Maternal employment when children are in preschool: Variations by race,ethnicity, and nativity

Preschool programs in the United States have expanded dramatically in recent decades. There has been significant scholarly attention to the implications of this for inequalities in children's educational outcomes, but less attention to the implications for the work-family lives of parents. Drawing on data from 2001 to 2017 American Community Surveys, this paper examines how children's preschool enrollment is associated with maternal employment, with particular attention to differences by mothers' race, ethnicity, and nativity. Findings document unequal access to preschool programs across groups but also different patterns of association between children's preschool enrollment and maternal employment. Immigrant mothers are doubly disadvantaged compared to their U.S.-born counterparts: Children are less likely to attend preschool, and when they do attend, this does little to facilitate maternal employment. The paper's conclusion addresses limitations of existing preschool programs for work-family reconciliation, but also emphasizes that limitations are more severe for some families than others.     

Mexican parent's undocumented status and the educational attainment of the children left behind

Research shows that having undocumented parents lowers the educational attainment of children that grew up in the United States, but we know less about how it affects the education of children left behind in their origin countries. We use fixed effects models and data from the Mexican Migration Project to examine this relationship. We find that having both parents documented increases the educational attainment of children left behind by over two years in comparison to similar children with mixed-status, undocumented, and nonimmigrant parents. The effect is especially robust for boys that migrate as teenagers. These findings reveal that US immigration laws that define most Mexican immigrants as undocumented have had a devastating effect on the education of Mexican children left behind.     

Single-parent households and children’s educational achievement: A state-level analysis

Although many studies have examined associations between family structure and children’s educational achievement at the individual level, few studies have considered how the increase in single-parent households may have affected children’s educational achievement at the population level. We examined changes in the percentage of children living with single parents between 1990 and 2011 and state mathematics and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Regression models with state and year fixed effects revealed that changes in the percentage of children living with single parents were not associated with test scores. Increases in maternal education, however, were associated with improvements in children’s test scores during this period. These results do not support the notion that increases in single parenthood have had serious consequences for U.S. children’s school achievement.     

How do they do it? The immigrant paradox in the transition to adulthood

How do children of immigrants consistently outperform children of native-born U.S. parents, in spite of lower familial resources? Using the Transition to Adulthood Study of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, children of immigrant and native-born parents completing high school in 2005–13 are followed as they move into the young adult years. Children of immigrants are more likely to enroll in college, be employed or in school, and less likely to have a criminal record as young adults or to have a child than children of nonimmigrants. This is not a result of immigrant parentage but due primarily to greater parental educational expectations; immigrants enjoy a differential return to parental expectations for boys' college enrollment as well. Reading skills and activity patterns in the secondary school years also contribute to better outcomes. Children of immigrants are better able to translate their reading comprehension skills to college or employment later on.     

Growth curve analyses of the relationship between early maternal age and children’s mathematics and reading performance

Regarding the methods used to examine the early maternal age-child academic outcomes relationship, the extant literature has tended to examine change using statistical analyses that fail to appreciate that individuals vary in their rates of growth. Of the one study I have been able to find that employs a true growth model to estimate this relationship, the authors only controlled for characteristics of the maternal household after family formation; confounding background factors of mothers that might select them into early childbearing, a possible source of bias, were ignored. The authors’ findings nonetheless suggested an inverse relationship between early maternal age, i.e., a first birth between the ages of 13 and 17, and Canadian adolescents’ mean math performance at age 10. Early maternal age was not related to the linear slope of age. To elucidate whether the early maternal age-child academic outcomes association, treated in a growth context, is consistent with this finding, the present study built on it using US data and explored children’s mathematics and reading trajectories from age 5 on. Its unique contribution is that it further explicitly controlled for maternal background factors and employed a three-level growth model with repeated measures of children nested within their mothers. Though the strength of the relationship varied between mean initial academic performance and mean academic growth, results confirmed that early maternal age was negatively related to children’s mathematics and reading achievement, net of post-teen first birth child-specific and maternal household factors. Once maternal background factors were included, there was no statistically significant relationship between early maternal age and either children’s mean initial mathematics and reading scores or their mean mathematics and reading growth.     

