This article provides policymakers with context for understanding past and future policy discussions regarding Social Security widow benefits. Using data from surveys, projections from a microsimulation model, and recent research, it examines three types of benefits - those for aged widows, widows caring for children, and disabled widows. The economic well-being of aged widows has shifted from one of widespread hardship to one in which above-poverty, but still modest, income typically prevails. Many aged widows experience a decline in their standard of living upon widowhood, a pattern which is pronounced among those with limited education. Widows caring for children have been a sizeable beneficiary group historically, but policy changes and demographic trends have sharply reduced the size of this group. Family Social Security benefits ensure a modest level of household income for widows caring for children. Disabled widows differ from the other groups because they are at higher risk for poverty.

In Massachusetts, as in every other place in the world, there are children needing care and education, people with physical and mental health needs, and those who require assistance with the daily tasks of life because of illness, age, or disability. The labor of meeting these needs— care work—is a complex activity with profound implications for personal, social, and economic well-being. Care work is not just a cornerstone of our economy—it is its foundation. Care work . . .

The Population Reference Bureau INFORMS people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and EMPOWERS them to use that information to ADVANCE the well-being of current and future generations.

This data brief is the fourth in a series that profiles childrenof immigrants using up-to-date census data andother sources.1 The first brief highlighted the fastgrowth of the immigrant population and important demographictrends. The second described the family circumstancesof children of immigrants, and the third highlightedthe circumstances of young children age 0 to 8. The currentbrief focuses on immigrant families incomes, economic wellbeing,and use of public benefits.

Little is known about couples' shared time and how actual time spent together is associated with well-being. In this study, the authors investigated how work and family demands are related to couples' shared time (total and exclusive) and individual well-being (happiness, meaningfulness, and stress) when with one's spouse. They used individual-level data from the 2003-2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 46,883), including the 2010 Well-Being Module. The results indicated that individuals in full-time working dual-earner couples spend similar amounts of time together as individuals in traditional breadwinner-homemaker arrangements on weekdays after accounting for daily work demands. The findings also show that parents share significantly less total and exclusive spousal time together than nonparents, though there is considerable variation among parents by age of the youngest child. Of significance is that individuals experience greater happiness and meaning and less stress during time spent with a spouse opposed to time spent apart.

In the wake of the one-child policy of 1979, China experienced an unprecedented rise in the sex ratio at birth (ratio of male to female births). In cohorts born between 1980 and 2000, there were 22 million more men than women. Some 10.4 percent of these additional men will fail to marry, based on simulations presented here that assess how different scenarios for the sex ratio at birth affect the probability of failure to marry in 21st century China. Three consequences of the high sex ratio and large numbers of unmarried men are discussed: the prevalence of prostitution and sexually transmitted infections, the economic and physical well-being of men who fail to marry, and China's ability to care for its elderly, with a particular focus on elderly males who fail to marry. Several policy options are suggested that could mitigate the negative consequences of the demographic squeeze.

The goal of federal food and nutrition programs in the United States is to improve the nutritional well-being and health of low income families. A large body of literature evaluates the extent to which the Supplemental Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) has accomplished this goal, but most studies have been based on research designs that compare program participants to non-participants. If selection into these programs is non-random then such comparisons will lead to biased estimates of the programs true effects. In this study we use the rollout of the WIC program across counties to estimate the impact of the program on infant health. We find that the implementation of WIC lead to an increase in average birthweight and a decrease in the fraction of births that are classified as low birthweight. We find no evidence that these estimates are driven by changes in fertility. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the initiation of WIC lead to a ten percent increase in the birthweight of infants born to participating mothers.

This paper explores the many avenues by which schooling affects lifetime well-being. Experiences and skills acquired in school reverberate throughout life, not just through higher earnings. Schooling also affects the degree one enjoys work and the likelihood of being unemployed. It leads individuals to make better decisions about health, marriage, and parenting. It also improves patience, making individuals more goal-oriented and less likely to engage in risky behavior. Schooling improves trust and social interaction, and may offer substantial consumption value to some students. We discuss various mechanisms to explain how these relationships may occur independent of wealth effects, and present evidence that non-pecuniary returns to schooling are at least as large as pecuniary ones. Ironically, one explanation why some early school leavers miss out on these high returns is that they lack the very same decision making skills that more schooling would help improve.

