Current literature on the relationships between disability and both the physical and social environments of one’s living arrangement is scarce. The relationship between disability and living arrangements in later life is inherently complex, yet it has the potential to impact older adults’ lives in significant ways. With this dissertation, I sought to address this gap in the literature and add to our understanding of how older adults’ environments and functional statuses interact. My specific aims were to: 1.) Describe the living arrangements of older adults with disabilities; 2.) Estimate the risk of developing disability by type of living arrangement (both housing type and household composition) for older adults; and, 3.) Estimate the risk of having a change in living arrangement by disability status for older adults. For all three aims, I also examined how the relationships between living arrangements and disability differed by age and socio-economic status. Data came from the American Community Survey (2012; n=504,371 adults age 65 and older) and the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2012; n=43,182 observations.) In Aim 1, I found that disability was most prevalent for older adults living in situations other than with a spouse only and that the odds of disability was highest for older adults living with children (without a spouse.) Compared with living in a single-family home, the odds of disability were higher for older adults living in mobile homes and large apartment buildings. In Aim 2, I found that living in a nursing home or with others was associated with an increased risk of disability, but that living alone was associated with a decreased risk of disabilities related to Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs.) This latter finding only held true for more affluent older adults, however; the poorest older adults faced an increased risk of disability if they lived alone. Finally, in Aim 3, I found that having IADL and ADL (Activities of Daily Living) disabilities together was predictive of moving, long nursing home stays, and death. ADL and IADL disabilities separately were predictive of long nursing home stays and death, while prior living arrangements were more predictive of moving than individual ADL or IADL disability status. For all of my findings, disability rates were highest among the poorest and oldest older adults. Older adults with the lowest socioeconomic status were also more likely to live alone, with non-spousal others, in rented homes, and in mobile homes or apartment buildings. This population may need additional resources to foster supportive living arrangements and to mitigate disability risk. These findings can be used to identify where older adults with disabilities live and where to target interventions to prevent worsening disability.

The 2014 implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, has had a promising start in providing health insurance for all Americans. All racial groups have experienced substantial increases in their health insurance coverage. Before the ACA was enacted, people of color were much more likely to be uninsured than Whites. Obamacare has reduced these disparities and has essentially eliminated the difference between the uninsured rates of Asian Americans and Whites and of Black and White children. Yet evidence from Massachusetts health insurance reforma model for the Affordable Care Actsuggests that Obamacare is not going to completely eliminate racial and ethnic inequalities in health insurance coverage. Only a more extensive expansion of government-sponsored health insurance is likely to achieve that goal.

This paper presents the Nam-Powers-Boyd occupational scores, developed from the 2010, 2011 and 2012 American Community Surveys, fielded by the United States Bureau of the Census and available from IPUMS_USA. These scores update the last scale produced from the 2000 census of population. The paper reviews the methodology behind the construction of these indices and highlights the challenges that can arise with ACS data that are subject to temporal changes. The final sections of the paper demonstrate the analytical range of the scores, particularly for users of the 2010-2012 ACS, in three domains of inquiry: racial and nativity inequalities, STEM fields of study, and disabilities.

The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 was a large-scale effort by Congress to make land ownership accessible for recently freed slaves by opening 46 million acres of public land exclusively for homesteading. Using new micro-data from Louisiana, we examine the factors that led to successful homesteading. We compare homesteaders to the agricultural population, finding few differences other than wealth. A disproportionate percentage of homesteaders were white. We substantiate some of the claims put forth in the earlier literature, such as large amounts of fraud. Further, we present a more nuanced interpretation of a greater success rate for African-Americans. Being local or non-local had no meaningful impact on white success rates but had a large impact on African-Americans. Local African-Americans were more likely to obtain title to their land while non-local African-Americans were less likely to succeed. We hypothesize that regional knowledge, kinship networks, and white resistance to non-local African-Americans are possible explanations for this racial difference.

A popular and powerful narrative focuses on a crisis of suburban decline in the United States. However, a consensus regarding the scope and scale of one dimension of suburban declinepovertyis hindered by the use of contradictory definitions of suburban space. This research presents an alternative approach to measuring suburban poverty that is less computationally intensive yet capable of capturing complex shifts in the spatial distribution of poverty within metropolitan areas. An analysis of the distribution of poverty in the largest 100 metropolitan areas between 1990 and 200711 concludes that while poverty is increasing in the low-density suburbs of a handful of large metropolitan areas, the more general trend in most other metropolitan areas is an increase in poverty in moderately dense residential areas. Implicated in these trends are long-term trends in metropolitan area economic growth, a secular decline in inner-ring suburbs, and the impact of gentrification on housing opportunities for at-risk populations in large cities.

