Between 1880 and 1930, the occupation rate of children age 10 to 15 fell by over 75%. This paper examines whether state laws restricting the employment of child labor contributed to this decline. Using data from the 1880, 1900, and 1910 federal censuses, I test whether minimum age limits for manufacturing employment enacted during this period constrained the occupational choices of children. I use a ''difference-in-differences-in-differences'' procedure to isolate the effects of the laws from the effects of other forces influencing the demand and supply of child labor. I find that minimum age limits had relatively little effect on the occupation choices of children at the turn of the century and conclude that these restrictions contributed little to the long run decline in child labor.

Service industries now dominate the economies of large cities. But recent advances in information technology have made electronic delivery of some services possible, reducing the importance for these industries of face-to-face interaction. The future location of service industries, and therefore the future of cities, depends on whether services are attracted to cities even if the cost of delivering service output declines. This paper finds that the need to be near suppliers and customers accounts for much of the relationship between business service employment and county density. Industry-level information technology usage is associated with a reduction in the tendency of services to locate near suppliers and customers, but an increase in the tendency to locate near types of workers that the industry demands. On balance, information technology usage is associated with faster service employment growth in cities, especially medium-size and large cities with population up to 2.5 million.

Contradicting earlier studies, some research suggests that families of black southern migrants to northern cities experienced more stability (e.g., children living with two parents) than did the families of their northern-born neighbors. Adequate explanations for this "migrant advantage" in family stability have remained elusive. We examine the effects of metropolitan-level distress on urban black family patterns and explore whether group differences in exposure to these contextual conditions can explain the greater stability of migrant families. A multilevel analysis of the living arrangements of 0- to 14-year-old children is conducted using 1970 data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and the 1970 Summary Statistic File Fourth Count. Several metropolitan-level characteristics, including poverty, male underemployment, female headship, and welfare prevalence, have significant effects on whether a child lives with two parents. Interestingly the migrant advantage is not attenuated when these variables are controlled. Supplemental analyses show that migrants are not positively selected for family stability from the southern population, and that their family structures grow more similar to those of the northern-barn as their length of residence outside of the South increases. We conclude that context does play a role in the migrant advantage in family stability, but that the advantage is likely to be the result of a northern "disadvantage" resulting from prolonged exposure to a social environment that destabilizes families.

We investigate whether a three-generation model of linguistic assimilation, known from previous waves of immigration, can be applied to the descendants of contemporary immigrant groups. Using the 5% Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample 1990 file, we examine the home languages of second- and third-generation children and compare the degree of their language shift against that among the descendants of European immigrants, as evidenced in the 1940 and 1970 censuses. Overall, the rates of speaking only English for a number of contemporary groups suggest that Anglicization is occurring at roughly the same pace for Asians as it did for Europeans, but is slower among the descendants of Spanish speakers. Multivariate models for three critical groups--Chinese, Cubans, and Mexicans--indicate that the home languages of third-generation children are most affected by factors, such as intermarriage, that determine the languages spoken by adults and by the communal context.

A study was conducted to examine aggregate patterns and individual-level estimates of chronic-disease morbidity and long-term disability in the U.S. in the late 19th century. Findings indicate that despite higher levels of urban mortality in 1880, morbidity prevalence rates were greatest in the rural areas of the country. It is revealed that the estimated risk of chronic disease and impairment was highest for males and females who were older, of lower socioeconomic status, or from rural areas. It is noted that this era was marked by geographically uneven but notable levels of endemic chronic disease, probably due to prior episodes of infectious disease and exposure to conditions generated by human action, such as the Civil War and migration.

It is impossible to read the first fifteen chapters of Exodus alongside the royal psalms and Zion hymns in the Psalter without noticing that very different perceptions of Israel's beginnings co-existed in the pre-exilic period. The Moses-Egypt tradition is about a wandering people, deprived of land and status, living under the promise of the protection offered by a nomadic clan-god; whilst the David-Zion tradition, fundamental to so many psalmists, concerns an established nation, a royal state cult which ratifies claims to land and status through its deity ‘housed’ in a Temple. And yet the Exodus tradition is used in a handful of psalms: the question thus arises — what purpose does it serve? Furthermore, why should the psalmists use such an anomalous tradition in this way?

