Surveys Of Labor Market Experience Research Articles

Examining the achievement test score gap between urban and suburban students

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience for Youth (1997 cohort) are used to examine the urban school achievement gap. Specifically, we use the Blinder–Oaxaca technique to decompose differences in Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores for students who attended urban and suburban schools. We find that approximately 75% of the gap in this achievement measure is explained by the high concentration of disadvantaged students in urban schools. Broken down further, 36% of the gap can be attributed to differences in family background. The lower income of urban families alone explains 25% of the gap. Differences in measures of school quality, such as small classes, large schools, and private school attendance, explain very little of the gap. While current policy focuses on schools and school reform, our results are a reminder that meaningful efforts to improve performance in urban schools must address socioeconomic conditions in urban areas.

Explaining the Performance Gap between Public and Private School Students

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience for Youth are used to estimate the private school test score advantage. Regression results indicate that those who attend private schools score higher on the Armed Forces Qualifications Test. However, this advantage loses statistical significance with controls for family and school background. Decomposition of the private-public test score difference indicates that 78 percent of the gap can be explained by differences in average characteristics. Broken down further, 45 percent of the gap is due to differences in family background and 26 percent is due to differences in school quality.

Changes in the Prevalence of Alcohol Use during Pregnancy among Recent and At-Risk Drinkers in the NLSY Cohort

To support efforts to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), population-based data are needed on the prevalence of alcohol use at any time during gestation, particularly among women who were recent and at-risk drinkers. We used National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experiences in Youth (NLSY) files to estimate the prevalence of any drinking during pregnancy and to evaluate alcohol history risk factors among 6676 births reported by women with prepregnancy drinking data. Prevalence estimates were obtained for 2-year intervals for all 1982-1995 births and for subsets with prepregnancy recent and at-risk drinking. Among all births, drinking during pregnancy declined from 38.3% in 1982-1983 to 23.0% in 1994-1995 (p < 0.0001). Drinking during pregnancy also declined over time among recent and at-risk drinkers (p < 0.0001), but the 1994-1995 prevalences were still high (39.3% and 29.0%, respectively). Adjusted logistic models confirmed both the decrease in risk for the later birth years and the persistent heightened risk for births among recent and at-risk drinkers. In addition to ongoing universal prevention strategies that have helped reduce the prevalence of drinking during pregnancy, selective and indicated prevention approaches are needed to encourage abstinence during pregnancy among recent and at-risk drinkers.

Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in College and Noncollege Samples: A Ten-Year Prospective Follow-Up in a National Survey

This prospective study examines the association of educational status in 1984 and the risk for past-year Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), alcohol-use disorders (AUDs) in 1994, 10 years later. A sample of 8,661 respondents was drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience in Youth. Measures included baseline heavy episodic drinking, alcohol-dependence symptoms, early problem behaviors (antisocial behaviors, illicit substance use, family history of alcoholism, and age at onset of alcohol use), demographic characteristics (gender, race/ethnicity, age, marital status), and 1994 assessment for past-year DSM-IV AUDs. Findings from this 10-year prospective study indicate that education beyond high school had a protective effect for alcohol dependence, and dropping out of high school resulted in an elevated long-term risk for alcohol dependence. These associations remained significant when other early behavioral problems were included in the models. The risk of alcohol dependence and, consequently, the need for appropriately tailored prevention efforts is greater among high school dropouts and college nonattenders than among college students, although much of the current literature has focused on the latter.

DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD

The popular assumption that volunteer work helps people get good jobs is tested using panel data from the Young Women's Module of the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience. Volunteering while a young adult has no effect on whether women will be working for pay eighteen years later, but it has a positive effect on the occupational status of those who are. Length of time spent in the labor force between early adulthood and middle age suppresses the positive effect of volunteering on occupational status. A separate analysis of women who display more commitment to working for pay by being in the labor force in both 1973 and 1991 shows the same positive effect of volunteer work on occupational status.

Doing Well by Doing Good: Volunteering and Occupational Achievement among American Women

The popular assumption that volunteer work helps people get good jobs is tested using panel data from the Young Women's Module of the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience. Volunteering while a young adult has no effect on whether women will be working for pay eighteen years later, but it has a positive effect on the occupational status of those who are. Length of time spent in the labor force between early adulthood and middle age suppresses the positive effect of volunteering on occupational status. A separate analysis of women who display more commitment to working for pay by being in the labor force in both 1973 and 1991 shows the same positive effect of volunteer work on occupational status.

Health and Female Self‐Employment

This study uses data from the Mature Women's Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME). The sample (n=1,412) comprises self‐employed, wage‐earning, and nonemployed women whose cumulative employment is measured by employment status between 1976 and 1995 and whose health status was measured in 1976 and in 1995. Three multivariate regression models, one for each type of employment status, are used to control for sociodemographic and for other factors thought to influence health status in 1995, including health status in 1976. The study finds that unemployment resulted in a significantly negative health status in 1995 compared to women of similar age, while the effect of working for wages results in significantly positive health relative to women of similar age. Self‐employment had no statistically significant effect on health status in 1995, thus indicating that the health of the self‐employed, while better than that of the nonemployed, substantially was worse than that of wage earners.

Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage

Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) and late baby-boom cohort (born between 1961 and 1965). Evidence of cohort change in the relationship between men's economic prospects and marriage, however, is limited. Despite important racial differences in the economic and attitudinal context of marriage, key results are generally similar for whites and for African Americans. Taken together, these findings imply that men and women are growing to resemble one another with respect to the relationship between economic prospects and marriage, although this convergence is driven primarily by changing patterns of marriage among women. These results are largely supportive of Oppenheimer's career-entry theory of marriage and suggest that Becker's specialization and trading model of marriage may be outdated.

Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage

Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) and late baby-boom cohort (born between 1961 and 1965). Evidence of cohort change in the relationship between men s economic prospects and marriage, however, is limited. Despite important racial differences in the economic and attitudinal context of marriage, key results are generally similar for whites and for African Americans. Taken together, these findings imply that men and women are growing to resemble one another with respect to the relationship between economic prospects and marriage, although this convergence is driven primarily by changing patterns of marriage among women. These results are largely supportive of Oppenheimer's career-entry theory of marriage and suggest that Becker's specialization and trading model of marriage may be outdated.

Estimating Welfare Effects Consistent with Forward-Looking Behavior. Part II: Empirical Results

In this paper, we provide estimates of welfare benefit effects on a set of behaviors that includes welfare participation, fertility, marriage, work and schooling using approximations to the decision rules that would be derived from an explicit dynamic optimization problem. We use the stylized model and associated simulations from Part I as a guide in specifying the approximate decision rules that we estimate here. The estimates are based on data from the 1979 youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (NLSY79).

Does Maternity Leave Induce Births?

This study examines the impact of maternity benefits on subsequent fertility among working women and on attracting women who desire high fertility to a firm with good maternity benefits. Data were obtained from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth for 510 women experiencing a first birth after 1985 (2192 person years). Age subsamples are used in model estimation in order to test for sample selection biases since 80% of the original 1979 sample had a first birth prior to 1985. Findings from the discrete-time hazard model of the time to first birth indicate that desired fertility does not appear to have an impact on the chances of a young woman being in a job with maternity leave. High wage women and full-time workers were more likely to have maternity leave than low-wage and part-time workers. Managers and professionals and women in the financial industry were more likely to have maternity leave than women in service agricultural and wholesale/retail trade. Women in union jobs were more likely to have maternity benefits. The probability of having maternity leave declined with increasing levels of education and increased with increasing age. Latinos were more likely to be in jobs with maternity benefits than either Blacks or Whites. Reestimation among a subsample of 886 women aged 22-26 years in 1985 substantiated findings that desired fertility had no impact on having a job with maternity leave and that wages and hours were significant explanatory variables in addition to education a job in financial services and being Hispanic. Western state residence was negative and significant only in this subsample. Region affected the probability of first birth. There was no evidence that maternity leave directly or indirectly influenced the fertility of female employees.

Correlates of Voluntary vs. Involuntary Part‐time Employment among US Women

This article presents a study of the extent to which type and duration of labour force attachment add to the explanatory power of psychological, demographic, and family household characteristics to predict voluntary (n=166) vs. involuntary part‐time (n=160) employment of women in the United States. We use the terms ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ to reflect the woman's choice in accepting to work in paid part‐time employment. In this context, voluntary part‐time work is not meant to be construed as charitable, non‐paid activities, but rather is construed as individuals who are working part‐time but who would prefer to be working full‐time, if a suitable job were available. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), we found that labour market attachment characteristics added little to predict part‐time employment status (involuntary vs. voluntary) and had virtually no effect on the odds of any other correlates on employment status. The major exception was number of years of unemployment. The longer working women were previously unemployed, the greater the likelihood they were involuntarily employed in part‐time jobs. In addition, we found that marriage and private sector employment decreased the likelihood of involuntary part‐time employment.Findings suggest that involuntarily part‐time employed women appear to be ‘settling’ for what they can get, namely, part‐time rather than full‐time jobs and that unmarried part‐timers may be viewed as a stigmatized or marginal group more likely to be employed in the public rather than private sector. Policy implications and future research are discussed.

Estimating Welfare Effects Consistent with Forward-Looking&#x0D; Behavior. Part II: Empirical Results

In this paper, we provide estimates of welfare benefit effects on a set of behaviors that includes welfare participation, fertility, marriage, work and schooling using approximations to the decision rules that would be derived from an explicit dynamic optimization problem. The estimates are based on data from the 1979 youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (NLSY79).

Marijuana use among adults. A longitudinal study of current and former users.

This study examines the pattern of marijuana use among respondents who have passed the age of risk of onset, as well as some of the correlates related to the initiation and current use of marijuana. The data for this study included 8885 respondents drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth (NLSY). Based on cross-tabulations of lifetime marijuana use in 1984 and 1994, the following outcomes were examined: incidence of lifetime marijuana use, inconsistent reports of lifetime marijuana use, and current compared with former use. Controlling for the effects of all variables studied, significant and independent effects were noted for sociodemographic factors, former patterns of use, and the use of other substances.

