Robert L. Wagmiller

The dynamics of economic disadvantage and children's life chances

Recent research suggests that child well-being and subsequent status attainment are influenced not only by the duration of exposure to economic disadvantage during childhood, but also by the timing and sequencing of exposure. Unfortunately, traditional measures of childrens economic deprivation typically fail to differentiate between exposures to disadvantage at different stages in childhood and largely ignore how economic circumstances change over time. In this article, the authors propose a new method for assessing economic disadvantage during childhood that simultaneously captures childrens overall levels of exposure to economic disadvantage as well as the timing and sequencing of their exposure. This new method uses finite mixture modeling to classify children into a limited number of classes with similar histories of exposure to economic disadvantage. With this new methodology, it is possible both to assess how family characteristics affect patterns of exposure to disadvantage and to directly test alternative theories about the effect that different patterns of exposure have on achievement. The authors find that extended exposure to economic deprivation during childhood is least favorable to early adulthood achievement, but that—at least for human capital formation-the timing and sequencing of poverty also are important.

Sexual Dysfunction in an Internet Sample of U.S. Men Who Have Sex with Men

INTRODUCTION Relatively little is known about sexual dysfunction (SD) in men who have sex with men (MSM). AIM In order to better understand SD symptoms in MSM, we assessed self-reported SD symptoms, individually and by latent class analysis (LCA). METHODS In 2004-2005 an Internet sample of U.S. MSM was recruited from gay-oriented sexual networking, chat and news websites. The analytic sample comprised 7,001 men aged 18 or older who reported lifetime male sex partners and oral or anal sex with a male partner in their most recent encounter within the past year. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Seven questions on SD symptoms that occurred during the past 12 months inquired about low sexual desire, erection problems, inability to achieve an orgasm, performance anxiety, premature ejaculation, pain during sex, and sex not being pleasurable. RESULTS Self-reported symptoms of SD were high. Overall, 79% of men reported one or more SD symptoms in the past year, with low sexual desire, erection problems, and performance anxiety being the most prevalent. Four distinct underlying patterns of sexual functioning were identified by LCA: no/low SD, erection problems/performance anxiety, low desire/pleasure, and high SD/sexual pain. High SD/sexual pain was distinguished from the other patterns by club drug use and use of prescription and non-prescription erectile dysfunction medication before sex in the past year. Additionally, men associated with the high SD/sexual pain group were younger, single, more likely to have poor mental and physical health, and more likely to have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection in the past year compared to men in the no/low SD group. CONCLUSIONS LCA enabled us to identify underlying patterns of sexual functioning among this sample of MSM recruited online. Future research should investigate these distinct subgroups with SD symptoms in order to develop tailored treatments and counseling for SD.

Internalizing Trajectories in Young Boys and Girls: The Whole Is Not a Simple Sum of Its Parts.

There is support for a differentiated model of early internalizing emotions and behaviors, yet researchers have not examined the course of multiple components of an internalizing domain across early childhood. In this paper we present growth models for the Internalizing domain of the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment and its component scales (General Anxiety, Separation Distress, Depression/Withdrawal, and Inhibition to Novelty) in a sample of 510 one- to three-year-old children. For all children, Internalizing domain scores decreased over the study, although girls had significantly higher initial levels and boys had steeper declines. General Anxiety increased over the study period and, when modeled individually, girls evidenced higher initial levels and greater increases. For all children, Separation Distress and Inhibition to Novelty decreased significantly over time, while Depression/Withdrawal remained low without change. Findings from our parallel process model, in which all components were modeled simultaneously, revealed that initial levels of internalizing scales were closely associated while rates of change were less closely related. Sex differences in variability around initial levels and rates of change emerged on some scales. Findings suggest that, for one- to three-year-olds, examining scales of the internalizing domain separately rather than as a unitary construct reveals more meaningful developmental and gender variation.

Race and the Spatial Segregation of Jobless Men in Urban America

Changes in U.S. metropolitan areas over the past 30 years are thought to have concentrated jobless men in low-income, predominantly minority neighborhoods clustered near the center of the city. Using tract-level data from the Neighborhood Change Database for 1970–2000, I examine how the residential segregation of jobless from employed men has changed over the past three decades. I find that jobless men in U.S. metropolitan areas have become less uniformly distributed throughout the metropolis and more isolated, concentrated, and clustered since 1970; but they have also become less centralized. Racial and ethnic group differences in the spatial segregation of jobless men are large. Jobless black men occupy a uniquely disadvantaged ecological position in the metropolis: in comparison with other jobless men, they are much less uniformly distributed throughout the metropolis and much more isolated from employed men, they are concentrated in a smaller amount of physical space, and their neighborhoods are more clustered and are located closer to the center of the city. The dimensions of segregation strongly overlap for black jobless men, producing a multidimensional layering of segregation not encountered by other jobless men. Multivariate models reveal that the uniquely disadvantaged ecological position of jobless black men is less a reflection of different patterns of regional concentration and metropolitan settlement or of differences in group-status characteristics than it is an inevitable consequence of extreme levels of racial residential segregation in the United States.

