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This study examines the extent to which educational outcomes are transmitted from mothers to daughters in rural China. An analysis of the 2010 China Family Panel Survey reveals that: (i) how far daughters go in their education is strongly associated with their mothers’ education; (ii) the association between mothers’ and daughters’ educational outcomes in rural China was found to be stronger than the corresponding relationships between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons, especially at higher levels of education; and (iii) while having more brothers and being born later worsens daughters’ educational outcomes, mothers’ higher education effectively mitigates these negative effects. These findings add to a growing body of literature and empirical evidence that challenges conventional social mobility research paradigms that neglect mothers’ roles. More importantly, the distinction between mother–daughter relationship and that between fathers and daughters and mothers and sons highlights the fact that education is likely transmitted intergenerationally via mechanisms that differ depending on the gendered parent–child pairs.

Little is known about why children participate in activities that are labeled worst forms of child labor (WFCL). Case–control approaches common in medicine are adapted to consider the correlates of participation in worst forms in the context of two WFCL in Nepal: portering and ragpicking. Paternal disability is a strong predictor of entry into each of the worst forms, and the presence of productive assets within the child's home reduces the risk a child is observed in a worst form. We argue that our findings are consistent with a model where there are negative amenities associated with these jobs that induce the poor and those with the fewest alternative earnings options to select into these WFCL in Nepal.

The protective aspects of relationships for health have been extensively studied. Here, we assess whether different dimensions of partnership status at the time of a child’s birth are associated with better self-assessed health later in mid-life. Data are from three countries with different social welfare policies relating to union status and parenting: the US, the UK, and Norway. Results indicate that women who were partnered at first birth had better health at midlife in all three countries than women who were unpartnered. The analysis indicates no differences in the mid-life health of Norwegian women who were married or cohabiting at birth, whereas for US and UK women, being married at the birth of a first child is more beneficial for mid-life health than bearing the child in a cohabiting union. In the US, women who are least likely to marry do not demonstrate better mid-life health if they had wed relative to cohabiting. In the UK, in contrast, the women least likely to be married at the birth experience better returns if they marry. These findings highlight the importance of paying closer attention to heterogeneous treatment effects as they relate to childbearing, relationship status, and mid-life health.

Although preference for sons has been documented among parents in developing countries, it is an open question whether and to what extent intra-household resource allocation is influenced by family sex composition. This study investigates the effects of sex composition on intra-household resource allocation based on the collective household model of Dunbar, Lewbel, and Pendakur (2013). I extend their model to estimate the influences on a household member’s resource share by observing how budget shares of a private assignable good vary not only with total expenditure and family size, but also with family sex composition. Using data from the 2005 Iranian Household Income and Expenditure Survey, I find that family composition significantly affects intra-household resource allocation in Iranian rural areas. Specifically, rural parents assign 1.6–1.9 percentage points more resources toward their sons. These resources are essentially coming at the expense of mothers. In all-boy families, mothers get 2.8–3.6 percentage points fewer resources than they do in all-girl families. These effects are more pronounced among farmer families than nonfarmer families. However, I find no significant role for gender composition in intra-household resource allocation in urban areas.

Purpose: This study investigates how couple similarity in various aspects affects their life satisfaction and how these impacts vary across educational groups among the young married couples in Shanghai.

Methodology: This study employs the pooled data from three waves of the Fudan Yangtze River Delta Social Transformation Survey which sampled Shanghai youths born between 1980 and 1989, the first single-child generation. Couple similarity is evaluated through the comparison in age, hukou status, education, and income quartile between the husband and wife. Ordered logistic regression model is applied to assess the impacts of couple similarity on life satisfaction.

Findings: Marriage hypergamy in age, education, and income barely have any impacts on couples’ life satisfaction, while hukou comparison, as an important indication of social stratification in Shanghai, is strongly associated with life satisfaction. The couple in which husband holds the urban hukou and wife rural hukou as well as the couple in which both partners hold the urban hukou are significantly happier than those in which both partners hold the rural hukou. Such a positive impact is partially explained by the higher husband’s decision-making power in male-advantaged families. Moreover, husband’s urban hukou status is especially important for those without college education, but not for those with college education.

Values: This chapter highlights the importance of hukou hypergamy in life satisfaction for married couples, in particular, lower-educated couples in Shanghai. These findings reveal an implicit but persistent preference for male-dominated family model, where husbands retain a higher decision-making power that, in turn, promotes life satisfaction for both partners.

Chester Whitney Wright (1879–1966) received his A.B. in 1901, A.M. in 1902 and Ph.D. in 1906, all from Harvard University. After teaching at Cornell University during 1906–1907, he taught at the University of Chicago from 1907 to 1944. Wright was the author of Economic History of the United States (1941, 1949); editor of Economic Problems of War and Its Aftermath (1942), to which he contributed a chapter on economic lessons from previous wars, and other chapters were authored by John U. Nef (war and the early industrial revolution) and by Frank H. Knight (the war and the crisis of individualism); and co-editor of Materials for the Study of Elementary Economics (1913). Wright’s Wool-Growing and the Tariff received the David Ames Wells Prize for 1907–1908, and was volume 5 in the Harvard Economic Studies. I am indebted to Holly Flynn for assistance in preparing Wright’s biography and in tracking down incomplete references; to Marianne Johnson in preparing many tables and charts; and to F. Taylor Ostrander, as usual, for help in transcribing and proofreading.

