Educational Attainment by Life Course Sexual Attraction: Prevalence and Correlates in a Nationally Representative Sample of Young Adults

Researchers know relatively little about the educational attainment of sexual minorities, despite the fact that educational attainment is consistently associated with a range of social, economic, and health outcomes. We examined whether sexual attraction in adolescence and early adulthood was associated with educational attainment in early adulthood among a nationally representative sample of US young adults. We analyzed waves I and IV restricted data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 14,111). Sexual orientation was assessed using self-reports of romantic attraction in waves I (adolescence) and IV (adulthood). Multinomial regression models were estimated and all analyses were stratified by gender. Women attracted to the same-sex in adulthood only had lower educational attainment compared to women attracted only to the opposite-sex in adolescence and adulthood. Men attracted to the same-sex in adolescence only had lower educational attainment compared to men attracted only to the opposite-sex in adolescence and adulthood. Adolescent experiences and academic performance attenuated educational disparities among men and women. Adjustment for adolescent experiences also revealed a suppression effect; women attracted to the same-sex in adolescence and adulthood had lower predicted probabilities of having a high school diploma or less compared to women attracted only to the opposite-sex in adolescence and adulthood. Our findings challenge previous research documenting higher educational attainment among sexual minorities in the US. Additional population-based studies documenting the educational attainment of sexual-minority adults are needed.     

以生命历程范式浅析老年群体中的不平等现象

运用现有社会学理论对老年领域存在的不平等原因作初步的分析。传统的分层理论中 ,经济地位、权力分配、个人生活机会等社会分层的决定因素在解释老年不平等现象中依然发挥着重要作用。分析老年不平等问题 ,不仅需要传统理论的支持 ,还需要动态的来考察 ,本文在传统理论的支持下加入了一个新的理论视角———生命历程范式。     

Determinants of Subjective Quality of Life Among Rural Adolescents: A Developmental Perspective

This study examines youths' experiences of loneliness and community connectedness in relation to seven domains of subjective quality of life among pre-adolescents, early adolescents, and middle adolescents. Participants consisted of 464 youth, ranging in age from 11 to 17 years, from two rural towns. Youth reported on their subjective experiences of loneliness and their perceptions of their community environments (neighbourhood and school). Hierarchical regressions indicated the importance of loneliness in accounting for subjective quality of life for early adolescents, and less so for middle and pre-adolescents. Community factors significantly accounted for additional variance in pre-adolescents' reports of their quality of life, compared with early and middle adolescents' reports. Discussion highlights the importance of understanding the determinants of quality of life from an individual, community, and developmental perspective.     

Determinants of Rural Physicians' Life and Job Satisfaction

Objective: To identify and quantify factors that contribute to rural physicians' satisfaction with their jobs and life as a whole.Design: Cross-sectional, mailed survey. Study population: Family physicians practicing in rural communities eligible for British Columbia's Northern and Isolation Allowance. Main measures: Demographics, Domain satisfaction, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Life Satisfaction.Results: Stepwise multiple regressions reveal the greatest predicators of rural physician overall life satisfaction are satisfaction with jobs, personal relationships, health, finances, and absence of depression. These predictors account for 70% of the variation in rural physician overall life satisfaction. The greatest predictors of rural physician satisfaction with jobs and satisfaction with current place of residence/practice, on-call shifts, personal accomplishments, and absence of emotional exhaustion. The predictors account for 44% of the variation in rural physician job satisfaction.     

Same-Sex Sexuality and Educational Attainment: The Pathway to College

Research finds lower levels of academic performance among sexual minority high school students, but some studies suggest sexual minorities have higher levels of educational attainment in adulthood. To further our understanding of how and why sexual orientation is associated with educational success, this study turns attention to the pathways to college completion, examining points along educational trajectories in which sexual minorities fall behind or surpass their heterosexual peers. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that sexual minority women are less likely than women with no same-sex sexuality to complete college, in part due to their high school performance and transition into college. Men who experience same-sex sexuality only in adolescence struggle in high school, but men who experience same-sex sexuality for the first time in adulthood are more likely to earn a college degree than men who do not experience same-sex sexuality.     

Educational Attainment and Adult Mortality in the United States: A Systematic Analysis of Functional Form

A vast literature has documented the inverse association between educational attainment and U.S. adult mortality risk but given little attention to identifying the optimal functional form of the association. A theoretical explanation of the association hinges on our ability to describe it empirically. Using the 1979–1998 National Longitudinal Mortality Study for non-Hispanic white and black adults aged 25–100 years during the mortality follow-up period (N = 1,008,215), we evaluated 13 functional forms across race-gender-age subgroups to determine which form(s) best captured the association. Results revealed that the preferred functional form includes a linear decline in mortality risk from 0 to 11 years of education, followed by a step-change reduction in mortality risk upon attainment of a high school diploma, at which point mortality risk resumes a linear decline but with a steeper slope than that prior to a high school diploma. The findings provide important clues for theoretical development of explanatory mechanisms: an explanation for the selected functional form may require integrating a credentialist perspective to explain the step-change reduction in mortality risk upon attainment of a high school diploma, with a human capital perspective to explain the linear declines before and after a high school diploma.     

