Prenatal Exposure to an Acute Stressor and Children’s Cognitive Outcomes

Exposure to environmental stressors is highly prevalent and unequally distributed along socioeconomic lines and may have enduring negative consequences, even when experienced before birth. Yet, estimating the consequences of prenatal stress on children’s outcomes is complicated by the issue of confounding (i.e., unobserved factors correlated with stress exposure and with children’s outcomes). I combine a natural experiment—a strong earthquake in Chile—with a panel survey to capture the effect of prenatal exposure on acute stress and children’s cognitive ability. I find that stress exposure in early pregnancy has no effect on children’s cognition among middle-class families, but it has a strong negative influence among disadvantaged families. I then examine possible pathways accounting for the socioeconomic stratification in the effect of stress, including differential exposure across socioeconomic status, differential sensitivity, and parental responses. Findings suggest that the interaction between prenatal exposures and socioeconomic advantage provides a powerful mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.     

Parental wealth and children's outcomes over the life-course in Brazil: A propensity score matching analysis

Parental wealth – as distinct from income, education and other parental socioeconomic resources – may play a large role in children's socioeconomic outcomes, particularly in developing countries, characterized by economic volatility, a weak social safety net and limited access to credit. Using a propensity score matching approach, we examine the influence of parental wealth on adult children's schooling, school quality, occupational status, consumption level, and wealth holdings in Brazil. Findings suggest a substantial effect of parental wealth on all these outcomes, with a positive effect of even modest levels of wealth. The effect of parental wealth on occupational status is largely mediated by parental investment in more and better education for children. In contrast, the effect on children's consumption and wealth is largely unmediated by labor market resources and rewards, a pattern that is more pronounced for sons than for daughters. This suggests direct parental financial assistance. Sensitivity analysis indicates that hidden bias emerging from unobserved confounders should have to be unlikely large to question inference of a causal influence of high levels of parental wealth, although the influence of low levels of wealth may be more susceptible to hidden bias.     

Age at Arrival and Life Chances Among Childhood Immigrants

This study examines the causal relationship between childhood immigrants’ age at arrival and their life chances as adults. I analyze panel data on siblings from Norwegian administrative registries, which enables me to disentangle the effect of age at arrival on adult socioeconomic outcomes from all fixed family-level conditions and endowments shared by siblings. Results from sibling fixed-effects models reveal a progressively stronger adverse influence of immigration at later stages of childhood on completed education, employment, adult earnings, occupational attainment, and social welfare assistance. The persistence of these relationships within families indicates that experiences related to the timing of childhood immigration have causal effects on later-life outcomes. These age-at-arrival effects are considerably stronger among children who arrive from geographically distant and economically less-developed origin regions than among children originating from developed countries. The age-at-arrival effects vary less by parental education and child gender. On the whole, the findings indicate that childhood immigration after an early-life formative period tends to constrain later human capital formation and economic opportunities over the life course.     

Veteran Status,Income, and Intergenerational Mobility Across Three Cohorts of American Men

Existing research linking prior military employment with labor market outcomes has focused on comparing the relative income of veterans and nonveterans. However, people who join the armed forces are uniquely selected from the broader population, and the form and direction of selectivity has shifted over time, with differential enlistment rates by race, region, and socioeconomic status. Understanding changes in the demographic composition of enlistees and veterans has significant import for the study of social mobility, particularly given changes in the occupational structure since the mid-twentieth century and wage stagnation well into the new millennium. Furthermore, labor market polarization and increases in educational attainment since WWII raise additional concerns about the social origins of military personnel and their occupational trajectories after discharge. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys, we investigate how social background is linked to both income and occupational mobility among veterans from three cohorts of American men: World War II, Vietnam, and the All-Volunteer Force. We find few benefits for veterans, for either income or intergenerational occupational mobility, once social background is controlled, suggesting that selection into the armed forces largely governs outcomes in the civilian labor market. Our findings have significant importance for understanding civilian labor market outcomes and trajectories of social mobility during distinct phases of military staffing.     

流动人口的人力资本禀赋效应及其代际差异

招工难、找工难的现象隐藏着一个重要的经济心理学效应--禀赋效应,即个体出让某物品估价高于得到此物品愿意支付价格的现象。调查结果显示,70%的被访者存在人力资本禀赋效应,他们对自己所拥有的受教育程度应得到的收入估价是对同等受教育程度的劳动力的购买价格的2.9倍。人口学、社会和经济特征对于是否会产生人力资本禀赋效应有显著的影响作用,而禀赋效应的强弱主要受到就业身份的影响。雇员愿意出让价格大大高于雇主愿意购买价格就会出现交易困难,导致"招工难、找工难"的现象出现。事实上,雇员月工资与雇主愿意购买价格非常接近,雇员只能被迫降低愿意出让价格,以适应社会,摆脱"找工难"的困境。第一代流动人口比第二代流动人口的人力资本禀赋效应感更强。与第一代相比较,第二代流动人口中的雇员所期望的薪金更接近于雇主所愿意购买的价格。     

Welfare and the Children of Immigrants: Transmission of Dependence or Investment in the Future?