We use a national cross-sectional database, the 1880 Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample, to examine aggregate patterns and individual-level estimates of chronic-disease morbidity and long-term disability in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Despite higher levels of urban mortality in 1880, morbidity prevalence pales were highest in the rural areas of the country, especially in the western and the southern regions. Equations using microdata show that the estimated risk of chronic disease and impairment was highest for males and females who were older, of lower socioeconomic status, or from rural areas. This era was marked by geographically uneven but significant levels of endemic chronic disease, likely the outcomes of prior episodes of infectious disease and exposure to conditions generated by human action, such as the Civil War and migration.

As an alternative to survival analysis with longitudinal data, I introduce a method that can be applied when one observes the same cohort in two cross-sectional samples collected at different points in time. The method allows for the estimation of log-probability survivorship models that estimate the influence of multiple time-invariant factors on survival over a time interval separating two samples. This approach can be used whenever the survival process can be adequately conceptualized as an irreversible single-decrement process (e.g., mortality, the transition to first marriage among a cohort of never-married individuals). Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series...I illustrate the multivariate method through an investigation of the effects of race, parity, and educational attainment on the survival of older women in the United States.

This dissertation presents three research studies in African American social demography. Chapter 1 explores age misreporting on the death certificates of older African Americans and tests a model of age reporting accuracy based on the premise that age-linked institutional factors strongly influence age reporting. A matched record sample is used that links a representative sample of death certificates for African Americans aged 65+ in 1985 to records of the U.S. Censuses of 1900, 1910, and 1920. Only 53% of the matched subjects were found to have age in single years consistently reported in the two sources. Multivariate results suggest that limited interaction with mainstream age-linked institutions rather than purposeful deception is the primary cause of high levels of age misreporting among African American elders. As an alternative to survival analysis with longitudinal data, Chapter 2 introduces a method that can be applied when one observes the same cohort in two cross-sectional samples collected at different points in time. The method allows for estimation of a multivariate survivorship model that estimates the influence of multiple time-invariant factors on survival over the period separating the two samples. The method is illustrated through an investigation of factors responsible for the black-white racial survival gap among American women. Univariate estimates indicate that black women were 7 percent less likely to survive a 20-year follow-up period than were white women. When educational attainment is controlled, however, the racial differential virtually disappears. In an attempt to replicate recent findings documenting the influence of skin-color on the socioeconomic attainment of African Americans, Chapter 3 links a sample of southern-reared African American men to their childhood census records collected in 1920. The childhood census records used in this study classify African Americans as either black or mulatto, allowing for a unique investigation of color stratification in adult life. Results indicate that subjects identified as mulatto enjoyed modestly higher adult socioeconomic status compared with subjects identified as black. Differences in social origins are shown to be responsible for only 10 to 20 percent of the color gap in adult attainment, suggesting that color discrimination may be responsible for the bulk of the color differential. Findings point to the important influence of phenotypic characteristics in shaping the life chances of African Americans.

Researchers have found indirect evidence supporting the role of technology in changing the workforce skill mix in the US by decomposing the change in the skill mix into within/between industry components. This paper provides additional support for the role of technology by extending the decomposition analysis into both the sectoral and the regional dimensions.

Studies attempting to link locational attributes and individual outcomes often focus on children or young adults, under the presumption that their location was exogenously determined by their parents. This strategy is more difficult to justify if parents migrate selectively and tend to transmit their own characteristics to their children. This paper uses Census microdata to document a strong link between selective migration in one generation and economic outcomes in the next. I show that selective migration is a possible explanation for a puzzle in the existing literature: the changing relationship between segregation levels and individual outcomes within the black population.

