Showing papers by "Yu Xie published in 2007"

Marriage and Cohabitation

Abstract: Situating their argument in the context of the Western world's five-hundred-year history of marriage, the authors of this work reveal what factors encourage marriage and cohabitation in a contemporary society where marriage and the relationships between women and men have changed dramatically. While many people still choose to marry without first cohabiting, others elect to cohabit with varying degrees of commitment or intentions of eventual marriage. The authors' controversial findings suggest that family history, religious affiliation, values, projected education, lifetime earnings, and career aspirations all tip the scales in favor of either cohabitation or marriage. This book lends new insight into young adult relationship patterns and will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and demographers alike.

Effects of Sibship Structure Revisited: Evidence from Intrafamily Resource Transfer in Taiwan

Abstract: Numerous studies have consistently found negative effects of sibship size on educational outcomes. Three main explanations of these effects have been offered in the literature: (1) the dilution of family resources, (2) a changing intellectual environment in the family for each succeeding sibling, and (3) unobserved selectivity at the family level. In this article, the authors propose a fourth explanation as an extension of the resource-dilution hypothesis: In a traditional or transitional society where resources from all family members are pooled together, families may sacrifice the educational opportunities of older (female) siblings and use their remittance to compensate the family expenses, particularly when there are younger siblings. With analyses of data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD), the authors found empirical evidence to support this explanation. In particular, they found that the negative effects of sibship size are the strongest for girls with younger brothers and sisters who a...

Socioeconomic Differentials in Mortality Among the Oldest Old in China

Abstract: Although an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and mortality has been well documented for many populations throughout the world, it remains unclear whether this relationship holds true for the oldest old. Most notably, some scholars have suggested that the relationship may disappear at the oldest ages. Using data from the 1998, 2000, and 2002 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, this study examined the relationship between SES and mortality among the oldest old (80 years and older) population in China. The results show the continuing prevalence of SES differentials in mortality—higher SES is significantly associated with lower mortality risks—among the oldest old in China. The authors further show that the relationship holds regardless of how the oldest old are operationalized (as 80 years and older, 90 years and older, or 100 years and older).

Identification and estimation of causal effects with time‐varying treatments and time‐varying outcomes*

Abstract: We develop an approach to identifying and estimating causal effects in longitudinal settings with time–varying treatments and time–varying outcomes. The classic potential outcome approach to causal inference generally involves two time periods: units of analysis are exposed to one of two possible values of the causal variable, treatment or control, at a given point in time, and values for an outcome are assessed some time subsequent to exposure. In this paper, we develop a potential outcome approach for longitudinal situations in which both exposure to treatment and the effects of treatment are time-varying. In this longitudinal setting, the research interest centers not on only two potential outcomes, but on a whole matrix of potential outcomes, requiring a complicated conceptualization of many potential counterfactuals. Motivated by sociological applications, we develop a simplification scheme—a weighted composite causal effect that allows identification and estimation of effects with a number of possible solutions. Our approach is illustrated via an analysis of the effects of disability on subsequent employment status using panel data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.

HTE: Stata module to perform heterogeneous treatment effect analysis

Abstract: -hte- performs heterogeneous treatment effect analyses as proposed by Xie, Brand, and Jann (2012, Sociological Methodology 42: 314-347). Three methods are supported, the stratification-multilevel method (-hte sm-), the matching-smoothing method (-hte ms-), and the smoothing-differencing method (-hte sd-). The -pscore- command (see -net sj 5-3 st0026_2-) and the -psmatch2- command (see -ssc describe psmatch2-) are required.