Both early teen marriage and dropping out of high school have historically been associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including higher poverty rates throughout life. Are these negative outcomes due to preexisting differences, or do they represent the causal effect of marriage and schooling choices? To better understand the true personal and societal consequences, in this article, I use an instrumental variables (IV) approach that takes advantage of variation in state laws regulating the age at which individuals are allowed to marry, drop out of school, and begin work. The baseline IV estimate indicates that a woman who marries young is 31 percentage points more likely to live in poverty when she is older. Similarly, a woman who drops out of school is 11 percentage points more likely to be poor. The results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications and estimation methods, including limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) estimation and a control function approach. While grouped ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates for the early teen marriage variable are also large, OLS estimates based on individual-level data are small, consistent with a large amount of measurement error.

This paper examines the evolution of women in the labor market, specifically their post-World War II employment, wages and education, by assessing the role of technology changing labor demand requirements, as a driving force. The empirical results in the United Sates data show that job requirements have shifted from more physical to more intellectual attributes. Moreover, women have always worked in occupations with relatively low physical requirements and, traditionally, also worked in occupations with lower intellectual requirements than men. However, the later trend has been reversed over time with women overtaking men in college education by the mid 1980s. This paper uses a model in which agents make work and education decisions to account for the importance of technological shifts in womens labor market experience. The key feature of the model is that individuals are heterogenous in their innate brain and brawn abilities, and women have on average less brawn than men. This is the main source for the employment, wage and education gaps in the 1950s between men and women. The general equilibrium model is simulated to account for the quantitative implications of brain biased technical change (BBTC), which is modeled as a rise in the share parameter on the brain factor in a CES production function, from 1950 to 2005. In particular, as BBTC favors womens comparative advantage in brain over brawn, the model is able to generate a large rise in female participation, closing gender wage and education gaps, in addition to a rising college premium. These results suggest that labor demand changes and multidimensional skill attributes are important in explaining the radical evolution of womens labor market participation, wages and education.

This study estimates the effects of prenatal poverty on birth weight using changes in state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) as a natural experiment. We seek to answer two questions about poverty and child wellbeing. First, are there associations between prenatal poverty and lower birth weights even after factoring out unmeasured potential confounders? Because birth weight predicts a range of outcomes across the life course, lower birth weights that result from poverty may have lasting consequences for childrens life chances. Second, how have recent expansions of a work-based welfare program (i.e., the EITC) affected maternal and infant health? In recent decades, U.S. poverty relief has become increasingly tied to earnings and labor markets, but the consequences for childrens wellbeing remain controversial. We find that state EITCs increase birth weights and reduce maternal smoking. However, results related to AFDC/TANF and varying EITC effects across maternal ages raise cautionary messages.

The last 40 years have witnessed a remarkable boom in higher education, particularly of women. Today in most higher-income countries and many lower-income countries, more women than men complete tertiary education. We present a model of the market for college graduates in which supply is a function of the distribution of the costs and benefits of college across individuals. We find little evidence that benefits are higher for women. It appears that differences in the total costs of college for women and men—primarily differences in the distributions of noncognitive skills—explain the overtaking of men by women in higher education.

Two forces are rapidly shifting the quality of jobs, reshaping the distribution of earnings and job opportunities, and redefining gender roles in OECD economies: employment polarization, whereby job opportunities are increasingly concentrated in high-skill, high-wage jobs, and in low-skill, low-wage jobs; and a reversal of the gender gap in higher education . . .

We start by writing a statistical model that allows the fertility-FLFP correlation, a macro concept, to be interpreted in terms of individual fertility and work decisions. We then examine variation across US metropolitan areas over time to assess the degree to which low skilled, mostly Hispanic immigrant inflows attenuated the negative correlation between childbearing and FLFP among college educated non-Hispanic natives. This differentiation by skill and ethnicity allows us to draw on a commonly used instrumental variables approach to isolate a causal channel of influence of immigrants on the outcomes of natives via the cost of local household services. Finally, we describe how our estimates of the effect of low skilled immigration on the correlation coefficient can be used to calculate concrete impacts on joint childbearing and labor force participation outcomes.

A better understanding of how teacher time use differs from other workers will likely provide insight into how to best design policies that successfully recruit, reward and retain quality teachers. This study uses the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to investigate teacher time use patterns. I find that during the school year teachers work approximately the same number of hours as similar professionals, however, they are more likely to take work home and are better able to align their working hours with their childrens school day. I find that teachers are able to devote more time to childcare than other professionals. This time use benefit, however, explains only a small portion of the salary gap between teachers and similarly educated workers.

Are highly educated workers better at locating in areas with high labor demand? To answer this question, I use three decades of U.S. Census data to estimate a McFadden-style model of residential location choice. I test for education differentials in the likelihood that young workers reside in states experiencing positive labor demand shocks at the time these workers entered the labor market. I find effects of changes in state labor demand on college graduate location choice that are several times greater than for high school graduates. Nevertheless, medium-run wage effects of entry labor market conditions for college graduates equal or exceed those of less-educated workers.

