This paper examines why women and minorities are underrepresented in science research careers. Millions of dollars of support over the years have been expended to remedy the underrepresentation of women and minorities in different science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. An underlying premise of virtually every major intervention designed to increase the representation of women and racial and ethnic minority group members in STEM careers is that there exists a dominant pipeline toward those careers. The premise is that there is a conventional sequence of educational and training procedures for a specific career profile, and that such a sequence is effective in producing the desired results of increased representation of underrepresented groups. An alternative model−the pathways model−posits that there are multiple routes toward the required training for science careers and that the underlying problem is not the undersupply of graduates in science but barriers that undervalue these alternative routes taken by women and minorities. This paper tests the hypothesis that the pipeline metaphor is the correct representation of the production of increased diversity, using the chemistry profession as the case study. Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series−Current Population Survey (IPUMS-CPS) March Supplement for the period 1968−2012, we estimate post-baccalaureate (supply-side) effects and wage impacts (demandside effects) on the relative presentation of women and minorities among those employed as chemists. We find large differences across racial, ethnic, and gender groups. We find very limited evidence to support the supply-side argument. The responsiveness to demand-side factors tends to be larger for minority group members than for others, suggesting that the pipeline model is inadequate for explaining underrepresentation in all professions. Finally, we show that women and minorities are underrepresented at different critical transition points from high school to college to graduate school to the workforce.

Study objectives The Work, Family, and Health Network Study tested the hypothesis that a workplace intervention designed to increase family-supportive supervision and employee control over work time improves actigraphic measures of sleep quantity and quality. Design Cluster-randomized trial. Setting A global information technology firm. Participants US employees at an information technology firm. Interventions Randomly selected clusters of managers and employees participated in a 3-month, social, and organizational change process intended to reduce work-family conflict. The intervention included interactive sessions with facilitated discussions, role playing, and games. Managers completed training in family-supportive supervision. Measurements and results Primary outcomes of total sleep time (sleep duration) and wake after sleep onset (sleep quality) were collected from week-long actigraphy recordings at baseline and 12 months. Secondary outcomes included self-reported sleep insufficiency and insomnia symptoms. Twelve-month interviews were completed by 701 (93% retention), of whom 595 (85%) completed actigraphy. Restricting analyses to participants with ≥ 3 valid days of actigraphy yielded a sample of 473-474 for intervention effectiveness analyses. Actigraphy-measured sleep duration was 8 min/d greater among intervention employees relative to controls (P < .05). Sleep insufficiency was reduced among intervention employees (P = .002). Wake after sleep onset and insomnia symptoms were not different between groups. Path models indicated that increased control over work hours and subsequent reductions in work-family conflict mediated the improvement in sleep sufficiency. Conclusions The workplace intervention did not overtly address sleep, yet intervention employees slept 8 min/d more and reported greater sleep sufficiency. Interventions should address environmental and psychosocial causes of sleep deficiency, including workplace factors.

The cartographic document is a representation of the territory in a given period of time, as well as the representation of information of structured and organized way. Thus, the historical cartographic documents are an important source of information on understanding and study of the territory. The technological advances of the last decades potentiated the application of the potential of geographic information systems in streamlining and simplifying management processes and manipulation of cartographic documents and historical data. The interaction of the potential of geographic information systems with the insertion of cartography and historical data are an important resource for research and understanding of territorial processes. In the present dissertation, it is intended to apply the potential of GIS in the study of historical cartography, as well as additional historic information for this, allowing one another approach to the study of historical cartographic documents, intending to simplify the handling process, management and inserting new information, providing the visualization of the diverse information stored. Given this, it proceeded to the development of a geographical database of historical cartography of Portugal, taking as a case study the Porto city, in the historical period in perspective goes from 1892 to the present day. The geographic database of historical cartography is outlined in order to contain not only information relating to historic urban cartographic documents, as well as different information, including administrative boundaries of Portugal, data relative to the constructed buildings and aerial photographs, expanding as well, the levels of analysis of the evolution of the territory. It was also intended to build a search interface, using python programming language, in order to enable the user visualize of the available information in the spatial database of historical cartography, thus constituting a further contribution in the study and understanding the territory.

