In this paper we investigate changes in the labor market incorporation (i.e., labor force status, class of worker, and earnings) of return migrants from the United States to Mexico between 1990 and 2010. We argue that changing period conditions, particularly the 2007 economic recession and enhanced immigration enforcement policies dating back to the mid-1990s, have altered both the volume and nature of return flows affecting the migration-development connection. Using data from the 1990, 2000, and 2010 Mexican Censuses, we compare the labor market position of return migrants to nonmigrants and internal migrants in Mexico. We show that the less voluntary nature of return migration in the early twenty-first century has resulted in higher employment propensities, lower entrepreneurial activities, and deteriorated wages among return migrants. However, it is important to consider the growing heterogeneity of the return migrant flow; the negative labor market outcomes are largely confined to wage earners, while the smaller flow of entrepreneurial returnees continues to experience positive employment and earnings profiles. We derive implications for employment conditions in Mexico and for the literature connecting migration to development in sending areas.

This thesis will investigate three topics of interest in the United States: adult labor market outcomes of child immigrants, i.e. the "1.5 generation", determinants of bilingualism among children, and finally, forecasts of income inequality. Together, these essays discuss the accumulation of human capital, its role in the determination of earnings for immigrants and native-born, and the implications of these changing patterns for inequality forecasting.

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the population of immigrants in the US. The new immigrants (immigrants of late the 20 th and 21st century) are different from the immigrants of the early and mid-twentieth century who primarily originated from European countries and were similar in race and culture to their native counterparts. The new immigrants primarily originate from developing countries. A large proportion of modern immigrants originate from developing countries in Central and South America, who are substantially different in terms of culture and human capital from the majority of the native population of the US. The scale and type of modern immigration has resulted in an intense debate about the economics of immigration. Within this debate, labor market outcomes of recent immigrants have attracted a great deal of interest. In particular, there has been a substantial interest in their relative earnings and human capital. This dissertation contributes to the debate and literature on the economics of immigration by presenting new evidence on the sources of the earnings disadvantage of immigrants, the effect of location choice on the labor market outcomes of immigrants and native Hispanics, and the relative collegiate experiences and outcomes of foreign students in the US. The first article studies the sources of the earnings disadvantage of 21st century immigrants relative to natives. It finds that time spent in the US, English language proficiency and educational attainment are the key determinants behind the lower relative earnings of immigrants and these sources get more pronounced in the post Great Recession era. The second article studies the effect of residency . . .

With more than three million foreign-born residents today, New York has been America's defining port of entry for nearly four centuries, a magnet for transplants from all over the globe. These migrants have brought their hundreds of languages and distinct cultures to the city, and from there to the entire country. More immigrants have come to New York than all other entry points combined. City of Dreams is peopled with memorable characters both beloved and unfamiliar, whose lives unfold in rich detail: the young man from the Caribbean who passed through New York on his way to becoming a Founding Father; the ten-year-old Angelo Siciliano, from Calabria, who transformed into Charles Atlas, bodybuilder; Dominican-born Oscar de la Renta, whose couture designs have dressed first ladies from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama. Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever-changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.

The business cycle properties of occupational employment have not yet been extensively explored because of inconsistencies in the aggregate employment series by occupation. Using consistent aggregate hours data constructed through the method of conversion factors, which was developed by the U.S. Census Bureau, we provide new empirical facts on the cyclical behaviors of occupational employment and discuss their implications. First, employment of the middle-skill occupation group is negatively affected by a technology shock, while those of high-skill and low-skill groups are positively correlated with it. Second, it is the middle-skill group that experiences the largest decline in employment volatility after the mid-1980s. Last, recessions since the 1980s have heterogeneous impacts on different occupations, defining the characteristics of each recession. We further discuss the value of having consistent employment data in studies of business cycles.

This paper presents the Joint Center for Housing Studies tenure projections for 2015-2035, which build on the projections in Updated Household Projections, 2015-2035: Methodology and Results by McCue and Herbert (2016). In previous projection cycles, JCHS has included tenure projections as an extension of the household estimates, using current homeownership rates by age and race/ethnicity to approximate the growth in homeowner and renter households that is implied by growth in the number of U.S. households. In response to the homeownership rates continued declineand the discussion it has generatedthis paper provides a more detailed consideration of the homeownership projections, including three scenarios that describe a range of possible homeownership outcomes for 2015-2035. Following this introduction, the initial section of the paper presents a brief review of the factors that have influenced the homeownership rates trajectory. The second section then provides an overview of the methods used to project future homeownership outcomes, discussing the accuracy and limitations of projections based on demographic data. The third section presents JCHSs homeownership projections for 2015-2035, defining the three projection scenarios and discussing the results. The fourth section concludes with a brief summary.

