Among deaths of despair, the individual and community correlates of US suicides have been consistently identified and are well known. However, the suicide rate has been stubbornly unyielding to reduction efforts, promoting calls for novel research directions. Linking levels of influence has been proposed in theory but blocked by data limitations in the United States. Guided by theories on the importance of connectedness and responding to unique data challenges of low base rates, geographical dispersion, and appropriate comparison groups, we attempt a harmonization of the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) and the American Community Survey (ACS) to match individual and county–level risks. We theorize cross-level sociodemographic homogeneity between individuals and communities, which we refer to as “social similarity” or “sameness,” focusing on whether having like-others in the community moderates individual suicide risks. While analyses from this new Multilevel Suicide Data for the United States (MSD-US) replicate several individual and contextual findings, considering sameness changes usual understandings of risk in two critical ways. First, high individual risk for suicide among those who are younger, not US born, widowed or married, unemployed, or have physical disabilities is cut substantially with greater sameness. Second, this moderating pattern flips for Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Asians, and Hispanics, as well as among native-born and unmarried individuals, where low individual suicide risk increases significantly with greater social similarity. Results mark the joint influence of social structure and culture, deliver unique insights on the complexity of connectedness in suicide, and offer considerations for policy and practice.

An estimated 3.5 million direct care staff working in facilities and people’s homes play a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic. They allow vulnerable care recipients to stay at home and they provide necessary help in facilities. Direct care staff, on average, have decades of experience, often have certifications and licenses, and many have at least some college education to help them perform the myriad of responsibilities to properly care for care recipients. Yet, they are at heightened health and financial risks. They often receive low wages, limited benefits, and have few financial resources to fall back on when they get sick themselves and can no longer work. Furthermore, most direct care staff are parents with children in the house and almost one-fourth are single parents. If they fall ill, both they and their families are put into physical and financial risk.

Over the thirty years preceding 2008, the United States has experienced increasing income inequality while transitioning to a consumption-led economy. This dissertation investigates the foundations of the 2008 recession and offers an explanation for the slow growth recovery. Three distinct papers examine a different aspect of household borrowing and the way it can influence macro-dynamics. The first paper situates the 2008 financial crisis within the growing body of literature, referred to as the New History of Capitalism. The 2008 financial crisis resulted from many years of the Government-Sponsored Enterprises’, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, efforts to expand access to homeownership among low-income households. This paper situates the events following the 1992 Housing Act within the New History of Capitalism to argue that the financial crisis was a feature of capitalism rather than a malfunction. The dissertation uses Hyman Minsky’s argument that economic agents determine a level of external financing by considering their ability to meet future cash commitments as a theoretical framework. This paper considers these borrowing decisions' role in a slow-growth recovery. A multilevel model regressing household payment to income ratio on weeks looking for work distinguishes between high and low-income households’ decisions to make cash commitments. The model results suggest that, as low-income households experience joblessness, they reduce their level of cash commitments. This reduction in borrowing by low-income households contributed to the slow growth recovery. Household borrowing can influence macroeconomic trends in the same fashion that Minsky argued firm investment does. Low-income households reduce their cash commitments more than high-income households when experiencing periods of joblessness. A Stock Flow Consistent macro-model examines the influence of these decisions on the slow-growth recovery. Simulations show that an increase(decrease) in the households' desired margin of safety decreases(increases) total output. Simulations also show that the most effective stimulus method in response to an increase in the desired margin of safety is fiscal spending.

