 5 to 6 percentage points lower than Black peers despite having…

Using data from 2,898 women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979, we employ a novel method to examine two perspectives, social selection and the experience of cohabitation, commonly used to explain the negative relationship outcomes cohabiting women report. Results reveal cohabitation is negatively related to marital happiness and…

In this study, we determined the educational pathways and key life course transitions of young adults who enter Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Health (STEMH) technician and professional jobs using the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) dataset, tracking high school students from 1997 to adulthood in 2009. Using…

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…

The analyses described in this article investigated the association between adolescent fertility expectations and college enrollment (N = 7,838). They also explored the potential impact of fertility expectations and events on college persistence among 4-year (n = 2,605) and 2-year (n = 1,962) college students. The analysis, which used data from…

While a large literature examines the factors that lead teachers to leave teaching, few studies have examined what factors affect teachers' decisions to reenter the profession. Drawing on research on the role of family characteristics in predicting teacher work behavior, we examine predictors of reentry. We employ survival analysis of time to…

Economic theories predict that women are more likely to exit the labor force if their partners' earnings are higher and if their own wage rate is lower. In this article, I use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,254) and discrete-time event-history analysis to show that wives' relative wages are more predictive of their exit than are…

Scant attention has been given to the consequence of actual weight status for adolescents' sexual wellbeing. In this article, we investigate the race-specific connection between obesity and risky sexual behavior among adolescent girls. Propensity scores and radius matching are used to analyze a sample of 340 adolescents aged 16-17 who participated…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article examined how early maternal characteristics, an adolescent's family environment, and the adolescent's own attitudes and behaviors were associated with the odds of a nonmarital teenage birth among youth born to teenage mothers. Multivariate analyses indicated that these domains…