Who Needs a Fracking Education? The Educational Response to Low-Skill-Biased Technological Change

The authors explore the educational response to fracking—a recent technological breakthrough in the oil and gas industry—by taking advantage of the timing of its diffusion and spatial variation in shale reserves. They show that fracking has significantly increased relative demand for less-educated male labor and increased high school dropout rates of male teens, both overall and relative to females. Estimates imply that, absent fracking, the teen male dropout rate would have been 1 percentage point lower over the period 2011–15 in the average labor market with shale reserves, implying an elasticity of school enrollment with respect to earnings below historical estimates. Fracking increased earnings and job opportunities more among young men than male teenagers, suggesting that educational decisions respond to improved earnings prospects, not just opportunity costs. Other explanations for the findings, such as changes in school quality, migration, or demographics, receive less empirical support.

The Texas Drilling Boom and Local Human Capital Investment

Researchers and citizens alike question the long-term impacts of the shale oil boom on local communities. Studies have considered the boom’s effects on employment, income, mobility, and human capital acquisition. This research specifically builds on research considering shale effects on secondary schooling. Using county-level data from Texas, we investigate two questions: (1) Has the latest oil boom led to a reduction in local high school graduation? (2) Is this effect different for immigrants, a group potentially vulnerable to local wage effects? Findings indicate insignificant overall effects; however, local oil drilling increases immigrant high school dropout rates.

Moved to Opportunity: The Long-Run Effects of Public Housing Demolition on Children

This paper provides new evidence on the effects of moving out of disadvantaged neighborhoods on the long-run outcomes of children. I study public housing demolitions in Chicago, which forced low-income households to relocate to less disadvantaged neighborhoods using housing vouchers. Specifically, I compare young adult outcomes of displaced children to their peers who lived in nearby public housing that was not demolished. Displaced children are more likely to be employed and earn more in young adulthood. I also find that displaced children have fewer violent crime arrests. Children displaced at young ages have lower high school dropout rates. (JEL H75, I38, J13, R23, R38)

Mexican-American Educational Stagnation

High school dropout rates among Mexican Americans decline markedly between the first and second immigrant generations and, consequently, move closer to non-Hispanic white levels. However, the third generation makes little progress in closing the remaining gap with whites despite their parents having more schooling on average than those of the second generation. Utilizing 2007–2013 Current Population Survey data, we examine whether an inter-generational shift away from two-parent families contributes to this educational stagnation. We also consider the effect of changes in sibship size. The analysis involves performing a partial regression decomposition of differences between second- and third-generation Mexican-American adolescents (aged 16–17 years) in the likelihood of having dropped out. We find that Mexican third-generation teens are close to nine percentage points less likely than second-generation peers to live with two parents. The decomposition results suggest that this change in family structure offsets a substantial portion of the negative influence of rising parental education on third-generation dropout risk.

Education and Poverty as Factors in White and Black Rural and Urban Prison Admission Rates

The rise in White imprisonment in rural areas has gone almost completely unnoticed and undiscussed until very recently. Using data newly analyzed from the National Corrections Reporting Program restricted files for 2000-2013, this report documents the higher rates of prison admissions for Whites in rural areas and shows that these higher rates are tied to the higher rates of White poverty and lower White educational levels in rural areas. Further, places with less educated White people showed more growth in White imprisonment. Poverty and education explain the urban-rural difference in a statistical sense, but this does not mean that there is no rural-urban difference. Rather, the analysis points to the high concentration of White disadvantage in rural areas and smaller cities. The Black patterns are different: although rates of poverty and high school dropouts are higher in rural areas for Blacks, the correlations are weaker than for Whites and rural areas have lower Black imprisonment rates both before and after controls for education and poverty. Looking at changes in imprisonment rates between 2000-6 and 2007-11, both Black and White imprisonment rose in areas with higher high school dropout rates and lower Black percentages, but the effects of poverty and college graduation rates and percent Hispanic varied by race in multivariate models. Overall, the findings point to the importance both of disaggregating Black and White imprisonment rates and of recognizing that overall national trends obscure marked differences in the trends between places. They also point to concentrated White disadvantage in White rural areas as linked to rising White imprisonment rates. Further research is necessary to understand these trends.

Ending to What End? The Impact of the Termination of Court-Desegregation Orders on Residential Segregation and School Dropout Rates

In the early 1990s, the Supreme Court established standards to facilitate the release of school districts from racial desegregation orders. Over the next two decades, federal courts declared almost half of all districts under court order in 1991 to be “unitary”—that is, to have met their obligations to eliminate dual systems of education. I leverage a comprehensive dataset of all districts that were under court order in 1991 to assess the national effects of the termination of desegregation orders on indices of residential-racial segregation and high-school dropout rates. I conclude that the release from court orders moderately increased the short-term rates of Hispanic–White residential segregation. Furthermore, the declaration of districts as unitary increased rates of 16- to 19-year-old school dropouts by around 1 percentage point for Blacks, particularly those residing outside the South, and 3 percentage points for Hispanics.

Education Outcomes of Children of Asian Intermarriages: Does Gender of the Immigrant Parent Matter?

Studies about the effects of native and immigrant intermarriage on the human capital of children generally ignore disparate impacts by gender, ethnicity, or other attributes. Using 2000 U.S. Census data, we compare the high school dropout rates of 16–17-year-old children of Asian intermarriages and intra-marriages. We study differences between Asian-father and Asian-mother only families, controlling for observable child, parental and residential characteristics, as well as unobservable selection into intermarriage. Despite the higher average education and income levels of intermarried families, the children of Asian-father-native-mother households have higher dropout rates compared to both Asian intra-married and Asian-mother-native-father households. Children of less-educated fathers do worse, relative to children of less-educated mothers, suggesting the importance of intergenerational paternal transmission of education. Racial self-identity is also important: Children identify as “non-Asian” more often when the mother is native, and their families may under-emphasize education bringing them closer to native levels.