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Author: Romich, Jennifer L.
Resulting in 13 citations.
1. Lundberg, Shelly
Romich, Jennifer L.
Decision-Making by the Children of the NLSY
Working Paper, University of Washington, June 20, 2006.
Also: http://www.ccpr.ucla.edu/docs/Lundberg-Child%20decisions.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: School of Social Work, University of Washington
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Structure; Maternal Employment; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Parents, Behavior

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

Do not cite without author's permission

In this paper we present a very simple model of a parent's choice among three alternate parenting regimes -- parental control, child autonomy, and shared decision-making -- as a framework for an empirical investigation of child reports of who makes decision about their activities. We describe the child decision-making indices constructed from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Child data (NLSY-C), and present ordered logit models of shared and sole decision-making on seven domains of child activity. We find that the determinants of sole decision-making by the child and shared decision-making with parents are quite distinct, and that sharing decisions appears to be a form of parental investment in child development rather than a simple stage in the transfer of authority.

The data we use are from the ongoing National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and the associated Child Supplement and Work History files. The NLSY tracks a nationally representative sample of men and women who were age 14-21 in 1979. ...This analysis uses a pooled sample constructed from the universe of children ages 10-14 in the 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000 waves. Some children may contribute more than one observation: an 11-year-old surveyed in 1996 might also be included as a 13-year-old in 1998. Eliminating observations with wave-specific child or parent non-response on the key dependent and labor supply variables gives a sample of 6280 child-years.

Also presented: Insitute for Social Sciences, Cornell University, April 4, 2006; Institute for Economy, University of Bergen, June 14, 2006; Institute for Social & Economic Research (ISER) Monday Seminars, University of Essex, Colchester, England, October 9, 2006.
Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly and Jennifer L. Romich. "Decision-Making by the Children of the NLSY." Working Paper, University of Washington, June 20, 2006.
2. Lundberg, Shelly
Romich, Jennifer L.
Maternal Labor Supply and Child Decision Power: Evidence on the Adultification Hypothesis
Presented: Philadelphia, PA, American Economic Association Meeting, January 2005.
Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2005/0108_1015_0201.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Bargaining Model; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Structure; Maternal Employment; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenthood

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

In this paper we apply a bargaining model to predict how maternal employment may be related to children's power in making decisions about household resources and rules. The paper proceeds as follows. Section II. outlines a model of bargaining between parents and children. Next we overview the implications of this model for empirical investigations. Section IV contains a description of our sample drawn, from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Child data (NLSY-C), and the decision-making indexes used as our key dependent variables. Results are presented on family structure, mothers' work and children's autonomous and shared participation in decision-making. We find little evidence to support the adultification hypothesis.
Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly and Jennifer L. Romich. "Maternal Labor Supply and Child Decision Power: Evidence on the Adultification Hypothesis." Presented: Philadelphia, PA, American Economic Association Meeting, January 2005.
3. Lundberg, Shelly
Romich, Jennifer L.
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Decision-Making by Children
IZA Discussion Paper No. 2952, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), July 2007.
Also: http://ftp.iza.org/dp2952.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Structure; Maternal Employment; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Parents, Behavior

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

In this paper, we examine the determinants of decision-making power by children and young adolescents. Moving beyond previous economic models that treat children as goods consumed by adults rather than agents, we develop a noncooperative model of parental control of child behavior and child resistance. Using child reports of decision-making and psychological and cognitive measures from the NLSY79 Child Supplement, we examine the determinants of shared and sole decision-making in seven domains of child activity. We find that the determinants of sole decision-making by the child and shared decision-making with parents are quite distinct: sharing decisions appears to be a form of parental investment in child development rather than a simple stage in the transfer of authority. In addition, we find that indicators of child capability and preferences affect reports of decision-making authority in ways that suggest child demand for autonomy as well as parental discretion in determining these outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly, Jennifer L. Romich and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Decision-Making by Children." IZA Discussion Paper No. 2952, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), July 2007.
4. Lundberg, Shelly
Romich, Jennifer L.
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Decision-Making by Children
Review of Economics of the Household 7,1 (March 2009): 1-30.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/618610672t3ml3r5/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Child Development; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Children; Cognitive Ability; Ethnic Differences; Household Composition; Marital Disruption; Marriage; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Racial Differences; Risk-Taking; Self-Reporting