Experiencing discrimination in Los Angeles: Latinos at the intersection of legal status and socioeconomic status

Despite its recent slowdown, immigration from Latin America continues to be a controversial issue. Some scholars argue that the social climate is increasingly inhospitable to Latinos, potentially fueling discriminatory attitudes and behaviors. However, little research has examined Latinos' experiences with discrimination, especially variation by nativity and legal status. We address this issue with research on perceived discrimination among Mexican and Central American residents of Los Angeles County, a major destination for Latin American immigrants. Using data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and the American Community Survey, the analyses consider immigrants’ legal status, intersectionality, and competing perspectives on assimilation. The results show that undocumented immigrants do not report especially high levels of discrimination. Instead, young U.S.-born Latinos are the most likely to report mistreatment in interpersonal and institutional domains. Neighborhood ethnoracial and income diversity also have implications for perceived exposure to different types of discrimination.     

Dual-language characteristics and earnings: Male Mexican workers in the United States

This paper examines income differentials between native-born white males of non-Hispanic origins and Mexican American males of varying linguistic statuses. The analysis relies on conventional modeling techniques of the earnings process and the selected use of mother tongue, English fluency, and primary language usage to categorize the Mexican American population. The findings differ among the derived groups. Among Mexican immigrants, there does not appear to be any direct economic reward for speaking English. For the U.S.-born Chicanos, there is only a small economic advantage associated with being reared as an English monolingual, and there appears to be a clear disadvantage directly associated with being a Spanish-dominant bilingual.     

The healthy immigrant (migrant) effect: In search of a better native-born comparison group

This paper evaluates whether immigrants’ initial health advantage over their U.S.-born counterparts results primarily from characteristics correlated with their birth countries (e.g., immigrant culture) or from selective migration (e.g., unobserved characteristics such as motivation and ambition) by comparing recent immigrants’ health to that of recent U.S.-born interstate migrants (“U.S.-born movers”). Using data from the 1999–2013 waves of the March Current Population Survey, I find that, relative to U.S.-born adults (collectively), recent immigrants have a 6.1 percentage point lower probability of reporting their health as fair or poor. Changing the reference group to U.S.-born movers, however, reduces the recent immigrant health advantage by 28%. Similar reductions in the immigrant health advantage occurs in models estimated separately by either race/ethnicity or education level. Models that examine health differences between recent immigrants and U.S.-born movers who both moved for a new job—a primary motivation behind moving for both immigrants and the U.S.-born—show that such immigrants have only a 1.9 percentage point lower probability of reporting their health as fair or poor. Together, the findings suggest that changing the reference group from U.S.-born adults collectively to U.S.-born movers reduces the identified immigrant health advantage, indicating that selective migration plays a significant role in explaining the initial health advantage of immigrants in the United States.     

Mothers' work patterns and Children's cognitive achievement: Evidence from the India Human Development survey

As female labor force participation increases globally, the relationship between maternal employment and children's development remains unclear. Using data from the India Human Development Survey (2005), we investigate the link between maternal employment and children's arithmetic and reading achievement. We develop a work pattern typology that goes beyond standard measures of employment and captures work intensity and its compatibility with child-rearing in a transitional economy. We find that the relationship between maternal employment and children's outcomes is not unidimensional. For example, children of self-employed mothers are not disadvantaged compared to those with stay-at-home mothers, but maternal employment in salaried jobs or wage work outside the home is negatively associated with cognitive skills in children. However, this negative association is reversed at higher levels of maternal education, suggesting greater access to resources and flexibility associated with better jobs mitigate the negative aspects of maternal employment posed by time constraints. Additionally, maternal employment is associated with maternal involvement in schoolwork and financial investment in academic activities, providing evidence that both time and resources devoted to children's education are significant.     

Physical-psychiatric comorbidity: Implications for health measurement and the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox

Few studies examine the co-occurrence of physical and psychiatric health problems (physical-psychiatric comorbidity), and whether these patterns differ across social groups. Using the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication and National Latino and Asian American Study, the current study asks: what are the patterns of physical-psychiatric comorbidity (PPC) between non-Hispanic Whites and Latino subgroups, further differentiated by gender and nativity? Does the PPC measurement approach reveal different patterns across groups compared to when only physical or only psychiatric health problems are the health outcomes of interest? To what extent do sociodemographic characteristics (SES, stress exposure, social support, immigration-related factors) explain PPC differences between groups? Results reveal that compared to U.S.-born non-Hispanic White men, island-born Puerto Rican men experience elevated PPC risk. Mexican and Other Latino women and men experience relatively lower risk of PPC relative to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Social factors explain some of the health disadvantage of island-born Puerto Rican men, but do not explain the health advantage of Mexicans and Other Latinos.     

