Hi all,

I have a 3 wave panel of children's height and weight and whether either of their parents experienced a change from employment to unemployment (binary) during a recession. As you will see below, I make use of a fixed effects logit model to test this relationship.

BMI Z SCORE

Code:
. xtreg z_score_bmi parents_unemployed_y i.urban_or_rural_y i.year i.mothers_age_y i.mothers_education_y i.
> mothers_marital_status_y child_age_y, fe 
note: child_age_y omitted because of collinearity

Fixed-effects (within) regression               Number of obs     =     28,723
Group variable: id                              Number of groups  =     10,998

R-sq:                                           Obs per group:
     within  = 0.0476                                         min =          1
     between = 0.0001                                         avg =        2.6
     overall = 0.0140                                         max =          3

                                                F(12,17713)       =      73.74
corr(u_i, Xb)  = -0.0131                        Prob > F          =     0.0000

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       z_score_bmi |      Coef.   Std. Err.      t    P>|t|     [95% Conf. Interval]
-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
              parents_unemployed_y |   .0446461   .0200391     2.23   0.026     .0053676    .0839247
                1.urban_or_rural_y |   .0057002   .0279775     0.20   0.839    -.0491384    .0605388
                                   |
                              year |
                                1  |   .1900417   .0119574    15.89   0.000     .1666042    .2134793
                                2  |  -.1473351   .0139738   -10.54   0.000    -.1747251   -.1199451
                                   |
                     mothers_age_y |
                            19-29  |   .0120552   .0357093     0.34   0.736    -.0579385    .0820489
                            30-39  |   .0150572   .0224131     0.67   0.502    -.0288746    .0589889
                                   |
               mothers_education_y |
Leaving Certificate to Non Degree  |   .0791826    .045583     1.74   0.082    -.0101644    .1685297
        Primary Degree or greater  |   .0667024   .0555739     1.20   0.230    -.0422278    .1756327
                                   |
          mothers_marital_status_y |
                                2  |   .0312368   .0577671     0.54   0.589    -.0819924     .144466
                                3  |   .0069348   .0835213     0.08   0.934    -.1567751    .1706446
                                4  |  -.0289106   .0350781    -0.82   0.410    -.0976672     .039846
                                5  |   -.117364   .2767071    -0.42   0.671     -.659737     .425009
                                   |
                       child_age_y |          0  (omitted)
                             _cons |   .6499031   .0508691    12.78   0.000     .5501947    .7496115
-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
                           sigma_u |  .90798198
                           sigma_e |  .75347727
                               rho |  .59219609   (fraction of variance due to u_i)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F test that all u_i=0: F(10997, 17713) = 3.54                Prob > F = 0.0000

Child Overweight

Code:
. xtlogit child_overweight_y  parents_unemployed_y i.urban_or_rural_y i.year i.mothers_age_y i.mothers_educ
> ation_y i.mothers_marital_status_y child_age_y, fe nolog
note: child_age_y omitted because of collinearity
note: multiple positive outcomes within groups encountered.
note: 9,053 groups (23,188 obs) dropped because of all positive or
      all negative outcomes.

Conditional fixed-effects logistic regression   Number of obs     =      5,535
Group variable: id                              Number of groups  =      1,945

                                                Obs per group:
                                                              min =          2
                                                              avg =        2.8
                                                              max =          3

                                                LR chi2(12)       =     239.12
Log likelihood  = -1895.5991                    Prob > chi2       =     0.0000

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                child_overweight_y |      Coef.   Std. Err.      z    P>|z|     [95% Conf. Interval]
-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
              parents_unemployed_y |   .2705773   .1005702     2.69   0.007     .0734634    .4676913
                1.urban_or_rural_y |  -.0209971   .1507919    -0.14   0.889    -.3165439    .2745497
                                   |
                              year |
                                1  |   .3195079   .0596055     5.36   0.000     .2026833    .4363326
                                2  |  -.5625906   .0751008    -7.49   0.000    -.7097854   -.4153958
                                   |
                     mothers_age_y |
                            19-29  |   .1622443   .1849878     0.88   0.380    -.2003252    .5248138
                            30-39  |   .1249393   .1217915     1.03   0.305    -.1137676    .3636462
                                   |
               mothers_education_y |
Leaving Certificate to Non Degree  |   .4089109   .2192694     1.86   0.062    -.0208492    .8386711
        Primary Degree or greater  |   .4875182   .2805553     1.74   0.082    -.0623601    1.037397
                                   |
          mothers_marital_status_y |
                                2  |  -.0491349   .2948536    -0.17   0.868    -.6270372    .5287675
                                3  |  -.3627668   .4261465    -0.85   0.395    -1.197999    .4724649
                                4  |  -.1200269   .1744402    -0.69   0.491    -.4619234    .2218696
                                5  |    .762811   1.064853     0.72   0.474    -1.324263    2.849884
                                   |
                       child_age_y |          0  (omitted)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


After showing that there is a relationship between parental employment and child weight I want to determine the possible mechanisms of effect.

I suspect that as parents lose their jobs they can less easily afford things for their children like nutritious food, expensive exercise clubs, etc., thus I replicate the above but replace child's weight with things like calorie consumption, sports-club membership etc., as below.