During the early twentieth century, cities along the Pacific coast constituted the new urban frontier. This article examines whether internal migrants gained economically by moving to this new urban frontier, relative to an option of not migrating, or an option of migrating to the established cities in the Midwest and the Northeast. For the analysis, a longitudinal data set was constructed by linking individuals from the 1910 IPUMS sample to the 1900 Census through the genealogy website, Ancestry.com. Results suggest that compared to an option of not migrating, there were significant economic gains to migrating to the urban western frontier. However, migrants to the Midwest and the Northeast gained about the same, economically, as migrants to the urban western frontier.

Biases in meeting opportunities have been recently shown to play a key role for the emergence of homophily in social networks (see Currarini et al., 2009). The aim of this paper is to provide a simple microfoundation of these biases in a model where the size and type-composition of the meeting pools are shaped by agents׳ socialization decisions. In particular, agents either inbreed (direct search only to similar types) or outbreed (direct search to population at large). When outbreeding is costly, this is shown to induce stark equilibrium behavior of a threshold type: agents “inbreed” (i.e. mostly meet their own type) if, and only if, their group is above certain size. We show that this threshold equilibrium generates patterns of in-group and cross-group ties that are consistent with empirical evidence of homophily in two paradigmatic instances: high school friendships and interethnic marriages.

In the years following 2000, the U.S. economy has exhibited relatively strong growth in lower-paying jobs. Previous studies have put this growth in the context of shocks to particular higher-paying industries or occupations. In this study, we consider the implications of a “job ladder” in the context of labor market downturns associated with the 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions. We propose and estimate a model of on-the- job search, which allows us to explore the effects of aggregate demand shocks on the composition of employment. When aggregate labor market conditions are weak, the least productive employers lose workers through poaching to more productive employers at a slower rate. Our empirical analysis links the slowdown in the job ladder with the buildup in low-paying jobs.

Statement of the Problem: Approximately 33% of U.S. military personnel (defined here as active duty members in any service of the military) across the four services of the Department of Defense (DoD) (Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force) are heavy drinkers (defined as consumption of more than 14 drinks per week for men, and more than 7 drinks per week for women in the past twelve months). Increased alcohol misuse in the military negatively affects readiness and safety, thereby posing both a public health problem and a threat to national security. The goal of this dissertation is to build on experiences with interventions in drinking environments surrounding college campuses to analyze and suggest interventions in alcohol environments surrounding military installations. Methods: Literature review of articles on alcohol use and related harms in colleges and the military, using Goffman’s theory of total institutions as a conceptual framework; analysis of the alcohol outlet density per 1,000 individuals within five miles of military installations in eight U.S. states using ArcGIS; and environmental scans of on- and off-sale alcohol establishments near 12 military installations using scoring of environmental risk based on three of the four P’s of marketing: promotion, product, and price. Results: Alcohol environments surrounding military installations have sufficient similarities to those surrounding college campuses, and patterns of drinking in the two populations are of sufficient high risk to warrant exploration of environmental interventions that have been effective in college settings in military settings . . .

Pursuant to passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Center for Health Statistics has enhanced the content of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) - the primary source of information for monitoring health and health care use of the US population at the national level - in several key areas and has positioned the NHIS as a source of population health information at the national and state levels. We review recent changes to the NHIS that support enhanced health reform monitoring, including new questions and response categories, sampling design changes to improve state-level analysis, and enhanced dissemination activities. We discuss the importance of the NHIS, the continued need for state-level analysis, and suggestions for future consideration.

The population is aging in Kentucky and across the country as the baby boomers reach retirement age, with the share of Kentuckians over the age of 65 expected to grow from 15 percent today to 20 percent by 2030. Yet too many in the state are deeply underprepared for financial security in retirement. The growing elimination of more secure defined benefit plans in the private (and more recently the public) sector has worsened the problem, and the current level of Social Security benefits is not adequate for a decent standard of living. The average defined contribution account (such as a 401(k)) balance for current workers in Kentucky was only $32,499 in 2012, and many workers have jobs where no type of plan is offered at all. More must be done at all levels of government to promote a more secure retirement for the sake of retirees and the economy as a whole. A comprehensive solution to the problem would include protecting and strengthening defined benefit plans as well as Social Security. Another aspect is to increase the number of private sector workers who participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan. According to one analysis, just 43 percent of Kentucky private sector workers in 2012 participated in such a plan, the 13th lowest coverage rate in the nation, down from 49 percent in 2000. Fortunately, a number of states are now taking action to create retirement plans for employees at private workplaces that do not offer one and Kentucky should join them. Such a program would help increase quality of life for seniors, assist small businesses in attracting and retaining qualified employees and improve the economy as a whole as fewer Kentuckians rely on assistance in their later years.

