Background: Mortality of Mixed-Race Groups Data are rare ● What can historical census data tell us about the social assignment of mixed black/white race status and mortality outcomes?

Importance The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with increased unemployment rates and long periods when individuals were without health insurance. Little is known about how Medicaid expansion facilitates Medicaid enrollment as a buffer to coverage loss owing to unemployment. Objective To compare changes in health insurance coverage status associated with pandemic-related unemployment among previously employed adults in states that have vs have not expanded Medicaid eligibility. Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study included US adults aged 27 to 64 years who were employed at baseline in the 2020 to 2021 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which included calendar years 2019 to 2020 (32 462 person-years). Data analyses were conducted between November 2021 and April 2022. Exposures Job loss (ie, new unemployment) experienced during 2020. Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcomes were coverage status (ie, uninsured status) and source of coverage (ie, employer sponsored, marketplace, and Medicaid). Using 2-way person-by-year fixed-effects regression models, changes in coverage status associated with unemployment in states that expanded Medicaid were compared with states that did not expand Medicaid. Additional analyses were performed based on prepandemic coverage status. Results The cohort included 16 231 adults (mean age, 46.8 [95% CI, 46.6-47.0] years; 51.6% women). New unemployment was associated with an increase of 2.9 (95% CI, 1.1-4.6) percentage points (P = .002) in the proportion of uninsured adults in Medicaid expansion states and an increase of 10.7 (95% CI, 2.4-18.9) percentage points (P = .01) in nonexpansion states. Workers were 5.4 (95% CI, 1.9-8.9) percentage points (P = .003) more likely to enroll in Medicaid after a job loss if they lived in a Medicaid expansion state compared with workers experiencing job loss in nonexpansion states. Conclusions and Relevance In this cohort study of US adults, unemployment-related Medicaid enrollment was more frequent in Medicaid expansion states during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medicaid expansion led to a smaller increase in uninsured adults because those who lost private insurance coverage (eg, employer sponsored) appeared more able to transition to Medicaid after job loss.

Background: The social consequences of obesity may influence health and mortality rate (MR), given obesity's status as a highly stigmatized condition. Hence, a high absolute body mass index (BMI) in conjunction with the stigmatization of a high BMI may each independently increase the rate of MR. Objectives: We tested whether relative BMI, defined as ordinal rank within a social reference group jointly defined by age, sex, and race/ethnicity, is associated with MR independent of absolute BMI. Methods: Data were from three nationally representative datasets: the Health and Retirement Study (n = 31,115), the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS, n = 529,362), and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n = 31,115). Relative BMI kg/m2 deciles were calculated within twenty-four subgroups jointly defined by age (6 levels), sex (2 levels), and race/ethnicity (4 levels). The association between ordinal rank BMI and MR was assessed using Cox survival generalized additive models in each dataset with adjustments for age, race, sex, smoking, educational attainment, and absolute BMI. Results: Absolute BMI had a significant non-monotonic association with MR, such that BMI was positively associated with mortality at BMI levels above approximately 25 kg/m2. Contrary to expectations, results from NHIS indicated that individuals in the first decile of relative BMI had the highest MR whereas relative BMI was not associated with MR in the NHANES and HRS. Conclusion: We hypothesized that the stigmatization of obesity might lead to an increased MR after controlling for absolute BMI. Contrary to expectations, a higher relative BMI was not associated with an increased MR independent of absolute BMI.

The 2020 Census County Assessment Tool was developed to assist decennial census data users in identifying deviations between expected census counts and the released counts across population and housing indicators. The tool also offers contextual data for each county on factors which could have contributed to census collection issues, such as self-response rates and COVID-19 infection rates. The tool compiles this information into a downloadable report and includes additional local data sources relevant to the data collection process and experts to seek more assistance.

Siblings describe positive and negative aspects of autism and often assume lifelong support roles. Less is known about cultural influences on sibling relationships. This qualitative study characterizes processes linking siblings’ autism conceptualizations, sibling relationships, and self-concept using a multicultural framework. Siblings (12 Latino/a/x, 9 non-Latino/a/x white) participated. Data were stratified by ethnicity and analyzed using applied thematic analysis. Latino/a/x and non-Latino/a/x siblings described processes linking autism, relationships, and self-concept differently. Latino/a/x siblings emphasized family roles and identified as caregivers and protectors. Non-Latino/a/x siblings emphasized general sensitivity toward individuals who differed from themselves. Findings may reflect cultural differences in familism, caregiving expectations, and autism conceptualizations, thereby illuminating foundations of siblings’ lifelong caregiving roles and highlighting the importance of culturally-sensitive, family-centered care.

