To aid USMC efforts in gender representation across its organization, I first develop a crosswalk of Marine Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) to civilian Standard Occupational Codes (SOC). I then employ hedonic regression methods to determine the effects of skills and abilities required to perform Marine occupations on the proportion of females in that job. The hedonic analysis proposes an empirically justified potential upper bound of female representation for USMC gender integration goals. The civilian labor market is essentially a free market where individuals can choose their occupation with arguably lower barriers to entry than the military. Yet, civilian female representation remains low in the occupations that map to previously gender-restricted MOSs, with female representation hovering at or below 5 percent. In addition, the marginal effects of skills and abilities required for job performance tend to further restrict the female representation level expectations. While there may be a desire to increase female representation across the USMC as a whole, the aggregate adjusted female representation level of the occupational fields is only 8.82 percent. This data can provide realistic expectations for gender integration goals, as I predict that female representation will remain lower than the related civilian occupation.

This study investigates the impact of municipalities' financial condition on the housing values within that municipality. The data consist of 68,882 housing units located in 175 cities throughout 115 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), across 42 states. Information on the housing units and owners' characteristics are drawn from the 2011 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) dataset and supplemented with MSA-level economic condition variables. The municipal financial information is drawn from the 2010 government census and consists of detailed information of every local government's finances. The empirical results provide evidence that the financial state of a municipality affects local housing values. In particular, engaging in long-term capital projects leads to higher housing values, while not spending revenues on public goods will not entice individuals to move to the area.

Children are especially vulnerable to the health and developmental impacts of environmental hazards and they spend significant portions of their days at school. Yet there are no national-level studies examining school-level environmental inequalities and few have examined disparate exposure to neurological air toxicants, even though chronic exposure to air pollution impacts children's brain functioning. We paired information about the geographic locations and demographics of each public school in the US with air neurotoxicant exposure estimates pertaining to 24 known neurotoxicants included in the US Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Toxics Assessment. Using bivariate and multivariate statistics, we tested for environmental injustices in air neurotoxicant exposure at 84,969 US public schools. Metropolitan New York City (EPA Region 2) is the geographic region most burdened by air neurotoxicant exposures at schools since one-third of all schools in that region are in the top 10% (at "high risk") for ambient neurotoxicant exposure among all schools nationwide. Students attending "high risk" public schools nationwide are significantly more likely to be eligible for free/reduced price meals, and to be Hispanic, black, or Asian/Pacific Islander (API). They are significantly less likely to be white or of another race. In a multivariate generalized estimating equation controlling for school district effects, schools with greater proportions of Hispanic, black, and API students, schools with higher enrollment, and schools located in more urban (vs. rural) counties face greater risks. Schools serving the youngest students (e.g., pre-kindergarten) have greater levels of risk than schools serving older students. Across all analyses, this study shows that racial/ethnic minority children are bearing the brunt of air neurotoxicant exposures at school, which may be unequally impacting their school performance and future potential.

This paper examined how the earnings test affects the hours and employment of men who claim early benefits. It uses 1982-2016 data from the Current Population Survey and 1992-2014 data from the Health and Retirement Study. Critical components of the analysis include the idea that for any fixed earnings-test threshold amount, an increase in the hourly wage at which a beneficiary can work reduces the number of hours needed annually to hit the threshold. This feature of the test and substantial state-by-calendar year variation from increases in the minimum wage, which lower the threshold level of hours at which the earnings test binds, are used to identify the impact of the test on labor supply on the intensive and extensive margins for men who claim early.

Urban environments are increasing worldwide and are inherently different than their rural counterparts, with a variety of effects on wildlife due to human presence, increased habitat fragmentation, movement barriers, and access to anthropogenic food sources. Effective management of urban wildlife requires an understanding of how urbanization affects their behavior and ecology. The spatial activity and interactions of urban wildlife, however, have not been as rigorously researched as in rural areas. From January 2015 to December 2016, we captured, radio-collared, and tracked 11 coyotes and 12 red foxes in Madison, WI. Within our study area, coyotes strongly selected home ranges with high proportions of natural areas; conversely, red foxes selected home ranges with open space and moderately developed areas. Use of highly developed areas best explained variation among individual home range sizes and inversely affected home range size for coyotes and red foxes. Coyote and red fox home ranges showed some degree of spatial and temporal overlap, but generally appeared partitioned by habitat type within our study area. Coyotes and red foxes were both active at similar times of the day, but their movement patterns differed based on speciesspecific habitat use. This spatial partitioning may promote positive co-existence between these sympatric canids in urban areas, and our findings of spatial activity and interactions will better inform wildlife managers working in urban areas