The public concern that immigrant families might be using a disproportionate share of social benefits and transmitting some form of public dependency to their children, combined with the rising levels of immigrants entering the country, fueled the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, which limited public assistance to many immigrant families. This paper uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to explore the association between exposure to welfare and young adult outcomes of high school graduation, college enrollment and labor force participation with a focus on parental nativity status as well as broad country of origin group. Results indicate a persistent negative association between welfare legacy and high school graduation; a negative association that is most pronounced for children of natives. Results also show the largest positive effect of welfare receipt among the most disadvantaged group, the young adult children of immigrants from Mexican and Central American countries. The main finding of this study suggests that the negative impacts of welfare receipt might be lessened and in some cases reversed among the young adults from immigrant families. Such findings challenge the common notion that immigrant families use welfare as a crutch across generations and raise serious concern about U.S. immigration and welfare policies.     

Will They Stay? Foreign-Born Out-Migration from New U.S. Destinations

Immigrants living in new destinations in 1995 were 2.5 times more likely to have migrated to another labor market by 2000 as immigrants living in traditional places. The researchers look at two competing explanations for immigrants’ differential internal migration patterns, namely that immigrants prefer areas with relatively large nativity concentrations which provide them with social support versus immigrants are target earners who prefer robust labor markets with strong employment growth and high wages. Utilizing confidential Census data for 1990 and 2000, the authors develop new destination classifications for 741 labor markets that take into account the differential growth and composition characteristics of 24 Asian, Latin American and Caribbean immigrant groups living in those markets. The empirical analysis of labor market out-migration indicates that immigrants do not see internal migration as an either/or choice between economics and social support but prefer residence places that allow them to maximize both conditions.     

International migration and labor force participation of married women

A focal issue in international immigration research has been immigration adaptation and assimilation and especially absorption and integration of immigrants into labor force roles. Nevertheless, such research has largely been focused on immigrant men, neglecting the systematic examination of labor force participation among immigrant women. This research is focused on the correlates of economic activity among immigrant and native born Jewish, urban, married females aged 18–54 in Israel. The specific objectives of the investigation are: (1) the impact of education, socioeconomic status, familial child care burdens, and ethnic background on the economic activity of native-born and immigrant, married women; and (2) to evaluate the extent to which the above patterns vary by veterancy and age. The data for this analysis are drawn from Israel's quarterly labor force survey of 6,000 families for 1970 and 1971. Education, socioeconomic status, ethnic origin, and child care burden were all found to have some effect on women's labor force participation; however, the pattern of effect was different for younger and older women and varied by veterancy status. Indications can be found in the data that age at immigration, or in other words the point in the women's life cycle at which immigration occurs, makes a difference in the type and strength of effect of immigration on labor force participation.Requests for reprints should be directed to Moshe Hartman, Department of Sociology, Population Research Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322.     

Family Constellations and Life Satisfaction in Europe

Existing research on family and well-being has generally focused on the traditional family, and has largely ignored the increasing diversity in family forms and relations. Our aim in this paper is to help fill this gap by investigating the extent of the relationship between living arrangements and life satisfaction (LS) in Europe. We examined variations in life satisfaction by applying a multilevel approach (i.e., individuals nested in countries) to data from the 2007 European Quality of Life Survey. First, we found that levels of life satisfaction among families consisting of couples with children were significantly higher than among people in other (less typical) family arrangements. Second, our results illustrate that after the socioeconomic situation of the family was taken into account, the influence of family status on LS disappeared almost completely. Overall, our findings suggest that the lower levels of life satisfaction experienced by people living in atypical families can be largely attributed to their weaker socioeconomic position.     

The Effects of Grandparents on Children’s Schooling: Evidence From Rural China

The issue of whether the social class of grandparents affects grandchildren’s socioeconomic outcomes net of the characteristics of the middle generation is much debated in the social mobility literature. Using data from the 2002 Chinese Household Income Project, we investigate the direct effects of grandparents on grandchildren’s educational attainment in rural China. We find that the influence of grandparents is contingent on living arrangements. Although the educational level of coresident grandparents directly affects the educational attainment of their grandchildren, with an effect size similar to that of parental education, the education of noncoresident and deceased grandparents does not have any effect. These findings suggest that grandparents can directly affect grandchildren’s educational outcomes through sociopsychological pathways. Our study not only adds an important case study to the literature but also sheds new light on theoretical interpretations of grandparent effects when they are found.     

