The causal effect of city size on urban wage premia has been difficult to measure because unusually skilled workers may select into large city labor markets. We propose a new approach to this challenge. For single-peaked wage distributions, if individuals left of the mode disproportionately select out of large city labor markets, the CDF evaluated at the mode shrinks as city size increases. Among college trained, white full-time US workers, evidence of selection is present even after conditioning on extensive observable attributes. Among individuals with a high school degree or less, selection is absent. Additional estimates indicate that for college trained workers, 3.5% is an upper bound on the modal worker's wage elasticity with respect to city size. For those with limited education we can be more precise: modal wage elasticity is 3.9% for men and 5.2% for married women.

This paper offers estimates of US foreign-born populations that are eligible for special legal status programs and those that would be eligible for permanent residence (legalization) under pending bills. It seeks to provide policymakers, government agencies, community-based organizations (CBOs), researchers, and others with a unique tool to assess the potential impact, implement, and analyze the success of these programs. It views timely, comprehensive data on targeted immigrant populations as an essential pillar of legalization preparedness, implementation, and evaluation. The paper and the exhaustive estimates that underlie it, represent the first attempt to provide a detailed statistical profile of beneficiaries of proposed major US legalization programs and special, large-scale legal status programs.

Health insurance and employment are often bundled choices for U.S. workers. For individuals without access to employer-sponsored insurance, the AAordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces provide them with a source of coverage and premium subsidies, potentially lowering the costs of labor market transitions. This paper examines the relationship between labor market mobility and risk composition on these marketplaces. I document that labor and ACA markets interact through individuals' health risks: individuals with labor market transitions are advantageously selected relative to non-transitioners; however, among the transi-tioners, ACA plan enrollees are adversely selected. To study how these diierential selection patterns aaect outcomes in the labor and ACA markets, I develop and estimate a model of labor market transitions, selection into the ACA market segment, and insurance plan demand. Focusing on one large market, I Ind that labor market transitioners reduce adverse selection on net: their participation slightly lowers average costs and eeective premiums, relative to a counterfactual in which labor transitions do not interact with ACA segment participation. I then examine alternative subsidy designs using the model. Less generous subsidies generally worsen adverse selection, increase eeective premiums and uninsurance rate, and decrease labor market transition rates, while enhanced subsidies (e.g. under the Innation Reduction Act) have the opposite eeects. While workers beneet from the availability of subsidized ACA plans on average, the sicker, less educated, or having lower income beneet more, highlighting the ACA's safety net value.

The median age at first divorce in the United States has increased steadily since 1970 (Julian, 2022a). This increase is not necessarily indicative of marriages lasting longer. Rather, the increase in the median age at first divorce corresponds with a rising median age at first marriage (Julian, 2022b). In 2010, the median duration of marriage at first divorce was approximately 11 years, and based on our new analysis, it rose to 13 years in 2020 (not shown). In this profile, we use the 2020 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Experimental IPUMS data to examine differences in the duration of marriage at first divorce as well as the interquartile ranges (IQR) by gender, race/ ethnicity, and educational attainment as of 2020.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has grown rapidly over the past two decades. A large body of literature relies on state-level macro (aggregate) panel data on SNAP caseloads and implements traditional two-way fixed effects (TWFE) estimators to isolate the causal impact of economic conditions on SNAP enrollment. This empirical strategy implicitly assumes slope parameter homogeneity and ignores the possibility of cross-sectional dependence in the error term. The latter could feasibly arise in macro panel data if the unobserved common shocks have different effects on SNAP participation across US states. This study empirically evaluates the appropriateness of these two assumptions by adopting a more general common factor model that allows for both slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence in the error term. Comparing results across different estimators, we find that TWFE estimators yield spuriously much larger estimates of the impact of the economy. This result is largely driven by TWFE assuming cross-sectional independence of error terms, while imposing a common slope assumption across states is less problematic for identification. Our counterfactual simulations confirm our main findings, implying the importance of carefully accounting for time-varying unobserved heterogeneity when analyzing the predictors of SNAP enrollment using state-level macro panel data.