We examined whether current and/or persistent racial residential segregation is associated with black-white stillbirth disparities among 49,969 black and 71,785 white births from the Consortium on Safe Labor (2002–2008). Black-white segregation was measured using the dissimilarity index and the isolation index, categorized into population-based tertiles. Using hierarchical logistic models, we found low and decreasing levels of segregation were associated with decreased odds of stillbirth, with blacks benefitting more than whites. Decreasing segregation may prevent approximately 900 stillbirths annually among U.S. blacks. Reducing structural racism, segregation in particular, could help reduce black-white stillbirth disparities.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Projections program publishes estimates of total occupational openings, an important career information metric. This metric has two components: projections of new jobs (growth) and projections of openings that arise from existing workers leaving the occupation (separations). BLS has adopted a new method for projecting separations with the 2016–26 projections. This article outlines the new separations method that more accurately captures the concept of occupational openings by independently measuring workers who leave the labor force and workers who transfer occupations. Because neither data source is large enough to generate reliable estimates for all detailed occupations, BLS uses historical data to estimate the impact of various characteristics on workers’ propensity to separate from an occupation using probit models. The results of the models are applied to current data on detailed occupations for estimating future separation rates.

Metropolitan areas with a high concentration of headquarters from diverse industries stand out as influential, dynamic economies. However, there is little discussion about the characteristics of these 'headquarters economies'. Why do some regions develop vibrant headquarters economies, whereas others do not? The answer lies in understanding the essence of headquarters - the managerial talent pool that guides and governs these companies. By investigating an exemplar headquarters economy - Minneapolis-St. Paul - this volume demonstrates that the talent pool (managers), its movement among companies and industries in a region (mobility), and the nature of its inflow and outflow from a region (migration), can create a virtuous cycle that strengthens regional companies, and draws in additional talent. Comparing the migration pattern of educated, high-earning individuals across metropolitan areas in the United States, and drawing upon a proprietary survey of thousands of headquarters employees in Minneapolis-St. Paul, this book provides supportive evidence for this dynamic. A central insight of the research is that professional managerial talent is a determinant of regional vitality that has largely been overlooked. The underlying factors of managers, mobility, and migration, here identified in the context of Minneapolis-St. Paul, exist in metropolitan areas around the world, demonstrating the scope of application of the research findings, and highlighting the benefit of focusing on these underlying factors.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) has, over its 50-year history, proven to be a useful source of data for research on virtually all the major topics in the area of social gerontology. This usefulness reflects three of the leading features of the PSID: its longitudinality; its content; and its tracking rules, which permit users to develop family-based and generationally linked measures. This article summarizes key areas of survey content, including both routinely collected data and several one-time or occasional supplements to the routine items. The article also illustrates how these data elements have been used, providing examples of published papers in several areas of social gerontology. Finally, the article points out some methodological issues associated with the PSID design; these methodological issues arise, in varying degrees, in longitudinal studies other than the PSID, and should be acknowledged by both the producers and consumers of longitudinal-data research.

While studies have documented the Asian American experience in the past two decades, a dearth of research exists on those who grew up in the Midwest. How do Midwest Asian Americans experience their co-ethnic community, culture and pan-ethnic identity? Drawing from in-depth interviews of second-generation Midwest Asian Americans, an analysis of the data reveals two patterns of experiences, including: isolated ethnics and everyday ethnics. The findings are framed around issue of 'access points' to the co-ethnic community, and its influence on ethnic identity formation. This research highlights the importance of geographic community context on acculturation of Midwest Asian Americans.

Using time-diary data from the Time Use in Economic and Social Accounts (TUESA) 1975–76, which covers heterosexual couples in the United States, this paper analyzes the relationship between a state’s adoption of unilateral divorce and couples’ time allocation. Married women in states with unilateral divorce spend less time on core housework than those in states without unilateral divorce, and married men contribute to a greater share of housework. This paper also uses cross-state and time variation in divorce law adoption by including additional data from the early 1990s to estimate the effect of a state’s adoption of unilateral divorce on daily time use. The analysis confirms the findings for women in the 1970s: the availability of unilateral divorce substantially decreases married women’s time spent on housework. The results suggest that the adoption of unilateral divorce law shifts the relative bargaining power within heterosexual married households to women.

This article investigates the extent to which county-level market access affects workers’ occupational upgrading and industrial sorting by exploiting the substantial spatial variation and rapid expansion of the United States’ transportation network coverage from 1870 to 1880. First, I find that individuals who enjoyed greater market access in 1880 were more likely to work in higher-paying occupations. Importantly, this result holds across all sectors of employment, for younger and older workers, and for migrants and non-migrants, suggesting that any market size effects on occupational upgrading were not specific to any one group. I also provide results showing that workers were more likely to switch industries within agriculture, but are less likely to do so from manufacturing or services. Finally, I find some evidence of changes to sectoral reallocation, principally away from agriculture, being associated with higher market access. My findings suggest that the expansion of the transportation network in played an important role in determining the type of work Americans performed in the nineteenth century.