The 1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the U.S. Census contained detailed information on individuals in large samples. The incompatible PUMS metropolitan geographies across these census years, however, compromise use of these data. In this note, we discuss a procedure to match the geography of the 100 most populous metropolitan areas in the 1980 and 1990 PUMS. Programmed in SAS, this set of matched metropolitan areas facilitates comparative urban analysis for 1980 and 1900. The code can be downloaded from a website (http://baja.sscnet.ucla.edu/~ellis/metrocode.html).

We present a joint study of the US structural transformation (the decline of agriculture as the dominating sector) and regional convergence (of Southern to Northern average wages). We find that empirically most of the regional convergence is attributable to the structural transformation: the nation-wide convergence of agricultural wages to non-agricultural wages, and the faster rate of transition of the Southern labor force from agricultural to non-agricultural jobs. Similar results describe the Mid-West's catch up to the North-East (but not the relative experience of the West). To explain these observations, we construct a model in which the South (Mid-West) has a comparative advantage in producing unskilled-labor intensive agricultural goods. Thus, it starts with a disproportionate share of the unskilled labor force and lower per capita incomes. Over time, declining education/training costs induce an increasing proportion of the labor force to move out of the (unskilled) agricultural sector and into the (skilled) non-agricultural sector. The decline in the agricultural labor force leads to an increase in relative agricultural wages. Both effects benefit the South (Mid-West) disproportionately since it has more agricultural workers. With the addition of a less-than-unit income-elasticity of demand for farm goods and faster technological progress in farming than outside of farming this model successfully matches the quantitative features of the U.S. structural transformation and regional convergence, as well as several other stylized facts on U.S. economic growth in the last century. The model does not rely on frictions on inter-regional factor mobility, since in our empirical work we find this channel to be less important than the compositional effects the model emphasizes.

There have been significant changes in American living arrangements over the past century. Most men and women continue to spend much of their lives co-residing with kin. But an increasing proportion of men and women since World War II do not live with their relatives--rather, they reside as unrelated individuals. An important component of this trend has been the rise of the primary individual--typically defined as household heads who do not have co-resident kin. Part of the increase in primary living arrangements during the twentieth century resulted from changes in basic population characteristics among unmarried adults: i.e., sex, age, race, marital status, and migration status, but this was only true until mid-century. After 1950 the rate of change for both primary and secondary individuals (a group historically consisting of servants, farm laborers, boarders, and lodgers) accelerated, and the trends were largely unaffected by changes in basic population characteristics. Although there is a strong positive relationship between higher income levels and living alone as a primary individual, analyses shows that well under half of the increase in primary individuals was attributable to variations in income. Nevertheless, rising income levels were partially responsible for the changes in American living arrangements during the twentieth century. In addition, the broad-based effects of a more affluent society resulted in unmarried adults having a greater range of residential options. The expense and effort of maintaining an autonomous household meant that the living arrangement choices for most unmarried adults a century ago were limited to living with kin or as an unrelated individual in a non-relative's household. This was mainly true because of the time-consuming nature of basic household tasks, especially laundry and meal preparation. The increasing ability of unmarried adults to live as primary individuals resulted largely from a number of structural changes occurring in the decades before and after World War II: the construction of smaller, more economical apartments and the introduction of modern household appliances, which greatly reduced the amount of time required for maintaining an autonomous household.

The paper analyses the role of hysteresis in explaining the slow wage convergence between certain immigrant groups and native workers. Using the 1990 Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS), the analysis reveals that past earnings history in the country of origin has a relatively smaller effect on post-migration earnings when compared to past earnings history in the US. In addition, the paper suggests that the earnings history in the country of origin is more productive in the US labour market for immigrants from advanced economies as compared to those from less-developed countries. In particular, we find that US labour market does not value the past earnings history of Mexican immigrants as high as that of other ethnic groups with similar socioeconomic characteristics across successive cohorts.