This paper illustrates the intergenerational transmission of the gender gap in education among first and second-generation immigrants. Using the Current Population Survey (1994-2018), we find that the difference in female-male education persists from the home country to the new environment. A one standard deviation increase of the ancestral country's female-male difference in schooling is associated with 17.2% and 2.5% of a standard deviation increase in the gender gap among first and second generations, respectively. Since gender perspective in education uncovers a new channel for cultural transmission among families, we interpret the findings as evidence of cultural persistence among first generations and partial cultural assimilation of second generations. Moreover, Disaggregation into country-groups reveals different paths for this transmission: descendants of immigrants of lower-income countries show fewer attachments to the gender opinions of their home country. Average local education of natives can facilitate the acculturation process. Immigrants residing in states with higher education reveal a lower tendency to follow their home country attitudes regarding the gender gap.

The US financial sector has become a magnet for the brightest graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields (STEM). We provide quantitative bases for this anecdotal fact for the US, over the period 1980-2019 and with a specific focus on the last decade where information on major fields of study is available. First, we show that long-run educational upgrading of finance was biased towards STEM graduates, especially for postgraduates, and accelerated in the last decade. Second, the STEM.upgrading also occurs within finance and business occupations, matching a task reorientation towards mathematics in those occupations. Third, STEM reallocation towards finance is more pronounced among experienced workers peaking at prime age. Fourth, the reallocation of STEM is associated with large wage premia in finance, which are heterogeneous across occupations, age groups, degrees and along the wage distribution. Returns to STEMs are higher than returns to other degrees in finance and become very high in finance and managerial occupations at the top of the distribution, especially for postgraduates.

How does inequality emerge, and why is it (or was it) increasing? These were the two questions I asked myself and tried to tackle in this dissertation. Conceptually, I envision three stages during which inequality can materialize and which require different policy instruments: after, during, and before the labor market (very roughly speaking). After the labor market, there is the tax and benefits system. At this stage, policy-makers can address inequality by redistributing resources from those who have to those who haven’t. During the labor market, policy-makers can intervene in how much people receive for their work, e.g. by introducing a minimum wage. And before the labor market, human capital is accumulated, which later becomes relevant for generating income. Investments in education can ensure that skills—and, by extension, incomes—are distributed more equally.

Objectives: Public health interventions to prevent financial stressors and reduce chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain (HICP) are important to potentially improve the health of the US population. The objectives of our study were to provide an update on the prevalence of chronic pain and HICP and to examine relationships between financial stressors and pain. Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional sample of adults aged ≥18 years (n = 31 997) collected by the 2019 National Health Interview Survey. We constructed bivariate and multivariate models to examine chronic pain and HICP in relation to financial worries, employment with wages, income, sociodemographic characteristics, number of chronic health conditions, and body mass index. Results: In fully adjusted multivariate regression models, having no employment with wages was strongly associated with increased risk for chronic pain (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.3; 95% CI, 1.2-1.5) and HICP (aOR = 1.6; 95% CI, 1.4-1.9). Worries about paying medical bills was associated with chronic pain (aOR = 1.1; 95% CI, 1.0-1.2) and HICP (aOR = 1.1; 95% CI, 1.0-1.3). Being unable to pay medical bills was associated with chronic pain (aOR = 2.1; 95% CI, 1.9-2.3) and HICP (aOR = 2.3; 95% CI, 2.0-2.6). Compared with having more income, having less income relative to the federal poverty level was associated with increased risk for chronic pain and HICP. Conclusions: We found a strong relationship between financial worries, employment for wages, income, and self-reported chronic pain and HICP independent of poor physical health and body mass index. Interventions to reduce chronic pain and HICP should address economic instability and financial stressors.

We develop a new stochastic programming methodology for determining optimal vaccination policies for a multi-community heterogeneous population. An optimal policy provides the minimum number of vaccinations required to drive post-vaccination reproduction number to below one at a desired reliability level. To generate a vaccination policy, the new method considers the uncertainty in COVID-19 related parameters such as efficacy of vaccines, age-related variation in susceptibility and infectivity to SARS-CoV-2, distribution of household composition in a community, and variation in human interactions. We report on a computational study of the new methodology on a set of neighboring U.S. counties to generate vaccination policies based on vaccine availability. The results show that to control outbreaks at least a certain percentage of the population should be vaccinated in each community based on pre-determined reliability levels. The study also reveals the vaccine sharing capability of the proposed approach among counties under limited vaccine availability. This work contributes a decision-making tool to aid public health agencies worldwide in the allocation of limited vaccines under uncertainty towards controlling epidemics through vaccinations.

