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"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 analyzes the relationship between having one or more father figures and the likelihood that young people engage in delinquent criminal behavior. We pay particular attention to distinguishing the roles of residential and non-residential, biological fathers as well as stepfathers. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that adolescent boys engage in more delinquent behavior if there is no father figure in their lives. However, adolescent girls' behavior is largely independent of the presence (or absence) of their fathers. The strong effect of family structure is not explained by the lack of paternal involvement that generally comes with fathers' absence, even though adolescents, especially boys, who spend time doing things with their fathers usually have better outcomes. There is also a link between adult delinquent behavior and adolescent family structure that cannot be explained by fathers' involvement with their adolescent sons and is only partially explained by fathers' involvement with their adolescent daughters. Finally, the strong link between adolescent family structure and delinquent behavior is not accounted for by the income differentials associated with fathers' absence. Our results suggest that the presence of a father figure during adolescence is likely to have protective effects, particularly for males, in both adolescence and young adulthood"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

This paper examines the effect of neighborhood diversity on the nativity gap in home-value appreciation in Australia. Specifically, immigrant homeowners experienced a 41.7 percent increase in median home values between 2001 and 2006, while the median value of housing owned by the native-born increased by 59.4 percent over the same period. We use a semi-parametric decomposition approach to assess the relative importance of the various determinants of home values in producing this gap. We find that the differential returns to housing wealth are not related to changes in the nature of the houses or the neighborhoods in which immigrants and native-born homeowners live. Rather, the gap stems from the fact that over time there were differential changes across groups in the hedonic prices (i.e., returns) associated with the underlying determinants of home values.

AbstractThis article provides a brief overview of the way that economists think about and measure gender pay gaps and labour market discrimination. Recent Australian evidence is then presented which highlights the relationship between the gender pay gap and both statistical and self‐assessed discrimination measures. Finally, the policy implications of these relationships are considered. In particular, it is argued that public policy needs to be targeted towards addressing the issue of gender bias more broadly, rather than focusing narrowly on the issue of gender pay gaps alone. This includes addressing the issue of sexual harassment.

Abstract Like their counterparts elsewhere, more young Australians than ever are delaying the move to establish residential independence from their parents. This paper reviews the developing economics literature surrounding young people's decisions to continue living in their parents' homes in order to begin to assess the causes and consequences of this decision. In particular, co‐residence with parents appears to be an important form of intergenerational support for young adults. It is important to understand the extent to which young people rely on this form of support as they complete their education, enter the labour market and establish themselves as independent adults. Specific attention is paid to the ways in which Australian income support, education and housing policies may influence these patterns.

Many countries are placing a greater emphasis on productive skills in the immigrant selection policies as a way of achieving national objectives regarding immigration. These changes stem primarily from the belief that skill-based immigrants do better in some sense and provide greater economic benefits than immigrants admitted on the basis of their family relationships. This paper takes advantage of a change in Australian selection policy in the 1990s to assess the extent to which selection policy can facilitate employment outcomes for new arrivals over the medium run. The results indicate that the increased emphasis on productive skills in the selection process led to striking differences in the human capital endowments of new immigrants. These improvements in human capital in turn completely explain the higher participation rates amongst immigrants arriving in Australia at the end of the 1990s. Moreover, approximately half of the fall in men?s unemployment rates also stems from increases in productive skills, though the substantial decline in women?s unemployment rates are driven solely by changes in the returns to skills rather than skill levels themselves. Overall, these results indicate that there is a large potential for selection policy to influence immigrant outcomes not just immediately after migration but also in the medium run. At the same time, it is also clear that income-support policy and the overall state of the Australian labour market also had a hand in improving the labour market position of new arrivals.

This article sets out the advantages and limitations of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia data for undertaking immigration research.