Reviewing the literature on the deep historic roots of gender inequality, we theorize and provide evidence for a trajectory that (1) originates in a climatic configuration called the “Cool Water” (CW- ) condition, leading to (2) late female marriages in preindustrial times, which eventually pave the way towards (3) various gender egalitarian outcomes today. The CW-condition is a specific climatic configuration that combines periodically frosty winters with mildly warm summers under the ubiquitous accessibility of fresh water. It embodies opportunity endowments that significantly reduce fertility pressures. The resulting household formation patterns empowered women and reduced gender inequality.

New and expanding sources of spatial big data hold tremendous potential for regional policy analysis. Such data enable us to analyze regional policies in ways not possible with traditional sources of data, such as administrative records. At the same time, the use of spatial big data is fraught with issues and challenges that must be addressed. In this paper, we discuss both the opportunities and challenges of using spatial big data for regional policy analysis. We also explore analytical issues tied to the use of regional policy analysis methods in the era of big data, as well as the state of art in applying such methods to spatial big data. Our discussion focuses on three types of methods: (1) statistical and regression modeling, (2) traditional nonparametric modeling, and (3) deep neural learning.

This paper investigates the effect of a large negative agricultural shock, the boll weevil, on racial income gaps in the first half of the twentieth century. We draw on complete count census data to generate a new large linked sample of Black and white fathers and their sons. Fathers are observed before and after the arrival of the boll weevil in their county, and their sons are observed in their father’s household as children and again in 1940 as adults. In race specific difference-in-differences specifications and in triple differences specifications, we find that the boll weevil differentially affected wages of Black sons born after its arrival. Relative to white sons born after the boll weevil, Black sons born after the boll weevil saw a 6%increase in their wages. The magnitude of the effect is similar when the sample is constrained to sons whose father stayed in the South and to sons who stayed in the South. Evidence on changes in fertility and heights suggests that the relative gains were driven by improvements in early life conditions for Black sons born after the weevil’s arrival. The magnitude of the effect of the boll weevil on the Black-white wage gap can be better understood by comparing it with changes between 1940 and 1950, a period of rapid convergence. The boll weevil caused the Black-white wage gap to fall by roughly half of the decline between 1940 and 1950 in the South or a third of the decline nationally.

Objectives. To examine the relationship between minoritized identity and barriers to health care in the United States. Methods. Nationally representative data collected from the 2013 to 2017 waves of the National Health Interview Survey were used to conduct descriptive and logistic regression analyses. Men and women were placed in 1 of 4 categories: no minoritized identities, minoritized identities of race/ethnicity (MIoRE), minoritized identities of sexuality (MIoS), or minoritized identities of both race/ethnicity and sexuality (MIoRES). Five barriers to health care were considered. Results. Relative to heterosexual White adults and after controlling for socioeconomic status, adults with MIoRE were less likely to report barriers, adults with MIoS were more likely to report barriers, and adults with MIoRES were more likely to report barriers across 2 of the study measures. Conclusions. Barriers to care varied according to gender, minoritized identity, and the measure of access to health care itself. Public Health Implications. Approaching health disparities research using an intersectional lens moves the discussion from examining individual differences to examining the role of social structures such as the health care system in maintaining and reproducing inequality.

The share of children living with grandparents has increased in recent years. Previous studies have examined how time with grandparents is associated with child well-being, but we know little about how grandparents fare in their time with grandchildren. We used diary data from the American Time Use Study (ATUS) to examine the association between grandparents’ time in activities with grandchildren and multiple measures of their subjective well-being in those activities. We used a subsample of co-residential grandparents from the American Time Use Study (N = 868 individuals; 2474 activities), paying close attention to potential differences between three-generational families (those with parents, grandparents and grandchildren living together) and grandfamilies (which do not include the parent generation). We examined subjective well-being (happiness, meaning, sadness, tiredness and stress) in relation to family type (three-generational or grandfamily) and grandchild presence during the activity, as well as other characteristics of the activity (e.g., type of activity, duration, etc.) and of the grandparent (i.e., demographic variables). This is the first study to address grandparent SWB as affective response to activities in relation to presence of grandchildren during those activities. Results of multilevel models show that grandparents living with their grandchildren experienced more happiness and more meaningfulness when they engaged in activities with their grandchildren compared to spending time alone or with other people. This relationship was partially moderated by family type, such that grandfamily grandparents experienced less happiness in time with grandchildren than alone, relative to grandparents in three-generational families.

