Common explanations for the generally negative relationship between education and ethnic endogamy include (1) education makes immigrants and their children better able to adapt to native culture thereby eliminating the need for a same-ethnicity spouse and (2) education raises the likelihood of leaving ethnic enclaves, thereby decreasing the probability of meeting potential same-ethnicity spouses. This paper considers a third option, the role of assortative matching on education. If education distributions differ by ethnicity, then spouse-searchers may trade similarities in ethnicity for similarities in education when choosing spouses. U.S. Census data on second-generation immigrants provide strong support for the assortative matching mechanism.

This paper quantifies cross-country differences in early childhood human capital. I embed a standard human capital production function into a cross-country model of human capital investment and labor market outcomes. The model predicts that only some human capital investment channels generate cross-country differences in early childhood human capital. I derive an empirical test of the importance of these channels. The test compares the late-life outcomes of otherwise identical immigrants who entered the U.S. at age 0 or age 5. I implement this test using the Indochinese refugees, who immigrated from poor countries during trying times, and for whom selection is unlikely to bias my results. The empirical results document a striking fact: there is no difference in late-life outcomes between Indochinese refugees who arrived at age 0 or age 5. I conclude that cross-country differences in early childhood human capital are small.

The impacts of a negative health shock during childhood can have long term consequences for a person in terms of health, human capital formation and labor market outcomes. However, the e ffects of the health shock are not necessarily limited to the aflicted individual. By raisingthe costs of the child both in terms of health care and human capital investment, the health shock impacts a family's resource allocation decisions. As a result, a significant negative health shock for one child can influence the outcomes of his or her healthy siblings. This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic to assess the ways in which a major negative health shock influences family planning and investment decisions. By linking educational and health data from military records to census information on childhood households, I show that the influenza pandemicimpacted family structure and the levels of investment in not only those children born during the pandemic but also on their siblings. The results suggest that having a child born during the pandemic led families to shift educational investments to older children. Children born after the pandemic received less educational investment on average if a sibling was born during the pandemic. The magnitude of these eff ects are quite large: having a sibling born duringthe pandemic was associated with a change in educational attainment of a quarter of a year. These results suggest that the eff ects of childhood health shocks on siblings are an important consideration when evaluating the potential consequences of childhood health interventions.

Abortion is a polarizing issue among both the American public and our politicians. Despite heated debate, a 2009 survey showed a majority of people agree that we should reduce the abortion rate. Although federal law restricts federal funding of abortion such that it can be used only in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment of the woman, some policymakers contend that public support for family planning services allows family planning providers to shift private funding toward abortion coverage. Several studies have examined the effect of Medicaid family planning expansion waivers on contraception use, the birth rate, and the abortion rate. Using two panel data sets and Ordinary Least Squares regression with state and year fixed effects, this paper builds on previous analyses by offering an examination of the relationship between the abortion rate and the dollar amount of public family planning expenditures. The findings of this analysis suggest that increases in public family planning spending reduce the abortion rate, although likely to only a modest extent. Policymakers would be well advised to consider the implications of social science analyses before cutting family planning spending as the debate surrounding public funding of family planning clinics undoubtedly continues

This paper investigates the social dimensions of gated communities in US western metropolitan areas and how they contribute to increased segregation. We use geographically referenced data to test the homogeneity of gated communities and their link to segregation. This paper introduces a local metric based on social distance indices (SDI), constructed by means of multivariate spatial analysis, that investigates homogeneity in three aspects: race and ethnicity, economic class and age between 2000 and 2010 census. The results indicate that gated communities are homogeneous enclaves, and this has reinforced between 2000 and 2010 despite the context of spatial diffusion of Hispanics. Although socioeconomic segregation associated to racial and ethnic status yield the most prevalent structure of local distance, gated enclaves are significantly structured by age polarization. Another trend is that buffer zones, homogeneous areas in terms of race and ethnicity, are preferred locations for gated communities.