We extend and test on long time series evidence for England the contention by ForemanPeck (2011) that the West European Marriage Pattern (Hajnal, 1965) was an essential reason for precocious Western European economic development. Persistent high mortality and powerful mortality shocks in the 14 th and 15 th c enturies lowered life expectations (Hatcher, 1986 Bailey, 1996). Subsequently increased life expectancy reduced the number of births necessary to achieve a given family size. Higher incomes (through the reduced population working on given agricultural land) raised target numbers of children but did not completely offset the need for fewer births. Fewer births were accompanied by a higher age at first marriage of females. Later marriage not only constrained population growth but also provided greater opportunities for female informal learning. In a period when the family was the principal institution for socialising future workers (schooling was not compulsory until 1880 in England), such learning was a significant contributor to the intergenerational transmission and accumulation of human capital. Our paper shows how, over the centuries, the gradual induced rise of human capital raised productivity and eventually brought about the Industrial Revolution. Without the contribution of late marriage to human capital accumulation broadly interpreted, historical real wage growth in England would have been more than halved.

In 2001, Congress repealed the state death tax credit. For a long time this credit had effectively paid state death taxes on behalf of estates from the federal treasury, meaning the state tax posed no additional burden to estates. Without the credit, state death taxes pose a substantial burden, and so most states abandoned them. States that retained their death taxes began to quickly feel competitive pressure to lower or eliminate them. For these states, the most hotly debated question over the tax is whether people move their legal residence to avoid it. This question is particularly important for Minnesota because the states estate tax makes Minnesota an expensive outlier.

Immigration from Central America to the United States is rising rapidly. Much of this inflow is unauthorized. Violence and corruption in Central America is affecting both the volume and composition of current migrants who are less educated, less likely to speak English, and who face tougher border and interior enforcement than Central Americans who immigrated in the 1980s and 1990s faced. The increasing vulnerability of the new Central American migrants and the United States hardening policy environment is leading to worse labor market outcomes among recent migrants compared with both their co-nationals in the past and other recent arrivals, such as Mexicans. The increase in state-level E-Verify mandates is one example of policies that have adversely impacted Central American migrants. As we show, these mandates have led to lower employment and labor force participation rates among migrants living in states where such mandates have been implemented. In contrast to tough policies at the state level, President Obama announced in late 2014 a measure known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), which intended to grant temporary legal status and work permits to a large group of unauthorized immigrants. We argue that this measure is similar to the existing provision of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), extended to immigrants from countries in turmoil, and we use the Salvadoran experience with TPS in 2001 to demonstrate how it improves labor market opportunities for eligible immigrants raising wages for men and increasing labor force participation for women. We conclude with a number of policy recommendations aimed at expanding legal avenues to accommodate immigrant flows from Central America while regularizing those already in the United States.

This paper considers whether the U.S. needs a new national survey to measure time use. The paper begins by discussing the ways that time use is measured within the U.S; as a part of that discussion, the pros and cons of the different methods are highlighted. Next, the paper highlights why time use data is essential to addressing many questions in social sciences. The paper then turns to outlining the current gaps in our measurement of household time use. Finally, the paper discusses whether a new national dataset is needed to address these gaps. The paper concludes that a new national survey is not needed to fill the gaps - however, some guidance is provided as to how existing surveys can be modified to improve time use measurement.

-Provides an overview of the generally accepted rules of thumb for retirement income and an evaluation of whether the rules have changed in recent years. -Examines current demographic data to determine whether indicate that individuals are carrying mortgage balances later in life. -Documents the current demographic trends for second mortgages and/or home equity lines of credit. -Provides evidence on whether mortgage payments as a percentage of income changed over time and the reasons for this trend. -Evaluates the implications of experienced demographic trends for mortgages and refinancing on retirement income

Recent engagements in Iraq (OIF) and Afghanistan (OEF) raise questions about impacts on service members of overseas deployment. The 2010 National Survey of Veterans asked a broad cross section of veterans about deployment to OEF/OIF and combat exposure. Analysis of these data suggests that impacts of deployment and combat on the current socioeconomic well-being of OEF/OIF veterans may be small, but combat appears to reduce self-reported health and other nonpecuniary indicators. Among older cohorts, with clearer sorting into treatment and control groups, patterns are similar, consistent with a system that compensates for lost earnings but not necessarily other trauma.

