Purpose: Our paper investigates whether historical trends in the labor market participation of immigrant women in the U.S. can be explained in part by variation in the grammatical structure of their language spoken. Design/Methodology/Approach: We investigate the labor market behavior of first generation immigrants to the U.S. from 1910 to the present. Using individual-level census data, we show that the presence or absence of grammatical gender in the linguistic structure of a language spoken by an immigrant influences sex-specific behaviors. We further analyze the stability of relationship throughout the course of 20th and 21st century. Originality/Value: The originality of our approach is to consider language as a repository for accumulated ancestral culture. By studying an entire century, we are able to investigate whether the association between language and gender roles persists or evolves over time. Because female labor force participation for both native and immigrant populations has greatly increased, institutions have transformed, and motivations and compositions of immigrant flows have changed, studying a long time horizon allows us to more clearly isolate the role of linguistic structure as a cultural mechanism. Practical Implications: Our findings can help explain important patterns in female labor force participation among immigrant populations, groups for which large gender gaps persist even today. These results have direct policy ramifications as programs designed to promote female labor force participation could be more appropriately designed and targeted by recognizing the existence of stronger gender norms among certain subsets of speakers.

While many studies have investigated short-run economic impacts of college sporting events, nationally recognized college sports programs may have long-run and potentially transformational effects on local economies. This study examines how the success of a college football program impacts the surrounding county using historical data on AP poll rankings from 1960 to 2010 and economic indicators including median income, poverty rates, and education levels. I use a fixed effects specification to examine how shifts in national rankings correlate with changes in local economic conditions. Results suggest a positive relationship between the rating of a college football team on population size, and a negative relationship between rating and median age of a county when population size is restricted. Other economic factors, such as income per capita, education level per capita, and poverty level per capita all suggest a positive, but insignificant relationship with college football team rating.

Geographic variation in healthcare has been traditionally studied in large areas such as hospital referral regions or service areas. These analyses are limited by variation that exists within local communities. Using a New York claims database, we analyzed variation in emergency department use using 35 million visits from 2008 to 2012 among 4797 Census tracts, a smaller unit than usually studied. Using multivariate analysis, we studied associations between population characteristics and proximity to healthcare with rates of emergency department use. We analyzed how factors associated with emergency department utilization differed among urban, suburban, and rural regions. We found significant geographic variation in emergency department use among Census tracts. Public insurance and uninsurance were correlated with high emergency department utilization across all types of regions. We found that race, ethnicity, and poverty were only associated with high emergency department use in urban regions. In suburban and rural regions, a lower proportion of elderly residents and shorter distances to the nearest ED were correlated with high emergency department use. Significant variation in emergency department use exists locally when studied within small geographic areas. Insurance type is significantly associated with variation in emergency department use across urban, suburban, and rural regions, whereas the significance of other factors depended on urbanicity. Studying geographic variation at a more granular level can lead to better understanding of local population health, drivers of healthcare utilization, and inform targeted interventions. Given heterogeneity in emergency department use by Census tract, policies directed at shaping acute care utilization must consider these local geographic differences.

Conceptualizing and operationalizing American Indian populations is challenging. Each census for decades has seen the American Indian population increase substantially more than expected, with indirect and qualitative evidence that this is due to changes in individuals race responses. We apply uniquely suited (but not nationally representative) linked data from the 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses (N= 3.1 million) and the 20062010 American Community Survey (N = 188,131) to address three research questions. First, to what extent do American Indian people have different race responses across data sources? We find considerable race response change, especially among multiple-race and/or Hispanic American Indians. Second, how are people who change responses different from or similar to those who do not? We find three sets of American Indians: those who (1) had the same race and Hispanic responses in 2000 and 2010, (2) moved between single-race and multiplerace American Indian responses, and (3) added or dropped the American Indian response, thus joining or leaving the enumerated American Indian population. People in groups (1) and (2) were relatively likely to report a tribe, live in an American Indian area, report American Indian ancestry, and live in the West. Third, how are people who join a group different from or similar to those who leave it? Multivariate models show general similarity between joiners and leavers in group (1) and in group (2). Population turnover is hidden in cross-sectional comparisons; people joining each subpopulation of American Indians are similar in number and characteristics to those who leave it.

