Are We Ignoring Young Men?

Although quick to broadcast without careful analysis that women earn less than men, the news media rarely acknowledge what has been carefully quantified: that the college wage premium is actually higher for women than men and has been for some time. Nor do they point out that women likewise face lower “effort” costs relative to men in preparing for and attending college. Yet according to a study by three Harvard economists, both factors help explain why in the last twenty-five years, women have been attending and graduating from college in greater numbers than men.

The Harvard team traces the reversal of the “college gender gap” from 1948, when undergraduate men outnumbered coeds 2.3 to 1.0 until 1980, when gender parity was achieved, and to 2003, when there were 1.35 females for every male who earned a baccalaureate degree (and when undergraduate women outnumbered men 1.30 to 1.00).

Recognizing that the change did not happen overnight, the researchers identify economic, cultural, and legal factors that, beginning in the late 1960s, have contributed to this shift: the influx of women in the workforce and especially into formerly male-dominated jobs; changed expectations of young women about employment after marriage; increasing age of first marriage of women college graduates; the widespread legality and acceptance of the contraceptive pill; and the legal enforcement of gender equity in the workforce.

While ignoring how widespread affirmative action for women since the 1970s artificially has increased their college wage premium, the professors note how the documented female advantage in K-12 performance (which lowers their nonpecuniary costs of college prep and attendance) dovetails with the higher incidence of behavior problems among boys to allow women “to leapfrog over them in the race to college.” Those problems among boys include having two to three times the rate of ADHD, higher rates of placement in special education programs, and higher rates of criminal activity.

The economists do not say whether all these developments or the end result are desirable. Nor do they ponder whether what they call a “more level and wide playing field for girls” is really necessary, given how young men are today falling behind. But as long as the media continue to perpetuate myths about glass ceilings and rampant gender discrimination, these findings may end up being celebrated rather than considered a wake-up call to address the educational and career handicaps facing young men.

(Source: Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 [Fall 2006]: 133-156.)

Welfare States Weaken Work Norms  

To the political left, the American welfare system can never do enough. Yet a study by two noted economists from the preeminent welfare state, Sweden, warns of the downside of social insurance systems doing too much, finding that most advanced welfare states weaken not only work incentives among adults but also incentives for parents to instill, a strong work ethic in children.

Demonstrating the delayed effects of welfare states on the adult work patterns, Assar Lindbeck and Sten Nyberg note how the average work hours in Europe did not begin to decline, relative to the United States, until after the expansion of the covered population and the increased generosity of European social insurance systems peaked in the mid-1970s. Thus, the total benefit recipiency rate in the European Union, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data, increased from 15 percent of the working age population in 1980 to 20 percent in 1999, where the rate in the U.S. fell from 15 percent to about 14 percent during the same time.

To test the relationship between welfare states and the formation of work norms in children, the researchers look at aggregate economic variables from the OECD that might influence norm formation, as well as survey results from three waves of the World Values Survey (WVS) that provide a wide range of values, attitudes, and background data of individuals. Among the OECD variables, only social expenditures as a percent of GDP (the size of the welfare state) yielded clear and consistent correlations (which were inverse) with the dependent variable—that measured whether respondents thought children should be taught the value hard work at home—across all regressions in both linear probability and logic models, even when controlled for other WVS variables. The three other explanatory variables (household income, GDP growth per capita, and the Gini index that measures wage outcomes for children) yielded only mixed and inconsistent results.

Also, looking at the WVS data, the economists note: “The seven countries ranking lowest in terms of the percentage of respondents who regarded ‘hard work’ as a quality especially important for children to learn at home are advanced European welfare states.” Denmark ranked last out of 42 countries, with only 2 percent of her respondents expressing this opinion. Next to last were, in order, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, and West Germany.

These findings are not encouraging for countries that have or seek to have extensive welfare programs, as the researchers note how the strength of a social norm depends on the number of individuals willing to enforce it: “If failure in the labor market becomes more widespread, the perceived noneconomic cost of failure declines, which further erodes effort incentives and further increases the frequency of failure in the labor market.”

(Source: Assar Lindbeck and Sten Nyberg, “Raising Children to Work Hard: Altruism, Work Norms, and Social Insurance,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 [November 2006]: 1473-1503.)

Lethal Combination  

Sociologists have known for some time that suicide rates run particularly high among teens who have seen their parents divorce.  But a new study indicates that divorce is not the only family-destroying event that can push adolescents toward self-slaughter.  Recently published in the Journal of Marriage and Family by a team of American and Icelandic scholars, this study establishes a disturbing linkage between both parental divorce and illegitimacy.  Parents, it appears, put their children at lethal risk both when they divorce and when they fail to marry in the first place.

