The process of migration has long been framed as a unidirectional process comprised of arrival, settlement, citizenship and assimilation motivated by economic necessities. This dissertation moves beyond these limited views and utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the process of return migration of Chinese nationals to Kunming, China.By utilizing in-depth interviews and observation to explore the motivations of a specific group of returnees to Kunming, a rapidly changing city in China?s developing western region, this study has identified three insights that can contribute to a better understating of the return migration process. The first two key findings jia xiang bao hometown babies? and the desire to be a big fish in a little sea? can motivate future policy decisions that seek to attract returnees. The third, unexpected finding xiao xiong xin or little ambition? of younger generations acknowledges the perceived heterogeneity among returnees. Further research and policy efforts that recognize heterogeneity by age group and other potentially important but, as yet unstudied factors will be able to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ever larger and inevitably more diverse returnee population.

Since the 1970s wage inequality has been growing in the United States, yet another measure of inequality, the difference between womens and mens mean wages, has been declining. Some argue that the gender wage gap would have decreased even more, had overall wage inequality not grown. According to these researchers, the increasing dispersion of wages pushed womens mean wage further away from mens, so women had to swim upstream to reduce the gender wage gap. This reasoning makes intuitive sense: as wage inequality increases, the disadvantage of those who earn below the average wage worsens, and the gain of those who earn above the average increases. Given that the proportion of women who earn below the overall mean wage is greater than that of men, when wages become more dispersed, womens mean wage should fall further behind that of men. However, the female wage dispersion is different from the male one, and has undergone a different transformation, as men and women operate in different labor markets. Relatively low-skilled men suffered the biggest decline in wages during the 1970s and 1980s, and as their wages fell, wage inequality among men increased. As growing wage inequality among men meant lower male wages, it led to a narrowing of the gender wage gap, so women did not have to swim against a current. Since the 1990s, however, the wages of low-skilled men stagnated, and the highest male wages grew even higher, so the gender wage conversion slowed down, because womens wages had to catch up with a moving target. My dissertation will make an important contribution by offering an explanation for the slowdown in gender convergence. It also offers an alternative solution to a methodological problem. The statistical method currently used to calculate the effect of inequality on the gender pay gap assumes that there is only one wage structure, and miscalculates the relationship between wage structure and gender pay gap. This dissertation introduces a new method, which takes into account gender differences in wage distribution.

In this paper we use data from the Current Population Survey to summarize labor market trends in the U.S. over the past 30 years. First we focus on secular trends over the four years (and three cycles) that constitute labor market peaks during this period: 1979, 1989, 2000, and 2007. Then we consider peak-to-trough changes in employment outcomes for each of the four recessions that have occurred in this period, including the Great Recession. Overall we find great unevenness in labor market performance across cycles and across demographic groups. Inequality has widened dramatically and important structural changes have occurred.Women and/or more-educated workers have gained substantially relative to men and/or the less-educated, while high earners within each group gained relative to others. The Great Recession has hurt all groups but especially young and less-educated men, whose outcomes had already deteriorated over time.

In this paper, we derive a semiparametric estimation procedure for the sample selection model when some covariates are endogenous. Our approach is to augment the main equation of interest with a control function which accounts for sample selectivity as well as endogeneity of covariates. In contrast to existing methods proposed in the literature, our approach allows that the same endogenous covariates may enter the main and the selection equation. We show that our proposed estimator is square-root-n-consistent and derive its asymptotic distribution. We provide Monte Carlo evidence on the small sample behavior of our estimator and present an empirical application. Finally, we briefly consider an extension of our model to quantile regression settings and provide guidelines for estimation.

Previous papers on testing for statistical discrimination and employer learning require variables that employers do not observe directly, but are observed by researchers or data on employer- provided performance measures. This paper develops a test that does not rely on these specific variables. The proposed test can be performed with individual-level cross-section data on employment status, experience, and some variables on which discrimination is based, such as race, gender, and education. Evidence from analysis using the March Current Population Survey for 1977-2010 supports statistical discrimination and employer learning. The empirical findings are not explained by alternative hypotheses, such as human capital theory, search and matching models, and the theory of taste-based discrimination.

This paper considers the impact of skill-based immigration restrictions, using the Chinese Exclusion Act as a natural experiment. I find that restrictions reduced the average occupational standing of Chinese immigrants, suggesting substitution between observed and unobserved skills. Conversely, children of restricted immigrants have greater human capital than those of unrestricted immigrants, despite restricted immigrants themselves having lower skill. This suggests particularly strong inter-generational transmission of skill among Chinese immigrants of the exclusion era, More generally, the findings indicate that the effects of skill-based restrictions are not always straightforward and may be heterogeneous across groups.

