Health insurance, labor market shocks, and mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis.

We use the Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to examine employment and earnings loss, health insurance, and hardships related to physical and mental health and health care, as well as food insecurity and difficulty meeting expenses, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic job loss is strongly associated with uninsurance in the HPS. Moreover, among those who were not employed due to a pandemic economic reason such as a business closure, we find substantial regression-adjusted differences in hardship by insurance status, especially in the domains of mental health, mental health care and financial difficulties (food insufficiency and difficulty paying usual expenses).

School Disengagement, School-Age Births and High School Graduation: Evidence From Linked Administrative Records.

Background: Failure to complete secondary education often results from a process of educational disengagement. Studies of teen childbearing and high school completion have not adequately accounted for the role of school disengagement prior to conception and may overestimate causal impacts of teen childbearing.

Methods: We link New York City birth and school records to study a cohort of 22,484 Black and Latina public school students.

Longitudinal Patterns of School Disengagement before Conception among New York City Teen Mothers.

Background: School-based pregnancy prevention programs should optimally be offered while students are still engaged in school since early disengagement is strongly associated with risk of a teen birth.

Methods: We used linked New York City birth and enrollment data (2005-2013), a sample of 6,809 teen mothers (mean age conception = 16.2 years).

Capitalizing on Nigeria's demographic dividend: reaping the benefits and diminishing the burdens.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world, yet there is a dearth of published research about its demography. As Nigeria enters a period of potentially rapid economic growth due to the increase in the working-age population, it is critical to understand the demographic trends in the country. This paper examines the age and sex composition of Nigeria as it relates to various population characteristics using the two most recent Demographic and Health Surveys for Nigeria (2003 and 2008), as well as some data from the 2006 Census.