Amidst rising and increasingly unaffordable rents, 7.6 million people are threatened with eviction each year across the United States'and eviction rates are twice as high for renters with children. One important and neglected population who may experience unique levels of housing insecurity is college students, especially given that one in five college students are parents. In this study, we link 11.9 million student records to eviction filings from housing courts, demographic characteristics reported in decennial census and survey data, incomes reported on tax returns by students and their parents, and dates of birth and death from the Social Security Administration. Parenting students are more likely than non-parenting students to identify as female (62.81% vs. 55.94%) and Black (19.66% vs. 14.30%), be over 30 years old (42.73% vs. 20.25%), and have parents with lower household incomes ($100,000 vs. $140,000). Parenting students threatened with eviction (i.e., had an eviction filed against them) are much more likely than non-threatened parenting students to identify as female (81.18% vs. 62.81%) and Black (56.84% vs. 19.66%). In models adjusted for individual and institutional characteristics, we find that being threatened with an eviction was significantly associated with reduced likelihood of degree completion, reduced post-enrollment income, reduced likelihood of being married post-enrollment, and increased post-enrollment mortality. Among parenting students, 38.38% (95% confidence interval (CI): 32.50-44.26%) of non-threatened students completed a bachelor's degree compared to just 15.36% (CI: 11.61-19.11%) of students threatened with eviction. Our findings highlight the long-term economic and health impacts of housing insecurity during college, especially for parenting students. Housing stability for parenting students may have substantial multigenerational benefits for economic mobility and population health.
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School Discipline and Racial Disparities in Early Adulthood
June 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-14
Despite interest in the role of school discipline in the creation of racial inequality, previous research has been unable to identify how students who receive suspensions in school differ from unsuspended classmates on key young adult outcomes. We utilize novel data to document the links between high school discipline and important young adult outcomes related to criminal justice contact, social safety net program participation, post-secondary education, and the labor market. We show that the link between school discipline and young adult outcomes tends to be stronger for Black students than for White students, and that inequality in exposure to school discipline accounts for approximately 30 percent of the Black-White disparities in young adult criminal justice outcomes and SNAP receipt.
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Childhood Housing and Adult Earnings: A Between-Siblings Analysis of Housing Vouchers and Public Housing
January 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-48RR
To date, research on the long-term effects of childhood participation in voucher-assisted and public housing has been limited by the lack of data and suitable identification strategies. We create a national level longitudinal data set that enables us to analyze how children's housing experiences affect adult earnings and incarceration rates. While naive estimates suggest there are substantial negative consequences to childhood participation in voucher assisted and public housing, this result appears to be driven largely by selection of households into housing assistance programs. To mitigate this source of bias, we employ household fixed-effects specifications that use only within-household (across-sibling) variation for identification. Compared to naive specifications, household fixed-effects estimates for earnings are universally more positive, and they suggest that there are positive and statistically significant benefits from childhood residence in assisted housing on young adult earnings for nearly all demographic groups. Childhood participation in assisted housing also reduces the likelihood of incarceration across all household race/ethnicity groups. Time spent in voucher-assisted or public housing is especially beneficial for females from non-Hispanic Black households, who experience substantial increases in expected earnings and lower incarceration rates.
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Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children's Adult Outcomes
May 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-28
Nearly a third of American children experience parental divorce before adulthood. To understand its consequences, we use linked tax and Census records for over 5 million children to examine how divorce affects family arrangements and children's long-term outcomes. Following divorce, parents move apart, household income falls, parents work longer hours, families move more frequently, and households relocate to poorer neighborhoods with less economic opportunity. This bundle of changes in family circumstances suggests multiple channels through which divorce may affect children's development and outcomes. In the years following divorce, we observe sharp increases in teen births and child mortality. To examine long-run effects on children, we compare siblings with different lengths of exposure to the same divorce. We find that parental divorce reduces children's adult earnings and college residence while increasing incarceration, mortality, and teen births. Changes in household income, neighborhood quality, and parent proximity account for 25 to 60 percent of these divorce effects.
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Where Are Your Parents? Exploring Potential Bias in Administrative Records on Children
March 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-18
This paper examines potential bias in the Census Household Composition Key's (CHCK) probabilistic parent-child linkages. By linking CHCK data to the American Community Survey (ACS), we reveal disparities in parent-child linkages among specific demographic groups and find that characteristics of children that can and cannot be linked to the CHCK vary considerably from the larger population. In particular, we find that children from low-income, less educated households and of Hispanic origin are less likely to be linked to a mother or a father in the CHCK. We also highlight some data considerations when using the CHCK.