Child care arrangements and fertility: An analysis of two-earner households

The determinants of child care arrangements and relations between child care and fertility are examined using data on two-earner households from the 1976 National Survey of Family Growth. We find that the probability of relying on market arrangements is higher among families in which the husband's income, the wife's wage, and the level of the wife's labor supply are high; these households are likely to benefit the most from subsidies to the market forms of care that are small relative to the total cost of care (e.g. the present system of tax credits). In addition, parental education, family size, child's age, race, religion, and place of residence have important influences on the choice of child care mode. When other factors are held constant, reliance on a relative for child care is positively associated with intentions to have further children among couples with infants and preschoolers.     

Pre- to Post-Migration Occupational Mobility of First Generation Immigrants to Sweden from 1970–1990: Examining the Influence of Linguistic Distance

The article examines the influence of linguistic distance on the labor market outcomes of a sample of 5,041 first generation immigrants in Sweden between 1970 and 1990. The article exploits register data from the Swedish Longitudinal Database, examining a population of individuals from 11 non-Nordic countries of origin. The analysis focuses on the transition to the Swedish labor market, comparing the last occupation before migration with the first occupation after, measured by the ISEI score. Using OLS regression, the results finds important differences in the initial labor market outcomes that are linked to the individual’s linguistic distance. More specifically, individuals proficient in languages belonging to the same language family as Swedish and familiar with the Latin alphabet are found to enjoy an advantage in the initial transition to the Swedish labor market. This finding exists net of the influence of the individual’s region of origin, and is particularly accentuated among formally highly skilled males. This appears to confirm the comparatively large demands for destination-specific skills in high-status occupations, favoring linguistically more proximate individuals. Among females, no consistent advantage among the linguistically most proximate can be observed among the formally highly skilled, potentially explained by differing selection mechanisms into the labor market. In general, however, the mechanisms through which linguistic distance affects the individual’s initial occupation in Sweden appear to operate similarly along gender lines.     

The Subjective Well-Being of Immigrants: Pre- and Post-migration

In recent years, migration studies have increasingly shown that subjective well-being carries considerable weight in immigrant integration. Yet little is known about the subjective well-being of immigrants in their origin country (pre-migration) or its relation to their well-being in the host country. This paper examines the relationship between subjective well-being, both pre- and post-immigration, among North Americans who arrived in Israel during the past two decades. The study combines both quantitative and qualitative research methods. According to our quantitative findings, the labor market performance of North American immigrants in Israel is lower than in their origin countries. Further, we learned from the qualitative analysis that although the immigrants’ positions in the labor market were better in their origin countries, the immigrants perceived their standard of living in Israel to be the same as in their origin country—if not better—due to the low cost of services in Israel. The importance of the immigrant’s satisfaction from the current job in Israel was apparent in the findings of both methods. We also found that the subjective well-being of North American immigrants in Israel is relatively high, and most immigrants did not consider leaving Israel. The subjective well-being of the immigrants in Israel was found to be related to their social networks in their origin country, to their religious immigration motive and to their work satisfaction in Israel. The more supportive the immigrants’ families were of their decision to immigrate, the less the immigrants tended to consider leaving Israel. Immigrants with a religious motivation for immigrating to Israel were less inclined to leave, and the same was true for immigrants who were satisfied with their work in Israel. The qualitative data added important perspective on the immigrants’ social networks, this time in Israel. Interviewees reported having more supportive social networks in Israel, and a greater sense of community, although most of their contacts were within the Anglo community.     

General situation and characteristics of the population of the Yemen Arab Republic]

The Yemen Arab Republic conducted a national census on February 1, 1975 and collected accurate and useful information for population research. Such information can be used to understand various factors in this country's development process and to set up a longterm plan for the country's economic development. According to this census, the total population of the country was 4,705,337. About 54.4% of its population was under the age of 16, and the average age for the population was 16. This young age population structure shows that the number of people who need employment is high, and the pressure on social and economic development is strong. Because of a poor living standard and backward health care, the birthrate and death rate have remained very high, and economic growth has been very slow. Because of the poor geographical condition, the distribution of population in the country is rather scattered. Every residential area has an average population of less than 83 persons, and this is a great obstacle in the country's socioeconomic development. The cultural level and education remain very backward, and the illiteracy rate is high. The illiteracy rate among women is 97.6%. Most women do not participate in social labor. In the labor market, the percentage of underage workers is extremely high. Many young children have to work to support themselves because of the backward economy and poor living conditions. All these are obstacles to this country's economic development.     