Sociologists have long struggled to explain the minority mental health paradox: that racial-ethnic minorities often report better mental health than non-Hispanic whites despite social environments that seem less conducive to well-being. Using data from the 2008–2013 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), this study provides a partial explanation for the paradox rooted in a very different disparity. Evidence from MEPS indicates that non-Hispanic whites consume more pharmaceuticals than racial-ethnic minorities for a wide variety of medical conditions. Moreover, non-Hispanic whites consume more pharmaceuticals that although effective in treating their focal indication, include depression or suicide as a side effect. In models that adjust for the use of such medications, the minority advantage in significant distress is reduced, in some instances to statistical nonsignificance. Although a significant black and Hispanic advantage in a continuous measure of distress remains, the magnitude of the difference is reduced considerably. The relationship between the use of medications with suicide as a side effect and significant distress is especially large, exceeding, for instance, the relationship between poverty and significant distress. For some minority groups, the less frequent use of such medications is driven by better health (as in the case of Asians), whereas for others, it reflects a treatment disparity (as in the case of blacks), although the consequences for the mental health paradox are the same. The implications of the results are discussed, especially with respect to the neglect of psychological side effects in the treatment of physical disease as well as the problem of multiple morbidities.

We study anonymization techniques for preserving privacy in the publication of microdata tables. Although existing approaches based on generalization can provide enough protection for identities, anonymized tables always suffer from various attribute disclosures because generalization is inefficient to protect sensitive values and the partition of equivalence groups is directly shown to the adversary. Besides, the generalized table also suffers from serious information loss because the original Quasi-Identifier (QI) values are hardly preserved and the protection against attribute disclosure often causes over-protection against identity disclosure. To this end, we propose a novel technique, called mutual cover, to hinder the adversary from matching the combination of QI values in microdata tables. The rationale is to replace the original QI values with random QI values according to some random output tables that make similar tuples to cover for each other at the minimal cost. As a result, the mutual cover prevents identity disclosure and attribute disclosure more effectively than generalization while retaining the distribution of original QI values as far as possible, and the information utility hardly decreases when enhancing the protection for sensitive values. The effectiveness of mutual cover is verified with extensive experiments

We examine the association between a firm's access to information technology (IT) capable labor and financial reporting quality (FRQ). We proxy for access to IT capable labor using workforce measures in the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) where the firm is headquartered, including: (1) number of IT-related college degrees relative to total workforce; (2) level of education of IT graduates; (3) income level of IT graduates; and (4) a composite measure. We find that firms in MSAs with a greater IT competent labor force are associated with a significantly lower current and future probability of an internal control material weakness and financial misstatement. In terms of economic significance, we document that a one-standard-deviation increase in the IT human capability measures is associated with a 10 to 29.3 percent decrease in the probability of a firm experiencing a material weakness and a 6.2 to 18 percent decrease in the probability of a firm experiencing a financial misstatement, respectively. This study contributes to the IT business value research, as well as to the emerging literature stream examining the influence of geographic labor characteristics on firm-level outcomes.

BACKGROUND Reducing domestic violence and increasing contraceptive use are two ways to improve women’s health in developing countries. Social scientists debate whether women’s experiences of intimate partner violence influence contraceptive use. The empirical evidence evaluating the relationship yields inconsistent results. These contradictory findings might be due to specific regional conditions that moderate the relationship. METHODS Using 30 panels of DHS data from 17 developing countries, this study examines the relationship between intimate partner violence and contraceptive use in a cross-national comparison and assesses whether this relationship is moderated by macro contextual factors, including the presence or absence of legal regulations against domestic violence and the national level of female empowerment. RESULTS Experience of either physical or sexual violence is associated with an increase in contraceptive use, and is statistically significant in a cross-national setting. The magnitude of the positive relationship between physical and sexual violence and contraceptive use decreases in the presence of legal regulations against domestic violence. The positive association of sexual violence with contraceptive use decreases in contexts with higher levels of women’s empowerment. However, there is no change in the positive association between physical violence and contraceptive use in contexts with higher levels of women’s empowerment. These results are robust to additional sensitivity tests.

The authors use 2014–2018 data from the American Community Survey to answer two questions: To what extent is military service associated with higher rates of earning a bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field (vs. a non-STEM field)? To what extent is this relationship gendered? The findings suggest that military service is associated with higher odds of completing a STEM degree and that this association is particularly strong for female veterans. Comparison across multiple STEM definitions suggests that military service does not simply channel women into traditionally female-dominated STEM fields. Instead, the findings show the biggest boost for women earning degrees in traditionally male-dominated STEM fields. The authors situate these findings in light of extant empirical and theoretical research on gender gaps in STEM and discuss implications for policy and research.

