One out of every eight people between the ages of 18 and 67 in the United States has a hearing loss, estimated as 12 percent of the working-age population. Sound Sense: Living and Learning with Hearing Loss addresses the acute need of these people to function at the highest level in these income-earning years, the longest phase in their lives. In nine pointed chapters, author Sara Laufer Batinovich, who also has lost her hearing, shares her experience and knowledge in turning every challenge into an opportunity to become ones best self-advocate.Batinovich begins in the workplace, advising on winning a job, keeping it, and developing a long-term career, plus how to reduce stress and establish fulfilling professional relationships with colleagues. She offers tips on communication ranging from having sales people face you for easier speechreading to parsing boarding announcements at airports and play-by-play at ballparks. Her practical handbook also provides step-by-step guidance for getting a hearing aid or a cochlear implant and finding ones way through prickly insurance claim mazes.Sound Sense features information on finding a service dog, securing legally mandated accommodations for continuing education, tips on exercise and health, and even sensitive suggestions on strengthening personal relationships. Batinovichs vivacious style and her own anecdotes add an upbeat, genuine sensibility to her books value as a positive guide to living with hearing loss.

Military service has traditionally been the domain of healthy, robust males, butservice can also reflect risk preference and socioeconomic status. Service also raisesthe probability of exposure to violence through combat, a significant stressor, and itmay represent other types of treatments as well, both positive and negative. We mightexpect to find an ambiguous relationship between military service and later-life health,and several recent studies support this. In this paper, we explore the relationshipbetween combat exposure and health past age 50 in the Health and Retirement Study,a rich longitudinal panel including many male veterans that now asks about combatexposure in its core survey. Using regression analysis and an instrumental variablesapproach, we show that combat exposure harms mental health and emotional well-being and raises a biomarker of stress at older ages, but it appears often to havenegligible effects on a wide array of physical health metrics.

This paper develops methods for assessing the sensitivity of empirical conclusions regarding conditional distributions to departures from the missing at random (MAR) assumption.We index the degree of non-ignorable selection governing the missingness process by the maximal Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) distance between the distributions of missing and observedoutcomes across all values of the covariates. Sharp bounds on minimum mean square approximations to conditional quantiles are derived as a function of the nominal level of selection considered in the sensitivity analysis and a weighted bootstrap procedure is developed forconducting inference. Using these techniques, we conduct an empirical assessment of the sensitivity of observed earnings patterns in U.S. Census data to deviations from the MARassumption. We nd that the well-documented increase in the returns to schooling between 1980 and 1990 is relatively robust to deviations from the missing at random assumption except at the lowest quantiles of the distribution, but that conclusions regarding heterogeneity in returns and changes in the returns function between 1990 and 2000 are very sensitive to departures from ignorability.

Debate rages about the viability of current immigration policies in the United States. While America is known as a “nation of immigrants” we also know that at various times in the nation’s history the welcome mat to persons from other nations has been pulled. The nation’s doors have at times been wide open, yet at other times they were solidly closed. A question asked by natives is how well the “other” will fit with the American work ethic and the American ideal of economic success. Do immigrants contribute economically or do they drain the resources of others? Do immigrants enhance economic strength or do they hasten economic decline? Will immigrants bolster values that have promoted economic development or will they undermine them? Will immigrants embrace Protestant values in regard to work, self-sufficiency, education, saving, and risk taking? Central to Calvinist belief of the Massachusetts settlers were the beliefs that people should not lust after wealth or easy living, that reinvesting profits of one’s labor was acceptable, and that it is appropriate to seek occupations which provide the greatest earnings. According to Calvinism, success in one’s work is associated with being one of God’s “Elect” (Hill 1996).

