We identify which types of Social Security reforms are supported when people vote in their financial self-interest, under alternative economic and demographic projections and voting proclivity assumptions. While 40% of voters have negative lifetime net transfers, less than 10% have negative future transfers under the un-sustainable status quo. Framing the problem as a choice between reforms is necessary for any to receive majority support. Delayed reforms are often preferred, but immediate tax hikes or slower benefit growth win in some circumstances. Inter-generational AND intragenerational heterogeneity of economic interests combine to affect which reforms are blocked and which are feasible.

This paper aims to study the process of intergenerational income mobility in some Latin American economies (Panama and Brazil), which have been much neglected in the existing literature. Like other countries in the area, also Brazil and Panama have a stagnant economy coupled with high income inequality. Our rich and detailed dataset, the IPUMS survey data bank allows us to provide the most reliable and robust estimates of intergenerational transfer, after controlling for a number of additional control variables which were unavailable in previous studies, such as family size, literacy level of fathers, and location in rural versus urban areas. We provide estimates broken down for different genders, age, location, education of fathers in each country. Our results are robust to different specifications and suggest that previous studies significantly overrated the extent of the intergenerational transfer in the countries considered. However, our figures are still compatible with an extremely low degree of social mobility.

In this brief, we examine the aggregate dollar amounts potentially flowing to low-wage workers in Massachusetts neighborhoods and communities as a result of mandated increases in the state minimum wage. We draw from census data to estimate income and develop various impact scenarios. Disagreements abound about the employment effect of increased minimum wages on the local workforce. Our analysis lays out several scenarios illustrating how communities may be affected, depending on employers’ responses and the concentration of low-wage workers in each community.

This paper examines the link between trade-induced changes in labor market opportunities and English language fluency among low-skilled immigrants in the United States. Many of the production-based manufacturing jobs lost in recent years due to Chinese import competition did not require strong Englishspeaking skills while many of the jobs in expanding industries, mostly in the service sector, did. Consistent with responses to these changing labor market opportunities, we find that a $1,000 increase in import exposure per worker in a local area led to an increase in the share of low skilled immigrants speaking English very well in that area by about half a percentage point. We show that part of this may be explained by selective migration, but we also present results consistent with actual improvements in their English language speaking abilities. For example, we show that low skilled immigrants in areas with more exposure to Chinese import competition became especially more likely to be enrolled in school compared to similarly low skilled natives. Regardless of whether low skilled immigrants respond to trade shocks via migration, active investments in language skills, or more passive on-the-job language learning, our results suggest that immigrants help to equilibrate labor markets.

The archaeology of postindustrial landscapes is still relatively undeveloped. The impact of economic, social, and urban development efforts on both tangible and intangible heritage complicate our attempts to understand these places. Despite this, integrating heritage practice and promotion into the regeneration of a postindustrial landscape continues to grow in popularity. Within this context, genuine public-expert collaboration is the most effective means towards developing a sustainable compromise between protecting community heritage values and fostering economic development and regeneration. In this paper, we suggest three broad categories of challenges for studying and promoting heritage in postindustrial regions – physical, social, and political – and propose a digital data-focused geospatial approach to how community archaeologists and heritage specialists may overcome these challenges. We argue that coupling this data and technology with a robust research agenda and public programming can serve as a crucial two-way link, enabling long-term sustainable heritage-promotion and protection in post-industrial communities.

Why are immigrants more likely to own businesses than natives? Some scholars emphasize immigrants’ “preferences” for entrepreneurship, while others suggest “constraints” on non-entrepreneurial alternatives. I propose to disentangle these two accounts by leveraging differences in the “Immigrant-Native self-employment gap” across generations. Based on the assumption that labor market constraints are more readily alleviated by second-generation immigrants, while innate preferences are more inheritable, I argue that the relative influences of preferences and constraints can be inferred from comparisons of the gap between first- and second-generation immigrants. Analyses of nationally representative U.S. data reveal the following: i) the gap is smaller for second-generation immigrants, especially among ethnic groups that face greater labor market frictions; ii) these disadvantaged ethnic groups make greater investment in human capital of their children; and iii) conditional on entering self-employment, second-generation immigrants are more likely to incorporate their businesses relative to their parents. I discuss how these results can be interpreted as how immigrants facilitate upward socioeconomic mobility through investments in entrepreneurship and human capital.