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

In this paper, we examine the determinants of decision-making power by children and young adolescents. Moving beyond previous economic models that treat children as goods consumed by adults, we develop a noncooperative model of parental control of child behavior and child resistance. Using child reports of decision-making and psychological and cognitive measures from the NLSY79 Child Supplement, we examine the determinants of shared and sole decision-making based on indices created from seven domains of child activity. We find that the determinants of sole decision-making by the child and shared decision-making with parents are quite distinct: sharing decisions appears to be a form of parental investment in child development rather than a simple stage in the transfer of authority. In addition, we find that indicators of child capabilities and preferences affect reports of decision-making authority in ways that suggest child demand for autonomy as well as parental discretion in determining these outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly, Jennifer L. Romich and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Decision-Making by Children." Review of Economics of the Household 7,1 (March 2009): 1-30.
5. Lundberg, Shelly
Romich, Jennifer L.
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Decision-making by the Children of the NLSY
Working Paper, University of Washington, April 2007
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: School of Social Work, University of Washington
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Structure; Maternal Employment; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Parents, Behavior

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

Also presented at the Work, Family and Public Policy Seminar, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, April 2007.

We investigate the acquisition of decision-making power by young adolescents. Whereas previous economic models have treated children as either goods consumed or investment choices made by adults, we develop a model of non-cooperative interaction between parents and children. Using child reports of decision-making and psychological and cognitive measures from the NLSY79 Child Supplement, we find evidence that child preferences, child capabilities, and parental discretion all shape who makes decisions about young adolescents' lives. The determinants of sole decision-making by the child and shared decision-making with parents are quite distinct. Results indicate that sharing decisionmaking is a form of parental investment in child development rather than a simple stage in the transfer of authority.

Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly, Jennifer L. Romich and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Decision-making by the Children of the NLSY." Working Paper, University of Washington, April 2007.
6. Romich, Jennifer L.
Far Beyond the First Three Years: Parental Employment and Problem Behavior in Early Adolescence
Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 2001
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birth Order; Household Structure; Marital Status; Maternal Employment; Modeling

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

This paper looks at the relationship between parents' amount of work and child behavior for children ages 10-15. Emphasis is placed on quantity of time spent at work and instrumental, as opposed to emotional, ways that work can affect children's lives. Time spent at work is hypothesized to decrease parental availability for childrearing and monitoring, leading to increases in children's problem and deviant behavior. Linking parental employment with child outcomes requires a model of how employment can affect children and careful methodological consideration of unobservable characteristics and parental choice. I outline issues involved in modeling the relationship between parental employment and children's behavior. Using nonexperimental longitudinal data, I describe the relationship and compare models estimating the effects of employment hours.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L. "Far Beyond the First Three Years: Parental Employment and Problem Behavior in Early Adolescence." Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 2001.
7. Romich, Jennifer L.
Too Much Time Away from Home? Work Hours and Early Adolescent Behavior
Presented: New Orleans, LA, Society for Research on Adolescence, April 2002
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Deviance; Maternal Employment

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

Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L. "Too Much Time Away from Home? Work Hours and Early Adolescent Behavior." Presented: New Orleans, LA, Society for Research on Adolescence, April 2002.
8. Romich, Jennifer L.
Training, Trading or Taking? Parents' Work, Children's Work and Intergenerational Transfers
Presented: Philadelphia, PA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2005
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Allowance, Pocket Money; Children, Well-Being; Employment; Household Demand; Household Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Transfers, Family; Transfers, Parental