How many "American jobs" have U.S.-born workers lost due to immigration and offshoring? Or, alternatively, is it possible that immigration and offshoring, by promoting cost-savings and enhanced efficiency in firms, have spurred the creation of jobs for U.S. natives? We consider a multi-sector version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) model with a continuum of tasks in each sector and we augment it to include immigrants with heterogeneous productivity in tasks. We use this model to jointly analyze the impact of a reduction in the costs of offshoring and of the costs of immigrating to the U.S. The model predicts that while cheaper offshoring reduces the share of natives among less skilled workers, cheaper immigration does not, but rather reduces the share of offshored jobs instead. Moreover, since both phenomena have a positive "cost-savings" effect they may leave unaffected, or even increase, total native employment of less skilled workers. Our model also predicts that offshoring will push natives toward jobs that are more intensive in communication-interactive skills and away from those that are manual and routine intensive. We test the predictions of the model on data for 58 U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 2000-2007 and find evidence in favor of a positive productivity effect such that immigration has a positive net effect on native employment while offshoring has no effect on it. We also find some evidence that offshoring has pushed natives toward more communicationintensive tasks while it has pushed immigrants away from them.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether air quality influences the prevalence of pediatric frequent ear infections and respiratory allergy. STUDY DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Academic medical center. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The National Health Interview Survey child sample for the calendar years 1997 through 2006 was analyzed, extracting 12-month prevalence data for the following three disease conditions: frequent (>= 3 within 12 months) ear infections, respiratory allergy, and seizures (non-respiratory control condition). Based on information from the Environmental Protection Agency, yearly historical data for the air quality criteria pollutants carbon monoxide, nitrous dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter were tabulated. Graphical and linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the influence of air quality on each of the disease conditions. RESULTS: A total of 126,060 children were studied (51.4% male, mean age 8.6 yrs). Overall, the 12-month prevalence for three or more ear infections, respiratory allergy, and seizures was 6.6%, 11.7%, and 0.7%, respectively. Air quality steadily improved over the study period. Statistically significant positive regression coefficients were obtained for each of the criteria pollutants with ear infections (all P = 0.409). For the nonrespiratory condition seizures, nonsignificant regression coefficients were again identified (all P >= 0.404). CONCLUSIONS: Better air quality is significantly associated with lower prevalence of pediatric frequent ear infections but is not associated with the prevalence of pediatric respiratory allergy. Improvements in air quality may be implicated in the decreased rates of pediatric ear infections over time. (C) 2010 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. All rights reserved.

Military service has traditionally been the domain of healthy, robust males, but service can also reflect risk preference and socioeconomic status. Service also raisesthe probability of exposure to violence through combat, a significant stressor, and it may represent other types of treatments as well, both positive and negative. We mightexpect to find an ambiguous relationship between military service and later-life health, and several recent studies support this. In this paper, we explore the relationshipbetween combat exposure and health past age 50 in the Health and Retirement Study, a rich longitudinal panel including many male veterans that now asks about combatexposure in its core survey. Using regression analysis and an instrumental variables approach, we show that combat exposure harms mental health and emotional well-being and raises a biomarker of stress at older ages, but it appears often to have negligible effects on a wide array of physical health metrics.

This paper is the first to present an estimate of the relationship between compulsory schooling laws and school quality in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. To arrive at this estimate I use previously unused city-level data on pupil-teacher ratios, expenditures per pupil, length of school term, and attendance rates. My results indicate that compulsory schooling laws negatively affected school quality. This suggests that the effects of government policy to increase education levels during this period should be tempered since each year of education after the stricter laws were passed was of lower quality. Moreover, this negative relationship persisted for several years after the laws were passed. As an important aside, my results imply that returns-to-schooling estimates that use compulsory schooling law changes as an exogenous source of variation in educational attainment are potentially biased downwards.

How many "American jobs" have U.S.-born workers lost due to immigration and offshoring? Or, alternatively, is it possible that immigration and offshoring, by promoting cost-savings and enhanced efficiency in firms, have spurred the creation of jobs for U.S. natives? We consider a multi-sector version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) model with a continuum of tasks in each sector and we augment it to include immigrants with heterogeneous productivity in tasks. We use this model to jointly analyze the impact of a reduction in the costs of offshoring and of the costs of immigrating to the U.S. The model predicts that while cheaper offshoring reduces the share of natives among less skilled workers, cheaper immigration does not, but rather reduces the share of offshored jobs instead. Moreover, since both phenomena have a positive "cost-savings" effect they may leave unaffected, or even increase, total native employment of less skilled workers. Our model also predicts that offshoring will push natives toward jobs that are more intensive in communication-interactive skills and away from those that are manual and routine intensive. We test the predictions of the model on data for 58 U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 2000-2007 and find evidence in favor of a positive productivity effect such that immigration has a positive net effect on native employment while offshoring has no effect on it. We also find some evidence that offshoring has pushed natives toward more communication-intensive tasks while it has pushed immigrants away from them.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether air quality influences the prevalence of pediatric frequent ear infections and respiratory allergy. STUDY DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Academic medical center. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The National Health Interview Survey child sample for the calendar years 1997 through 2006 was analyzed, extracting 12-month prevalence data for the following three disease conditions: frequent (>= 3 within 12 months) ear infections, respiratory allergy, and seizures (non-respiratory control condition). Based on information from the Environmental Protection Agency, yearly historical data for the air quality criteria pollutants carbon monoxide, nitrous dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter were tabulated. Graphical and linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the influence of air quality on each of the disease conditions. RESULTS: A total of 126,060 children were studied (51.4% male, mean age 8.6 yrs). Overall, the 12-month prevalence for three or more ear infections, respiratory allergy, and seizures was 6.6%, 11.7%, and 0.7%, respectively. Air quality steadily improved over the study period. Statistically significant positive regression coefficients were obtained for each of the criteria pollutants with ear infections (all P = 0.409). For the nonrespiratory condition seizures, nonsignificant regression coefficients were again identified (all P >= 0.404). CONCLUSIONS: Better air quality is significantly associated with lower prevalence of pediatric frequent ear infections but is not associated with the prevalence of pediatric respiratory allergy. Improvements in air quality may be implicated in the decreased rates of pediatric ear infections over time. (C) 2010 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. All rights reserved.

