Nan Marie Astone

Family structure, residential mobility, and school dropout: a research note.

This paper examines the hypothesis that high levels of residential mobility among nonintact families account for part of the well-known association between living in a nonintact family and dropping out of high school. Children from single-parent families and stepfamilies are more likely than children from two-parent families to move during the school year. As much as 30% of the difference in the risk of dropping out between children from stepfamilies and children from intact families can be explained by differences in residential mobility. Previously, mechanisms explaining school failure on the part of children in nonintact families were more plausible for children in single-parent families than for children in stepfamilies; high levels of residential mobility apply to both groups of children. In addition, residential mobility lends itself to manipulation by public policy, with potentially remedial effects for vulnerable children. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1990 meetings of the American Sociological Association, held in Washington DC, and at the 1991 meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society held in Providence. We are grateful to Andrew Cherlin, Melvin Kohn, Gary Sandefur, and several anonymous referees for their valuable comments, to Robert Davis for his computational assistance, and to Tobey H. Sohn and Teresa A. Withers for secretarial help. Support to the senior author was provided by the National Institute on Aging under Grant HD 19375-03 and by the W.T. Grant Faculty Scholars Award. Support for computing facilities was provided by a grant to the Hopkins Population Center (PD30 H006268-19). 1994 Population Association of America

Do fertility intentions affect fertility behavior

This paper examines the relationship between fertility intentions and fertility behavior using the data from the National Survey of Families and Households with a sample of 2812 non-Hispanic Whites. Results demonstrated a strong relationship between fertility intentions and the percentage of having a birth. It was also noted that the effect on fertility is greater when the intentions are held with greater certainty. Furthermore fertility intentions and their certainty predict fertility behavior better among married persons as compared to all other variables in the model. Thus marital status is an important life course variable wherein a change in marital status significantly affects birth probabilities. Finally this study indicated that fertility is a purposive behavior that is based on intentions applied into the life course and changed when unexpected developments occur.

Health of the world's adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable data

Adolescence and young adulthood offer opportunities for health gains both through prevention and early clinical intervention. Yet development of health information systems to support this work has been weak and so far lagged behind those for early childhood and adulthood. With falls in the number of deaths in earlier childhood in many countries and a shifting emphasis to non-communicable disease risks, injuries, and mental health, there are good reasons to assess the present sources of health information for young people. We derive indicators from the conceptual framework for the Series on adolescent health and assess the available data to describe them. We selected indicators for their public health importance and their coverage of major health outcomes in young people, health risk behaviours and states, risk and protective factors, social role transitions relevant to health, and health service inputs. We then specify definitions that maximise international comparability. Even with this optimisation of data usage, only seven of the 25 indicators, covered at least 50% of the worlds adolescents. The worst adolescent health profiles are in sub-Saharan Africa, with persisting high mortality from maternal and infectious causes. Risks for non-communicable diseases are spreading rapidly, with the highest rates of tobacco use and overweight, and lowest rates of physical activity, predominantly in adolescents living in low-income and middle-income countries. Even for present global health agendas, such as HIV infection and maternal mortality, data sources are incomplete for adolescents. We propose a series of steps that include better coordination and use of data collected across countries, greater harmonisation of school-based surveys, further development of strategies for socially marginalised youth, targeted research into the validity and use of these health indicators, advocating for adolescent-health information within new global health initiatives, and a recommendation that every country produce a regular report on the health of its adolescents.

Like Mother, Like Child: Intergenerational Patterns of Age at First Birth and Associations with Childhood and Adolescent Characteristics and Adult Outcomes in the Second Generation.

A 30-year follow-up of 1,758 inner-city children and their mothers in the Pathways to Adulthood Study revealed significant associations in transgenerational timing of age at 1st birth between mothers and their daughters and sons. Intergenerational age patterns were associated with the childrens family and personal characteristics during childhood and adolescence and self-sufficiency at age 27-33. Continuity in teenage parenthood was associated with family and personal characteristics unfavorable for optimal child development and successful adult outcomes. Delay in 1st parenthood to age 25 or older was associated with significantly greater odds of more favorable environmental and developmental characteristics and greater adult self-sufficiency. The authors concluded that age at 1st birth of both mothers and children contributes, but in subtly different ways for daughters and sons, to the childrens development and adult self-sufficiency.

Women's Employment, Marital Happiness, and Divorce

The relationship between womens employment and the risk of divorce is both complex and controversial. The role specialization (or interdependence) view of marriage argues that the gains to marriage for both partners decrease when both are in the labor force, and hence womens employment destabilizes marriage. In contrast, the economic opportunity hypothesis asserts that female labor force participation does not intrinsically weaken marriage, but gives women resources that they can use to leave unsatisfactory marriages. Here we use data from the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to conduct the first large-scale empirical test of those conflicting claims. Our results provide clear evidence that, at the individual level, womens employment does not destabilize happy marriages but increases the risk of disruption in unhappy marriages.

