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We examine change across U.S. cohorts born between 1920 and 2000 in their probability of having had sex with same-sex partners in the last year and since age 18. Using data from the 1988–2018 General Social Surveys, we explore how trends differ by gender, race, and class background. We find steep increases across birth cohorts in the proportion of women who have had sex with both men and women since age 18, whereas increases for men are less steep. We suggest that the trends reflect an increasingly accepting social climate, and that women’s steeper trend is rooted in a long-term asymmetry in gender change, in which nonconformity to gender norms is more acceptable for women than men. We also find evidence that, among men, the increase in having had sex with both men and women was steeper for black than for white men, and for men of lower socioeconomic status; we speculate that the rise of mass incarceration among less privileged men may have influenced this trend.

We advance current knowledge of school punishment by examining (1) the prevalence of exclusionary discipline in elementary school, (2) racial disparities in exclusionary discipline in elementary school, and (3) the association between exclusionary discipline and aggressive behavior in elementary school. Using child and parent reports from the Fragile Families Study, we estimate that more than one in ten children born between 1998 and 2000 in large US cities were suspended or expelled by age nine, when most were in third grade. We also find extreme racial disparity; about 40 percent of non-Hispanic black boys were suspended or expelled, compared to 8 percent of non-Hispanic white or other-race boys. Disparities are largely due to differences in children’s school and home environments rather than to behavior problems. Next, consistent with social stress and strain theories, we find suspension or expulsion associated with increased aggressive behavior in elementary school. This association does not vary by race but is robust to a rich set of covariates, within-individual fixed effects, and matching methods. In conjunction with what we find for racial disparities, our results imply that school discipline policies relying heavily on exclusionary punishment may be fostering childhood inequality.

Objectives: I extend the life-course theory of cumulative disadvantage to focus on continuity in punishment across generations. Specifically, I examine (1) the association between paternal incarceration and elementary school suspension or expulsion and (2) the extent to which behavior problems and weakened social bonds explain this association. Method: Analyses rely on logistic regression, propensity score matching, and mediation methods with data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,201), a birth cohort of children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. Results: The odds of school punishment among children who had a residential father incarcerated by age 5 are 75 percent greater than the odds for children in a matched control group. About one third of this association is accounted for by behavior problems and weakened social bonds. Even after accounting for behavior problems and social bonds, children whose fathers were incarcerated are at greater risk of school punishment. Conclusions: I find evidence of an intergenerational stability of punishment and mixed support for an intergenerational extension to cumulative disadvantage theory. Paternal incarceration is associated with children’s likelihood of experiencing formal punishment in elementary school, and behavior problems and weakened social bonds explain part of this association

Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Uganda are at risk of early sexual debut, unwanted pregnancy, violence, and disproportionally high HIV infection rates, driven in part by transactional sex. This paper examines the extent to which AGYW’s participation in transactional sex is perceived to be coerced. We conducted 19 focus group discussions and 44 in-depth interviews using semi-structured tools. Interviews were audio recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis. While AGYW did not necessarily use the language of coercion, their narratives describe a number of coercive aspects in their relationships. First, coercion by force as a result of “de-toothing” a man (whereby they received money or resources but did not wish to provide sex as “obligated” under the implicit “terms” of the relationships). Second, they described the coercive role that receiving resources played in their decision to have sex in the face of men’s verbal insistence. Finally, they discussed having sex as a result of coercive economic circumstances including poverty, and because of peer pressure to uphold modern lifestyles. Support for income-generation activities, microfinance and social protection programmes may help reduce AGYW’s vulnerability to sexual coercion in transactional sex relationships. Targeting gender norms that contribute to unequal power dynamics and social expectations that obligate AGYW to provide sex in return for resources, critically assessing the meaning of consensual sex, and normative interventions building on parents’ efforts to ascertain the source of their daughters’ resources may also reduce AGYW’s vulnerability to coercion.

We offer a new strategy to identify the distribution of treatment effects using data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), a relatively understudied early-childhood intervention for low birth-weight infants. We introduce a new policy parameter, QCD, which denotes quantiles of the effect distribution conditional on latent neonatal health. The dependence between potential outcomes originates from a new class of factor models where latent health can affect the location and shape of distributions. We first show that QCD depends on quantiles of marginal outcome distributions given latent health. We then achieve identification of these marginal distributions and QCD by proxying latent health with neonatal anthropometrics and accounting for measurement error in these proxies. The effects of enrolling in IHDP are widely distributed across children and depend on neonatal health. Moreover, the large average effects documented in past work for close to normal birth weight children from low-income families are driven by a minority of children in this group.

Black sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are at greater risk for HIV compared to their White, cisgender, heterosexual counterparts. Linkage to culturally sensitive health care is, therefore, pivotal for HIV prevention and treatment of Black SGM. Unfortunately, social and structural challenges undermine Black SGM individuals' abilities to obtain adequate health care services, indicating a need to understand Black SGM perceptions of health care. To address this gap, we interviewed Black men who have sex with men and transwomen about their experiences with health care providers. Participants discussed needs and concerns, including provider SGM identity diversity and education; assumptions, judgment, stigma, and discrimination; and ability to establish a personal bond, trust, and familiarity. Black SGM indicated that providers often did not meet their needs in different ways regarding their SGM identities. Findings suggest a need for provider cultural sensitivity education programs that address the needs of Black SGM in health care.

Sangeetha Madhavan, African American Studies Department

Laurie DeRose, Research Assistant Professor, Maryland Population Research Center

Jessica N. Fish, Family Science, investigates sexual-orientation-related disparities in mental, behavioral, and physical health

Seeds of Unity: Examining the Link Between Joint Land Titles and Women's Status in Western Uganda