Table 2.
Means and Standard Deviations (or Proportions) and Significant Differences, by Gender, for All Variables in the Analysis of the 1983 to 1986 Birth Cohorts of the Children of the NLSY:79
| Variable | Girls | Boys | Difference | Sig. | t-Statistic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Educational Attainment (by Aaes 26 (1986 cohort) – 29 (1983 cohort)) | |||||
| Highest Grade Completed | 13.645 (2.619) |
12.945 (2.604) |
0.700 | *** | 4.39 |
| GED Certification Completion | 0.092 | 0.111 | −0.019 | 1.06 | |
| High School Completion | 0.849 | 0.784 | 0.065 | *** | 2.89 |
| College Enrollmenta | 0.807 | 0.696 | 0.111 | *** | 4.16 |
| College Completionb | 0.380 | 0.348 | 0.032 | *** | 0.89 |
| Pre-Kinderaarten (Ages 4–5) | |||||
| Externalizing Problems | 1.971 (1.803) |
2.603 (2.091) |
−0.632 | −5.55 | |
| Early Childhood | |||||
| Home Environment, Ages 3–5 | −0.055 (0.438) |
−0.031 (0.432) |
−0.024 | −1.01 | |
| Child Cared for Outside of Home (Daycare, Nursery, Pre-K), Ages 3–4 | 0.542 | 0.521 | 0.021 | 0.71 | |
| Number of Children in Family at Child Ages 4–5 | 2.218 (1.038) |
2.255 (1.056) |
−0.037 | 0.62 | |
| Adjusted Income (2011 dollars, in $10,000s), Ages 4–5 | 7.288 (16.905) |
6.028 (9.510) |
1.260 | 1.36 | |
| Child Standard Score on Peabody Picture and Vocabulary Test, Ages 3–4 | 0.247 (1.017) |
0.185 (1.022) |
0.062 | 1.02 | |
| Kinderaarten (Aaes 6–7) | |||||
| Reading Comprehension Percentile Score | 58.628 (23.613) |
52.925 (24.892) |
5.703 | *** | 4.01 |
| Math Percentile Score | 52.358 (23.613) |
52.582 (24.892) |
−0.224 | −0.16 | |
| Elementary School (Ages 10–11) | |||||
| Negative Peer/School Context (Factor-loaded, standardized score combining Negative School Environment & Pressure from Peers) | −0.028 (0.147) |
−0.018 (0.168) |
−0.010 | ** | −0.98 |
| Home Cognitive and Emotional Support (“Home Environment”) (Factor-loaded, standardized score) | 0.096 (0.543) |
0.058 (0.579) |
0.038 | 1.20 | |
| Middle School (Ages 12–13) | |||||
| Externalizing Behaviors | 1.717 (1.850) |
2.407 (2.234) |
−0.690 | *** | −5.78 |
| Reading Comprehension Percentile Score | 59.555 (27.458) |
54.642 (30.134) |
4.913 | ** | 2.90 |
| Math Percentile Score | 51.459 (26.338) |
56.183 (26.829) |
−4.724 | ** | −3.01 |
| Number of Hours/Week Studying In and Out of School | 20.816 (44.944) |
22.858 (48.136) |
−2.042 | 0.73 | |
| Hiah School (Aaes 14–17 and 14–15) | |||||
| Repeat/Retained a Grade in School | 0.072 | 0.117 | −0.045 | ** | −2.69 |
| Educational Expectations (Factor-loaded, standardized score) | 0.186 (0.994) |
0.043 (0.975) |
0.143 | * | 2.44 |
| Demoaraphic Controls | |||||
| Mom Years of Schooling, Ages 0–1 | 12.139 (1.985) |
12.088 (1.987) |
0.051 | 0.44 | |
| Father Absent at Child’s Birth | 0.193 | 0.179 | 0.014 | 0.65 | |
| Birth Order | 1.784 (0.914) |
1.791 (0.901) |
−0.007 | −0.14 | |
| African-American | 0.179 | 0.154 | 0.025 | 1.62 | |
| Hispanic | 0.075 | 0.081 | −0.006 | −0.69 | |
| Mother’s Age at Child’s Birth | 23.820 (2.643) |
23.865 (2.500) |
−0.045 | −0.29 | |
| Low Birthweight (LBW) | 0.068 | 0.050 | 0.018 | 1.33 | |
| N | 881 | 780 |
Displaying means with standard deviations for continuous variables in parentheses.
p<0.001,
p<0.01,
p<0.05,
p<0.10 (two-tailed t-tests).
College enrollment is conditional on high school or GED completion. Nwomen =805; Nmen =692.
College completion is conditional on both high school or GED completion and college enrollment. Nwomen =654; Nmen =453.
Source: The 1983–1986 birth cohorts of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth:1979 (NLSY-C; https://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy79-children), excluding the low-income white and military oversamples.
Note: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-C) consists of a nationally representative sample of children born to women age 14 to 21 in 1979; after excluding the poor white and military oversamples, the working sample in this study is restricted to the 1,857 children born 1983 to 1986, whose mothers were therefore 18 to 29 years at birth. Children born 1983 to 1986 were born early enough to be age 26 to 29 as of the 2012 follow-up survey, but late enough to have early behavior problems information measured at ages 4 to 5 beginning in 1986, at which point these items were introduced for children ages 4 to 16. I used multiple imputation of 20 datasets to handle item-missingness. Model estimates use inverse-probability weighting to deal with stratified sample design (minority oversampling) and sample attrition by the 2012 follow-up wave (weights are described at: https://www.nlsinfo.org/weights/nlsy79). Once inverse-probability survey weights are applied, the working sample with complete attainment and behavior information drops from 1,857 to 1,661 children (881 girls, 780 boys).