Parenting Influences on Early Sex Initiation Among Adolescents How Neighborhood Matters

Building on social ecological research, this study considers whether neighborhood socioeconomic advantage modifies the relationship between parenting practices and sex initiation among young adolescents. Using data on a national sample of 2,559 middle school students, the authors examined two-way interactions between neighborhood socioeconomic status and parental involvement, decision making, and communication about sex. The parental decision-making measure was developed using latent class analysis. Greater parental involvement was related to a lower likelihood of sex initiation only when youth lived in socioeconomically advantaged neighborhoods. Parental decision making centered on the child’s activities within (e.g., television watching) and outside (e.g., hanging with peers) of the home was associated with a lower likelihood of sex initiation for adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods but to a greater likelihood of sex initiation for youth in advantaged neighborhoods. Results suggest that the neighborhood context must be considered in preventive interventions aimed at discouraging adolescent involvement in sexual intercourse.

The environment and urban adolescents' use of recreational facilities for physical activity: a qualitative study.

Purpose. Investigate environmental factors influencing the use of recreational facilities for physical activity by urban African-American adolescents. Design. Qualitative in-depth interviews and direct observation. Setting. Two public high schools and 24 public recreational facilities in Baltimore, Maryland. Participants. Forty-eight African-American adolescents aged 14 to 18 years. Methods. Data from 48 in-depth interviews and 26 observations were coded using NVivo software and analyzed using the constant comparative method. Results. Facility use is influenced by characteristics of the physical, social, organizational, and economic environments. Adolescents are attracted to low-cost, well-maintained facilities that offer preferred activities and that are within close proximity to home. Adolescents with limited access to facilities use alternative play spaces, like the streets or vacant lots, where they risk injury from falling or being hit by a car. They are drawn to facilities where they find active adolescents, and they avoid those where young people are engaged in drug or gang activity. Concerns about facility safety largely determine use, particularly for adolescent girls. Conclusion. Previous research points to the importance of increasing facility availability as a means of promoting physical activity, particularly in minority communities in which availability is disproportionately limited. This study shows that, while availability is important, additional facility characteristics should be considered when using environmental change to promote facility use for physical activity.

School Reentry in Early Adulthood: The Case of Inner-City African Americans

This article reports on a study of the schooling careers of a recent cohort of African Americans that found that 44 percent of the women and 34 percent of the men reentered school at least once. There were few differences in educational credentials at age 27 between those who attained their education in one spell or two spells of enrollment, although more than two school reentries were not associated with high levels of educational credentials. Using recent models of educational decision making to study the determinants of school reentry and applying discrete time hazards regression, the authors found that, as in models of school persistence, a reentry to school is a function of the costs of enrollment, the probability of success, and the utility of schooling to the individual. Familial resources are not important predictors of a decision for schooling, whereas such factors as military service and engagement with the labor force are. On the basis of these findings, the authors argue that models of educational attainment that emphasize the importance of continuous enrollment need to be updated. These models seem to be particularly inappropriate for the study of groups that experience systemically limited opportunities during childhood.

Maternal smoking and birth weight : Interaction with parity and mother's own in utero exposure to smoking

Background: Few studies have reported interactions between maternal smoking and other maternal characteristics and exposures. We examined maternal smoking in a cohort study for which data from 3 generations were available to examine maternal characteristics and exposures from a life-course perspective. Methods: We had data from 3 generations: women enrolled in the U.S. Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP) between 1959 and 1965 at the Baltimore site (G1); daughters (G2) of those G1 mothers who were followed to ages 27–33 years in the Pathways to Adulthood study; and children (G3) born to the G2 women who provided pregnancy and birth information during the Pathways study. These data allowed examination of exposures that occurred to the mother during her childhood and in utero. Results: We found evidence of a 3-way interaction effect on birth weight for maternal smoking in pregnancy, maternal exposure to smoking in utero (grandmaternal smoking), and maternal parity. Maternal smoking reduced birth weight in 3 of the subgroups, with the size of the effect on birth weight moderated by parity and the mothers own in utero exposure to smoking. Conclusions: A mothers prenatal exposure to smoke may affect the birth weight of her offspring. This effect would be consistent with both the accumulation-of-risk and the fetal-programming hypotheses.

Changes in sexual risk behavior as young men transition to adulthood.

CONTEXT Understanding how young mens sexual risk behaviors change during the transition from adolescence to early adulthood is important for the design and evaluation of effective strategies to reduce the transmission of HIV and other STDs. METHODS Data from three waves of the National Survey of Adolescent Males (1988, 1991 and 1995) were used to categorize 1,880 respondents into clusters according to sexual risk behaviors. Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted to assess associations between clusters and rates of self-reported STD diagnoses and positive chlamydia tests. RESULTS Two dimensions of sexual risk-taking defined the clusters: partner characteristics and condom use. More than 50% of men remained in low-risk groups over time. In the first two waves, 24-32% of men reported engaging in high-risk behaviors (risky partners, condom nonuse); these behaviors were associated with elevated levels of STD outcomes. Nearly 40% of men who entered a high-risk group in the first two waves transitioned to a lower risk group by the third wave. Nine percent of men either engaged in increasingly risky behaviors or maintained membership in high-risk groups; elevated STD rates characterized both trajectories. Low condom use combined with having multiple partners during adolescence was associated with elevated STD rates in the year preceding the third wave; high condom use coupled with having risky partners was not. CONCLUSIONS The prominence of low-risk behaviors over time suggests that most young men avoid sexual risk-taking. Effective strategies to reduce HIV and STD risk in young men must simultaneously address multiple dimensions of sexual behavior.