One of the important determinants of fertility behavior is the value (cost and benefits) of children as perceived by parents. This value is likely to vary by child and parental characteristics, household income, and other aspects of the socioeconomic environment. Since it is non-economic as well...

Using a representative sample of children all born to unwed parents drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a potential outcome approach to account for self-selection into marriage, we investigate whether marriage after childbearing has a causal effect on early child...

Previous studies on the spread of obesity in social networks have focused on the contemporaneous effect of peer weight outcomes on individuals. This article is the first to investigate the longer term effects, within adolescence and from adolescence into early adulthood, of peers on individual...

Policymakers have an interest in identifying the differences in behavior patterns - namely, habitual caloric intake and physical activity levels - that contribute to demographic variation in body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk. While disparities in mean BMI and obesity rates between whites...

Purpose: To investigate whether social interactions in friendship networks influence the following weight-related behaviors of adolescents: exercising regularly, playing an active sport, hours of TV/Video viewing, sleeping six or fewer hours, eating breakfast on weekdays, frequency of eating at...

Previous studies on the spread of obesity in social networks have focused on the contemporaneous effect of peer weight outcomes on individuals. The present paper is the first to investigate the longer term effects, within adolescence and from adolescence into early adulthood, of peers on...