This paper studies the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration to the United States after 1882, across U.S. counties between 1870 and 1940. We find that the Act reduced labor supply for both the Chinese and other groups (i.e., white and non-white natives and immigrants). The drop in Chinese and non-Chinese labor supply was driven by both skilled and unskilled workers, and occurred across all major economic sectors. The Act lowered income for all workers, and caused a sharp contraction in manufacturing, mining and agriculture. The results imply that Chinese and other workers were complements in economic production and the exclusion of the Chinese had a negative impact on economic development of the Western United States. Many negative effects lasted until at least 1940.

Research on couples’ earnings arrangements has focused on men’s and women’s (non)conformance to the male-breadwinner/female-homemaker model. By doing so, research has ignored the following: Breadwinning can be a source of stress for men; the male-breadwinner/female-homemaker model does not apply to all racial groups; and the proportion of women in an occupation may moderate the stress process associated with divergent earnings arrangements. To address factors overlooked, I applied mixed-effects models to the 1999–2017 Panel Study of Income Dynamics data to examine the internalizing (psychological distress) and externalizing (heavy drinking) responses to stress among married, non-Hispanic white and Black men and women. Greater relative earnings reduce Black women’s psychological distress and heavy drinking, but increase Black men’s heavy drinking. Among white men, greater relative earnings reduce psychological distress and demonstrate a curvilinear relationship with heavy drinking, whereas no significant pattern emerges for white women. Occupational sex composition moderates these relationships. Among Black women, greater relative earnings lower psychological distress the most for those in women-concentrated occupations, and moving from economic dependency to equal breadwinning decreases heavy drinking the most for white men in men-concentrated occupations. Findings showcase the value of an intersectional approach to capture the diverse meanings associated with earnings arrangements.

Why do some college majors have much higher returns than others? I ask if differences in returns are due to differences in quality of education across majors. I use a novel dataset in which college students rate courses and professors on difficulty, the level of effort required to obtain an A. Major difficulty correlates positively with study hours, implying students respond to grading standards when choosing study time. Using the American Community Survey, I show that harder majors earn more, under a variety of specifications. To deal with selection concerns I use the College Scorecard to compare graduates from the same university-major but exposed to harder or easier professors due to being in different graduation year cohorts. Those exposed to harder professors earn more one year after graduation. I also use the NLSY97 panel to estimate an event study, finding that difficulty causes lower earnings while in college but higher earnings after graduation and provides access to higher skilled occupations. I estimate that one-third of the variance in returns to major can be explained by differences in learning as proxied by difficulty.

Having a diversity of climatic zones, the United States experiences different weather hazards and risks such as winter storms, tornados, droughts, hurricanes, among others depending on the geographic location. With Americans having a culture geared towards becoming a weatherready nation, they may be more familiar with their emergency system than other communities living in the United States. According to the U.S. 2020 Census, Hispanics in the U.S. account for 18.9% of the total population, making them the second largest ethnic group. Coming from different places and having a diverse cultural background, the Hispanic/Latino community may be more vulnerable towards these hazards and disasters due to their lack of experience with such events in their country of origin and other factors such as language barriers. Hispanic/Latino Spanish speaking communities in the U.S. come from different places and depending from where one comes, some people may have different cultures of disaster response, or disaster subcultures. When it comes to understanding, interpreting, and acting on different information regarding weather and climate threats these factors can play a significant role. Additionally, inequities in weather risk communication such as translations from English to Spanish may also increase the vulnerability and challenges that this community faces when it comes to weather hazards. This research analyzes how cultural background and experiences or disaster subcultures from Hispanic/Latino immigrants in the United States affects the way they perceive, understand and act on severe weather risks. Using data from the Severe Weather and Society Survey 2022 Spanish version we analyze the differences between people who lived outside the U.S. versus people who did not and their perceptions, behaviors, and reporting understanding of severe weather risks. When doing the analysis, language barriers will also be taken into consideration. In addition, we also perform a qualitative analysis using data from interviews held after the December 10th , 2021, tornado outbreak within the Guatemalan community of Mayfield, KY. These results are presented and discussed using a disaster subcultures frame. When communicating different weather risks and threats, the weather enterprise needs to consider factors such as culture and experience to effectively communicate and transmit their weather risk information to diverse communities such as Spanish speaking Hispanic/Latinos.

We estimate the impact of the minimum wage on US farm worker employment by exploiting state-level variation in recent minimum wage increases. A $1.00 increase in the minimum wage decreases the likelihood of employment for an individual farm worker by around one percentage point, with the effect concentrated among native and naturalized US citizens. However, we find no evidence of a relationship between minimum wage and either the number of farm workers or guest workers. The difference between these results may be due to lower international migration to high minimum wage states. Citizenship and immigration status can influence the impact of labor market regulations on the farm workforce.