Abstract: What makes a place desirable is the subject of much debate. We conduct a mixed methods analysis on two mid-sized US cities—Indianapolis and Kansas City. We use a migration analysis to understand the flow of the general population, creative workers, and entrepreneurs, followed by an exploratory qualitative analysis of impactful entrepreneurs. Our migration analysis shows that these cities are gaining population overall as well as creative workers and entrepreneurs, and our exploratory qualitative analysis shows that entrepreneurs broadly value quality of life factors, including social and family reasons. Our analysis suggests that entrepreneurs are less mobile than the general population, and that they start companies where they live. We discuss the implications of our study for the broader debate on what makes cities attractive and for further refinement of multidimensionality in the urban amenities literature. Plain English Summary: Entrepreneurs and creative workers are less mobile than the general population in two mid-sized American cities. We study migration trends of the general population, creative workers, and entrepreneurs in Indianapolis and Kansas City, supplemented with exploratory interviews of impactful entrepreneurs. We find that entrepreneurs are “sticky” in both contexts, and that the reasons for location can be tied to quality of life overall. Our findings have implications for research, which can further investigate the multidimensionality of attractiveness of place, and for policy, which can consider the needs of entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs.

During the Great Depression, the United States removed approximately 263,000 Mexicans, including some legal US citizens, from the country. This repatriation was an effort to protect the jobs and earnings of US citizens. Mexicans were singled out for removal because they were one of the largest non-white migrant or ethnic groups in the US and because of prevailing beliefs that they would never integrate into US culture. In this study, economists Gustavo S. Cortes and Vinicios P. Sant’Anna explore the effects of this repatriation event on local real estate markets. Specifically, they look at how the removal of Mexicans influenced the economic recovery of US cities during and after the Great Depression. The authors find that cities from which more people were removed recovered slower than cities from which fewer people were removed. Sending Mexicans and some US citizens of Mexican heritage out of the country reduced new construction rates in cities and slowed the growth of home values and rents across America. These are economic costs that could be weighed against the economic benefits to other groups, but the authors find no clear benefits to native, non-Mexican workers. In sum, this paper indicates that efforts to deport immigrants may have long-lasting and negative effects on communities that experience those losses. Importantly, this paper considers only the economic effects and ignores the ethical implications of such policies. Policymakers should consider both, but the economic case for immigration is clear. Removing immigrants and their children en masse from the country can harm rather than promote the welfare of natives.

The substantial share of births to unmarried women (FP-21-17), as well as the older median age at first marriage than at first birth (FP-21-12; FP-20-06), provide evidence of the decoupling of marriage and childbearing in recent decades. This profile uses data from the 2020 American Community Survey (ACS)* to examine the demographic characteristics of currently married and unmarried women aged 15-50 who had a birth within the past 12 months. This profile updates previous profiles using the most recent data available (FP-20-17; FP-13-10).

A strong positive correlation between the educational attainment of parents and their children is well documented. Determining whether this relationship is due to nature (selection) or nurture (causal factors) is both a challenge and an important policy issue. We use the Vietnam era draft lottery and educational exemptions as a “natural experiment” to address this issue. Substantially more men attended university during this war, creating a cohort of fathers many members of which would not normally have enrolled in tertiary education (TE). Using US Current Population Survey (CPS) and Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data on the father’s and his children’s TE involvement, we find that, for this war cohort, the intergenerational transmission leading their children to enrollment in TE is at least as high (CPS) or even higher (PSID) than that of control cohorts. In the context of university attendance in the US, these findings suggest that nurture plays an important additional role.

