The Role of Young Men's Attainment of Alternate Educational Credentials in their Entry to Fatherhood
Open Access
- Author:
- Constance, Nicole Faye
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 01, 2017
- Committee Members:
- David Eggebeen, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Eggebeen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Bethany Cara Bray, Committee Member
Jeremy Staff, Committee Member
Nancy Susan Landale, Outside Member - Keywords:
- employment
family formation
male
credential
career and technical education
education
cohabitation
fertility - Abstract:
- As the U.S. labor market has evolved to include more jobs that require higher education to be competitive, the labor market prospects for low-skilled, less-educated men declined rapidly. At the same time, the U.S. experienced a rise in nonmarital cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing that has radically changed American family structure. Despite previous research suggesting that men’s economic position is important for family formation and in particular whether cohabiting couples will ultimately marry, there is a shortage of current research examining how men’s educational attainment influences their family formation behaviors. Given the potential promise of professional licenses, certifications, and educational certificates, collectively known as alternate educational credentials (AECs), for promoting employment outcomes among low-skilled adults, the aim of this dissertation is to examine the role of young men’s attainment of AECs in young men’s family formation behaviors. Using 16 waves of data on young men participating in the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), I explore the prevalence of young men’s attainment of AECs and whether earning AECs influences young men’s entry to fatherhood and the relationship context in which they enter fatherhood. Overall, about one-third (35 percent) of young men in the sample earned an AEC and an additional 26 percent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. Respondents who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher were on average more advantaged than their peers who did not. Among those who did not earn a bachelor’s degree, respondents who earned an AEC were similarly more advantaged than their peers that did not earn an AEC. I used discrete-time hazard analyses to examine the influence of earning an AEC on young men’s entry to fatherhood. Logistic regression analyses revealed no statistically significant differences in the odds of entering fatherhood among those who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher or those who earned an AEC compared to those who did not earn any credential after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics, educational experiences in high school, and a range of activities including labor force participation, post-secondary enrollment, and incarceration. There were, however, differences in young men’s entry to fatherhood in different relationship contexts. Young men who had earned an AEC were 23 percent more likely to father a child in a marital relationship than those who did not earn any kind of post-secondary credential, though the difference is not significant after controlling for other factors. Young men who had earned a bachelor’s degree or higher were significantly less likely to father a child outside a marital relationship than those who did not earn an AEC or a bachelor’s degree; they were also 23 percent more likely to father a child in a marital relationship than those who had not earned any kind of credential, though the difference is only marginally statistically significant. Other factors were significantly related to young men’s entry to fatherhood, including being employed full-time and being currently enrolled in a four-year college or university. These findings suggest that training programs that lead to AECs have the potential to promote stable family formation behaviors among young men, in addition to any potential benefits in the labor market. The implications of these findings for future research, human services programs, and social policy is also discussed.