Undocumented migration and the residential segregation of Mexicans in new destinations

This study uses data from the 2000 Census and 2005–2009 American Community Survey to examine the impact of undocumented Mexican migration to new destinations on residential segregation between Mexican immigrants and native-born whites and native-born blacks. We find that Mexican-white and Mexican-black segregation is higher in new Mexican gateways than in established areas and that, for Mexican-immigrant segregation from whites, this heightened level of residential segregation in new destinations can be explained by the high presence of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living there which tends to bolster segregation between the two groups. By contrast, Mexican-immigrant segregation from native-born blacks tends to be lower in areas with larger undocumented populations, a pattern that is especially true in new destinations. Neither of these opposing effects of legal status on Mexican-immigrant segregation can be explained by compositional differences in assimilation (English ability and earnings) between documented and undocumented immigrants nor by structural variation in metropolitan areas, suggesting a unique association between legal status and segregation.     

Do mother’s and father’s education condition the impact of parental divorce on child well-being?

We use the British Cohort Study to investigate to what extent parental resources moderate the association between parental divorce in childhood and lowered child well-being as indicated by maternal reports of child psychological well-being and by academic test scores (reading and math tests). We argue that children of mothers with more years of education suffer less when their parents split up because better educated mothers may be better able to provide a safe and stable environment for their children after divorce. In addition, we argue that having a better educated father could either aggravate or reduce the effects of parental divorce. This is one of the first studies to simultaneously investigate the role of maternal, and paternal resources, and pre-divorce shared resources. Our analyses indicate that the effect of parental divorce on psychological well-being is reduced for better educated mothers and for families with more pre-divorce economic resources, but increased for better educated fathers. For academic test scores we find a protective effect of having a better educated father and higher pre-divorce social resources.     

Housing and neighborhood quality among undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants

Extensive research has documented the challenges that undocumented immigrants face in navigating U.S. labor markets, but relatively little has explored the impact of legal status on residential outcomes despite their widespread repercussions for social well-being. Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to impute documentation status among Mexican and Central American immigrants, we examine group differences in residential outcomes, including homeownership, housing crowding, satisfaction with neighborhood and housing quality, problems with neighborhood crime/safety, governmental services, and environmental issues, and deficiencies with housing units. Results from our analysis indicate that undocumented householders are far less likely to be homeowners than documented migrants, and also live in more crowded homes, report greater structural deficiencies with their dwellings, and express greater concern about the quality of public services and environmental conditions in their neighborhoods. In comparison to native whites, undocumented migrants’ residential circumstances are lacking, but their residential outcomes tend to be superior to those of native-born blacks. Overall, our results highlight the pervasive impact of legal status on stratifying Mexicans’ and Central Americans’ prospects for successful incorporation, but also underscore the rigidity of the black/nonblack divide structuring American residential contexts.     

From the West Indies to Africa: A universal generational decline in health among blacks in the United States

Research shows that foreign-born blacks have better health profiles than their U.S.-born counterparts. Less is known, however, regarding whether black immigrants’ favorable health outcomes persist across generations or whether these patterns differ across the diverse sending regions for black immigrants. In this study, we use data from the 1996–2014 waves of the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to investigate generational differences in self-rated health among blacks with West Indian, Haitian, Latin American, and African ancestry. We show that first-generation black immigrants have a lower probability of reporting fair/poor health than third/higher generation blacks. The health advantage of the first generation over the third/higher generation is slightly more prounced among the foreign-born who migrated to the United States after age 13. Second-generation immigrants with two foreign-born parents are generally less likely to report their health as fair/poor than the third/higher generation. However, we find no evidence that self-reported fair/poor health varies between second-generation immigrants with mixed nativity parents (only one foreign-born parent) and the third/higher generation. These general patterns hold across each of the ancestral subgroups in the study sample. In summary, our findings highlight a remarkable convergence in health across immigrant generations among blacks in the United States.     

Selective Emigration, Cohort Quality, and Models of Immigrant Assimilation

In this article we identify sample underenumeration, changing cohort quality, and selective emigration as problems that threaten the validity of findings on immigrant socioeconomic assimilation derived from cross-sectional data. Using information on Mexican immigrants from the 1990 U.S. census and a unique binational source of data, we address the effects of these problems on cross-sectional regressions of English proficiency and wage attainment. Our results suggest that the underenumeration of temporary and undocumented migrants biases the estimated effects of human capital variables downward, but that selective emigration does not significantly affect cross-sectional models. We do find, however, that period of entry is a poor proxy for total migrant experience, and when we disentangle duration and cohort effects, we find some evidence for shifts in cohort quality over time, but not the systematic decline seen by others.     