The routine activity approach, lifestyle perspective, and environmental criminology, all argue the risk of violence is not distributed evenly across time and space. This dissertation quantifies the risk of violence for different activities and types of place. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and American Time Use Survey, activity- and place-specific rates of violence are calculated to determine (a) which activity or type of place is the most dangerous, (b) the relative risk of activities and types of place, and (c) how activity- and place-specific risks vary between demographic subgroups. Time-based rates are used to account for the reality that Americans do not spend equal amounts of time in activities and types of place. The activity-specific analysis showed sleeping was the safest activity in America; going to and from school was the most dangerous. The risk of violence during the school commute is 285 times higher than it is while sleeping. The place-specific analysis indicated home was the safest place to be while the street was the most dangerous; the risk of violence on the street was 51 times higher than it was at home. When rates of violence were calculated for demographic subgroups of the American population, the race and sex of individuals were found to have little effect on the risk of violence. Age was the only demographic variable included in the analysis that had substantial impact on the risk of victimization in different activities and types of place. These findings indicate crime prevention strategies cannot neglect the role lifestyles play in an individual’s risk of victimization. Because the risk of violence varies greatly between activities and types of place it is inappropriate to label demographic subgroups as high risk based on the population size alone. This research indicates it is what people do, not who they are, that determines their risk of violence. Additionally, this research shows risk assessments that do not account for the transient nature of Americans in time and space can produce misleading information as to which activities and types of place are the most dangerous.

How significant was the economic progress of African-American men in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000? The common perception is that inequality between races decreased. In 1954, the Supreme Courts decision in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case proclaimed racial segregation of public schools unconstitutional. The ruling eventually paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation in schools and in the workplace, among other provisions. The act opened doors to better education, including higher education, for blackchildren. Because it made racial discrimination illegal, thenew law offered greater opportunities to African-Americansin the labor markets.Did these societal changes translate into economic changes,as well, for blacks? Did earnings of blacks increase relativeto earnings of whites? Did the position of black men in thelabor force become more secure? How much did educationalattainment and skill acquisition improve?

This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of changes in the gender employmentdifferentials for non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks in the United States over theperiod from 1950 to 2008. We begin by documenting the evolution of the gender employmentrate gap. The gender employment differentials narrows considerably within both racial groupsand turns slightly negative for African-Americans. We document the changing employmentlevels by gender that drive these patterns as well as compositional shifts in each gender-racepopulation that drive changes in employment levels (e.g., changes in education, marriage,fertility and incarceration). Among whites, nearly all of the narrowing is attributable toincreasing employment among white women, which is in turn explained by declining marriageand fertility, increasing education, and increasing employment within groups defined by thesecharacteristics. While we observe similar changes for African-American women, a largecomponent of the narrowing of the black gender differential is explained by decliningemployment among black men. Black employment rates decline precipitously for the leasteducated and post-1980 are driven down further by increased institutionalization and decliningmarriage. Finally, we explore whether the correlates of employment among women arethemselves responsive to changes in the employment prospects of men. In an analysis of statelevelinter-decade changes in female outcomes, we find that a worsening of black maleemployment prospects is associated with an increase in the proportion of women with educationbeyond high school, a decline in marriage, and a decline in fertility among African-Americanwomen. For white women, we observe similar results for marriage and fertility. We also findthat the employment differential between white women with very young children and whitewomen without children declines with declining white male employment.

The Latino† population is one of the youngest and fastest-growing populations in the United States. While the share of all Latinos ages 15–24 has remained fairly constant over the past decade, the Latino population under the age of 14 grew by 3.2 million people between 2000 and 2008 and now constitutes 22.4% of all children age 14 and younger, compared to 17.4% in 2000.¹ As the data below reflect, Latino youth experience high levels of poverty, high dropout rates, low graduation rates, and high unemployment rates. Given demographic projections which estimate that Latinos will compose about 30% of the U.S. population by 2050, these challenges are significant and pressing for the nation as a whole.