On Many Routes is about the history of human migration. With a focus on the Habsburg Empire, this innovative work presents an integrated and creative study of spatial mobilities: from short to long term, and intranational and inter-European to transatlantic. Migration was not just relegated to city folk, but likewise was the reality for rural dwellers, and we gain a better understanding of how sending and receiving states and shipping companies worked together to regulate migration and shape populations. Bringing historical census data, governmental statistics, and ship manifests into conversation with centuries-old migration patterns of servants, agricultural workers, seasonal laborers, peddlers, and artisans-both male and female-this research argues that Central Europeans have long been mobile, that this mobility has been driven by diverse motivations, and that post-1850 transatlantic migration was an obvious extension of earlier spatial mobility patterns. Demonstrating the complexity of human mobility via an exploration of the links between overseas, continental, and internal migrations, On Many Routes shows that migrations to the United States, to the nearest coalfield, and to the urban capitals are embedded within complicated patterns of movement. There is no good reason to study internal apart from transnational moves, and combining these fields brings ample possibility to make migration research more relevant for the much broader field of social and economic history. This work poses an invaluable resource to the understudied area of Habsburg Empire migration studies, which it relocates within its wider European context and provides a major methodological contribution to the history of human migration more broadly. The ubiquity and functionality of human movement sheds light on the relationship between human nature and society, and challenges simplistic notions of human mobility then and now.

Immigration may put a strain on the health care system, adversely impacting the health of the native population. At the same time, recent studies have documented the role of immigration in nudging native workers from risk‐intensive, physically demanding jobs toward occupations that require more communication and interactive ability, potentially improving their health. In this article, I examine the relationship between immigration and the health of the native population in the United States. The results of the analysis fail to show that immigration adversely affects the health of U.S. natives. Instead, the findings suggest that the presence of low‐skilled immigrants may improve the health of low‐skilled U.S.‐born individuals.

The southern United States has been labeled a “sacrifice zone” for the rest of the nation's toxic waste. In the early days of the environmental justice movement, researchers found that the south contained a disproportionate number of toxic sites, including garbage dumps, landfills, and waste incinerators. These initial studies used different data sources and methodologies, but arrived at the same conclusion: America was dumping in Dixie, a predominantly poor African American region of the country. Since then, researchers have mainly confirmed or called into question the existence of environmental racism within the south. However, none have investigated the south’s environmental burdening relative to other regions in the U.S. Drawing on county-level U.S. census data and the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, this study assesses the spatial and social distribution of toxic releases across the U.S. from 1987 to 2017. The primary purpose of this study is to use a standard measure of environmental risk to determine if the American south is (still) the nation’s “sacrifice zone.” Additionally, this study assesses whether patterns of environmental racism that were present in the early stages of the environmental justice movement are still present today.

This qualitative descriptive phenomenological study explored the adaptation experiences of 11 foreign-born adults who are teaching in the Southeastern United States P-12 public schools. Gordon’s theory of assimilation guided the research, which asserted that assimilation is the progression of inclusion by which strangers become complete participants of an alternative group or culture. The study added to the literature on assimilation by exploring the lived experiences of a select sample of foreign-born individuals from Asia, Jamaica, Africa, India, Europe, and Latin America who migrated to the United States as adults. Two research questions that guided the study include (1) How do foreign-born adults adapt to teaching in public schools in the United States? (2) How have the lived experiences of foreign-born teachers influenced their adaptation in U.S. public schools? Data analysis was guided by Giorgi’s five steps to qualitative data analysis. Themes derived from data evidenced Gordon’s theory of assimilation by lived experiences. The ideas include adapting to culturally diverse work environments, certification to qualify, language barriers, lack of teacher respect, and immigrants’relevance in the workplace. The paradigm of the theoretical foundation generated ten themes to include: RQ1: (a) certification, (b) preparation to teach, (c) organizational and teacher similarities, (d) teacher involvement in ensuring student success, (e) nature of the relationship with other teachers and administrators, and (f) support system. RQ2: (a) distinctions, (b) challenges, (d) pursuing the American dream, and (e) the relevance of a foreign-born teacher.

