Important resources from family support systems, employment, and educational attainment inhibit the risk of death. Independently, these factors are particularly salient for suicide, but how they combine to affect mortality is less clear. Analyses of National Health Interview Survey data from 1986 to 2004 (N = 935,802), prospectively linked to mortality through 2006 (including 1,238 suicides), reveals a process of compensation in the way work status and family combine to affect adult suicide: Individuals who are not working experience more suicide defense from more protective family support systems than do working adults. But a process of reinforcement occurs in the combination of education and family: More education associates with more protection from the family than does less education. The findings demonstrate how families and resources combine to affect mortality in unique ways.

With almost half of all marriages ending in divorce, the U.S. claims the highest divorce rate in the world (Amato, 2010; Cherlin, 2010). Most divorced individuals do not stay single (Sweeney 2010). Data from the mid-1990s indicate 69% of women and 78% of men remarry after a divorce (Schoen and Standish, 2001). Although remarriage rates were declining in the 1980s and 1990s, recent estimates have not been available due to a lack of appropriate data (Sweeney, 2010). The 2012 ACS offers a unique opportunity to estimate the current remarriage rate.

Un estudi comparatiu a nivell europeu a partir de les dades dels censos de 1991 i 2001 sobre les persones grans no institucionalitzades i que no conviuen amb la seva parella assenyala importants diferències entre els diferents països europeus: el percentatge de la població estudiada que viu sola varia entre el 75% i el 40%. En general, a menor edat, major nivell educatiu i major accés a recursos econòmics, major propensió a viure sol. S'ha observat un augment de les persones que viuen soles que sembla respondre a un canvi cultural.

Results are presented for a first-in-class microsimulation model of a community currency (local currency) system. The agent-based, stock-flow consistent model uses U.S. Census income data as a starting point to project the evolution of community currency and dollar flows within a simplified county-level economy over a period of 28 years. Changes in the distribution of family income are tracked. The community currency system under investigation is the Token Exchange System (TES), a component of the larger Local Economic Direct Democracy Association (LEDDA) framework under development by the Principled Societies Project. The model captures key design features of a TES, and results suggest parameter ranges under which the simulated TES is stable and capable of achieving intended aims. Median take-home family income more than doubles during the simulation period, income inequality is nearly eliminated, and the unemployment rate drops to a 1 percent structural level. The need for more sophisticated modeling of a TES and avenues for future research are discussed.

One factor that could potentially contribute to growth in disability applications is the increasing prevalence of obesity in the United States, because obesity is known to contribute to the incidence and severity of chronic health conditions and functional impairments. Between 2000 and 2013, obesity among working-age adults in the US increased by more than 33 percent, with an offsetting decline in the proportion of the population considered to be normal weight. Obesity is known to contribute in important ways to chronic health conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, stroke, gallbladder issues, sleep apnea and adult-onset (Type II) diabetes (National Institutes of Health 2012; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2013). In addition to causing chronic conditions, obesity can also exacerbate existing health problems, potentially leading to more severe impairments than with the condition alone. Earlier work has demonstrated a connection between rising obesity rates and the prevalence of disability in both younger and older populations (Sturm et al. 2004; Lakdawalla et al. 2004; Capodaglio et al. 2010). Moreover, obesity has been shown to reduce the likelihood of employment (Morris 2007; Tunceli et al. 2012). Decreased employment could be the result of functional impairments, reduced capacity for job requirements, or discrimination from employers and coworkers.

The Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) is a standard data format that has been adopted by several large longitudinal databases on historical populations. Since the publication of the first version in Historical Social Research in 2009, two improved and extended versions have been published in the Collaboratory Historical Life Courses. In this publication we present version 4 which is the latest 'official' standard of the IDS. Discussions with users over the last four years resulted in important changes, like the inclusion of a new table defining the hierarchical relationships among 'contexts,' decision schemes for recording relationships, additional fields in the metadata table, rules for handling stillbirths, a reciprocal model for relationships, guidance for linking IDS data with geospatial information, and the introduction of an extended IDS for computed variables.