Calorie consumption


Code:
. reg calories3 parents_unemployed_y2 i.urban_or_rural_y2 i.mothers_age_y2 i.mothers_educati
> on_y2 i.mothers_marital_status_y2 child_age_y2
note: child_age_y2 omitted because of collinearity

      Source |       SS           df       MS      Number of obs   =     8,738
-------------+----------------------------------   F(10, 8727)     =     56.06
       Model |   138278595        10  13827859.5   Prob > F        =    0.0000
    Residual |  2.1527e+09     8,727  246676.696   R-squared       =    0.0604
-------------+----------------------------------   Adj R-squared   =    0.0593
       Total |  2.2910e+09     8,737  262221.143   Root MSE        =    496.67

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                calories3 |      Coef.   Std. Err.      t    P>|t|     [95% Conf. Interval]
--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
    parents_unemployed_y2 |   101.2964   15.69874     6.45   0.000     70.52316    132.0696
                          |
        urban_or_rural_y2 |
                   Urban  |   1.654679   10.93902     0.15   0.880    -19.78839    23.09774
                          |
           mothers_age_y2 |
                   19-29  |   163.4985   20.73145     7.89   0.000     122.8599     204.137
                   30-39  |   58.80138   11.90259     4.94   0.000     35.46949    82.13327
                          |
     mothers_education_y2 |
Leaving Certificate to..  |   -102.457   22.42631    -4.57   0.000    -146.4179   -58.49615
Primary Degree or grea..  |  -254.1752   23.51429   -10.81   0.000    -300.2688   -208.0817
                          |
mothers_marital_status_y2 |
Married and separated ..  |   85.05454   32.51722     2.62   0.009     21.31311     148.796
      Divorced / Widowed  |    106.224   47.42236     2.24   0.025     13.26496     199.183
           Never married  |   41.64441   15.10367     2.76   0.006     12.03767    71.25116
              Don't know  |   -94.0545   165.8077    -0.57   0.571    -419.0767    230.9677
                          |
             child_age_y2 |          0  (omitted)
                    _cons |   1605.807   24.11237    66.60   0.000     1558.541    1653.073
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sports Club Membership

Code:
. logit binarysportsclub3 parents_unemployed_y2 i.urban_or_rural_y2 i.mothers_age_y2 i.mothe
> rs_education_y2 i.mothers_marital_status_y2 child_age_y2

note: child_age_y2 omitted because of collinearity
Iteration 0:   log likelihood = -6076.5431  
Iteration 1:   log likelihood = -5886.1443  
Iteration 2:   log likelihood = -5885.4165  
Iteration 3:   log likelihood = -5885.4162  

Logistic regression                             Number of obs     =      8,773
                                                LR chi2(10)       =     382.25
                                                Prob > chi2       =     0.0000
Log likelihood = -5885.4162                     Pseudo R2         =     0.0315

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        binarysportsclub3 |      Coef.   Std. Err.      z    P>|z|     [95% Conf. Interval]
--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
    parents_unemployed_y2 |  -.4062894   .0653562    -6.22   0.000    -.5343851   -.2781936
                          |
        urban_or_rural_y2 |
                   Urban  |   .0365025   .0449827     0.81   0.417    -.0516618    .1246669
                          |
           mothers_age_y2 |
                   19-29  |  -.2919594   .0858323    -3.40   0.001    -.4601877   -.1237312
                   30-39  |  -.0474992   .0488224    -0.97   0.331    -.1431894     .048191
                          |
     mothers_education_y2 |
Leaving Certificate to..  |   .7879872   .1000404     7.88   0.000     .5919116    .9840627
Primary Degree or grea..  |   1.189186   .1039254    11.44   0.000     .9854956    1.392876
                          |
mothers_marital_status_y2 |
Married and separated ..  |  -.1125892   .1323738    -0.85   0.395    -.3720372    .1468587
      Divorced / Widowed  |  -1.145787   .2191226    -5.23   0.000    -1.575259   -.7163142
           Never married  |  -.1271735   .0619616    -2.05   0.040    -.2486161   -.0057309
              Don't know  |  -.8121472    .695992    -1.17   0.243    -2.176266     .551972
                          |
             child_age_y2 |          0  (omitted)
                    _cons |  -.6890735   .1060969    -6.49   0.000    -.8970197   -.4811274
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My questions are as follows:
  1. The core analysis is in longitudinal data, but the mechanisms I investigate are only available in 1 of 3 waves in this data, usually later waves when the recession really struck, is it OK to use a cross sectional analysis to investigate the mechanisms I suggest as explaining the results in my longitudinal analysis?
  2. I wanted to make my cross-sectional analysis almost identical to my longitudinal analysis, but did I succeed? As my longitudinal analysis was a fixed effects regression I wanted to repeat that here and according to this post (https://www.stata.com/statalist/arch.../msg00413.html) including dummy variables is the same thing as including fixed effects, but is that the case, and is there anything I need to do to make this a better replication of my initial fixed effects analysis?
  3. Also, should I include a variable for year and how could I do this? In my longitudinal analysis I included year fixed effects by including the year variable created by xtset so I feel I should match that in my cross-sectional analysis to keep things the same, but I'm not sure that I have a variable for the year cross-sectionally.
Thank you for any advice,

John