As a policy issue the minimum wage has traditionally been viewed by those that support it as a measure designed to assist the poor. Meanwhile, for those who oppose it, mainly the various interests that will have to bear the costs and economists steeped in the neoclassical tradition, the minimum wage is simply inefficient. Because minimum wage earners are usually at the bottom of the distribution and often lack the requisite skills to command higher wages, they are the ones most likely to be hurt by increases in the minimum wage as employers seeking to compensate for rising labor costs will only lay them off. The minimum wage has in short been viewed as essentially a poverty issue as opposed to a broader middle class labor–management issue. As a result, it has not always enjoyed the type of support that it might, particularly from members of Congress, were it couched in terms of broader middle class wage policy. When coupled with the bulk of the minimum wage literature claiming disemployment effects, the minimum wage tends to be marginalized and dismissed as that which will produce more harm than good. This is unfortunate because it misses the opportunity for the minimum wage, especially when coupled with new areas of research, to be part of a larger arsenal of wage policy in the service of democracy. In this article, I focus more on the political economy of the minimum wage, particularly since the advent of new studies that have called into question the efficacy of the traditional orthodoxy. I explore how, as a result of these new studies, which form what I refer to as the post-orthodoxy, the minimum wage might be conceived of as a broader middle class policy. Increasingly, the minimum wage is being explored from a variety of different perspectives. From a policy stance, the implications are enormous: because we are no longer tied to an orthodoxy that has led policy in one specific direction, we are now able to engage in greater policy experimentation (Levin-Waldman 2004). This no doubt requires additional research into areas that haven’t previously been explored, for the old orthodoxy effectively closed off all discussion. But new research can also serve to bridge the gap between the research of economists and the research of political scientists, which in many cases has spoken past one another. The result can only be new research where each respective discipline sheds light on the other, and the ultimate outcome is a wage policy that serves the broader interest of a democratic society.

We consider a life-cycle model with idiosyncratic risk in earnings, out-of-pocket medical and nursing home expenses, and survival. Partial insurance is available through welfare, Medicaid, and social security. Calibrating the model to the United States, we show that (1) savings for old-age, out-of-pocket expenses account for 13.5 percent of aggregate wealth, half of which is due to nursing home expenses; (2) cross-sectional out-of-pocket nursing home risk accounts for 3 percent of aggregate wealth and substantially slows down wealth decumulation at older ages; (3) the impact of medical and nursing home expenses on private savings varies significantly across the lifetime earnings distribution; and (4) all newborns would benefit if social insurance for nursing home stays was made more generous. JEL classification: E1, E2, H3, I1, I3

Gang task forces are multi-agency collaborations that seek to address and quell gang problems in the communities they serve. From a sociological perspective, gang task forces offer a rich topic ripe for study. Why do gang task forces form? Are certain demographic and political environments more conducive to gang task force implementation? Which agencies participate in gang task forces? What relationships exist between gang task force participants and non-participants? Are gang task forces effectivein combating real or perceived gang problems? This study is the first attempt to answer these important questions by examining every gang task force in operation in the UnitedStates today.Using a mixed methods approach, this study compares original survey data collected from 197 of the 249 gang task forces in current operation to secondary datacollected by the U.S. Census Bureau, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMSUSA), and the FBIs Uniform Crime Report to examine whether certain metropolitan areas are more likely to implement a gang task force and whether gang task forces are successful in curbing youth violence. After describing survey responses about gang task force formation and presenting a life table of the survival and hazard rate of gang task formation, the results of the Cox regression analyses suggest that gang task forces are likely to form in politically liberal areas of relative affluence with high juvenile crime rates. Further, and again after describing survey responses about gang task force effectiveness, the results of the fixed effects models suggest that gang task forces may indeed lower official juvenile crime rates while controlling for geographic region, race, socio-economic status, and political affiliation.To complement the national study of gang task force formation, structure and effectiveness, a case study of one particular gang task force, the Metro Gang Strike Forcein Minnesota (MGSF) is presented. After describing the organizational structure and network of relationships that exist in gang task forces according to national surveyrespondents, the case study provides a closer look into the structure of and relationships in the MGSF. A social network analysis examines the network positions of 27 of the 34 MGSF participants, and provides a visual depiction of their relationships.Overall, this national study of gang task forces and case study of the MGSF offers the first 1) attempt to explain why such multi-agency collaborations form, 2) glimpseinside the network of a gang task force, and 3) evaluation of the success of gang task forces. As the first study of its kind, results are preliminary and subject to the limitations of the available data and evaluation research. However, this comprehensive analysis can be extended to studies of other private and public sector initiatives, and paves the way for much needed future research on gang task forces specifically.

