Economic decline associated with the Rustbelt's shift away from manufacturing hit many places hard, but few saw the kind of wholesale shift in its physical form as New Bedford, Massachusetts. This article asks what physical changes occurred during the city's sharp decline in population from 1920 to 2010, and how residents, community leaders and government officials perceive the problems and opportunities generated by this decline. This article begins to offer an answer through a spatial analysis of historic Sanborn maps, Geographic Information System (GIS) data and photographic evidence to examine how building location, density and form have changed over the last half-century of depopulation, coupled with interviews of residents, community leaders and government officials.

The adequate provision of quality care to the elderly, children, and those who are ill or disabled is one of the pressing social problems of our time. Despite the far-reaching formulations of care in the theoretical realm, advocacy and policy-making efforts around care work remain largely atomized. Translating the wide-ranging insights of care scholarship into tools for public policy solutions requires a practical application of the concept as well as empirical measurement. In this article, we integrate the insights of care theory with feminist economic analysis to conceptualize care as a single sector at the foundation of the state's human infrastructure. We then measure the scope of care work across paid work, unpaid labor, and government investment in one U.S. state. We estimate that the care sector in Massachusetts comprises 22 percent of the paid labor force, 20 percent of the average resident's daily time, and 57 percent of state and local government spending. Such data gives policy makers and advocates an empirical foundation to make a case for the human and economic impact of the care sector and to build on framing a broader vision of care policy. Strengthening the human infrastructure in Massachusetts and elsewhere is an economic and ethical imperative, and our goal is to provide both empirical data and a practically useful conceptual frame that can be used as tools by those working towards the social transformation of care.

This paper introduces two simple approaches to assess the consistency between sibling histories and reports on the fertility of the previous generation. The first is a comparison between the average size of sibships and the mean number of children ever born (CEB) to women of the previous generation, at the aggregate level. The second approach consists in linking at the individual level sibling histories reported by young women aged 15-18 with birth histories of their mothers when they both live in the same household.

Although the majority of enrollees in the publicly funded Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) are white, people of color, especially African Americans and American Indians, are disproportionately enrolled in these programs. In fact, about 60% of African Americans and American Indians living in Minnesota were enrolled in MHCP in July, 2011, and over 70% were enrolled at some time during the year. To the extent that health care can reduce disparities in health, the fact that such large proportions of these populations rely on MHCP for some or all of their health care suggests that MHCP can play a large role in reducing disparities in morbidity and mortality.

We develop a new methodology for quantifying the tasks undertaken within occupations using over 3,000 verbs from more than 12,000 occupational descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOTs). Using micro-data from the United States from 1880-2000, we find an increase in the employment share of interactive occupations within sectors over time that is larger in metro areas than non-metro areas. We interpret these findings using a model in which reductions in transport and communication costs induce urban areas to specialize according to their comparative advantage in interactive tasks. We presenting suggestive evidence relating increases in employment in interactive occupations to improvements in transport and communication technologies. Our findings highlight a change in the nature of agglomeration over time towards an increased emphasis on human interaction.

Not only has poverty recently increased in the United States, it has also become more concentrated. This Commentary documents changes in the concentration of poverty in metropolitan areas over the last decade. The analysis shows that the concentration of poverty tends to be highest in northern cities, and that wherever overall poverty or unemployment rates went up the most over the course of the decade, the concentration of poverty tended to increase there as well.

Few historians, indeed, few authors of serious intent, have been as prolific as Donald Akenson, author of more than twenty books and scores of articles and editor of numerous collections of essays. Most of his books have focused on Ireland and the Irish, ranging from historical studies of Irish education, religious life, and local communities to biographies, but his work on the Irish diaspora has been particularly influential, inspiring new studies of the Irish in Canada and Australia and helping to shape how people in Ireland see their "cousins" overseas.

