The National Health Interview Survey is the world’s longest survey time series of health data. In spite of the availability of such a long time series, previous studies did not attempt to explain long-term trends in disability, because the design of the question in the survey has changed over time. To control for changes in the design of the question, I added two variables indicating major changes in the design to the analysis. My results show that the decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease is associated with the rise in disability in the 1970s, whereas better education is associated with the long-term decline in disability that started in the 1980s. Combined, the two variables are able to account for all major trends in disability at age 50-84 from 1963 to 2015, leaving limited room for other explanations. The statistical model predicts that the trend in falling disability rates will end as the rise in educational levels draws to a halt.

The black ghetto is thought of as a place of urban decay and social disarray. Like the historical ghetto of Venice, it is perceived as a space of confinement, one imposed on black America by whites. It is the home of a marginalized underclass and a sign of the depth of American segregation. Yet while black urban neighborhoods have suffered from institutional racism and economic neglect, they have also been places of refuge and community. In A Haven and a Hell, Lance Freeman examines how the ghetto shaped black America and black America shaped the ghetto. Freeman traces the evolving role of predominantly black neighborhoods in northern cities from the late nineteenth century through the present day. At times, the ghetto promised the freedom to build black social institutions and political power. At others, it suppressed and further stigmatized African Americans. Freeman reveals the forces that caused the ghetto's role as haven or hell to wax and wane, spanning the Great Migration, mid-century opportunities, the eruptions of the sixties, the challenges of the seventies and eighties, and present-day issues of mass incarceration, the subprime crisis, and gentrification. Offering timely planning and policy recommendations based in this history, A Haven and a Hell provides a powerful new understanding of urban black communities at a time when the future of many inner-city neighborhoods appears uncertain. Introduction -- The embryonic ghetto -- The age of the black enclave -- The federally sanctioned ghetto -- World War II and the aftermath : the ghetto diverges -- The ghetto erupts : the 1960s -- The last decades of the twentieth century -- The ghetto in the twenty-first century -- Conclusion : how to have a haven but no hell in the twenty-first century.

The precipitous decline in remarriage since the 1980s is well documented (Sweeney, 2010; Payne, 2018). Less is known about the “retreat from remarriage” prior to the 1980s. Using data from the Vital Statistics of the United States and the American Community Survey, we examine the remarriage rate for men and women aged 15 and older from 1950 to 2017. For more information on recent change in the remarriage rate, see Change in the U.S. Remarriage Rate, 2008 and 2016 (FP-18-16).

Background Trauma is a major cause of death and disability in the United States, and significant disparities exist in access to care, especially in non-urban settings. From 2007 to 2017 New Mexico expanded its trauma system by focusing on building capacity at the hospital level. Methods We conducted a geospatial analysis at the census block level of access to a trauma center in New Mexico within 1 h by ground or air transportation for the years 2007 and 2017. We then examined the characteristics of the population with access to care. A multiple logistic regression model assessed for remaining disparities in access to trauma centers in 2017. Results The proportion of the population in New Mexico with access to a trauma center within 1 h increased from 73.8% in 2007 to 94.8% in 2017. The largest increases in access to trauma care within 1 h were found among American Indian/Alaska Native populations (AI/AN) (35.2%) and people living in suburban areas (62.9%). In 2017, the most rural communities (aOR 58.0), communities on an AI/AN reservation (aOR 25.6), communities with a high proportion of Hispanic/Latino persons (aOR 8.4), and a high proportion of elderly persons (aOR 3.2) were more likely to lack access to a trauma center within 1 h. Conclusion The New Mexico trauma system expansion significantly increased access to trauma care within 1 h for most of New Mexico, but some notable disparities remain. Barriers persist for very rural parts of the state and for its sizable American Indian

The condominium structure, which facilitates ownership of units in multi-family buildings, was only introduced to the US during the 1960s. We ask whether the subsequent development of condominiums encouraged high-income households to move to central cities. Although we document a strong positive correlation between condominium density and resident income, this association is entirely driven by endogenous development of condos in areas otherwise attractive to high-income households. When we instrument for condo density using the passage of municipal regulations limiting condo conversions, we find little association between condo development and resident income, education or race.

