Wen‐jui Han
Biographic Data
| ID | 804720 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wen‐jui Han |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wen‐jui |
| FAMILY NAME | Han |
| SIGNATURE | HAN W J |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2054-2275 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 558 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Health as a rich people’s game through the lens of work and income
The growing reliance on precarious employment —work that is uncertain, insecure, and unstable —has transformed work for many from a resource to a vulnerability for health and well-being. Using longitudinal data from the NLSY79 cohort (n ≈ 6,666) in the United States, we focused on two social determinants of health (SDOH), work and family income. We examine work schedule and income patterns between ages 22 and 49, explicitly building upon the life…
Exploring the role of ecological systems and intersectionality in shaping the academic performance of Chinese adolescents
How Couples' Longitudinal Work Schedule Arrangements Shape Individual Health and Sleep at Middle Adulthood
Using the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 and a life-course lens, we used sequence analysis to chart couples' work patterns between ages 22 and 49 (n = 5232). We then used multivariate regression analysis to examine how variations in couples' joint work arrangements may shape individual physical and mental health and sleep behaviors at age 50. We also examined associations by gender and race-ethnicity. Our sequence analysis uncove…
Charting Work Arrangements and Family Configuration over Our Working Lives
Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979, we used sequence analysis to chart couples' work schedules and family configuration clusters between ages 22 and 53 ( n = 5263) to examine the association between family demands from marriage and childrearing and work arrangements between partners via a life course perspective by focusing on nonstandard work schedules, a vital indicator of precarious employment. We also explored whether such a…
Special Issue on the Challenges for family and child well‐being in the new era
Work Schedule Patterns and Health over Thirty-Years of Working Lives: NLSY79 Cohort
Changing Employment and Work Schedule Patterns over the 30 Working Years—A Sequential Cluster Analysis
Our analysis underscores the dynamic employment patterns over our working lives, with some groups more likely than others to be engaged in nonstandard or volatile work schedules. Importantly, the groups likely to be subject to nonstandard work schedules also tend to have relatively disadvantaged social positions, thus worsening their vulnerability in securing work characterized by stability and economic security
Precarious parental employment, economic hardship, and parenting and child happiness amidst a pandemic
Multidimensional poverty and children’s behavioral trajectories in immigrant families: Beating the odds
Precarious Parental Employment and Use of Alcohol or Substance during Covid-19
As labor markets have become increasingly volatile, more workers are susceptible to conditions that threaten their economic security. COVID-19 has further laid bare such economic insecurity with far-reaching implications for coping skills and strategies. Using a cross-sectional dataset collected in May 2020 in the United States, we examined how precarious jobs were associated with alcohol or substance use among parents during the pandemic and if …
Who We Live With and How We Are Feeling: A Study of Household Living Arrangements and Subjective Well-Being Among Older Adults in China
Using a sample of Chinese adults over the age of 50 from wave 1 of the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (n = 13,367), we investigated the relationship between living arrangements and subjective well-being (SWB) in regard to life satisfaction, happiness, and control. We also looked at the moderating role of resources, proxied by income and hukou status. Multivariate regression results indicate that living only with a spouse was signific…
Does internet access make a difference for older adults’ cognition in urban China? The moderating role of living arrangements
Since the mid-1990s, information technology, particularly the diffusion of the internet, has brought tremendous changes to communication and social participation for people in China, including older adults. At the same time, modernisation and urbanisation have transformed the way many people in China live. The traditional multigenerational household-older adults living with adult children and grandchildren-is giving way to other living arrangemen…
Job precarity and economic prospects during the Covid‐19 public health crisis
OBJECTIVE: As labor markets in recent decades have become increasingly volatile and precarious, more workers are susceptible to working conditions threatening their economic security. COVID-19 has further laid bare such economic insecurity from holding a precarious job. We examined the association between precarious employment and the probability of losing income or a job during COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A multivariate regression analysis was c…
Covid‐19 Interconnectedness: Health Inequity, the Climate Crisis, and Collective Trauma
The COVID‐19 pandemic brings to the forefront the complex interconnected dilemmas of globalization, health equity, economic security, environmental justice, and collective trauma, severely impacting the marginalized and people of color in the United States. This lack of access to and the quality of healthcare, affordable housing, and lack of financial resources also continue to have a more significant impact on documented and undocumented immigra…
Uncovering Multidimensional Poverty Experiences in Shaping Children’s Socioemotional Trajectories during the First 6 Years of Schooling
The extant literature has attested to the importance of poverty on child well‐being generally using a unidimensional approach. Researchers have yet to establish solid evidence on how multiple dimensions of poverty (e.g., depth, volatility, and spells of exposure) might be associated with children’s socioemotional well‐being during their early school years. Building upon Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory, this study used latent class a…
Covid-19 Experiences and Parental Mental Health
