Douglas S. Massey (PI) Jayanti Owens (co-PI) Princeton University
Project Summary This project examines the following topics: First, to what degree can higher levels of behavioral skills in early childhood increase an individual's likelihood of graduating from high school, and entering and progressing through college? Second, do differences by gender in early childhood behavioral skills, and in the interplay between behavioral and cognitive skills, shape what is commonly called the "female advantage" in educational outcomes? Third, to what degree has the growing trend towards family instability help explain widely noted gender gaps in early childhood behavioral skills, as well as the so-called "female advantage" in educational outcomes? To answer these questions, the study conducts quantitative analyses of a dataset that has followed children (and their mothers) from birth through their mid-twenties. The dataset used relies on series of federally funded efforts known as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), and the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS: 2002). Findings from this study seek to inform educational researchers interested in the relative impact of family-based and school-based sources of learning. Findings will also advance research on the intergenerational dynamics that shape social inequality patterns.
Broader Impact The proposed study seeks to offer new insights for curricular and other intervention programs that seek to boost children?s academic outcomes by targeting them in early childhood, such as Head Start. Findings could also be of interest to the general public, as the study might help document the cumulative and reinforcing effects of behavioral and cognitive skills for the persistent and growing gender gap in educational achievement and attainment. Together, this study offers parents, teachers, NGOs, and policy makers empirical evidence on the origins of and possible policy alternatives for addressing male disadvantages in educational attainment.
One of the most striking demographic shifts in recent decades is the gender reversal in educational attainment in the United States. The dissertation begins to put forth a new perspective – a behavioral explanation – for this growing female advantage that has emerged in recent decades within one realm (educational attainment). To test whether the recent outpacing of males by females in rates of high school and college completion in the United States is traceable back to these early gender differences in childhood behavioral development, I use the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a longitudinal dataset that has only recently released information on the adult outcomes of this national sample children born in the early 1980s. I examine whether females’ higher levels of self-regulation and social skills in early childhood help explain females’ higher rates of high school and college completion twenty years later. I find that gender differences in children’s early childhood self-regulation and social skills explain 6 to 8 percentage-points of the gender gap in high school and 2- and 4-year college completion. Although this may seem modest, the gender gap in early childhood behavior explains about half as much as that explained by individuals’ demographic characteristics and labor market incentives combined. The second part of the dissertation brings together health and education approaches. Researchers in each field have documented increases in overall levels of ADHD diagnosis and school suspension, respectively, as well as in the gender gap in these outcomes in recent decades. But, research has not investigated whether there also has been an increase in overall levels of the self-regulation and social problems (known together as "externalizing") that may produce the rise of both ADHD and school suspensions that we see across recent cohorts. Changes in the gender gap in early childhood externalizing might also help explain the growth in the gender gap in diagnosed ADHD prevalence. To investigate the hypothesis of a growth in overall levels of externalizing across cohorts and in the gender gap therein, I introduce a second, comparable national dataset of children born in 2001. Working with developmental psychologists and psycho-biologists, I constructed valid and reliable sub-scales of self-regulation and social skills. I used identical parent-reported behavioral scales collected at comparable ages across datasets, as well as comparable measures of family structure, social class, health, and interpersonal family dynamics across samples. I find that, as both boys and girls have experienced increases in levels of externalizing, the gender gap in early childhood behavior problems has nearly doubled across cohorts. Furthermore, I find that the rise of single mother households and early childhood chronic health problems account for roughly half of the growth in this gender gap. These findings carry important implications for gender disparities in population health moving forward, since more-educated people tend to have better mental and physical health, are less-likely to engage in the risky health behaviors, and are more likely to form stable families that help ensure the health and well-being of children.
