Table 4.

Relative Predictive Power of Mediating Factors in Reducing Contribution of Gender Gap in Early Externalizing Problems to the Gender Gap in Years of Schooling for NLSY-C Children Born 1983 to 1986 to Mothers Age 18 to 29 Years at Birth (Reference Group: Boys) (N = 1,661)

	Percentage change in contribution of early externalizing problems to gender gap in years of schooling due to:
	Gender Differences in Levels of Early Externalizing Problems		Gender Differences in “Effects” of Early Externalizing Problems
x’s:	Minimum (x’s in col. 1 subtracted from “full model” with all mediators) (%)	Maximum (x’s in col. 1 added to “simplified baseline model” with demographic controls) (%)	Minimum (x’s in col. 1 subtracted from “full model” with all mediators) (%)	Maximum (x’s in col. 1 added to “simplified baseline model” with demographic controls) (%)
Early Home and Care Context, Early Cognitive Development, Ages 3–4	2.4	15.1	9.9	27.6
Math and Reading Development, Ages 6–7	1.6	25.4	3.4	6.9
School/Peer and Home Context, Ages 10–11	4.8	19.8	5.9	7.9
Behavior, Effort, and Achievement, Ages 12–13	31.7	66.7	26.6	40.4
Grade Retention, Ages 14–17, and Educational Expectations, Ages 14–15	15.1	41.3	25.6	43.3

Note: The simplified baseline decomposition model includes only early externalizing problems and the demographic controls shown in Table 2. The full decomposition model includes early externalizing problems and all groups of x’s (mediators) indicated in column 1 of this table. So that differences in the contribution of levels or effects of early externalizing problems are comparable across columns, I rescaled the differences (from the full model or the model with demographic controls) into percentages. I divided the absolute value of the difference by the relevant baseline contribution. Baselines are .126 years of schooling due to the mean gender difference in level ofearly externalizing problems, and .203 years due to the mean gender difference in effects of early externalizing problems.

Source: The 1983 to 1986 birth cohorts of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth:1979 (NLSY-C; https://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy79-children) and matched National Longitudinal Survey of Youth:1979 (mother sample). The low-income white and military oversamples are excluded. 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 age 4 to 5 beginning in 1986, at which point these items were introduced for children age 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 aredescribed 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).