REEXAMINING THE ASSOCIATION OF MATERNAL AGE AND MARITAL STATUS AT FIRST BIRTH WITH YOUTH EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Parent-Adult Child Estrangement in the United States by Gender, Race/ethnicity, and Sexuality

Objective

To provide nationally-representative estimates of parent-adult child estrangement.

Background

Population-level research is needed on parent-adult child estrangement to understand the full range of family dynamics in the U.S.

Method

We estimate logistic regression models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult supplement to determine estimates of estrangement (and subsequent unestrangement) from mothers (N=8,495) and fathers (N=8,119) by children's gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. We then estimate hazards of first estrangement from mothers (N = 7,919) and fathers (N = 6,410), adjusting for adult child's and parents' social and economic characteristics.

Results

Six percent of respondents report a period of estrangement from mothers, with an average age of first maternal estrangement of 26 years old; 26 percent of respondents report estrangement from fathers, with an average age of first paternal estrangement of 23 years old. Results further show heterogeneity by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality; for example, daughters are less likely to be estranged from their mothers than are sons, Black adult children are less likely than White adult children to be estranged from their mothers but more likely to be estranged from fathers, and gay, lesbian, and bisexual adult children are more likely than heterosexuals to be estranged from fathers. The majority of estranged adult children become unestranged from mothers (81%) and fathers (69%) in subsequent waves.

Conclusion

This study provides compelling new evidence on an overlooked aspect of intergenerational relationships, concluding with insight into the structural forces that unequally contribute to estrangement patterns.

What Explains Socioeconomic Disparities in Early Pregnancy Rates?

In this study, we integrate diverse structural, social psychological, and relational perspectives to develop and test a comprehensive framework of the processes that make early pregnancy a socially stratified phenomenon. Drawing on rich panel data collected among a sample of 940 18- to 20-year-old women from a county in Michigan, we estimate nested hazard models and formal mediation analyses to simultaneously elucidate the extent to which different mechanisms explain disparities in early pregnancy rates across maternal education levels-a key indicator of socioeconomic status. Together, our distal mechanisms explain 53 and 31 percent of the difference in pregnancy rates between young women whose mothers graduated college and young women whose mothers graduated and did not graduate high school, respectively. Reproductive desires, norms, and attitudes, relationship contexts, and educational opportunities and environment each link maternal education to young women's odds of pregnancy. Self-efficacy, however, plays only a modest role; while contraceptive affordability and knowledge are not significant pathways. These findings bring into focus the most prominent intervening mechanisms through which socioeconomic circumstances shape young women's likelihood of becoming pregnant during the transition to adulthood.

Maternal Age, Early Childhood Temperament, and Youth Outcomes

Demographers and family researchers have long debated whether early childbearing has negative consequences on the offspring, but few have considered that the benefits of delayed childbearing (or the lack thereof) may not be universal. Using sibling data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults, we investigate how the relevance of mothers' age at childbirth to youth outcomes (academic performance, years of education completed, and psychological distress) may differ for youth whose early-childhood behavioral disposition (i.e., temperament) indicated varying degrees of insecure attachment. Results from family fixed-effects models, which take into account much of the unobserved heterogeneity among families, show that having an older mother is associated with improved educational and psychological outcomes for youth with a rather insecure early temperament. In contrast, mothers' age at childbirth hardly matters for children with a secure disposition. Further analysis indicates that the moderating effect of maternal age cannot be explained by the mother's first-birth timing, education, work status, income, or family stability. Older mothers' higher likelihood of prior child-rearing experience explains part of the older-mother advantage for temperamentally insecure children. However, the aging process, which equips older mothers with enhanced maturity, more calmness, and therefore greater capacity to overcome adversities, seems to account for the smaller detrimental effects of an insecure disposition on their children.

Causal Impact of School Starting Age on the Tempo of Childbirths: Evidence from Working Mothers and School Entry Cutoff Using Exact Date of Birth

Many studies show that females' age at first childbirth affects important outcomes of these females and their offspring such as health- and socioeconomic-related variables. This paper analyzes whether there is a causal relationship between working mothers' school entry age and the timing at which they give birth by exploiting Korea's elementary school entry cutoff regulation. Using administrative employment insurance data that record the fertility history of female working mothers together with regression discontinuity design, we find that a year's delay in age at school starting increases age at first and second childbirth by approximately 3 and 4 months, respectively. We also find that one of the mechanisms that affects the relationship between these two variables is age at first employment. The estimated effects of SSA are likely to be salient in a country where educational sequence that a student experience is rigid.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-021-09597-x.