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The Census Historical Environmental Impacts Frame
October 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-66
The Census Bureau's Environmental Impacts Frame (EIF) is a microdata infrastructure that combines individual-level information on residence, demographics, and economic characteristics with environmental amenities and hazards from 1999 through the present day. To better understand the long-run consequences and intergenerational effects of exposure to a changing environment, we expand the EIF by extending it backward to 1940. The Historical Environmental Impacts Frame (HEIF) combines the Census Bureau's historical administrative data, publicly available 1940 address information from the 1940 Decennial Census, and historical environmental data. This paper discusses the creation of the HEIF as well as the unique challenges that arise with using the Census Bureau's historical administrative data.
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Geographic Disparities in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia Mortality in the US: Comparing Impacts of Place of Birth and Place of Residence
January 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-11
Objective: Building on the hypothesis that early-life exposures might influence the onset of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD), this study delves into geographic variations in ADRD mortality in the US. By considering both state of residence and state of birth, we aim to discern the comparative significance of these geospatial factors.
Methods: We conducted a secondary data analysis of the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS), that has 3.5 million records from 1973-2011 and over 0.5 million deaths. We focused on individuals born in or before 1930, tracked in NLMS cohorts from 1979-2000. Employing multi-level logistic regression, with individuals nested within states of residence and/or states of birth, we assessed the role of geographical factors in ADRD mortality variation.
Results: We found that both state of birth and state of residence account for a modest portion of ADRD mortality variation. Specifically, state of residence explains 1.19% of the total variation in ADRD mortality, whereas state of birth explains only 0.6%. When combined, both state of residence and state of birth account for only 1.05% of the variation, suggesting state of residence could matter more in ADRD mortality outcomes.
Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest that state of residence explains more variation in ADRD mortality than state of birth. These results indicate that factors in later life may present more impactful intervention points for curbing ADRD mortality. While early-life environmental exposures remain relevant, their role as primary determinants of ADRD in later life appears to be less pronounced in this study.
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Universal Preschool Lottery Admissions and Its Effects on Long-Run Earnings and Outcomes
March 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-09
We use an admissions lottery to estimate the effect of a universal (non-means tested) preschool program on students' long-run earnings, income, marital status, fertility and geographic mobility. We observe long-run outcomes by linking both admitted and non-admitted individuals to confidential administrative data including tax records. Funding for this preschool program comes from an Indigenous organization, which grants Indigenous students admissions preference and free tuition. We find treated children have between 5 to 6 percent higher earnings as young adults. The results are strongest for individuals from the lower half of the household income distribution in childhood. Likely mechanisms include high-quality teachers and curriculum.
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The Long-Term Effects of Income for At-Risk Infants: Evidence from Supplemental Security Income
March 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-10
This paper examines whether a generous cash intervention early in life can "undo" some of the long-term disadvantage associated with poor health at birth. We use new linkages between several large-scale administrative datasets to examine the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of providing low-income families with low birthweight infants support through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. This program uses a birthweight cutoff at 1200 grams to determine eligibility. We find that families of infants born just below this cutoff experience a large increase in cash benefits totaling about 27%of family income in the first three years of the infant's life. These cash benefits persist at lower amounts through age 10. Eligible infants also experience a small but statistically significant increase in Medicaid enrollment during childhood. We examine whether this support affects health care use and mortality in infancy, educational performance in high school, post-secondary school attendance and college degree attainment, and earnings, public assistance use, and mortality in young adulthood for all infants born in California to low-income families whose birthweight puts them near the cutoff. We also examine whether these payments had spillover effects onto the older siblings of these infants who may have also benefited from the increase in family resources. Despite the comprehensive nature of this early life intervention, we detect no improvements in any of the study outcomes, nor do we find improvements among the older siblings of these infants. These null effects persist across several subgroups and alternative model specifications, and, for some outcomes, our estimates are precise enough to rule out published estimates of the effect of early life cash transfers in other settings.
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Immigrant Status, Race, and Institutional Choice in Higher Education
March 1998
Working Paper Number:
CES-98-04
This paper examines the postsecondary enrollment decisions of immigrant students, expanding on previous work by explicitly considering their choices among institution types and by examining differences across generations and racial/ethnic categories. Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88), we hypothesize that community colleges may play a more significant role in providing access to higher education for immigrants than for the native-born population. Our results support our hypothesis only among Asian immigrants. First-generation black immigrants have a higher probability of enrolling in private vocational schools, while second-generation Hispanics (and native blacks) have a higher probability of enrolling in both public and private four-year colleges and universities. Survey (1988)
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Capturing More Than Poverty: School Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Data and Household Income
December 2017
Working Paper Number:
carra-2017-09
Educational researchers often use National School Lunch Program (NSLP) data as a proxy for student poverty. Under NSLP policy, students whose household income is less than 130 percent of the poverty line qualify for free lunch and students whose household income is between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty line qualify for reduced-price lunch. Linking school administrative records for all 8th graders in a California public school district to household-level IRS income tax data, we examine how well NSLP data capture student disadvantage. We find both that there is substantial disadvantage in household income not captured by NSLP category data, and that NSLP categories capture disadvantage on test scores above and beyond household income.
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