Changes In Educational Attainment Research Articles

Measuring the impacts of the two-child policy on industrial structure and economic growth in china using a CGE model

Facing the challenge of population aging and labor force shrinking, the Chinese government has been trying to reform its family planning policy since 2015. This paper analyzes the impacts of China’s Two-child policy on economic growth and industrial structure from 2020 to 2060 using a dynamic Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. This paper constructs an effective labor input index accounting for changes in educational attainment and labor force participation rates by age and sex to simulate the effects of the demographic changes on labor supply and economic growth, rather than using simple working-age measures. This paper sets two policy scenarios, the One-child policy and the Two-child policy, to simulate the changes in the employment structure, industrial structure, and main macroeconomic indicators under different population policies. The main finding is that under the Two-child policy, the average GDP growth rate is expected to be 0.3% and 1.0% points higher than the One-child policy in the period of 2015–2030, and 2045–2060; the employment growth rates of the manufacturing and service industries are higher than that under the One-child policy; the shift of industrial structure from manufacturing to service industry will be slightly slower than the One-child policy. The positive impacts of the Two-child policy on China’s economic growth are not significant in the short run. From the perspective of the quantity, structure and quality of labor supply, this paper reveals how a more relaxed family planning policy will affect labor supply, and ultimately affect economic structure and growth in a long run.

The long-run impacts of adolescent drinking: Evidence from Zero Tolerance Laws

This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent alcohol control policies on later-life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of “Zero Tolerance” (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach that combines information on state and year of birth to identify individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence and tracks the evolving impacts into middle age. We find that ZT Laws led to significant improvements in later-life health. Individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence were substantially less likely to suffer from cognitive and physical limitations in their 40s. The health effects are mirrored by improved labor market outcomes. These patterns cannot be attributed to changes in educational attainment or marriage. Instead, we find that affected cohorts were significantly less likely to drink heavily by middle age, suggesting an important role for adolescent initiation and habit-formation in affecting long-term substance use.

Women’s educational attainment, marriage, and fertility: Evidence from the 1944 G.I. Bill

In contemporary settings, greater earnings among women are typically associated with reduced marriage rates and lower fertility. One way that women’s earnings may increase is via changes in educational attainment. To study whether educational attainment affects marriage and fertility choices in a historical setting, I rely on the variation in educational attainment among female WWII veterans created by the 1944 G.I. Bill. Using data from the long-form 1980 census, I first show that WWII veteran status is associated with reduced rates of marriage, increased age at first marriage, and lower fertility, which suggests that G.I. Bill-related education could have had an important effect for veteran women. I then use age at the time of the G.I. Bill announcement as an instrument to establish a causal effect of educational attainment on marriage and fertility outcomes among female veterans. My instrumental variable estimates suggest that each year of G.I. Bill-induced educational attainment is associated with an 8 percentage point decrease in the probability of ever getting married, a 4.7 year increase in age at first marriage, and a 0.67 reduction in the number of children. Using age at the time of the G.I. Bill announcement as an instrument is valid because the benefits could not have been easily anticipated, women had to be 21 to enlist, and the generosity of one’s G.I. Bill benefits depended on the number of years of WWII service.

Does Higher Education Have Liberalizing or Inoculating Effects? A Panel Study of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment before, during, and after the European Migration Crisis

Abstract Previous research has consistently shown a negative correlation between education and anti-immigrant sentiment. This association is most pronounced when distinguishing between adults with higher education and those without a tertiary degree. Yet it remains unclear whether educational attainment actually matters for attitudes, mainly due to a lack of longitudinal studies. This article investigates the so-called liberalizing effect of education on adults’ attitudes towards immigrants by taking into account individual, regional, and period effects. Using 12 waves of the Norwegian Citizen Panel (2013–2020) combined with contextual data from Statistics Norway, we assess the effects of: (i) educational attainment at the individual level; (ii) the expansion of higher education at the regional level; and (iii) higher education during a time of social upheaval. Results from multilevel cross-classified, repeated measurement models show that within-individual and within-county changes in educational attainment have a small but liberalizing effect on attitudes. Furthermore, individuals with at least 3–4 years of university education do not react as strongly to the highly salient European migration crisis than those with lower levels of education. This finding suggests that higher education inhibits perceptions of threat that may manifest during ‘big events’ such as a dramatic increase in asylum seeking. We interpret these novel results as evidence of an inoculating effect, in that higher education protects individuals against whatever instinct exists to react strongly during such crises.