Nature’s Experiment? Handedness and Early Childhood Development

In recent years, a large body of research has investigated the various factors affecting child development and the consequent impact of child development on future educational and labor market outcomes. In this article, we contribute to this literature by investigating the effect of handedness on child development. This is an important issue given that around 10% of the world’s population is left-handed and given recent research demonstrating that child development strongly affects adult outcomes. Using a large, nationally representative sample of young children, we find that the probability of a child being left-handed is not significantly related to child health at birth, family composition, parental employment, or household income. We also find robust evidence that left-handed (and mixed-handed) children perform significantly worse in nearly all measures of development than right-handed children, with the relative disadvantage being larger for boys than girls. Importantly, these differentials cannot be explained by different socioeconomic characteristics of the household, parental attitudes, or investments in learning resources.     

Going it alone and adrift: the socioeconomic profile and parental involvement of single-father and single-mother families in post-industrial Taiwan

In spite of the rising prevalence of marital dissolution in Asia over the past decades, little is known about single-parent families in Asia. The present study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the changing socioeconomic characteristics and parental involvement (measured by parent–child activities and parental awareness of children) of single-father and single-mother families in Taiwan around the millennium. Using a nationally representative sample of 641 single fathers and 730 single mothers from the Taiwan Social Trend Survey collected in 1998, 2002 and 2006, this study found that the apparent socioeconomic advantage of single-father families over single-mother families has weakened. Parent–child activities and parental awareness are lower for single fathers than for single mothers and married fathers. The association between higher parental education and more parent–child activities and parental awareness is more pronounced among single fathers than among single mothers. The presence of co-residential grandparents is associated with lower parent–child activities with pre-teen children among single mothers. The results warrant greater attention to the wellbeing and development of adults and children from low SES single-father families in post-industrial Taiwan.     

Economic Viability Among Post-Retirement Aged Women

Longer life expectancy has increased concern about living standards among elder women. This paper examines the relation between labor market status and living standard post-retirement. We use data from two national surveys to contrast economic circumstances of post-retirement aged and currently employed women. Financial resources of aged women and factors associated with their magnitude are identified. We examine current economic resources and employee benefits of women who will retire after the year 2000. The paper concludes with a discussion of proactive mid-life strategies for long-term economic stability among women, with emphasis on unique concerns, of black women.     

Polygynous Contexts,Family Structure,and Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Contextual characteristics influence infant mortality above and beyond family-level factors. The widespread practice of polygyny is one feature of many sub-Saharan African contexts that may be relevant to understanding patterns of infant mortality. Building on evidence that the prevalence of polygyny reflects broader economic, social, and cultural features and that it has implications for how families engage in the practice, we investigate whether and how the prevalence of polygyny (1) spills over to elevate infant mortality for all families, and (2) conditions the survival disadvantage for children living in polygynous families (i.e., compared with monogamous families). We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys to estimate multilevel hazard models that identify associations between infant mortality and region-level prevalence of polygyny for 236,336 children in 260 subnational regions across 29 sub-Saharan African countries. We find little evidence that the prevalence of polygyny influences mortality for infants in nonpolygynous households net of region-level socioeconomic factors and gender inequality. However, the prevalence of polygyny significantly amplifies the survival disadvantage for infants in polygynous families. Our findings demonstrate that considering the broader marital context reveals important insights into the relationship between family structure and child well-being.     

Competition, substitution, or discretion: an analysis of Palestinian and foreign guest workers in the Israeli labor market

This paper investigates the effects of foreign workers on labor market outcomes for Palestinian workers in the Israeli labor market. The paper utilizes a micro-dataset on the Palestinian labor force combined with time-series data on foreign workers in Israel. The data covers the period 1999–2003, a period in which Israel enforced a strict closure on labor (and goods) movement, particularly in 2001 and 2002. The evidence suggests that foreign workers in Israel do not affect Palestinian employment; however, an increase in the number of foreign workers in Israel tends to reduce Israeli wages paid to Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli closure policy appears to be the main cause for the substantial reduction in long-run Palestinian employment levels in Israel, not the presence of foreign workers.     

Early origins of the gradient: the relationship between socioeconomic status and infant mortality in the United States

Although relationships between social conditions and health have been documented for centuries, the past few decades have witnessed the emergence of socioeconomic gradients in health and mortality in most developed countries. These gradients indicate that health improves, although decreasingly so, at higher levels of socioeconomic status. To minimize problems with reverse causality, I tested competing hypotheses for observed socioeconomic gradients for infant mortality outcomes. I found no support for the income-inequality hypothesis and negligible support for the occupational-grade hypothesis. The results indicate that absolute material conditions are the most important determinants of socioeconomic effects on the risk of infant mortality and that while poverty has the most pronounced effect on risk, income is decreasingly salutary across the majority of the mortality gradient.