Objective: The public health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have significant implications for parental mental health throughout the United States, especially when considering preexisting economic and mental health disparities. We examined the association between COVID-19 experiences and parental mental distress. Method: In May 2020, we collected data cross-sectionally from 1,000 parents with at least one child age 17 or young…
A first look at parental work schedules and children's well-being in contemporary China
This article examines the association between parental work schedules and children's well-being using a 2014 sample of first-graders in Shanghai, China (N = 2282), a society undergoing rapid economic and social changes. Approximately one-third of the sampled parents worked nonstandard hours in 2014. Propensity score matching analysis results show that children whose fathers worked evening and night schedules had worse internalizing behavior than …
Preschool attendance and school readiness for children of immigrant mothers in the United States
We examined the associations between preschool attendance and academic school readiness at kindergarten entry among 5-year-old children of immigrant mothers in the United States using data from a US nationally representative sample (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort, N = 1650). Comparing children who were in preschool (Head Start, prekindergarten, or other center-based preschool) to children being cared for exclusively at home, anal…
Relations Between Socioeconomic Status, Subjective Social Status, and Health in Shanghai, China
Objectives Although research has established a strong link between socioeconomic status (SES) and health in Western settings, comparable work in China lags behind. Similarly, studies showing a unique relationship for subjective social status (SSS) and health above and beyond SES have yet to be tested in China. The present study addresses these gaps. Methods Regression analyses investigated the relationship between SES, SSS, and mental and physica…
The response to rural-to-urban migration and other life stressors in Shanghai: Effects on physical and psychological well-being among parents of young children
Poverty Dynamics and Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants
Using Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K), we investigated the relationship between poverty and academic trajectories for children in immigrant families in the United States. We used family socioeconomic status (SES) which considers parental education, parental occupation, and family income to define poverty in correspondence with the U.S. federal poverty threshold. Three dimensions of poverty were examine…
Women’s Short-Term Employment Trajectories Following Birth: Patterns, Determinants, and Variations by Race/Ethnicity and Nativity
Despite a large literature documenting the impact of childbearing on women’s wages, less understanding exists of the actual employment trajectories that mothers take and the circumstances surrounding different paths. We use sequence analysis to chart the entire employment trajectory for a diverse sample of U.S. women by race/ethnicity and nativity in the first year following childbirth. Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income…
The effects of preschool attendance on adolescent outcomes in rural China
Fathers' Leave and Fathers' Involvement: Evidence from Four OECD Countries
In recent years, several OECD countries have taken steps to promote policies encouraging fathers to spend more time caring for young children, thereby promoting a more gender equal division of care work. Evidence, mainly for the United States and United Kingdom, has shown fathers taking some time off work around childbirth are more likely to be involved in childcare related activities than fathers who do not take time off. This paper conducts a f…
Is participation in Head Start associated with less maternal spanking for boys and girls
The effects of early maternal employment on child cognitive development
We investigated the effects of early maternal employment on children’s cognitive outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on 1,872 children who can be followed from birth to age 7 or 8. We found some persistent adverse effects of first-year maternal employment and some positive effects of second- and third-year maternal employment on cognitive outcomes for non-Hispanic white children, but not for African American or His…
Maternal Employment and Child Development: A Fresh Look Using Newer Methods
The employment rate for mothers with young children has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Estimating the effects of maternal employment on children's development is challenged by selection bias and the missing data endemic to most policy research. To address these issues, this study uses propensity score matching and multiple imputation. The authors compare outcomes across 4 maternal employment patterns: no work in first 3 years post…
Women’s Short-Term Employment Trajectories Following Birth: Patterns, Determinants, and Variations by Race/Ethnicity and Nativity
Despite a large literature documenting the impact of childbearing on women’s wages, less understanding exists of the actual employment trajectories that mothers take and the circumstances surrounding different paths. We use sequence analysis to chart the entire employment trajectory for a diverse sample of U.S. women by race/ethnicity and nativity in the first year following childbirth. Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income…
The Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Later Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes
This article investigates the long-term impact of early maternal employment on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Non-Hispanic White and African American children aged 3 to 4 in the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were followed longitudinally to see whether the effects that prior studies found at age 3 to 4 persist into the school-age years (ages 7 to 8) or whether those effects attenuate over time. The empirical results ind…
Parental work schedules and adolescent risky behaviors
