The authors review the literature on sibling relationships in childhood and adolescence, starting by tracing themes from foundational research and theory and then focusing on empirical research during the past 2 decades. This literature documents siblings' centrality in family life, sources of variation in sibling relationship qualities, and the significance of siblings for child and adolescent development and adjustment. Sibling influences emerge not only in the context of siblings' frequent and often emotionally intense interactions but also by virtue of siblings' role in larger family system dynamics. Although siblings are building blocks of family structure and key players in family dynamics, their role has been relatively neglected by family scholars and by those who study close relationships. Incorporating study of siblings into family research provides novel insights into the operation of families as social and socializing systems.

In this dissertation, I examine the roles of migration and integration in influencing the health trajectories of Asian immigrants. Health trajectories refer to the changing health status of Asian immigrants as they spend more time in the United States. They are of particular interest to public health researchers, as they provide insight into the larger experiences of Asian immigrants in the United States and how they may affect health. Currently, health trajectories are interpreted though a lifestyle and behavioral framework that has shaped the majority of Asian American health literature. When we apply a structural perspective, it widens our interpretive lens to create a more complex picture of integration that considers several dimensions across which Asian immigrants are being incorporated into American society. Specifically, I identify and test social determinants of Asian immigrant health that originate from the historical and structural forces that have surrounded their economic, social and cultural integration into the United States.

How does recent black migration impact Atlanta’s geographies of black life? Since 1990, the Atlanta metropolitan region has become a major destination for three groups of black migrants from disparate origins: native-born “return south” blacks from other U.S. regions, Afro-Caribbean immigrants, and sub-Saharan African immigrants. These migrants’ ethnic diversity dismantles existing notions of “black” culture, politics, and place. Black Migration to Atlanta revises scholarship by demonstrating that we cannot understand the complexity of black lives in Atlanta without investigating the complex relationship between space, migration, and popular culture. Atlanta emerges not just as an urban core, but as a region—a multiplicity of metropolitan sites—imagined and contested through residential patterns, commercial geographies, and popular culture’s attempts to accommodate cultural and geographic shifts brought by recent black migration. In my first chapter, I provide a brief history of Atlanta’s racialized geography as a framework for my research. Then, I articulate black migrant residential geographies and delineate common patterns of suburbanization, exurbanization, and urban depopulation across groups. I next explore immigrant participation in the production of ethnic and regional foodways . I argue that such participation illustrates the ways migrants transform culturally and racially coded spaces through popular presentations of black ethnic diversity and make intraracial contact. Finally, I examine narrative modes of imagining migration to Atlanta. Popular culture texts contain “migrant imaginaries”—narrative constructions that advance specific relationships between migrants and imagined metropolitan places. These multiple, conflicting imaginaries are central to understanding how popular culture presents and informs migration. Black Migration to Atlanta relies on mapping, historical scholarship, census data, interviews with migrants, observational fieldwork, and close readings of popular culture. It draws attention to three migrants groups who thus far have garnered little academic or popular recognition because they do not fit easily into prevailing academic ideas about black urbanism, particularly in southern U.S. cities. Located within regional, national, and global networks of cultural production, these migrants broaden notions of ethnic and class diversity across a region long configured in terms of racial/spatial binary.

This paper explores whether the spread of air conditioning in the United States from 1960 to 1990 affected quality of life in warmer areas enough to influence decisions about where to live, or to change North-South wage and rent differentials. Using measures designed to identify climates in which air conditioning would have made the biggest difference, I found little evidence that the flow of elderly migrants to MSAs with such climates increased over the period. Following Roback (1982), I analyzed data on MSA wages, rents, and climates from 1960 to 1990, and find that the implicit price of these hot summer climates did not change significantly from 1960 to 1980, then became significantly negative in 1990. This contrary to what one would expect if air conditioning made hot summers more bearable. I presented evidence that hot summers are an inferior good, which would explain part of the negative movement in the implicit price of a hot summer, and evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the marginal person migrating from colder to hotter MSAs dislikes summer heat more than does the average resident of a hot MSA, which would also exert downward pressure on the implicit price of a hot summer.

One provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act is extensionof dependent coverage for young adults aged up to 26 years on their parents private insurance plan. This change, meant to increase insurance coverage for young adults,might yield unintended consequences.Confidentiality concerns may be triggered by coverage through parental insurance, particularly regarding sexual health. The existing literature and our original research suggest that actual or perceived limits to confidentiality could influence the decisions of young adults about whether, and where, to seek care for sexual health issues.Further research is needed on the scope and outcomes of these concerns. Possible remedial actions include enhanced policies to protect confidentiality in billing and mechanisms to communicate confidentiality protections to young adults.

The maturing of the post-1965 children of immigrants and the recent emergence of immigrant settlement outside of traditional locations have implications for understanding immigrant economic incorporation. This analysis examines how changing immigrant geographies will affect the economic prospects of immigrants and a maturing second generation, and addresses sociological and economic perspectives on internal migration and immigrant progress.

