This paper studies the extent to which sleep duration causally affects health, cognitive and non-cognitive development in children and adolescents. Using over 50 thousand time use diaries from two cohorts of Australian children spanning over 16 years, we first document that children sleep...

There is widespread recognition that early childhood experiences form the foundation for lifelong health, development and learning trajectories. Reflecting this, numerous services and supports are provided for young children and their families in Australia through the health, education and...

Traditionally the establishment of a household independent of one’s parents has been an important marker of the transition into adulthood. In Australia as in other countries, younger cohorts are spending increasing time in the parental household reflecting a range of social, demographic and...

The relationship between physical activity and child health and development is well-documented, yet the extant literature provides limited causal insight into the amount of physical activity considered optimal for improving any given health or developmental outcome. This paper exploits exogenous...

We provide the first empirical evidence on the direct link between locus of control and self-control, and how they interact in explaining a range of health outcomes. Using rich Australian survey data, we find that, while the two traits are distinct constructs, a greater internal locus of control...

Life expectancy in Australia has been rapidly increasing. On average, children born today are expected to live 12 years longer than those born in the 1970s. However, there is growing evidence that these gains are not being shared equally among the rich and the poor. In this paper we examine the...

We study the effect of exposure to arsenic in groundwater, the main source of arsenic contamination, on a range of education outcomes among children in India. First, using a large nationally representative household survey and exploiting variation in soil textures across districts as an...

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated school closures may have constrained educational participation particularly for students in disadvantaged circumstances. We explore how 30 disadvantaged students in secondary school (14 mainstream/16 Flexible Learning Program) from Queensland, New South...

Drawing on life course and feminist sociological perspectives, our study had two aims. The first was to trace the accumulation of violence in women’s lives from childhood through young adulthood. The second was to examine how cumulative experiences of violence relate to young women’s risks...

Extracurricular activity participation is associated with positive academic, health, and behavioural outcomes for adolescents, but these findings may reflect unobserved confounding rather than participation effects. To address this, we modelled the effects of participation in three kinds of...