Immigration policy is often viewed as an important regulator of the flow of labor and human capital into the labor market. In the US context, this perspective underlies efforts to raise the educational levels of newly admitted US immigrants, which has been proposed through a variety of mechanisms. Yet it remains unclear whether and under what circumstances such changes would significantly raise the educational level of the US labor force. We use a microsimulation model to evaluate the effects of various policy proposals that would seek to admit more highly educated immigrants. Results suggest that adopting a Canadian‐style admissions policy that explicitly selects immigrants based on educational attainment would lead to a better educated labor force, especially among immigrants and their descendants. Eliminating all unauthorized immigration or family reunification and diversity admission categories, however, would have minimal impact. Additionally, the effects of all policy scenarios on the educational composition of the entire labor force are likely to be modest and would be conditional on the continuation of intergenerational mobility and high levels of immigration.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is leading to social (physical) distancing policies worldwide, including in the USA. Some of the first actions taken by governments are the closing of schools. The evidence that mandatory school closures reduce the number of cases and, ultimately, mortality comes from experience with influenza or from models that do not include the effect of school closure on the health-care labour force. The potential benefits from school closures need to be weighed against costs of health-care worker absenteeism associated with additional child-care obligations. In this study, we aimed to measure child-care obligations for US health-care workers arising from school closures when these are used as a social distancing measure. We then assessed how important the contribution of health-care workers would have to be in reducing mortality for their absenteeism due to child-care obligations to undo the benefits of school closures in reducing the number of cases.

Visit research.depauw.edu/econ/incomevis to see a novel, eye-catching visual display of the income distribution in the United States that conveys fundamental information about the evolution and current level of income inequality to a wide audience. We use IPUMS CPS data to create household income deciles adjusted for price level and household size for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1976 to 2018. We adjust for state price differences from 2008 to 2018. Plotting these data gives a 3D chart that provides a startling picture of income differences within and across states over time. Those interested in further customization can use our Python visualization toolbox, incomevis, available at pypi.org/project/incomevis.

This article describes a comprehensive geographic information system of Third-Republic France: the TRF-GIS. It provides annual nomenclatures and shapefiles of administrative constituencies of metropolitan France from 1870 to 1940, encompassing general administrative constituencies (départements, arrondissements, cantons) as well as the most significant special administrative constituencies: military, judicial and penitentiary, electoral, academic, labor inspection, and ecclesiastical constituencies. It further proposes annual nomenclatures at the contemporaneous commune level that map each municipality into its corresponding administrative framework along with its population count. The 901 nomenclatures, 830 shapefiles, and complete reproduction material along with primary sources of the TRF-GIS database are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/TRF-GIS.

Background: The 2020 US Census will use a novel approach to disclosure avoidance to protect respondents' data, called TopDown. This TopDown algorithm was applied to the 2018 end-to-end (E2E) test of the decennial census. The computer code used for this test as well as accompanying exposition has recently been released publicly by the Census Bureau. Methods: We used the available code and data to better understand the error introduced by the E2E disclosure avoidance system when Census Bureau applied it to 1940 census data and we developed an empirical measure of privacy loss to compare the error and privacy of the new approach to that of a simple-random-sampling approach to protecting privacy. Results: We found that the empirical privacy loss of TopDown is substantially smaller than the theoretical guarantee for all privacy loss budgets we examined. When run on the 1940 census data, TopDown with a privacy budget of 1.0 was similar in error and privacy loss to that of a simple random sample of 50% of the US population. When run with a privacy budget of 4.0, it was similar in error and privacy loss of a 90% sample. Conclusions: This work fits into the beginning of a discussion on how to best balance privacy and accuracy in decennial census data collection, and there is a need for continued discussion.