To identify the antecedents of adolescent suicide, the authors of the new study parse data collected from 15 industrialized countries—including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  Much as they expected, their analyses show that the divorce rate predicts the suicide rate for both young men and young women (p < 0.01 for young men; p < 0.05 for young women).  However, further analysis establishes that among young men—who are more suicide-prone than young women in all the countries studied—“the effect of changing levels of divorce on the youth suicide rate...is enhanced for those who were exposed to high levels of nonmarital fertility around the time of birth.”  Further scrutiny of the data reveals that this pathological dynamic “operates both ways.”  That is, “exposure to high levels of nonmarital fertility around the time of birth [also] becomes a more powerful predictor of suicide rates for the young male group under conditions of increasing divorce rates.”

The American and Icelandic scholars interpret their findings as evidence that “a weakening of the family institution in one dimension (nonmarital fertility) at a given point in time fosters a special vulnerability to the deleterious effects of the weakening of the family institution in another dimension (divorce) at a later point in time, at least for the male 15-19 age group.”

At a time when divorce rates are running high and illegitimacy rates are surging ever higher, Americans can only fear tragic consequences.

(Source: Steven F. Messner et al., “Nonmarital Fertility and the Effects of Divorce Rates on Youth Suicide Rates,” Journal of Marriage and Family 68 [2006]: 1105-1111.)

Marriage vs. the Marlboro Man  

Tobacco merchants looking for the best place to sell their death-dealing products would do well to look for areas that give divorce lawyers steady employment and that rarely need wedding planners.  Indeed, in a study recently published in Social Science and Medicine, health economist Paul Nystedt of Lund University in Sweden details the ways in which “the marital life course has significant effects on smoking risks for both men and women.” 

After parsing tobacco-use data collected between 1980 and 2000 from 81,000 Swedish men and women, Nystedt identifies a “protective effect of marriage” as one of the most important of the “firm and intriguing results” of his study.  This protective effect shows up in analyses revealing that, compared to married peers, never-married, cohabiting, and divorced, and cohabiting individuals are all significantly more likely to smoke (p < 0.0001 for all comparisons). 

Giving new meaning to the feminist slogan long used by tobacco merchants—“You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!”—the data indicate that singleness, cohabitation, and divorce all elevate the risk of tobacco use especially for women.  Thus, while never-married men are only 19% more likely to smoke than married men, never-married women are 57% more likely to smoke than married women.  Similarly, while cohabiting men are 44% more likely to light up than are married men, cohabiting women are 50% more likely to light up than married women.  And while divorced men are a remarkable 139% more likely to smoke than are married men, divorced women are an even more remarkable 156% more likely to smoke than are married women.

The effects of marriage on tobacco use show up even more dramatically when Nystedt shifts his focus from marital status to marital events.  Thus when Nystedt looks not at the status of being divorced but rather at the event of getting a divorce, he sees strong indications of a “stressful event...that is linked to relapsing/starting to smoke.”  Thus, when compared to continuously married peers, men who have recently experienced a divorce are more than twice as likely (Odds Ratio of 2.19) to start or to relapse into a smoking habit.  And when compared to continuously married peers, women who have recently divorced are an astounding four and a half times more likely to start or relapse into a smoking habit (Odds Ratio of 4.43).  If divorce lawyers are not already receiving a kickback from cigarette makers, they should be!

And while divorce pushes many men and even more women towards a nicotine habit, marriage helps both husbands and wives to break out of their addictions.  Nystedt highlights evidence that “living in a stable marriage predicts smoking cessation for both men and women.”   It would appear, Nystedt remarks, that “spousal support is beneficial for both sexes.” 

Health officials looking for ways to reduce the use of tobacco may need to stop worrying so much about who is using patches or chewing gum and start worrying about who is wearing a wedding band.

(Source: Paul Nystedt, “Marital Life Course Events and Smoking Behaviour in Sweden 1980-2000,” Social Science and Medicine 62 [2006]: 1427-1442.) 

Dubious Fun With Sinners  

“I would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints—the sinners are much more fun!”  Billy Joel’s irreverent comment recently prompted sociologist Cesar J. Rebellon to examine the effects of social associations on adolescent delinquency.  However, in his investigation of “social reinforcement” among jocular sinners, Rebellon discovered that a disproportionate number of mirthful transgressors are the offspring of divorced parents.

