Save the children
Impact of Fathers on Parental Monitoring of Daughters and Their Affiliation With Sexually Promiscuous Peers: A Genetically and Environmentally Controlled Sibling Study
Danielle DelPriore, Gabriel Schlomer & Bruce Ellis
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Girls who receive higher quality fathering engage in less risky sexual behavior (RSB) than their peers. Previous research identifies higher levels of parental monitoring/knowledge and reduced affiliation with deviant peers as potential mediators of this observed fathering effect. Although paternal investment theory posits a causal effect of fathers on daughters’ RSB, and on the intervening processes that mediate this effect, these relations could arise from genetic or environmental confounds. To address this limitation, we employed the genetically- and environmentally controlled differential sibling-exposure design (N = 101 sister pairs; ages 18–36), which retrospectively examines the effects of differential sibling exposure to family disruption/father absence and quality of fathering. Consistent with a causal explanation, differences between older and younger sisters in the effects of fathering quality on parental monitoring and peer RSB were greatest in biologically disrupted families when there was a large age gap between the sisters (thus maximizing differential exposure to fathers), with greater exposure within families to higher quality fathering increasing parental monitoring and reducing affiliation with sexually promiscuous peers. No such differences were found between older and younger sisters in families with little or no differential exposure to fathers (e.g., biologically intact families) or in response to differences in mothering quality. Taken together, these findings suggest that higher quality fathering may decrease daughters’ engagement in RSB by increasing the amount of parental monitoring that they receive and decreasing their affiliation with peers who promote RSB.
Female Babies and Risk-Aversion
David Haig, Andrew Oswald & Ganna Pogrebna
Harvard Working Paper, April 2017
Abstract:
Being told the sex of your unborn child is a major exogenous 'shock'. In the first study of its kind, we collect before-and-after data from hospital wards. We test for the causal effects of learning child gender upon people's degree of risk-aversion. Using a standard Holt-Laury criterion, the parents of daughters, whether unborn or recently born, are shown to be almost twice as risk-averse as parents of sons. The study demonstrates this in longitudinal ('switching') data and cross-sectional data. The study finds it for fathers and mothers, babies in the womb and recently born children, and for a West European nation and an East European nation.
Born to Lead? The Effect of Birth Order on Non-Cognitive Abilities
Sandra Black, Erik Grönqvist & Björn Öckert
NBER Working Paper, May 2017
Abstract:
We study the effect of birth order on personality traits among men using population data on enlistment records and occupations for Sweden. We find that earlier born men are more emotionally stable, persistent, socially outgoing, willing to assume responsibility, and able to take initiative than later-borns. In addition, we find that birth order affects occupational sorting; first-born children are more likely to be managers, while later-born children are more likely to be self-employed. We also find that earlier born children are more likely to be in occupations that require leadership ability, social ability and the Big Five personality traits. Finally, we find a significant role of sex composition within the family. Later-born boys suffer an additional penalty the larger the share of boys among the older siblings. When we investigate possible mechanisms, we find that the negative effects of birth order are driven by post-natal environmental factors. We also find evidence of lower parental human capital investments in later-born children.
Social outrage and organizational behavior: A national study of child protective service decisions
Radha Jagannathan & Michael Camasso
Children and Youth Services Review, June 2017, Pages 153–163
Abstract:
In this paper, we extend to CPS, a risk model commonly employed in the fields of environmental science, food safety and chemical engineering, where risk is conceptualized as a function of both technical hazard and moral outrage. Much as Jagannathan and Camasso (2011, 2013) did, we argue that child fatalities resulting from maltreatment and the moral outrage they often engender serve to influence CPS operations by altering CPS worker and child welfare organizational decision rules. In our empirical analyses, we test for an independent effect of social outrage (captured by child fatalities) on worker decisions while controlling for hazard and other relevant determinants. We also test whether this relationship is mediated by child welfare reform measures undertaken via judicial interventions or class action litigation. Using data from NCANDS (n = 1122 state-year observations over a 22 year time period across all 50 states and District of Columbia) and panel regression methods we show that social outrage caused by child fatalities significantly and directly influence child welfare worker decisions to: accept a referral of alleged maltreatment for investigation, substantiate reports of maltreatment, and place children out-of-home.
