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Using data from 60 countries, we measure how much couples agree on sex preferences for children and whether differences in sex preferences are associated with gender gaps in children's education. Results show extensive disagreement in sex preferences for children, with husbands far more likely to want more sons but their wives more likely to prefer having equal numbers of boys and girls, wanting more daughters, or having no preference. India has the highest share of agreement on sex preferences (59 percent), and Niger has the lowest (32 percent). The association between couples' sex preferences and gender gaps in education differs considerably by country. In some countries, girls have worse outcomes when their parents agree on son preference and better ones when parents agree on daughter/no preference. But there are numerous counter‐examples as well. Gender gaps in education appear more often when wives hold son preference but not their husbands than the reverse combination. Agreement on daughter/no preference is the only category that is systematically associated with better outcomes for girls relative to boys (although even here there are caveats). Balanced preference (wanting as many boys as girls) is an ambiguous category with heterogenous patterns in terms of educational gender gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from Indonesia and a demographic modeling strategy to estimate the total effect of increasing women’s schooling for the schooling of the next generation. This approach differs from standard approaches in that we include an estimate of how changes in women’s schooling affect children’s schooling not only directly but also through women’s choice of mate, marriage timing, fertility timing, fertility levels and the mortality of women and children. Each of these demographic factors can affect the relative number of children who will achieve different levels of schooling in the subsequent generation as a result of increasing women’s schooling in the previous generation. Some mechanisms, such as assortative mating, have very strong positive effects while others, such as marriage timing and fertility levels have offsetting effects. Differential mortality has a positive effect. Our results also demonstrate that the effects of expansions in women’s schooling depend on both the starting distribution of women’s schooling and where in the distribution women’s schooling increases.

The effect of the socioeconomic characteristics in one generation on the socioeconomic achievement of the next generation is the central concern of social stratification research. Researchers typically address this issue by analyzing the associations between the characteristics of parents and offspring. This approach, however, focuses on observed parent-offspring pairs and ignores that changes in the socioeconomic characteristics of one generation may alter the numbers and types of intergenerational family relationships that are created in the next one. Models of intergenerational effects that include marriage and fertility, as well as the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status, yield a richer account of intergenerational effects at both the family and population levels. When applied to a large sample of Indonesian women and their families, these models show that the effects of women’s educational attainment on the educational attainments of the next generation are positive. However, the beneficial effects of increases in women’s schooling on the educational attainment of their children are partially offset at the population level by a reduction in the overall number of children that a more educated population of women bears and enhanced by the more favorable marriage partners of better educated women.

Numerous studies of educational attainment in the United States have shown that schooling is negatively correlated with sibship size. That is, children with fewer brothers and sisters obtain more schooling than those with more siblings. Moreover, this negative relationship exists even after family socioeconomic characteristics are controlled (Featherman and Hauser 1978; Hauser and Sewell 1985; Mare and Chen 1986; Blake 1989). This finding is often explained using an argument of finite resources: parents have limited time, money, and patience to devote to the education of their children, and those with fewer children can invest more per child.

GED certification has changed the landscape of educational stratification in the U.S. People who complete high school by obtaining a GED are less likely to go to college than those who obtain a traditional high school diploma. Disparities in family background and cognitive skills explain some of the differences in college entry rates between the two groups. Past research, however, ignores the effect of age and timing on each group's transition from secondary to post-secondary schooling. Age is likely to influence college entry because educational attainment is a highly age-dependent process. GED recipients complete high school at later ages than traditional graduates and take longer to make the transition from high school to college. These differences in age are likely to influence the odds of college entry, independent of factors such as family background and cognitive skills. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and discrete time hazard analysis to investigate the relationship between the timing of educational transitions and differences in rates of college entry between traditional graduates and GED recipients. The analysis shows that adjusting for differences in family background and cognitive skills accounts for less than half the difference in rates of college entry while controlling for age and timing accounts for much of the remaining difference. Once social background, cognitive skills and age are controlled, estimated adjusted cumulative probabilities of college entry are nearly equal between the two groups.

This paper addresses the question: Does joint legal custody increase child support payments? It describes differences in formal child support payments for those with and without joint legal custody among divorce cases. It examines legal custody differences in the short-term after divorce as well as in the intermediate term, through the sixth year after divorce, to assess whether any economic benefits of joint legal custody endure through a significant part of childhood.To the extent that legal custody differences in payments exist, we ask whether family and case characteristics, such as parents' incomes, number of children, and amount of child support ordersaccount for these differences. Finally, the paper uses statistical methods that adjust for the fact that unmeasured characteristics may affect both the adoption of joint legal custody as well as higher child support payments. Ignoring these unmeasured differences may overstate the benefits of joint legalcustody for child support payments. The paper aims to provide a less biased estimate of the effects of joint legal custody on child support payments than is available from most previous studies.

Age patterns of secondary certification and college entry differ in complex and surprising ways for traditional graduates and GED recipients. Although GED recipients are less likely to enter college in their late teens, they catch up to traditional graduates in their 20s. Results show that adjusting for differences in the age trajectories of school continuation accounts for a substantial portion of the differences observed between the two groups. Important differences remain, however, in the type of college attended and the likelihood of college entry before age 21. Nonetheless, more GED recipients enroll in college than previous studies have suggested, and this interest in college identifies a useful place for policy to intervene to encourage school continuation for this group. (Contains 8 notes, 4 tables, and 3 figures.)

Background/Context: This essay reviews recent demographic literature on school transitions. I describe how a demographic perspective, by which I mean using methods that are standard in the study of population processes, is a useful way to examine differences in access to and completion of post secondary schooling in the United States. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study: I focus on studies that have been published in the past twenty years in the primary demographic journals. In addition, I describe several ways that a demographic perspective can inform future research on the transition to college. I provide several examples from recent studies that take this approach and review some methods and data sets that support research in this area. Research Design: This is a literature review of articles published in the primary demographic journals over the past 20 years. Conclusions/Recommendations: The existing literature on schooling published in the demographic journals is thin. The bulk of the existing studies focus on immigrant children and their advancement in school. This emphasis is quite relevant because race/ethnic differences in school progress are substantial. Missing from this literature, however, are studies that examine the role of age, timing, and the life cycle in educational attainment. This perspective offers the opportunity to apply well-developed theories and methods to the study of educational disparities. This perspective can provide useful lessons for public policy as well.