ObjectiveThis study investigates inequalities in the distribution of citizenship status among immigrants in Canada and the United States between 1970 and 2001. It is motivated by a desire to probe deeper into the gap in citizenship rates between the two countries.MethodsLogistic regression analysis of census data is used to predict the odds of citizenship among the foreign born, controlling for a range of factors.ResultsThere has been a growing inequality in the distribution of citizenship in the United States, but not in Canada. Low rates of citizenship hide the appearance of a large disparity in citizenship between those with the lowest levels of education and everyone else. These results cannot be entirely ascribed to the presence of undocumented immigrants.ConclusionPersistent and large inequalities in citizenship leave the already disadvantaged unskilled immigrants without access to rights, representation, security, or job and educational opportunities.

The school finance reforms (SFRs) that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K–12 education spending in U.S. history. We analyze the effects of these reforms on the level and distribution of school district spending, as well as their effects on subsequent educational and economic outcomes. In Part One, using a newly compiled database of school finance reforms and a recently available long panel of annual school district data on per-pupil spending that spans 1967–2010, we present an event-study analysis of the effects of different types of school finance reforms on per-pupil spending in low- and high-income school districts. We find that SFRs have been instrumental in equalizing school spending between low- and high-income districts and many reforms do so by increasing spending for poor districts. While all reforms reduce spending inequality, there are important differences by reform type: adequacy-based court-ordered reforms increase overall school spending, while equity-based court-ordered reforms reduce the variance of spending with little effect on overall levels; reforms that entail high tax prices (the amount of taxes a district must raise to increase spending by one dollar) reduce long-run spending for all districts, and those that entail low tax prices lead to increased spending growth, particularly for low-income districts. In Part Two, we link the spending and reform data to detailed, nationally-representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011 (the Panel Study of Income Dynamics) to study the effect of the reform-induced changes . . .

We examine the effects of differences in income tax rates on commuting times within multistate MSAs. Our theoretical model introduces a border into a model of an urban area and shows that differences in average tax rates distort commute times and interstate commutes. Empirically examining multi-state MSAs allows us to exploit tax policy discontinuities while holding fixed other characteristics. We identify large effects on commuting times for affluent households and homeowners in MSAs in which taxes are based on the state of residence. We discuss how the model and empirical design can be used to study other policy differences.

Disasters provide opportunities to study the social and economic dimensions of large-scale shifts. Drawn by the surge in demand for low-skill construction workers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Latino immigrants represented a substantial share of the New Orleans reconstruction workforce. Scholars, however, have yet to examine how the increased presence of immigrants affected U.S.-born workers in New Orleans. In this analysis, we investigate how the influx of Latino immigrant construction workers shaped the demographic composition and occupational-wage structure of the New Orleans construction sector. Using IPUMS-U.S.A. data from the 2000 and 20062010 periods for the New Orleans MSA, we employ logistic and multinomial logistic regression models to analyze a sample of 3,206 foreign-born Latinos, U.S.-born whites, U.S.-born blacks, and others employed in the construction industry. Our analysis indicates that the probability of U.S.-born workers being employed in construction remained stable from the pre- to post-storm period, even as we find evidence of an emerging immigrant employment niche in the post-Katrina construction industry. After the storm, however, Latino immigrants were much more heavily concentrated in occupations at the bottom end of the construction industrys wage structure, while the relative position of U.S.-born workers improved across the two periods. Together, these findings show that disasters, like other structural shifts, can yield the conditions that produce immigrant employment niches. Moreover, our results indicate that while employment niches provide economic opportunities for the foreign-born, they can also intensify the disadvantage experienced by immigrant workers.

Prior research reveals that the labor-market performance of Asian American women exceeds that of white women. Using the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, this study investigates the aspects of the labor market in which the Asian advantage may occurunemployment, annual earnings, and the number of people supervised. Our results show that when controlling for field of study, college type, region of residence, and other demographic variables, none of the Asian American female groups are advantaged on any of the three aspects. Contrary to the popular perception, even native-born Asian American women are not advantaged. Instead, they are more likely than white women to be unemployed, and once employed they are less likely to attain positions that involve supervising a large number of people. Asian American women who immigrated after high school are disadvantaged in all three respects, even if they earn their highest degree at a US institution. Those who immigrated before high school fare better than other Asian American groups, but they are still disadvantaged in terms of the number of people supervised. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The Nebraska state department of economic development, just like any other states department of economic development in the United States receives funding for economic development programs. These programs are mostly geared toward revitalizing economic situations of villages, cities or counties that are under economic distress. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (NEDED) currently measure distress in Nebraska Counties, and develop composite distress indexes that might improve the measure, interpretation and use of Economic distress index to help in their allocation of Economic development resources to Nebraska counties.