Educational growth trajectories in adulthood: Findings from an inner-city cohort.

Educational attainment is typically examined as a static status. As adult learners have become the new trend in higher education, the changes in educational attainment in adulthood warrant more attention. Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal study (CLS), an ongoing panel investigation of 1,539 children, predictors of educational growth trajectories in adulthood were investigated. Of the study sample (N = 1,418), 51.8% were women, 93.2% were Black, 6.8% were Hispanic, 83.4% were eligible for free lunch between birth and age 3. The average age of the study sample in June 2015 was 35.1, ranging from 34.4 to 36.6. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze the changes in educational attainment between ages 24 and 35. Findings indicate that mothers not completing high school by child's age 3 and days of absence at school were significantly associated with lower educational attainment at age 24. Classroom adjustment, student college expectations, 8th grade reading scores, and on-time high school graduation were significantly associated with higher educational attainment at age 24. Classroom adjustment, 8th grade reading score, and on-time high school graduation were significantly associated with a positive growth of education between ages 24 and 35. Findings suggest that improving academic achievement and socioemotional learning skills in elementary and middle school and promoting on-time high school graduation are likely to increase one's chances to continue pursuing higher education in adulthood for Black low-income children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study

SummaryBackgroundUnderstanding potential patterns in future population levels is crucial for anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource and health-care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Future fertility patterns are a key input to estimation of future population size, but they are surrounded by substantial uncertainty and diverging methodologies of estimation and forecasting, leading to important differences in global population projections. Changing population size and age structure might have profound economic, social, and geopolitical impacts in many countries. In this study, we developed novel methods for forecasting mortality, fertility, migration, and population. We also assessed potential economic and geopolitical effects of future demographic shifts.MethodsWe modelled future population in reference and alternative scenarios as a function of fertility, migration, and mortality rates. We developed statistical models for completed cohort fertility at age 50 years (CCF50). Completed cohort fertility is much more stable over time than the period measure of the total fertility rate (TFR). We modelled CCF50 as a time-series random walk function of educational attainment and contraceptive met need. Age-specific fertility rates were modelled as a function of CCF50 and covariates. We modelled age-specific mortality to 2100 using underlying mortality, a risk factor scalar, and an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. Net migration was modelled as a function of the Socio-demographic Index, crude population growth rate, and deaths from war and natural disasters; and use of an ARIMA model. The model framework was used to develop a reference scenario and alternative scenarios based on the pace of change in educational attainment and contraceptive met need. We estimated the size of gross domestic product for each country and territory in the reference scenario. Forecast uncertainty intervals (UIs) incorporated uncertainty propagated from past data inputs, model estimation, and forecast data distributions.FindingsThe global TFR in the reference scenario was forecasted to be 1·66 (95% UI 1·33–2·08) in 2100. In the reference scenario, the global population was projected to peak in 2064 at 9·73 billion (8·84–10·9) people and decline to 8·79 billion (6·83–11·8) in 2100. The reference projections for the five largest countries in 2100 were India (1·09 billion [0·72–1·71], Nigeria (791 million [594–1056]), China (732 million [456–1499]), the USA (336 million [248–456]), and Pakistan (248 million [151–427]). Findings also suggest a shifting age structure in many parts of the world, with 2·37 billion (1·91–2·87) individuals older than 65 years and 1·70 billion (1·11–2·81) individuals younger than 20 years, forecasted globally in 2100. By 2050, 151 countries were forecasted to have a TFR lower than the replacement level (TFR <2·1), and 183 were forecasted to have a TFR lower than replacement by 2100. 23 countries in the reference scenario, including Japan, Thailand, and Spain, were forecasted to have population declines greater than 50% from 2017 to 2100; China's population was forecasted to decline by 48·0% (−6·1 to 68·4). China was forecasted to become the largest economy by 2035 but in the reference scenario, the USA was forecasted to once again become the largest economy in 2098. Our alternative scenarios suggest that meeting the Sustainable Development Goals targets for education and contraceptive met need would result in a global population of 6·29 billion (4·82–8·73) in 2100 and a population of 6·88 billion (5·27–9·51) when assuming 99th percentile rates of change in these drivers.InterpretationOur findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth. A sustained TFR lower than the replacement level in many countries, including China and India, would have economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Policy options to adapt to continued low fertility, while sustaining and enhancing female reproductive health, will be crucial in the years to come.FundingBill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Early Family Life Course Standardization in Sweden: The Role of Compositional Change

The diversity of early family life courses is thought to have increased, although empirical evidence is mixed. Less standardized family formation is attributed to compositional changes in educational attainment, labour market participation, and childhood living conditions. I investigate whether and why family trajectories have become more or less standardized across birth cohorts in Sweden. I combine sequence metrics with Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions to assess the compositional shifts that drive changes in family formation standardization. Family trajectories of individuals born in 1952, 1962, and 1972 from age 18 to 35 are reconstructed using Swedish register data. My results demonstrate that early family formation has become more standardized across birth cohorts. Further, compositional differences between birth cohorts partially account for this standardization, especially for women. For example, higher levels of educational attainment are associated with family formation standardization. This substantiates arguments that family formation may re-standardize following the second demographic transition.