Social scientists are frequently interested in how populations evolve over time. Creating poststratification weights for surveys, for example, requires information on the weighting variables' joint distribution in the target population. Typically, however, population data are sparsely available across time periods. Even when population data are observed, the content and structure of the data - which variables are observed and whether their marginal or joint distributions are known - differ across time, in ways that preclude straightforward interpolation. As a consequence, survey weights are often based only on the small subset of auxiliary variables whose joint population distribution is observed regularly over time, and thus fail to take full advantage of auxiliary information. To address this problem, we develop a dynamic Bayesian ecological inference model for estimating multivariate categorical distributions from sparse, irregular, and noisy data on their marginal (or partially joint) distributions. Our approach combines (1) a Dirichlet sampling model for the observed margins conditional on the unobserved cell proportions; (2) a set of equations encoding the logical relationships among different population quantities; and (3) a Dirichlet transition model for the period-specific proportions that pools information across time periods. We illustrate this method by estimating annual U.S. phone-ownership rates by race and region based on population data irregularly available between 1930 and 1960. This approach may be useful in a wide variety of contexts where scholars wish to make dynamic ecological inferences about interior cells from marginal data. A new R package estsubpop implements the method.

Older adults are delaying retirement and remaining in the paid workforce longer than in previous decades. There are many potential explanations for this trend. In this study, it is hypothesized that the ease or difficulty of traveling may significantly influence the labor force participation of older adults, just as it does for other working-age adults. As they age, older adults can face a number of barriers to mobility. The hypothesis is tested using data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey (CHTS) and propensity score matching. The paper focuses on the effects of automobile ownership and transit access on the employment status of older adults (60+), controlling for a host of characteristics associated with the likelihood of employment. The analysis shows that transportation access has a substantial and positive association with employment for older adults, particularly older adults living in low-income households (those earning less than $35,000 per year). Access to jobs by public transit is especially influential among low-income older adults who live in households without automobiles. The findings underscore the importance of enhancing the transportation environment such that it allows older adults to travel regularly on their own by car or, in dense urban neighborhoods, by public transit. Limitations to this study suggest the need for additional quantitative analysis of longitudinal data as well as qualitative analysis of data from interviews and focus groups.

Residential mobility rates in the U.S. have been in steady decline. Most notably, between 2005 and 2013, one-year intercity migration rate for immigrants has decreased by 0.7 percentage-points, compared to a 0.2 percentage-point decline for the U.S.-born population. Literature on urban implications of geographic mobility suggests that consideration of migration trends, or population flows, can improve urban planning, including transportation. Our research focuses on recent immigrants, a group that significantly contributes to public transit ridership in the U.S. In this study, we analyze the influence of the annual average in-migration rate of recent immigrants to various urban areas from within the country on transit ridership changes across the urban areas between 2008 and 2013. We also compare this effect with the effect of annual average in-migration rate of new immigrants to various urban areas from foreign countries. While the average effect of inflow of new foreign migrants on transit demand is suggested in the literature, distinguishing the transit demand of immigrants that are not movers and those that are movers from various locations remains unexplored. We derive migration flows from the American Community Survey microdata, and transit ridership from the U.S. National Transit Database. We perform geospatial analysis to overcome several constraints that make exploration of the migration-transportation connection difficult, particularly the lack of uniformity in geographic boundaries used for data presentation across and within government agencies, and over time. Our results indicate that consideration of domestic in-migration rates of recent immigrants can improve transit demand forecasting. As past literature has found, recent immigrants are highly likely to use transit. Recent immigrant migrants that have arrived directly from another country are even more likely to use transit. Interestingly, recent immigrants that move to a metropolitan area from another location in the U.S. are relatively less likely to use transit. Among domestic migrants, however, those that move to cities undergoing large increase in transit service relative to population are more likely to use transit. High population and transit stop density of both previous and current cities seem to positively affect transit mode choice for commute trips of recent immigrant movers. Declining inter-urban mobility among recent immigrants can indeed alter future transit demand trends. Transit agencies should not treat recent immigrants as a monolithic group. Consideration of the migration patterns of various types of recent immigrants, and factors that determine those patterns, can improve demand forecasting and planning.

This paper studies how birth town migration networks affected long-run location decisions during historical U.S. migration episodes. We develop a new method to estimate the strength of migration networks for each receiving and sending location. Our estimates imply that when one randomly chosen African American moved from a Southern birth town to a destination county, then 1.9 additional black migrants made the same move on average. For white migrants from the Great Plains, the average is only 0.4. Networks were particularly important in connecting black migrants with attractive employment opportunities and played a larger role in less costly moves.

