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Author: McCrate, Elaine
Resulting in 8 citations.
1. McCrate, Elaine
Discrimination, Returns to Education, and Teenage Childbearing
Working Paper, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1989
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Discrimination; Discrimination, Age; Discrimination, Job; Educational Returns; Employment; Poverty; Schooling; Teenagers

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

Widespread teenage childbearing among some subpopulations of U.S. women, particularly black women, has been taken as evidence of a "culture of poverty." According to this theory, the poor do not take advantage of existing opportunities, such as school and work, to improve their economic circumstances. Utilizing data from the NLSY, this paper provides an empirical critique of such a notion. It demonstrates that returns to education are lower among the women who become teenage mothers, and that these lower returns are not due to the birth itself. Rather, they are due to poor quality schooling or jobs. Hence, since education does not pay off for these women, this research questions a key assumption of the culture of poverty theory: that education is a viable means to economic betterment. The paper also concludes that premarket discrimination in schooling and discrimination in employment contribute to teenage childbearing, rather than deficient culture.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Discrimination, Returns to Education, and Teenage Childbearing." Working Paper, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1989.
2. McCrate, Elaine
Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing
Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Family Background and Culture; Mothers; Regions; Sex Education; Sex Roles; Teenagers; Wages, Adult; Welfare

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

Most previous research on teenage mothers has emphasized that early births reduce later earnings. This paper explores whether causality might run in the opposite direction: Whether the expectation of low adult wages might increase the probability of teenage childbearing. Using data from the NLSY and treating teenage motherhood, wages, employment and education as jointly determined, this investigation supports the proposition that low adult wages contribute to teenage childbearing.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing." Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992.
3. McCrate, Elaine
Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing
Presented: Bethesda, MD, NICHD Conference, "Outcomes of Early Childbearing: An Appraisal of Recent Evidence", May 1992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Family Background and Culture; Mothers; Regions; Religion; Sex Education; Sex Roles; Teenagers; Wages, Adult; Welfare

Teenage mothers typically experience lower adult earnings than other women. Conventional wisdom has emphasized a one-way causal relationship, with teenage childbearing accounting in large measure for low incomes later in life. According to this logic, adolescent mothers make irrational choices, or perhaps exceptionally poorly informed ones: in either case, their decisions ultimately undermine their future economic well-being. Many empirical studies have investigated in detail the hypothesis that teenage childbearing reduces adult earnings and employment opportunity, generally concluding, emphatically, that it does. In this paper I investigate the second opportunity cost hypothesis: whether the expectation of low adult wages increases the probability of adolescent childbearing. I develop a model in which education, wages, and adolescent motherhood are jointly determined, and test it using data from the 1986 cross-section of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing." Presented: Bethesda, MD, NICHD Conference, "Outcomes of Early Childbearing: An Appraisal of Recent Evidence", May 1992.
4. McCrate, Elaine
Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing
International Review of Applied Economics 6,3 (1992): 309-328.
Also: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/758534264
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing, Adolescent; Family Background and Culture; Mothers; Regions; Religion; Sex Education; Sex Roles; Teenagers; Wages, Adult; Welfare

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

The adult earnings of women and the age at which they initiated childbearing are well known to be positively correlated. Most previous research on teenage mothers has emphasized that early births reduce later earnings. This article explores whether the causality might run in the opposite direction: whether the expectation of low adult wages might increase the probability of teenage childbearing. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and treating teenage motherhood, wages and education as jointly determined, this investigation gives strong support to the idea that low wages contribute to teenage childbearing. I also explore two popular policy proposals for reducing the incidence of teenage childbearing: reducing transfer income and providing sex education courses. The former has only a very small effect on teenage childbearing; the latter is significant only for black adolescents.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Expectations of Adult Wages and Teenage Childbearing." International Review of Applied Economics 6,3 (1992): 309-328.
5. McCrate, Elaine
Labor Market Segmentation and Relative Black/White Teenage Birth Rates
Review of Black Political Economy 18,4 (Spring 1990): 37-53.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/y2483713p10322vp/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Economic Association
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Affirmative Action; Birth Rate; Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Labor Market Segmentation; Labor Market, Secondary; Mothers, Adolescent; Poverty; Welfare

