Alison Aughinbaugh

The Impact of Family Structure Transitions on Youth Achievement: Evidence From the Children of the NLSY79

We investigated the sensitivity of measures of cognitive ability and socioemotional development to changes in parents’ marital status using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979. We used several scores for each assessment, taken at different times relative to parents’ marital transitions, which allowed us to trace the effects starting up to five years before a parent’s change in marital status and continuing for up to six years afterward. It also allowed us to correct for the unobserved heterogeneity of the transition and nontransition samples by controlling for the child’s fixed effect in estimating the time path of his or her response to the transition. We found that children from families with both biological parents scored significantly better on the BPI and the PIAT-math and PIAT-reading assessments than did children from nonintact families. However, much of the difference disappeared when we controlled for background variables. Furthermore, when we controlled for child fixed effects, we did not find significant longitudinal variation in these scores over long periods that encompass the marital transition. This finding suggests that most of the variation is due to cross-sectional differences and is not a result of marital transitions per se.

Does Money Matter?: A Comparison of the Effect of Income on Child Development in the United States and Great Britain

In this paper, we examine the effect of income on child development in the United States and the United Kingdom, as measured by scores on cognitive, behavioral, and social assessments. In line with previous results for the United States, we find that for both countries income generally has an effect on child development that is positive and significant, but whose size is small relative to other family background variables.

Maternal Employment and Adolescent Risky Behavior

This paper examines the impact of maternal employment during a childs first 3 years and during adolescence on his or her decisions to engage in a range of risky behaviors: smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, using marijuana and other drugs, engaging in sex and committing crimes. Using data from the NLSY79 and its young adult supplement, we do not find strong evidence that mothers employment--whether early in the childs life or during adolescence--affects the likelihood of participation in risky behaviors. We note as a caveat, however, that insufficient statistical precision makes it difficult, at times, to distinguish some potentially important effects from effects that are essentially equal to zero.

Maternal employment and adolescent risky behavior

Abstract This paper examines the impact of maternal employment during a child’s first 3 years and during adolescence on his or her decisions to engage in a range of risky behaviors: smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, using marijuana and other drugs, engaging in sex and committing crimes. Using data from the NLSY79 and its young adult supplement, we do not find strong evidence that mother’s employment—whether early in the child’s life or during adolescence—affects the likelihood of participation in risky behaviors. We note as a caveat, however, that insufficient statistical precision makes it difficult, at times, to distinguish some potentially important effects from effects that are essentially equal to zero.

The Impact of Attrition on the Children of the NLSY79

This paper examines the impact of attrition among the women of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and children in the NLSY79 Mother-Child Supplement (NLSY79-C). Attrition among the children is nonrandom with respect to mother’s marital status, grandfather’s completed schooling, and family income. These differences that are related to the probability of attrition do not appear to impact estimates of the effects of family income or maternal employment early in the child’s life on either PPVT or BPI standard scores. However, the women who are not interviewed in any child-supplement year and the children for whom supplemental information is never collected appear to be the most disadvantaged. The omission of these children from the NLSY79-C may impact estimates of family characteristics on child outcomes, but because there are relatively few such children, the effects of their omission are likely to be small.