All children should have the opportunity to lead long and healthy lives. While many factors influence a child’s health, access to health coverage is a critical component in setting them up for success. Federal and state efforts in the last two decades have cut the uninsurance rate for low-income children in half.1 This reduction is due in large part to the success of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).2 More recently, the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has built upon this success by providing affordable coverage for millions of adults.

In 2010, the Urban Institute launched the one-year planning phase for the Housing Opportunities and Services Together (HOST) Demonstration, an effort to test twogeneration strategies to improve the life chances of vulnerable youth and adults in public and subsidized housing. Over HOST’s three years of implementation the housing authorities in Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL, worked hard to adapt their engagement and outreach, strategize about how to target people within families, and coordinate their teams, all with the goal of building the kind of model that could yield real results for HOST families. At the end of the demonstration, the Urban Institute interviewed all of the program staff for the last time to gather their reflections. This brief synthesizes these insights to provide guidance for practitioners on what it takes to implement an effective and truly integrated two-generation model.

Using U.S. Census data for 1990 to 2000, we estimate effects of NAFTA on U.S.wages.We look for effects of the agreement by industry and by geography, measuring each industry's vulnerability to Mexican imports and each locality's dependence on vulnerable industries. We find evidence of both effects, dramatically lowering wage growth for blue-collar workers in the most affected industries and localities (even for service-sector workers in affected localities, whose jobs do not compete with imports). These distributional effects are much larger than aggregate welfare effects estimated by other authors.

Population surveys prospectively linked with the death records of respondents provide invaluable opportunities for the study of the relationship between social and economic circumstances and mortality outcomes. However, the methods for establishing vital status vary across data sources and this variation may influence the accuracy of their mortality estimates. We conduct the first study that systematically compares mortality estimates from multiple survey-linked mortality files with U.S. vital statistics data. Our results show that mortality rates and life expectancies in U.S. vital statistics data resemble those of the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files, Health and Retirement Study, and Americans’ Changing Lives study. Compared to vital statistics, General Social Survey-National Death Index (GSS-NDI) mortality rates are . . .

We show that skill requirements in job vacancy postings differentially increased in MSAs that were hit hard by the Great Recession, relative to less hard-hit areas. These increases persist through at least the end of 2015 and are correlated with increases in capital investments, both at the MSA and firm-levels. We also find that effects are most pronounced in routine-cognitive occupations, which exhibit relative wage growth as well. We argue that this evidence is consistent with the restructuring of production toward routine-biased technologies and the more-skilled workers that complement them, and that the Great Recession accelerated this process.

This paper investigates the slowdown in earnings assimilation of recent immigrants to the U.S. I find that recent immigrant cohorts have experienced slower assimilation in terms of their occupational task requirements compared to past cohorts. This occupational task assimilation slowdown can explain a large portion of the slowdown in earnings assimilation. Furthermore, accounting for changing returns to task requirements across years (notably an increase in analytical and interactive task returns) can explain an additional, significant portion of the earnings slowdown.

Using US Census data for 1990-2000, we estimate effects of NAFTA on US wages, focusing on differences by gender. We find that NAFTA tariff reductions are associated with substantially reduced wage growth for married blue-collar women, much larger than the effect for other demographic groups. We investigate several possible explanations for this finding. It is not explained by differential sensitivity of female-dominated occupations to trade shocks, or by household bargaining that makes married women workers less able to change their industry of employment than other workers. We find some support for an explanation based on an equilibrium theory of selective non-participation in the labor market, whereby some of the higher-wage married women workers in their industry drop out of the labor market in response to their industry's loss of tariff. However, this does not fully explain the findings so are left with a puzzle.

This paper empirically assesses a relatively unexplored topic: the time-use of stay-at-home fathers in female breadwinner families. Using a combination of microdata from the 20032013 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) and in-depth interviews conducted with 30 stay-at-home fathers living in the United States, we critically examine the time-use of male caregivers, particularly during evening and weekend hours. Findings suggest that some stay-at-home fathers and breadwinning mothers shift or swap their domestic responsibilities when their wives return home from their paid jobs, allotting husbands more time to pursue other activities. As a result, some parents continue to do gender in more conventional ways during evenings and weekends, even when fathers specialize in caregiving and mothers specialize in breadwinning during the day.