This paper examines the sources of differences in social mobility between the U.S. and Denmark. Measured by income mobility, Denmark is a more mobile society, but not when measured by educational mobility. There are pronounced nonlinearities in income and educational mobility in both countries. Greater Danish income mobility is largely a consequence of redistributional tax, transfer, and wage compression policies. While Danish social policies for children produce more favorable cognitive test scores for disadvantaged children, these do not translate into more favorable educational outcomes, partly because of disincentives to acquire education arising from the redistributional policies that increase income mobility.

Despite debate regarding the magnitude of the impact, immigrant inflows are generally understood to depress wages and increase employment in immigrant-intensive sectors. In light of the overrepresentation of the foreign-born in the childcare industry, this article examines whether college-educated native women respond to immigrant-induced lower cost and potentially more convenient childcare options with increased fertility. An analysis of U.S. Census data between 1980 and 2000 suggests that immigrant inflows are indeed associated with native women’s increased likelihoods of having a baby, and responses are strongest among women who are most likely to consider childcare costs when making fertility decisions—namely, married women and women with a graduate degree. Given that native women also respond to immigrant inflows by working long hours, this article concludes with an analysis of the types of women who have stronger fertility responses versus labor supply responses to immigration.

This paper shows that the occupational sorting of racial-gender groups varies by sexual orientation. Except for Asians, women in same-sex couples are more evenly distributed across occupations than women in different-sex couples. Black and Hispanic men in same-sex couples are also less concentrated in occupations than their straight counterparts, while the pattern for Asian and white men is less conclusive. In addition, the analysis reveals that, except for black women (whose monetary losses associated with their sorting do not seem to be affected by sexual orientation), for the remaining female groups, the occupational achievements of lesbians are higher than those of their straight counterparts. The occupational attainments of gay men are also higher than those of straight men of the same race/ethnicity. However, when comparing workers having bachelors degrees with their peers in education, the gains of Asian lesbian and straight women associated with their occupational sorting almost disappear and white lesbian women no longer have gains. Asian and white gay men still have gains associated with their sorting, although lower than those of their straight counterparts. Black and Hispanic gay men do remain better off than their straight counterparts, although they have losses associated with their sorting. When comparing workers with a low educational level with their peers in education, the only groups with gains associated with their sorting are white straight and gay men, especially the former. Gay men are worse off than straight men of the same race/ethnicity, while lesbian women tend to have lower losses than their straight counterparts.

Like many industrialized regions, the Philadelphia metro area contains pockets of environmental degradation: neighborhoods littered with abandoned waste sites, polluting factories, and smoke-belching incinerators. However, other neighborhoods within and around the city are relatively pristine. This eye-opening book reveals that such environmental inequalities did not occur by chance, but were instead the result of specific policy decisions that served to exacerbate endemic classism and racism. From Workshop to Waste Magnet presents Philadelphias environmental history as a bracing case study in mismanagement and injustice. Sociologist Diane Sicotte digs deep into the citys past as a titan of American manufacturing to trace how only a few communities came to host nearly all of the areas polluting and waste disposal land uses. By examining the complex interactions among economic decline, federal regulations, local politics, and shifting ethnic demographics, she not only dissects what went wrong in Philadelphia but also identifies lessons for environmental justice activism today. Sicottes research tallies both the environmental and social costs of industrial pollution, exposing the devastation that occurs when mass quantities of societys wastes mix with toxic levels of systemic racism and economic inequality. From Workshop to Waste Magnet is a compelling read for anyone concerned with the health of Americas cities and the people who live in them.

