Using twin (6,105 twin pairs) and genomic (5,825 unrelated individuals taken from the twin sample) analyses, we tested for genetic influences on the parent-offspring correspondence in educational attainment. Genetics accounted for nearly half of the variance in intergenerational educational attainment. A genomewide polygenic score (GPS) for years of education was also associated with intergener...

Article History Received: 30 June 2017 Revised: 2 August 2017 Accepted: 10 August 2017 Published: 22 August 2017

This paper addresses the question of whether offspring living in one-parent families at age seventeen obtain less education than offspring living in two-parent families. Four hypotheses for parent absence effects are tested: the "no effects" hypothesis, the "economic deprivation" hypothesis, the "absent father" hypothesis, and the "family stress" hypothesis. Separate analyses are presented for ...

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are analyzed to examine whether adolescents living in low-income urban areas have less accurate information about labor market institutions than teens in more affluent communities, and whether information influences educational attainment. All adolescents seem to implicitly underestimate the educational requirements of their occupationa...

This paper investigates the effect of delinquency in youth on subsequent educational attainment. To do so, we focus on delinquent acts committed by age 16 and examine their impact on two measures of educational attainment: high school graduation and college graduation. Using information on males from the extremely rich National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we find plausible evidence that ...

We employ a regression-discontinuity design to identify effects on educational attainment (years of education) of class size and the number of pupils per weekly teacher hour using administrative rules as instruments. We use a Danish administrative panel data set based on a 10% random sample of eight cohorts of pupils (and their parents). Restricting the sample to observations close to enrolment...

This paper explores the role of mortality as a determinant of educational attainment and fertility, both during the demographic transition and after its completion. Two main points distinguish our analysis from the previous ones. Together with the investments of parents in the human capital of children, traditional in the fertility literature, we introduce investments of adult individuals (pare...

Forty years ago, when the federal system of student loans and grants was born, providing the basis for today’s student financial aid system, about half of all recent high school graduates were enrolled in college. Today, more than two-thirds of those who complete high school enroll in two-year or four-year colleges within a year (NCES, 2012c, Table 234). While significant differences persist ac...

Between 1977 and 1994, smoking rates declined among men and women, but the decline was steeper for men. While smoking rates fell among people at all levels of education, the smallest drop was among those with high school graduation or less, particularly women. For those who had stopped smoking, health concerns had been the overriding factor. Smokers with lower education reported encountering fe...

I study the case of Great Britain in the mid twentieth century, when a rigid educational structure forced students to encounter consequential tracking points at ages 11 and 16, to examine whether the experience of a health problem at points before each of these two transitions increases the likelihood that children will end up in less rigorous educational tracks, that in turn influence socioeco...