Wage gaps between documented (including natives) and undocumented workers reflect employer exploitation, endogenous occupational sorting and productivity losses associated with lack of legal status. Identification of the productivity penalty is crucial to estimate the net economic gains from legalization. Our paper presents a model-based strategy to identify the productivity penalty associated with lack of legal status. In the model, heterogeneous workers choose occupations and undocumented workers are subject to employer discrimination and experience productivity loss in occupations characterized by tasks that require legal status. The theoretical analysis provides guidance on how to identify occupational barriers and on how to compute a lower bound for the undocumented productivity penalty. Applying this strategy to individual-level data that imputes undocumented status, we estimate that the productivity penalty associated with lack of legal status in the United States is at least 5%. This implies that legalization of undocumented workers not only improves their wages, but also increases GDP. JEL Classifications: J3, J7

Previous work shows that higher male wage inequality decreases the share of ever married women in their 20s, consistent with the theoretical prediction that greater male wage dispersion increases the return to marital search. Consequently, male wage inequality should be associated with higher husband quality among those “early-mover” women who choose to forgo these higher returns to search. We confirm using U.S. decennial Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data from 1980-2018 that married women ages 22-30 in marriage markets with greater male wage inequality are more likely to marry up in education and in husband’s occupation. We additionally consider whether male wage inequality increases wage uncertainty, leading women to prefer older husbands who can send stronger signals of lifetime earnings. We confirm that higher male wage inequality is also associated with a larger marital age gap.

The Great Plains drought of 1931–1939 was a prolonged socio-ecological disaster with widespread impacts on society, economy, and health. While its immediate impacts are well documented, we know much less about the disaster’s effects on distal human outcomes. In particular, the event’s effects on later life mortality remain almost entirely unexplored. Closing this gap would contribute to our understanding of the long-term effects of place-based stress. To help fill this gap, I use a new, massive, linked mortality dataset to investigate whether young men’s exposure to drought and dust storms in 341 Great Plains counties was linked to a higher risk of death in early-old age. Contrary to expectations, results suggest exposure to drought conditions had no obvious adverse effect among men aged 65 years or older at time of death—rather, the average age at death was slightly higher than for comparable men without exposure. This effect also appears to have been stronger among Plainsmen who stayed in place until the drought ended. A discussion of potential explanations for these counterintuitive results is provided.

The agriculture sector plays a critical role in global food security and economy, but it is also among the greatest contributors to environmental degradation and global warming through practices such as clearing of forests and wetlands, water management, and use of fertilizers and pesticides. This study proposes a geospatial framework for the systematic assessment and monitoring of environmental impacts of agriculture practices using agri-environmental impact indicators and the environmental impact assessment (EIA) method. Geospatial approaches are identified and synthesized for four key phases of the EIA method: (1) screening; (2) scoping; (3) impact prediction & assessment; and (4) impact management, monitoring & follow up. The study shows the potential of remote sensing and geospatial methods such as mapping, geostatistical interpolation, spectral indices, image classification, multi-criteria decision analysis, and GIS watershed analysis for the different EIA phases. The proposed framework can assess impacts at flexible spatial (within-farm up to the national level) and temporal scales (daily to annual). The framework was exemplified for Canada, where its use could integrate existing programs from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, such as environmental farm plans and agri-environmental indicators. The framework can be used by farmers, farmer organizations, environmental agencies, and consultancies, as well as provincial, territorial and federal agencies.

This paper uses the 2018-2020 U.S. Census and American Community Survey microdata to examine the extent to which gender differences in graduates' choice of degree fields-STEM or Non-STEM contribute to the gender pay gap in the United States. With the Blinder-Oaxaca wage decomposition method, this paper finds that among the highly-educated labor force in the U.S. for the period 2018-2020, the individual background characteristics (race, region), family characteristics (marital status, number of children), education-related characteristics (degree fields, the highest educational attainment, and school type), and job-related characteristics (hours worked, work experience, job sector, and occupation type) combined can explain 55.96% of the gender pay gap. Among them, whether an individual chooses a college major related to a STEM field (ie. whether or not to obtain a degree in a STEM field) contributes 2.4%-5.2% of the "explanatory part", and can only explain 1.35%-2.91% of the gender pay gap. Finally, the results of this study showed that, although the content of the field of study (STEM/Non-STEM) seems not to explain too much of the current gender wage gap in the U.S. highly-educated workforce, it is hard to deny that educational segregation is still a barrier to gender equality. In addition, this paper also found that the gender pay gap for STEM graduates is 3.77% smaller than the gender pay gap for Non-STEM graduates. What's more, the choice of degree subjects can explain 9.91% of the gender gap for STEM graduate samples.

