Purpose of the Study: Our study provides a national portrait of the baby boom generation, paying particular attention to the heterogeneity among unmarried boomers and whether it operates similarly among women versus men.Design and Methods: We used the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census 5% samples and the 2009 American Community Survey (ACS) to document the trends in the share and marital status composition of the unmarried population during midlife. Using the 2009 ACS, we developed a sociodemographic portrait of baby boomers according to marital status.Results: One in three baby boomers was unmarried. The vast majority of these unmarried boomers were either divorced or never-married; just 10% were widowed. Unmarried boomers faced greater economic, health, and social vulnerabilities compared to married boomers. Divorced boomers had more economic resources and better health than widowed and never-married boomers. Widows appeared to be the most disadvantaged among boomer women, whereas never-marrieds were the least advantaged among boomer men.Implications: The rise in unmarrieds at midlife leaves baby boomers vulnerable to the vagaries of aging. Health care and social service providers as well as policy makers must recognize the various risk profiles of different unmarried boomers to ensure that all boomers age well and that society is able to provide adequate services to all boomers, regardless of marital status.

I examined the patterns and processes that determine Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) distribution and abundance. First, Itested the hypothesis that visual openness could explain area sensitivity, the pattern of species being disproportionately absent from smallerhabitat patches. Icompared Bobolinkdensity and occupancy to a novel openness index, patch area, and edge effects. Our results supported a seasonally consistent openness threshold in occupancy (i.e. patches are either suitable or not). Once occupied, however, Ifound no relationships between patch openness or area and population density or measures of body condition (body mass, body size, circulating corticosterone levels). Despite individuals differing in response to simulated predators (flight initiation distance), differences were not related topatch area or openness. The openness response also was detected within fields, as bothBobolinksand Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis)placednests both away fromedges and in moreopen habitat when compared to expectations based on random placement. (Openness and edge were only moderately correlated.) However, Ifound no strong relationshipsbetween either openness or edges and reproductive success (numbers of eggs and fledglings, % of eggs producing fledglings, and nest survival), although there may be an openness effect on timing of reproduction (clutch completion date). Second, at the landscape scale, Ifound that climate and land use variables explained Bobolink distribution and abundance, but did a poor job of explaining the observed range shift in abundance from 1970-2008. Ipropose that some apparently area-sensitive species are actually responding to how open a habitat patch is, rather than to patch size.Our findings have implications for studies of area sensitivity, especially with regards to inconsistencies reported within species: specifically, (1) whether or not a study finds a species to be area sensitive may depend on whether small, open sites were sampled, and (2) area regressions were sensitive to observed densities at the largest sites, suggesting that variation in these fields could lead to inconsistent area sensitivity responses. Finally,our landscape results suggest that bioclimate models might do a poor job in predicting species range shifts due to climate change.

A package of policies developed by Community Advocates Public Policy Institute - a nonprofit organization in Wisconsin could reduce Wisconsin's poverty rate by 58 to 66 percent, depending on assumptions. The policies include a Senior and Disability Income Tax Credit, transitional jobs, an increase in the minimum wage to $8, and expansion of income tax credits related to earnings. Combining the new policies with full participation in existing entitlement programs reduces Wisconsin poverty by 81 percent. The analysis uses the American Community Survey, applying the proposed policies with the TRIM3 microsimulation model. Impacts are assessed with the Supplemental Poverty Measure.

Recently some state and local governments in the United States have sharply reduced or eliminated public employee unionism and bargaining rights in the belief that their fiscal adversity stems mainly from overcompensation of public employees caused by collective bargaining. The authors examine public-private sector pay and benefits relationships, the effects of unions on public employee pay, the effectiveness of employment dispute resolution procedures, and the ability of public sector labor and management to combat fiscal adversity. They provide new evidence showing that: on balance, public employees are undercompensated relative to their private-sector counterparts; the effects of unions on compensation are smaller in the public than in the private sector; and public sector dispute resolution procedures and joint labor-management initiatives to reform work function reasonably well.