Objectives. We examined the effects of state-level unemployment rates during the recession of 2008 on patterns of home food preparation and away-from-home (AFH) eating among low-income and minority populations.Methods. We analyzed pooled cross-sectional data on 118?635 adults aged 18 years or older who took part in the American Time Use Study. Multinomial logistic regression models stratified by gender were used to evaluate the associations between state-level unemployment, poverty, race/ethnicity, and time spent cooking, and log binomial regression was used to assess respondents AFH consumption patterns.Results. High state-level unemployment was associated with only trivial increases in respondents cooking patterns and virtually no change in their AFH eating patterns. Low-income and racial/ethnic minority groups were not disproportionately affected by the recession.Conclusions. Even during a major economic downturn, US adults are resistant to food-related behavior change. More work is needed to understand whether this reluctance to change is attributable to time limits, lack of knowledge or skill related to food preparation, or lack of access to fresh produce and raw ingredients.

My dissertation investigates the effects of matching in Economics. The first chapter investigates matching as a marriage and finds that women's participation in the marriage market changed with the introduction of early contraceptive (Pill) access. I find that less-educated women delayed marriage in response to receiving early Pill access, but that more-educated women did not change their marriage timing in the short run. This led to heterogeneous indirect effects for both more- and less-educated women in terms of later-marriage outcomes, including marriage rates, spousal education, and spousal labor supply. The results highlight the complex ways the Pill altered the equilibrium in the marriage market. The second chapter investigate matching as a social network and finds that the social network in a school depends on the diversity in . . .

Programs for geospatial support at academic libraries have evolved over the past decade in response to changing campus needs and developing technologies. Geospatial applications have matured tremendously in this time, emerging from specialty tools to become broadly used across numerous disciplines. At many universities, the library has served as a central resource allowing students and faculty across academic departments access to GIS resources. Today, as many academic libraries evaluate their spaces and services, GIS and data services are central in discussions on how to further engage with patrons and meet increasingly diverse researcher needs. As library programs evolve to support increasingly technical data and GIS needs, many universities are faced with similar challenges and opportunities. To explore these themes, data and GIS services librarians and GIS specialists from five universities—the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas A&M, New York University, North Carolina State University, and California Polytechnic State University—with different models of library geospatial and data support, describe their programs to help identify common services, as well as unique challenges, opportunities, and future plans.

The use of indices of diversity or variation has a long-standing tradition in ecology and biology, and is arguably a hallmark of modern statistics. In the last decade, however, a more general assessment and measurement of diversity has attracted a growing interest from other disciplines including economics and other social sciences. The motivations of such a remarkably increased focus on diversity measurement come from a wide variety of concerns, including those for biodiversity and the effectiveness of conservation policies, and for several instances of socioeconomic diversity both agreeable (e.g. diversity in juries and other representative bodies or undominated diversity in the allocation of resources (Van Parijs (1995)) and detrimental (e.g. severe inequalities of access to resources and opportunities).

A primary goal of Earth system modelling is to improve understanding of the interactions and feedbacks between human decision making and biophysical processes. The nexus of land use and land cover change (LULCC) and the climate system is an important example. LULCC contributes to global and regional climate change, while climate affects the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and LULCC. However, at present, LULCC is poorly represented in global circulation models (GCMs). LULCC models that are explicit about human behaviour and decision-making processes have been developed at local to regional scales, but the principles of these approaches have not yet been applied to the global scale level in ways that deal adequately with both direct and indirect feedbacks from the climate system. In this article, we explore current knowledge about LULCC modelling and the interactions between LULCC, GCMs and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). In doing so, we propose new ways forward for improving LULCC representations in Earth system models. We conclude that LULCC models need to better conceptualise the alternatives for upscaling from the local to global scale. This involves better representation of human agency, including processes such as learning, adaptation and agent evolution, formalising the role and emergence of governance structures, institutional arrangements and policy as endogenous processes and better theorising about the role of teleconnections and connectivity across global networks. Our analysis underlines the importance of observational data in global-scale assessments and the need for coordination in synthesising and assimilating available data.