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

Research on parental employment and child well-being generally focuses on the relationship between parents' work and available financial resources for parents to transfer to children. However, children of working parents may provide valuable resources to their households as well in the form of household labor including sibling care. Using child- and household-level data from families with 12-18-year-olds in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I examine the relationship between parental employment, children's household work and transfers to children. I hypothesize that being in a household in which all parents work increases the likelihood that a child provides household labor and receives direct financial transfers in the form of allowances or pocket money. The relationship is stronger in households with younger siblings. Interactions with child gender are investigated and implications for child well-being are discussed.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L. "Training, Trading or Taking? Parents' Work, Children's Work and Intergenerational Transfers." Presented: Philadelphia, PA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2005.
9. Romich, Jennifer L.
Trying to Keep Children Out of Trouble: Child Characteristics, Neighborhood Quality, and Within-Household Resource Allocation
Children and Youth Services Review 31,3 (March 2009): 338-345.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740908002089
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birth Order; Child Growth; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Characteristics; Family Structure; Geocoded Data; Geographical Variation; Household Income; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Neighborhood Effects; Parent-Child Interaction; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Risk-Taking; Siblings

Prior ethnographic evidence suggests that parents combat neighborhood dangers through spending time with and money on children perceived to be at risk. This paper summarizes a secondary data investigation of whether interactions between neighborhood quality and child characteristics predict patterns of intra-household resource allocation. Using a sample of N =1879 12- and 13-year-olds from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I find that in neighborhoods with greater numbers of problems, parents spend more time and money with firstborn children and children who are particularly short or impulsive relative to how parents treat such children in lower problem neighborhoods. Comparisons of cross-sectional and sibling fixed-effect models suggest the shortness and firstborn effects are not due to unobserved family characteristics. These results lend modest support to the assertion that parents systematically try to use within-family resources to protect certain children from threats posed by neighborhoods with high levels of crime or low levels of social cohesiveness. [Copyright 2009 Elsevier]
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L. "Trying to Keep Children Out of Trouble: Child Characteristics, Neighborhood Quality, and Within-Household Resource Allocation." Children and Youth Services Review 31,3 (March 2009): 338-345.
10. Romich, Jennifer L.
Gao, Xiang
Does Children's Housework Matter?: Adult Trajectories of Boys and Girls Who Spend Time Doing Household Chores and Sibling Care
Presented: New Orleans, LA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, April 2008
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Gender Attitudes/Roles; Housework/Housewives; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Siblings

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

Although research has focused on the impact of youth employment while in high school, less attention has been paid to the responsibilities some young adults have within the household. However, children do considerable homemaking and care work within the house. What is the impact of this work on children's subsequent development? Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, we examine housework, sibling caretaking, and subsequent adult beliefs and behavior within a sample of adolescents with younger siblings. Our evidence suggests that work done in the childhood home may have lasting significance on beliefs and roles later in life. For instance, men in their early 40s who had cared for younger siblings as teens were less likely to have children and were more likely to favor women's employment and believe that that men should share housework.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L. and Xiang Gao. "Does Children's Housework Matter?: Adult Trajectories of Boys and Girls Who Spend Time Doing Household Chores and Sibling Care." Presented: New Orleans, LA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, April 2008.
11. Romich, Jennifer L.
Lundberg, Shelly
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns between Parents and Young Adolescents
Presented: Washington, DC, Meetings of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR): Research That Matters, January 17-20, 2008
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Family Structure; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Parents, Behavior; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