Depression and changes in educational attainment using administrative data: The role of socio-demographic characteristics

Background Research has shown depression to result in poorer educational attainment among children. However, comparatively little is known about the relationship between depression and attainment over time, and the role that children’s socio-demographic characteristics might play.&#x0D; Aim To describe the educational attainment trajectory profiles of children with a clinical diagnosis of depression, and to explore whether these trajectory profiles vary by gender, ethnicity, area-level deprivation and age at diagnosis.&#x0D; Methods This is a historical, longitudinal cohort study, making use of two linked administrative datasets. First, a cohort of children (&lt;18 years) were identified who had received a first diagnosis of depression from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust between 2007 and 2013 (n=1490). Their pseudonymised secondary mental healthcare records were extracted via the Clinical Record Interactive Search application at the Trust’s Biomedical Research Centre. These records were then linked to England’s National Pupil Database, which contains attainment data for these children at three timepoints of interest: Key Stage 1 (ages 5 to 7 years), Key Stage 2 (7 to 11 years) and Key Stage 4 (14 to 16 years). Longitudinal mixed models for repeated measures will be conducted to model changes in attainment over these three timepoints according to gender, ethnicity, area-level deprivation and age at diagnosis.&#x0D; Results Preliminary results are suggestive of attainment trajectories in this cohort varying according to their socio-demographic characteristics. Analysis will be completed August 2019.&#x0D; Conclusion The findings from this study will identify whether some groups of depressed children experience better or worse patterns of educational attainment over time. This could highlight priorities for intervention in England’s ongoing efforts to improve child mental health provision in schools.

Growth with reduction in poverty and inequality: did Brazil show the way?

A comprehensive decomposition approach is applied to identify the factors that generated a remarkable change in income distribution, whereby in the a span of a decade, Brazilian inequality fell by one-fifth, and the incidence of poverty declined by two-thirds. It is argued that important elements related to these developments had been in place for some time. These elements included macroeconomic stability, long-standing increases in educational attainment, and favorable demographics in the form of a declining dependency ratio that proved to be both poverty- and inequality-reducing. Robust economic growth during the 2000s and the early 2010s resulted in across-the-board income gains that were widely shared, owing to mechanisms that favored advances at the lower end of the distribution of earnings. Demographics, as well as changes in educational attainment, labor force participation, and lower-skill prices explain most of the significant drop in the headcount ratio, with education and the interaction between economic growth and a rising wage floor accounting for the bulk of the change. The same factors explain up to 85% of the decline in income dispersion that was especially driven by markedly compressed earnings differentials. Human capital accumulation and strong labor market institutions thus stand out as key mechanisms linking economic growth to income distribution.

Family matters: The contribution of households’ educational and employment composition to income inequality

The rise in inequality in most industrial countries has drawn attention to the social and economic processes underlying it. This study examines how changing educational attainment and employment patterns of women (mainly) are impacting households’ income distribution, with Israel as a case study. The level of income inequality in Israel, which is one of the highest in the Western world, has risen significantly in recent decades, along with a rise in education and labor force participation, especially among women. Using counterfactual analysis of the Theil index between the years 1983 and 2008, our findings show that the share of highly educated households has soared, together with a rise in the share of fulltime dual-earner households. There has also been an increase in the share of doubly fortunate households: both highly educated and fulltime dual-earner. All these changes have contributed to the rise in income inequality. The study emphasizes the importance of the joint change in educational attainment and participation level as an important mechanism behind the rise in income inequality.

Proximate Sources of Change in Trajectories of First Marriage in the United States, 1960-2010.

