This paper investigates the nexus between water fetching, gender-based violence (GBV), and underrepresented population in Africa. By analyzing individual-level data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-Demographic and Health Surveys (IPUMS-DHS), it is found that women responsible for water fetching experience increased risks of violence, particularly when traveling long distances to access water sources. In addition, the study explores the intersecting dynamics of gender and ethnicity, revealing that women from underrepresented groups face increased vulnerability to sexual violence, especially in regions with significant polarization. These findings underscore the multifaceted nature of water insecurity and its impacts on women’s safety and well-being, emphasizing the importance of addressing gender and ethnic disparities in water access to mitigate violence against women.

This paper presents how a new interdisciplinary, faculty–student research team collaborates with multiple community partners to develop civically engaged research (CER) addressing young children’s inequitable economic mobility. We aim to create more equitable, culturally responsive prenatal to age five (PN-5) systems of care that promote economic mobility for families in Charlotte, North Carolina and beyond. As a secondary objective, we leverage our CER partnerships and research lab model to create civically engaged learning (CEL) opportunities for diverse students, amplifying community impact. We detail our origins, shaped by a university initiative and two community calls to action, and explain how overcoming CER challenges – developing new projects, managing competing output pressures, and addressing external funding demands – has solidified our PN-5 identity and CER partnership. We share key lessons learned, including the value of strong mentorship in guiding CER development, internal deliberation to navigate interdisciplinary and cross-rank academic pressures, and co-producing materials to maximize impact. We also share strategies for creating outputs that ensure mutual benefit for all – community partners, faculty, and students, and highlight the benefits of integrating CEL opportunities within CER partnerships. Overall, we hope our experiences inspire others to foster meaningful CER partnerships that enhance community well-being.

Farmers face unique challenges and opportunities in saving for and maintaining income during retirement relative to other Americans. Farm households have higher income than the average American household but may decide to invest in their farm rather than save for retirement. We use information from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and the Current Population Survey to answer three questions pertaining to the retirement preparedness of farm households. First, what is the composition of income and assets for farm households? Second, how do retirement income and assets for farm households compare to those of all U.S. households and nonfarm self-employed households? Third, do retirement income and assets vary across subpopulations of retirement-age farmers? Our results suggest that, on average, older farm households received smaller shares of their income from retirement sources and had smaller retirement assets than older U.S. households. However, farm households had higher levels of total income and assets with most assets being concentrated in the farm operation. Farm assets may be relatively illiquid compared to retirement assets making it more difficult to rely on them for income during retirement. Among older farm households, those with low-sales farm businesses and Hispanic and non-White operators may be particularly unprepared for retirement relative to other farm households. Our results have implications for farm household well-being as operators’ average age rises. They highlight the similar and distinct challenges farmers face in saving for and maintaining income in retirement relative to other workers.

Cold exposure remains a significant public health concern, particularly in the Arctic regions prone to extremely cold weather. While the physical health impacts of cold exposure are well documented, understanding the social vulnerability aspects is crucial for effective mitigation and policy development. This study investigates the multifaceted dimensions of social vulnerability in the face of cold temperatures across various communities in Alaska. Alaska, renowned for its extreme cold temperatures and harsh environmental conditions, poses unique challenges to its residents, particularly in the context of social vulnerability. Drawing on a combination of quantitative data analysis and qualitative insights, we examine the factors contributing to social vulnerability, including demographic, economic, geographic, and infrastructural elements, in terms of the Extremely Cold Social Vulnerability Index, for seven Public Health Regions in Alaska. The Universal Thermal Climate Index in two very cold categories (<−27 °C) was used to identify cold exposure. Factors such as income, housing quality, health status, and resilience of the population play crucial roles in determining an individual or community’s sensitivity to, and ability to cope with, cold temperatures. Our analysis reveals that social vulnerability in Alaska is not uniform but varies significantly among regions. The research findings highlight the importance of considering factors of both sensitivity and adaptivity in understanding and addressing social vulnerability, thereby informing the development of targeted strategies and policies to enhance the resilience of Alaskan communities. As cold temperatures are projected to continue to challenge the region, addressing social vulnerability is essential for ensuring the well-being and safety of Alaska’s diverse populations.