Real wages are typically calculated using a common price index that represents average prices nationwide. However, immigrants tend to settle in relatively expensive urban locations; deflating their nominal wages with a nationwide index understates the prices they face and overstates their real wages. I examine the implications of this price and settlement variation for the measurement of immigrant-native wage inequality and cohort assimilation. Accounting for the spatial variation in prices, the U.S. immigrant-native wage gap is much larger in real terms than in nominal terms. Relative wage improvements are slower in real terms over 1980-1990. Over 1990-2000 the pattern reverses; relative wage improvements are faster in real terms for each cohort. The rate of assimilation is slightly slower over 1980-2000. I consider a simple spatial equilibrium framework to interpret immigrants location decisions. The model allows for spatial differences in productivity and quality of life, which implicitly influence workers location choice. Calibration of the model suggests productivity differences are more important determinants of the relative concentration of immigrants.

Understanding patterns of daily life among contemporary retirement-age Americans ages 60 to 75 is of heightened importance as growing numbers of boomers and those in the cohort preceding them move through this life stage. In this paper, we focus on time spent in healthy behaviorskey risk factors for health and wellbeing which are even more important because they are potentially modifiable. We take a gendered life course approach considering gender as a primary organizing factor in daily life as well as the structuring effects of work and the potential rolelessness of non-work for older Americans. We use OLS regression to analyze daily time allocations to healthy and unhealthy behavior (sleep, exercise, meal preparation, leisure, and paid work) among retirement-age men and women using the American Time Use Survey (2006-2008). Along with employment status and gender, we consider the effects of health status and day of the week on time patterns.

Scholars of immigration disagree about the role ethnic communities play in immigrant families engagement in educational institutions. While some researchers argue that the concentration of disadvantaged ethnic groups may prevent meaningful engagement with schools, others argue that ethnic communities can possess resources that help immigrant families be involved in their childrens schooling. In this study we use a nationally representative dataset of Hispanic children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to determine if the relative size of the Hispanic population in the school affects levels of their parents involvement in their education, as well as parents perceptions of barriers to their involvement. Our results suggest that a large Hispanic presence in a childs school can help increase immigrant Hispanic parents involvement in their childrens schooling, but there are no benefits for US-born Hispanic parents, indicating that ethnic communities help immigrant families acculturate to American institutions.

Jordan's Journey is something new to the world of ancestry. It's a genealogical mashup incorporating photography, writing, design, research, and more. Gone are the boring register reports and dry descriptions found in genealogical tomes of old. Jordan's Journey takes a new approach, fusing together the creative and academic in a way that breathes new life into family history. The book is a lush, high-quality artist book that will be right at home on coffee tables everywhere. Equal parts genealogical memoir, art photography, and local history, Jordan's Journey pulls you in with a rich and immersive experience. With more than 75 original photos by the author, as well as over 150 vintage images, Jordan's Journey invites you on a trip into the rural south of yesteryear. The book traces the major family lines of Pope, Jordan, Scoggins, and Holcomb, along with the associated families of Clement, Love, Robbs, Goodson, Visinand/Whisinant, Anderson, Chapman, Lawrence, Rambo, Hawkins, Ward, Keown, and Cavender. Other allied families are discussed, as well as general local history of the Armuchee Valley region of northwest Georgia.

This report investigates the state of knowledge about urban non-farm home ownership by the native- and foreign-born population between 1890 and 1930. The hypothesis I entertain is that home ownership was relatively common for all non-farm residents in this era because an owned home was a good life-cycle asset. I also suggest that the life-cycle motive for saving was particularly strong for immigrants who intended to become permanent residents of the U.S. For 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930, I rely on samples drawn from the manuscript enumeration schedules underlying those four U.S. censuses. For 1890 I reproduce data published in the U.S. Census Reports of that year. I find that the incidence of home ownership rose with age for both the foreign- and native-born families in cross-sections drawn from the census samples. Homeownership rates calculated for immigrants were surprisingly high and exceeded those for the native born by a substantial margin when corrected for city size and other coincident variables. I find little reason to be concerned that negative selection among returning migrants distorted the cross-section profiles after excluding those residing in the U.S. for only a few years. Successive cohorts of arriving immigrants do not exhibit a decline in skills. The cross-section profiles of homeownership by age in 1900 accurately predict the ownership trajectory of each birth cohort through 1920. A measure of success in achieving home ownership is the homeownership rate for seniors (say age 55 and above). I find ownership rates at older ages exceeding 45 percent and in smaller urban places reaching 60 percent of the families examined. Ownership was less common in large cities than in smaller urban places.