This study examines proximate sources of change in first-marriage trajectories in the United States between 1960 and 2010. This was a period of tremendous social change: divorce became more common, people started marrying later or not marrying at all, innovations in medicine and changes in social and behavioral factors led to reduced mortality, inequality grew stronger and was reflected by more intense assortative mating, and the country underwent a massive educational expansion. Each of these factors influenced the formation and dissolution of first marriages over this period. This article extends the multiple-decrement life table to incorporate heterogeneity and assortative mating, which allows the quantification of how changes in the incidence of marriage, divorce, and mortality, along with changes in educational attainment and assortative mating, have shaped trends in first-marriage trajectories. The model is used to prove that stronger educational assortative mating leads to longer average durations of first marriage. Using data from multiple sources and this model, this study shows that although the incidence of divorce was the primary determinant of changes in first-marriage trajectories between 1960 and 1980, it has played a relatively smaller role in driving change in marital trajectories between 1980 and 2010. Instead, factors such as later age at first marriage, educational expansion, declining mortality, narrowing sex differences in mortality, and more intense educational assortative mating have been the major drivers of changes in first-marriage trajectories since 1980.

The Long-Run Impacts of Adolescent Drinking: Evidence from Zero Tolerance Laws

This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent binge drinking on later- life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of Zero Tolerance (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach that combines information on state and year of birth to identify individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence and tracks the evolving impacts into middle age. We find that ZT Laws led to significant improvements in later-life health. Individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence were substantially less likely to suffer from cognitive and physical limitations in their 40s. The health effects are mirrored by improved labor market outcomes. These patterns cannot be attributed to changes in educational attainment or marriage. Instead, we find that affected cohorts were substantially less likely to drink heavily by middle age, suggesting an important role for adolescent initiation and habit-formation in affecting long-term substance use.

Cross-national differences in the association between educational attainment and completed fertility. Do welfare regimes matter?

The decline in fertility has been linked to changes in educational attainment, particularly among women. Most studies on this topic have, however, focused on the impact of education on fertility timing. In this study, we examine the association between education and completed fertility; specifically, whether the educational gradient differs between women and men and between younger and older birth cohorts. Importantly, we investigate whether the educational gradient varies across European welfare systems. In our analysis, we applied multilevel modelling to individual-level data on fertility quantum in 25 countries from the European Social Survey. Overall, women and older cohorts had higher completed fertility rates than men and younger cohorts. The total number of children born to each individual decreased with increasing educational levels. This negative gradient was stronger among women than among men, and was weaker among younger than among older cohorts in western Europe. At the macro level, we found the weakest negative educational gradients in the social-democratic countries and in the post-Soviet states. The negative gradient was strongest in the Mediterranean countries and in the postcommunist countries.

Labor Force Participation and Educational Attainment in the United States

The objectives of this paper are twofold. Aggregate labor force participation rates in the United States are described focusing on educational attainment. A model is developed for decomposing aggregate labor force participation rates for men and women from 1994 to 2014 from a unique perspective by focusing on changes in educational attainment and on changes in the labor force behavior. The findings presented here indicate that men’s aggregate labor force participation rates declined during the 20-year period at all levels of educational attainment, due primarily to changes in population shares. A different picture emerges regarding women. For women with high school or some college or associate degree, it was changes in labor force behavior that dominated changing aggregate labor force participation rates. For women with the lowest and highest levels of educational attainment, less than high school or at least a baccalaureate degree, it was changes in their population shares that drove changes in aggregate labor force participation rates.

Is shale development drilling holes in the human capital pipeline?

Using the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) and a novel method for measuring changes in educational attainment we examine the link between educational attainment and shale oil and gas extraction for the states of Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia. The three states examined are economically-small, relatively more rural, and have high levels of shale oil and gas reserves. They also are varied in that West Virginia is intensive in shale gas extraction, while the other two are intensive in shale oil extraction. We find significant reductions in high school and college attainment among all three states' initial residents because of the shale booms.

Are Functional and Activity Limitations Becoming More Prevalent among 55 to 69-Year-Olds in the United States?

ObjectivesThis study examines changes in functional and activity limitations 1998–2012 for individuals 55–69.MethodsLogistic models are used to estimate trends in limitations in vision, hearing, physical and cognitive functioning, IADLs, and ADLs. Additional models assess the extent to which trends are associated with and differ by education, smoking, and BMI.ResultsChanges in prevalence of limitations in vision, hearing, cognitive functioning, and ADLs are not statistically significant. Limitations in physical functioning declined by 0.37% per year. IADL limitations increased by 1.33% per year, but most of the increase occurred between 2008 and 2010/2012, and are associated with economic hardship during the Great Recession. Increases in education are especially beneficially associated with trends in limitations, but reductions in smoking also appear to be advantageous for some outcomes. Increases in BMI are associated with trends in physical functioning, IADL, and ADL limitation.DiscussionFor Americans 55–69, functional and activity limitations were largely unchanged 1998–2012. Our results suggest that if educational attainment had not increased, most functional and activity limitations potentially could have worsened substantially. Future change in educational attainment is not expected to be so positive. Continued monitoring of trends in activity limitations might well include greater focus on the explanatory roles of environmental factors, including economic circumstances.