This dissertation focuses on two relationships: how wages and the value of time influence the decisions to spend time preparing food and eating meals, and how government food subsidies affect the types of foods that children in a household eat. Although time spent preparing food and eating regular daily meals are both known to be important to health, past research has not made it clear how increased wages may affect those decisions. In the first essay, I develop a stylized model that illustrates how higher wages may reduce meal production time but have ambiguous effects on meal consumption time. I then examine relationships using time diary information from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) supplemented with wage information from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Using standard and censored regression models, analyses indicate that for meal production time, women experience a negative effect from wages on weekdays, as predicted by theory, and no effect on weekends. However, men show no weekday effect and a surprising positive effect of wages on weekends, suggesting that men with a high value of weekday time may substitute weekend meal production time for weekday time. Higher wages are associated with more meal consumption time for both men and women on weekdays and weekends, indicating that consumption time is a normal good. The second essay combines detailed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) on eating behaviors with wages imputed using the CPS. These allow estimation of multivariate Probit and multiple Probit models for the probability that men and women will eat each of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks on weekdays and weekends. Increased wages are associated with increased probabilities of all three meals for both women and men on weekdays, with a significant effect for breakfast for men. However, on weekends, women with higher wages are less likely to eat all three meals, particularly dinner. Similarly, although higher wage men may still be more likely to eat breakfast and dinner on weekends, they are significantly less likely to eat lunch. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) appear to increase food consumption among households generally and among their intended beneficiaries, much less is known about whether they help other household members. The third essay {joint with David Ribar} uses 2002-2003 data from the second Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the relationship between households’ participation in the SNAP, SBP, NLSP, and WIC and individual 10 - 17 year-old children’s consumption of particular food items. Analyses indicate that WIC participation by others in the household is associated with a 22 percent increase in breakfast consumption of milk and a 16 percent increase in breakfast consumption of cereal for the children in the sample, while WIC is associated with a 13 percent decrease in toast consumption. Participation in school meals is also associated with increased consumption of some foods, particularly juice, fruit, and sweet snacks. Household SNAP participation is estimated to have positive associations with some foods but negative associations with others.

The increased demographic presence of Latino individuals has gradually resulted in growing political influence and representation. This growing presence and influence has altered the American political landscape, drawing sudden attention among scholars, the media, and political pundits. This article investigates four aspects of the growing influence of Latino/a individuals in the American political system.

The number of Chinese students, in particular undergraduate students, enrolled at American Universities has drastically increased during the last decade. Their out-of-state tuitions as well as living expenditures can be a boost to the local economy, including the local housing market. This thesis focuses on the housing market choices made by Chinese students in the United States.Specifically, it analyzes the factors influencing the residential preferences of Chinese students, focusing on their choice to own or rent a house while they are studying in the US. Using data for 749 Chinese students from the 2009 American Community Survey, the research estimated a logit model of tenure choice. The results suggest that five attributes are significant predictors ofwhether a student owns or rents: homeowner probabilities increase with household income, length of stay in the US, and family size. Moreover, homeowner probabilities are substantially higher for students who own a car than for those who do not own a car, and they are higher forundergraduate than graduate students. This result has potentially far reaching consequences for local housing markets as the number of Chinese undergraduate students has risen so strongly in recent years.

This report analyzes changes among the top five Latino national subgroups over the period between 1990 and 2009 in New York City Community District 5 of the Bronx, which comprises the neighborhoods of Fordham, University Heights, Morris Heights, and Mount Hope. A profile of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics including population distribution, age, homeownership, income, educational attainment, employment, and citizenship is the focus of this report. These characteristics are compared, whenever appropriate, with those of the other major racial/ethnic components of the Bronx population -- non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Asians. The term Latino and Hispanic will be used interchangeably throughout this report.