The Johnson-O’Malley (JOM) program was established by the Johnson-O’Malley Act of 1934 to support the educational needs of eligible Indian students (JOM-eligible). Federally recognized tribal nations, state governments and other eligible organizations contract with the federal government to offer cultural enrichment, tribal language support and other assistance aimed at attaining State educational standards. The Johnson-O’Malley Modernization Act of 2018 requires the Secretary of the Interior to determine the number of Indian students served or potentially served by the JOM program (JOM-eligible). The recently released 2019 Preliminary Report by the Bureau of Indian Education recommends using the most recent American Community Survey – Education Tabulation (ACS-ED) to provide the required estimate (570,825). This document raises concerns that the ACS-ED may significantly underestimate the actual number of JOM-eligible students and suggests a more refined process for the 2019 estimate. Undercounting the AI-AN population has serious policy implications; it underestimates the need for the program at the national and programmatic level, where funding is specifically determined by the estimated number of JOM-eligible students.

I analyze how employer decisions affect university variation in graduates’ labor mar- ket opportunities. I collect office locations and campus recruiting strategies for over 70 banking and consulting firms, from 2000 to 2013. After firms open an office, students at nearby universities are twice as likely to have on-campus access to the firm. After closing an office, previously nearby universities are one-seventh as likely to have access. An additional firm recruiting on campus, after opening a nearby office, raises the like- lihood of top 1% earnings by 1.35 percentage points (20%) at age 30-34, for students in the bottom parental income quintile.

In the past few decades, U.S. society has gradually become more accepting of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals (LGB). The recent nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage is a monumental example of that acceptance. Despite the progress in civil rights, population-based studies since the early 2000s have noted that LGB populations continue to exhibit poorer health outcomes compared to their heterosexual counterparts. According to minority stress theory, prejudice, discrimination, and violence directed at sexual minorities over the course of their lives accounts for this health inequality. Using representative data from the 2013-2016 National Health Interview Survey, the current study examines recent patterns of, and potential explanations for, mental health disparities by sexual orientation in the U.S. The study investigates whether mental health disparities have narrowed significantly since the introduction of marriage equality and whether younger LGB people experience fewer health disadvantages compared to older ones. Results show that LGB people continue to experience higher levels of mental distress than heterosexuals. Most of the health disadvantages faced by gay men and bisexual men and women cannot be explained fully by access to socioeconomic resources or marital status, whereas disadvantages faced by lesbian women are largely attributable to these factors. Moreover, not only do mental health disparities by sexual orientation persist in the years from 2013-2016, but the disparities are actually larger among younger people. These findings suggest that marriage equality is not a panacea for the mental health of sexual minorities and that much more effort is needed to address fundamental rights for sexual minorities.

In 1993, John Betancur, Teresa Córdova, and Maria de los Angeles Torres published “Economic Restructuring and the Process of Incorporation of Latinos into the Chicago Economy,” in Latinos in the Changing U.S. Econom,y edited by Rebecca Morales and Frank Bonilla. They concluded, “The history of the incorporation of Latino workers into the economy best explained the Latino experience in the Chicago area and provides a backdrop for understanding the impact of restructuring (110).” The authors argue that “the condition of ascriptive low-wage labor” restricted the mobility options for the Latino work force in the region. Examining PUM census data for the Chicago metro area from 1950 – 1980 on labor force participation, the study demonstrated that Latino labor, composed primarily of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, facilitated the growth of the service sector in the Chicago economy while continuing to further entrench the segmentation of Latino labor in low-wage service sector employment.

Eighth in a series of briefs on the future of children's health care coverage Promoting Health Coverage of American Indian and Alaska Native Children Courtesy of Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action Key Findings z z American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children are more likely than other American children to be uninsured and in poor health. Reducing the rate of uninsured AI/AN children is essential to reducing their health disparities. z z There are three main sources of coverage for low-income AI/ AN children: the Indian Health Service (IHS), Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The relationships among these coverage sources and how they apply to AI/AN children are highly complex. This increases the difficulty of reducing the uninsured rate for these children. z z The quality of national data on coverage and health disparities among AI/AN children is weak. Without sufficient and timely data, it will be difficult for federal, state, and Tribal policymakers to develop effective solutions for reducing the uninsurance rate and improving the health outcomes of this population. Summary Health disparities in the American Indian and Alaska Native populations (AI/AN) have existed since the arrival of the European settlers, who brought with them new germs and disease. Today, AI/AN children are more likely than other children to live in poverty, to die as infants, and to be exposed to violence. Yet for these children, access to quality health care is too often elusive. The types of coverage that do exist are patchwork, difficult to navigate, and under-resourced. The relatively small size of the population spread across a number of states makes it hard to find reliable information on health access and outcomes, especially for children. Given the special responsibility that the federal government has toward Indian Tribes, it is imperative that the federal government take steps to determine how well existing programs are working, to make any necessary improvements, and to provide the funding required to ensure AI/AN children live healthy and productive lives.