Across the United States rural communities are facing drastic shifts in their economies, their demographics, and the way they use their land. Many rural areas are traditionally agriculture, ranching, or forestry communities that in recent years have become economically depressed while losing their younger population. These communities are looking for ways to keep their community, culture, and industries alive. In order to better plan for the future of these areas, the reasoning behind these shifts needs to be understood. The purpose of this research is to examine the John Day Region of eastern Oregon and the forces that created a region shifting its economy from one of nearly entirely agriculture and natural resources, to a more service orientated economy. What were the choices land stakeholders made in order to create the current environment? An aging population, an influx in tourism and absentee landowners, and both federal and state legislation have all contributed to the economic shifts of the region and have serious implications for the future.

Coming out of the Great Recession, slow economic recovery has plagued U.S. communities. Cities and regions are seeking strategies that will grow jobs in the short term and improve standards of living over the long term. This paper examines how geographic regions can invest in the human capital and economic advancement of immigrants who are already living in their jurisdictions, to help boost short- and long-term growth. It highlights programs and partnerships that work to unlock skills of immigrants with foreign credentials and to build skills of immigrants who could advance in the market with targeted programs.

This study explores the effects of month of birth (a proxy for early-life environmental influences) on the chances of survival to age 100. Months of birth for 1,574 validated centenarians born in the United States in 1880-1895 were compared to the same information obtained for centenarians 10,885 shorter-lived siblings and 1,083 spouses. Comparison was conducted using a within-family analysis by the method of conditional logistic regression, which allows researchers to control for unobserved shared childhood or adulthood environment and common genetic background. It was found that month of birth has a significant long-lasting effect on survival to age 100: siblings born in September-November have higher odds to become centenarians compared to siblings born in March. A similar month-of-birth pattern was found for centenarian spouses. These results support the idea of early-life programming of human aging and longevity.

Following Vigdors (2001) demonstration of the transmission of locational advantage to the children of the Great Migration, I undertake a similar analysis to ascertain the significance of immigrants location choice on second generation educational and wage outcomes in adulthood. I create pseudo immigrant parent-second generation child generation cohorts for 1940-70 and 1970-2000 from the IPUMS, and construct selection models of parental internal migration on the following generations relative outcomes. Preliminary results show that historical patterns of selective internal migration by immigrants explain wage and educational outcomes into the second generation. The ways in which historical settlement patterns have been selective of wage inequality is stronger in the latter period from 1970-2000. Although parental location matters more for second generation educational gains in 1940-70, the second generation workers of 2000s wage parity with others is heavily determined by their parents previous location choices, especially among those who are non-white.

n this paper, I document trends in women's occupational mobility between 1980 and 2007 in the U.S labor market, and link these trends to two distinct sources: compositional and structural changes. In this context, compositional changes refers to the over time trends in the distributions of men and women in the occupational wage hierarchy, while structural changes are the trends in the relative standing of occupations in the wage hierarchy over time. The findings provide empirical evidence for both processes, indicating that the impressive upward occupational mobility of American women is a consequence not only of their increased access to highly paid occupations, but also of the higher wage increments in their typical occupational profiles relative to men'sa structural change not often acknowledged by sociologists.

Key Findings Underemployment (or involuntary part-time work) rates doubled during the second year of the recession, reaching roughly 6.5 percent in 2009. This increase was equally steep in bothrural and urban places. In March of 2012, underemployment was slightly lower in rural places (4.8 percent) compared to urban places (5.3 percent). Prior to the recession, however, underemployment was slightly higher in rural America. Workers under age 30, as well as women, black, and Hispanic workers, experience higher levels of underemployment. Underemployment is strongly linked with education, with the least educated workers experiencing higher rates of underemployment compared to more highly educated workers. This relationship is somewhat weaker in rural places.

In the current digital age more and more data is being collected, yet it’s unclear how to assure adequate privacy. The question of how to analyze large amounts of data while preserving privacy now prevails more than ever. In the course of history there have been many failed attempts, showing that reasoning about privacy is fraught with pitfalls. This caused an increased interest in a mathematically robust definition of privacy. We will prove that absolute disclosure prevention is impossible. In other words, a person that gains access to a database can always breach the privacy of an individual. This motivated the move to assuring relative disclosure prevention. One of the most promising definitions in this area is differential privacy. It addresses all the currently known attacks, has plenty of practical implementations, and knows many extensions that make it applicable in a wide range of situations. Networked data also poses challenging privacy issues. Both active and passive attacks, where the underlying structure of the network is used to de-anonymize individuals, are discussed in detail. Degree anonymization and algorithms to create a degree anonymous graphs will also be given. Al- though still an active research topic, privacy of networked data is considered increasingly important given the rise of social media.