This chapter estimates the negative effect of smoking on earnings in the context of a developing country. Using data from the 2005 Albania Living Standards Measurement Survey, models are estimated by parametric and semi-parametric methods to account for the effect of observable and unobservable characteristics that could affect individual smoking decisions and earnings. Information on the smoking behaviour of parents is used to address the endogeneity of the smoking decision. The results show that, after controlling for observed individual characteristics and parental education and taking into account unobserved heterogeneity in personal characteristics, smoking is found to have a substantial negative impact on earnings. The main results are robust to a range of alternative specifications. On average, smokers’ earnings are 19–23 percent lower than the earnings of similar non-smokers.

Realizing gender equality and parenthood still seems to be a contradictory endeavour. In consequence, family policies in Europe focus on paternal involvement and increasing women’s participation in the labour market. Nevertheless, consequences of gender pay gap on family arrangements still set limits to these policies.

This chapter reveals results of qualitative research on paternal leave practices and fathers’ involvement in the family in Austria. The empirical data set includes 36 guided interviews with fathers on paternal leave, 12 with female partners, 16 with human resources managers and 14 follow-up questionings with part-time working men and women. The research investigates effects of long-term leave arrangements on the distribution of family work, gainful employment and individual interests.

Mainly best practice models in undoing gender in family and work arrangements are explored. Subsequently, a high proportion of good earning fathers and couples with tertiary education are represented in the sample. Nevertheless, quantitative studies in Austria confirm higher proportions of fathers aged 40 plus on paternal leave. They take this decision mainly as a ‘tribute to the family’, once or twice in a life-time.

However, long-term care data on work-family-life balancing currently do not show significant changes in gendered patterns. By contrast, gender disparities are still reproduced in the labour market. Theoretically, the chapter shows the impact of gender studies, feminist theories and sociology of the family on realizing gender equality in private and public spheres. It outlines recommendations for family policy makers and for readers interested in relations between realizing work–life balance and gender budgeting.

We descriptively examined measures of family structure, socioeconomic disadvantage, and exposure to crime, violence, and substance use in young adulthood and childhood for those who experienced maternal incarceration as children.

We used data from waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We compared these individuals to two groups: those who did not experience maternal incarceration and those who experienced paternal incarceration. We generated weighted means and conducted F-tests using bivariate regressions to determine where these groups significantly differed.

We found that individuals whose mothers were incarcerated during their childhoods experienced greater hardships in both childhood and young adulthood than those whose mothers were not incarcerated. Individuals who experienced maternal incarceration reported similar levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and exposure to crime and violence as those who experienced paternal incarceration. One notable exception was family structure, where maternal incarceration was associated with significantly fewer respondents reporting living with their mother or either biological parent.

With the exception of family structure, the childhood and transition to adulthood were comparable for individuals experiencing any form of parental incarceration. These children were significantly more disadvantaged and exposed to more risk factors than those whose parents were never incarcerated. Additional support and resources are necessary for families who have incarcerated parents, with special outreach made to families without a biological mother in the household.

There has been no overarching, descriptive study comparing child and young adult outcomes of those with an incarcerated mother using a nationally representative, longitudinal dataset in the United States.

Using data from a qualitative longitudinal sample of 31 non-traditional fathers-to-be interviewed in 2011 and then again in 2013, when the child was about 18 months old, we examine the relationship between prenatal anticipation and the development of ‘positive paternal involvement’ (i.e. an engaged, accessible and responsible type of fatherhood). We expect differences with regard to the antenatal development of a non-normative father identity to explain variations in subsequent paternal involvement. While there might be – and there often is – a discrepancy between fathers’ prenatal intentions and actual practices after childbirth, anticipating concrete needs and actively foreseeing particular paid work adaptations favour the development of a positive paternal involvement. Our analysis reveals the importance of anticipation during pregnancy – that is, the development of an identity as a father and of explicit plans for employment adaptations – in facilitating men’s greater implication in care. The empirical findings also show that non-traditional gender attitudes and favourable working conditions facilitate fathers’ involvement, yet are not enough in themselves to guarantee the development of a positive type of fatherhood covering the three noted dimensions of care. Achieving the latter in Spain will likely require the encouragement of shared parenting responsibilities through normative changes in workplaces, the revision of parental leave policies and the integration of fathers-to-be in prenatal education classes. Our research contributes to shedding new light on the elements that favour a positive paternal involvement, which has the potential to enhance both children’s well-being and gender equality.