Raising Parents
Intergenerational Transmission Is Not Sufficient for Positive Long-Term Population Growth
Samuel Arenberg et al.
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
All leading long-term global population projections agree on continuing fertility decline, resulting in a rate of population size growth that will continue to decline toward zero and would eventually turn negative. However, scholarly and popular arguments have suggested that because fertility transmits intergenerationally (i.e., higher fertility parents tend to have higher fertility children) and is heterogeneous within a population, long-term population growth must eventually be positive, as high-fertility groups come to dominate the population. In this research note, we show that intergenerational transmission of fertility is not sufficient for positive long-term population growth, for empirical and theoretical reasons. First, because transmission is imperfect, the combination of transmission rates and fertility rates may be quantitatively insufficient for long-term population growth: higher fertility parents may nevertheless produce too few children who retain higher fertility preferences. Second, today even higher fertility subpopulations show declining fertility rates, which may eventually fall below replacement (and in some populations already are). Therefore, although different models of fertility transmission across generations reach different conclusions, depopulation is likely under any model if, in the future, even higher fertility subpopulations prefer and achieve below-replacement fertility. These results highlight the plausibility of long-term global depopulation and the importance of understanding the possible consequences of depopulation.
The Hazards of Unwinding the Prescription Opioid Epidemic: Implications for Child Maltreatment
Mary Evans, Matthew Harris & Lawrence Kessler
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2022, Pages 192-231
Abstract:
Child maltreatment has significant and long-lasting consequences. We examine how two interventions designed to curtail prescription opioid misuse, the reformulation of OxyContin and the implementation of must-access prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), affected child maltreatment. Our results suggest counties with greater initial rates of prescription opioid usage experienced relatively larger increases in child physical abuse and neglect after OxyContin's reformulation. We also find some evidence of increases in alleged physical abuse and neglect due to must-access PDMP implementation. Our results uncover unintended consequences for children of reducing the supply of an addictive good without adequate support for dependent users.
Maternal Age, Early Childhood Temperament, and Youth Outcomes
Wei-hsin Yu & Hope Xu Yan
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
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.
Declines in Non-marital Births Among Black Women Between 2004 and 2014: Are Recent Trends the Result of Increases in Contraception?
Kristen Lagasse Burke & Kelly Raley
Population Research and Policy Review, October 2022, Pages 2267-2288
Abstract:
Non-marital birth rates for women in their twenties began declining in 2008, but the mechanisms driving this decline are not yet well understood. Using a proximate determinants of fertility framework and decomposition techniques, we consider the importance of changes in relationship status, contraceptive use, and other dimensions of deliberate fertility control in understanding trends in the non-marital fertile pregnancy rate between 2004 and 2014. We use data from several cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth to identify relationship and contraceptive use status at the time of conception for pregnancies that resulted or were likely to result in live births (i.e., fertile pregnancies), and focus our analysis on non-Hispanic Black women in their twenties. We find that changes in relationship status and sexual activity did not contribute to the decline in fertile pregnancy rates, nor did changes in the distribution of contraceptive method use. Instead, changing fertile pregnancy rates within contraceptive use categories, including among those who report using no method of contraception, account for the observed trend. Though contraceptive method mix is an insufficient explanation for recent trends, our results suggest that considering the sources of within-method variation in fertile pregnancy rates over time is key to understanding declines in non-marital births, and that some women not using contraception likely engaged in a form of deliberate fertility control not captured by the National Survey of Family Growth.
The Fracking Boom, Labor Structure, and Adolescent Fertility
Andrew Owen
Population Research and Policy Review, October 2022, Pages 2211-2231
Abstract:
Demographers have applied various sociological and economic theories of fertility in attempts to clarify the dynamics of adolescent fertility, particularly its sharp decline in the United States over the last 20 years. Using the restricted detailed natality file from the National Center for Health Statistics, I analyze the impact of the oil and gas hydraulic fracturing boom in North Dakota and Montana on adolescent female fertility rates, testing pro-cyclical, mating market, and adult formation theories of adolescent fertility. Restricted difference-in-differences models demonstrate a positive and significant association between the oil boom and increased births in adolescent women aged 15-19, but more fully specified models demonstrate changing economic and social conditions appear to be driving the effect. Leveraging the exogenous shock of a bust in oil prices, a comparative interrupted time-series regression demonstrates a sizeable year-over-year decrease in adolescent female fertility for the shale region. Fertility rate changes in this age group do not appear attributable to changing racial or ethnic composition of oil-producing counties. Instead, increases in adolescent female fertility are largely driven by increasing births among white teens. The proximate mechanism driving this effect is the increasing employed share of young men aged 14-24, lending support to a substrand of adult formation and mating market explanations of adolescent female fertility.
Fast Track intervention effects on family formation
Jennifer Lansford et al.
Journal of Family Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study examines whether the Fast Track (FT) intervention, a 10-year randomized controlled trial with children at risk for conduct problems, affects family formation in adulthood, as indexed by partnerships, parenthood, and family structure, and whether the intervention effect differs across participants' gender and race/ethnicity. Participants included 891 children (intervention n = 445; control n = 446; 69% male; 51% Black, 47% White) who were recruited in kindergarten and followed to age 32 or 34 (80% participation of still-living participants), when they reported on their romantic partnerships, parenthood, and family structure. Controlling for numerous covariates that are related to family formation, intervention participants were more likely than those in the control group to be married rather than single and to have a larger number of children; the intervention and control groups did not differ on cohabitation status, age at first marriage, whether they had ever been divorced, their likelihood of being a parent, the age at which they first became a parent, the spacing of births, family structure (partnered or not, with or without children), or in whether they were residentially independent of their parents and grandparents. Intervention effects were not moderated by gender, but race/ethnicity moderated the effect of the intervention on the probability of having any children and the number of children. These findings suggest that several elements of family formation may remain unchanged by an intervention that changes many other behavioral and psychological trajectories of participants.