Domestic migration is increasing throughout the developing world, in conjunction with a trend toward decentralization. Central governments may need to use fiscal transfers to address externalities from migration such as infrastructure shortfalls. Despite extensive theorizing on fiscal federalism, little empirical work asks whether central governments use transfers to reduce interjurisdictional externalities. We examine the extent to which migration prompts the redirection of central fiscal resources in India. Following the literature on distributive politics, we argue that mitigation of externalities in decentralized systems is influenced by partisan politics. Using monsoon shocks to migration, we show that increases in migration are met with greater central transfers but that these flows are at least 50% greater if the state-level executive is in the Prime Ministers political party. This political bottleneck may explain why states maintain barriers to internal migration despite their economic inefficiency.

Politicians, the media, and the public express concern that many immigrants fail to integrate economically. Research shows that the option to naturalize has considerable economic benefits for eligible immigrants, even in countries with a tradition of restrictive policies. First-generation immigrants who are naturalized have higher earnings and more stable jobs. The gains from citizenship are particularly apparent among immigrants from poorer countries. A key policy question is whether naturalization causes labor market success or is taken up by those immigrants who would anyway be most likely to succeed in the labor market

This thesis examines the effects of military service on veterans earnings in the civilian labor force. This is important as the services allocate large amounts of resources to not only ensure readiness for the next mission, but to understand its return on investment and how to recruit and retain the force. Using data from Integrated Public Use Microdata Series 20002012 and multivariate analysis, this thesis identifies premiums and penalties in the civilian labor market associated with active service during conscription and the All-Volunteer Force. The analysis controls for educational attainment, occupation, race, periods of service, and active service years, and finds a penalty for veterans who have a post high school education, who, on average, have earnings that are lower than their observationally similar non-veteran counterparts. In addition, veterans in business and finance are observed to have a penalty for military service, compared to veterans in other occupations who are observed to earn more than non-veteran counterparts. Overall, this thesis finds a premium associated with service, as measured by post-service civilian earnings. The benefit of service varies across occupations, educational attainment and other factors.

The paper focuses on human capital gains and losses in the state of Indiana that are due to migration. Overall, Indianas human capital gain is small and does not compare favorably that of other states. This is primarily due to Indiana not having been able to attract its fair share of the highly educated workers who are disproportionately attracted to coastal states. Without the influx of highly educated immigrants, Indiana would severely lose human capital. Moreover, young highly educated women are identified as playing a major role for Indianas human capital accumulation.

Custody laws governing living arrangements for children following their parents’ divorce have changed dramatically since the 1970s. Traditionally, one parent—usually the mother—was assigned sole custody of the child. Today, many divorced parents continue to share parental rights and responsibilities through joint custody arrangements. While joint custody laws have improved the situation of divorced fathers, recent empirical research has documented intended and unintended consequences of joint custody laws for families in such areas as family formation, labor force participation, suicide, domestic violence, and child outcomes.

Despite billions in tax breaks to incentivize retirement savings, almost half of the American workforce does not have a retirement plan.1 Without safe, effective accounts to save consistently for retirement, older workers face the increasing likelihood of experiencing downward mobility in retirement. Rather than relying on families and social spending to provide for the growing numbers of vulnerable seniors, we need comprehensive retirement reform to ensure retirement income security. This includes creation of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) added on to Social Security. A GRA is a mandated, professionally-managed retirement account – a hybrid between a defined . . .

This paper documents how gender differences in occupational status (defined by earnings, education, and returns to skills) have evolved over time and across generations. The paper finds a persistent gender earnings gap, a reversal of the education gap, and a convergence in starting salaries and returns to experience. Divergent occupational choices might explain part of the persistent gender gaps and women's failure to reach parity with men in the earnings distribution. Women choose more flexible jobs than men. But whereas men dominate women in high-powered occupations, they are also more likely to be in low-skilled low-pay occupations. Differential effects of children and time spent keeping house explain most of the gender gap in high-powered occupations but cannot explain fully why women choose more flexible occupations.