Providing fast transportation within cities is often considered as a way to improve labour market connections. This paper will quantify metropolitan level mobility with respect to home-work commuting. Commuter mobility in the US is found to vary substantially across metros in both levels and trends during the 2005-2014 study period. The impact of mobility on access to jobs is theoretically ambiguous due to mobility inducing urban sprawl. An instrumental variable method will exploit random variation in the political process governing transportation infrastructure funding. Results provide causal evidence that increased commuter mobility led workers to experience reduced local job density. Estimates fail to find evidence that commuter mobility improved labour market outcomes. Findings are consistent with increased commuter mobility exacerbating spatial mismatch through employment dispersion.

A critical question in life-course research is whether the relationship between a risk factor and mortality strengthens, weakens, or remains constant with age. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the importance of measurement scale in examining this question. Many studies address this question solely on the multiplicative (relative) scale and report that the hazard ratio of dying associated with a risk factor declines with age. A wide set of risk factors have been shown to conform to this pattern including those that are socioeconomic, behavioral, and physiological in nature. Drawing from well-known principles on interpreting statistical interactions, we show that evaluations on the additive (absolute) scale often lead to a different set of conclusions about how the association between a risk factor and mortality changes with age than interpretations on the multiplicative scale. We show that on the additive scale the excess death risks posed by key socio-demographic and behavioral risk factors increase with age. Studies have not generally recognized the additive interpretation, but it has relevancy for testing life-course theories and informing public health interventions. We discuss these implications and provide general guidance on choosing a scale. Data from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey are used to provide empirical support.

Employment concentration among low-skilled immigrants is a well-documented phenomenon in the U.S. labor market though its temporal and spatial patterns are less well examined. With Census microdata, the authors trace detailed occupational niches from 1990 to 2010 for all immigrants, as well as Asian and Latino immigrants separately, to understand how these niches have evolved over the past two decades. Using the Herfindahl−Hirschman Index measure, the authors further capture the geographic variation in relative occupational concentration across metropolitan statistical areas and test what metropolitan-level contexts and policies help explain such differences. The authors find that metropolitan areas with larger total and immigrant populations, greater human capital, higher residential mobility, and more diverse economies have expanded low-skilled immigrants’ occupational choices. Conversely, policies such as higher minimum wages and greater union membership may, in fact, increase occupational concentration, at least for some groups.

Using 40 rounds of Demographic and Health Survey data from 18 sub-Saharan African countries, linked to high-resolution historical climate records, we analyze the relationship between climatic variability and fertility goals among reproductive-aged women. We find that, overall, women exposed to above-average temperatures report lower ideal family size and reduced probability of desiring a first or additional child. Results indicate that exposure to precipitation anomalies during the 12 months prior to the DHS survey is associated with a significant reduction in ideal family size, but longer 60-month spells of above-average precipitation are associated with increases in ideal family size. Effects of unusual precipitation are null for women’s fertility preferences at both shorter- and longer-term periods. Additional analyses show that this association varies across sub-populations defined by parity, education, residence in rural or urban areas, and region. In general, our results suggest that women exposed to adverse environmental conditions—namely abnormally hot or dry spells—will reduce their ideal family size and their preferences for having another child. In some cases, however, fertility goals may also decline during spells of favorable environmental conditions, possibly due to increased labor demands among women and their spouses. One implication of the observed links between climate variability and reproductive goals is that policymakers concerned with climate adaptation should work to ensure women have access to the necessary family planning resources needed to realize dynamic reproductive goals in a changing climate.

We link future members of Congress to the de-anonymized 1940 census to offer a uniquely detailed analysis of how economically unrepresentative American politicians were in the 20th century, and why. Future members under the age of 18 in 1940 grew up in households with parents who earned more than twice as much as the population average and who were more than 6 times as likely as the general population to hold college degrees. However, compared to siblings who did not become politicians, future members of Congress between the ages of 18 and 40 in 1940 were higher-earners and more educated, indicating that socioeconomic background alone does not explain the differences between politicians and non-politicians. Examining a smaller sample of candidates that includes non-winners, we find that the candidate pool is much higher-earning and more educated than the general population. At the same time, among the candidate pool, elections advantage candidates with higher earnings ability and education. We conclude that barriers to entry likely deter a more economically representative candidate pool, but that electoral advantages for more-educated individuals with more private-sector success also play an important role.

