UC Irvine

This dissertation examines how sex education mandates affect teenage sexual behaviors and health, how an introduction of a paid parental leave scheme affects maternal labor market outcomes, and how school-level technology investment impacts student achievement. The data used for this dissertation include publicly available student-level data, confidential micro-data from the Australian government, and publicly available school-level data from the California Department of Education. The empirical methods used in this dissertation include difference-in-difference models, and regression discontinuity models. In the first chapter, I show that state-mandated school-based sex education has no significant impact on teenage sexual behaviors, gonorrhea rates, or birth rates. In the second chapter, I develop theoretical predictions of the impact of an introduction of a paid parental leave scheme on maternal labor market outcomes in Australia, and empirically test these predictions. I find no evidence that Australia’s paid parental leave scheme impacted maternal labor market outcomes in the short-run. In the third chapter, I examine the impact of school-level technology investment on student achievement in California, and find positive effects on English test scores. I find that the effects are largest for middle schoolers, and are concentrated among the low- socioeconomic students, suggesting that technology investment can help narrow the income achievement gap.