Across time, the roles of women and men in the workforce have evolved. Crossing traditional gender barriers in occupational choice has become more commonplace, particularly for women who have seen domestic role changes interact with employment options. Data from the 1960 through 2000 decennial censuses and the 2010 American Community Survey were analyzed to determine trends in young adults occupational choices classified according to Hollands occupational types and level of complexity, and to determine whether young adults have increasingly crossed traditional gender career barriers. The hypotheses were that while greater percentages of young women than young men (ages 18 to 29 years) would have been employed in the Artistic, Social, and Conventional categories in more recent decades, the differences in proportionate representation of young women and young men would have decreased from 1960 to 2010; that while there would have been greater percentages of young men than young women employed in the Realistic, Investigative, and Enterprising categories, the differences in proportionate representation of young men and young women would have decreased from 1960 to 2010; and that while young men would continue to be employed in work of higher mean cognitive complexity than young women, the difference in the complexity level of work done by young men and young women would have decreased from 1960 to 2010. The data are reported as percentages of women and men employed in occupations in the six Holland categories each decade, and the mean cognitive complexity of occupations in which women and men were employed from 1960 to 2010. Trends over time were examined by plotting the percentages of women and men employed in occupations in each of the six Holland categories and the mean cognitive complexity for occupations for women and men 1960 to 2010. In order to capture the overall change from 1960 to 2010, the following were calculated: odds of men and women being employed in each Holland occupational category, the relative odds from men to women in 1960 and 2010, the relative odds for women and men from 1960 to 2010, and the change in relative odds (ratio of relative odds) from 1960 to 2010. The results indicate that in the traditionally female-dominated areas, the difference between the representation of women and men did not decrease as a result of men entering traditionally female-dominated occupations. In the traditionally maledominated areas, the difference between the representation of men and women did not decrease with the exception of the Enterprising area. The average cognitive complexity of occupations of women did come closer to that of men in the Realistic, Investigative, and Enterprising areas over time, but were fairly consistent with that of men in the Artistic, Social, and Conventional areas from 1960 to 2010. The information gained from this study elucidates changes in the gender composition of various types of work according to a psychological classification of occupations, aids career counselors in understanding whether the actual employment of young adults has reflected those aspirations of college students for women and men, and provides guidance as to how to shape young peoples occupational aspirations in the context of employment reality.

For local and regional leaders working to grow their economies in ways that promote opportunity and upward mobility for all residents, these findings underscore the importance of understanding how regional economic and demographic trends intersect at the local level to shape access to employment opportunities, particularly for disadvantaged populations and neighborhoods. And they point to the need for more integrated and collaborative regional strategies around economic development, housing, transportation, and workforce decisions that take job proximity into account.

Although the consequences of the Great Recession are extensively discussed in previous research, three critical issue need to be addressed in order to develop a full portrait of the economic experiences of children during this period. First, given the changing immigrant composition of the US child population, new studies are needed for examining the implications of immigrant status for exposure to child poverty during the recession. Second, it is important to understand how traditional patterns of racial inequality among were transformed during the years of the recession. Finally, it is not clear whether recession-related changes in socioeconomic inequalities continued to have implications for child well-being in the post-recession period. Results from this analysis indicate that the adverse effects of the recession were most intense in states with significant changes in their populations of Black and Latino immigrant children. The results further show that declines in parental work opportunities were more consequential for poverty among Whites and Asians. The analysis also finds differential implications of family contexts for child poverty among Black immigrant and natives during the recession. Finally, the results indicate that increases in racial child poverty disparities during the recession did not disappear in the years following the downturn.