According to the American Heart Association, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is not only the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States, but it is also responsible for the highest health care costs for a single class of disease (1). The medical care that accompanies ASCVD often carries large per-capita medical expenditures (1), with an average annual out-of-pocket (OOP) spending of over $2,000, with almost one-half of direct expenditures being related to medication expenses (2). Even among those with health insurance, many people with ASCVD are inadequately protected from financial hardship due to the high costs of insurance, including deductible, copays, and coinsurances.

Electricity is a general purpose technology and the catalyst for the second industrial revolution. Developing countries are currently making huge investments in electrification, with a view to achieving structural change. What does history say about its impact on the structure of employment? We use U.S. Census data from 1910 to 1940 and measure electrification with the length of higher-voltage electricity lines. Instrumenting for electrification using hydroelectric potential, we find that the average expansion of high-voltage transmission lines between 1910 and 1940 increased the share of operatives in a county by 3.3 percentage points and decreased the share of farmers by 2.1 percentage points. Electrification can explain 50.5% of the total increase in operatives, and 18.1% of the total decrease in farmers between 1910 and 1940. At the industry level, electrification drove 15.7% of the decline in the share of agricultural employment and 28.4% of the increase in the share of manufacturing employment between 1910 and 1940. Electrification was thus a key driver of structural transformation in the U.S. economy.

Objectives To examine the link between an individual’s religious involvement in prison and recidivism and assess how macro-level conditions in the counties to which individuals return shape this relationship. Methods Using data from 1362 previously incarcerated people, a series of hierarchical generalized linear models are used to examine the extent to which an individual’s religious involvement in prison relates to recidivism post-release. We also examine how county-level religious adherence, economic disadvantage, and potential social service assistance directly affect recidivism, and how each shape the relationship between religious involvement and recidivism. Results Findings show that county-level religious adherence was directly associated with lower recidivism, but individual-level religious involvement was not when assessing recidivism over longer periods of time post-release. Cross-level interactions revealed that county-level resource deprivation conditions the effect of individual religious involvement. Conclusions Findings have theoretical implications for the study of religion and reentry. Methodologically, failing to account for the religious context of counties, in addition to micro–macro linkages, harms individual level research on religion and reentry.

We show that early-life family disruption (death or divorce of a parent) causes fund managers to be more risk averse when they manage their own funds. Treated managers take lower systematic, idiosyncratic, and downside risk than non-treated managers. This effect is most pronounced for managers who experienced family disruption during their formative years or who had little social support. Treated managers invest less in lottery-like stocks, make smaller tracking errors, and bet less on factors during recessions, but do not perform worse than their untreated cohorts. Our evidence indicates that familial background affects economic decisions later in life even for finance professionals.

The sociological literature, although rich on the topic of racial/ethnic hierarchy, often overlooks its spatially varying nature relative to group tensions and inequality. In this article, we address this gap by drawing on and analyzing four historically important U.S. urban cases (i.e., Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City) that reflect both compositional diversity and significant variation in racial/ethnic group sizes. Our analyses, which draw on U.S. Census microdata and content‐coded newspaper reports (1910–1930), demonstrate considerable consistency in racial/ethnic labor market hierarchies, yet divergences in levels of labor market inequality. Specifically, our aggregate analyses and cross‐city comparisons of sectoral representations and occupational returns reveal the importance of place‐specific processes—processes consistent with what spatially sensitive queuing perspectives suggest about the bolstering of minority prospects in contexts where subordinated groups come to numerically dominate. As suggested by competition/threat perspectives, however, such gains from queuing are undermined at least to some extent by city‐specific racial/ethnic antagonisms, industry‐level segregation, and group closure. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for various streams of research on group inequality, labor market hierarchies, and spatial understandings of how they unfold across urban spaces.