While the introduction of differential privacy has been a major breakthrough in the study of privacy preserving data publication, some recent work has pointed out a number of cases where it is not possible to limit inference about individuals. The dilemma that is intrinsic in the problem is the simultaneous requirement of data utility in the published data. Differential privacy does not aim to protect information about an individual that can be uncovered even without the participation of the individual. However, this lack of coverage may violate the principle of individual privacy. Here we propose a solution by providing protection to sensitive information, by which we refer to the answers for aggregate queries with small counts. Previous works based on l-diversity can be seen as pro- viding a special form of this kind of protection. Our method is developed with another goal which is to provide differential pri- vacy guarantee, and for that we introduce a more refined form of differential privacy to deal with certain practical issues. Our empir- ical studies show that our method can preserve better utilities than a number of state-of-the-art methods although these methods do not provide the protections that we provide.

Infill development, as an alternative to sprawl, can promote socio-economic sustainability as well as environmental sustainability by realizing more compact urban form and ensuring economic vitality and diversity. Compact development and more diverse housing options realized through infill can alleviate spatial segregation and promote social diversity in communities by attracting diverse new residents into the neighborhood. However, as infill housing reflects neighborhood conditions, the impacts of infill housing on neighborhood income diversity vary depending on neighborhood types. Specifically, providing assisted rental housing in economically distressed neighborhoods may further concentrate the poor. Gentrification derived from infill can displace lower income households and lead to new residential sorting. Also, moderate or more expensive infill housing, which is similar to what exists, in middle or higher income neighborhoods will only attract households with a similar level of income as existing residents. Accordingly, a mixture of incomes in these neighborhoods may not be achieved through infill. In this regard, this study seeks to provide empirical evidence about the effects of infill housing on neighborhood income diversity and to outline the strategies for sustainable infill development through the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. As a case, infill development and subsequent neighborhood change in the Orlando metropolitan area from 1990 to 2009 is analyzed using various data sources such as property tax rolls, the U.S. Census, and American Community Survey. The spatio-temporal patterns of infill housing, results of spatial econometrics and case studies for selected neighborhoods are related and evaluated for policy implications. The results of these analyses indicate that infill development is only positively associated with neighborhood income diversity in gentrifying communities. But, a larger share of new construction among infill housing and the mix of housing types have the potential to promote neighborhood income diversity. Also, incremental infill development rather than a large scale infill with multifamily housing can positively affect neighborhood income diversity. Therefore, more detailed infill development guidelines and incentive programs that address housing types, price, and development phases should be implemented in order to promote a mixture of incomes.

Between 1900 and 1990, the percentage of U.S. white women aged 4069 living with a child of their own fell from 63 to 27 %, with three-fourths of that change occurring between 1940 and 1960. Historical census data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series and longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics allow an historical and contemporary examination of coresidence patterns among these women. Analysis reveals three eras: a system of coresidence in the early twentieth century, a sudden transition toward separate households at mid century, and the maintenance of that separate household system thereafter. The scholarly literature features cultural, demographic, and economic explanations for the long-term decline in co-residence, but has given little attentionto the rapid mid-century shift. Analysis of IPUMS data confirms the long-term effects of declines in mortality and fertility, and concomitant declines in the age of mothers at last birth, but also points to a sharp drop in the age of children at marriage in the mid-twentieth century. These factors raised the potential for the formation of separate households; this historical era was also a propitious one for separation: income gains for young workers were unprecedented, the labor force participation of married women rose, and immigration fell. Analysis of PSID datafrom 1968 to 2009 confirms the salience of childrens socioeconomic circumstances particularly their marriage and employment prospects but also the increasing availability of higher educationin maintaining the separate household system. While the data analyzed allow only inferences about cultural factors, the resiliency of the new household system, even in periods of economic decline, suggests that it is now likely buttressed by strong normative views.

