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A recent paper published in this journal (Poole & Kuhn, 1973) has reported that ‘a relatively large family appeared to be no impediment to the educational achievements of middle-class children’. This finding, however, is based upon an analysis which fell into a relatively unknown statistical trap. Poole & Kuhn are only the latest in a long line of victims of this trap and some of their predecessors are reviewed below. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the values, variance and some possible determinants of sex ratios for the first child and for all children in expected and desired families. For adults in Tallahassee, Florida, it was found that a large majority of respondents within sixty demographic categories chose males for their first child. Of those who actually had girls for their first child, a plurality would, nevertheless, prefer a first boy in their desired family. It was hypothesized and demonstrated that sex-role ideologies were a strong predictor of variance in first-child sex preferences. Sex ratios for all children in expected and desired families were 116 and 113, respectively. If people could choose the sex of their future children, these data suggest that several population parameters might be significantly altered; a preliminary model is outlined which might project some of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A negative correlation across households between parent's education and completed fertility is one of the most widely and frequently observed relationships in the empirical literature on human fertility behavior. In this paper I utilize the emerging economic theory of household behavior, which is also employed in other papers in this Supplement, to formulate an explanation for this observed negative correlation. In particular, the paper has two objectives: (1) to consider the mechanisms through which a couple's level of education might affect their fertility and (2) to document the effects of education on one of these mechanisms that is an aspect of fertility control--the choice of a contraceptive technique. The following section briefly outlines the theoretical framework, and in Section III I discuss the mechanisms through which education's influence may operate. Throughout, the discussion is restricted to channels of influence from education to fertility; that is, the reverse causation is ruled out by assumption. The specific focus of this discussion should not be interpreted as an assertion of the exclusiveness or the primacy of education's influence on fertility. Section IV considers the fertility-control decision in greater detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative data on marital power structure for the United States, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia are discussed. Data on the United States and France show a positive association between husband's authority score and such variables as husband's educational status, occupational status, and income; data on Greece and Yugoslavia show a negative association on these variables. The contradictory findings are used to elaborate a ‘theory of resources in cultural context’—the distribution of marital power is seen to result from the interaction of (1) comparative resources of husband and wife and (2) cultural or subcultural expectations about the distribution of marital power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of destination choices among metropolitan bound migrants in an already highly urban society is a means toward gauging trends in the urbanization process. The results of this paper indicated that destination choices were strongly influenced by SMSA size, with larger SMSAs and particularly their suburban rings attractive to migrants. This pattern suggested the further growth of the larger SMSAs, to the detriment of those smaller in size. In addition, the varied status of migrants entering the ring pointed toward its increased heterogeneity. Yet, among small SMSAs, the central city received more and higher-status migrants than the ring. Here, destination choice was also linked to similarity to the migrant's past residence. Regional differences emerged, and a closer examination of small and very large SMSAs suggested that destination choices were influenced by previous patterns of urban growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a study of the employment patterns of American wives in relation to the composition of their families. The data are taken from the 1960 United States Census, both from published tabulations and the 1/1000 sample. The population studied is non-Negro, non-farm, married, husband present women who are under the age of sixty. The methods of analysis used include the comparison of employment rates among sub-populations and a dummy variable regression technique. Aspects of family composition studied include age of the youngest child (in single years in order to determine whether there are discontinuities in the rates of employment when youngest children enter school, etc.), number of children in the family, and the presence of other relatives in the family. The paper concludes with a discussion of the meaning of family status differentials in employment including differential preferences for employment, differential fertility experience, and differential demands on the mother's time. Some discussion of the use of cross section data of this sort to infer life cycle patterns of employment is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal employment reflects an important aspect of the emerging type of family found in suburban areas. This study reports on data from a sample survey of 947 junior and senior high school students for three suburban school districts of Seattle, Washington. Attention is directed toward such factors associated with mothers working as type of suburban area in which the family resides, father's occupational level, educational level of the mother, and various features of the sibling structure. A strong negative relationship between working and father's occupational level is found, which largely accounts for the variation in employment rates between suburban areas. The other characteristics are shown to be related, but to a lesser extent, to maternal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies by Adelman and by Friedlander and Silver, which have investigated whether regression equations derived from cross-section data can be used to predict the impact of socioeconomic development on changing levels of fertility, are reviewed critically. Regression analyses based on data for 57 countries c. 1960 show that fertility (gross reproduction rate) varies cross-sectionally with region as well as with level of development (as measured by per capita income, percent labor force in primary sector, expectation of life, illiteracy rate). Using equations derived from the cross-section study and time-series data for five European countries during the period that their fertility rates fell, it is shown that predictions about past fertility changes are in error. The results suggest caution in the use of cross-section relations to predict the course of fertility in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of a large randomly selected cohort of Wisconsin high school seniors, who were followed for a seven-year period, multivariate cross-tabular and regression analyses showed that father's education has a slightly stronger effect than mother's education on perceived parental encouragement, college plans, college attendance, and college graduation for males, but that both father': and mother's education have almost equal effect for females. Mother's education has a modest effect independent of father's education, but the independent effect of mother's education is stronger for females than for males. When parents have discrepant levels of educational achievement, the answer to the question of which parent's education has more effect on educational aspiration and achievement depends on the child's sex and intelligence level as well as on each parent's level of educational achievement. In terms of the additional amount of variance explained, the interaction effect is negligible for all of the dependent variables. Discrepancy in parent? educational achievements is far less important in motivating children to high-level aspiration and achievement than is consistently high educational achievement of both parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers evidence regarding the impact of vocational training on the earning potential of participants with different levels of formal education. Training is an effective anti-poverty measure if poverty is defined in absolute terms, but if poverty is defined in terms of inequality, vocational training will fail. The proportionate gains realized by workers at low educational levels may caution against seeing low ability and culturally deprived workers as functional illiterates or unemployables. The ability of poorly educated students to achieve equal increments may be seen as a testimonial to the efficacy of vocational training.