The choice of college major is a key stage in the career search, and over a third of college students switch majors at least once. We provide the first comprehensive analysis of major switching, looking at the patterns of switching in both academic and non-academic dimensions. Low grades signal academic mismatch and predict switching majors - and the lower the grades, the larger the switch in terms of course content. Surprisingly, these switches do not improve students’ grades. When students switch majors, they switch to majors that “look like them”: females to female-heavy majors, and so on. Lower-ability women flee competitive majors at high rates, while men and higher-ability women are undeterred. Women are far more likely to leave STEM fields for majors that are less competitive – but still somewhat science-intensive – suggesting that leaving STEM may be more about fleeing the “culture” of STEM majors than fleeing science and math.

Machine learning algorithms create models from training data for the purpose of estimation, prediction and classification. While releasing parametric machine learning models requires the release of the parameters of the model, releasing non-parametric machine learning models requires the release of the training dataset along with the parameters. The release of the training dataset creates a risk of breach of privacy. An alternative to the release of the training dataset is the presentation of the non-parametric model as a service. Still, the non-parametric model as a service may leak information about the training dataset. We study how to provide differential privacy guarantees for non-parametric models as a service. We show how to apply the perturbation to the model functions of histogram, kernel density estimator, kernel SVM and Gaussian process regression in order to provide (ϵ,δ) -differential privacy. We empirically evaluate the trade-off between the privacy guarantee and the error incurred for each of these non-parametric machine learning algorithms on benchmarks and real-world datasets. Our contribution is twofold. We show that functional perturbation is not only pragmatic for releasing machine learning models as a service but also yields higher effectiveness than output perturbation mechanisms for specified privacy parameters. We show a practical step to perturbate the model functions of histogram, kernel SVM, Gaussian process regression along with kernel density estimator and perform evaluation on a real-world dataset as well as a selection of benchmarks.

Objective This study examined the amount of time married couples share together in a new “encore adult” life course stage around the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Also investigated was the relationship between shared time and experienced well-being for this age group. Method Time diary and survey data were used from nationally representative 2003–2014 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data for 26,303 adults aged 50–79 years. Analyses examined amount of total and exclusive shared couple time and experiences of happiness and stress when together using multivariate models. Results Shared time was positively associated with couples living on their own, conjoint employment/nonemployment, and age. Encore women and men reported feeling happier and less stressed when with their spouses. Men seemed to find time with spouses more enjoyable if both partners or just their wives were working. Discussion Encore adults are living longer as couples; results suggest couple relationships may occupy most of their days, with potentially positive implications for emotional well-being. Men and women are happier during time with a spouse when the woman works, with men reporting even higher levels of happiness than women. This is important as contemporary couples navigate increasingly complex work/retirement transitions in gendered ways.

A recent series of studies by the Equality of Opportunity Project has documented substantial geographical differences in intergenerational income mobility. These spatial differences are important because they suggest that place matters more than previously thought in determining economic well-being. In this article, we show that family characteristics vary widely across areas and simulations indicate that differences in these family characteristics can explain a substantial share of the variation in intergenerational income mobility across places documented by the Equality of the Opportunity Project. Additionally, we show that the characteristics of families that move differ substantially from families that do not move and that family characteristics differ by the type of move made, which raise questions about the external and internal validity of causal inferences based on the Equality of Opportunity Project’s analysis of movers.

This report tells the fascinating story of a great region’s evolving racial and ethnic diversity. After a decline during the mid-20th century, we’re now several decades into a new global wave of immigration, bringing Boston back to its roots as a city of immigrants. While this report does not shy away from the challenges that come with such profound change, it is clear-eyed about the many ways that we can meet those challenges, and about the countless benefits the change brings. The exploration of these trends has been something of a research “barn raising” by Boston’s 104-year-old community foundation and researchers from across the University of Massachusetts system. Boston Indicators (the Boston Foundation’s research center) sponsored the project and provided research and editorial support throughout. The UMass Donahue Institute at the UMass President’s Office led the demographic analysis. A diverse group of researchers from UMass Boston led the qualitative study of how demographic change is experienced on the ground—throughout the region and in specific corners of it. UMass Boston hosts independent academic centers focused on the four major racial/ethnic groups—the Trotter Institute, the Gastón Institute, the Institute for Asian American Studies and the Institute for New England Native American Studies. The directors of these centers each contribute a chapter, and while they dive deep into dynamics particular to . . .