Understanding the allocation of work is crucial to understanding poverty at the individual level and disparities in income and well-being on a macroeconomic scale.

Access to homeownership is crucial for ensuring household well-being. However, Minority households face persistent challenges as their homeownership rates consistently fall below those of their White counterparts. In light of this disparity, this dissertation embarks on three distinct studies to delve into various aspects of the differences in home- ownership between White and Nonwhite populations in the United States. The focus of study on Chapter 1 is the homeownership rate at the Census tract level. This Chapter thoroughly investigates the White-Black and White-Hispanic homeownership rate gaps across the entire distribution of homeownership rates, with a particular emphasis on the tail of the distribution. To conduct this analysis, a comparative approach is em- ployed by examining the homeownership rates of White households and Minority house- holds at equivalent percentiles within their respective homeownership rate distributions. A re-weighting decomposition method known as DFL, initially proposed by DiNardo et al. (1995), is utilized to implement a decomposition of the White-Minority gap into two dis- tinct components: one explained by the aggregate demographic and socioeconomic char- acteristics at the Census tract level, such as the share of the population aged 65 and older and median household income, and the other attributable to unexplained factors. The find- ings of the study reveal that households residing in tracts with low homeownership rates play a significant role in driving the overall racial homeownership gap in the United States. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that racial disparities in demographic and socioeco- nomic factors are the primary drivers of the racial homeownership gap among White, Black, and Hispanic households living in Census tracts characterized by low homeownership rates within their respective racial groups. In contrast, unexplained factors exert a significant in- fluence on the disparities between White and Minority homeownership rates among house- holds residing in Census tracts with higher levels of homeownership. Among the demo-graphic factors examined, the racial disparity in the share of senior citizens emerges as the most influential factor in explaining the White-Black and White-Hispanic homeownership gaps, closely followed by the racial disparity in the share of married-couple families. The second chapter is co-authored with Paul Carrillo (The George Washington Uni- versity). Chapter 2 aims to analyze the spatial variation observed in both the White-Black homeownership rate gap and the White-Hispanic homeownership rate gap. Notably, this racial homeownership rate gap exhibits significant spatial variation, even within urban ar- eas. This study employs a semi-parametric approach based on sample re-weighting to jointly model location and tenure choices, and decompose the racial gap into two com- ponents: a portion that can be explained by differences in demographic characteristics such as education and income, and a portion that remains unexplained. Findings indicate that while differences in demographic characteristics between racial groups account for about one half of the variation in homeownership rate differences across areas, the unexplained portion of the gap exhibits considerable spatial variation and is highly correlated with the racial composition of an area. Specifically, areas with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents tend to have smaller homeownership rate racial gaps. Chapter 3 investigates the life-cycle evolution of the White-Black homeownership propensity gap across different household types. This propensity gap refers to the difference in homeownership propensities between Whites and Blacks within the same age cohort. The analysis focuses on the early baby boomer generation in the United States (born between 1946 and 1955), given their significant economic impact. In this paper, the White-Black homeownership propensity gap is estimated using a semi-nonparametric model (SNP), and a difference-in-differences decomposition method is applied to separate the change in the gap across age stages into two components. The first component captures the contribu- tion of changes in the racial difference in demographic and socioeconomic factors, such as marriage, presence of children, income, and more. The second component is attributed to changes in the racial disparities in unexplained factors. The findings indicate that the White-Black homeownership gap widens with age for households with a lower probabil- ity of homeownership, while it narrows for households with a relatively higher likelihood of owning a home. Furthermore, the impact of changes in the White-Black difference in demographic and socioeconomic factors on the homeownership propensity gap varies sig- nificantly among different types of households. Specifically, shifts in racial disparities re- lated to demographic and socioeconomic factors primarily contribute to the widening of the White-Black homeownership gap among early baby boomer households with a higher likelihood of owning a home. Conversely, in earlier age stages, these shifts initially lead to an expansion of the gap but then transition to narrowing the gap for early baby boomer households with a lower likelihood of homeownership.