Capitated Medicaid managed care plans have an incentive to discourage births from high-cost groups. Under competition, they also have an incentive to appear unattractive to high-cost while competing over low-cost groups, and thus outcomes for high- (low-) cost groups should relatively deteriorate (improve). We show that after Texas switched from FFS to private, capitated Medicaid plans: (1) black births|which are fifty percent more costly than Hispanics, the other main demographic group covered by Medicaid|fall significantly and (2) black birth outcomes deteriorate, whereas outcomes for Hispanics generally improve, increasing health disparities.

We develop a new methodology for quantifying the tasks undertaken within occupations using 3,000 verbs from around 12,000 occupational descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOTs). Using micro-data from the United States from 1880-2000, we find an increase in the employment share of interactive occupations within sectors over time that is larger in metro areas than non-metro areas. We provide evidence that this increase in the interactiveness of employment is related to the dissemination of improvements in transport and communication technologies. Our findings highlight a change in the nature of agglomeration over time towards an increased emphasis on human interaction.

This paper uses geographic variation in the severity of the Great Recession to examine the eff ect of local demand conditions on migration. Consistent with the existing literature, we fi nd large differences by skill group. High-skilled natives are quite responsive to employment opportunities whereas low-skilled natives' location choices are essentially una ffected by the distribution of local demand shocks. In sharp contrast to the results for natives, we fi nd that low-skilled immigrants, primarily those born in Mexico, respond strongly, with elasticities similar to those of high-skilled workers. These results are robust to the inclusion of controls for immigrant diffusion, local policies directed at immigrants, and an examination of pre-recession trends. We also address the potential endogeneity of local demand to immigrant locations using an instrumental variables strategy. Finally, we find that this geographic redistribution operated primarily through movement among immigrants resident in the US prior to the recession, although slower immigration rates from Mexico to cities with larger demand declines contributed roughly 20 percent of the reallocation.

In many U.S. public insurance programs, the state finances competing, capitated private health plans but does not itself insure individuals through a public fee-for-service (FFS) plan. We present a simple model in which capitation incentivizes insurers to retain low-cost clients and thus improve their care relative to high-cost clients, who they prefer would switch to a competitor. We test this prediction using county transitions from fee-for-service (FFS) Medicaid to capitated Medicaid managed care (MMC) for pregnant women and infants. We rst document the large health disparities and corresponding cost diff erences between blacks and Hispanics (who make up the large majority of Medicaid enrollees in our data), with black births costing nearly double that of Hispanics. Consistent with the model, black-Hispanic health disparities widen under MMC (e.g., the black-Hispanic mortality gap grows by 42 percent) and black mothers' pre-natal care worsens relative to Hispanics. Remarkably, black birth rates fall (and abortions rise) signifi cantly after MMC|consistent with mothers reacting to poor care by reducing fertility or plans discouraging births from high-cost groups. Implications for the ACA exchanges are discussed.

This paper shows that women experience less upward mobility in socioeconomic status with respect to their parents than men when the status measure places more weight on occupational earnings relative to occupational education, while the opposite holds when education becomes more important in the de finition of occupational status.This holds whether we consider mobility with respect to fathers, mothers or with respect to the average parental status. Results also indicate that this mobility gap has been narrowing for the status measures that put more weight on earnings, and that the mobility advantage for women in education has been increasing. For the most recent cohorts there is no mobility gap when starting salaries are used in the occupational earnings measure. Moreover, while women and men still appear to be choosing di fferent types of occupations, women are not choosing occupations that are characterized by low returns. Women are choosing occupations that off er them the flexibility to work less.

Many years of research have documented the hardships that vulnerable people in public and subsidized housing face—long-term unemployment, poverty, declining health, and even early mortality (Popkin et al. 2010; Popkin and Getsinger 2010). But there is also evidence that comprehensive, place-based interventions can help alleviate some of these challenges. The Urban Institute’s Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration showed that intensive one-on-one support for adults living in public housing can lead to meaningful improvements, particularly in terms of labor market participation and health outcomes (Popkin and Davies 2013). To build on the lessons learned from the Chicago Demonstration, the Urban Institute launched the HOST demonstration in four com- munities across the country to test the viability of a two-generation approach to improve outcomes not only for adults, but for whole families (see page 6) (Scott et al. 2103; Popkin et al. 2012). This brief focuses on the first two sites to launch: Chicago and Portland.

