The effects of parenting on early adolescents' noncognitive skills: Evidence from a sample of twins in Germany.

Many theories in the social sciences assume that parenting affects child development. Previous research mostly supports the notion that parenting affects the skill development of children in early childhood. There are fewer studies testing whether parenting in early adolescence has such an influence. We estimate the effects of parenting on early adolescents' noncognitive skills using data from the German Twin Family Panel (TwinLife). Specifically, we look at the effects of parenting styles, parental activities, and extracurricular activities on the academic self-concept, motivation, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control of 10 to 14 years old children. To control for unobserved heterogeneity and reverse causality, we employ twin fixed-effects models combined with longitudinal information. In addition, MZ twin fixed effects models also control for genetic confounding. Our findings provide no support to the notion that parenting styles, parental activities, and extracurricular activities in early adolescence affect the development of children's noncognitive skills. We conclude that our results, in combination with the majority of evidence from previous research, are in line with a model according to which parenting has larger effects on the skill development of children in early childhood than in early adolescence.

When less conditioning provides better estimates: overcontrol and endogenous selection biases in research on intergenerational mobility.

The counterfactual approach to causality has become the dominant approach to understand causality in contemporary social science research. Whilst most sociologists are aware that unobserved, confounding variables may bias the estimates of causal effects (omitted variable bias), the threats of overcontrol and endogenous selection biases are less well known. In particular, widely used practices in research on intergenerational mobility are affected by these biases. I review four of these practices from the viewpoint of the counterfactual approach to causality and show why overcontrol and endogenous selection biases arise when these practices are implemented. I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) to demonstrate the practical consequences of these biases for conclusions about intergenerational mobility. I conclude that future research on intergenerational mobility should reflect more upon the possibilities of bias introduced by conditioning on variables.

Does Increasing the Minimum School-Leaving Age Affect the Intergenerational Transmission of Education? Evidence from Four European Countries.

Reforms in the minimum school-leaving age are candidates for policies that affect the intergenerational transmission of education. I propose that the societal contexts in which these reforms occur may moderate their effects on educational mobility. To test this hypothesis, I estimate the cross-country variation in the effects of increases in the minimum school-leaving age on educational mobility in four European countries. I employ a regression discontinuity design and data from the European Social Survey and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe on Austria, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands. The findings provide no evidence to the hypothesis that the reforms in the minimum school-leaving age changed the association between the education of parents and the education of their children in any of the four countries. These findings are robust to measuring educational attainment in a multitude of ways, and they do not vary between men and women. The results are at odds with rational choice theories that expect reforms in the minimum school-leaving age to increase educational mobility.

Sibling Similarity in Education Across and Within Societies.

The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling similarity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in education varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for theories about the impact of institutions and income inequality on educational inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.

Large loss in studying time during the closure of schools in Switzerland in 2020.

The majority of European, as well as many other, countries responded to the outbreak of the new coronavirus with a closure of schools and universities. The expectation of policy makers was that schools and universities would continue to provide lessons online and that students would engage in home learning. How much home learning has there been? We use nationally representative, longitudinal data on 14- to 25-year-old Swiss students to analyze the effects of school closures on studying time. Our results show that students reduced, on average, their studying time from 35 to 23 hours per week. This reduction was stronger for students in secondary school age than for students older than 18. Contrary to our expectations, these reductions in studying time did not vary between male and female students. In addition, children from families with highly educated parents reduced their studying time in absolute terms more than children from families with low educated parents. In relative terms, reductions in children's studying time did not vary by parental education. We also found some variation in the reduction in studying time across the three linguistic regions in Switzerland. Taken together, our findings show that studying time was considerably reduced during the closure of schools. We therefore conclude by suggesting political measures that can compensate for the loss in studying time a generation of Swiss students experienced between March and July 2020.

Dopamine synthesis and dopamine receptor expression are disturbed in recurrent miscarriages.

OBJECTIVES: l-dopa decarboxylase (DDC) is responsible for the synthesis of dopamine. Dopamine, which binds to the D2-dopamine receptor (D2R), plays an important role in the maintenance of pregnancy. Aim of our study was the analysis of DDC and D2R expression in placentas of spontaneous miscarriages (SMs) and recurrent miscarriages (RMs) in comparison to healthy controls. METHODS: Patients with SM (n = 15) and RM (n = 15) were compared with patients from healthy pregnancies (n = 15) (pregnancy weeks 7-13 each). Placental tissue has been collected from SMs and RMs from the first trimester (Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, LMU Munich) and from abruptions (private practice, Munich). Placental cell lines, BeWo- and JEG-3 cells, were stimulated with the trace amines T0AM and T1AM in vitro. RESULTS: Levels of DDC and D2R in trophoblasts and the decidua were lower in RMs in comparison to healthy controls. Stimulation of BeWo cells with T1AM significantly reduced DDC mRNA and protein levels. Via double-immunofluorescence, a DDC-positive cell type beneath decidual stromal cells and foetal EVT in the decidua could be detected. CONCLUSIONS: Downregulation of DDC and D2R in trophoblasts of RMs reflects a reduced signal cascade of catecholamines on the foetal side.

TAAR1 induces a disturbed GSK3ß phosphorylation in recurrent miscarriages through the ODC.

OBJECTIVES: Thyroid hormones play an important role in the maintenance of pregnancy. Their derivates, endogenous amines, act via binding to the trace amine-associated receptor (TAAR1). The aim of our study was to analyse the regulation of TAAR1, serine/threonine kinase (pGSK3ß) and ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) in placentas of healthy pregnancies, spontaneous (SM) and recurrent miscarriages (RM) and to investigate the influence of thyroid hormone derivates on TAAR1 expression in trophoblast model cells in vitro. METHODS: Patients with SM (n = 15) and RM (n = 15) were compared with patients with healthy pregnancies (n = 15) (pregnancy weeks 7-13 each). Immunohistochemistry was applied to analyse placental TAAR1, pGSK3ß and ODC expression. Protein expression of the receptors after stimulation with T3, T1AM and RO5203548 in BeWo trophoblast model cells was determined via Western blot. Double-immunofluorescence was used to determine placental expression of TAAR1 and ODC. RESULTS: Levels of TAAR1, pGSK3ß and ODC were higher in placentas of RM in comparison to healthy controls. Stimulation of BeWo cells with T3, T1AM and RO5203548 significantly increased TAAR1 expression. ODC expression in BeWo cells was upregulated through T3. Via double-immunofluorescence, TAAR1 and ODC-positive EVT could be detected. CONCLUSIONS: Upregulation of placental TAAR1 may indicate an increased decarboxylation of thyroid hormones in miscarriages. Patients with RM may have a lack of T3 through an enhanced transformation of T3 into T1AM induced by the ODC. Future investigations could be carried out to analyse what role a prophylactic T3 substitution plays for patients.

Compensation or Reinforcement? The Stratification of Parental Responses to Children's Early Ability.

Theory and empirical evidence suggest that parents allocate their investments unequally among their children, thus inducing within-family inequality. We investigate whether parents reinforce or compensate for initial ability differences between their children as well as whether these parental responses vary by family socioeconomic status (SES). Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and a twin fixed-effects approach to address unobserved heterogeneity, we find that parental responses to early ability differences between their children do vary by family SES. Contrary to prior findings, we find that advantaged parents provide more cognitive stimulation to higher-ability children, and lower-class parents do not respond to ability differences. No analogous stratification in parental responses to birth weight is found, suggesting that parents' responses vary across domains of child endowments. The reinforcing responses to early ability by high-SES parents do not, however, led to increases in ability differences among children because parental responses have little effect on children's later cognitive performance in this twin sample.