This study explores the cultural legacy of slavery in the US South. I suggest the hypothesis that historical slave concentration fostered collectivism through post-Reconstruction policies, which strengthened group identification based on race. Consistent with this proposition, county-level evidence indicates the emergence of a negative link between slavery and individualism after Reconstruction. Beyond temporal coincidence , I use historical data on anti-enticement laws to examine the institutional mechanism of cultural change. Border-county analysis substantiates that the selective application of post-Reconstruction policies produced the relationship between slavery and collectivist culture.

Access to affordable childcare is crucial to mothers’ employment. Yet, childcare costs and access to Head Start, childcare subsidies, and state-funded preschool vary dramatically across U.S. states. Using data from the 2016 American Community Survey five-year estimates, we apply hierarchical logistic regression models to show mothers are more likely to work in states with inexpensive childcare, higher Head Start enrollment and childcare subsidy participation, and increased availability of state-funded preschool. Childcare subsidy access is associated with higher maternal employment amongst those with lower levels of educational attainment, whereas state-funded preschool is associated with higher employment primarily among the college educated. Additionally, our analysis revealed that Head Start has a stronger association with maternal employment in states where childcare costs are high, reducing the negative relationship of employment with expensive childcare. As national discussions continue to center on the importance of childcare, our research adds evidence that public programs support maternal employment through reducing out-of-pocket childcare costs.

Previous research has employed an inadequate measure of marriage metabolism, but the concept may be useful for understanding the system of marriage. This paper addresses changes in the incidence of marital events in the United States from 2008 to 2020. I offer a measure, the Total Rate of Marital Events (TRME), that captures the lifetime experience of marital transitions (marriage, divorce, and widowhood) for a life table cohort. I find that the TRME declined steeply over this relatively short period: 25 percent for men and 23 percent for women. All three components declined in every age group below 90. I suggest that the slowing churn of the marriage system reflects the diminished social presence of marriage in daily life – if not its declining importance – which coincides with the increasingly selective status of married life. A higher status marriage system is a smaller, slower, and more stable marriage system.

Objective: Food insecurity is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality leading to high medical expenditures, but race/ethnicity was used as adjustments in the literature. The study sought to use race/ethnicity as a key predictor to compare racial differences in associations between food insecurity and expenditures of seven health services among non-institutionalized adults. Design: This cross-sectional study used Medical Expenditure Panel Survey that collects information on food insecurity in 2016 (n=24,179) and 2017 (n=22,539). We examined the association between race/ethnicity and food insecurity status and documented the extent to which impacts of food insecurity on medical expenditures varied by race/ethnicity. We fit multivariable models for each racial group, adjusting for states, age, gender, insurance, and education. Adults older than 18 years were included. Results: The results show that blacks experienced an inter-racial disparity in food insecurity whereas Hispanics experienced intraracial disparity. A higher percentage of blacks (28.7%) reported at least one type of food insecurity (11.2% of whites). Around 20% of blacks reported being worried about running out of food and the corresponding number is 8.4% among whites. Hispanics reported more food insecurity issues than whites. Moreover, food insecurity is positively associated with expenditures on emergency room utilization (99% increase for other races vs. 51% increase for whites) but is negatively associated with dental care utilization (43% decrease for blacks and 44% for whites). Except for Hispanics, prescription expenditure has the most positive association with food insecurity, and food insecure blacks are the only group that did not significantly use home health. Conclusion: The study expanded our understanding of food insecurity by investigating how it affected seven types of medical expenditures for each of four racial populations. An interdisciplinary effort is needed to enhance the food supply for minorities. Policy interventions to address intra-racial disparities among Hispanics and inter-racial disparities among African Americans are imperative to close the gap.

This paper analyzes the impact of marriage regulations on the migratory behavior of individuals using the history of the liberalization of same-sex marriage across the USA. The legalization of same-sex marriage allows homosexuals’ access to legal rights and social benefits, which can make marriage more attractive in comparison to singlehood or other forms of partnership. The results clearly show that legalization increased the migration flow of gay men to states that legalized same-sex marriage. We do not detect statistically significant effects for women in the short term. Supplemental analysis, developed to explore whether the migration flow translated to a significant effect on the number of homosexuals by state, suggests that the increase after the legalization of same-sex marriage was transitory. Legalization of same-sex marriage also reduces the incentives for non-US-native individuals originating from intolerant countries to move to a state that permits same-sex marriage.