Analyzing data collected in 1976 and 1978 from a nationally representative sample of almost 1,500 adolescents, Rebellon discerns a clear linkage between parental divorce and adolescent delinquency.  “Delinquency,” Rebellon concludes, “tended to be higher among boys whose parents had divorced or separated.”  Compared to peers in intact families, adolescent boys whose parents had broken up were significantly more likely to commit a wide range of offenses, including destroying property, getting drunk, stealing merchandise, and assaulting classmates (p < 0.01 for 1976; p < 0.05 for 1978).

The effects of family disintegration in fostering delinquency show up to some degree even among adolescent girls, who are generally much less inclined to commit criminal acts than are adolescent boys.  The 1978 data indicate that—like their male classmates—female adolescents who have seen their parents split up are significantly more inclined to commit crimes than are their peers in intact families (p < 0.05).

Sociologists have good reason to look at the teenagers’ peer associations with sinners and saints.  But it would appear that they must also keep in view those teenagers’ links to parents, married and divorced.

(Source: Cesar J. Rebellon, “Do Adolescents Engage in Delinquency to Attract the Social Attention of Peers? An Extension and Longitudinal Test of the Social Reinforcement Hypothesis,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 43 [2006]: 387-411.)

Fat Chance  

While young people in Third-World nations struggle to stave off starvation, American teens often overeat.  “Obesity is a major public health problem in the United States,” acknowledge the authors of a study recently published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.  Faculty members at Pennsylvania State University and Iowa State University, the authors of this new study worry particularly about “the development of obesity in adolescence...the period during which pubertal growth spurts occur.”

To identify the circumstances that foster teen obesity, the Penn State and Iowa State scholars analyze data collected in 1995 from a nationally representative sample of 20,440 American high-school students.  These data indicate that teens are especially likely to be overweight or obese if they belong to a minority ethnic group and live in an impoverished community.  But the statistical analysis also identifies family structure as a strong predictor of adolescent weight problems: compared to peers in two-parent families, teens in one-parent families are far more likely to be overweight or obese (p < 0.01 for both categories).

Compared to teens in intact families, teens in broken homes are not just particularly likely to be overweight or obese.  They are also especially likely to live in an impoverished community (p < 0.01).  With good reason, then, the authors of this new study suggest that “adolescents from disadvantaged families lack health resources such as proper food, access to recreation facilities, and health services.”

Who would ever have guessed that divorce lawyers had struck a sweetheart deal with diet promoters?

(Source: K.A. Thulitha Wickrama, K.A.S. Wickrama, and Chalandra M. Bryant, “Community Influence on Adolescent Obesity: Race/Ethnic Differences,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 35 [2006]: 647-656.)

Fatherless Childhoods, Early Deaths  

Black men typically live short lives, significantly shorter than those of their white peers.  But why?  Recent research suggests that black men live such short lives in part because they are especially likely to grow up with no father and with an employed mother.

To identify the reasons that black men so often die prematurely, researchers from the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina recently scrutinized data collected between 1966 and 1990 for a nationally representative sample of approximately 5,000 men who were ages 45 to 59 and of whom almost 2,700 died during the study period.  These data clearly establish the importance of a boy’s social circumstances in predicting the length of his life as a man.  Thus, the Texas and North Carolina scholars are able to trace the distinctively short lives of black men back to their “disadvantaged social and economic environments.” 

An important part of the disadvantaged social environments in which many black males grow up is family structure: the researchers report that “black men [in this study] were far less likely to live with both biological parents (56.2%) than were whites (78.3%).”  But maternal employment also shows up as a social disadvantage: the researchers calculate that, compared to white peers, black adolescent males living with their mothers were more than twice as likely to have an employed mother. 

The researchers’ numbers indicate that “living apart from one or both biological parents and having a mother who worked for pay increases the risk of mortality.”  Consequently, it is no surprise that their statistical model indicates that the race gap in men’s mortality shrinks in a formula that incorporates family structure and maternal work status as control variables.     

In the linkage between maternal employment and black men’s short longevity, the researchers see the results of “economic disadvantage” that compels mothers to seek employment.  Furthermore, in the linkage between family structure and black men’s short longevity, they see yet more evidence that “two-biological parent households are best able to invest in offspring.”  The researchers indeed stress that children in an intact family enjoy advantages that cannot be explained simply as “access to male wages.”  For their statistical models establish that “men who lived with an at-home biological mother and a stepfather at age 15 have a mortality risk that is 1.34 times the risk of those who lived with both biological parents.”

