N kpuna, Native Hawaiian elders, are recognized as major sources of wisdom and knowledge in the Native Hawaiian community. Yet, due to many factors, including Western acculturation and historical trauma, n kpuna suffer serious health and social disparities. Although over 36%of n kpuna reside outside of Hawaii, almost no data areavailable on their well-being. Kpuna, caretakers, and key informants in Hawaii and Los Angeles were interviewed, and the Census 2000 and 2010 Public Use Microdata Samples were analyzed to determine the particular challenges facing kpuna outside of Hawaii. Kpuna in the continental United States had a better socioeconomic status than those in Hawaii, but they had much less access to cultural activities and less family support. Several communities in the continental US have formed cultural and civic groups to provide this support.

Most developed countries have foreign aid programs that aim to alleviate poverty and foster economic growth in less developed countries, but with very limited success. A large body of evidence indicates that the root of the economic development problem is cross-country differences in the productivity of labor. If workers are much more productive in one country than in another, the obvious way to help people in less developed countries is to allow them to help themselves by moving to places where they can be more productive. Yet immigration laws severely constrain such movement.

This paper sets out to clarify the characteristics of Irish immigrants in England & Wales and the United States in the late 19th century by comparing the family system of the Ireland-born immigrants to that of Britain-born and American-born citizens, and by examining the pull and push factors for Irish immigrants, from the perspective of the Hajinal's theory and family strategies. To verify this hypothesis, I used the 100% census data of 1881 (England & Wales) and the 1880 (the United States) in NAPP (North Atlantic Population Project) issued by the Minnesota Population Center to analyze the Irish immigrant families in England & Wales and the United States. In conclusion, the Irish-Britain and the Irish-American migrants, who had lived in extended family households or multiple family households in their home country, formed simple family households in England & Wales and the United States, their host country, assimilating themselves to England & Wales and the United States communities. The head and members of each household adopted a family strategy in which all family members should have jobs, to pursue their well-being. However they had their identity, for example the large number of children and their ethnic endogamy.

Bostons population is becoming older than ever before. The oldest Baby Boomer is approaching 70 and reinventing what it means to be a senior citizen. Waves of Boomers will forge a new path into later life, creating a population of seniors that is larger and more long-lived than previous cohorts, and diverse in new ways. In 2010, more than 14% of Bostons residents were 60 years or older, representing 88,000 older people. By 2030, projected increases in the older population will result in as many as 130,000 seniors residing in Boston. How will Boston accommodate its growing older population? What steps may promote livability for Boston residents of all ages; where residents will want to, and can expect to, age in place with security, dignity, and well-being?This report was produced in collaboration between the Boston Commission on Affairs of the Elderly and the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at the Gerontology Institute of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Its aim is to offer a glimpse into important issues relating to aging in Boston. The demographic profilepresented here highlights the citys cultural, racial and ethnic diversity as a central context for the changing needs and concerns of older Bostonians. Potential challengesrelating to health and caregiving, social engagement, income security, and housing are identified; as well, theopportunities presented by an older population are recognized.

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters. Chapter 1 examines the determinants and welfare implications of the increased geographic of workers by skill from 1980 to 2000. I estimate a structural spatial equilibrium model of local labor demand, housing supply, labor supply, and amenity levels. The estimates indicate that cross-city changes in Örmsídemands for high and low skill labor were the underlying forces driving the increase in geographic skill sorting. I Önd that the combined e§ects of changes in citiesíwages, rents, and endogenous amenities increased well-being in- equality between high school and college graduates by a signiÖcantly larger amount than would be suggested by the increase in the college wage gap alone. Chapter 2 examines the abilities of state and local governments to extract rent from private sector workers by charging high tax rates and paying government workers high wages. Using a spatial equilibrium model where private sector workers are free to migrate across government jurisdictions, I show that variation in areasíhousing supply elasticities di§erentially restrains governmentsíabilities to extract rent from private sector workers. Governments in less housing elastic areas can charge higher taxes without worry of shrinking their tax bases. I test the modelís predictions by using worker wage data from the CPS-MORG. I Önd the public-private sector wage gap is higher in areas with less elastic housing supplies. Chapter 3 studies the standard practice in regression analyses to allow for clustering in the error covariance matrix when an explanatory variable varies at a more aggregate level than the units of observation. However, the structure of the error covariance matrix may be more complex, with correlations not vanishing for units in di§erent clusters. I show that with equal-sized clusters, if the covariate of interest is randomly assigned at the cluster level, only accounting for non-zero covariances at the cluster level, and ignoring correlations between clusters as well as di§erences in within-cluster correlations, leads to valid conÖdence intervals. However, in the absence of random assignment of the covariates, ignoring general correlation structures may lead to biases in standard errors.

