It is well documented that women in Western society have significantly higher rates of psychological distress than men (Al-Issa, 1982). In sociology, most discussions of this fact have revolved around the idea that women" s social roles are more stress provoking and less fulfilling than those occupied by men (Gove, 1978). This social-role explanation has fostered a substantial body of research on sex differences in chronic role-related stress. This work has typically been based on indirect measures of stress. Marital status, numbers and ages of children, and employment status have been used to make inferences about chronic stress (Gove, 1972;Radloff, 1975;Gove and Geerken, 1977;Aneshensel et al., 1981). For example, the sex-distress relationship has been shown to be more pronounced among the married than the previously married or never married (Gove, 1972; Fox, 1980 ble for the higher levels of distress among women than men.Although provocative, this indirect line of analysis cannot take us far in understanding the processes that create distress amotig men and women. Only gross comparisons across constellations of status profiles are possible, and these lend themselves to multiple interpretations including the possibility that prior psychological status or predispositions lead to selection into or out of certain statuses. (Kessler and McRae, 1984). There have been a few attempts to move beyond this Indirect assessment, by measuring role stresses and resources directly (Pearlin, 1975; Kessler and McRae, 1982), but this has proven to be quite difficult. The role-stress measures developed so far are highly subjective in content, and this has hampered attempts to make causal inferences. (For a critique, see Kessler [1983].) in the face of this difficulty, some researchers have turned to an examination of sex differences in exposure and response to undesirable life events (Dohrenwend, 1973; Kessler. 1979;Radloff and Rae, 1981). This approach offers methodological advantages over the analysis of chronic stress in that exposure can be unambiguously measured. Furthermore, the consideration of life events is necessary for a comprehensive interpretation of sex differences in stress exposure.This research has documented that although men and women do not differ greatly in the number of undesirable life events they experience, women are significantly more affected emotionally than men. Indeed, this greater female vulnerability to life-event effects accounts for a substantial part of the overall re-620

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Do childhood emotional and behavioral problems diminish the probability of graduating from high school and attending college? If so, are their effects primarily attributable to the persistence of those problems over time, to continuities in social environments, or to the cumulative effects of early academic failures? We provide answers to these questions using data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data set (1986-2000). Internalizing and externalizing problems at ages 6-8 significantly and strongly diminish the probability of receiving a high school degree. Among youth who receive a high school degree, externalizing problems also diminish the probability of subsequent college enrollment. In the case of high school degree receipt, the educational disadvantages associated with child emotional and behavioral problems result from the association of those problems with academic failures in middle and high school. In contrast, the association of childhood behavior problems with college enrollment appears to reflect the persisting effects of early behavioral and academic predispositions. Our results add to a growing body of research that demonstrates that social selection processes contribute to socioeconomic disparities. They also suggest new directions for research concerned with socially-structured, transactional, person-environment interactions.

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