The Intergenerational Transmission of Education: New Evidence from Adoptions in the USA
Mary Silles
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the influence of parental education on children's grade-for-age using a large sample of adoptees drawn from the American Community Survey between 2008 and 2014. The results show that mother's education is not an important determinant of the education of adopted children, despite statistically significant effects for own-birth children. The results for fathers are different. Among adopted white children, the effect of father's education is shown to be a statistically significant determinant of grade retention. However, among black children, adoptive father's education does not appear to have any discernible effect on children's education. A range of sensitivity tests are undertaken to check the validity of these results. The differences in these patterns between white and black students suggest the presence of racial differences in the intergenerational transmission of education.
Mothers’ Attachment is Linked to their Children’s Anti-Inflammatory Gene Expression via Maternal Warmth
Sarah Stanton et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has demonstrated links between adult romantic attachment and one’s own physical health; little is known about links between adult attachment orientations and offspring health. Prior work has shown that parents’ greater attachment anxiety and avoidance predict less warmth toward their children. Extensive work has also shown that lower maternal warmth has negative downstream effects on offspring health. We tested the novel hypothesis that mothers’ dispositional romantic attachment would be linked — via maternal warmth — to their children’s expression of the glucocorticoid receptor gene NR3C1, higher expression of which is associated with healthier stress regulation and inflammatory response. In a sample of 132 youth with asthma, we found that mothers’ attachment anxiety and avoidance were both negatively associated with children’s expression of NR3C1, explained by lower youth-rated maternal warmth. Associations held after adjusting for demographic and psychosocial covariates. Implications for parents’ attachment influencing the health of offspring are discussed.
A genetic variant brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) polymorphism interacts with hostile parenting to predict error-related brain activity and thereby risk for internalizing disorders in children
Alexandria Meyer et al.
Development and Psychopathology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The error-related negativity (ERN) is a negative deflection in the event-related potential occurring when individuals make mistakes, and is increased in children with internalizing psychopathology. We recently found that harsh parenting predicts a larger ERN in children, and recent work has suggested that variation in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene may moderate the impact of early life adversity. Parents and children completed measures of parenting when children were 3 years old (N = 201); 3 years later, the ERN was measured and diagnostic interviews as well as dimensional symptom measures were completed. We found that harsh parenting predicted an increased ERN only among children with a methionine allele of the BDNF genotype, and evidence of moderated mediation: the ERN mediated the relationship between parenting and internalizing diagnoses and dimensional symptoms only if children had a methionine allele. We tested this model with externalizing disorders, and found that harsh parenting predicted externalizing outcomes, but the ERN did not mediate this association. These findings suggest that harsh parenting predicts both externalizing and internalizing outcomes in children; however, this occurs through different pathways that uniquely implicate error-related brain activity in the development of internalizing disorders.
Impacts of playing after school on academic performance: A propensity score matching approach
Yajuan Li, Marco Palma & Zhicheng Phil Xu
Education Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We present a plausible causal analysis of the impact of playing after school on academic performance and investigate parental support as a potential channel. We exploit the data from the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey to evaluate the effects by using a propensity score matching approach. The results show that playing after school increases math and science scores of fourth grade students. We find that White students benefit from playing after school, but non-White students do not. Furthermore, we present evidence that parental support enhances the effects of playing after school.
Origins of Adulthood Personality: The Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences
Jason Fletcher & Stefanie Schurer
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We test whether adverse childhood experiences – exposure to parental maltreatment and its indirect effect on health – are associated with age 30 personality traits. We use rich longitudinal data from a large, representative cohort of young US Americans and exploit the differences across siblings to control for the confounding influences of shared environmental and genetic factors. We find that maltreatment experiences are significantly and robustly associated with neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, but not with agreeableness and extraversion. High levels of neuroticism are linked to sexual abuse and neglect; low levels of conscientiousness and openness to experience are linked to parental neglect. The estimated associations are significantly reduced in magnitude when controlling for physical or mental health, suggesting that adolescent health could be one important pathway via which maltreatment affects adulthood personality. Maltreatment experiences, in combination with their health effects, explain a significant fraction of the relationship between adulthood conscientiousness and earnings or human capital. Our findings provide a possible explanation for why personality traits are important predictors of adulthood labor market outcomes.