Domestic workers are integral to the social and economic fabric of San Francisco, providing childcare to working families, cleaning and maintaining homes, and supporting older adults and people with disabilities in their everyday activities. This report, based on an ongoing study, outlines the demographic composition and employment conditions of this workforce. The analysis draws upon U.S. Census Bureau data, Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and an original survey of over 200 domestic workers employed in San Francisco.1 Approximately 10,000 home attendants, nannies, and housecleaners work in San Francisco, excluding individuals employed through the state’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Program and other publicly funded programs.2 This report focuses on the first group—domestic workers employed by private households or private agencies. Unlike IHSS providers, these workers often lack collective bargaining rights, rendering public policy especially crucial in shaping their employment outcomes. The inadequacy of employment conditions in this field poses serious challenges, both during the COVID-19 crisis and in the face of longterm economic trends. Amid the pandemic, low wages and weak labor protections leave domestic workers acutely vulnerable to both illness and economic hardship. This vulnerability is worsened by informal employment arrangements that often leave workers without access to employee benefits and social safety net programs, such as paid sick leave and time off, unemployment insurance, and paid family leave. Workers who patch together employment across multiple households—especially common among housecleaners—experience further insecurity. Beyond the pandemic, these realities perpetuate racial and gender inequality, as the low wages and poor conditions in this field fall upon a workforce predominated by immigrant women of color. Workers and their families are not the only ones affected: households who rely on domestic workers also suffer, as the dearth of good jobs contributes to high worker turnover and mounting labor shortages. While greater public investment from the state and federal government will be critical in reversing these trends, the City and County of San Francisco should consider a range of immediate policies to advance change in this sector.

In recessions, unemployment increases despite the—perhaps counterintuitive—fact that the number of unemployed workers finding jobs expands. On net, unemployment rises only because even more workers lose their jobs. We propose a theory of unemployment fluctuations resting on this countercyclicality of gross flows from unemployment into employment. In recessions, the abundance of new hires “congests” the jobs the unemployed fill, diminishes their marginal product and discourages further job creation. Countercyclical congestion alone explains about 30–40 percent of U.S. unemployment fluctuations. Besides generating realistic labor market volatility, it also provides a unified explanation for the cyclical labor wedge, the excess earnings losses from job displacement and from graduating during recessions, and the insensitivity of unemployment to labor market policies, such as unemployment insurance.

This study examines the dynamics of women's engagement in Alaska commercial fisheries including their roles within fishing families, the evolution of women's participation, perceptions of equity and access, and the effects of gender traditionalism. Such gendered effects of changes in ecological, social, economic, and management conditions need to be understood in order to mitigate biases and unintended consequences. Women's engagement in Alaska fisheries was examined using a combination of quantitative analysis of 30 years of harvest data, and qualitative analysis of 7 focus groups. Women's participation in Alaska commercial fisheries parallels trends and influences documented around the world. This participation is highly responsive to and bound by family conditions and is influenced by gender stereotypes, taboos, norms, and harassment. Although study participants perceived that opportunities for women had increased in Alaska fisheries, examination of harvest data showed men continue to dominate the industry. Women play the key adaptive role in fishing families, entering and exiting fisheries in response to changing conditions, especially when having children. This responsiveness may marginalize women in fisheries as the increasing institution of catch share and limited entry programs entitles a set of participants usually on the basis of fishing history and often increases the price of entry into those fisheries. Moreover, fisheries earnings for women are highly concentrated in salmon, which exacerbates their economic vulnerabilities in the face of decreasing diversification opportunities. Thus the dynamics of women's fisheries participation is an important lens for evaluating potential policy effects and is one that necessitates continued research.

We evaluate the employment effect of the green part of the largest fiscal stimulus in recent history, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Each $1 million of green ARRA created 15 new jobs that emerged especially in the post-ARRA period (2013-2017). We find little evidence of significant short-run employment gains. Green ARRA creates more jobs in commuting zones with a greater prevalence of pre-existing green skills. Nearly half of the jobs created by green ARRA investments were in construction or waste management. Nearly all new jobs created are manual labor positions. Nonetheless, manual labor wages did not increase.

Launched in 2009, Status of Women & Girls in Minnesota is an ongoing collaborative research project of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and the Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy (CWGPP) of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Periodically, the CWGPP gathers and analyzes data specific to Minnesota women and girls in economics, safety, health, and leadership to inform Women’s Foundation of Minnesota priorities. Since 1990, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has conducted research to inform its grantmaking and policy work. The project represents a unique approach to research by using a gender-race-place-equity lens. The data included comes from original analysis by the CWGPP of publicly available datasets (American Community Survey, Minnesota Student Survey, and others) and from published reports produced by government agencies and nonprofits.