Objective: This paper analyzes gender inequalities in leisure time within coresident opposite-sex couples with and without children at home in five European countries to evaluate the gendered parental impact in leisure time. Background: In European societies, women continue to bear much of the physical and mental burden involved in running a household and managing family life resulting in greater levels of stress and time deprivation. Time spent in leisure has been associated with better physical and psychological wellness. Understanding how gender influences the distribution of leisure time among couples living with and without children at home, and how these effects differ across European countries, is important to understand individual and couples' well-being. Method: Drawing on information from the Multinational Time Use Study for 15,024 matched couples residing in Spain, Italy, France, Finland, and the United Kingdom, we conduct a series of ordinary-least-squares regression analyses with country fixed effects. Results: The general trends reveal that women in Europe allocate less time to leisure and that mothers experience lower leisure of high quality compared to their partners when their children are below the age of 5. However, Finnish and British couples exhibit a more egalitarian distribution of leisure time regardless of their parental status, particularly when compared to Italian and Spanish ones. Conclusion: This study unveils a gendered use of leisure time, as well as a gendered parental impact when children are young. However, the impact of women's second shift in leisure time varies across countries, suggesting a cultural and institutional effect. Implications: These findings have implications for researchers, health professionals, and policymakers concerned with understanding and alleviating situations of overstress, time poverty, and depression among women, but especially among mothers of young children.

Urban environments influence well-being among young people in many ways, yet youth perspectives are often excluded from decision-making processes including urban planning and design. From 2020 to 2021, the Nashville Youth Design Team, a participatory action research and design collective composed of high school students in Metro Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee investigated the influence of built environments on diverse aspects of youth well-being. By employing a comprehensive eight-element definition of wellness (i.e., environmental, financial, intellectual, mental, physical, recreational, social, and spiritual), the team created and disseminated a Youth Wellness survey to middle and high school students across Nashville-Davidson County. In their survey, youth researchers asked their peers to rate their own wellness across each of these eight domains. The participants were also encouraged to identify locations in the city that either supported or detracted from their sense of well-being. This study utilized these data to conduct a spatial analysis, exploring how proximity to wellness-supporting or detracting locations influenced young people’s self-reported well-being. The data from open-ended survey questions were also analyzed qualitatively to provide context on how different environmental factors influence youth well-being. This research offers insights into the relationship between the built environment and youth wellness, highlighting the importance of incorporating youth perspectives into urban planning efforts.

Public health experts have observed higher risks of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death for some racial groups compared with others. Studies into racially disparate COVID-19 outcomes have concentrated on the medical and public health reasons for disparities, while other work has looked generally at historic slavery’s continuing effect on health. None has looked specifically at the link between COVID-19 outcomes and historical slavery. This study looks at the disparity between Black Non-Hispanic and White Non-Hispanic deaths by asking whether the American legacy of slavery contributes to racial disparity. Specifically, we interpret the regression coefficients in linear regressions that explore the relationship between slavery and COVID-19 mortality for Black and White Non-Hispanic Americans, while controlling for other demographic characteristics. This study finds statistically significant evidence that slavery, outlawed more than 150 years ago, nevertheless influences disease today by contributing to higher mortality among Black Americans and lower mortality among White Americans in selected counties of U.S. Southern states.

Early care and education (ECE) programs provide nurturing environments for young children—and the learning environments of children simultaneously serve as the working environments of early educators. In Sonoma County, approximately 140 child care centers serve children from birth through age five, along with more than 330 family child care providers operating in their own homes. Centers include sites funded by Head Start or State Preschool, centers enrolling children with child care subsidies, and centers enrolling children with no public funding, both as nonprofit or for-profit entities. Building on the California Early Care and Education Workforce Study, this report provides a snapshot of the state of the licensed ECE workforce in Sonoma County. Chapter 1 offers a profile of its core members: family child care providers and center-based educators (directors, lead teachers, and assistants).1 Chapter 2 describes the state of educator well-being, and Chapter 3 explores stability for center- and home-based programs and for professionals in the field.