OBJECTIVE African Americans, Hispanics and some Asian subgroups have a higher stroke incidence than non-Hispanic Whites (NHW). Additionally, African Americans and Hispanics have worse stroke outcomes than non-Hispanic Whites. Thus, we explored racial and ethnic differences in mental distress, a known risk factor for post-stroke disability. METHODS National Health Interview Survey data from 2000-2010 were used to identify 8,324 community dwelling adults with self-reported stroke. Serious mental distress was identified by the Kessler-6 scale. Logistic regression models assessed racial/ethnic associations with serious mental distress after adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, disability, health care utilization and socioeconomic factors. RESULTS Serious mental distress was identified in 9% of stroke survivors. Hispanics (14%) were more likely to have serious mental distress than African Americans (9%), non-Hispanic Whites (9%) and Asians (8%, P = .02). After adjustment, Hispanics (OR = 1.06, 95% CI .76-1.48) and Asians (.84, 95% Cl .37-1.90) had a similar odds of serious mental distress while African Americans had a lower odds of serious mental distress (OR = .61, 95% CI .48-.78) compared with non-Hispanic Whites. Younger age, low levels of education and insurance were important predictors of serious mental distress among Hispanics. CONCLUSION Serious mental distress is highly prevalent among US stroke survivors and is more common in Hispanics than NHWs, African Americans and Asians. Further study of the role of mental distress in ethnic differences in post-stroke disability is warranted.

This paper uses the data from American Community Survey (ACS) to study the transferability of human capital for immigrants from China, India, Korea, Philippines, and Vietnam. The results of this study suggest that, first, human capital acquired in the U.S. is valued generally higher than that acquired in the home country, with a few exceptions. Moreover, there exists significant difference in the transferability of human capital among different places of origin in Asia. In addition, this paper further concludes that education obtained from the source country is more transferable for immigrants from the countries that have colonial history either under the United States or the Great Britain; the labor market experience, however, is more transferable for immigrants from the countries that are more economically developed.

The economist provides a thorough, even stunning defense of higher minimum wages. In the process, he takes on the much admired Warren Buffett, among others. There are few pieces like this one.

We develop a theory of fertility, distinguishing its intensive margin from its extensive margin. The deep parameters are identified using facts from the 1990 US Census: (i) fertility of mothers decreases with education; (ii) childlessness exhibits a U-shaped relationship with education; (iii) the relationship between marriage rates and education is hump-shaped for women and increasing for men. We estimate that 2.5 percent of women were childless because of poverty and 8.1 percent because of high opportunity cost of childrearing. Over time, historical trends in total factor productivity and in education led to a U-shaped response in childlessness rates while fertility of mothers decreased.

A central purpose of this report is to provide information for the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative and other immigration service providers as they engage in their naturalization and immigration benefit assistance activities. The authors tabulated demand for immigration assistance in Houston using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), with the legal status of immigrants assigned through a new method based on self-reported green card states in the U.S. Census Bureau' Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Between 1790 and 1952, naturalization was reserved primarily for free white persons. Asian immigrants were deemed non-white and racially ineligible for citizenship by legislation and the courts. European immigrants and, importantly, Mexican immigrants were considered white by law and eligible for naturalization. Yet, few Mexicans acquired US citizenship. By 1930, only 9 percent of Mexican men had naturalized, compared to 60 percent of southern and eastern Europeans and 80 percent of northern and western Europeans. If Mexicans were legally white, why did they rarely acquire citizenship in the early decades of the 20th century? We go beyond analyses focused on formal law or individual-level determinants to underscore the importance of region and non-white social status in influencing naturalization. Using 1930 US Census microfile data, we find that while individual characteristics (e.g., length of residence and literacy) explain some of the gulf in citizenship, the context of reception mattered nearly as much. Even if Mexicans were white by law, they were often judged non-white in practice, which significantly decreased their likelihood of naturalizing. Moreover, the more welcoming political and social climate of the Northeast and Midwest, where most European migrants lived, facilitated their acquisition of American citizenship.

This study examines the implications of occupational stratification and job mismatches for the welfare of children, using data from the 20052009 American Community Survey. The results show that Black children of immigrants have household heads that are more likely to have occupations with low SEI scores than children in US-born households. More importantly, they demonstrate that intersections between parental job-mismatches and employment in the bottom rather than upper levels of the occupational distribution have important implications for understanding poverty differences among children. Job mismatches within occupations with low SEI scores are associated with greater poverty risks among Black than White, Asian, or Hispanic children of immigrants. However, racial poverty disparities are considerably lower among children with household heads in the highest occupational strata.