Many young people in the District of Columbia are failing to make a successful transition to adulthood. Their challenges include poor preparation for the high-skills labor market and long-standing health problems. Recent District government efforts have centered around school reform and early childhood, but these areas are not sufficient to improve the well-being of older youth. This report provides comprehensive data indicators and analysis on the state of older youth (age 12-24) in the District and examines the role of area nonprofits that work with young people, their families, and neighborhoods. The data presented here include the following: (1) Indicators showing current conditions and trends for District of Columbia older youth in economic well-being, health, education, risky behavior, and positive extracurricular activities; (2) District youth perspectives and experiences gathered from focus groups that help illustrate the data indicators and inform when quantitative data are lacking; and (3) Profiles from local community-based youth development organizations about their activities and scope. The data in this report are loosely organized based on the District's Interagency Collaboration and Services Integration Commission's (ICSIC's) six citywide goals for children and youth. The databook begins with the demographics of teenagers and young adults in the District. Whenever possible, teenagers, age 12 to 17, and young adults, age 18 to 24, are analyzed separately. Next, four sections based on the ICSIC goals are presented: (1) Teenagers and Young Adults Live in Healthy, Stable, and Supportive Families; (2) Teenagers and Young Adults Succeed in School; (3) Teenagers and Young Adults Are Healthy and Practice Healthy Behaviors; and (4) Teenagers and Young Adults Are Engaged in Meaningful Activities. The first ICSIC goal, Children Are Ready for School, pertains to early education and does not apply to teenagers and young adults, so it is not included in this databook. The sixth goal, Youth Make a Successful Transition to Adulthood, is not treated as a separate goal in this databook as we weave information about young adults age 18 to 24 throughout the report. Appended to this report are 14 organization profiles. (Contains 8 maps, 27 figures, and 1 figure.) [This report was prepared for the World Bank Group by the Urban Institute and DC Alliance of Youth Advocates.]

Economists with a few exceptions have automatically assumed that the important measure of well-being is income. In contrast, economic historians have broadened the measure of well-being with particular interest in mortality, morbidity, nutrition, education and leisure. When one takes this broader view of the standard of living, there appears to be a strong trend toward more equality in the distribution of well-being since the industrial revolution. Gini coefficients calculated for the distributions of lifespan and educational attainment have declined dramatically since the mid-nineteenth century for the United States. Mortality and educational differentials have also declined. Inequality of leisure time and consumption, though not as consistently measured, also show trends toward equality over the twentieth century. These trends toward equality in well-being as measured by indicators other than income and wealth seem to be generated by provision of public goods, natural boundaries to lifespan, educational attainment and leisure, and by the growth in mean per capita income. The divergent trends in the distributions of income and the other measures of well-being caution against reliance on the distribution of income to interpret trends in inequality.

A large literature has documented a significant increase in the difference betweenthe wage of college graduates and high school graduates over the past 30 years. I show that from1980 to 2000, college graduates have experienced relatively larger increases in cost of living, becausethey have increasingly concentrated in metropolitan areas that are characterized by a high cost ofhousing. When I deflate nominal wages using a new CPI that allows for changes in the cost ofhousing to vary across metropolitan areas, I find that the difference between the wage of collegegraduates and high school graduates is lower in real terms than in nominal terms and has grownless. At least 22% of the documented increase in college premium is accounted for by differencesin the cost of living. The implications of this finding for changes in well-being inequality dependon why college graduates sort into expensive cities. Using a simple general equilibrium model ofthe labor and housing markets, I consider two alternative explanations. First, it is possible thatthe relative supply of college graduates increases in expensive cities because college graduates areincreasingly attracted by amenities located in those cities. In this case, the higher cost of housingreflects consumption of desirable local amenities, and there may still be a significant increase inwell-being inequality even if the increase in real wage inequality is limited. Alternatively, it ispossible that the relative demand for college graduates increases in expensive cities due to shiftsin the relative productivity of skilled labor. In this case, the relative increase in skilled workersstandard of living is offset by the higher cost of living. The evidence indicates that changes in thegeographical location of different skill groups are mostly driven by changes in their relative demand.I conclude that the increase in well-being disparities between 1980 and 2000 is smaller than theincrease in nominal wage disparities that has been the focus of the previous literature.

Since the 1990s, there has been increasing policy interest in the role grandparents play in raising and providing care for their children. Family structure is particularly relevant for the well-being of individuals in co-residential families. We use data from the 2000 and 2007 American Community Survey to (1) enumerate and describe family structure diversity within co-residential grandparent-grandchild households; (2) identify which grandparents take primary responsibility for their grandchildren and how this varies by family structure; and (3) employ multivariate methods to investigate the link between family structure and well-being for grandchildren living with their grandparents.

Some of the fastest demographic transitions in the world have been observed in Latin American countries. Fertility and mortality declines have occurred in less than half the time observed in industrialized countries. Population aging is also occurring rapidly in the region. However, its socioeconomic consequences take longer to happen. Socioeconomic disadvantages experienced by current cohorts of Latin American elderly are more resistant to change over time because of the persistence of cohort effects. The slower pace of population aging with respect to other demographic dynamics translates into both opportunities and challenges. This paper intends to describe the differences in the population aging process across Latin American countries, and how these differences can show the path for institutional changes that can improve the welfare of Latin American nations. The paper will first explore how advanced are different Latin American countries in their population aging process. The paper will link this information with data about Social Security coverage among the labor force, labor force formalization and availability of caretakers. The article concludes highlighting the need for reforms in terms of Social Security coverage, not only pension reform, for securing the well-being of Latin American elderly in the near future.