The impacts of a negative health shock during childhood can have long term consequences for a person in terms of health, human capital formation and labor market outcomes. However, the eff ects of the health shock are not necessarily limited to the aflicted individual. By raisingthe costs of the child both in terms of health care and human capital investment, the health shock impacts a family's resource allocation decisions. As a result, a signifi cant negative health shock for one child can influence the outcomes of his or her healthy siblings. This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic to assess the ways in which a major negative health shock influencesfamily planning and investment decisions. By linking educational and health data from military records to census information on childhood households, I show that the influenza pandemic impacted levels of investment in not only those children born during the pandemic but also theirsiblings. The results suggest that having a child born during the pandemic led families to shift educational investments to older children. Older siblings of a child born during the pandemic received an additional quarter year of education while younger siblings received slightly less education relative to individuals without a sibling born during the pandemic. These results suggest that the effects of childhood health shocks on siblings are an important consideration when evaluating the potential consequences of childhood health interventions.

The growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. since the 1970s has been dramatic (Verdugo, 2010). And the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that not only are Hispanics now the largest ethnic-racial minority group in the U.S., but that by 2050 Hispanics are projected to be between 25 and 35 percent of the entire U.S. population (see Census website: www.census.gov). There is the sense that Hispanic students have also contributed to the growth of the overall U.S. student population. How much of a contribution, though, is speculative, and for reasons to be discussed below, there are important reasons why this growth is important.The purpose of this chapter is to provide a three-part analysis of the basic demographic information in examining the growth of the U.S. student population from 1900 to 2008, with specific emphasis placed on the fundamental research question: What impact has Hispanic immigrant students had on the growth of the U.S. student population? In attempting to answer this question, analysis consists of: (a) attempting to establish the fact that the Hispanic student population has grown significantly since 1900, compared to growth with that of non-Hispanics, and to assess its impact on the overall U.S. student population growth from 1900 to 2008; (b) evaluate how each of the two components of Hispanic student growth - non-immigrant Hispanic students, and immigrant Hispanic students hascontributed to the overall growth of the Hispanic student population from 1900 to 2008; and (c) compute the share of the total growth in the U.S. student population from 1900 to 2008 that is due to four groups: Non-immigrant Hispanics, immigrant Hispanics, non-immigrant non-Hispanics, and immigrant non-Hispanics, while alsoassessing the contribution each group has made to the overall growth of the U.S. student population from 1900 to 2008.There are at least two reasons why we should be concerned with the growth of the Hispanic student population. First, a large body of research points out that their educational experiences need to be greatly improved (see Verdugo 2006 for a review). Second, students follow their parents, and research indicates that not only is the Hispanic population increasing but that it is moving to areas of the U.S. thathave little or no history with this population. For example, the growing Hispanic student population has challenged school systems in such states as North Carolina,Maine, and upstate New York. The larger picture is not entirely clear and a succinct demographic portrait is needed. Both patterns suggest a line of research that focuses on determining exactly how much of the Hispanic student population has grown. The following section reviews both patterns.

The Great Migration caused massive demographic changes in Northeastern and Midwestern cities as African Americans moved from the South to the North. These changes led to economic discrimination and segregation within northern cities. This paper compares African American and white rental prices in four major cities: Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia in an effort to see how this discrimination and segregation affected rental prices. The results consistently show that in the most precise geographic area, prices rise as the concentration of blacks in those neighborhoods rise, which I believe is a result of overcrowding.