This article examines the role of family structure in the financial support parents provide for their childrens college education. Data are from the Health and Retirement Study. We focus on aspects of family structure that affect parental support and estimate shared family variance in investments as well as within-family variation using a multilevel model. Family membership accounts for about 60% of the variance in payment of college costs. Small familysize, living with both biological parents (compared to one biological parent and a stepparent), higher parental education, and having older parents are associated with greater parental expenditures.

Interactions between culturally diverse individuals can spur economic benefits by stimulating new ideas that raise urban residents productivity. But diversity can also diminish economic well-being by making communication difficult, and by stimulating conflict. This paper investigates whether urban institutionsin particular residents sense of generalized trustdetermine when diversity is an economic asset and when it is a liability. To do so, data on trust, birthplace diversity, wages, and demographics in US metropolitan areas are combined. The evidence suggests that workers are much better able to harness the productivity-enhancing spillovers that arise from cultural diversity when they live in cities endowed with strong informal institutions.

The determinants of residential choice behavior matters greatly to policy makers and developers concerned with the efficient placement of infrastructure, as well as other public and private projects. Economists have also shown interest in understanding the location decisions of households to gain further knowledge of why metropolitan areas have economically and socially distinguishable neighborhoods and how those neighborhoods have changed over time. This paper empirically examines economists theories and subsequent implications for residential choice behavior as they relate to the characteristics of the household. A conditional logit model focusing on heterogeneous households preferences for particular neighborhood attributes is applied. Distance of the neighborhood from the central business district is found to significantly decrease the utility associated with that option; the actual magnitude of the given effect is greatly influenced by the households education and family structure. Income of the household is found to have a relatively minor or insignificant role in the model.

OpenData movement around the globe is demanding more access to information which lies locked in public or private servers. As recently reported by a McKinsey publication, this data has significant economic value, yet its release has potential to blatantly conflict with people privacy. Recent UK government inquires have shown concern from various parties about publication of anonymized databases, as there is concrete possibility of user identification by means of link- age attacks. Differential privacy stands out as a model that provides strong formal guarantees about the anonymity of the participants in a sanitized database. Only recent results demonstrated its applicability on real-life datasets, though. This paper covers such breakthrough discoveries, by review- ing applications of differential privacy for non-interactive publication of anonymized real-life datasets. Theory, util- ity and a data-aware comparison are discussed on a variety of principles and concrete applications.

Arizona's English Language Development Model (ELD Model) is intended to increase and accelerate the learning of English by English Language Learners (ELLs), so that the students can then be ready, when they know the English language, to learn the other academic subjects together with their English speaking peers. This model is part of a response to comply with the Flores Consent Order to improve services for ELLs in Arizona public schools. Whether or not it actually has improved instruction for ELLs has been the subject of much debate and, in 2012, after four years of the requirement to use Arizona’s ELD Model, the ELL students who were identified as reclassified for the six districts in the study did not pass the Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) test. The model’s requirement to separate students who are not proficient from students who are proficient, the assessment used for identification of ELLs, and the Structured English Immersion four hours of English only instruction are at the nexus of the controversy, as the courts accepted the separate four hour SEI portion of the model for instruction as sufficient to meet the needs of ELLs in Arizona (Garcia, 2011, Martinez, 2012, Lawton, 2012, Lillie, 2012). This study examines student achievement in Reading and Math as measured by AIMS standards-based tests in six urban K-8 public school districts between 2007-2012. This period was selected to cover two years before and four years after the ELD model was required. Although the numbers of ELLs have decreased for the State and for the six urban elementary districts since the advent of the Arizona ELD Model, the reclassified ELL subgroup in the studied districts did not pass the AIMS for all the years in the study. Based on those results, this study concludes with the following recommendations. First, to study the coming changes in the language assessments and their impact on ELLs’ student achievement in broad and comprehensive ways; second, to implement a model change allowing school districts to support their ELLs in their first language; and, finally, to establish programs that will allow ELLs full access to study with their English speaking peers.