Many empirical studies have found that financial aid improves college attainment. Few have been able to test why. This study used administrative records of employment and earnings to get a more complete picture of students' finances during college and test one potential mechanism: financial aid buys students time by allowing them to work less in off-campus jobs. We studied recipients of New Jersey's need-based Tuition Aid Grant (TAG). We used the eligibility cutoffs of TAG to identify groups of otherwise similar students who received sharply different amounts of aid. A prior study took the same approach and found that TAG increased on-time graduation rates from public universities. At these schools, 80 percent of TAG recipients worked at some point during the year. This study found that when students received additional aid, on average they reduced earnings dollar for dollar.

A long literature has established that divorce is an important channel for married individuals to escape unhealthy circumstances. The complexity and high personal stakes of divorce may mean that true access to divorce hinges on access to legal services. Leveraging variation in access to legal services across geography and over time, we estimate the impact of this access on divorce in the United States. Using data from the Legal Services Corporation on legal service provision by geographic area and data from the American Community Survey on divorce and household income, we find that having access to legal services in a given year leads to an additional 2.5 to 3.5 divorces per 1000 income-eligible individuals, an approximately 7 to 9 percent increase in divorce. This magnitude is on par with historical work on the rollout of the first national legal services program. The identified effect is robust to several controls, is not driven purely by spatial variation in divorce rates, and is not sensitive to alternative specifications. These findings underscore the importance of access to legal services in civil contexts.

Twenty years ago, the United States was divided by heated debates over legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. Those in favor argued that granting same-sex couples access to marriage would strengthen commitment for same-sex couples, extend the financial benefits of marriage to same-sex households, and improve outcomes for children raised by same-sex parents. Those who were opposed argued that granting legal status to marriages between same-sex partners would alter the foundation of marriage and diminish its value for different-sex couples, ultimately harming children by making them less likely to be raised in stable, two-parent families. It has now been 20 years since Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in May 2004. The consequences of extending legal recognition to same-sex couples need no longer be a topic of speculation and debate; researchers have had two decades to study the consequences of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals; their children; and the general public. The broad goal of this study is to document those consequences. The authors pursued this goal in two ways. First, they conducted a comprehensive review of the existing research literature on the effects of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. Second, they conducted new analyses to evaluate the prediction that rates of marriage, cohabitation, and divorce and attitudes toward marriage would be adversely affected by granting same-sex couples access to legal marriage.

This paper investigates to what extent there is a ‘traditional’ career among individuals with a Ph.D. in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) discipline. We use longitudinal data that follows the first 7–9 years of post-conferral employment among scientists who attained their degree in the U.S. between 2000 and 2008. We use three methods to identify a traditional career. The first two emphasize those most commonly observed, with two notions of commonality; the third compares the observed careers with archetypes defined by the academic pipeline. Our analysis includes the use of machine-learning methods to find patterns in careers; this paper is the first to use such methods in this setting. We find that if there is a modal, or traditional, science career, it is in non-academic employment. However, given the diversity of pathways observed, we offer the observation that traditional is a poor descriptor of science careers.

Occupational credentials provide an additional—and, at times, alternative—path other than traditional academic degrees for individuals to increase productivity and demonstrate their abilities and qualifications to employers. In the United States, these credentials typically take the form of licenses and certifications. Although a critical part of the workforce landscape, the literature on the returns to credentials is inadequate, with prior research typically relying on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions which do not sufficiently control for selection. Using questions that identify credential receipt from the 2015 and 2016 United States’ Current Population Surveys, we construct an instrumental variable of local peer influence using the within-labor market credential rate of individuals sharing the same sociodemographic characteristics, while controlling for the same group's average wages and a suite of demographic and geographic controls. We use this instrument in a marginal treatment effects estimator, which allows for estimation of the average treatment effect and determines the direction of selection, and we estimate the effects of credentials on labor market outcomes. We find large, meaningful returns in the form of increased probability of individual employment, an effect which is concentrated primarily among women. The effect of having a credential on log wages is higher for those in the sub-baccalaureate labor market, suggesting the potential role of occupational credentials as an alternative path to marketable human capital and a signal of skills in the absence of a bachelor's degree.

This paper examines gender variation in departures from the tenure-track science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) academic career pathway to non-tenure-track academic careers. We integrate multiple data sources including the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to examine longitudinal career outcomes of STEM doctorate women. We consider three types of careers after receipt of a PhD: academic, academic non-tenure-track, and non-academic positions. We find that STEM women are more likely to hold academic non-tenure-track positions, which are associated with lower job satisfaction and lower salaries among men and women. Explanations including differences in field of study, preparation in graduate school, and family structure only explain 35 percent of the gender gap in non-tenure-track academic positions.