Climate variability affects and impacts human society in different ways, depending on the underlying socioeconomic and demographic vulnerability of specific places, social groups, households and individuals. This differential vulnerability presents spatial and temporal variations, and is rooted in historical patterns of development and relations between human and ecological systems. This paper aims to (a) identify and map critical areas or hotspots of vulnerability to climate variability and its evolution over time (1980-2010), and (b) identify internal variation or differential vulnerability within these areas, using newly available integrated data from the Terra Populus project. These data include geo-referenced climate data, and data describing demography and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals, households and places. This study focus on Southern Brazil Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and assess the impact of climate variability on livelihoods and well-being, and their changes over time and across space, for rural and urban populations.

A recent study by Colman, Dee, and Joyce (CDJ) used data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (NYRBS) and found that parental involvement (PI) laws had no effect on the probability that minors abstain from sex or use contraception. We reexamine this issue using data from the NYRBS in combination with data from the State Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (SYRBS) and a variety of identification strategies designed to address the role of state-level time-varying unmeasured heterogeneity. Consistent with CDJ, we find that PI laws have no effect on minor teen females' abstinence decisions. However, when we (i) exploit additional state policy variation than was available to CDJ, (ii) use 18+ year-olds as a within-state control group, and (iii) rely on states with enjoined PI laws as an additional counterfactual group, we find evidence that the enforcement of PI laws decreases the probability of unprotected sex and increases use of the birth control pill. Despite the potential to diminish unwanted pregnancy, our findings provide only limited evidence that PI laws are associated with improved adolescent psychological well-being.

Social and economic policies designed to improve working conditions and employee well-being in adulthood have often resulted in the unintentional improvement of the health of children and their parents. Unfortunately, the USA is behind in implementing such policies and is losing ground in the health of its families compared to most other industrialized countries. We present historical patterns of infant mortality and womens life expectancy, both indicators of child and family health, over time and across the USA and other industrialized countries. Using a predominantly ecosocial framework, we review the channels or mechanisms that may link social or economic policy to a physiological change in children and/or their close family members. We continue to review a range of family and labor policies and evidence linking specific family and work policies to child and family health outcomes. We argue that, despite challenges, the identification of social and economic policies that impact the work/family interface and promote family health and well-being is critical and that the conditions which improve health for families will likely require modification in the public policy arena.

Women and girls in West Virginia have made some social and economic progress in recent decades, but the need for further improvements remains. Many female residents in the state are vulnerable to challenges such as poverty, limited access to child care, the gender wage gap, and adverse health conditions. In addition, women and girls in West Virginia face stubborn disparities in opportunities and outcomes—including disparities that exist among women and girls from different racial and ethnic groups as well as among those from various geographic areas in the state. Addressing these challenges and disparities is essential to promoting the well-being and vibrancy of West Virginia’s many communities. This report provides comprehensive data to assess the progress of women and girls in West Virginia and identify places where additional improvements are still needed. The report analyzes issues that profoundly affect the lives of women and girls in the state, including employment, earnings, and education; economic security and poverty; and health and well-being. The report also tracks trends in progress in West Virginia (between 2000 and 2010) by comparing its findings with the 2002 report, The Status of Women in West Virginia (IWPR 2002). In addition, the report examines the status of women and girls in five regions of the state (Northern Panhandle, North Central, Eastern Panhandle, South Central, and Southern) as well as in the nation as a whole. The data on women’s and girls’ status that it presents can serve as a resource . . .