Immigration from Asia and Latin America has rapidly changed the race and ethnic composition of the non-White population in the United States. This dissertation examines the question of race/ethnicity, nativity, and how acculturation and socioeconomic characteristics impact residential outcomes for Asian and Hispanic immigrants, a process often termed as residential assimilation. It also tests the effectiveness of spatial assimilation, segmented assimilation, and resurgent ethnicity theories for understanding residential segregation across metropolitan neighborhoods. Three sets of analyses are presented in this dissertation. The first set of analyses studies the nativity difference in residential segregation levels between Asians and Hispanics from non-Hispanic Whites in metropolitan areas. In general, the findings from residential segregation patterns demonstrate that the classic spatial assimilation is not solely outdated but is only applicable to Hispanics. Looking closely into the nativity groups, Hispanic immigrants are more residentially segregated from Whites than are the native-born counterparts in all immigrant destinations (traditional gateways, new destinations, and other destinations). On the contrary, Asian nativity groups show a completely reverse pattern. By comparing the segregation levels of the aforementioned destination types, the native-born Asians are highly segregated from Whites than are the immigrant groups in other destinations, which portends that as Asians disperse to the newly emerging destinations, they are not spatially assimilated with Whites. The second part of analyses examines differences in residential propinquity of living in ethnic areas (defined by PUMAs) by race, nativity, and considers the role of individual socioeconomic and demographic characteristics for understanding disparities in residential preferences of living in ethnic areas. Results show that controlling for individual differences in acculturation and socioeconomic characteristics explains away the nativity difference, as the native-born Asians and Hispanics show a higher tendency of living in the ethnic areas compared to their respective foreign-born counterparts. Build on past research findings and framework, this result lends less support to the classic spatial assimilation model, but more to the segmented assimilation and resurgent ethnicity frameworks. Hispanics are generally low in acculturation and socioeconomic attainment measures, which in turn generate a “downward” social context for the nativeborn groups. However, the relatively advantaged Asian native-born are more likely to live in ethnic areas, which is suggestive of a voluntary process that is related to preference and taste, rather than economic constraints. The results from the last set of analyses show that Hispanic nativity groups are more responsive to the effects of human capital factors (demographics, English ability, and education) compared to Asians in the internal migration patterns. This nativity difference is the strongest at the relative risk of segregation. Consistent with spatial assimilation theory, I found that greater English proficiency and education help Hispanic immigrants disperse from established immigrant metropolitan areas. Whereas for Asians, advanced degrees are strongly related to the segregation migration. Moreover, other human capital characteristics, homeownership, family income, and self-employment, impact the internal migration differently on Asians and Hispanics, providing some evidence for the segmented assimilation and resurgent ethnicity theories.

A growing number of studies examine the affordability benefits of living near transit, especially fixed-rail, with the assumption that transportation benefits of transit neighborhoods outweigh increasing housing costs. Yet these studies only compare housing and transportation costs. This study adds to the existing literature by investigating the influence of new light rail on changes in discretionary income in urbanized areas. We examine such changes from 2000 to 2010 at the block group level, comparing light rail neighborhoods (LRNs) and Non-LRNs, across 20 U.S. urban areas that opened light rail stations between this time period. Using descriptive statistical measures and OLS regressions, we find that while discretionary income decreased overall, neighborhoods with light rail provide a positive influence on discretionary income. Overall, our findings suggest light rail neighborhoods provide greater affordability benefits than non-light rail neighborhoods.

In this paper, I examine the relationship between average income tax rates and the decision to enter into incorporated or unincorporated self-employment in the U.S. The current paper uses incorporated self-employment as a proxy for entrepreneurship and unincorporated self-employment as a proxy for non-innovative business owners. How do individual average income tax rates affect different types of self-employment? To answer this question, I use the Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) over the period 2005 to 2019. My findings are in line with many of the previous research about the impacts of taxation on entrepreneurship that are based on the U.S. data. Average tax rates have a positive impact on the probability of becoming an entrepreneur. Conversely, there was no sizable effect of the average tax rates on the probability of becoming an unincorporated business owner. The empirical results are robust across alternative specifications.