Extended Family Influences on Young Adult Attainment: Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

• In Event: 463 - Regular Session. Intergenerational Relationship in the United States

Abstract

Does women's employment have an impact on the well-being of grandchildren? I use harmonized data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition to Adulthood files and the Cross-National Equivalency File 1970-2007 to assess the association between women’s employment in three generations of an extended kin group to young adults who were followed from birth or early childhood to the age of 25 or older. Analyses focus on whether and how women’s employment was associated with the educational attainment, employment, and earnings of young adults in the third generation. Results indicate female kin group influences on young adults’ life chances are least evident when examining young adult earnings and most evident in analyses of education and occupation. Maternal employment has a positive association with educational and occupational attainment, and although there is little direct evidence of a grandmother effect on any of these outcomes, employment among female aunts and cousins is positively related to attainment. The findings underscore the role of women in the attainment process, and the need for renewed research into intergenerational processes and extended kin networks as mechanisms through which social inequalities are reproduced.

Author

• Patricia A. McManus, Indiana University