The goal of our study is to understand the impact of Tobacco 21 (T21) laws on youth smoking and health equity. We conducted modified Poisson regression models using 2014–2019 Monitoring the Future data to measure the impact of attending school in a county 100% covered by a T21 law versus counties with <100% T21 coverage on past 30-day smoking participation (n = 262,632), first cigarette smoking initiation (n = 189,698), and daily smoking initiation among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders (n = 214,496), separately. Additive interactions were tested between T21 coverage and sex, race/ethnicity, parental education, and college plans. T21 coverage was associated with a lower likelihood of smoking participation among 12th graders. T21 coverage was most strongly associated with a lower likelihood of smoking participation among: Hispanic and NH (Non-Hispanic) Other/Multiracial individuals; respondents with parents who had less than a college education; and respondents who were not definitely planning on attending college. T21 laws were associated with a lower likelihood of smoking participation among 12th graders. T21 policies were most impactful for individuals disproportionately impacted by tobacco, indicating T21 laws might help reduce tobacco-related health disparities.

Evidence abounds that agglomeration patterns have changed over time, but little is known about changes in the underlying determinants of agglomeration. We analyze 44 years of coagglomeration patterns of U.S. manufacturing industries and show that over time, input-output linkages and labor market pooling have become less important determinants of industry agglomeration, while knowledge spillovers have become more important. We show that trade and technology shocks are strongly associated with the decline in labor market pooling and the increase in knowledge spillovers. The downward trend in input-output linkages is associated with an increase in trade competition but not with a decrease in the transportation costs of goods.

Since the Civil War, two towering waves of immigrants have defined American demographics. The first came from Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s: the Ellis Island era. The second, which continues today, started in 1965 with sweeping changes in immigration law that welcomed people from around the globe, particularly Latin America and Asia.

The effect of negative shifts in public opinion on the economic lives of minorities is unknown. We study the role of racial bias in the U.S. labor market by investigating sudden changes in public opinion about Asians following the anti-Chinese rhetoric that emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic, and associated changes in employment status and earnings. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data from January 2019 to May 2021, we find that, unlike other minorities, Asians who worked in occupations or industries with a higher likelihood of face-to-face interactions before the pandemic were more likely to become unemployed afterwards. Consistent with a role for public opinion affecting labor market outcomes, we find that the effects are larger in magnitude in strongly Republican states, where anti-Asian rhetoric might have had more influence. Additionally, we show that, while widespread along the political spectrum, negative shifts in views of Asians were much stronger among those who voted for President Trump in 2016 and those who report watching Fox News channel.

Janitors are an essential part of California’s economy. Janitors clean, sanitize, and maintain buildings and other indoor spaces while being some of the most exploited workers in the service industry. Many private sector janitors earn poverty wages and lack benefits, are routinely misclassified, subjected to wage theft, experience sexual harassment, and are exposed to unsafe working conditions. Based on our analysis of government data from the 5-year sample (2015–2019) of the American Community Survey (ACS) and a pooled 10-year sample (2011–2020) of the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS ORG), this research brief finds that across almost all measures of job quality and economic well-being, private-sector female janitors are significantly worse off than their male counterparts, earning lower median wages than male janitors, and reporting higher rates of poverty at nearly 45%. Low wages are prevalent in the private sector, with almost two-thirds of private-sector janitors earning low wages. Subcontracting, a widespread practice in the janitorial industry, has contributed to the high rates of regulatory violations that undermine janitors’ employment conditions, such as misclassification, wage theft, tax fraud, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and assault.

Gig economy compensation policy initiatives, such as California Prop 22, are increasing the number of US workers receiving piece rate pay (PRP) and other forms of insecure income. However, there is limited evidence about how this trend affects people's health. Using data from the 2008-19 IPUMS Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), we examined associations between insecure compensation and US adults' self-reported overall health as well as psychological distress. We report significant associations with three types of insecure income — PRP, hourly, and daily pay — on overall health and psychological distress. These effects were robust to adjustment for suspected confounders, but point estimates suggested that the effect of each type of non-salary compensation differed by sex, level of education, income level, and health insurance coverage. These findings warrant policy makers' consideration as they balance the purported benefits of gig economy non-salary compensated work with implications for workers' health.