Despite the increased use of dating technology for finding and forming romantic relationships, location remains relevant for relationship formation. While current research on relationship formation attends to the ratio of marriageable men to women, marital attitudes, and gendered racial exclusion, this research does not always consider a nuanced look at how location can also constrain opportunities to make short- or long-term romantic connections. Drawing on interviews with 111 Asian, White, Black, and Latina heterosexual college-educated women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-three, I find that regardless of race/ethnicity, women observe that some places provide limited opportunities to meet men and that the mismatch between their dating norms, beliefs, and/or expectations for relationships and the location where they reside make their search more difficult. Women of color additionally note that some locations provide fewer opportunities for same-race and/or interracial dating than others. I also find that women of color are more likely to employ strategies to address their locational barriers than White women. Therefore, I argue that not only does location continue to matter for forming romantic connections in the digital age, but that location and race also intersect to create unique locational barriers for women of color. This intersection, consequently, demonstrates that the opportunities for relationship formation remain stratified despite the rise of dating technology.

At the population level, those with more education tend to report better sleep, mirroring the education gradient found in other health outcomes. But research has shown that higher educational attainment does not always confer the same health benefits for Non-Hispanic Black (Black) and Hispanic adults as it does for Non-Hispanic White (White) adults. It is therefore possible that the educational gradient in sleep varies across racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Using the 2004–2018 National Health Interview Survey (N = 356,048), we examined differences in self-reported sleep duration and sleep quality by level of educational attainment and race/ethnicity. Utilizing multinomial (sleep duration) and negative binomial (times in the past week with difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep) regression models, we found that, compared to their less educated counterparts, college or more educated Whites were more likely to report ideal sleep compared to short or long sleep, and also reported fewer times with difficulty falling or staying asleep. The education-sleep association was generally reversed for Black and Hispanic adults, with the worst sleep being reported by those with college-level education. These patterns remained after adjusting for health behaviors, health outcomes, and socioeconomic status. Our study suggests that education does not yield the same protective benefit for sleep among Black and Hispanic adults as it does for White adults, and that highly educated Black and Hispanic adults in particular experience a sleep disadvantage. The differential education gradient in sleep may, therefore, be an important factor underlying current racial and ethnic health disparities.

This paper examines how the influx in immigrants impacts the native-born average hourly-wage. This was done by using the data set from Current Population Survey (CPS). I seek to see the effect of immigrant inflow on native wages by dividing the immigrants into newly-arrived immigrants and assimilated immigrants. This paper uses a cross-sectional survey data set across 121 MSA, 50 states and one year (2017). Using Ordinary least Squared (OLS) analysis, I built an initial understanding between influx of immigrants and native-born average hourly-wage. The study found an interesting sets of results. The newly-arrived immigrants had no statistical effect on native-born average hourly-wages whereas the assimilated immigrants had a negative effect on native-born hourly wage at 90% significant level. Theoretically this result is justified as an immigrant gets assimilated over time he/she become more substitutable to the native-born worker. When the three occupational groups (professional, service-related and manual labor) are included in the analysis the study finds a statistically significant effect on native-born average hourly-wages due to professional occupation. Thus, implying that high-skilled immigrants helps expand economy which in turn increases native wages. The results suggests a negative effect on native-born average hourly-wages due to manual labor. This parameter estimate supports the theory however was statistically insignificant. One-way fixed effect was used to see the difference in average hourly-wage across metro areas and states. The fixed effect result suggests that there is no effect on native-born average hourly-wage and influx on immigrants. However, the results do imply that presence of a high-skilled immigrant will increase the native wages by 2.23%. Overall, this study could be further enhanced with a 2- Staged Least Squared (2-SLS) model. Further, future studies could examine the effect on native-born average hourly-wages due to influx of immigrants over certain number of years.

Home health aides are crucial to ensuring quality services for the growing older adult population needing home-based care in the United States. We utilize data from the nationally representative 2007 National Home Health Aide Survey ( N = 3,344) to analyze racial–ethnic disparity in turnover intent. Non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic Other home health aides had higher all-cause turnover intent than Non-Hispanic Whites. Cause-specific turnover intent varied by race–ethnicity. Compared with non-Hispanic White home health aides, (a) non-Hispanic Black home health aides were more likely to leave due to low pay and educational/advancement opportunities; (b) Hispanic home health aides were more likely to leave due to a perceived lack of respect or difficulty with their supervisor/agency; and (c) non-Hispanic home health aides were more likely to leave due to an impending move. Findings suggest that efforts to address high levels of turnover intent among home health aides should account for differences in race–ethnic groups.