Objectives. To examine an association between climate variability and birth weight in Mali and Kenya in relation to the local agricultural specialization. Methods. We combined health and sociodemographic data from the Demographic Health Surveys for Kenya (2008 and 2014) and Mali (2006 and 2012) with detailed data on precipitation, temperature, and vegetation. We analyzed the association between climate variability and birth weight by using multilevel regression models for the most common agricultural specializations: food cropping, cash cropping, and pastoralism. Results. There are differences in sensitivity to climate among different agricultural communities. An additional 100 millimeters of rainfall during the 12-month period before birth was associated with a 47-gram (P = .001) and 89-gram (P = .10) increase in birth weight for food croppers in Kenya and Mali, respectively. Every additional hot month in food-cropping communities in Kenya was associated with a 71-gram decrease in birth weight (P = .030), likely because of food croppers’ limited use of modern agricultural techniques. Overall, cash croppers are least sensitive to climate variability in both countries. Conclusions. Effective climate change adaptation strategies are essential for protecting and improving health outcomes and should be tailored to local households’ livelihood strategies.

Thirty-four states require death-care firms that specialize in low-cost cremations to have embalming rooms, despite the fact that such firms have no use for them. Many states also require death-care firms to have chapels and casket display rooms. We test whether such requirements affect funeral markets where critics of the regulations claim they do the most harm by artificially suppressing the number of small funeral homes. We focus on Arizona and Florida because Arizona imposes more demanding facility requirements on funeral homes and cremation specialists than Florida does. We present evidence that Arizona’s more extensive facility requirements reduce the number of very small funeral homes and prevent them from locating in shopping centers; these requirements also increase funeral prices. These increasingly antiquated laws have created thousands of dormant embalming rooms across the country and have increased consumer costs while providing few if any discernible benefits.

We propose a neoclassical labour market model and estimating it empirically. We consider the wage equation and employment equation at the same time. The wage determination equation contains an observable human capital level and an unobservable random term which is normally distributed. For workers who earn more than the minimum wage, the wage function allows different geographic regions to have different average wage levels, as well as different returns to human capital. Regional observable characteristics can capture these differences. We use the observed bindingness of minimum wages, which describe the effectiveness of minimum wage, to model spillovers for workers with different human capital levels explicitly. The impact fades out exponentially. Secondly, we associate the wage determination function to an employment function, which contains an observable and unobservable part like the wage equation, but also an extra labour elasticity component. We also add a disemployment effect — the change of employment due to the introduction of minimum wages — into the function, to explicitly estimate employment effects. To estimate a non-linear censored model with correlated error terms, we propose a five-step procedure and use maximum likelihood estimation. We implement the method with the Current Population Survey data from the United States. We correct the potential bias in estimating effective minimum wages using occupation information and spatial correlation. 80 percent of the variation in the effectiveness of minimum wages can be estimated by the real minimum wage and those regional occupational characteristics. After correcting the bias using occupation information and city size, we find that the effective minimum wage correlates significantly with the proportion of workers earning at or below the minimum wage. The full model shows that the spillover effect of minimum wages is high and persistent. We find that the introduction of and increases in minimum wages have significant disemployment effects, which offset the potential income gain of increases in minimum wages.

This study focused on homeownership rates in rural Pennsylvania municipalities1 . Specifically, it analyzed the relationship between municipal demographic and market characteristics, and homeownership rates; modeled potential homeownership rates in 2020; classified municipalities based on changes in homeownership rates over time and analyzed if there were differences in municipal demographic and market characteristics in relation to homeownership rates; and, finally, examined whether homeownership rates and changes in homeownership rates were spatially distributed. The research used t-tests, ANOVAs, multivariate regression models, projection models, and ArcGIS.

Shortages in healthcare labor markets and decreases in quality of care were major concerns voiced by critics of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I use the 2014 Medicaid expansions as a plausibly exogenous increase in the demand for nurses to estimate the effects on nurse labor market outcomes and quality of care. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find the 2014 Medicaid expansions increased nurses’ hours worked per week by 30 minutes or 1.5 percent. Increases in hours worked are larger for rural nurses, consistent with larger increases in insurance coverage in rural areas from the Medicaid expansions. The increase in demand was larger for licensed practical nurses, with an increase in both employment and hours, while only hours increased for registered nurses. I do not find any consistent changes in patients’ assessments of nursing care, but there is some evidence of an increase in hospital- acquired infection rates.

We analyze the long-term effects of gender imbalances on female labor force participation, in particular in the market for politicians. We exploit variation in sex ratios – the number of men divided by the number of women in a region – across Germany induced by WWII. In the 1990 elections, women were more likely to run for office in constituencies that had relatively fewer men in 1946. We do not find a significant effect of the sex ratio on the likelihood of a woman winning the election. These results suggest that while women were more likely to run for a seat in parliament in constituencies with lower historical sex ratios, voters were not more inclined to vote for them. Voter demand effects thus do not appear to be as strong as candidate supply effects.

The Charles County Economic Development Department (“the Client”) sought a study to understand the workforce of Charles County, focusing on how the county’s population contributes to the workforce in the surrounding areas and how this workforce aligns with the county’s target industries. More specifically, the Client was interested in how Charles County’s skilled workforce could be an asset in attracting these industries to the area. To achieve the project objective, the Client contracted with the Regional Economic Studies Institute (RESI) of Towson University and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy (“the Project Team”). Based on the research needs of the Client, the Project team developed a three-phase methodology...