In a conclusion in which they identify some of the implications of their findings, the researchers stress that policymakers who hope to “eliminate race disparities in mortality and health should address both childhood and adult socioeconomic conditions.”  Though they do not say as much, any reader of this study will realize that lengthening black men’s lives by improving their childhood lives will require measures that bring black parents into lasting marriages and that free black mothers from economic pressures driving them into employment.

(Source: David F. Warner and Mark D. Hayward, “Early-Life Origins of the Race Gap in Men’s Mortality,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 47[2006]: 209-226.)

More New Research…

Casual Sex Not So Casual  

As UCLA psychiatrist Miriam Grossman reveals in Unprotected, the sexual environment of today’s college campuses is anything but chaste. What might alarm parents is if their college-age children boast of having “friends with benefits,” a phrase describing male-female relationships involving sexual intercourse but allegedly no romance. According to a study conducted at the University of Tennessee in 2001 and 2003, what the researchers call “casual sex” is anything but occasional or random and, confirming Grossman, yields higher levels of anxiety among coeds than young boys.

In this study of 382 unmarried students enrolled in introductory psychology classes—and who were overwhelmingly freshmen or sophomores, white, and Protestant—only 24 percent reported being virgins. Among those who had lost their virginity, more than half (53 percent) reported having engaged in sexual relations with someone with whom they were not romantically involved. That represents more than 40 percent of the sample.

As might be expected, students who engaged in “casual sex” reported greater levels of promiscuity (having more sex partners in the previous year) than those who did not engage in casual sex (p < .001). In addition, 65 percent of students who engaged in casual sex did so in the context of illegal drug or alcohol use (and presumably underage or illegal drinking, given the sample). Perhaps most disturbing, the study found teen girls who reported having “friends with benefits” were at a distinct disadvantage. Relative to young boys, they were more likely to hope that their most recent casual sexual encounter was “the beginning of a romance.” And like their non-virgin peers who did not report engaging in casual sex, these coeds also experienced higher symptoms of depressive pathology the more boys with whom they reported being intimate in the previous year (p <.05).

While these findings lead the researchers to conclude that “college may be a context where casual sex is promoted,” fathers of young daughters may lament that this is the case even, as the researchers concede, at a state university “in the Southern Bible Belt with a fairly conservative student population.”

(Source: Catherine M. Grello, Deborah P. Welsh, and Melinda S. Harper, “No Strings Attached: The Nature of Casual Sex in College Students,” The Journal of Sex Research 43 [August 2006]: 255-267.)

Singe Parenthood and Urban Poverty  

Do children who grow up in large cities, relative to their peers who grow up in the suburbs, stand at greater risk of poverty? A study by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., suggests they do, not because cities are dangerous, but, because they have a large concentration of single-parent households.

Analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2004 American Community Survey (ACS), the Brookings researchers examined the relationship between child poverty in the fifty largest cities of the U.S. and parental marital status, parental labor force participation, and parental education level. They found that “certain factors are more important in some cities than others,” in that among the 17 cities with highest levels of child poverty, 14 of them also “rank among the highest on the percentage of children living with one parent.” High proportions of parents not in the labor force also overlapped with child poverty in these 17 cities, although not as strongly as did single parenthood.

Perhaps hesitant to blame too much on single parenthood, the researchers add that “the proportion of children living in families without a working parent seems to explain child poverty rates more consistently across the full spectrum of cities.” But what is the makeup of these “families without a working parent?”

The study summarizes prior research showing that “parents in poor families” work only half as much as their “nonpoor” peers because “many poor families lack second earners.” Had they run cross tabulations with the ACS data, the researchers might have demonstrated that such “families without a working parent” are essentially single mothers, confirming that such households are significantly less likely to have even a single breadwinner relative to intact, married-parent families. So making the number of wage earners the issue rather than parental marital status, the researchers settle for a tautology when a clear affirmation of a robust link between child poverty and single parenthood would have been warranted. It also would have challenged policy makers with the idea that marriage—not government programs—is necessary for increasing levels of child well-being.

At least the study concedes that among the three variables, parental education did not relate as closely to child poverty as the other two. Many cities with either a medium or high level of parents without a high school diploma—such as Austin, Denver, Phoenix, and Sacramento—have experienced inflows of immigrants with less education, but these cities do not exhibit high child poverty rates overall.

(Source: “Kids in the City: Indicators of Child Well-Being in Large Cities from the 2004 American Community Survey,” The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and Population Reference Bureau, August 2006.)