Concerns about physician shortages have led policy makers in the US public and private sectors to advocate for the greater use of nurse practitioners (NPs). We examined recent changes in demographic, employment, and earnings characteristics of NPs and the implications of those changes. In the period 2010–17 the number of NPs in the US more than doubled from approximately 91,000 to 190,000. This growth occurred in every US region and was driven by the rapid expansion of education programs that attracted nurses in the Millennial generation. Employment was concentrated in hospitals, physician offices, and outpatient care centers, and inflation-adjusted earnings grew by 5.5 percent over this period. The pronounced growth in the number of NPs has reduced the size of the registered nurse (RN) workforce by up to 80,000 nationwide. In the future, hospitals must innovate and test creative ideas to replace RNs who have left their positions to become NPs, and educators must be alert for signs of falling earnings that may signal the excess production of NPs.

The Covid-19 pandemic is having profound impacts on labor markets around the world. This paper analyzes the heterogeneous impacts observed during the early stages of the pandemic across different occupations and workers using the latest available labor force survey data from the Current Population Survey, the primary source of labor force statistics for the United States. I show that the early stages of the pandemic had a disproportionately negative impact on employment and hours in lower-paying occupations. The one notable exception are janitors and building cleaners, for whom employment grew strongly between mid-February and mid-March 2020. Workers who were employed in lower-paying occupations in mid-February 2020 are disproportionately less likely to be employed by mid-March 2020 compared to workers who were employed in higher-paying occupations. I also document increased attrition from the sample among workers who were employed in lower-paying occupations in mid-February 2020.

We argue that despite its nonclassical measurement errors, the hours worked in the Current Population Survey (CPS) can still be utilized to enhance the overall accuracy of the estimator of the labor supply parameters based on the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), if done properly. We propose such an estimator that is a weighted average between the two stage least squares estimator based on the CPS and a non-standard estimator based on the ATUS.

By age 77 a plurality of American women are widows. Comparing older (ages 70+) married women to widows in the American Time Use Survey 2003-18 and linking the data to the Current Population Survey allow inferring the short- and longer-term effects of an arguably exogenous shock—husband’s death—and measuring the paths of adjustment to it. Widows differ from otherwise similar married women, and especially from married women with working husbands, by cutting back on home production, especially food preparation and housework, mostly by engaging in less of it each day, not doing it less frequently. British, French, German and Italian widows behave similarly. Widows are alone during most of the time they had spent with their spouses, with only a small increase in time with friends and relatives (except shortly after becoming widowed). They feel less time pressure than married women but are less satisfied with their lives. Most of the adjustment of time use in response to widowhood occurs within one year of the husband’s death.

Mexican Americans have a lower prevalence of asthma than White Americans, Black Americans, and Other Hispanics. This is concordant with the Hispanic Paradox, which posits that Hispanics have good health and lower mortality than White Americans despite their relative socioeconomic disadvantages. However, the research is limited in relation to the effects of race on health, independent of ethnicity, among this population. In this study, the author disaggregated Mexican Americans, foreign-born and U.S.-born into two categories, White and Black Mexicans, in order to assess their likelihood of having an asthma diagnosis, compared to White Americans and to each other. This study used harmonized data from the National Health Interview Survey from 2000–2018 with a final analytic sample of N = 1,094,516. The analysis was conducted using binary logistic regression, controlling for acculturation and health behavior-related variables, as well as sociodemographic characteristics. In the results, Black Mexicans had a significant disadvantage in relation to their White counterparts and White Americans. The findings suggest there is an intra-ethnic racial disparity in asthma and the Hispanic paradox is not applicable across racial lines for Mexican Americans. These findings also suggest Black Mexicans’ poor asthma outcomes are the byproduct of various mechanisms of racial inequality.

This article contributes to the research on the new geography of poverty by examining how low-income residents fit into the governmental patchwork that defines metropolitan America. Our analysis pays particular attention to two features of local governments: their size and their status as incorporated municipalities or unincorporated areas. Relying on Census data, we study these patterns for the five largest metropolitan areas in each of the five Census-designated regions of the country (25 metros total) from 1990 to 2012–2016. We show that the distribution of poor people across jurisdiction types, and their concentration in particular jurisdictions or places, has changed over time. In the older metros of the Northeast and Midwest, poverty grew in smaller secondary cities while it expanded in unincorporated areas in the South and in larger secondary cities in the West. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these shifts for studying local governance and poverty.