Biographical Statement: I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student at Cornell University in the field of Policy Analysis and Management. My main field of interest is health policy and health economics in addition to minors in applied economics and family and social policy.
I am currently a research assistant for Professor Liz Peters working on her Transition to Fatherhood NICHD grant. We are currently investigating the effect of child support allowance guidelines on the inclusion of non-marital fathers on birth certificates. We are also starting a project examining the predictive power of subjective measures of altruism to explain intergenerational transfers using the Health and Retirement Study.
Independently, I am examining occupational determinants and the impact education on cognitive ability among older individuals.
Current Professional Activities: Major Concentration: Health Policy Minor Concentrations: Applied Economics, Family and Social Policy
Education: Ph.D., Policy Analysis and Management. Cornell University. Ithaca, New York. Expected 2010. M.A., Economics. University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado, 2006. B.S.B.A., International Business and Economics. University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, 2003.
Selected Publications: For Better or Worse: Relationship Status and Body Mass Index Averett, Susan L., Asia Sikora and Laura M. Argys (2008) In Economics & Human Biology - available through ScienceDirect
Recent increases in the incidence of obesity and declines in marriage have prompted policymakers to implement policies to mitigate these trends. This paper examines the link between these two outcomes. There are four hypotheses (selection, protection, social obligation and marriage market) that might explain the relationship between marital status transitions and changes in BMI. The selection hypothesis suggests that those with a lower BMI are more likely to be selected into marriage. The protection hypothesis states that married adults will have better physical health as a result of the increased social support and reduced incidence of risky behavior among married individuals. The social obligation hypothesis states that those in relationships may eat more regular meals and/or richer and denser foods due to social obligations one of which may be marriage. Finally, the marriage market hypothesis indicates that when adults are no longer in the marriage market they may not maintain a healthy BMI because doing so is costly and they are in a stable union?or on the other hand, adults may enhance their prospects in the marriage market by losing weight. Taking advantage of longitudinal data and complete marriage histories in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we estimate individual fixed effects models to examine associations between the change in log body mass index (BMI) and the incidence of overweight and obesity, and changes in relationship status controlling for the effects of aging and other respondent characteristics. We find no support for the marriage protection hypothesis. Rather we find evidence supporting the social obligation and marriage market hypotheses -- BMI increases for both men and women during marriage and in the course of a cohabiting relationship. Separate analyses by race and ethnicity reveal substantial differences in the response of BMI to relationship status across these groups. [poster
pdf] Working Papers:
Brains vs. Brawn: Occupational Determinants of Cognitive Ability among Older Individuals Asia Sikora
An important predictor of an elderly person's personal independence is their cognitive ability. As cognitive ability declines, the elderly require assistance which is expensive, thus assessing the predictors of cognitive ability in the elderly has potentially important policy implications. Using the Health and Retirement Study, this research attempts to determine wheather job characteristics (as assigned by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles) have an impact on cognitive ability among the elderly. This research utilizes three measures of cognitive ability to predict the probability and extent of change in cognitiion based on the repsondent's longest tenured occupation. Two hypotheses regarding lifestyle and dementia risk/prevention serve as the framework to distinguish whether more cognitively or physically demanding occupations deter cognitive decline. Preliminary results, for men, suggest that cognitively demanding occupations decrease the probability of decline in cognitive ability and reduce the change in cognitive scores over time, while physically demanding occupations perdict better cognitive outcomes for women. Child Support Policies and Information about Fathers on Birth Certificates Asia Sikora, H. Elizabeth Peters and Kara Joyner
Although
birth certificates are often missing information on the fathers of
children born to unmarried women, the percent of birth certificates
with missing father information has declined considerably in recent
decades. We examine the extent to which this reduction in missing
information is due to changes in child support policies. Exploiting
state-level variation in child support policies between 1985 and 2004,
this study examines the influence of these policies on the provision of
father's information on birth certificates for births outside marriage.
Using data from the Vital Statistics and the Child Support Enforcement
Agency Annual Report, our results indicate that increased child support
enforcement reduces the likelihood of missing father's information, but
that it has a weaker influence on lower income mothers. We discuss the
implications of our findings for imputation practices of researchers
and father involvement in the period following welfare reform. [poster
pdf]
Intergenerational Transfers and Altruism Asia Sikora and H. Elizabeth Peters
Previous literature has focused on observable family characteristics to explain intergenerational transfers. Specifically, economic theory focuses on resources of donors and needs of recipients. In this paper we asses the power of subjective measures of altruism to explain intergenerational transfers. We use hypothetical questions ask in the Health and Retirement Study that assess individuals' willingness to transfer income to others to construct several measures of altruism. The Sweepstakes Questions examine how respondents would allocate money from an exogenous shock to their income. The Conditional Transfer Questions examine to what extent individuals say they are willing to transfer some of their income to others conditional on financial need. We include these measures in economic models of intergenerational transfers to evaluate the additional explanatory power of these measures on preferences. Preliminary results indicate that both of these measures predict the likelihood of transfers over and above the standard explanatory variables used in analyses of intergenerational transfers. The Quality of Male Ferility Data in Major U.S. Surveys Kara Joyner, H. Elizabeth Peters, Asia Sikora, Kathryn Hynes and Jamie Rubenstein
Researchers continue to question fathers' willingness to report their biological children in surveys, and the ability of surveys to adequately represent them. To address these concerns, this study evaluates the quality of men's fertility data in the 1979 and 1997 Cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97), and in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Comparing fertility rates in each survey to population rates based on the data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, we document how the undercount of births to men in different surveys varies according to several of their characteristics, including their age, race/ethnicity, marital status, and birth cohort. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on the NSFG data to demonstrate how birth undercounting biases associations between early parenthood and its antecedents. Our results suggest that the quality of male fertility data is strongly linked to survey design, and that data quality in surveys has important implications for associations between early fatherhood and other variables.
The information on this bio page is taken from the CHE Annual Report.