The people who make up the rapidly growing population of Americans over age 65 are changing, and as a result, our nation will change. This shift presents new issues, controversies, and challenges that affect health, wellness, welfare, retirement, politics, and economics. This two-volume work examines where we are and where we are headed, paying careful attention to the differential impacts of gender, race, class, marital status, and other social variables. It considers key changes in demographics, old-age policies, families, work, and death and dying. Volume one covers an array of demographic issues, policies, and politics, highlighting how factors such as gender and race shape families, income, retirement, immigrants, and veterans across the life course. The second volume covers education, religion, volunteering, exercise, nutrition, and health care policies across the life course. Topics addressed include the old-age welfare state, the extension of retirement age, home care care work, nursing home care, end of life planning, and euthanasia.

We study the formation of gender identity by looking at the labor-market decisions of young women. Specifically, we investigate whether and how a womans work behavior depends on the work behavior of her mother and that of her friends mothers. Using a representative sample of U.S. teenagers and their schoolmates followed over time, we find that both intergenerational channels positively affect a womans work hours in adulthood. The peers mother role model effect operates independently from the presence of peers influence. Our evidence is consistent with the presence of behavioral effects of social norms about mothers.

Although about the same number of people work in law firms or in legal services today as a decade and a half ago, superficially static job aggregates mask substantial changes in employment patterns. According to the Census Bureaus American Community Survey, law firms employed about 90,000 more lawyers and about 80,000 more paralegals in 2014 than at the start of the survey in 2001. At the same time, law firms shed 180,000 to 190,000 legal secretaries, other legal support workers and their supervisors. The pattern is the same for other occupations at law firms. Low-skilled jobs like bookkeepers, file clerks and in data entry are shrinking, while high-skilled jobs like professional workers, skilled managers and computer specialists are growing. Lawyers account for less than half of the jobs in legal services. Like most businesses, law firms employ a large number of support personnel. Unfortunately, many commentators on the legal profession have overlooked the crucial distinctions between legal services employment, lawyers and law school graduates. As a result, they have mischaracterized a decline in the fortunes for low-skilled support workers at a time of expanding opportunities for highly educated workers as stagnation for all. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Law firms have sharply upgraded the education level of their work force, increasing the number of workers with graduate degrees by 100,000 and those with bachelors degrees by 30,000. At the same time, jobs for those with one year of college or less have shrunk by 125,000. Those who say law firms are going through structural change may be right. Changes in employment patterns appear to be giving those who are highly educated an even bigger competitive advantage than they have had.

This policy brief examines health insurance coverage of Hispanic children and its relationship to their citizenship status, their parents1 citizenship status, parents insurance coverage, language spoken at home, and their states Medicaid expansion policies.

Shrinking Cities: Understanding Shrinkage and Decline in the United States offers a contemporary look at patterns of shrinkage and decline in the United States. The book juxtaposes the complex and numerous processes that contribute to these patterns with broader policy frameworks that have been under consideration to address shrinkage in U.S. cities. A range of methods are employed to answer theoretically-grounded questions about patterns of shrinkage and decline, the relationships between the two, and the empirical associations among shrinkage, decline, and several socio-economic variables. In doing so, the book examines new spaces of shrinkage in the United States.

INTRODUCTION Team-based interventions for hypertension care have been widely studied and shown effective in improving hypertension outcomes. Few studies have evaluated long-term effects of these interventions; none have assessed broad-scale implementation. This study estimates the prospective health, economic, and budgetary impact of universal adoption of a team-based care intervention model that targets people with treated but uncontrolled hypertension in the U.S. METHODS Analysis was conducted in 2014−2015 using a microsimulation model, constructed with various data sources from 1948 to 2014, designed to evaluate prospective cardiovascular disease (CVD)−related interventions in the U.S. population. Ten-year primary outcomes included prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension; incident myocardial infarction, stroke, CVD events, and CVD-related mortality; intervention and net medical costs by payer; productivity; and quality-adjusted life years. RESULTS About 4.7 million (13%) fewer people with uncontrolled hypertension and 638,000 prevented cardiovascular events would be expected over 10 years. Assuming $525 per enrollee, implementation would cost payers $22.9 billion, but $25.3 billion would be saved in averted medical costs. Estimated net cost savings for Medicare approached $5.8 billion. Net costs were especially sensitive to intervention costs, with break-even thresholds of $300 (private), $450 (Medicaid), and $750 (Medicare). CONCLUSIONS Nationwide adoption of team-based care for uncontrolled hypertension could have sizable effects in reducing CVD burden. Based on the study’s assumptions, the policy would be cost saving from the perspective of Medicare and may prove to be cost effective from other payers’ perspectives. Expected net cost savings for Medicare would more than offset expected net costs for all other insurers.