This thesis theoretically and empirically analyzes the nature and consequences of interactions between family members. The first chapter tests whether children's human capital accumulation was significantly affected by earnings shocks to their nonresident kin in the context of the 1997-8 financial crisis in Indonesia. The crisis produced sudden, heterogeneous shocks that facilitate the construction of an exogenous measure of earnings changes. Results indicate that earnings shocks to nonresident kin - including extended family and relatives living in other districts- significantly affected children's human capital accumulation between 1997 and 2000, and ultimate educational attainment measured nearly a decade after the crisis hit. Supplementary results point to intra-family transfers, underpinned by ex post altruism, as an important channel of causation. The second chapter develops a theoretical model of private transfers underpinned by ex post altruism among members of a network. I use this model to analyze equilibrium transfer patterns and inequality under alternative income distributions and network structures. I demonstrate the general intuition that transfers obtain in equilibrium when the amount of altruism is sufficiently strong relative to income inequality. Within the networks that I analyze, every equilibrium involving transfers takes the same form: unique income thresholds separate senders from receivers. Effective risk sharing takes place among senders and receivers, while those at intermediate incomes remain in autarky. Every equilibrium gives rise to the same set of allocations. I contrast these predictions with insurance-based theories of transfers in which risk sharing is operative for small in come differences and may fall apart at large income differences. The third chapter uses longitudinal data spanning nearly fifteen years to test whether transfers among family members within Indonesia are consistent with ex post altruism, against the alternative of insurance. I use the predicted effects of permanent versus transitory income on transfers, as well as theoretical predictions from the second chapter regarding the shape of transfer functions , to carry out this test. The results provide some evidence that transfer motives are inconsistent with insurance but consistent with ex post altruism.

How much would output increase if underdeveloped economies were to increase their levels of schooling? We contribute to the development accounting literature by describing a non-parametric upper bound on the increase in output that can be generated by more schooling. The advantage of our approach is that the upper bound is valid for any number of schooling levels with arbitrary patterns of substitution/complementarity. Another advantage is that the upper bound is robust to certain forms of endogenous technology response to changes in schooling. We also quantify the upper bound for all economies with the necessary data, compare our results with the standard development accounting approach, and provide an update on the results using the standard approach for a large sample of countries.

Cross-country differences in output per worker in agriculture are twice as large as those in the aggregate, and 10 times larger than those in non-agriculture. This paper presents a model that can quantitatively account for these observations. The model features endogenous skill accumulation in a two-sector, life cycle version of the Roy(1951) model of self-selection. Aggregate barriers like low total factor productivity(TFP) reduce labor quality in agriculture by distorting the allocation of skills betweensectors, and by discouraging skill accumulation. A calibrated version of the model generates cross-country labor productivity differences in agriculture that are 1.8 times larger than those in the aggregate, and 5.7 times larger than those in non-agriculture. The model also captures salient features of the size distribution of farms in poor countries without appealing to farm level distortions.

Learning English is a potentially profitable investment for immigrants in the U.S.: while thereare initial costs, the subsequent benefits include the ability to communicate with the majority of the population, potentially leading to better paying jobs and economic success inthe new country. These payoffs are lessened if immigrants choose to live and work in ethnic enclaves where the necessity to communicate in English is weak. Ethnic enclaves arewidespread and persistent in the U.S. This study uses data from the 2010 American Community Survey to examine the impact of residential and occupational segregation onimmigrants ability to speak English. We allow for heterogeneity in the relationship betweensegregation and English language proficiency across ethnic groups and focus specifically onMexican and Chinese immigrants. Our results show that immigrants in the U.S. who live andwork among high concentrations of their countrymen are less likely to be proficient inEnglish than those who are less residentially and occupationally segregated. The magnitudeof the effect of segregation on language proficiency varies across immigrants birthplacesand other salient characteristics defining the immigration context.

In a recent paper in the Journal of Human Resources, Dynarski (2008) used data from the 1 percent 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files to demonstrate that merit scholarship programs in Georgia and Arkansas increased the stock of college-educated individuals in those states. This paper replicates the results in Dynarski (2008) but we also find important differences in the results between the 1 percent and 5 percent PUMS, especially for women. We also demonstrate that the author's use of clustered standard errors, given the small number of clusters and only two policy changes, severely understates confidence intervals.