Lost Toy? Monsters Under the Bed? Contributions of Temperament and Family Factors to Early Internalizing Problems in Boys and Girls

This study was designed to examine the contribution of multiple risk factors to early internalizing problems and to investigate whether family and ecological context moderated the association between child temperament and internalizing outcomes. A sample of 1,202 mothers of 2- and 3-year-old children completed a survey of child social-emotional functioning, family environment, and violence exposure. Child temperament, maternal affective symptoms, and family expressiveness were associated with child anxiety and depression problems. Violence exposure was related only to child anxiety. When maternal affective symptoms were elevated, inhibited girls but not boys were rated as more anxious and youngsters with heightened negative emotionality were rated as more depressed. Family expressiveness moderated the association between inhibited temperament and anxiety symptoms.

Does Children’s Academic Achievement Improve when Single Mothers Marry?:

Promoting marriage, especially among low-income single mothers with children, is increasingly viewed as a promising public policy strategy for improving developmental outcomes for disadvantaged children. Previous research suggests, however, that children’s academic achievement either does not improve or declines when single mothers marry. In this article, the authors argue that previous research may understate the benefits of mothers’ marriages to children from single-parent families because (1) the short-term and long-term developmental consequences of marriage are not adequately distinguished and (2) child and family contexts in which marriage is likely to confer developmental advantages are not differentiated from those that do not. Using multiple waves of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), the authors find that single mothers’ marriages are associated with modest but statistically significant improvements in their children’s academic achievement trajectories. However, only children from more advantaged single-parent families benefit from their mothers’ marriage.

Growth Trajectories of Early Aggression, Overactivity, and Inattention: Relations to Second-Grade Reading.

The link between behavior problems and low academic achievement is well established, but few studies have examined longitudinal relations between early externalizing behaviors before school entry and low academic achievement following transition to formal schooling. Early inattention has been particularly overlooked, despite strong associations between inattention and reading difficulties later in development. Trajectories of infant and toddler aggression, overactivity, and inattention, developed from parent reports about 1- to 3-year-old children, were examined as predictors of direct assessments of 2nd-grade reading in an at-risk epidemiological study subsample (N = 359). Reports of inattentive and overactive behaviors at ages 1-3 years and changes in inattention through toddlerhood predicted reading achievement in 2nd grade. A parallel process model suggested that the effects of early inattention on reading appear to be most robust. Findings underscore the contribution of social-emotional development to school readiness and the importance of early identification of children with externalizing problems, as early interventions designed to reduce externalizing problems may improve later reading skills.

Childhood and Intergenerational Poverty: The Long-Term Consequences of Growing Up Poor

Children growing up in low-income families face many challenges that children from more advantaged families do not.1 These children are more likely to experience multiple family transitions, move frequently, and change schools.2 The schools they attend are less well funded, and the neighborhoods they live in are more disadvantaged.3 The parents of these children have fewer resources to invest in them and, as a consequence, their homes have fewer cognitively-stimulating materials, and their parents invest less in their education.4 The stress of living in poverty and struggling to meet daily needs can also impair parenting.5

Blacks’ and Whites’ Experiences of Neighborhood Racial and Ethnic Diversity Intercohort Variation in Neighborhood Diversity and Integration in Early and Early Middle Adulthood

The racial and ethnic diversity of American cities has increased sharply in recent decades. This study uses a unique longitudinal, cohort-comparison research design to investigate changes over the past three decades in the diversity and multigroup integration of Blacks’ and Whites’ neighborhoods between early and early middle adulthood. This study finds that the neighborhoods in which recent cohorts of Blacks and Whites reside are both more diverse and more integrated than were the neighborhoods of earlier cohorts. Although even in the most recent cohorts Blacks’ neighborhoods are more diverse and integrated than Whites’ neighborhoods, overall levels of racial and ethnic diversity and integration for Whites and Blacks are converging. However, the types of diversity and integration Whites and Blacks experience in their neighborhoods remain very different.

Parental Health and Children's Economic Well-Being*

The life course perspective emphasizes that past economic experiences and stage in the life course influence a familys ability to cope with negative life events such as poor health. However, traditional analytic approaches are not well-suited to examine how the impact of negative life events differs based on a familys past economic experiences, nor do they typically account for the potentially spurious association between negative life events and family economic well-being. We use finite mixture modeling to examine how changes in parental health affect childrens exposure to poverty. We find that for some children the association between family heads health and childrens exposure to poverty is spurious, while for other children family heads poor health is associated with increased risk of economic deprivation. The extent to which a family heads poor health alters childrens economic well-being depends on a childs familys underlying economic trajectory and past history of exposure to disadvantage.