The American “high school movement” of the early 20th century resulted in a dramatic rise in high school graduation rates, a trend that continued into the middle of the century interrupted only by World War II. Previous work has characterized the pre-World War II transformation of secondary education, but less attention has been focused on the continued increased in educational attainment after the War, culminating in Baby Boomer children graduating from high school at a greater rate than any previous generation. High rates of military service and subsequent subisidies for factors shown to be associated with children’s educational attainment offer a possible explanation. In this paper, I link Baby Boomer children to their fathers using IPUMS data to examine this relationship. I find that father’s veteran status is associated with greater educational attainment for children, but I am unable to provide evidence that this is due to an exogenous effect of military service and GI Bill subsidies and not positive selection into military service.

Over the last 25 years the Social Security Disability Insurance Program (DI) has grown dramatically. During the same period of time employment rates for men with work limitations showed substantial declines in both absolute and relative terms. While the timing of these trends suggests that the expansion of DI was a major contributor to employment decline and raises questions about the targeting of disability benefits, studies using denied applicants suggest a more modest role for DI expansion. In order to reconcile these findings, we decompose total employment changes into population and employment changes for three categories: DI beneficiaries, denied applicants and non-applicants. Our results show that during the early 1990s, the growth in DI can fully explain the employment decline for men only under an extreme assumption about the employment potential of beneficiaries. For the period after the mid-1990s, we find little role for the DI program in explaining the continuing employment decline for men with work limitations.

The paper analyses factors influencing the destinations chosen by 13 different categories of migrant engineers in the USA between 1994 to 1999. Migration patterns are analysed with the aid of fractional-response regression models. The objective is to assess the relative weight of employment opportunities and selected amenities in guiding the migratory shifts of these workers. Engineers are divided into two categories representing individuals of working age and those who are either retired or are close to retirement. The results indicate that local employment opportunities have a dominant impact on the destinations chosen by the former group and that amenities play virtually no role in this regard. However, warmer winters have some modest positive effect on destinations chosen by the latter group.

Never-married motherhood is associated with worse educational outcomes for children. But this association may reflect other factors that also determine family structure, rather than causal effects. We use incarceration rates for men as instrumental variables in estimating the effect of never-married motherhood on the high school dropout rate of black and Hispanic children. We find that unobserved factors drive the negative relationship between never-married motherhood and child education, at least for children of women whose marriage decisions are affected by incarceration of men. For Hispanics we find evidence that these children actually may be better off living with a never-married mother.

Given a set of data points in a multidimensional space, a skyline query retrieves those data points that are not dominated by any other point in the same dataset. Observingthat the properties of Z-order space filling curves (or Z-order curves) perfectly matchwith the dominance relationships among data points in a geometrical data space, we, in this paper, develop and present a novel and efficient processing framework to evaluate skyline queries and their variants, and to support skyline result updates based on Z-order curves. This framework consists of ZBtree, i.e., an index structure to organize a source dataset and skyline candidates, and a suite of algorithms, namely, (1) ZSearch, which processes skyline queries, (2) ZInsert, ZDelete and ZUpdate, which incrementally maintain skyline results in presence of source dataset updates, (3) ZBand, which answers skyband queries,(4) ZRank, which returns top-ranked skyline points, (5) k-ZSearch, which evaluates k-dominant skyline queries, and (6) ZSubspace, which supports skyline queries on a subset of dimensions.While derived upon coherent ideas and concepts, our approaches are shown to outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms that are specialized to address particular skyline problems, especially when a large number of skyline points are resulted, via comprehensive experiments.

Objectives. Socioeconomic segregation rose substantially in U.S. cities during the finaldecades of the 20th century and we argue zoning regulations are an important cause for thisincrease. Methods. We measure neighborhood economic segregation using the Gini Coefficientfor neighborhood income inequality and the poor-affluent exposure index. These outcomes areregressed on an index of density zoning developed from the work of Pendall for 50 U.S.metropolitan areas, while controlling for other metropolitan characteristics likely to affect urbanhousing markets and class segregation. Results. For both 2000 and changes from 1990 to 2000,OLS estimates reveal a strong relationship between density zoning and income segregation, andreplication using 2SLS suggests that the relationship is causal. We also show that zoning isassociated with higher inter-jurisdictional inequality. Conclusions. Metropolitan areas withsuburbs that restrict the density of residential construction are more segregated on the basis ofincome than those with more permissive density zoning regimes. This arrangement perpetuatesand exacerbates racial and class inequality in the United States.

Urban settlement patterns in American cities are transforming, altering the urban dynamic as well as the spatial component of ethnic groups relative to the spatial assimilation framework. Growth in Asian immigrants and moves into more diverse neighborhoods outside of the city center are the most recent trends in immigration affecting major cities. This study examines the residential patterns of the two most predominant Asian groups in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, New York City, and San Francisco. Micro-level data for these cities are used to estimate locational attainment models, evaluating the effects of median household income and the percentage of whites in a Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA). Locational attainment models show positive effects with education, homeownership, and new immigrants. The Asian groups examined show moderate segregation with other ethnic and racial groups.