This paper relates, on a cross-sectional basis, the distributions of schooling, rates of return from schooling and income, to minimum schooling laws. Three characteristics of these distributions are studied: average level, variance and skewness. The average levels of these statistics as well as the variances of income and schooling have received considerable attention from economists. The skewness in the distribution of income was considered important in the past. For example, in his Economics of Welfare, Pigou tried to reconcile the observed skewness in income and the assumed normal distribution of ability; and Young wrote in 1917 that skewness, not "concentration," is the relevant parameter for studies of the social desirability of the distribution of income.[4] The skewness of income, however, has been ignored by most recent studies.[5] The skewness of schooling and the variance and skewness of rates of return have also received little attention.[6] Section I contains the theory of the effect of minimum schooling laws [1] on the distributions of years of schooling, rates of return from schooling, and income. Section II consists of a comparison of Great Britain with the United States, and an inter-regional analysis of the Netherlands. This is followed by a brief conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the economic value of the investment in the doctor of philosophy (Ph. D.) degree in economics. To derive the internal rate of return to the Ph. D. in economics, conventional cost-benefit methodology is used. A five-way classification was utilized to determine the variations in the conditions surrounding graduate work in economics. These classification are: by type of employment, method of financing, length of schooling, salary and earnings as measures of income and private and social cost-and-benefit perspectives.

The article presents a study on the impact of unionism on relative wages of blue-collar workers for different ages and levels of educational attainment in the U.S. The study shows that labor unions benefit less educated employees more than more educated employees and tend to provide higher wage effects for young and old employees than for middle-aged workers. Meanwhile, labor unions appear to have the greatest relative wage effect when African American union members are in their early forties. These findings suggests that unions increase the rate of wages of their members by 34.2 percent over their nonunion counterparts.

Who are the in-home shoppers? This article locks at door-to-door selling from the customer side, and presents answers that differ from other recently reported work. It also examples personality characteristics of women who buy from door-to-door sales representatives versus those who do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]