Using a large contemporary data set (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement), the authors examined the effects of parental work schedules on adolescent risky behaviors at age 13 or 14 and the mechanisms that might explain them. Structural equation modeling suggests mothers who worked more often at night spent significantly less time with children and had lower quality home environments, and these mediators were significantly l…
Parental leave policies and parents' employment and leave‐taking
We describe trends in maternal employment and leave-taking after birth of a newborn and analyze the extent to which these behaviors are influenced by parental leave policies. Data are from the June Current Population Survey (CPS) Fertility Supplements, merged with other months of the CPS, and cover the period 1987 to 1994. This time span is one during which parental leave legislation expanded at both the state and federal level. We also provide t…
Fathers' Leave and Fathers' Involvement: Evidence from Four OECD Countries
In recent years, several OECD countries have taken steps to promote policies encouraging fathers to spend more time caring for young children, thereby promoting a more gender equal division of care work. Evidence, mainly for the United States and United Kingdom, has shown fathers taking some time off work around childbirth are more likely to be involved in childcare related activities than fathers who do not take time off. This paper conducts a f…
The academic trajectories of children of immigrants and their school environments
Data from approximately 14,000 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey--Kindergarten Cohort were analyzed to examine the associations between children's immigrant status and their academic trajectories from kindergarten to 3rd grade, with particular attention to the effects of school environments. Growth curve modeling results indicated that most children of Latin American origin improved their reading and math scores faster than non-…
Parental leave: The impact of recent legislation on parents’ leave taking
We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of leave entitlements on unpaid leave usage by men and women after the birth of a child from 1991 to 1999. The results indicate that legislation providing the right to unpaid leave has not affected men’s leave usage. The results for women are mixed: in some specifications, leave entitlements are associated with increased leave taking or longer leaves, but the re…
Time for Children: Trends in the Employment Patterns of Parents, 1967–2009
Using data from the 1967–2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys (CPS), we examine two important resources for children’s well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents—particularly mothers, who in prior decades would have remained at home. This increas…
Child Care Costs and Women's Employment: A Comparison of Single and Married Mothers With Pre‐School‐Aged Children
Objectives . The effects of child care costs on the employment of single and married mothers with pre‐school‐aged children were analyzed. Methods . Both demographic and employment data from the March Current Population Survey were used, supplemented by child care data from various sources. Results . We find that child care costs have strong effects on employment for women with pre‐school‐aged children and that these effects are larger for single …
Head start participation and school readiness: Evidence from the early childhood longitudinal study–birth cohort
Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ≈ 6,950), a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001, we examined school readiness (academic skills and socioemotional well-being) at kindergarten entry for children who attended Head Start compared with those who experienced other types of child care (prekindergarten, other center-based care, other nonparental care, or parental care). Using propensity score m…
Child care and school performance in Denmark and the United States
Bilingualism and socioemotional well-being
Parental Work Schedules and Children's Cognitive Trajectories
Previous work has shown an association between mothers' nonstandard work schedules and children's well-being. We built on this research by examining the relationship between parental shift work and children's reading and math trajectories from age 5/6 to 13/14. Using data (N=7,105) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and growth curve modeling, we found that children's math and reading trajectories were related to parents' type of nonst…
Parental work schedules and adolescent depression
Using a large contemporary United States data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), this paper examines the relationship between parental work schedules and adolescent depression at age 13 or 14, paying particular attention to the mechanisms that may explain this relationship. Analysis based on structural equation modeling showed that increased work at night by mothers was significantly associated with a lower…
Maternal Nonstandard Work Schedules and Adolescent Overweight
Objectives. We investigated whether nonstandard work schedules by mothers were associated with adolescent overweight. Methods. We conducted multiple regression analyses using a sample of mother–child pairs (n=2353) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the association between the number of years mothers worked at nonstandard schedules and adolescent overweight at age 13 or 14 years. Separate analyses were also conducted by fam…
Child Care in the Wake of Welfare Reform: The Impact of Government Subsidies on the Economic Well-Being of Single-Mother Families
Using microsimulation techniques to estimate the impact of welfare reform in New York, we find that 5 years after federal and state reforms child-care use and costs will rise substantially and families will bear most of these costs. When family incomes are adjusted for child-care costs, most single-mother families will continue to be poor even with greater earnings, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and food stamps. The distribution of child-care cos…
The Forgotten Treasure: Bilingualism and Asian Children's Emotional and Behavioral Health
Objectives. We investigated the relation between the language status of children and their behavioral and emotional well-being during their early school years. Methods. Behavioral and emotional well-being were drawn from teacher-reported data and included externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Three-level growth curve analyses were conducted on a subsample (n = 12 586) of children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten coho…