This paper presents research findings on the major risks to childrens development, the prevalence of those risks among disconnected families, and the potential consequences for children. We also describe potential interventions to help disconnected families by increasing and stabilizing family income, enhancing parenting skills, supporting children directly, and reaching out to disconnected mothers who are not citizens. Finally, we offer directions for future research.

Homeownership plays an important role in the socioeconomic well-being of Americans. Despite recent major losses in wealth due to the subprime market crash, home equity remains the largest source of wealth for the average American family. A marker of class status, owning one's home provides access to neighborhoods with the best schools, quality public services, and lowest crime. This article demonstrates that minorities have not had the same access to homeownership that Whites have, and this contributes to continuing socioeconomic disparities between Whites and minorities. This article explores the homeownership experience of Blacks including African-Americans, Caribbeans, and Africans Hispanics, and Asians in the United States relative to non-Hispanic Whites. Minorities rely heavily on homeownership and home equity as the key component of their wealth and remain less likely than Whites to hold alternative forms of investment such as stocks. The role that homeownership plays in perpetuating intergenerational wealth disparities between Whites and minorities is discussed as are challenges to minority homeownership such as the pervasiveness of risky mortgage products. Exploring the racial gap in homeownership is fundamental to understanding racial inequalities and formulating strategies and policies to help close such disparities. This article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Immigration is reshaping the US population. The US Census Bureau estimates that immigrants accounted for 32 percent of population growth between 2000 and 2010. In 2011, the most recent available year of the American Community Survey (ACS), 24 percent of children under the age of 18 had at least one immigrant parent. What do these changes mean for the health and well-being of children in the United States? Past research consistently finds differences in health and health risks between the children of immigrants and the children of natives. However, it is difficult to accurately characterize the health of children of immigrants across their extremely diverse background and circumstances. While children in some national-origin groups appear to be adjusting well to the United State and may even enjoy better health outcomes than children of natives, children in other origin groups face poorer socioeconomic circumstances, have more limited access to public benefits and services, and therefor face greater challenges in the course of their health and development.

With nearly half of U.S. births occurring out of wedlock, understanding how parents navigate their relationship options is important. This paper examines the consequences of lowering the cost of paternity establishment - a contract granting unmarried fathers partial parental rights and responsibilities - within a framework where parents trade off joint child investment against interaction with each other. My empirical results show that increases in paternity establishment are partially driven by reductions in parental marriage. Although unmarried fathers invest more in their children along some dimensions, the overall effects on father involvement and child welfare are either negative or zero.

Recent media attention highlights American womens exceptionalism in the realm of intensive parenting and raises questions about the implications for mothers well-being. In this paper we: 1) assess the multidimensional nature of subjective well-being among women with and without children in the home across a range of activities; and 2) compare mothers subjective well-being while engaged in intensive versus routine childcare. We use new data from the 2010 American Time Use Survey that includes respondent reports of momentary well-being in three randomly selected activities. We leverage within-person variation in reports of meaning, happiness, stress, tiredness, and sadness to assess how the presence of children and other characteristics of activities (whether others present, timing, duration, location) contribute to well-being. We look further at variation in subjective well-being while parenting in the context of time in activities throughout the day, union status, child and parent age, education, employment, and typical sleep duration.

Research on coresidence between parents and their adult children in the United States has challenged the myth that elders are the primary beneficiaries, instead showing that intergenerationally extended households generally benefit the younger generation more than their parents. Nevertheless, the economic fortunes of those at the older and younger ends of the adult life course have shifted in the second half of the twentieth century, with increasing financial well-being among older adults and greater financial strain among younger adults. This article uses U.S. census and American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine the extent to which changes in generational financial well-being over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been reflected in the likelihood of coresidence and financial dependency in parentadult child U.S. households between 1960 and 2010. We find that younger adults have become more financially dependent on their parents and that while older adults have become more financially independent of their adult children, they nevertheless coreside with their needy adult children. We also find that the effect of economic considerations in decisions about coresidence became increasingly salient for younger adults, but decreasingly so for older adults.