Parental same-sex relationships, family instability, and subsequent life outcomes for adult children: Answering critics of the new family structures study with additional analyses

The July 2012 publication of my study on the outcomes of young adults who report parental same-sex relationship behavior raised a variety of questions about the New Family Structures Study and my analyses and interpretations of it. This follow-up article seeks to address a variety of the more common criticisms that have been raised, to offer new commentary and analyses, and to pose questions for future analysts of the NFSS and other datasets that are poised to consider how household dynamics are associated with youth and young-adult outcomes. The new analyses I present here still reveal numerous differences between adult children who report maternal same-sex behavior (and residence with her partner) and those with still-married (heterosexual) biological parents. Far fewer differences appear between the former and several other groups, most notably never-married single mothers.     

Pathways of disadvantage: Explaining the relationship between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors

A large body of literature documents that children of depressed mothers have impaired cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes throughout the life course, though much less is known about the mechanisms linking maternal depression to children’s outcomes. In this paper, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate and explain the consequences of maternal depression for 5-year-old children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Ordinary least squared (OLS) regression models and propensity score models show that children exposed to both chronic and intermittent maternal depression have more problem behaviors than their counterparts with never depressed mothers. Results also show that economic resources and maternal parenting behaviors mediate much of the association between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors, but that relationships with romantic partners and social support do little to explain this association. This research extends past literature by illuminating some mechanisms through which maternal depression matters for children; by utilizing longitudinal measures of depression; by employing rigorous statistical techniques to lend confidence to the findings; and by using a large, diverse, and non-clinical sample of children most susceptible to maternal depression. Given that early childhood problem behaviors lay a crucial foundation for short- and long-term life trajectories, the social consequences of maternal depression may be far-reaching.     

Children with disabilities and trajectories of parents' unsecured debt across the life course

Prior research shows that having a child with a disability is economically burdensome for parents but we know little about whether this burden extends to unsecured debt. In this study, we examine the link between having a child with a disability that manifests between birth and age 4 and subsequent trajectories in unsecured household debt. We have three key findings. First, we find that having a child with an early-life disabling health condition is associated with a substantial increase in indebtedness in the years immediately following the child's birth, and that this association persists net of a range of potential confounders. Second, we find that parents do not quickly repay this debt, such that parents of a child with a disabling health condition have different trajectories of unsecured debt across the life course than do parents of children without a disabling health condition. Third, we find that the association between early-life child disability and debt is stronger for more severe conditions, such as those that require ongoing medical treatment. The results of this study are informative for understanding an important aspect of economic functioning—indebtedness—for parents of children with disabilities, as well as the causes and correlates of rising unsecured debt in the U.S.     

Paternal incarceration and child-reported behavioral functioning at age 9

Within the last few decades our understanding of the importance of non-cognitive skills for socioeconomic success has grown along with our knowledge of the deleterious impacts of paternal incarceration for child wellbeing. Given the importance of early skills and that elementary-aged children constitute the majority of children with incarcerated parents, understanding the connection between paternal incarceration and the socio-emotional component of children’s non-cognitive development is pressing. Using matching models, data from the newest wave of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and exploring a larger range of behavioral skills than previous literature, this paper provides estimates of the impact of paternal incarceration on children’s behavioral functioning at age 9 using children’s own self-reports. Comparisons to oft-used parent reports are made and heterogeneity by gender is explored. Findings suggest the incarceration of a father increases the antisocial behaviors children self-report, but has null effects on prosocial skill development.     

Family structure and the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage

I examine whether the effect of parents’ education on children’s educational achievement and attainment varies by family structure and, if so, whether this can be explained by differential parenting practices. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I find that as parents’ education increases, children in single mother families experience a lower boost in their achievement test scores, likelihood of attending any post-secondary schooling, likelihood of completing a 4-year college degree, and years of completed schooling relative to children living with both biological parents. Differences in parents’ educational expectations, intergenerational closure, and children’s involvement in structured leisure activities partially explain these status transmission differences by family structure. The findings imply that, among children with highly educated parents, children of single mothers are less likely to be highly educated themselves relative to children who grow up with both biological parents.