Population aging is underway across developing Asia, although demographic profiles differ substantially across subregions and countries. Thus, improving the well-being of the large and growing numbers of older Asians has emerged as an important socioeconomic challenge for the region. The central objective of this paper is to take stock of the current state of the well- being of older Asians. More specifically, we delve into indicators from four thematic areas; namely, income, health, work, and family support, that shape the well-being of older Asians. Our overview of the indicators yields some policy-relevant insights. For example, we find that raising the productivity of older workers is no less important than raising their labor force participation rate.

Objectives: Direct care workers (DCWs) play a central role in supporting individuals' health and well-being across care settings, yet may face barriers to accessing health care themselves, particularly because of high rates of uninsurance. Design: An observational study using pooled National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data from 2014 to 2018. Setting and Participants: The sample included survey respondents employed as direct care workers (DCWs), including hospital aides, home care workers, and nursing and residential care aides. Methods: We used bivariate analyses to compare differences in health insurance coverage and health service use, defined in terms of access, utilization, and affordability, among DCWs by care setting. We then used stepwise multivariable logistic regression analyses to explore the associations between insurance coverage and health service use. Results: The sample included 1499 DCWs. Compared with hospital aides, home care workers and nursing and residential care aides had lower insurance coverage rates, were more likely to rely on Medicaid, and reported lower health care utilization and higher cost barriers. Health insurance through Medicaid was associated with the highest odds of health care access and utilization and the lowest odds of cost barriers for DCWs. Conclusions and Implications: Given the projected 9.3 million total job openings in the direct care workforce from 2021 to 2031, policy and practice interventions designed to support DCWs' health are essential for ensuring continuous and quality care for older adults and people with disabilities and serious illness.

The high cost of health care affects health at both the individual and population level, and rural residents experience inequities in health, access to care, and financial well-being. However, little research has examined how health care affordability differs by rural/urban residence, and how health care affordability varies along geographic and socio-demographic dimensions within rural areas. In this policy brief, we examine rural/urban differences in rates of health care (un)affordability, as well as among rural residents by key socio-demographic characteristics.

A central aspect of poverty measurement is how well the measure can identify the people and places that are experiencing financial hardships. This paper explores the relationship between poverty and financial hardship by using the CFPB’s financial well-being scale, which reflects individuals’ self-assessments of their financial challenges. Using this measure, for every 1 percentage point increase in a state’s official poverty rate for working-age adults, there is a 0.59 percentage point increase in the share of working-age adults with very low financial well-being. In contrast, the state’s supplemental poverty rate is negatively correlated with the rate of financial hardship using the CFPB measure. This finding is due to the supplemental poverty measure’s geographic adjustment shifting poverty towards areas that have lower rates of self- reported financial hardship.

Urban greenspaces—human-made or naturally occurring areas that predominantly feature vegetation—have spurred an increase in local, federal, and international interest in promoting and enhancing public and environmental health.1 Urban greenspaces offer a range of potential benefits, including urban heat island and flood mitigation, carbon storage and sequestration, reduced air and noise pollution, increased physical activity, enhanced social cohesion and cultural exchange, and improved psychological and physiological health. 2-4 These potential benefits position greenspaces as a possible cost-effective and efficient solution to urban challenges related to inadequate physical activity, poor mental health and well-being, and environmental concerns. 2,5,6 Despite the growing recognition of the potential health benefits conferred by greenspaces, significant knowledge gaps persist. Advancing scientific knowledge necessitates improved quantification of greenspace access, addressing the legacy of structural racism and greenspace inequities, and investigating the impact of greenspaces on maternal mental health. This dissertation addresses these gaps through three interrelated studies conducted in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Understanding the evolving interactions between employment, social benefits, and families’ well-being is key to designing better policies to both protect families and foster economic growth. Employment both overall and among those living in low-income families has been on a downward trajectory across the last three decades. One notable exception is that lowincome women with children were increasingly likely to work between 1992 and 1999 in the aftermath of large changes to social safety net programs to provide more incentives and rewards for work. Since then, low-income women with children have been more likely to be employed than childless women. Over time, payments from social benefits programs have made up a larger share of income among low-income families with children and relatively higher earnings. Among low-income families without children, social benefits have not changed much over time.