This paper examines the association between "active life style" behaviors and health. Health is measured with the widely-used five-category general self-rated health indicator (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor). Analyses are based on the 2006-2008 and 2010 waves of American Time Use Survey (ATUS). For respondents in the 2010 wave of the ATUS, we also examine three specific health outcomes: whether the individual (1) has hypertension, 2) took pain medication on the diary day, and 3) woke up rested on the diary day. Finally, in 2010 we have measures of ATUS respondents' momentary perception of well-being during each of three randomly selected activities. Our study is the first that we know of to examine the association between health behaviors and general and momentary measures of well-being.

We assess the importance of interpersonal income comparisons using data on suicide deaths. We examine whether suicide risk is related to others' income, holding own income and other individual and environmental factors fixed. We estimate models of the suicide hazard using two independent data sets: the National Longitudinal Mortality Study and the National Center for Health Statistics' Multiple Cause of Death Files combined with the 5% Public Use Micro Sample of the 1990 decennial census. Results from both data sources show that, controlling for own income and individual characteristics, individual suicide risk rises with others' income.

Although multiracial youth represent a growing segment of children in all American families, we have little information on their well-being within single-mother households. This article examines multiracial children's level of poverty within single-mother families to identify the degree to which they may stand out from their monoracial peers. Using data from the 20062008 American Community Survey (3-year estimates), we explore the level of racial disparities in child poverty between monoracial White children and monoracial and multiracial children of color. Fully adjusted multivariate logistic regression analyses (n?=?359,588) reveal that nearly all children of color are more likely to be poor than White children. Yet many multiracial children appear to hold an in-between status in which they experience lower rates of poverty than monoracial children of color. The high level of variation across groups suggests that the relationship between race and childhood poverty is more complicated than generally presumed.

The Waite-Gallagher Marriage Benefit Theory (2000) articulates the premise of greater financial advantage, health benefits, and social well-being for married couples, not shared by cohabitating or singles. This benefit was not generalizable to same-sex couples or African-American. The significance of the current study is the use of a large dataset (The U. S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey) to explore if there is an association between type of legal status of marital relationship and financial advantage and health benefits for same-sex couples. Minority stress explains the systematic exclusion of same-sex couples from the entitlements of citizenship. The wage disadvantage theory of minority groups counters Waite and Gallagher and sheds light on a problem of comparison related to a heterosexual, Caucasian sample. Combining insights from a historical, political, economic, and social perspective, with a large secondary dataset from the 2010 American Community Survey 1-year tabulation, this quantitative dissertation seeks to extend the Waite-Gallagher theory. The findings suggest support for the Waite-Gallagher marriage benefit theory i.e. marriage does matter for lesbian and gay males. The principal conclusion is the existence of a statistically significant relationship between the state context (legal recognition of marriage vs. non-recognition) and financial advantage and health benefits when using a large secondary data set.

BACKGROUNDThe family migration literature presumes that women are cast into the role of the tied migrant. However, clearly identifying tied migrants is a difficult empirical task, since it requires the identification of a counterfactual: who moved but did not want to?OBJECTIVESThis research develops a unique methodology to directly identify both tied migrants and tied stayers in order to investigate their frequency and determinants.METHODSUsing data from the 1997 through 2009 U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), propensity score matching is used to match married individuals with comparable single individuals to create counterfactual migration behaviors: who moved but would not have moved had they been single (tied migrants) and who did not move but would have moved had they been single (tied stayers).RESULTSTied migration is relatively rare and not limited just to women: rates of tied migration are similar for men and women. However, tied staying is both more common than tied migration and equally experienced by men and women. Consistent with the body of empirical evidence, an analysis of the determinants of tied migration and tied staying demonstrates that family migration decisions are imbued with gender.CONCLUSIONSAdditional research is warranted to validate the unique methodology developed in this paper and to confirm its results. One line of future research should be to examine the effects of tied staying, along with tied migration, on well-being, union stability, employment, and earnings.