Sustainable Generation
Does Paid Family Leave Cause Mothers to Have More Children? Evidence from California
Eleanor Golightly & Pamela Meyerhofer
Journal of Labor Research, June 2022, Pages 203–238
Abstract:
Literature on the labor market and health effects of paid family leave largely overlooks the impacts on fertility, particularly in the United States. Increased childbearing following the introduction of a modest paid family leave policy in the U.S. could explain the contrasting short–term gains and long–term losses in women’s labor market outcomes found in recent work. We exploit the nation’s first paid family leave program, implemented in California in 2004. Using the universe of U.S. births and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that access to leave increases fertility by 2.8 percent, driven by higher order births to mothers in their 30s, as well as Hispanic mothers and those with a high school degree. Our results are robust to corrective methods of inference, including synthetic controls. Our findings may inform the discussion of a national paid family leave policy.
Mothering and Stress during COVID-19: Exploring the Moderating Effects of Employment
Xu Yan et al.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, June 2022
Abstract:
Using primary data from the Assessing the Social Consequences of COVID-19 study, the authors examined how the pandemic affected the stress levels of women with and without coresiding minor children (mothers vs. nonmothers), paying special attention to the moderating role of employment status. The ordinary least squares regression results show that following the pandemic outbreak, among full-time working women, mothers reported smaller stress increases than nonmothers. In contrast, among part-time and nonemployed women, mothers and nonmothers experienced similar stress increases. Also, full-time working mothers reported smaller stress increases than women with most other mothering and employment statuses. Changes in women’s employment status, following pandemic onset, had limited impacts on the patterns of stress change. This study contributes to research on parenting and health by showing that during times of crisis, full-time employment may be protective of mothers’ mental health but may not buffer the mental health deterioration of women not raising children.
Maternal human capital and infants' health outcomes: Evidence from minimum dropout age policies in the US
Hamid Noghanibehambari, Mahmoud Salari & Nahid Tavassoli
SSM - Population Health, forthcoming
Abstract:
The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to examine the causal relationship of maternal education and infants' health outcomes. Using birth certificate data over the years 1970–2004 and exploiting the space-time variation in Minimum Dropout Age laws to solve the endogeneity of education, we find a sizeable effect of mothers' education on their birth outcomes. An additional year of maternal education is associated with a reduction in incidences of low birth weight and preterm birth by 15.2 and 12.7 percent, respectively. The estimates are robust across various specifications and even when allowing mothers’ cohort-of-birth to vary across regions. The results suggest that the candidate mechanisms of impact include improvements in timing, quantity, and quality of prenatal care, lower negative health behavior during pregnancy such as smoking and drinking, and higher spousal education.
New Data on Birth Order in Homosexual Men and Women and a Reply to Vilsmeier et al. (2021a, 2021b)
Ray Blanchard & Malvina Skorska
Archives of Sexual Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The fraternal birth order effect (FBOE) is the repeated finding that older brothers increase the odds of homosexuality in later-born males. It has been our working assumption, based on the majority of previous studies, that a similar FBOE does not occur in females. In an elaborate quantitative review posted last year to a preprint server, Vilsmeier et al. (2021a) concluded that there is no valid evidence for an FBOE in men or women. Ablaza et al. (2022) subsequently published a study of population-level data from the Netherlands with conclusions completely opposite to those of Vilsmeier et al., namely, that there is robust evidence of an FBOE in both men and women. The present research was initially undertaken to refute the assertion of Vilsmeier et al. that there is no proof of an FBOE in men and to investigate how they obtained such a discrepant conclusion. We found evidence that the discrepancy may relate to Vilsmeier et al.’s use of the large and demonstrably unreliable sample published by Frisch and Hviid (2006). After the publication by Ablaza et al., we expanded our article to address their finding of an FBOE in women. We argue that our preferred explanation of the FBOE in men — that it reflects the progressive immunization of some mothers to Y-linked antigen by each succeeding male fetus and the concomitantly increasing effects of anti-male antibody on sexual differentiation in the brain in each succeeding male fetus — could plausibly be extended to female homosexuality.
