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Author: Buckles, Kasey S.
Resulting in 5 citations.
1. Buckles, Kasey S.
Understanding the Returns to Delayed Childbearing for Working Women
American Economic Review 98,2 (May 2008): 403-407.
Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.98.2.403
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Age at Birth; Age at First Birth; Childbearing; Earnings; Education; First Birth; Parenthood; Skill Formation; Wages, Women

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The article investigates the wage-earning implications for U.S. women of giving birth to a first child. Previous research has suggested there are substantial economic benefits to delaying childbirth, with one study claiming a 3% increase in wages for each year of delay. The author seeks explanation through analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Her work reveals several findings. In 2003 an annual 3% wage premium did exist for each year of delayed parenthood. In addition, delayed childbirth correlated with high levels of skill, education, and professional status of the mother.
Bibliography Citation
Buckles, Kasey S. "Understanding the Returns to Delayed Childbearing for Working Women." American Economic Review 98,2 (May 2008): 403-407.
2. Buckles, Kasey S.
Kolka, Shawna
Prenatal Investments, Breastfeeding, and Birth Order
Social Science and Medicine 118 (October 2014): 66-70.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361400495X
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Birth Order; Births, Repeat / Spacing; Breastfeeding; Family Size; Missing Data/Imputation; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Parental Investments; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care

Mothers have many opportunities to invest in their own or their child’s health and well-being during pregnancy and immediately after birth. These investments include seeking prenatal care, taking prenatal vitamins, and breastfeeding. In this paper, we investigate a potential determinant of mothers’ investments that has been largely overlooked by previous research—birth order. Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) Child and Young Adult Survey, which provides detailed information on pre- and post-natal behaviors of women from the NLSY79. These women were between the ages of 14 and 22 in 1979, and form a nationally representative sample of youth in the United States. Our sample includes births to these women between 1973 and 2010 (10,328 births to 3,755 mothers). We use fixed effects regression models to estimate within-mother differences in pre- and post-natal behaviors across births. We find that mothers are 6.6 percent less likely to take prenatal vitamins in a fourth or higher-order birth than in a first and are 10.6 percent less likely to receive early prenatal care. Remarkably, mothers are 15.4 percent less likely to breastfeed a second-born child than a first, and are 20.9 percent less likely to breastfeed a fourth or higher-order child. These results are not explained by changing attitudes toward investments over time. These findings suggest that providers may want to increase efforts to encourage these behaviors at women with higher parity. The results also identify a potential mechanism for the emergence of differences in health and other outcomes across birth orders.
Bibliography Citation
Buckles, Kasey S. and Shawna Kolka. "Prenatal Investments, Breastfeeding, and Birth Order." Social Science and Medicine 118 (October 2014): 66-70.
3. Buckles, Kasey S.
Munnich, Elizabeth L.
Birth Spacing and Sibling Outcomes
Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, March 31-April 2, 2011 (Updated May 2011).
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Births, Repeat / Spacing; Children, Well-Being; Educational Attainment; Educational Outcomes; Fertility; Modeling, OLS; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Siblings; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper investigates the effect of the age difference between siblings (spacing) on educational achievement. We use a sample of women from the 1979 NLSY, matched to reading and math scores for their children from the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults Survey. OLS results suggest that greater spacing is beneficial for older siblings, though only for low socioeconomic-status (SES) families. For high-SES families, greater spacing has no beneficial effect and is associated with lower test scores for younger siblings. However, because we are concerned that spacing may be correlated with unobservable characteristics, we also use an instrumental variables strategy that exploits variation in spacing driven by miscarriages that occur between two live births. The IV results indicate that a one-year increase in spacing increases test scores for low-SES older siblings by about 0.2 standard deviations. For younger siblings there appears to be no causal impact of spacing on test scores.
Bibliography Citation
Buckles, Kasey S. and Elizabeth L. Munnich. "Birth Spacing and Sibling Outcomes." Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, March 31-April 2, 2011 (Updated May 2011).
4. Buckles, Kasey S.
Munnich, Elizabeth L.
Birth Spacing and Sibling Outcomes
Journal of Human Resources 47,3 (Summer 2012): 613-642.
Also: http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/47/3/613.abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): Births, Repeat / Spacing; Children, Well-Being; Educational Attainment; Educational Outcomes; Fertility; Modeling, OLS; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Siblings; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Using the NLSY79 and NLSY79 Child and Young Adult Surveys, we investigate the effect of the age difference between siblings (spacing) on educational achievement. Because spacing may be endogenous, we use an instrumental variables strategy that exploits variation in spacing driven by miscarriages. The IV results indicate that a one-year increase in spacing increases test scores for older siblings by about 0.17 standard deviations. These results are larger than the OLS estimates, suggesting that failing to account for the endogeneity of spacing may understate its benefits. For younger siblings, we find no causal impact of spacing on test scores.
Bibliography Citation
Buckles, Kasey S. and Elizabeth L. Munnich. "Birth Spacing and Sibling Outcomes." Journal of Human Resources 47,3 (Summer 2012): 613-642.
5. Buckles, Kasey S.
Price, Joseph P.
Selection and the Marriage Premium for Infant Health
Demography 50,4 (August 2013): 1315-1339.
Also: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-013-0211-7
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Birthweight; Infants; Marriage; Natality Detail Files; National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Previous research has found a positive relationship between marriage and infant health, but it is unclear whether this relationship is causal or a reflection of positive selection into marriage. We use multiple empirical approaches to address this issue. First, using a technique developed by Gelbach (2009) to determine the relative importance of observable characteristics, we show how selection into marriage has changed over time. Second, we construct a matched sample of children born to the same mother and apply panel data techniques to account for time-invariant unobserved characteristics. We find evidence of a sizable marriage premium. However, this premium fell by more than 40 % between 1989 and 2004, largely as a result of declining selection into marriage by race. Accounting for selection reduces ordinary least squares estimates of the marriage premiums for birth weight, prematurity, and infant mortality by at least one-half.
Bibliography Citation
Buckles, Kasey S. and Joseph P. Price. "Selection and the Marriage Premium for Infant Health." Demography 50,4 (August 2013): 1315-1339.