The national context of deportation threat, defined as the federal government's approach to deportation and/or deportation's salience to the US public, fluctuated between 2011 and 2018. US Latinos across citizenship statuses may have experienced growing psychological distress associated with these changes, given their disproportionate personal or proximal vulnerabilities to deportation. Drawing on 8 y of public- and restricted-access data from the National Health Interview Survey (2011 to 2018), this article examines trends in psychological distress among Latinos who are US-born citizens, naturalized citizens, and noncitizens. It then seeks to explain these trends by considering two theoretical pathways through which the national context of deportation threat could distress Latinos: 1) through discrete dramatic societal events that independently signal a change to the country's approach to deportation and/or that render deportation temporarily more salient to the public or 2) through more gradual changes to the country's everyday institutional (i.e., quotidian efforts to detain and deport noncitizens) and social (i.e., deportation's ongoing salience to a concerned public) environment of deportation threat. We find that, though both pathways matter to some degree, there is more consistent evidence that the gradual changes are associated with Latino US citizens and noncitizens' overall experiences of psychological distress. The article highlights how, even absent observable spillover effects of dramatic societal events bearing on deportation threat, the institutional and social environment in which they occur implicates Latinos' well-being.

The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which the US House of Representatives passed on January 31, 2024, and the Senate is now considering, would make important changes to the child tax credit (CTC) if enacted. The legislation would increase CTC payments for families with lower earnings, apply a one-year “lookback” provision to the refundable credit’s earnings test, and begin increasing the maximum benefit with inflation. We first summarize how this legislation would affect benefits for families based on their marital status, number of children, and earnings. Then we discuss how it would affect work and marriage incentives. We conclude by arguing that more research is needed to inform how behavioral responses to these changed incentives would ultimately shape the legislation’s effects on employment, marriage, and family well-being.

Prior to the 2014 Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion, 37% of young adults ages 19–25 in the United States were low-income and a third lacked health insurance coverage—both the highest rates for any age group in the population. The ACA's Medicaid eligibility expansion, therefore, would have been significantly beneficial to low-income young adults. This study evaluates the effect of the ACA Medicaid expansion on the health, health care access and utilization, and financial well-being of low-income young adults ages 19–25. Using 2010–2017 National Health Interview Survey data, I estimate policy effects by applying a difference-in-differences design leveraging the variation in state implementation of the expansion policy. I show that Medicaid expansion improved health insurance coverage, health care access, and financial well-being for low-income young adults in expansion states, but had no effect on their health status and health care utilization. I also find that the policy was associated with larger gains in health coverage for racial minorities relative to their Non-Hispanic White counterparts. With the continued health policy reform debates at the state and federal levels, the empirical evidence from this study can help inform policy decisions that aim to improve health care access and utilization among disadvantaged groups.

This paper delves into the nuanced impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on time use activities in the United States, particularly examining gender and parental status differences. Drawing on data from the 2018–2022 American Time Use Survey, the study analyzes trends in six distinct time use categories: unpaid care work, leisure, employed activities, personal care, childcare, and household activities. The research sheds light on the evolving dynamics within households during the pandemic, emphasizing the potential implications for economic stratification and societal well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted established time use patterns, forcing a reconsideration of ‘traditional’ gender roles and caregiving responsibilities in certain countries. While early studies hinted at a temporary shift toward more equitable distribution of household activities, particularly childcare, this paper scrutinizes these trends over a more extended period. Despite the short-lived increases in fathers’ involvement in childcare during the pandemic, the study finds that the caregiving burden remained disproportionately on mothers and women. Notably, the analysis reveals persistent gender disparities in unpaid care work, with women and mothers spending a disproportionate amount of time on household activities, housework, and caring for children. This unequal distribution of caregiving responsibilities limits a women’s ability to engage in paid work activities, contributing to economic stratification and constraining their financial resources. While some activities demonstrated slight reductions in gender gaps, the overall picture suggests that the pandemic may not bring about lasting changes in how time is allocated within households.