The growing economic resemblance of spouses has contributed to rising inequality by increasing the number of couples in which there are two high- or two low-earning partners. The dominant explanation for this trend is increased assortative mating. Previous research has primarily relied on cross-sectional data and thus has been unable to disentangle changes in assortative mating from changes in the division of spouses paid labora potentially key mechanism given the dramatic rise in wives labor supply. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to decompose the increase in the correlation between spouses earnings and its contribution to inequality between 1970 to 2013 into parts due to (a) changes in assortative mating and (b) changes in the division of paid labor. Contrary to what has often been assumed, the rise of economic homogamy and its contribution to inequality is largely attributable to changes in the division of paid labor, rather than changes in sorting on earnings or earnings potential. Our findings indicate that the rise of economic homogamy cannot be explained by\ hypotheses centered on meeting and matching opportunities and show where in this process inequality is generated and where it is not.

An understanding of both the determinants of health care access and the implications of that access is of crucial importance because it enables us to learn about policies and institutions that are welfare enhancing in health outcomes. The first chapter of my dissertation explores how access to sanitaria aided in tuberculosis control in the time before antibiotics. Results indicate that access to an additional sanitaria bed reduced the death rate from tuberculosis for white residents by nearly .695 per 100,000 and had no impact for black residents. The next two chapters investigate the retail health clinic. First, I construct a choice model of clinic location that accounts for both demand and competition effects. I find that clinics are more likely to locate in areas that are populous, wealthy, educated, and white, and that they are less likely to locate in traditionally under-served communities. Second, I combine the results of my predictive model with data on ED visits to determine if clinics help direct patients away from receiving treatment at expensive emergency rooms. I find that access to retail clinics causes a substantial decrease in the number of ED visits for bronchitis and upper respiratory infections. The savings associated with retail clinic induced ED diversion is conservatively estimated to be at least $88 million in 2012 alone. In California, counterfactual analysis suggests that relaxing the barriers to clinic entry would result in $10.5 million in annual health care savings.

Introducción La década de 1980 marcó un punto de inflexión en el escenario migratorio de América Latina y el Caribe. La emigración hacia los países desarrollados, en particular hacia Estados Unidos, se convirtió a partir de entonces en el fenómeno social de mayor relevancia para algunos países latinoamericanos. Algunos países, que hasta entonces figuraban como lugares de destino, experimentaron marcados descensos de la inmigración. A la larga historia de emigraciones mexicanas y caribeñas-particularmente cubana y puertorriqueña-hacia Estados Unidos, se suman la centroamericana y sudamericana. Con la crisis, a comienzos del decenio, y los posteriores procesos de ajuste y reestructuración económica, los flujos migratorios no sólo se intensificaron, sino que adquirieron nuevos rasgos, en cuanto a la procedencia esencialmente urbana, la ampliación de las regiones de origen y las características sociodemográficas de los migrantes. La inserción laboral de los migrantes latinos en Estados Unidos debe analizarse en el contexto general del modelo neoliberal-adoptado desde mediados de la década de 1970-, del proceso de reestructuración productiva consiguiente y el impacto de la crisis económica de 2008, así como de las nuevas pautas de explotación y precarización de los trabajadores nativos e inmigrantes latinos. La reestructuración productiva gestada durante las tres últimas décadas conllevó un intenso proceso de desindustrialización-y consiguiente terciarización-, además de la flexibilización del mercado de trabajo-que afecta principalmente a la fuerza de trabajo inmigrante, legal e indocumentada, demográfica y socialmente más vulnerable-y el incremento del trabajo deslocalizado de distintas modalidades. La crisis económica de Estados Unidos no sólo modificó el escenario para muchos potenciales migrantes con expectativas de migrar a ese país en búsqueda de empleo y mejores condiciones de vida (Canales, 2012). En particular, la pérdida de participación del empleo en el sector industrial, el incremento del desempleo y el trabajo informal y precario impactaron mucho más en la estructura de inserción laboral de los inmigrantes y, entre ello, fue aún mayor entre los inmigrantes latinos.

Dieser Beitrag dokumentiert die individualstatistische Datenaufbereitung der Beerdigungs- und Taufregister der Rostocker Jakobikirche zur Analyse der Säuglingssterblichkeit in der Hansestadt im 19. Jahrhundert. Neben einer ausführlichen Beschreibung der digitalisierten Register sowie der Datenqualität und Variablenkonstruktion stellt der Beitrag eine neue Berufsklassifizierung vor, die sich auch für andere historische Datensätze gut eignet. Des Weiteren wird eine Zusammenführung der Tauf- und Beerdigungsdaten zu einem Ereignisdatensatz exemplarisch für den Zeitraum 1815 bis 1829 erläutert. Auf dieser Datengrundlage wird der Verlauf der Säuglings- und Perinatalsterblichkeit dargestellt.