The writings of Slavoj Žižek have greatly expanded our understanding of how social stratification is maintained through ideology. However, those writing on the ideological operation of law are yet to engage with Žižek’s work. This thesis draws on Žižek’s multifaceted definition of ideology to provide unique insights into the ways that law is implicated in the maintenance of systemic inequality in liberal democracies. Ideology is defined as incorporating four interdependent and interrelated axes. The first axis, discourses, explains how communicative networks often controlled by the powerful lead people to view contingent, cultured and historic concepts necessary for social hierarchy as universal, egalitarian or eternal. It is asserted that the dominant legal norms of individual freedom and formal equality act in this way by masking the systemic oppression prevalent in liberal democracies. These norms also permeate abstract individualism and colonise popular understandings of two potentially revolutionary concepts. The second axis, spontaneous beliefs, analyses how people instinctively react to unfamiliar situations drawing on ideological discourses in ways that adapt, develop and individualise beliefs that are intimately entwined with social hierarchies. In daily experiences people draw on the dominant norms of abstraction and individualism permeated by law. In doing so these norms are amended to suit changing social conditions. The production of legal ideology is consequently not the exclusive terrain of professional ideologues like academics, politicians and judges but is assisted by people from all walks of life in seemingly mundane and ordinary circumstances. The materiality of ideology is the third axis and explains how material forms such as rituals can serve as the basis for ideological beliefs. It is through the materialisation of ideology that people often first encounter ideological beliefs and this exposure forms ideological beliefs. Žižek argues that belief is merely the formal act of recognising what we already believe. A particularly prominent component of the materiality of legal ideology is architecture and it is contended that many courthouses and parliament buildings materialise idealist legal norms, proclaim the universality and eternality of contingent and historic legal relations, and are built in celestial designs to manifest a religious-like faith in law. Fourth is the unconscious axis of ideology. This axis applies Žižek’s political engagement with Lacanian psychoanalysis to explore the ways that subjects of ideologies rely on fantasy and repression to maintain their beliefs in the face of constant experiences exposing the flaws, incompleteness and dogmatism inherent in legal ideology. I argue that the perceived universality and irreproachability of human rights stems in part from the fantasmatic elevation of rights to a sublime status assisted by the repression of the turbulent origins and power politics at play in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is ideological as rights are often seen as a silver bullet to complicated social problems without the need to consider the sources of social stratification. Moreover, the belief in the universality of human rights can blanket discussion as to what should constitute a human right, and how rights should be enforced, today and in the future. Through the employment of the four axes of ideology this thesis makes an original contribution to explaining how legal norms and practices assist in the sustainment of systemic inequality.

This report outlines an approach to constructing a Dynamic Housing Affordability Index (DHAI) that reflects the true cost of owner-occupied housing and performs well in tracking changes in the demand for homeownership. Economic theory suggests that an “owner cost” measure achieves these goals. Such a measure considers the price of housing and also related costs such as mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance, transactions costs, and depreciation and maintenance. It takes into account the benefits from the mortgage interest and property tax deductions and it considers the role of expected house price inflation in reducing the cost of housing. We show that the DHAI predicts national, regional, and MSA consumer sentiment with respect to the housing market (a measure of the demand for owner-occupied housing) and regional and MSA (but not national) homeownership rates during the 2007 to 2014 period.

We may love light rail. But carpooling? Not so much. The number of carpoolers in our three-county area is almost exactly the same as it was in 1980 even as the workforce has grown by more than 80 percent.

This study compares the spatial and occupant employment distribution of Craftsman bungalows in Pocatello, Idaho; Missoula, Montana; and Pasadena, California, in 1920. These distributions reflect major trends in urban and suburban housing developments in the Western United States during this period, in contrast with prior developments in India and Britain. Current scholarship on bungalows in the United States West focuses on major urban centers such as Seattle and Los Angeles. This study shifts the analysis to the understudied Intermountain West, and refocuses away from discussions of prominent architects or the bungalow as one of many housing types in a specific place or time, to emphasize instead the modest homes built by local builders and developers in small towns. In addition, the study provides quantitative data affirming that bungalows found broad appeal across economic groups, and that these homes and their owners were not geographically segregated within their cities and towns, again in contrast to their predecessors in Britain and India.

The Internet and the new technologies have contributed to the redevelopment of the tourism sector and have led to significant changes in the way that tourism information and services are produced, distributed and consumed. Social media are part of the new technologies and have become an integral part of the tourism sector. Especially young people, who are more than anyone familiar with social media, spend lot of time daily on them and rely much on them for information and communication. Plenty of their decisions on tourism issues are taken after research on social media, both for information and for photos, videos, comments, opinions, reviews etc. The purpose of this study is to investigate which social media are most commonly used by young people for their trips, their reasons for use before, during and after the trip as well as their views on influence and trust issues regarding social media networking. The survey was conducted on a sample of 410 young people, aged 18-29 years, from May to July 2016. The results reveal that the majority of young people use social media in all three stages of the trip, for a different reason in each stage. Before the trip the main reason for their use is finding information about activities and attractions, during the trip they are used for communication with friends and relatives, while after the trip uploading photos and videos appears to be the main reason. Finally, young people seem cautious towards online information from the tourism companies and rely more on friends and relatives for travel information.

