Family Transitions and Child Well-Being: Evidence from Adolescents

This paper uses panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) for 1988-2000 to examine the effects of family transitions during the teenage years on adolescent short-term high school performance and long-term adult outcomes. To deal with the potential endogeneity problem, I use OLS and first-difference models. The distinct feature of the NELS data allows for testing the OLS and first-difference estimates. The results indicate that parental death, in the short run, is associated with low test scores and this association can be interpreted as causality. Parental separation and parental job loss, in contrast, are associated with lower educational attainment in the future.