The present study employs discrete-time hazard regression models to investigate the relationship between student loan debt and the probability of transitioning to either marital or nonmarital first childbirth using the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). Accounting for nonrandom selection into student loans using propensity scores, our study reveals that the effect of student loan debt on the transition to motherhood differs among white, black, and Hispanic women. Hispanic women holding student loans experience significant declines in the probability of transitioning to both marital and nonmarital motherhood, whereas black women with student loans are significantly more likely to transition to any first childbirth. Indebted white women experience only a decrease in the probability of a marital first birth. The results from this study suggest that student loans will likely play a key role in shaping future demographic patterns and behaviors.

Our findings point to the importance of psychological resilience in later life, especially within the realm of traumas occurring in early life. We discuss implications for current military training programs, stressing the importance of research considering individual resources and processes that promote adaptation in the face of adverse life events.

Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the current study examines which maternal age at birth provides offspring with optimal opportunities for higher educational attainment. The results show that maternal age has a curvilinear relationship with offspring’s educational attainment, i.e., the offspring of younger and older mothers are distinctly disadvantaged. Maternal ages 31 through 40 are associated with the highest offspring educational attainment, suggesting that women who give birth in their 30s have more favorable characteristics than younger or older mothers. The analysis demonstrates that—with the exception of early teenage childbearing—the association between maternal age and offspring’s educational attainment likely reflects selection patterns in fertility timing, rather than direct within-family effects of maternal age on offspring’s educational attainment. Thus, the results provide insufficient evidence to conclude that delaying childbearing beyond age 18 directly benefits or harms offspring’s educational attainment.

Objectives Drawing from cumulative inequality (CI) theory, the current study examined racial disparities in impairment as individuals approached death to determine whether proposed mechanisms hypothesized to fuel or diminish racial disparities at late ages were at work at the end of individualized life spans. Method Black–white disparities were analyzed among decedents using latent growth curves based on the data from the North Carolina Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE) (N = 1,926). Results Consistent with previous literature, racial inequalities in functional disparities diminish at late ages. However, significant black–white disparities emerge as older adults approach death, exponentially increasing within the 2 years immediately preceding death. Further, these disparities are not fully mediated by socioeconomic status. Discussion The results confirm that CI in health outcomes is observable in late life among individual life spans, suggesting the years surrounding death may be a particularly vulnerable period for health inequality. Future research should examine how advantaged statuses translate to increased access to health-related resources that aid in maintaining greater functional independence until the last stage of life.