Today, we are witnessing high, but not unprecedented, rates of migration across national borders and around the globe. It is widely known that this movement holds the potential to influence social and economic conditions in migrant-sending and -receiving countries. What is less commonly recognized is that contemporary flows of migration seem to be generating transnational family arrangements that may influence children’s development and well-being. Families are scattered among countries, with spouses separated and children living apart from one or both parents and their siblings for years at a time. Statistics describing the prevalence and structures of transnational families, however, are hard to come by. One study based on interviews with 385 adolescents born in China, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico living in the United States found that 85 percent had been separated from one or both parents for an extended period.1 A larger survey of 8,573 US-based immigrants who had just received legal permanent residence (LPR, known as a “green card”) and their children found that 15 percent of these immigrants’ children had been separated from at least one parent for two years or more. Separation was more common for those children who were born outside the United States: 31 percent had beenseparated from a parent.2 These statistics make it clear that separation is quite common among the children of immigrants in the United States and elsewhere. Ethnographic research suggests that parent-child separation may be more common among Black immigrants than other immigrants because of parenting traditions that distribute child care through practices known as child fostering, child circulation, or child shifting. These practices have developed in areas of West Africa and the Caribbean that have long traditions of regional migration. This chapter explores the practice of child fostering and its implications for parent-child separation among immigrants from Ghana. Like many Caribbean immigrants and some West Africans who come from politically stable countries, many Ghanaian immigrants do not raise their young children in the United States. Instead, these children are raised in their country of origin by other family members.3 Some of these children are “left behind” when a parent migrates; others are born in the United States and later sent to Ghana as infants or adolescents. Ethnographic research shows that the ages of their return to the United States vary: many do so as young adults, others when they are ready for elementary school. This chapter analyzes the reasons why many Ghanaian immigrants decide to raise their young children in Ghana. It also assesses the informal and formal social resources available to support the well-being of young children of a select group of Black immigrants in the United States.

This article uses census data from the 2006-8 American Community Survey to illustrate the range of Asian American entrepreneurial activities in the Los Angeles and the New York City areas and finds that Los Angeles self-employment is characterized by emerging high-skill professional service industries while New York continues to be dominated by low-skill traditional enclave-associated niches. Within these patterns, there are also notable interethnic and generational differences. I discuss their socioeconomic implications and policy recommendations to facilitate a gradual shift of Asian American entrepreneurship toward more professional service activities that reflect the demographic evolution of the Asian American community and the ongoing dynamics of globalization.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) has been called one of the most effective pieces of civil rights legislation in US history, having generated dramatic increases in black voter registration and black voter turnout across the South. We show that the expansion of black voting rights in some southern states brought about by one requirement of the VRA the elimination of literacy tests at voter registration was accompanied by a shift in the distribution of state aid toward localities with higher proportions of black resldents, who held newfound power to affect the reelection of state officials, a finding that is consistent with models of distributve politics. Our estimates imply an elasticity of state transfers to counties with respect to turnout in presidential elections - the closest available measure of enfranchisement - of roughly one.

This study examines the rational choice and institutional factors influencing the spread of information technology enabled public safety network collaborations in the United States. Consistent with past neighbor effect research, this study tests economic, geographic, and demographic factors predictive of PSN proliferation at the state level. Results suggest a “follow the money” pattern, with internal and external resources, along with neighbor-state spending, being predictive of PSN proliferation. The “neighbor effect” here reflects a state level mimetic isomorphic influence that provides context to the more rational and resource-based factors associated with network proliferation. Examining isomorphic forces in public safety is particularly warranted since resource allocation decisions in this domain carry grave consequences. This study extends neighbor-effect research into the domain of public safety, identifies unexpected findings regarding violent crime rates and federal funding, and explores possibly ill-fit decision criteria by specifying a measure for mimetic isomorphism in public safety spending.