An Intergenerational Model of Wages, Hours, and Earnings

In this paper we develop and estimate a factor model of the earnings, labor supply, and wages of young men and young women, their parents and their siblings. We estimate the model using data on matched sibling and parent-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience. We measure the extent to which a set of unobserved parental and family factors that drive wage rates and work hours independently of wage rates lead to similarities among family members in labor market outcomes. We find strong family similarities in work hours that run along gender lines. These similarities are primarily due to preferences rather than to labor supply responses to family similarities in wages. The wage factors of the father and mother influence the wages of both sons and daughters. A `sibling' wage factor also plays an important role in wage determination. We find that intergenerational correlations in wages substantially overestimate the direct influence of fathers, and especially mothers, on wages. This is because the father's and mother's wage factors are positively correlated. The relative importance for the variance in earnings of the direct effect of wages, the labor supply response induced by wages, and effect of hours preferences varies by gender, and by age in the case of women. For all groups most of the effect of wages on earnings is direct rather than through a labor supply response.

Discrimination and Pension Income Among Aging Women

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience, Mature Women's Cohort, this study examined the extent to which discrimination influenced pension receipt and levels of pension income among women aged 55-69 in 1992. It found that discrimination affected the level of pension income beyond that of demographic and human capital variables, when controlling for wage-related income, only among moderate-to-affluent near-elderly women. No relation was found between discrimination and receipt of pension income.

Survey Attrition and Schooling Choices

We use data from three cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience and from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study the effect of survey attrition on estimates of statistical models of schooling choices. We estimate regressions using data on people who always respond to the surveys (stayers) and on people who miss some surveys (attritors) and test whether the same statistical model describes the behavior of stayers and attritors. In general (with a few exceptions) we find that attrition either has no effect on the regression estimates or only affects the estimates of the intercept (and sometimes the coefficients of birth year dummies) and does not affect estimates of family background slope coefficients.

Psychological and Demographic Characteristics as Determinants of Women's Health Insurance Coverage

The study examines the role of demographic and psychological characteristics in determining women's healthcare insurance coverage. To assess the role of these characteristics, data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), Young Women's Cohort, were used considering both a married and not married subsample. Overall, the results indicate that in addition to the influence of previously examined demographic characteristics, the role of psychological attributes is substantial particularly for the not married subsample. Findings suggest that in addition to policy aimed at increasing health insurance coverage by way of considering demographic characteristics policy should also consider psychological attributes.

Psychological, Attitudinal, and Socio-Demographic Correlates of Economic Weil-Being of Mature Women

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine attitudinal, psychological, and socio-demographic correlates of economic well-being of mature women. Using multiple regression analysis on a sample (N = 1,506) of mature women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience, this study found that education, race, marital history, attitude toward retirement, and unemployment were predictors of economic well-being for women aged 55–64, while education, traditionality, and work effort were predictors for women aged 65–69. Neither home ownership, residence, receipt of Social Security/other retirement pension benefits, internal-external locus of control, nor health limitations were associated with economic well-being. Bivariate findings indicated that older women were more likely than younger women to be economically disadvantaged and that compared to younger economically disadvantaged women, similarly situated older women were less economically disadvantaged. Overall results suggested that older women rely on work to maintain and/or better their standard of living. Implications regarding the limited impact of Social Security and pensions on the economic well-being of women aged 55–69 are discussed.

Adolescent Birth Intentions, Social Disadvantage, and Behavioral Outcomes

This study examines the relationship between birth intentions and outcomes among adolescents in the US. Data were obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth among 3070 never-married female adolescents without children in 1979. These adolescents were followed for 5 years through 1984 in order to examine nonmarital and adolescent birth outcomes. Birth intentions include expectations about bearing a child before the age of 20 years and expectations about nonmarital childbearing in the 5-year period. Independent variables include race ethnicity poverty status and family structure and controls for respondent characteristics family characteristics and context. Findings indicate that African American adolescents had greater expectations of adolescent births and nonmarital births. Adolescents from poverty backgrounds were more likely to expect early and nonmarital births. Adolescents from two parent families were less likely to expect early and nonmarital births and to experience a nonmarital birth early or later. Women with expectations of early or nonmarital births were more likely to later experience an early or nonmarital birth. Multivariate analysis reveals that expectation of an early or nonmarital birth significantly increased the odds of having an early or nonmarital birth. The effects were not large. Women who expected an early birth were 1.7 times more likely to experience that event. Women who expected a nonmarital birth were 1.5 times more likely to experience that event. African Americans were 3.4 times more likely as Whites to have a nonmarital adolescent birth and 4.6 times more likely to have a nonmarital birth. Women from poor families were 2 times as likely to have an early or nonmarital birth. Disadvantaged social position increased the risk.