Vulnerable Boys: Short-term and Long-term Gender Differences in the Impacts of Adolescent Disadvantage

Ziteng Lei and Shelly Lundberg

No 2020-008b, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: The growing gender gap in educational attainment between men and women has raised concerns that the skill development of boys may be more sensitive to family disadvantage than that of girls. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) data we find, as do previous studies, that boys are more likely to experience increased problems in school relative to girls, including suspensions and reduced educational aspirations, when they are in poor quality schools, less-educated neighborhoods, and father-absent households. Following these cohorts into young adulthood, however, we find no evidence that adolescent disadvantage has stronger negative impacts on long-run economic outcomes such as college graduation, employment, or income for men, relative to women. We do find that father absence is more strongly associated with men's marriage and childbearing and weak support for greater male vulnerability to disadvantage in rates of high school graduation. An investigation of adult outcomes for another recent cohort from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 produces a similar pattern of results. We conclude that focusing on gender differences in behavior in school may not lead to valid inferences about the effects of disadvantage on adult skills.

Keywords: gender; education; employment; Earnings; family structure; father absence; school quality; neighborhood effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
Note: IP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Lei_Lu ... ent-disadvantage.pdf First version, January 28, 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Vulnerable Boys: Short-term and Long-term Gender Differences in the Impacts of Adolescent Disadvantage (2020)
Working Paper: Vulnerable Boys: Short-Term and Long-Term Gender Differences in the Impacts of Adolescent Disadvantage (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-008b

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jennifer Pachon ().