In the United States, the nuclear family is and has historically been the normative living arrangement (Ruggles, 1987). There has been a long term trend toward fewer and fewer extended family households as well. However, as this research documents, recent rates of extended family living vary across racial and ethnic groups and by nativity, with immigrants experiencing higher rates than their U.S. born counterparts. Combining the study of the cultural and socioeconomic determinants of household structure with the study of immigrant incorporation in the United States, this dissertation examines the extent to which the greater prevalence of extended family households among immigrants is more attributable to cultural patterns, presumably rooted in the immigrant's countries of origin, or to lower immigrant socioeconomic status that often persists despite increasing exposure to the receiving society. The dissertation focuses primarily on the Mexican origin population in the United States. Overall, the results indicate that extended family households are more likely to be adopted at later points in the life course and when individuals are in or near poverty. Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants who have been in the United States for longer periods of time are most likely to follow this life course pattern and to most frequently utilize the vertically extended family household containing relatives from several generations. Recent immigrants, on the other hand, tend to rely more frequently upon the horizontally extended family household composed of younger adults from a similar point in the life course. In addition, such households are increasingly formed among immigrants of higher socioeconomic standing. A comparison with household formation patterns in Mexico indicates that the general trajectory of household structure observed across the life course for Mexican Americans and longer resident immigrants is similar. Therefore, it does not appear that immigrants are bringing a cultural preference for extended family living with them when they arrive in the United States. Rather, the migration process itself disrupts the normative life course pattern of extended family living found in the United States and in Mexico and appears to encourages coresidence upon arrival in the United States regardless of the life course position of the migrants.

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 rates 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.

This paper uses a new data set, the Public Use file of the 1880 U.S. Census of the Population, to examine national point prevalence rates of adult morbidity over the early phase of the United States epidemiologic transition. These historical data report health status at the individual level and allow the analysis of age and sex differentials in morbidity. Point prevalence rates of morbidity by major cause show that males generally had higher rates of morbidity and long-term disability than females, especially at mid-life and in old age. But large sex differences in the distribution of conditions by major cause occurred over two portions of the life course: in early adulthood and in old age. Age and sex differences in the distribution of adult morbidity reflected the health status divide of the communicable and degenerative conditions.

Despite the attention devoted by scholars to testing Frederick Jackson Turner's view of the frontier as a "safety valve" relieving pressure on urban labor markets in the east, few have offered evidence bearing on the central issues in the debate: how many people actually moved to the west, how many of them were poor, unskilled workers, and how did the subsequent economic performance of migrants compare to that of non-migrants? This study fills these gaps in our understanding of the process of American economic development by offering direct evidence on the extent, character, and consequences of migration to the west between 1850 and 1870 using more than 5,000 males linked across the 1850-70 federal censuses. It finds substantial migration to the frontier by urban residents, particularly unskilled workers, and substantial gains in wealth for these migrants. Those who moved to the frontier were generally of lower average quality than those who stayed behind, lending further support to the view of the frontier as a "safety valve." Both the rate of migration to the frontier and the size of the benefits enjoyed by frontier migrants appear to have fallen during the 1860s.

At this point, it is nearly impossible to escape discussion of the aging of the baby boom and its implications for Social Security. No set of reasonable demographic and economic assumptions yields a forecast of long-term solvency for the program as it exists today (Board of Trustees 1997; Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 1997). Some reform is necessary. The open questions are which reforms and when. Among proposals for Social Security reform, the most prominent in recent discussion have been the three plans of the 19941996 Advisory Council. Together these plans present a wide array of policy options, but most striking are two: (i) individual defined contribution accounts and (ii) worker discretion over investment of the money in these accounts. I will refer to these reforms as individualization and investment discretion, respectively. Typically combined under the heading of privatization, each represents a distinct departure from the current program. Individualization would reduce income redistribution through Social Security and shift the program more toward a worker pension plan. Investment discretion would shift greater responsibility for old-age income variation (that is, risk) back to the individual worker.Many proponents of privatization claim that these reforms would increase investment and employment, while putting the Social Security program on a path to financial solvency. This paper focuses on the labor...

Using Current Population Survey data from November 1979 and 1989, I find that Mexican Americans earn low wages primarily because they possess less human capital than other-workers, not because they receive smaller labor market rewards for their skills. Among third-and higher-generation men in 1989, Mexicans averaged 21 percent lower wages than non-Hispanic whites, which is roughly similar to the wage deficit for blacks. For Mexicans, more than three-quarters of the wage gap is attributable to their relative youth, English language deficiencies, and especially their lower educational attainment. By contrast, these variables explain less than a third of the black-white wage gap.

In this article we present estimates of childhood mortality, calculated by indirect methods, for the whole United States...in conjunction with data from the 1900 and 1910 PUMS....The estimates are for the entire nation and relate to the period just prior to the censuses of 1900 and 1910....The present 1910 indirect mortality estimates are made for the total population as well as for the white, black, native-white, and foreign-born white populations....The results reported in this article are presented entirely as probabilities of child death between birth and given ages {q(x)'s} along with the implied expectations of life at birth and approximate dates to which the estimates applied.

Part of a special issue on the 109th annual meeting of the American Economic Association presents one of a series of articles on African-American economic gains. Decennial censuses from 1880, 1900, 1910, 1980, and 1990 are employed to gain a longitudinal picture of the dynamics of ethnic/racial-group economic performance. Two tables list Duncan socioeconomic index occupational status scores and literacy/high school diploma attainment rates for various ethnic groups in the five censuses. A further table lists the findings of an analysis conducted to determine whether differences in these average group characteristics explain all of the intergroup disparity reflected in average measures of occupational status. It is concluded that there is a long and sustained tradition of a racially differentiated structure of opportunity in the U.S.

This article compares assimilation rates of Mexican and white non-Hispanic immigrants in California and Texas in the 1980s, within and across entry cohorts. Using wage functions estimated with 1980 and 1990 Census data, wages are predicted for each immigrant entry cohort and for natives in each year, at a given experience and education level. Mexican immigrants who arrived in the 1970s experienced wage growth relative to comparable natives ranging from 7% to 21%, depending on state and gender; that of non-Hispanic white immigrants ranged from −1% to +6%. Both groups' relative wages grew faster in California than in Texas, and men's grew faster than women's. Across-cohort deterioration between the 1970s and 1980s entrants relative to natives averaged 10% for Mexicans and 4% for non-Hispanic whites.

Part of a special issue on the 109th annual meeting of the American Economic Association presents one of a series of articles on African-American economic gains. Decennial censuses from 1880, 1900, 1910, 1980, and 1990 are employed to gain a longitudinal picture of the dynamics of ethnic/racial-group economic performance. Two tables list Duncan socioeconomic index occupational status scores and literacy/high school diploma attainment rates for various ethnic groups in the five censuses. A further table lists the findings of an analysis conducted to determine whether differences in these average group characteristics explain all of the intergroup disparity reflected in average measures of occupational status. It is concluded that there is a long and sustained tradition of a racially differentiated structure of opportunity in the U.S.