LARGE DEMOGRAPHIC SHOCKS AND SMALL CHANGES IN THE MARRIAGE MARKET

Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced one of the worse famines in her history. Birth rates fell during these years and recovered immediately afterwards. The famine also adversely affected the health of these cohorts. This paper provides non-parametric estimates of the total effects of the famine on the marital behaviour of famine-affected cohorts in the rural areas of Sichuan and Anhui. These reduced from estimates incorporate general equilibrium and heterogeneous treatment effects, two important components of equilibrium marital behaviour. Next, the paper uses a structural model of the marriage market, the Choo-Siow model, to decompose observed marital outcomes into quantity and quality effects of the famine. The structural estimates show that the famine substantially reduced the marital attractiveness of the famine born cohort. The conclusion is that the small observed changes in marriage rates of the famine born cohorts are due to a substantial decline in their marital attractiveness. Controlling for changes in educational attainment does not change the conclusion.

An education gradient in health, a health gradient in education, or a confounded gradient in both?

There is a positive gradient associating educational attainment with health, yet the explanation for this gradient is not clear. Does higher education improve health (causation)? Do the healthy become highly educated (selection)? Or do good health and high educational attainment both result from advantages established early in the life course (confounding)? This study evaluates these competing explanations by tracking changes in educational attainment and Self-rated Health (SRH) from age 15 to age 31 in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 cohort. Ordinal logistic regression confirms that high-SRH adolescents are more likely to become highly educated. This is partly because adolescent SRH is associated with early advantages including adolescents' academic performance, college plans, and family background (confounding); however, net of these confounders adolescent SRH still predicts adult educational attainment (selection). Fixed-effects longitudinal regression shows that educational attainment has little causal effect on SRH at age 31. Completion of a high school diploma or associate's degree has no effect on SRH, while completion of a bachelor's or graduate degree have effects that, though significant, are quite small (less than 0.1 points on a 5-point scale). While it is possible that educational attainment would have greater effect on health at older ages, at age 31 what we see is a health gradient in education, shaped primarily by selection and confounding rather than by a causal effect of education on health.

Fertility and the changing female educational attainment in Croatia

This paper investigates the aggregate relationship between cohort fertility and female educational attainment in Croatia. Numerous demographic studies have examined the link between fertility and the level of education. However, newer research indicates that the field of education might also play a role when trying to explain fertility behavior. We contribute to existing literature on macro-level factors related to reproductive outcomes by considering both the level and field of education as possible sources of cohort fertility differentials. The main goal of the present study is to assess the effect of structural changes in educational attainment on cohort fertility decline by means of demographic decomposition techniques. Our analysis is based on detailed 2011 Census data, which provide information on the number of livebirths by mother?s year of birth, birth order, marital status and educational attainment (i.e. the level and field of education). The results of our decomposition analyses reveal the dominance of the structural effect in explaining the overall completed fertility decline in Croatia. We assumed that the changing distribution of women by field of education at least partially accounts for the observed patterns in completed fertility but found no strong evidence in support of the outlined hypothesis.

Relative Risk Aversion from a Dynamic Perspective. Explaining Educational Mobility

This paper deals with the principle of relative risk aversion (RRA), which has been put forward by Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) as an explanation of inequality in educational attainment. While the original idea of the concept is to account for the basic mechanisms that produce educational inequality, this paper argues that RRA can also provide an explanation of dynamic processes related to changes in educational attainment over successive birth cohorts. RRA provides a rationale for educational upward mobility vis-a-vis the parents’ generation whenever educational requirements attached to occupations change. Relatedly, RRA can also account for changes in educational inequality if these processes vary with social origin. The paper elaborates on these implications theoretically and also suggests an empirical analytical framework for testing the explanatory contribution that the RRA principle can make to changes in educational mobility and inequality. The empirical analyses refer to Germany as a test case and utilize data from the German Microcensus and ALLBUS studies. The findings indicate that the RRA principle actually provides a partial explanation of educational upward mobility and also accounts for substantial parts of the changes in inequality in educational attainment.