The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage: The Influence of Childbirth and Divorce on the Income and Poverty Risk of Single Mothers
Susan Harkness
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines how motherhood earnings penalties in combination with the cost of partner absence affect single mothers' economic well-being. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1990–2015 and fixed-effects models with individual-specific slopes reveals that when needs are controlled for, the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced family income as partner absence is. I consider different routes to single motherhood and predict that income penalties will differ for women entering single motherhood at a first child's birth and for women who were married at first childbirth but later separated. I show that previously married mothers face larger income penalties than those who were single at first childbirth because they see larger declines in their earnings following childbirth. The results illustrate how marriage and parenthood, alongside partner absence, shape the economic prospects of single-mother families. These findings highlight the importance of reducing gender inequalities in the labor market to improve single mothers' economic well-being.
A Mighty Toll: Mine Accidents and the Long-Run Effect of Parental Loss
Ezra Goldstein
Florida State University Working Paper, October 2021
Abstract:
Through interactions with their parents, children develop the basic foundations for skills that play a direct role in their adulthood economic well-being. What are the consequences of disruptions to family structure and parental absence on a child's long-run success? This paper provides estimates of the causal effects of parental absence on a child's adulthood economic well-being by leveraging an individual-level, historical dataset and a natural experiment that yields plausibly exogenous variation in parental death. Specifically, I use digitized records of nearly all mining accidents in the U.S. during the early 20th century and compare the adulthood outcomes of children of fatal mining accident victims to children whose parents suffered serious, yet non-fatal accidents. Adults who lost their parents during early childhood experienced a 15 percent loss of income in 1940. Most of the estimated earnings penalty is attributed to differences in employment. Specifically, bereaved sons are more likely to be out of work, report unemployment assistance, and work fewer weeks.
Selfish centromeres and the wastefulness of human reproduction
Laurence Hurst
PLoS Biology, July 2022
Abstract:
Many human embryos die in utero owing to an excess or deficit of chromosomes, a phenomenon known as aneuploidy; this is largely a consequence of nondisjunction during maternal meiosis I. Asymmetries of this division render it vulnerable to selfish centromeres that promote their own transmission, these being thought to somehow underpin aneuploidy. In this essay, I suggest that these vulnerabilities provide only half the solution to the enigma. In mammals, as in utero and postnatal provisioning is continuous, the costs of early death are mitigated. With such reproductive compensation, selection can favour a centromere because it induces lethal aneuploidy: if, when taken towards the polar body, it instead kills the embryo via aneuploidy, it gains. The model is consistent with the observation that reduced dosage of a murine drive suppressor induces aneuploidy and with the fact that high aneuploidy rates in vertebrates are seen exclusively in mammals. I propose further tests of this idea. The wastefulness of human reproduction may be a price we pay for nurturing our offspring.
Intergenerational Transmission of Health at Birth: Fathers Matter Too!
Osea Giuntella, Giulia La Mattina & Climent Quintana-Domeque
NBER Working Paper, July 2022
Abstract:
We use a unique data set of linked birth records from Florida to analyze the intergenerational transmission of health at birth by parental gender. We show that both paternal and maternal birth weights significantly predict the child’s birth weight, even after accounting for all genetic and environmental factors that are common and time-invariant within a family. Our estimates reveal that a one standard deviation increase in mother’s birth weight (535 grams) translates into a 0.13-0.24 standard deviations increase in child’s birth weight (70-128 grams), accounting or not for maternal grandmother fixed effects. On the father’s side, we find that a one standard deviation increase in father’s birth weight (563 grams) translates into a 0.10-0.15 standard deviations increase in child’s birth weight (56-78 grams), accounting or not for paternal grandmother fixed effects. The significant role of both maternal and paternal health at birth in explaining offspring health at birth is confirmed when using alternative metrics: intrauterine growth, being small for gestational age or being too heavy (i.e., macrosomic).