Purpose: How young adolescents and parents share – or do not share – decisions about aspects of youth and family life is considered an important indicator of family process. Young adolescents who make decisions without parental input are more likely to become delinquent and less likely to complete schooling. Prior research on the determinants of decision patterns has largely focused on parental, family-level and environmental factors, and the assumed relationship with subsequent child behavior is that the decision-making patterns shape, rather than reflect, children's behavior. However, recent attention to the role of children as active agents within their environments suggests that questioning the assumption that sharing of decisions is a parent-led process is warranted. In this study, we examine ways in which children's characteristics and actions may shape family decision-making processes. Specifically, we examine how family decision patterns reported by young adolescents vary as a function of prior socio-cognitive functioning and behavior. Methods: The sample consists of 2632 young adolescents whose mothers are respondents of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). This study's outcomes of interest are whether decisions about young adolescents' lives are made autonomously by the young adolescents ("sole decisions"), jointly by parents and youth ("shared"), or solely by their parents ("parent"). These outcomes are predicted by a set of cognitive and psycho-social measures observed prior to the outcome wave. Individual models are used to test whether traits predict decision patterns and sibling fixed-effects models allow us to estimate effects of child characteristics net of stable family contributions. Results: Three predictors are significant in both the individual and sibling fixed effect models, suggesting that these relationships are robust and exist net of consistent unobserved effects of the parent, family, or environment. Children with high verbal aptitude (PPVT) share more decisions with their parents. Children with high mathematical aptitude (as measured by the PIAT-M) make more decisions autonomously. More impulsive children are more likely to make decisions without consulting parents, an effect that is concentrated among children of less-educated mothers and stronger among single-mother, relative to two-parent, households. Conclusions and implications: Our findings add more information about how decision-sharing patterns may arise and as such suggest that this linkage between autonomy and delinquency may be more nuanced than previously acknowledged. Earlier work on single-parent families and the "control" of adolescents suggested that family structure mattered, and that single-mothers were less likely to be able to "control" adolescents. Our findings reveal that control matters when a counteracting force is necessary. When claims for autonomy are made by impulsive children, mothers likely to have lower resources are unable to counteract young adolescents' desires for autonomy. This more nuanced view of the role of parenting suggests that prevention practices should include an assessment and self-assessment of parents' ability to respond to their children's demands for autonomy.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L., Shelly Lundberg and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns between Parents and Young Adolescents." Presented: Washington, DC, Meetings of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR): Research That Matters, January 17-20, 2008.
12. Romich, Jennifer L.
Lundberg, Shelly
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns Between Young Adolescents and Parents
Working Paper, University of Washington, April 2007.
Also: http://faculty.washington.edu/romich/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: School of Social Work, University of Washington
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

This article reports on a study of whether young adolescents make decisions autonomously, share decisions with their parents, or have decisions made for them by parents. Using a sample of 2,620 12- and 13-year-olds from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – Child Study we examine how childhood behavior and competence influence decision patterns in young adolescence. Individual models are used to test whether traits predict decision patterns and sibling fixed-effects models allow us to estimate effects of child characteristics net of stable family contributions. In both individual and sibling fixed-effects models, children with higher verbal ability share more decision-making with parents. Children with greater mathematical aptitude and children who are impulsive are more likely to make decisions without consulting parents. The impulsivity effect is stronger in families with fewer resources. These results suggest that children directly and indirectly influence household decision-sharing patterns.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L., Shelly Lundberg and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns Between Young Adolescents and Parents." Working Paper, University of Washington, April 2007.
13. Romich, Jennifer L.
Lundberg, Shelly
Tsang, Kwok Ping
Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns Between Young Adolescents and Parents
Journal of Research on Adolescence 19,4 (December 2009): 587-600.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2009.00612.x/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parenting Skills/Styles; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

This article reports on a study of whether young adolescents make decisions autonomously, share decisions with their parents, or have decisions made for them by parents. Using a sample of 2,632 12- and 13-year-olds from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child Survey we examine how childhood behavior and competence influence decision patterns in young adolescence. Individual models are used to test whether traits predict decision patterns, and sibling fixed-effects models allow us to estim\ate effects of child characteristics net of stable family contributions. In both individual and sibling fixed-effects models, children with higher verbal ability share more decision making with parents. Children with greater mathematical aptitude and children who are impulsive are more likely to make decisions without consulting parents. The impulsivity effect is stronger in families with fewer resources. These results suggest that children directly and indirectly influence household decision-sharing patterns.
Bibliography Citation
Romich, Jennifer L., Shelly Lundberg and Kwok Ping Tsang. "Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Sharing Patterns Between Young Adolescents and Parents." Journal of Research on Adolescence 19,4 (December 2009): 587-600.