This dissertation studies how local economic conditions affect the lives of community members in the context of rural, farming-dependent communities. It introduces a way to study changes in community income independent of changes in employment. Instrumental variable regressions using data from the National Agriculture Statistics Service about the historical production of crops and the contemporaneous value of those crops identify the effects of changes in community income that are due to the change in the value of crops. The dissertation presents three papers studying these income effects on behaviors during the transition to adulthood, the ability of schools to recruit and retain teachers, and childbearing. For the first research question, I study school attendance, employment, marital status, childbearing, migration away from the community, and military enlistment drawing data from the 2004-2011 American Community Survey and the 1992-2010 Natality Files. Results indicate that when community income increases, young adults are more likely to attend school, less likely to be married, less likely to have children, and more likely to move away from a community. For the second research question, I study résumé characteristics of teachers and the match between a teaching position and the teacher using data from seven rounds of the Schools and Staffing Survey spanning from 1988 to 2012. Results indicate that when community income increases, schools hire teachers from more competitive colleges. For the third research question, I study race and age-specific fertility rates using data from the 1992-2010 Natality Files. Results indicate that when community income increases, Native American women of all ages experience an increase in fertility rates. In contrast, White, non-Hispanic women between the ages of 15 and 24 years old decrease fertility rates, those between 25 and 24 increase fertility, and those over 40 decrease fertility.

We examine what happens in a population when it experiences an abrupt change in surrounding conditions. Several cases of such abrupt transitions for both physical and living social systems are analyzed from which it can be seen that all share a common pattern. First, a steep rising death rate followed by a much slower relaxation process during which the death rate decreases as a power law (with an exponent close to 0.7). This leads us to propose a general principle which can be summarized as follows: ANY abrupt change in living conditions generates a mortality spike which acts as a kind of selection process. This we term the Transient Shock conjecture. It provides a qualitative model which leads to testable predictions. For example, marriage certainly brings about a major change in environmental and social conditions and according to our conjecture one would expect a mortality spike in the months following marriage. At first sight this may seem an unlikely proposition but we demonstrate (by three different methods) that even here the existence of mortality spikes is supported by solid empirical evidence.

Background: Most major U.S. medical organizations recommend that screening for prostate cancer using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test should be based on individual patient preferences. Men with risk factors for prostate cancer diagnosis and mortality may have different preferences for screening than men without any risk factors. Methods: We used nationally-representative survey data from the 2005 and 2010 National Health Interview Survey to assess PSA-screening patterns by age, family history of prostate cancer and race among men in the United States over 40 years old using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression. Results: Men with any family history of prostate cancer were more likely to be screened using the PSA test in the last two years at any age (OR=2.2, 95% CI 1.8-2.6), and men with a father and brother diagnosed were more likely to be screened than men with only a father diagnosed, after adjustment (p=0.019). Younger (40-54 year old) African-American or black men had a higher odds of being screened than White, non-Hispanic men of the same age, after adjustment (OR=1.5, 95% CI=1.2-1.9), but this same adjusted comparison within other age groups indicated no significant difference in screening rates by race (age 55-69 years old: OR=1.0, 95% CI=0.8- 1.3; age 70 years or more: OR=-0.9, 95% CI=0.7-1.3). Conclusion: There is considerable heterogeneity in PSA-screening practices. A family history of prostate cancer, and to a limited degree black or African-American race, both contribute to increased odds of undergoing screening. Understanding how to discuss risk factors with men to ensure individual patient preferences are appropriately integrated into screening decisions should be a priority for providers.

In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the U.S. economy offers decent-paying jobs to workers without a four-year college degree. We define an “opportunity occupation” as one that is generally considered accessible to someone without a bachelor’s degree and that pays at least the national annual median wage, adjusted for differences in local consumption prices. Focusing on the 100 largest metropolitan areas and using measures that reflect both the typical education needed to enter an occupation and the requisite education suggested by incumbent workers and occupational experts, we find that 27.4 percent of employment could be found in opportunity occupations in 2014. This estimate falls by more than seven percentage points — to 20.3 percent — when we predicate job accessibility on the educational attainment requested by employers in online job ads. The availability of opportunity-rich work for those without a bachelor’s degree varies dramatically across the metropolitan areas in our study, ranging from 36.6 percent to well under half that level. The educational preferences of employers as expressed in online job ads introduce a potentially significant barrier to economic self-sufficiency for those without a four-year degree, lowering the share of opportunity occupations by more than 10 percentage points in some metro areas. Our analysis suggests that since 2011, the level of education requested in job ads has become less stringent for some occupations and more stringent for others.