Gender Gaps in Educational Attainment in Less Developed Countries

Conventional wisdom holds that gender gaps in schooling favoring males in developing countries generally are large, though probably declining. In this article we re‐examine recent gender gaps in schooling in the developing world and come to a more nuanced characterization of their nature, which suggests that the developing countries are becoming more like the developed countries, with gender gaps that increasingly favor, rather than discriminate against, females. Using data from 38 countries with multiple Demographic and Health Surveys, we examine how the gender gaps in current school enrollment and grade completion emerge across the educational life course from age 6 to 18. We also examine how these age‐specific measures have changed over time, comparing the periods 1990–99 and 2000–06. Our analyses indicate that among children who have ever attended school, girls younger than 16 years of age have equal or greater schooling progress than boys of the same age in all regions of the developing world.     

大学生就业决定因素分析——基于多层模型的方法

本文利用山东2007届高校毕业生就业调查数据,建立多层交叉随机效应模型,检验了个体、专业和学校等多层变量对大学生就业的影响。结果发现,初次就业概率在学校和专业之间存在显著差异,且学校因素对就业的作用大于专业,但学校与专业对就业的交互作用不显著。就业能力以及与专业相关的实习经历对就业具有显著的正向作用。因此,大学生就业政策的重点是提高教育质量和突出专业特色,提升就业能力,完善就业导向的实习指导和服务。     

死亡人口受教育水平的预测模型和效果研究——对中国1990～2010年省级面板数据的估计

由于缺乏健全的死亡民事登记和医疗登记制度,中国死亡人口的受教育水平只能获得人口普查年份的数据,非普查年份数据只能用普查年份数据代替,这种替代法在使用中存在诸多不足,构建模型对非普查年数据进行估计是另一种可行的方法。本研究利用经过识别和有效性检验的模型,以社会经济发展水平、人口结构水平、医疗卫生水平和存活人口受教育水平作为解释变量,利用可得资料对1990²010年期间非普查年份数据进行估计,得到更为有效的省级死亡人口受教育水平逐年数据。     

Intergenerational Mobility in Relative Educational Attainment and Health-Related Behaviours

Social Indicators Research - Research on intergenerational social mobility and health-related behaviours yields mixed findings. Depending on the direction of mobility and the type of mechanisms...     

Cumulative Childhood Adversity,Educational Attainment,and Active Life Expectancy Among U.S. Adults

Studies of the early-life origins of adult physical functioning and mortality have found that childhood health and socioeconomic context are important predictors, often irrespective of adult experiences. However, these studies have generally assessed functioning and mortality as distinct processes and used cross-sectional prevalence estimates that neglect the interplay of disability incidence, recovery, and mortality. Here, we examine whether early-life disadvantages both shorten lives and increase the number and fraction of years lived with functional impairment. We also examine the degree to which educational attainment mediates and moderates the health consequences of early-life disadvantages. Using the 1998–2008 Health and Retirement Study, we examine these questions for non-Hispanic whites and blacks aged 50–100 years using multistate life tables. Within levels of educational attainment, adults from disadvantaged childhoods lived fewer total and active years, and spent a greater portion of life impaired compared with adults from advantaged childhoods. Higher levels of education did not ameliorate the health consequences of disadvantaged childhoods. However, because education had a larger impact on health than did childhood socioeconomic context, adults from disadvantaged childhoods who achieved high education levels often had total and active life expectancies that were similar to or better than those of adults from advantaged childhoods who achieved low education levels.     

农村老年人口绝对贫困及其影响因素——物质剥夺视角下的实证研究

基于物质剥夺视角构建了农村老年人绝对贫困形成机制框架,利用来自河南和陕西两省216个村庄的大样本农户调查数据,通过五个维度的物质剥夺指标对农村老年人绝对贫困进行了直接测量,并进一步系统考察了经济资源和基本需要两个层面的因素对老年人绝对贫困的影响.结果发现,农村老年人在住房和医疗两个维度的剥夺比例最高.传统的收入贫困测量手段并不能准确识别出实际经历物质剥夺的农村贫困老年人.除了收入之外,不同类型的家庭资产、 信贷支持、 政府救助等其他经济资源都能有效缓解老年人物质剥夺状况.而独居和负面健康冲击则会显著提高老年人的剥夺发生率和严重程度.     

The Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment: Historical Trends and Racial Comparisons

It is often asserted that the gender gap in educational attainment is larger for blacks than whites, but historical trends comparing the black and white gender gap have received surprisingly little attention. Analysis of historical data from the U.S. census IPUMS samples shows that the gender gap in college completion has evolved differently for whites and blacks. Historically, the female advantage in educational attainment among blacks is linked to more favorable labor market opportunities and stronger incentives for employment for educated black women. Blacks, particularly black males, still lag far behind whites in their rates of college completion, but the striking educational gains of white women have caused the racial patterns of gender differences in college completion rates to grow more similar over time. While some have linked the disadvantaged position of black males to their high risk of incarceration, our estimates suggest that incarceration has a relatively small impact on the black gender gap and the racial gap in college completion rates for males in the United States.     

Extreme Energy Poverty Incidence and Determinants in Nigeria: A Multidimensional Approach

Social Indicators Research - Energy poverty has emerged in recent times as a crucial aspect of poverty, afflicting the developing world in general and Nigeria in particular. Drawing from some of...     

State-Level Variation in the Association Between Educational Attainment and Sleep

Population Research and Policy Review - Demographers have consistently documented the importance of educational attainment for population-health. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the...     

Determinants of Subjective Well-Being and Poverty in Rural Pakistan: A Micro-Level Study

Drawing on unique survey data for rural Pakistan, we investigate the impact of socio-demographic factors on happiness index with particular emphasis on subjective well-being measurement to evaluate poverty and its different components. The data elicits information on overall well-being in terms of household’s happiness with the current socio-economic status. We estimate a happiness model to explore to what extent a well-being perspective adds to our understanding of poverty. We find that the well-being approach closely depicts the idea of well-being poverty in terms of the level education, health and income which matter significantly. Moreover unlike developed nations where children have a negative impact on overall well-being, this study suggests a positive impact on well-being and poverty. As studies employing good data from developing countries are rare, this paper can potentially make a good contribution to the existing happiness literature, with special reference to Pakistan.     

A Mixed Method Approach to Quality of Life Research: A Case Study Approach

Increased use of qualitative and quantitative methods in quality of life projects necessitates an examination of how to effectively work within a mixed method framework. The research objectives of this paper are to (1) operationalize the two goals of mixed method research (confirmation and comprehension) and (2) develop a strategy for using mixed methods in quality of life research. Face-to-face interview (qualitative) and telephone survey (quantitative) data from the Community–University Institute for Social Research Quality of Life (CUISR QoL) project in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan were used for operationalization. Overall, confirmation and comprehension were challenging concepts to operationalize. Seven benefits and four guidelines were developed and are presented as dynamic, rather than definitive, structures.     

同胞数量与教育获得的性别差异

同胞数量对教育获得的影响存在性别差异,对女性影响较大,对男性没有统计上的影响。在国家强调教育公平的时期,同胞效应的性别差异较小;在强调效率的时期,性别差异较大。在农村,同胞效应的性别差异要高于城镇。从同胞构成来看,对女性教育获得影响最大的是弟的数量。研究表明,同胞效应产生的主要原因是家庭预算约束和性别偏好。     

The Effect of Household Wealth on Educational Attainment: Evidence from 35 Countries

The authors use household survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 44 surveys (in 35 countries) to document different patterns in the enrollment and attainment of children from rich and poor households. They overcome the lack of income or expenditure data in the DHS by constructing a proxy for long-run wealth of the household from the asset information in the surveys, using the statistical technique of principal components. There are three major findings. First, the enrollment profiles of the poor differ across countries but fall into distinctive regional patterns: in some regions the poor reach nearly universal enrollment in first grade, but then drop out in large numbers leading to low attainment (typical of South America), while in other regions the poor never enroll in school (typical of South Asia and Western/Central Africa). Second, there are enormous differences across countries in the “wealth gap,” the difference in enrollment and educational attainment of the rich and poor. While in some countries the difference in the median years of school completed of the rich and poor is only a year or two, in other countries the wealth gap in attainment is 9 or 10 years. Third, the attainment profiles can be used as diagnostic tools to suggest issues in the educational system, such as the extent to which low attainment is attributable to physical unavailability of schools.     

教育水平对人口职业分层影响的实证分析--以湖北省为例

文章通过对湖北省第五次人口普查及相关资料的实证分析,认为教育水平对就业人口的职业分层有明显的影响。分析发现,湖北省就业人口的职业构成目前仍处于“传统模式”,体力劳动者职业人口比重大,其主要原因是职业人口的平均受教育水平普遍偏低,特别是处在低级次职业的体力劳动者最为突出。