Objective: Student loan debt has become a growing crisis. Considering that women are more likely than men to take on student loans and more likely to take on larger amounts, we examine whether the effects of student loans on young adults' mental health and substance use differ by gender. Participants: We used the National Longitudinal Survey of…

The goal of the study was to examine the role of students' gender, their disruptive behaviors, and parental income on their mathematics achievement history. Participants included 8,984 individuals aged 12-16 years and the data were collected from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS). The study results showed that there was not any significant…

In this article, we explore the use of Facebook targeted advertisements for the collection of survey data. We illustrate the potential of survey sampling and recruitment on Facebook through the example of building a large employee--employer linked data set as part of The Shift Project. We describe the workflow process of targeting, creating, and…

Studies of early-career teachers in the 1970s-1990s find that one-quarter to one-half of teachers who left the classroom eventually returned and that returning was associated with teachers' gender and their child-rearing responsibilities. However, much has changed in the last forty years. Women are more likely to continue to participate in the…

Parental influences, particularly parents' occupations, may influence individuals' entry into the teaching profession. This mechanism may contribute to the relatively static demographic composition of the teaching force over time. We assess the role of parental influences on occupational choice by testing whether the children of teachers are…

The impact of a major historical event on child and youth development has been of great interest in the study of the life course. This study is focused on assessing the causal effect of the Great Recession on youth disconnection from school and work. Building on the insights offered by the age-period-cohort research, econometric methods, and…

Undergraduate college-going is now undertaken well into adulthood, but knowledge about what leads individuals to enroll derives nearly entirely from the study of the "traditionally-aged". I examine whether and how predictors of enrollment vary as individuals progress through the life-course using nationally representative data from the…

Family structure changes experienced by children are likely to shape their transitions into young adulthood, including the formation of their own romantic relationships. This study examined links between children's family structure trajectories from childhood through adolescence and their timing of entry into cohabitation as young adults, a…

Black men and women have different levels of average educational attainment, yet few studies have focused on explaining how and why these patterns develop. One explanation may be inequality in experiences with institutional punishment through exclusionary school discipline and criminal justice exposure. Drawing on intersectional frameworks and…

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…

Why do Black men and women have such different average levels of educational attainment? One explanation may be inequalities in experiences with punishment through in-school suspensions, arrests, and incarcerations. Drawing on intersectional frameworks and theories of social control, I examine the long-term impacts of institutional punishment on…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979, this article examines the relationship between adolescents' educational and occupational expectations, and how they correspond to their subsequent labor market outcomes in adulthood. We show that over-aligned adolescents, those who expect to obtain more education than is necessary…

Research on family contexts and adolescent sexual risk behavior has largely neglected relational aspects of sexual risk, such as having sex with strangers. The present study uses the NLSY97 to examine associations between sexually active adolescents' sex with strangers and parental monitoring, support, strictness, and household structure. More…

Using a sample of college graduates from the NLSY97, we introduce a new approach to assessing wage benefits of STEM training, STEM jobs, and the match between the two: rather than classify individuals dichotomously as STEM or non-STEM, we measure the STEM-intensities of both their college coursework and their occupational requirements. While the…

Victimization and problem behaviors during middle school detrimentally influence student learning. However, less is known about how they may cooccur and collectively affect high school graduation and whether the interrelationships vary by gender. Using data from a nationally representative cohort of seventh-grade students from the National…