Few presidential candidates seem to understand the nature of the coming retirement crisis in America. It’s important to understand the many factors that are putting millions of Americans in jeopardy as they reach old age.

Bladder cancer is a significant health problem in the United States (U.S.). Based on U.S. population data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), there were an estimated 74,000 new cases of bladder cancer and 16,000 bladder cancer-related deaths in 2015 (American Cancer Society [ACS], 2014; Siegel, Miller, & Jemal, 2015). The ACS (2014) defines a cancer survivor as "any person who has been diagnosed with cancer, from time of diagnosis through balance of life" (p. 1). Advances in treatment have expanded the number of cancer survivors to approximately 608,620 (ACS, 2014), with the five-year survival rate of approximately 77.4% (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2015). Few patients make decisions with adequate levels of health literacy or the necessary skills to adhere to bladder cancer treatments and survivorship (Puts et. al., 2014). Most patients require education delivered by their provider (Scarpato, Morgans, & Moses, 2015). A primary consideration in preparing targeted education for patients diagnosed with bladder cancer is an understanding of their educational level (Apolo et al. 2015). Currently, there is a gap in our knowledge of patient characteristics that impact their health literacy and the development of educational materials to meet the patients' need (Sporn et al., 2014; Wolff et al., 2014). Aim of Research The aim of this retrospective study was to identify behavioral and demographic characteristics that impact the health literacy of bladder cancer survivors. Background Significance/ Review of Literature Health literacy as defined by the Affordable Care Act (2010) is "the degree to which an individual has . . .

Financial literacy and cognitive capabilities are convincingly linked to the quality of financial decision-making. Yet, there is little evidence that education intended to improve financial decision-making is successful. Using plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to state-mandated personal finance and mathematics high school courses, affecting millions of students, this paper answers the question "Can high school graduation requirements impact financial outcomes?" The answer is yes, although not via traditional personal finance courses, which we find have no effect on financial outcomes. Instead, we find additional mathematics training leads to greater financial market participation, investment income, and better credit management, including fewer foreclosures.

Every organization or institution develops a culture, and armies are no different. The culture of an army is important because it determines and influences proper and improper conduct individually and collectively. It imposes standards and expectations that affect how persons and groups react to crises, how they behave on the campaigns and in camp, and how they fight, among other things.1 The culture that emerged in the Army of Northern Virginia was distinct from that of the Army of the Potomac. What dictated the development of that culture was the background of the soldiers; the training and regimentation that their officers imposed, particularly early in the war; and their formative experiences in combat and on the march. Once that culture took hold, it was extremely hard to break or alter, and it shaped the course and outcome of the war. To understand the formulation and impact of those cultures on the war, I am going to utilize quantitative as well as qualitative data. Half a century ago, a shift toward the influences of social science on the discipline of history and the development of the computer sparked historians to dabble in a sophisticated use of statistics. Within two decades, however, the field was largely dismissed. Many historians were completely intimidated by numbers and refused to embrace them, while others found quantitative studies either tedious reading or insensitive to the hardships and brutality of the past.

This dissertation stemmed from the question about when individuals are satisfied with information. It attempts to answer the question from the perspective of information appetite, i.e. the desire to spend time with information, expressed in the amount of time spent engaging in personal information practices (PIPs: consumption, dissemination, and creation of information for personal reasons). Studied here are the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) dataset collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and a survey dataset collected on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). This dissertation presents analyses and a discussion of findings of the ATUS dataset, a description of the method of collecting the MTurk dataset, and analyses and a discussion of findings of the MTurk dataset. Two propositions about information appetite (IA) were made, and both were supported by the datasets. The first proposition was that individuals have varying degrees of IA, as measured by the amount of time spent engaging in PIPs, which was supported by the ATUS and the MTurk data. The second proposition was that an individual has different IAs for different topical areas, which was supported by the MTurk data. The study identified a small group of people who spent much time for PIPs, namely a high IA group. In addition to PIPs, the high IA group spent more time with their interested topics than the regular group did. As for what affects spending time for PIPs, having free time (e.g. not working/not having a job, or evenings and weekends) was found to be an important factor. The dissertation ends with a discussion of implications, limitations and suggestions for future studies.