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

Teenage mothers typically have lower educational attainment than other women. Most observers have argued that this is a major reason for their greater risk of poverty. This article takes the opposite view: that circumstances associated with poverty contribute to a greater likelihood of teenage childbearing. In particular, poor educational quality and the chances of secondary sector employment are more common for black women, regardless of their age at first birth. Hence the payoffs to education may be quite low for these women, which may be the reason for early motherhood. This argument is presented in terms of segmented labor market theory. Data to support it is presented from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Other common explanations of teenage motherhood are critiqued.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Labor Market Segmentation and Relative Black/White Teenage Birth Rates." Review of Black Political Economy 18,4 (Spring 1990): 37-53.
6. McCrate, Elaine
Returns to Education and Teenage Childbearing
Working Paper, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College and Economics Department, University of Vermont, 1989
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Radcliffe College
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Educational Returns; Teenagers

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

Teenage childbearing has received much recent attention, in great part because of its association with lower years of schooling, especially lower rates of high school completion. Based on wage regressions using data from the NLSY, it is argued that teenage motherhood is not therefore irrational: returns to education are lower for the women who become teenage mothers, and the difference is not due to the birth itself. Rather, the difference is most likely due to the quality of education or the rationing of primary sector jobs.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Returns to Education and Teenage Childbearing." Working Paper, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College and Economics Department, University of Vermont, 1989.
7. McCrate, Elaine
Welfare and Women's Earnings
Politics and Society 25,4 (December 1997): 417-442
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Control; Education; Educational Attainment; Endogeneity; Racial Differences; State Welfare; Wage Differentials; Welfare

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

The wage effects of welfare for black & white women workers, ages 21-34, with 12 or fewer years of education were examined, drawing on data from the 1989 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Analysis revealed that a difference of $100 in state welfare benefits was associated with a 3% difference in wages. The relationship between welfare & wages disappeared among women with more than a high school education once state effects were accounted for. The welfare-wage relationship is discussed from the perspective of market-mediated impacts of welfare on wages vs. the politically driven effect of wages on welfare, though no definitive conclusions were drawn due to unsuccessful attempts to control for endogeneity. Welfare as a mechanism to control the supply of low wage labor is discussed. 2 Tables, 1 Appendix. D. Generoli. Copyright: Sociological Abstracts. Full-text available though OCLC to institutional members of OCLC. Your library may be a member of OCLC: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/eco.htm
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine. "Welfare and Women's Earnings." Politics and Society 25,4 (December 1997): 417-442.
8. McCrate, Elaine
Leete, Laura
Black-White Wage Differences among Young Women, 1977-86
Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 33,2 (April 1994): 168-183.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-232X.1994.tb00334.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley
Keyword(s): Economics of Discrimination; Economics of Gender; Economics of Minorities; Educational Returns; Labor Market Demographics; Racial Differences; Rehabilitation; Wage Differentials; Wage Dynamics; Wage Gap

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

Data from the 1977 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women and the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were used to explore reasons for the rise in the pay gap between black and white women in their twenties. Until 1977 wage disparities between black and white women had been declining, but between 1977 and 1986, the racial wage gap among young women increased by .074 log points. Demographic developments cannot explain the relative wage trend. Rather, black women appear to have lost ground because: their level of experience has declined relative to white women, despite the fact that their mean rate of pay rose substantially; and their rate of educational return has declined relative to the white rate, despite the fact that their mean level of education rose substantially. Changes in the relative level of work experience and in the rate of return to schooling were highlighted.
Bibliography Citation
McCrate, Elaine and Laura Leete. "Black-White Wage Differences among Young Women, 1977-86." Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 33,2 (April 1994): 168-183.