Parental age at childbirth and children’s educational outcomes: evidence from upper-secondary schools in Italy

In the last decades, Western societies have been involved in huge demographic changes, amongst which one of the most important has been the increasing postponement of the transition to parenthood. This paper aims at analysing the consequences of later motherhood and fatherhood on children’s participation in upper-secondary schools in Italy, considering both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of education. It also aims at highlighting the role of father-mother age difference and heterogeneity in the effects by parental SES and birth order. Using Italian labour force survey data (2005-2014), results show that late parenthood is positively associated with educational attainment, whereas teenage and early parenthood negatively affect children’s educational outcomes, net of detailed information on parental SES. Age at parenthood affects the educational achievement mostly for children of low- and middle-educated parents, who are more penalized by early childbearing and more favoured by late parenthood than the offspring of the tertiary educated. Moreover, only children are less affected by age at parenthood, especially in comparison with later-born children. Finally, children’s educational outcomes are worse when the mother is older than the father, independently from the educational outcome considered, whereas they are better in case of parental age homogamy or when the father is slightly older than the mother.

The Role of Cognitive Stimulation in the Home and Maternal Responses to Low Grades in Low-Income African American Adolescents' Academic Achievement

Parental involvement in education has generally been shown to foster adolescent academic achievement, yet little is known about whether two important forms of parental involvement-how parents respond to academic underachievement and how parents provide cognitive stimulation in the home-are related to academic achievement for African American adolescents. This study uses two waves of data to evaluate whether these forms of parental involvement are related to future academic achievement for low-income African American adolescents and whether there are gender differences in these associations. African American mothers and adolescents (N = 226; 48% girls) were interviewed when adolescents were ages 14 and 16. Mothers of girls reported higher mean levels of punitive responses to grades than mothers of boys, but child gender did not moderate associations between parental involvement and academic achievement. Cognitive stimulation in the home was related to changes in academic achievement from 14 to 16 years of age, controlling for age 14 academic achievement. This study provides evidence that nonpunitive responses to inadequate grades and cognitive stimulation at home are linked to academic achievement among African American adolescents.

'The psychosocial burden of alopecia areata and androgenetica': a cross-sectional multicentre study among dermatological out-patients in 13 European countries

BACKGROUND

Hair diseases play an important burden on patients' lives, causing significant emotional and psychosocial distress. However, the impairment due to different hair conditions, such as alopecia areata (AA) and androgenetic alopecia (AGA), has rarely been compared.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to assess the psychological burden of subgroups of patients with different hair diseases and to compare them to a healthy population.

METHODS

In this study, we analysed a subgroup of patients with hair diseases from patients of a large multicentre study including 3635 dermatological patients and 1359 controls from 13 European countries. In the subgroup of patients with hair diseases, we analysed the socio-demographic characteristics, the stress level, and the impact of hair diseases on quality of life (QoL), anxiety, and depression and we compared them among patients with AA, AGA and healthy controls.

RESULTS

The study population included 115 patients (77% women, 23% men) with hair diseases, 37 of whom with AA and 20 with AGA. Patients with hair diseases had a lower education level than healthy controls (medium educational level: 43% vs. 28%). Overall, 41% of the patients reported stressful life events during the last 6 months compared with 31% of the controls. Patients with the same age, sex, depression level and comorbidities had a worse QoL when suffering from AA than from AGA (Mean Dermatology Life Quality Index score: 5.8 vs. 2.5).

CONCLUSION

Patients with hair diseases are more anxious, depressed and have a lower QoL than controls.

Maternal Age and Child Development

Although the consequences of teen births for both mothers and children have been studied for decades, few studies have taken a broader look at the potential payoffs-and drawbacks-of being born to older mothers. A broader examination is important given the growing gap in maternal ages at birth for children born to mothers with low and high socioeconomic status. Drawing data from the Children of the NLSY79, our examination of this topic distinguishes between the value for children of being born to a mother who delayed her first birth and the value of the additional years between her first birth and the birth of the child whose achievements and behaviors at ages 10-13 are under study. We find that each year the mother delays a first birth is associated with a 0.02 to 0.04 standard deviation increase in school achievement and a similar-sized reduction in behavior problems. Coefficients are generally as large for additional years between the first and given birth. Results are fairly robust to the inclusion of cousin and sibling fixed effects, which attempt to address some omitted variable concerns. Our mediational analyses show that the primary pathway by which delaying first births benefits children is by enabling mothers to complete more years of schooling.

Maternal Age and Offspring's Educational Attainment

Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the current study examines which maternal age at birth provides offspring with optimal opportunities for higher educational attainment. The results show that maternal age has a curvilinear relationship with offspring's educational attainment, i.e., the offspring of younger and older mothers are distinctly disadvantaged. Maternal ages 31 through 40 are associated with the highest offspring educational attainment, suggesting that women who give birth in their 30s have more favorable characteristics than younger or older mothers. The analysis demonstrates that-with the exception of early teenage childbearing-the association between maternal age and offspring's educational attainment likely reflects selection patterns in fertility timing, rather than direct within-family effects of maternal age on offspring's educational attainment. Thus, the results provide insufficient evidence to conclude that delaying childbearing beyond age 18 directly benefits or harms offspring's educational attainment.