Aims To identify population characteristics associated with local variation in the prevalence of diabetic complications and compare the geographic distribution of different types of complications in New York City. Methods Using an all-payer database of emergency visits, we identified the proportion of unique adults with diabetes who also had cardiac, neurologic, renal and lower extremity complications. We performed multivariable regression to identify associations of demographic and socioeconomic factors, and diabetes-specific emergency department use with the prevalence of diabetic complications by Census tract. We also used geospatial analysis to compare local hotspots of diabetic complications. Results We identified 4.6 million unique New York City adults, of which 10.5% had diabetes. Adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors, diabetes-specific emergency department use was associated with severe microvascular renal and lower extremity complications (p-values < 0.001), but not with severe macrovascular cardiac or neurologic complications (p-values of 0.39 and 0.29). Our hotspot analysis demonstrated significant geographic heterogeneity in the prevalence of diabetic complications depending on the type of complication. Notably, the geographic distribution of hotspots of myocardial infarction were inversely correlated with hotspots of end-stage renal disease and lower extremity amputations (coefficients: 0.28 and 0.28). Conclusions We found differences in the local geographic distribution of diabetic complications, which highlight the contrasting risk factors for developing macrovascular versus microvascular diabetic complications. Based on our analysis, we also found that high diabetes-specific emergency department use was correlated with poor diabetic outcomes. Emergency department utilization data can help identify the location of specific populations with poor glycemic control.

How is a person's racial self-representation related to the race history of the place in which he or she lives? We use Census Bureau data about race and ancestry to address this research question for two groups of people with mixed racial heritage: those reporting white and American Indian heritages, or reporting black and American Indian heritages. Links between history, place, and self-representation can be seen in geographic clustering for each race/ancestry response combination. We use multinomial logistic regression models to predict individuals' race/ancestry responses (e.g., white with American Indian ancestry versus white and American Indian races) using measures of local race history and the area's contemporary racial composition. Multivariate results highlight the relationship between a person's identity claims and the history of the area, net of contemporary area composition. Future research should attend to the history of the place as a potential contributor to contemporary patterns.

High-technology industries are seen as important in helping urban economies thrive, but at the same time they are often considered as potential drivers of relative poverty and social exclusion. However, little research has assessed how high-tech affects urban poverty and the wages of workers at the bottom of the pyramid. This paper addresses this gap in the literature and investigates the relationship between employment in high-tech industries, poverty and the labor market for non-degree educated workers using a panel of 295 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States between 2005 and 2011. The results of the analysis show no real impact of the presence of high-technology industries on poverty and, especially, extreme poverty. Yet there is strong evidence that tech-employment increases wages for non-degree educated workers and, to a lesser extent, employment for those without degrees. These results suggest that while tech employment has some role in improving welfare for non-degree educated workers, tech-employment alone is not enough to reduce poverty.

Do social movement organizations (SMOs) have varying effects on policy adoption and on policy impact? I address this question by testing whether affordable housing SMOs in U.S. cities have an effect on two outcomes: the adoption of either a housing trust fund or inclusionary zoning ordinance (policy adoption), and the number of affordable housing units built with federal tax credits (policy impact). I find that SMOs have a more direct effect on policy adoption than they do on impact, but that SMOs have a moderating effect on the latter. Specifically, they dampen the negative effects of poverty on the number of affordable housing units built, they bolster the effects of administrative spending on units built, and they lessen the effects of an affordable housing policy on units built. The latter finding indicates that outcomes (e.g., policy adoption) that SMOs attained in earlier stages of the policy process may in fact dampen their effects in latter stages. This finding suggests that research on SMO outcomes that examines multiple policy stages can provide insights into why SMOs affect those outcomes differently. The paper’s findings also show that structural conditions such as poverty were the strongest predictors of both policy adoption and impact, suggesting that future research should consider how such structural conditions moderate or are moderated by SMOs.

Many cities include minimum parking requirements in their zoning codes and provide ample parking for public use. However, parking is costly to provide and encourages automobile use, according to ma...