Unemployment insurance (UI) benefits were extended during the Great Recession from 26 weeks to up to 99 weeks. In the years following, various studies have leveraged this unprecedented expansion of UI benefits in order to quantify the disincentive effects of UI on job search. Most studies indirectly examined the disincentive effects by using proxy measures such as unemployment duration or unemployment rate and have reached a wide range of conclusions from little to great measurable disincentive effect. In this paper, I take an alternative approach, using time-use data to directly quantify job search effort. I explore the effects of various specifications of the returns to search, macroeconomic conditions, and demographic characteristics on job search effort, at both the extensive and intensive margins of job search. Several results emerge. First, UI eligibility alone does not meaningfully impact job search effort. Second, raising unemployment benefit levels disincentivizes job search such that a 10% increase in the weekly maximum benefit amount is associated with a 5% decrease in daily job search time. Third, surprisingly, increasing UI duration does not significantly disincentivize, and may even incentivize job search effort. Finally, job search effort is procyclical, where a one percentage point increase in unemployment rate is associated with a 12% decrease in daily job search time. Taken together, these results imply that UI benefit extensions play an important counter-recessionary role and that fears of its disincentive effects are largely overblown.

I analyze the interplay between culture and economic incentives in decision-making. To this end, I study birth timing decisions of second generation migrant women to France and the US. Only the probability to have three or more children increases with the home country fertility norm, whereas the timing of the first two births is either unaffected or negatively correlated. I propose a model that rationalizes these findings in which decisions are the result of a trade-off between an economic cost-benefit analysis and a cultural norm. The model predicts that decisions with a higher cost of deviation from the economic optimum should be less prone to cultural influence. This is consistent with substantial evidence showing that the timing of the first birth bears much larger costs for mothers in terms of labor market outcomes than that of subsequent births.

Este trabajo estudia el impacto del tamaño del hogar en la educación, el trabajo infantil y la participación laboral de las madres en Ecuador, usando datos del Censo de Población y Vivienda de 2010. En el marco de la metodología de Variables Instrumentales se implementa la estrategia de identificación propuesta por Angrist y Evans (1998) que explota las preferencias de los padres en cuanto al género de sus hijos como una fuente de variación exógena en el tamaño del hogar. Los resultados indican que el incremento en el tamaño del hogar reduce en un 18% la inversión en educación, medida como la probabilidad de asistencia a escuela privada, condicionada a que el niño ya asista a la escuela y en un 23.4% la lectoescritura a edades tempranas. Se estima que en los hogares rurales, el tamaño del hogar incrementa la probabilidad de que el hijo trabaje a cambio de una remuneración en un 7%, mientras que para el caso de los hogares urbanos esta se ve reducida en un 3%. El impacto sobre la participación laboral de las madres de hogares nucleares se estima negativo y en torno al 7%, mientras que para el caso de las madres jefes de hogar alcanza el 27% en el mismo sentido.

I analyze the interplay between culture and economic incentives in decision-making. To this end, I study birth timing decisions of second generation migrant women to France and the US. Only the probability to have three or more children increases with the home country fertility norm, whereas the timing of the first two births is either unaffected or negatively correlated. I propose a model that rationalizes these findings in which decisions are the result of a trade-off between an economic cost-benefit analysis and a cultural norm. The model predicts that decisions with a higher cost of deviation from the economic optimum should be less prone to cultural influence. This is consistent with substantial evidence showing that the timing of the first birth bears much larger costs for mothers in terms of labor market outcomes than that of subsequent births.

Because technical innovation is the engine of growth, nations are eager to attract and retain skilled migrants. This paper uses survey data to explore the intention to return among a highly skilled migrant population: Taiwan-born household heads in the US. The inquiry is guided by expectations drawn from neo-classical economics (NE) and the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM). Multivariate analysis firsts predicts the intention to return, then distinguishes among motives. The results of the first analysis yield some findings consonant with NE and others consonant with NELM, but the results of the second indicate that only respondents motivated by a desire to invest fit the pattern articulated by NELM. Most of the remainder fit the pattern described by NE. Because potential investors comprise just 8.6% of the sample, the paper concludes that NE does a better job predicting the expectations of Taiwanese household heads than does NELM. Yet, most return migration occurs within 5years of arrival, while the present sample represents all Taiwanese households, regardless of time in the US. Thus, the sample underrepresents migrants with the greatest propensity to return. Consequently, the findings of this research generalise only to relatively settled Taiwanese-Americans.

