President Bush and some members of Congress have proposed legalizing illegal aliens and substantially increasing legal immigration. Economic theory predicts that increasing the supply of labor in this way will reduce earnings for natives in competition with immigrants. This study examines the economic impact of increases in the number of immigrant workers by their education level and experience in the work force, using Census data from 1960 through 2000. Statistical analysis shows that when immigration increases the supply of workers in a skill category, the earnings of native-born workers in that same category fall. The negative effect will occur regardless of whether the immigrant workers are legal or illegal, temporary or permanent. Any sizable increase in the number of immigrants will inevitably lower wages for some American workers. Conversely, reducing the supply of labor by strict immigration enforcement and reduced legal immigration would increase the earnings of native workers.

This paper assesses the increasing importance of incarceration in determining the average socioeconomic status of black males in the United States. I document national trends in the proportion of black males that are either currently institutionalized or who have served previous prison time. The paper also documents the extent to which serving time interrupts the potential early work careers of young offenders and reviews recent research on employer sentiment regarding ex-offenders and the likely stigma effects of prior incarceration. Finally, I assess whether increasing incarceration rates provide a possible explanation for the drastic declines in employment rates observed among noninstitutionalized black males. Using data from the U.S. Census, I test for a correlation between the proportion of non-institutionalized men in a given age-race-education group that are employed and the proportion of all men in this grouping that are institutionalized. The proportion institutionalized has a strong negative effect on the proportion of the noninstitutionalized that are employed. The relationship is strong enough to explain onethird to one-half of the relative decline in black male employment rates.

Meaningful discussions about women at the top' can take place today only because a quiet revolution occurred about thirty years ago. The transformation was startlingly rapid and was accomplished by the unwitting foot soldiers of an upheaval that transformed the workforce. It can be seen in a number of social and economic indicators. Sharp breaks are apparent in data on labor market expectations, college graduation rates, professional degrees, labor force participation rates, and the age at first marriage. Turning points are also evident in most of the series for college majors and occupations. Inflection or break points in almost all of these series occur from the late 1960s to the early 1970s and for cohorts born during the 1940s. Whatever the precise reasons for change, a great divide in college-graduate women's lives and employment occurred about 35 years ago. Previously, women who reached the peaks often made solo climbs and symbolized that women, contrary to conventional wisdom, could achieve greatness. But real change demanded a march by the masses from the valley to the summit.' That march began with cohorts born in the late 1940s.

A large portion of the rise in the education premium can be explained by a signaling theory of education which predicts that in the future, increases in the education level of the workforce will actually cause the education premium to rise, simply because different workers are being labeled as highly educated. This prediction is supported by past behavior of the high school education premium. It runs counter to the view that increases in the relative supply of high education workers will always lower educations relative price. Suppose education does not affect an individual's productivity, but acts only as a signal of it because individuals select education based on their productivity, and wages are determined by productivity. It is shown that this implies additional education in the economy would not change the wage distribution. The education premium, or relative price of highly educated workers, is the ratio of mean high education wages to mean low education wages. If all workers gained more education, it would mean the bar (or productivity minimum) for a given level of education was being lowered. For example, suppose highly educated referred to a college education. If there were few college grads, lowering the bar (the most productive non-college grads becoming college grads) would reduce mean college wages significantly by adding lower productivity workers. Because there would be many non-college grads vs. college grads, a drop in the bar would cause a smaller fall in the mean non-college graduate wage by removing the most productive workers. It is shown that this implies the education premium would fall. However, if the bar was low enough so that there were many college grads and few non-college grads, the reverse would happen and further declines in the bar would cause educations relative price to rise. This effect would not be due to real changes, but to changes in labeling. To measure how large this effect could have been, simulations were done to create counterfactual education premiums for three definitions of highly educated: (1) those with a college degree; (2) those with some college education; (3) those with a high school education. Premiums were created for the Census years 1950-2000 that hold the wage distribution the same as the previous decade, but allow the distribution of education across wage ranks to be the from the present year. These show what the premiums would have been if wages didnt change but education levels changed as in the data. The simulations for (1) and (2) perform as expected: the simulated premiums fall when there are more high education individuals, and this can explain some or all of the observed changes in the education premium between the past six decades of census data. However, (3) also acts as the model predicts: because this definition has many more highly educated individuals, further increases in the supply of highly educated individuals lower the counterfactual premium. Thus, this model predicts that as the number of college graduates rises, additional grads will eventually cause the premium to increase.