This paper demonstrates that low-skilled Mexican-born immigrants' location choices in the U.S. respond strongly to changes in local labor demand, and that this geographic elasticity helps equalize spatial differences in labor market outcomes for low-skilled native workers, who are much less responsive. We leverage the wage rigidity that occurred during Great Recession to identify the severity of local downturns, and our results confirm the standard finding that high-skilled populations are quite geographically responsive to employment opportunities while low-skilled populations are much less so. However, low-skilled immigrants, primarily those from Mexico, respond even more strongly than high-skilled native-born workers. These results are robust to a wide variety of controls, a pre-recession falsification test, and two instrumental variables strategies. A novel empirical test reveals that natives living in cities with a substantial Mexican-born population are insulated from the effects of local labor demand shocks compared to those in cities with few Mexicans. The reallocation of the Mexican-born workforceamong these cities reduced the incidence of local demand shocks on low-skilled natives' employment outcomes by more than 40 percent.

The primary objective of this paper is to examine Caribbean Indian immigrants' cultural, social and psychological attachments to Indian immigrants in New York City and to India through the perspective of the proximal host. The major findings, based on the results of census and survey data, show that respondents have almost completely lost the Indian language, but have moderately preserved Indian popular culture such as music, Hindu religious practices and English-language Indian media. Moreover, few maintain close ties with Indian or other South Asian immigrants, preserving strong ties mainly with other Caribbean Indian immigrants. In addition, the findings indicate that they have little psychological attachment to India or Indian immigrants. A majority identify with their Caribbean country of origin, with fewer than 20 per cent identifying as Caribbean Indian. Moreover, the vast majority would cheer for their Caribbean national-origin team rather than the Indian team in a hypothetical cricket match between the two. The secondary objectiveto analyse the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of Caribbean Indian immigrants in New York Citymakes an important contribution to the literature by providing solid statistical data on their demographic and socio-economic characteristics and ethnic attachment. It also significantly contributes to studies of twice-migrant groups' attachments to their proximal hostsa very important but neglected topicby showing how to measure three components of ethnic attachment using multiple indicators.

Despite the marked decline in membership for most Protestant denominations in the United States, the Seventh-day Adventist Church continues to report growth at rates higher than its peers. Previous case studies and surveys have found that immigrants make up an increasing percentage of the American Adventist churches’ membership. However, no extensive statistical analysis has been conducted to investigate how changing patterns of immigration into the United States have influenced the Church’s growth or how the Adventist Church’s extensive international activity may be affecting its growth in the U.S. over a long stretch of time. For my research, I used linear fixed effects regression on an integrated data set of census immigration statistics and Adventist membership statistics between the years of 1900 and 2010. The number of Adventist members, churches, schools, and hospitals, served as the indicators for a strong or weak Adventist presence. The results suggest that the Adventist Church has a higher membership growth rate in areas of the U.S. that receive more immigrants from countries with a strong Adventist presence. As Protestant denominations face decline, they may benefit from a strong international presence to stabilize their growth through immigration, rather than relying solely on domestic evangelism.

This paper investigates the interplay between nativity and both homeownership and foreclosure in Miami-Dade County, Florida at both the individual and community levels. We estimate the likelihood of individual-level home ownership based on place of birth and year of entry to the U.S., and separately estimate community-level foreclosures based on the demographic composition of neighborhoods. Results confirm previous work: all subgroups, except Cubans, are less likely to be homeowners than white, non-Hispanics and only Cuban neighborhoods had foreclosure rates significantly lower than rates in white, non-Hispanic neighborhoods. Nativity has a stronger effect on homeownership than on foreclosure levels

This absorbing anthology features in-depth portraits of diverse ethnic populations, revealing the surprising new realities of immigrant life in twenty-first-century New York City. Contributors show how nearly fifty years of massive inflows have transformed New York City's economic and cultural life and how the city has changed the lives of immigrant newcomers.