Women comprise less than a quarter of full professors in STEM departments in United States universities, yet women outnumber men at the assistant professor level, underscoring the imbalanced representation of women in the academic career pipeline. In this paper, we present the results of a systematic review which explores the reasons why women are underrepresented (compared to their male counterparts) in STEM academic jobs. We conducted a thematic synthesis of key findings from the included records to identify common explanations for women's leaks out of the STEM academic pipeline. Our systematic review yielded 98 papers in our final sample, and we derived 16 unique themes from the abstracted findings. We found: 1) there is limited research regarding individual choice and preference to work in STEM academic positions; and 2) there is limited research regarding demand-side factors (e.g., compensation and job availability). We discuss the consequences of the imbalanced literature and why it is important to remedy the paucity of research on these specific elements.

Research on the middle class has typically defined middle class membership in terms of income. In this paper, we develop a consumption-based measure of the middle class that closely follows economic theory of constrained optimization. Overall, we find that only 55% of those considered middle-class by income are also classified as middle-class by consumption, with the remaining 45% divided between the consumption working class (34%) and the consumption upper class (11%). Put differently, a sizable share of Americans-16% of the overall population-are characterized as middle-class but consume like they are working-class, with little capacity to save. We find substantial differences in the demographic makeup of the consumption-based middle class compared to the income-based middle class. Notably, fewer Black and Hispanic Americans are included in a consumption-based measure of the middle class, reinforcing distinctions between income and wealth drawn by prior literature.

Objective To estimate the effects of state-level changes in the minimum wage on marriage and divorce among low-wage earners. Background Proponents of raising the minimum wage highlight the potential benefits of increased earnings for low-income families, yet to date research on the effects of raising the minimum wage has focused almost exclusively on economic outcomes. No research has yet documented whether these changes actually affect marriage and divorce. Method Using the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, this project applied a quasi-experimental difference-in-difference method to exploit similarities between states that have, and have not, raised their minimum wage. Results Across data sources, among men and women earning low wages, a one-dollar increase in the state minimum wage predicts a 3%-6% decline in marriage entry and a 7%-15% decline in divorce one and 2 years later. Conclusion Both changes are likely to strengthen low-income families, and are substantially larger effects than those obtained by federal policies directly targeting interpersonal dynamics within low-income couples. Implications Government policies that reduce stress on couples and facilitate their access to resources may improve family outcomes, invisibly and without making additional demands on the time of couples who are already strained.

collaborative groups of researchers on defined areas of inquiry, to accelerate progress toward the development of new treatments and vaccines to prevent and cure autoimmune conditions, cancer and infectious disease. Together, LJI and WHAM will create a framework for researchers to re-analyze existing data with sex as a biological variable, to work together to spark new projects, to hire new faculty to build key research areas, to communicate via The WHAM Report, and to establish an ignition point for new leadership in the scientific field. We present the health and economic improvements and resulting impact on costs for the primary specification: a 0.1 percent average health improvement in mortality and disease incidence and a 0.01 percent QALY improvement, with three times the impact for women as for men. Different funding scenarios are compared to provide context for these results. Finally, we present the resulting ROIs and probability of success necessary to have an expected ROI of 15 percent. Complete results are provided in the technical report (Baird et al., 2021).

Principals are the second-largest school-based contributor to student achievement. Interventions focused early in the “pipeline” for identifying and developing effective principals might be a promising strategy for promoting principal effectiveness, yet no prior research has examined measures of principal performance during preservice preparation. We analyze 31 measures of principal practices developed by New Leaders and integrate into their year-long, preservice Aspiring Principals program. We link these measures to administrative data in nine districts to understand how they predict student and principal outcomes after candidate placement. We find associations with gains in student achievement on standardized tests, gains in student attendance, and higher rates of principal retention. We compare our results with studies of measures from licensure exams and evaluation systems.

collaborative groups of researchers on defined areas of inquiry, to accelerate progress toward the development of new treatments and vaccines to prevent and cure autoimmune conditions, cancer and infectious disease. Together, LJI and WHAM will create a framework for researchers to re-analyze existing data with sex as a biological variable, to work together to spark new projects, to hire new faculty to build key research areas, to communicate via The WHAM Report, and to establish an ignition point for new leadership in the scientific field.

Experts from the RAND Corporation prepared this independent report on New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program for low-income college students. Leaders in New Jersey are evaluating TAG to explore how the program was designed, how it is working, and how it might be improved. The findings also relate to federal policy and to other state aid programs.

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This Perspective summarizes recent trends in young peoples' entrance into and completion of postsecondary educational programs. Education is an important pathway into well-paying jobs and the American middle class. Education levels have been rising for the past 50 years, but declining public support for higher education, increasing costs, and low completion rates threaten young adults' pathway to a two- or four-year college degree.

RAND working papers are intended to share researchers’ latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. This working paper has approved for circulation by RAND Social and Economic Well-Being and completed RAND’s research quality assurance process, but it has not been formally edited or proofread. Unless otherwise indicated, working papers can be quoted and cited without permission of the author, provided the source is clearly referred to as a working paper. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsorssdfsd. R® is a registered trademark.