Objectives. To assess health coverage among Mexicans with US migration experience, before and after the implementation of Mexicos universal health care program, Seguro Popular. Methods. I used data from the 2000 and 2010 Mexican Censuses to generate nationally representative estimates of health coverage among working-age Mexicans by migrant status. Results. In 2000, before the implementation of Seguro Popular, 56% of Mexicans aged 15 to 60 years with no recent US migrations were uninsured compared with 80% of recently returned migrants. By 2010, the proportion uninsured declined from 56% to 35% (38%) among nonmigrants and from 80% to 54% (33%) among return migrants. Conclusions. Seguro Popular has increased health coverage among Mexican return migrants, but they remain substantially underinsured. A creative and multifaceted approach likely will be needed to address Mexican immigrants health care needs.

Este estudo visa mostrar um panorama abrangente de mais de 200,000 brasileiros residentes nos EUA, registrados pelo censo populacional em 2000. Estesdados permitirão mostrar um detalhado retrato socioeconômico desta população. Esta descrição começará documentando onde os brasileiros vivem, quando eles chegaram e como este grupo de imigrantes tem crescido desde 1990. Este perfil não somente documentará as características do individuo, como também apresentará dados sobre a situação domiciliar destes expatriados. Por exemplo, podemos perguntar, se os casais residem juntos e com os filhos nos EUA, ou se o casal vive separado; um sinal que o cônjuge e filhos continuaram morando no Brasil. Como nossa tentativa é determinar os padrões demográficos dos domicílios, também vamos examinar o estado econômico destes domicílios. Por exemplo, será que estas famílias são abastadas, ou estão vivendo abaixo da linha da pobreza, e em que grau. Depois, nosso foco será a assimilação social dos brasileiros. Por exemplo, quantos se tornaram cidadãos americanos? Quantos falam inglês fluentemente? Como os padrões variam de acordo com o tempo de residência nos EUA? Quantos estão freqüentando escolas nos EUA? Como os padrões variam através das gerações? O foco depois muda para a assimilação econômica. Quantos trabalharam tempo integral? Que ocupações tinham? Quanto ganhavam? Quantos estiveram vivendo na pobreza ainda que trabalhassem em horário integral? Eu vou tentar determinar aqueles fatores que melhor explicam os padrões observados da assimilação social e econômica. Esta investigação começará focando o tempo de residência nos EUA, anos completo de escolaridade e idade.

The labor force participation rate in the U.S. has declined since 2007 primarily because of population aging and ongoing trends that preceded the recession. The participation rate has evolved differently, and for different reasons, across demographic groups. A rise in school enrollment has largely offset declining participation for young workers since the 1990s. Participation in the labor force has been declining for prime age men for decades, and about half of prime age men who are not in the labor force (NLF) may have a serious health condition that is a barrier to work. Nearly half of prime age NLF men take pain medication on a daily basis, and in nearly two-thirds of cases they take prescription pain medication. The labor force participation rate has stopped rising for cohorts of women born after 1960. Prime age men who are out of the labor force report that they experience notably low levels of emotional well-being throughout their days and that they derive relatively little meaning from their daily activities. Employed and NLF women, by contrast, report similar levels of subjective well-being. Over the past decade retirements have increased by about the same amount as aggregate labor force participation has declined. Continued population aging is expected to reduce the labor force participation rate by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point per year over the next decade. A meaningful rise in labor force participation will require a reversal in the secular trends affecting various demographic groups, and perhaps immigration reform.

Delaying retirement improves retirement preparedness, but older workers cannot work longer if employers do not hire or retain them. This study examines one way in which public policy potentially makes older workers more attractive to employers: state regulatory restrictions on how much employer premiums are permitted to increase at small firms with older, unhealthier workforces. The study uses data from the Current Population Survey from 1989-2013 to compare older individuals overall employment, small-firm employment, and earnings in states with varying degrees of premium regulation, and among workers of different educational backgrounds. The analysis shows mixed results. Stronger premium regulations were not effective in increasing employment: employment at small firms, which are most sensitive to premium increases, saw no statistically significant increase, and overall employment for older workers at both large and small firms increased only slightly. The earnings gap between large and small firms is also smaller in states with tighter restrictions, but older workers were not helped appreciably more than younger workers. These results suggest that indirect efforts to lower the price of hiring an older worker are not likely to be effective in improving their job prospects.