Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While much research has confirmed the association between adult SES and adult health, still little is known about the impact of SES trajectories on adult health. SES is hypothesized to affect health over the life course in two ways. First, SES is thought to have cumulative effects on health, regardless of when adversity is experienced in the life course. In addition to those cumulative effects, it has been argued that the experience of adverse socioeconomic conditions early in the life course may be even more detrimental to adult health than later disadvantage, notably since it could be reflected in lower education opportunities, which in turn restrict achieved status and health in adulthood. Using data from the NLSY79, this study will therefore examine both the cumulative impact of life course socioeconomic status to health as well as the moderating contribution of early disadvantage to this relationship. In addition, the impact of health insurance will also be explored as a mechanism that may mitigate prior inequalities. Preliminary findings suggest that SES does have cumulative effects on health through the life course and that individuals who experienced poverty in late adolescence have a higher return to employment. However, there were no differences in the impact of income or of health insurance coverage on adult health between those who experience early disadvantage and those who did not.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research will argue that the distribution of socioeconomic status within nations affects learning by altering the manner in which individual socioeconomic background influences student achievement. To accomplish this goal, this paper will consider how structural characteristics of nations affect the relationship between individual socioeconomic status and student learning. Understanding the structural characteristics of nations which account for differences in the manner in which socioeconomic status influences student learning outcomes will advance the objective of equal of educational opportunity for all students.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Childhood obesity and, concomitantly, food insecurity and hunger, are issues that disproportionately affect children with absent fathers. In this study, we investigate the relationship between nonresident father involvement and adolescent weight, specifically adolescents’ risk of being under- and overweight, using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Our results indicate that the relationship depends on family income and fathers’ obesity, and varies for boys versus girls. Among poor children, involvement with a nonresident father at wave 1 significantly reduces a child’s chances of being underweight at wave 2 of the survey (boys and girls). Poor children with overweight fathers experience further reductions in their risk of being underweight. Among higher income children, girls (but not boys) who are involved with an overweight father at wave 1 have an increased risk of being overweight at wave 2. Child support payments are not associated with being at risk of overweight or underweight. Policy efforts aimed at improving child well-being should continue to encourage nonresident father involvement, but should take into account the potentially negative effects of nonresident fathers’ obesity on children.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although a growing body of research has studied the long-term effects of parental divorce on adult children, few studies have examined the impact of multiple family structure transitions that often follow the initial divorce. On the basis of a large four-wave panel of American young adults, we examine the effects of chronic family instability during adolescence on socioeconomic success in young adulthood. Our findings show that compared with peers who stay in stable family structures during adolescence after the initial parental divorce, adult children of divorce who experience additional family structure transitions during adolescence consistently fare less well in a wide range of socioeconomic indicators. The study also finds that variations in adult outcomes between the two divorced groups are either partially or completely due to variations in parental resources and respondents’ short-term well-being before and during the transition period. Finally, the study reports limited gender differences in long-term divorce effects

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Scholars of Mexican migration to the United States have recently documented the increased dispersion of Mexican-born persons throughout the country over the past 25 years, particularly during the 1990s. The present research is guided by the general question of whether geographic dispersion of Mexican immigrants in the 1990s facilitated (or impeded) their socioeconomic incorporation. More specifically, considering the rigid barriers Mexican-born persons have encountered that inhibit relative wage growth or occupational mobility, has dispersion promoted alternative paths of socioeconomic incorporation such as increased housing affordability? What are the predominate factors that not only contribute to housing affordability differences between non-Latino whites and Mexican-born persons but how did geographic dispersion affect change in these factors in the 1990s? Preliminary results show that average housing costs among Mexican-born persons were reduced by 5 percent in 1990 relative to an increase of 1 percent among whites, resulting in a decline of 1.5 percentage points (or 24 percent) in the overall gap between the two groups. My analysis reveals that most of this decline was solely due to geographic dispersion rather than other effects due to differences between the Mexican-born and whites.