Project Goals. Over 469 thousand households in the U.S. experienced very low food security among children, a severe condition characterized by reductions in food intake due to an inability to afford enough food. But food insecurity is not simply about economic resources. There exists a paradox in which some poor households with children are food secure while some non-poor households with children are food insecure. This study moves beyond a singular focus on income and considers how the family context may protect or generate risk of food insecurity for children. The goals of the proposed project were to: 1) to provide a detailed profile of an understudied group, households with children experiencing very low food security; 2) to consider the food security paradoxhouseholds that are poor but food secure, and households that are food insecure but non-poor, and 3) to examine how family context (structure and parental time allocations) is related to food security among households with children.Data. The study uses multiple rounds of the CPS Food Security Supplement, taking advantage of new cohabitation and parent pointers to explore more refined measures of family structure from the perspective of the child. For the main analysis, data from 2007 through 2010 are pooled, excluding any households surveyed twice due to the 4-8-4 sampling structure of the CPS. The analytic sample (N= 64,860) is composed of children ages 0 to 17 with household-level child food security information and household composition from the child perspective attached. The final research question is addressed by linking multiple years of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to the FSS. The American Time Use Survey (ATUS), a nationally representative sample of U.S. household that collects detailed information on family and household composition as well as time diary information on how individuals allocate their time.Methods. The analytic strategy begins with a descriptive portrait of households (using the pooled FSS) across childrens food security status levels 1) high or marginal, 2) low, and 3) very low. Several sets of multinomial logistic regression models are estimated. First, the likelihood of being in a particular food security group was estimated with the full FSS sample in order to assess the independent effects of factors such as family structure and parental work patterns while controlling for other characteristics of the child and household. Further analyses limit the FSS sample to only low income households, to uncover characteristics associated with resiliency or risk, paying particular attention to parental work patterns. The final portion of the project explores the relationship between childrens food insecurity (broadly measured) and parental time allocations using linked FSS and American Time Use Survey data.Results and Implications. The results presented here indicate that children at the most risk of very low food security are more often children being raised in immigrant families. While under a quarter of all children in the United States is the child of an immigrant, a disproportionate amount (40%) comprise the population of children living under the most severe conditions of food insecurity. Results from multivariate models suggest that family structure is a key predictive factor among low-income families. Net of economic and household characteristics, children living with an unpartnered parent or living in a more complex family are at an increased risk of low or very low food security compared with children living in either a 100% biological family or a stepfamily. Notably, mothers work patterns among low-income families are much stronger predictors of childrens food insecurity among stepfamilies than in 100% biological families. Other results suggest that disability among adults living with children greatly increases the likelihood of the more extreme form of child food insecurity. Net of individual and household characteristics, children living with a disabled adult have almost three times the odds of living under conditions of very low food security than children living in a household without the presence of a disabled adult.The exploratory analysis yielded limited results, possibly due to the small sample size of the combined FSS and ATUS sample. Restricting the sample to the shortest time frame between food security interview and the ATUS interview, as well as restricting the sample to include only respondents interviewed on weekdays greatly reduced the explanatory power of the models. However, several findings are worth note. It is reasonable that parents in households in which the children are completely food secure would allocate more time to work; more time spent on work among parents often yields more economic resources. Yet unadjusted differences in the time spent on food preparation and cleanup are higher among parents living with children experiencing any food insecurity regardless of family structure. Once household resources and number of children were controlled for, the relationship between time spent in food preparation and childrens food insecurity became marginal at best, and only among two-parent households. Restricting the analysis to employed parents finds that time spent in the care of non-household members may be associated with a higher likelihood childrens food insecurity. While these results do not imply that parental time spent in food preparation or care of non-household family members causes childhood food insecurity, it may suggest that parents in food insecure environments use their time differently than do parents in food secure households. Future research will address these issues using more inclusive measures household-level food insecurity.

We consider broad patterns of structural change: (i) sectoral reallocations, (ii) rich movements of productiveactivities between home and market, and (iii) an increase in establishment size, especially in manufacturing. We extend these facts and develop a unified model explaining them. The crucial distinction across manufacturing, services and home production is the scale of the productive unit. In manufacturing, scale technologies lead to industrialization and marketization. In services, they lead to marketization and later demarketization of services. A later increase in the scale of services could yield a decline in industry and a rise in services, consistent with the data.

This paper offers a new microfoundation for urban agglomeration that is based on the margin between home and market production of services: Proximity between consumers and service providers in dense areas facilitates demand for market services due to a low time cost of purchasing services. Agglomeration economies arise out of the high demand for market services and corresponding low home production. In equilibrium dense economic regions have higher market incomes, prices, and labor supply.

Popular discussions often treat the great housing boom of the 1996-2006 period as if it were a national phenomenon with similar impacts across locales, but across metropolitan areas, price growth was dramatically higher in warmer, less educated cities with less initial density and higher initial housing values. Within metropolitan areas, price growth was faster in neighborhoods closer to the city center. The centralization of price growth during the boom was particularly dramatic in those metropolitan areas where income is higher away from the city center. We consider a number of different explanations for this connection, and find that the connection between centralized price growth and decentralized income seems to be most explained by the faster price growth in central cities that use relatively more public transit.