Background. The burden of under-five mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is highest during the neonatal period, with over 40% of cases occurring during the first month of life. There is a paucity of evidence on the influence of women’s household position on neonatal survival in SSA. Objective. To assess the influence of women’s household position on neonatal survival in SSA. Methods. We analysed pooled data (N=191 514) from the demographic and health surveys of 18 countries in SSA. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to explore statistically significant relationships. Results. Findings support the hypothesis that a low position of a woman in the household is significantly associated with high neonatal mortality, as children of women who experienced a high position in the household had a significantly lower risk of neonatal mortality (hazard ratio 0.85, confidence interval 0.76 - 0.95; p<0.05) than those whose mothers experienced a low household position. Conclusion. This study concludes that improving women’s household position through enhanced socioeconomic status could substantially contribute to reducing neonatal mortality in SSA.

This paper demonstrates that highly educated foreign-and native-born workers are complements rather than competitors in the labor market by examining the location choices of highly educated immigrants in response to an increased presence of highly educated native workers in local economies. Using the geographic variation in increased native-born college graduates between 1940 and 1950, driven by the World War II GI Bill, I find high-skilled immigrants do not systematically avoid cities with larger supply shock in natives, because highly educated natives generate positive spillovers to other workers in local economies. In addition, in the long-run, cities that experienced larger supply shock during 1940s constantly have attracted college-educated immigrants. This long-run effect becomes particularly stronger after 1980 when the technological progress has made in the US. My results explain mechanisms why college-educated workers tend to agglomerate in the long-run.

While sustainable development goals call for at least 4.45 skilled health professionals per 1,000 population (WHO 2016), many sub-Saharan African regions fall below this standard. Health professional shortages are a barrier to achieving health goals, such as adequate antenatal care (ANC). This paper examines the relationship between urbanization, health professionals and ANC. We used nationally representative health survey data on ANC for children under five, taken from IPUMS DHS (Boyle et al. 2017), coupled with corresponding close-in-time census data on health professionals per capita (from IPUMS International) and Gridded Population of the World (GPW) data on population density. The DHS data were linked to the other sources using GIS information on the location of sample clusters, providing estimates of health professional availability at the second administrative level and population density within a 10-kilometer radius. The analysis includes Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia (N= 63,787).

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Access to health services is an important determinant of a person's health. In the U.S., health insurance is the principal means of access to affordable care-though rising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs present a barrier to care for many enrollees. Lower-income employees may be at a particularly high risk of experiencing cost-related barriers to care. Even when they have employment-based health insurance, high-deductibles, coinsurance, and health care and prescription medication costs can often keep health care out of their reach. Research shows that employers share some of the burden of illness when their workers cannot afford needed care. Foregone care results in lost work time and impaired job-performance-the value of which may negate savings from cost-sharing strategies. To explore the productivity losses that cost-related barriers to care can impose on employers, IBI analyzed the links between lower-income employees' health insurance, cost-related barriers to care, and illness-related absences from work. Summary findings for employees with family incomes above $35,000 are also reported. Principal findings: • From 2007 to 2017, two out of five lower-income employees (with annual family incomes less than $35,000) were uninsured. Among the insured, one in six were enrolled in high-deductible plans (defined as greater than $1,100 for a single person and $2,200 for two or more enrollees in a plan). Half of insured lower-income employees did not have coverage for prescription medications. • One in three lower-income employees experienced a cost-related barrier to care over the course of 12 months. Nearly one in four delayed needed care, compared to about one in five who could not afford medical care, and almost one in six who could not afford prescription medications. Only about one in 20 reported that they needed but could not afford mental health care. • More than half of uninsured lower-income employees experienced a cost-related barrier to care, compared to about one fifth of insured lower-income employees.

A large literature documents how intergenerational mobility—the degree to which (dis)advantage is passed on from parents to children—varies across and within countries. Less is known about the origin or persistence of such differences. We show that US areas populated by descendants to European immigrants have similar levels of income equality and mobility as the countries their forebears came from: highest in areas dominated by descendants to Scandinavian and German immigrants, lower in places with French or Italian heritage, and lower still in areas with British roots. Similar variation in mobility is found for the black population and when analyzing causal place effects, suggesting that mobility differences arise at the community level and extend beyond descendants of European immigrant groups. Our findings indicate that the geography of US opportunity may have deeper historical roots than previously recognized.