This paper analyzes the relationship between same-sex marriage laws and sexually transmitted infections in the United States using state-level data from 1981 to 2008. We hypothesize that same-sex marriage laws may directly affect risky homosexual behavior; may affect or mirror social attitudes toward gays, which in turn may affect homosexual behavior; and may affect or mirror attitudes toward non-marital sex, which may affect risky heterosexual behavior. Our findings may be summarized as follows. Laws banning same-sex marriage are unrelated to gonorrhea rates, which are a proxy for risky heterosexual behavior. They are more closely associated with syphilis rates, which are a proxy for risky homosexual behavior. However, these estimates are smaller and less statistically significant when we exclude California, the state with the largest gay population. Also, laws permitting same-sex marriage are unrelated to gonorrhea or syphilis, but variation in these laws is insufficient to yield precise estimates. In sum, the findings point to a modest positive associationif any at allbetween same-sex marriage bans and syphilis

This study explores the effects of early-life and middle-life conditions on exceptional longevity using two matched case-control studies. The first study compares 198 validated centenarians born in the United States between 1890 and 1893 to their shorter-lived siblings. Family histories of centenarians were reconstructed and exceptional longevity validated using early U.S. censuses, the Social Security Administration Death Master File, state death indexes, online genealogies, and other supplementary data resources. Siblings born to young mothers (aged less than 25 years) had significantly higher chances of living to 100 compared to siblings born to older mothers (odds ratio = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.33- 3.11, p = .001). Paternal age and birth order were not associated with exceptional longevity. The second study explores whether people living to 100 years and beyond differ in physical characteristics at a young age from their shorter-lived peers. A random representative sample of 240 men who were born in 1887 and survived to age 100 was selected from the U. S. Social Security Administration database and linked to U.S. World War I civil draft registration cards collected in 1917 when these men were 30 years old. These validated centenarians were then compared to randomly selected controls who were matched by calendar year of birth, race, and place of draft registration in 1917. Results showed a negative association between "stout" body build (being in the heaviest 15 percent of the population) and survival to age 100. Having the occupation of "farmer" and a large number of children (4 or more) at age 30 increased the chances of exceptional longevity. The results of both studies demonstrate that matched case-control design is a useful approach in exploring effects of early-life conditions and middle-life characteristics on exceptional longevity.

Direct inspection of data on the Seahawk Stadium referendum in the State of Washington, plus a precinct-level Group Logit model of the odds of voting yes in King County, support the use of Group Logit estimation for voting outcomes and offer challenges to previous work. Those living closest to the proposed stadium site were the least likely to vote yes while those within easy access, also higher income voters in the most populated precincts, were dramatically more likely to do so. The probability of voting yes for the referendum peaked at approximately 19.1 miles from the proposed site. The odds of voting yes were higher in precincts with higher population; home value; income; and with higher proportions of elderly, Hispanic, Asian, Black, and renters. The odds of voting yes were lower in precincts with higher proportions of both persons below the poverty line and white-collar workers. Proportion of the precinct population with a college degree did not impact the odds of yes-votes.

Educational attainment in the United States increased dramatically during the twentieth century. In the 1940s, World War II temporarily halted the rise in high school and college graduation rates. Many studies document the subsequent increase in college-going among veterans due to the postwar GI Bill, while the potential negative eff ect on the educational attainment of others had been overlooked. This paper shows that World War II led to a large and persistent decline in educational attainment for the cohort of high school age females during the early 1940s. I interpret this finding in light of evidence that many women were forced to leave jobs obtained during wartime and suggest a connection to the timing of convergence in the gender wage gap starting in the 1970s.

Although socioeconomic status (SES) is hypothesized to be one of the key mechanisms that links segregation to health, there are no multilevel studies that examine if SES mediates the relationship between segregation and disability among Puerto Ricans across the U.S. This paper introduces the Racialized Place Inequality Framework and addresses three questions: Does segregation affect the likelihood that Puerto Ricans have a disability? Are higher levels of segregation associated with lower SES? Does SES mediate the relationship between segregation and disability? Multilevel results from the 2008-2010 American Community Survey (ACS) and 2000 U.S. Census show that segregation (1) increases individuals' probability of having a disability, (2) is associated with lower levels of SES, and (3) affects disability directly and indirectly through SES. These findings indicate that segregation is a powerful upstream-macro level social structure that continues to limit the life chances of people of color in the U.S. through SES.

Among the factors thought to contribute to lagging improvements in infant health in recent years are increasing obesity and diabetes prevalence among women of childbearing age. This paper uses a difference-in-difference-in-difference empirical strategy to investigate the impact of mandated insurance coverage for diabetes on adverse pregnancy outcomes. Among educated women, who have high rates of coverage through private insurance affected by mandates, diabetes mandates are associated with a reduction in low birth-weight and premature births prevalence. These gains are concentrated among older women and are larger for African- Americans. There is a weaker effect on the prevalence of high birth weight, potentially because of the deleterious effects of an increased probability of weight gain in excess of 35 pounds among diabetic women in states with mandates.