Job precarity and economic prospects during the Covid‐19 public health crisis
OBJECTIVE: As labor markets in recent decades have become increasingly volatile and precarious, more workers are susceptible to working conditions threatening their economic security. COVID-19 has further laid bare such economic insecurity from holding a precarious job. We examined the association between precarious employment and the probability of losing income or a job during COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A multivariate regression analysis was c…
A first look at parental work schedules and children's well-being in contemporary China
This article examines the association between parental work schedules and children's well-being using a 2014 sample of first-graders in Shanghai, China (N = 2282), a society undergoing rapid economic and social changes. Approximately one-third of the sampled parents worked nonstandard hours in 2014. Propensity score matching analysis results show that children whose fathers worked evening and night schedules had worse internalizing behavior than …
School readiness among children of immigrants in the US: Evidence from a large national birth cohort study
Child Support Enforcement, Joint Legal Custody, and Parental Involvement
This article uses the 1992–98 waves of the Current Population Survey‐Child Support Supplement to examine whether state child support enforcement affects the likelihood of divorced parents choosing joint legal custody and whether such custody increases the involvement of nonresident parents. This involvement is measured by child support payment and visitation. We find that effective child support enforcement increases the probability of joint lega…
Precarious parental employment, economic hardship, and parenting and child happiness amidst a pandemic
Assessing school supports for ELL students using the ECLS-K
Child Care Costs and Women's Employment: A Comparison of Single and Married Mothers With Pre‐School‐Aged Children
Objectives . The effects of child care costs on the employment of single and married mothers with pre‐school‐aged children were analyzed. Methods . Both demographic and employment data from the March Current Population Survey were used, supplemented by child care data from various sources. Results . We find that child care costs have strong effects on employment for women with pre‐school‐aged children and that these effects are larger for single …
Child Care in the Wake of Welfare Reform: The Impact of Government Subsidies on the Economic Well-Being of Single-Mother Families
Using microsimulation techniques to estimate the impact of welfare reform in New York, we find that 5 years after federal and state reforms child-care use and costs will rise substantially and families will bear most of these costs. When family incomes are adjusted for child-care costs, most single-mother families will continue to be poor even with greater earnings, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and food stamps. The distribution of child-care cos…
The Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Later Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes
This article investigates the long-term impact of early maternal employment on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Non-Hispanic White and African American children aged 3 to 4 in the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were followed longitudinally to see whether the effects that prior studies found at age 3 to 4 persist into the school-age years (ages 7 to 8) or whether those effects attenuate over time. The empirical results ind…
Maternal Employment and Child Cognitive Outcomes in the First Three Years of Life: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care
With increased numbers of women employed in their children’s first year of life and with increased attention being paid by parents and policy makers to the importance of early experiences for children, establishing the links that might exist between early maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes is more important than ever. Negative associations between maternal employment during the first year of life and children’s cognitive outcomes at…
The effects of early maternal employment on child cognitive development
We investigated the effects of early maternal employment on children’s cognitive outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on 1,872 children who can be followed from birth to age 7 or 8. We found some persistent adverse effects of first-year maternal employment and some positive effects of second- and third-year maternal employment on cognitive outcomes for non-Hispanic white children, but not for African American or His…
The Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Child Cognitive Development
We investigated the effects of early maternal employment on children's cognitive outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on 1,872 children who can be followed from birth to age 7 or 8. We found some persistent adverse effects of first-year maternal employment and some positive effects of second- and third-year maternal employment on cognitive outcomes for non-Hispanic white children, but not for African American or His…
Parental Leave: The Impact of Recent Legislation on Parents' Leave Taking
We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of leave entitlements on unpaid leave usage by men and women after the birth of a child from 1991 to 1999. The results indicate that legislation providing the right to unpaid leave has not affected men's leave usage. The results for women are mixed: in some specifications, leave entitlements are associated with increased leave taking or longer leaves, but the re…
Parental leave: The impact of recent legislation on parents’ leave taking
We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of leave entitlements on unpaid leave usage by men and women after the birth of a child from 1991 to 1999. The results indicate that legislation providing the right to unpaid leave has not affected men’s leave usage. The results for women are mixed: in some specifications, leave entitlements are associated with increased leave taking or longer leaves, but the re…