Understanding the health and well-being of Asian American and Pacific Islander women involves discussion of many complex and contextual issues. This chapter reviews the demographics, health status, and health behaviors of Asian American and Pacific Islander women, as well as three important contextual factors: health access, immigration, and acculturation. These factors are then combined in discussions of two cross-cutting issues: violence against women and reproductive health and rights. The chapter ends with recommendations to promote the future health and well-being of Asian American and Pacific Islander women.

This study tests the impact of household and demographic factors on the economic well-being of the farm and nonfarm self-employed using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Parametric and nonparametric techniques are used to test for statistical differences in selfemployment and household income levels. Further, household and demographic factors are tested for their effect on self-employment income using a censored tobit regression model. Findings indicate the farm self-employed report significantly higher levels of self-employment income than the nonfarm self-employed. Several household and demographic factors significantly impact self-employment income levels for the farm and nonfarm self-employed.

Research on child custody primarily focuses on the well-being of children following divorce. We extend this literature by examining how the prospect of joint child custody affects marriage-specific investment in childrens private-school education. Variation in the timing of joint-custody reforms across states proxies for the prospect of joint child custody and provides a natural experiment framework with which to examine marriage-specific investment in children. The probability of childrens private school attendance declines by 13 percent in states that adopt joint-custody laws. The effects of joint-custody reform are larger in states that have property-division laws that consistently favor one parent over the other. The results are largely robust for subsamples partitioned by socioeconomic status.

There is widespread concern that the United States faces a problem in maintaining its position as the scientific and technological leader in the world and that loss of leadership threatens future economic well-being and national security. Business, science, and education groups have issued reports that highlight the value to the country of leadership in science and technology. Many call for new policies to increase the supply of scientific and engineering talent in the United States. While the reports differ in emphasis, the basic message is uniform: the United States should spend more on research and development (R&D) and increase the number of young Americans choosing scientific and technological careers. In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush announced the American Competitiveness Initiative that concurred with these assessments: "For the U.S. to maintain its global economic leadership, we must ensure a continuous supply of highly trained mathematicians, scientists, engineers, technicians, and scientific support staff." In 1957, faced with the analogous challenge of Sputnik, the United States responded with increased R&D spending and by awarding large numbers of National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research and National Defense Education Act fellowships, which together induced a large number of young Americans to invest in science and engineering careers. In the early 1960s, the country gave about one thousand NSF graduate research fellowships per year. Forty-five years later, despite a more-than-threefold increase in the number of college students graduating in science and engineering and a global challenge from the spread of technology and higher education to the rest of the world, the United States still gives the same number of NSF fellowships. With so many more college students, current U.S. NSF fellowship policy gives less of an incentive for students to enter science and engineering than did policies in the earlier period.

The Indian Gaming Regulation Act was passed in 1988, and in subsequent years, tribal gaming revenues increased dramatically. However, it has been unclear how tribal casinos impact different types of American Indian households well-being. I apply a difference-in-difference methodology to 1990 and 2000 data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to address this question. When casino effects are split by householders sex and education, they are primarily on female-headed households. Casinos significantly increase household per capita income of female-headed households without a high school degree by $891 to $1859. However, casinos reduce per capita assistance income of all female-headed households. Casinos also reduce deep poverty rates of female-headed households with at least a high school degree by seven to eight percentage points and near poverty rates of female-headed households with less than a high school degree by 11 to 14 percentage points.

We use here a new measure of household economic well-being called LIMEW. LIMEW is different in scope from the official U.S. Census Bureau measure of gross money income (MI) in that it includes taxes, noncash transfers, public consumption, income from wealth, and household production. We analyze trends in LIMEW from 1959 to 2004, and find that median LIMEW grew by 0.7 percent per year while median MI increased by 0.6 percent per year. LIMEW grew much slower than MI from 1959 to 1982, and much faster than MI from 1982 to 2004. In 2004, measured inequality was lower in LIMEW than MI (a difference of 5.5 Gini points); similarly, the increase in inequality between 1959 and 2004 was higher in MI than LIMEW (6.2 versus 5.1 Gini points). Much of the difference in these measures can be traced to the role of net government expenditures. According to both measures, the racial gap narrowed from 1959 to 1989; it then widened somewhat from 1989 to 2004 according to LIMEW but continued to narrow according to MI. The difference in time trends can be traced mainly to the rising income from wealth of white households relative to nonwhite households. The gap in well-being between single females and married couples widened from 1959 to 1989 and then narrowed slightly between 1989 and 2004 according to LIMEW but increased rather steadily from 1959 to 2004 according to MI. The fortunes of the elderly relative to the nonelderly showed considerable improvement from 1959 to 2004 according to LIMEW, almost reaching parity in 2004. In contrast, according to MI, the relative position of the elderly was about the same in 2004 as in 1959. In this instance, the difference in time . . .