Suchergebnisse

Using a sample of sibling pairs from a nationally representative U.S. survey, we examine the effects of the fetal growth rate on a set of neurobehavioral outcomes in childhood measured by parent-reported diagnosed developmental disabilities and behavior problems. Based on models that include mother fixed effects, we find that the fetal growth rate, a marker for the fetal environment, is negatively associated with lifetime diagnosis of developmental delay. We also find that the fetal growth rate is negatively associated with disruptive behaviors among male children. These results suggest that developmental disabilities and problem behaviors may play a role in explaining the well-documented association between birth weight and human capital outcomes measured in adulthood.

Research has shown that birthweight has a lasting impact on later-life outcomes such as educational attainment and earnings. This paper examines the role of health at birth in determining academic achievement in childhood, which may provide the link between birthweight and adult outcomes. Using three waves of the PSID-CDS data over 1997-2009, we build on the literature by employing fetal growth rate as a proxy for nutritional intake in utero and propose a nested error-component two-stage least squares (NEC2SLS) estimator that draws on internal instruments from alternative dimensions of the multi-level panel data set. In particular, this alternative estimator allows us to exploit the information on children with no siblings in the sample, which comprises over 40 percent of the observations in our sample, as well as to obtain coefficient estimates for the time-invariant variables such as race and maternal education. This would not be feasible with the usual mother fixed effects estimation. We obtain modest but significant effects of fetal growth rate on math and reading scores, with the effects concentrated in the low birthweight range. Infant health measures appear to explain little of the well-documented racial disparity in test scores.

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. This paper studies racial/ethnic disparities in awareness of chronic diseases using biomarker data from the 2006 HRS. We estimate a 3-step sequential probit model which accounts for selection into: (1) participating in biomarker collection; (2) having illness (hypertension or diabetes); (3) being aware of illness. Contrary to studies reporting that African-Americans are more aware of having hypertension than non-Latino whites, we do not find this conclusion holds after self-selection and severity are considered. Likewise, African-Americans and Latinos are less aware of having diabetes compared to non-Latino whites. Disparities in unawareness are exacerbated when we limit the sample to untreated respondents"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"In the United States, almost a third of new mothers who worked during pregnancy return to work within three months of childbirth. Current public policies in the U.S. do not support long periods of family leave after childbirth, although some states are starting to change this. As such, it is vital to understand how length of family leave during the first year after childbirth affects families' health and wellbeing. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between family leave length, which includes leave taking by mothers and fathers, and behavioral and physical health outcomes among new mothers. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort, we examine measures of depression, overall health status, and substance use. We use a standard OLS as well as an instrumental variables approach with county-level employment conditions and state-level maternity leave policies as identifying instruments. The results suggest that longer maternity leave from work, both paid and un-paid, is associated with declines in depressive symptoms, a reduction in the likelihood of severe depression, and an improvement in overall maternal health. We also find that having a spouse that did not take any paternal leave after childbirth is associated with higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms. We do not find, however, that length of paternal leave is associated with overall maternal health, and we find only mixed evidence that leave length after childbirth affects maternal alcohol use and smoking"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"This paper estimates the effect of binge and frequent drinking by adolescents on subsequent high school dropout using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Young Adults. We estimate an instrumental variables model with an indicator of any past month alcohol use, which is by definition correlated with heavy drinking but should have minimal additional impact on educational outcomes, as the identifying instrument, and also control for a rich set of potentially confounding variables, including maternal characteristics and dropout risk factors measured before and during adolescence. In comparison, OLS provides conservative estimates of the causal impact of heavy drinking on dropping out, implying that binge or frequent drinking among 15, 16 year old students lowers the probability of having graduated or being enrolled in high school four years later by at least 11 percent. Overidentification tests using two measures of maternal youthful alcohol use as additional instruments support our identification strategy"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Abstract
In this paper, we examine the labor market recovery from the COVID-19 recession and test for effects of termination of pandemic unemployment insurance programs among 15–24-year-olds. We use data from the January 2016–October 2022 Current Population Survey. Using regression-based methods, we show that while 15–19-year-olds experienced a brisk, full recovery in labor market outcomes from the COVID-19 recession, the recovery was sluggish and incomplete among 20–24-year-olds, with some work outcomes lagging below pre-pandemic norms well into 2022. Termination of pandemic UI programs led to increased work hours and full-time employment among 20–24-year-olds but did not have these effects among 15–19-year-olds.