This paper compares patterns of metropolitan development, economic growth and decline, demographics, and family/residential life in the Philadelphia and Los Angeles regions across the 20th century. Philadelphia represents what America was, while Los Angeles signifies what it is becoming. As part of the larger project of this chapter, the paper illustrates the diversity of urban experiences both across time and between the two regions. It thus challenges the utility of traditional categories for conceptualizing urban life in 20th century North America. All statistics without a secondary citation derive from the One Nation Divisible projects IPUMS sample data of a) total population in each metropolitan area, b) households in each metropolitan area, and c) people over 18 in each metropolitan area (a proxy for employment-eligible adults). They have been analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

All available demographic indicators concur; the number of Brazilians immigrants in the United States is rapidly increasing. U.S. government statistics reveal that since the mid1980s Brazilians have traveled to the U.S. in record numbers. Prior to that time this movement was but a fraction of what it is today. The main reason for this tremendous increase, which began approximately 20 years ago, was the worsening Brazilian economy (Goza 1992; Margolis 1994). Although the economic situation in Brazil has somewhat stabilized, the social networks now in place facilitate the integration of additional newcomers and the continued expansion of this movement. As such, it is extremely likely that this population will rapidly grow for at least the foreseeable future. This study will use recently released data from the 2000 . . .

This article examines the racial identities of second generation Korean and Indian Americans living in Dallas, Texas, relative to both Whites and Blacks, in order to elucidate their racialization. Korean and Indian Americans criticized White racism yet asserted that they were equal "Americans" to Whites, who did not deserve to be targeted. They accomplished this by differentiating themselves from Blacks whom they regarded, ironically, as the true foreigners. Why only a quarter of interviewees felt tied to Blacks is explained. Differences between the ethnic groups also receive attention, as do the influences of class and geography on racial identities.

We estimate how 197090 changes in an outcome-based measure of school quality (state average test scores) affected changes in earnings for those leaving high school to enter a state's labor force. We find that a one standard deviation deterioration in a state's relative test score performance is associated with a 3% (or .5 SD) reduction in average wages of young entrants to the labor force. We also find a similar decline in college matriculation. There is weak evidence that the school quality effect on earnings diminishes as labor force entrants acquire experience.

In recent years, both economists and the popular press have asked whether the measured unemployment rate is too low. In particular, observers question whether current unemployment rates accurately reflect labor market weakness. By some conventional measures, the most recent recession was relatively mild. The official unemployment rate rose to a high of 6.3 percent in June 2003, which is low by historical standards (see figure 1), and real gross domestic product (GDP) declined by only 0.5 percent, compared with a 1.3 percent decline in the 199091 recession and an average decline of 1.1 percent during previous recessions from 1960 to 1981. At the same time, others have argued that this latest recession was not as mild for labor markets as suggested by the maximum unemployment rate level. Most point to the fact that based on payroll employment numbers, there were 1.8 percent fewer jobs in January 2004 than in March 2001.

Asian American Youth covers topics such as Asian immigration, acculturation, assimilation, intermarriage, socialization, sexuality, and ethnic identification. The distinguished contributors show how Asian American youth have created an identity and space for themselves historically and in contemporary multicultural America.

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between labor supply and commuting. Standard urban and labor models both predict that work hours should decline as commuting increases. This study tests both types of models but emphasizes the urban model, which provides a framework more amenable to overcoming the simultaneity bias inherent in the relationship between labor supply and commuting. Taking a three-part empirical approach to analyzing the behavior of prime-age male workers in the 1980 and 2000 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Samples, I test the urban model while calculating commuting journey endpoints (distance) with two distinct methods and the labor model treating commuting time (time) as a singular quantity without regard to endpoints. The three methods produce similar results: even when correcting for the endogeneity of residence location or commuting, work hours increase with increases in commuting. In the context of the urban model, this suggests that prime-age males strongly substitute housing consumption for leisure time.

Why, at the peak of the Jim Crow era early in the twentieth century, did life expectancy for African Americans rise dramatically? And why, when public officials were denying African Americans access to many other public services, did public water and sewer service for African Americans improve and expand? Using the qualitative and quantitative tools of demography, economics, geography, history, law, and medicine, Werner Troesken shows that the answers to these questions are closely connected. Arguing that in this case, racism led public officials not to deny services but to improve themthe only way to "protect" white neighborhoods against waste from black neighborhoods was to install water and sewer systems in bothTroesken shows that when cities and towns had working water and sewer systems, typhoid and other waterborne diseases were virtually eradicated. This contributed to the great improvements in life expectancy (both in absolute terms and relative to whites) among urban blacks between 1900 and 1940. Citing recent demographic and medical research findings that early exposure to typhoid increases the probability of heart problems later in life, Troesken argues that building water and sewer systems not only reduced waterborne disease rates, it also improved overall health and reduced mortality from other diseases.Troesken draws on many independent sources of evidence, including data from the Negro Mortality Project, econometric analysis of waterborne disease rates in blacks and whites, analysis of case law on discrimination in the provision of municipal services, and maps showing the location of black and white households. He argues that all evidence points to one conclusion: that there was much less discrimination in the provision of public water and sewer systems than would seem likely in the era of Jim Crow.