Death might select for the less-fit of two parents, leaving the child(ren) in the care of the less-unfit parent, canceling out at least some of the effect you elide. Could even improve the outcome as against survival of the dying parent. Death pretty well cancels whatever effect (if any) the decedent would have had, either way.
Leading causes of death for those under 40 are "unintentional injury", which I believe includes drug overdoses, car wrecks, and work injuries. Probably not a lot of correlation between car wrecks and work injuries with generally lack of conscientiousness? ODs obviously would. Other leading causes of death would be cancer (presumably not correlated), suicide (probably not correlated? don't really know typical characteristics for suicide), heart disease (probably some decent correlation with conscientiousness if you're talking about under 45, but probably mostly genetics?), then of course Homicide would be highly correlated with conscientiousness, HIV highly correlated with conscientious, liver disease also probably correlated with conscientiousness.
But just eyeballing it, the stark disparity between outcomes depending on whether it's death or something else, even when a material amount of the the deaths are contributed to by low conscientiousness or other traits likely to lead to divorce or failure to marry, seems to make a pretty strong case that it's single parenthood's association with poor outcomes is mostly correlation more so than causation.
I would assume there's a large correlation between car crash deaths and low conscientiousness. If you don't drink, drive safely, and wear a seatbelt your risk is significantly reduced.
Otoh it is death before 80 ... and the cause/correlation seems mixed with assumptions. Still, I'd assume most under 50 do not "die randomly" (by lightning - and even this does not hit randomly: white-collars are safer than farmers/construction workers - or by no-own-fault-accidents?). Also, "N" might be low in this category. I had a friend who died at 23 (SCD). But I know no parent who died before the kids were done with high-school.
Death isn't random. My father was killed on the job because he worked around dangerous things. If he had made it past his freshman year in college, he likely would not have worked so closely with dangerous things.
Divorce/non-marital birth are probably a sign of a lot of other disfunctions beyond just genetic too. And some parents who die early have life insurance, which mitigates a lot of the damage.
I think it's very likely that the death of a parent, whatever the cause, is a risk factor for the children and the surviving spouse that could contribute to worse outcomes than otherwise would have been expected given income. That could explain why the evidence was thinner than hoped for.
But is death always random in modern society? A parent who regularly takes meth is at far higher risk than a parent who runs five miles a day.
Death might select for the less-fit of two parents, leaving the child(ren) in the care of the less-unfit parent, canceling out at least some of the effect you elide. Could even improve the outcome as against survival of the dying parent. Death pretty well cancels whatever effect (if any) the decedent would have had, either way.
Leading causes of death for those under 40 are "unintentional injury", which I believe includes drug overdoses, car wrecks, and work injuries. Probably not a lot of correlation between car wrecks and work injuries with generally lack of conscientiousness? ODs obviously would. Other leading causes of death would be cancer (presumably not correlated), suicide (probably not correlated? don't really know typical characteristics for suicide), heart disease (probably some decent correlation with conscientiousness if you're talking about under 45, but probably mostly genetics?), then of course Homicide would be highly correlated with conscientiousness, HIV highly correlated with conscientious, liver disease also probably correlated with conscientiousness.
But just eyeballing it, the stark disparity between outcomes depending on whether it's death or something else, even when a material amount of the the deaths are contributed to by low conscientiousness or other traits likely to lead to divorce or failure to marry, seems to make a pretty strong case that it's single parenthood's association with poor outcomes is mostly correlation more so than causation.
I would assume there's a large correlation between car crash deaths and low conscientiousness. If you don't drink, drive safely, and wear a seatbelt your risk is significantly reduced.
yep I also wondered, the first statistic "causes pf premature death" put tobacco first. https://www.prb.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/premature-death.jpg
Otoh it is death before 80 ... and the cause/correlation seems mixed with assumptions. Still, I'd assume most under 50 do not "die randomly" (by lightning - and even this does not hit randomly: white-collars are safer than farmers/construction workers - or by no-own-fault-accidents?). Also, "N" might be low in this category. I had a friend who died at 23 (SCD). But I know no parent who died before the kids were done with high-school.
Death isn't random. My father was killed on the job because he worked around dangerous things. If he had made it past his freshman year in college, he likely would not have worked so closely with dangerous things.
Divorce/non-marital birth are probably a sign of a lot of other disfunctions beyond just genetic too. And some parents who die early have life insurance, which mitigates a lot of the damage.
I think it's very likely that the death of a parent, whatever the cause, is a risk factor for the children and the surviving spouse that could contribute to worse outcomes than otherwise would have been expected given income. That could explain why the evidence was thinner than hoped for.