Child Support Enforcement, Joint Legal Custody, and Parental Involvement
This article uses the 1992–98 waves of the Current Population Survey‐Child Support Supplement to examine whether state child support enforcement affects the likelihood of divorced parents choosing joint legal custody and whether such custody increases the involvement of nonresident parents. This involvement is measured by child support payment and visitation. We find that effective child support enforcement increases the probability of joint lega…
The Importance of Family Structure and Family Income on Family's Educational Expenditure and Children's College Attendance: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan
Using the 1991-1998 Survey of Family Income and Expenditure, we analyzed the determinants of college attendance rates and educational expenditure among families with children in Taiwan, paying particular attention to the effects of family structure and family income. The findings indicate that higher family income is consistently associated with higher college attendance rates and spending on education. Children in single-parent families have low…
The Infant-Toddler Home in the 2nd and 3rd Years of Life
The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (Home) in Middle Childhood: A Study of Three Large-Scale Data Sets
Maternal Nonstandard Work Schedules and Child Cognitive Outcomes
This paper examined associations between mothers' work schedules and children's cognitive outcomes in the first 3 years of life for approximately 900 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Both the timing and duration of maternal nonstandard work schedules were examined. Although results varied across developmental stages and dimensions of cognitive performance, the effects of mothers…
Maternal Employment and Child Development: A Fresh Look Using Newer Methods
The employment rate for mothers with young children has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Estimating the effects of maternal employment on children's development is challenged by selection bias and the missing data endemic to most policy research. To address these issues, this study uses propensity score matching and multiple imputation. The authors compare outcomes across 4 maternal employment patterns: no work in first 3 years post…
Maternal work schedules and child outcomes: Evidence from the National Survey of American Families
Child Support Enforcement and Sexual Activity of Male Adolescents
Strong child support enforcement requires fathers to take financial responsibility for their children and may also encourage more responsible sexual behavior. Using the 1997 - 2001 waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 4,272), this article examines the association between child support enforcement and the sexual activity of male adolescents. Stronger child support enforcement was associated with fewer sexual partners, less …
Parental leave policies and parents' employment and leave‐taking
We describe trends in maternal employment and leave-taking after birth of a newborn and analyze the extent to which these behaviors are influenced by parental leave policies. Data are from the June Current Population Survey (CPS) Fertility Supplements, merged with other months of the CPS, and cover the period 1987 to 1994. This time span is one during which parental leave legislation expanded at both the state and federal level. We also provide t…
Adolescents of New York City immigrant families
Maternal Nonstandard Work Schedules and Adolescent Overweight
Objectives. We investigated whether nonstandard work schedules by mothers were associated with adolescent overweight. Methods. We conducted multiple regression analyses using a sample of mother–child pairs (n=2353) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the association between the number of years mothers worked at nonstandard schedules and adolescent overweight at age 13 or 14 years. Separate analyses were also conducted by fam…
The academic trajectories of children of immigrants and their school environments
Data from approximately 14,000 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey--Kindergarten Cohort were analyzed to examine the associations between children's immigrant status and their academic trajectories from kindergarten to 3rd grade, with particular attention to the effects of school environments. Growth curve modeling results indicated that most children of Latin American origin improved their reading and math scores faster than non-…
Assessing school supports for ELL students using the ECLS-K
Parental work schedules and adolescent depression
Using a large contemporary United States data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), this paper examines the relationship between parental work schedules and adolescent depression at age 13 or 14, paying particular attention to the mechanisms that may explain this relationship. Analysis based on structural equation modeling showed that increased work at night by mothers was significantly associated with a lower…
Bilingualism and socioemotional well-being
The Forgotten Treasure: Bilingualism and Asian Children's Emotional and Behavioral Health
Objectives. We investigated the relation between the language status of children and their behavioral and emotional well-being during their early school years. Methods. Behavioral and emotional well-being were drawn from teacher-reported data and included externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Three-level growth curve analyses were conducted on a subsample (n = 12 586) of children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten coho…
Parental work schedules and adolescent risky behaviors
Using a large contemporary data set (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement), the authors examined the effects of parental work schedules on adolescent risky behaviors at age 13 or 14 and the mechanisms that might explain them. Structural equation modeling suggests mothers who worked more often at night spent significantly less time with children and had lower quality home environments, and these mediators were significantly l…
Psychology (50 works) · Medicine (38 works) · Developmental psychology (33 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (22 works) · Economics (22 works) · Work-Family Balance Challenges (22 works) · Demography (21 works) · Demographic economics (18 works) · Demography (18 works)