How many "American jobs" have U.S.-born workers lost due to immigration and offshoring? Or, alternatively, is it possible that immigration and offshoring, by promoting cost-savings and enhanced efficiency in firms, have spurred the creation of jobs for U.S. natives? We consider a multi-sector version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) model with a continuum of tasks in each sector and we augment it to include immigrants with heterogeneous productivity in tasks. We use this model to jointly analyze the impact of a reduction in the costs of offshoring and of the costs of immigrating to the U.S. The model predicts that while cheaper offshoring reduces the share of natives among less skilled workers, cheaper immigration does not, but rather reduces the share of offshored jobs instead. Moreover, since both phenomena have a positive "cost-savings" effect they may leave unaffected, or even increase, total native employment of less skilled workers. Our model also predicts that offshoring will push natives toward jobs that are more intensive in communication-interactive skills and away from those that are manual and routine intensive. We test the predictions of the model on data for 58 U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 2000-2007 and find evidence in favor of a positive productivity effect such that immigration has a positive net effect on native employment while offshoring has no effect on it. We also find some evidence that offshoring has pushed natives toward more communication-intensive tasks while it has pushed immigrants away from them.

Making inferences about aggregate business cycles from regional variation alone is difficult because of economic channels and shocks that differ between regional and aggregate economies. However, we argue that regional business cycles contain valuable information that can help discipline models of aggregate fluctuations. We begin by documenting a strong relationship across US states between local employment and wage growth during the Great Recession. This relationship is much weaker in US aggregates. Then, we present a methodology that combines such regional and aggregate data in order to estimate a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model. We find that aggregate demand shocks were important drivers of aggregate employment during the Great Recession, but the wage stickiness necessary for them to account for the slow employment recovery and the modest fall in aggregate wages is inconsistent with the flexibility of wages we observe across US states. Finally, we show that our methodology yields different conclusions about the causes of aggregate employment and wage dynamics between 2007 and 2014 than either estimating our model with aggregate data alone or performing back-of-theenvelope calculations that directly extrapolate from well-identified regional elasticities

The past quarter century has seen an increasing amount of research on the demographic characteristics and economic decisions of gay and lesbian Americans. The majority of thenationally representative research on same-sex couples in the United States uses the U.S. Census and American Community Surveys as primary data source. We utilize differences in data collection methods in the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2005-2007 to explore therole of misallocation in the identified same-sex unmarried partner sample. By comparing demographic and economic characteristics over the distribution of responses, we show asignificant portion of identified same-sex households are likely incorrectly allocated different sex married couples. Based on our analysis, we provide empirical guidance to researchers interested in obtaining accurate demographic and economic characteristics of same-sex households from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey.

Why did Hispanics who participated in Job Corps (JC) training not experience earnings gains like whites and blacks, despite achieving similar human capital gains? We find that the differential labor market outcomes of each group are related to the different levels of local labor market unemployment rates (LUR) they face. Furthermore, the groups exhibit differential impacts on their earnings from the LUR they face, which also vary by randomization status. We find that (a) blacks and Hispanics face higher LUR that mitigate their potential gains from JC and (b) JC shields whites from adverse LUR, but not blacks and Hispanics. (JEL J24, J13, J15)

Ce cédérom est l’édition commentée d’une base de données géoréferencées pour un siècle de suivi démographique et administratif de l’ensemble des localités, villes et territoires sud-africains. La base DYSTURB compile, harmonise et met en relation dans le temps, d’une part l’ensemble des cartes politiques, administratives et fonctionnelles des districts, provinces et aires urbaines, et d’autre part les données démographiques et administratives concernant l’ensemble des localités sud-africaines depuis 1911. Au total, ce sont plus de 20 000 localités géoréférencées du recensement de 2001 qui sont ainsi mises en perspective spatio-temporelle à travers les périodes post-coloniales, d’apartheid et de post-apartheid. DYSTURB a une triple vocation d’outil et d’analyse pour l’archéologie spatiale et territoriale, la démographie historique, et les dynamiques urbaines, ce dont témoignent les séries de cartes commentées et réalisées pour ce cédérom.

Geocomputation is increasingly integrated with spatial data infrastructure to develop and deliver massive datasets and attendant analysis and visualization capacity to a wide range of users. IPUMS Terra is spatial data infrastructure that develops and uses geocomputational approaches to provide one of the largest collections of integrated population and environment data in the world. In this paper, we describe new efforts to fundamentally change the landscape of population-environment data by integrating, preserving, and disseminating vast amounts of aggregate census and agricultural census data. We are developing data manipulation tools and workflow management approaches to transform and standardize data as well as capture metadata. These developments in turn facilitate the processing, documenting, and intake of tens of thousands of data tables into IPUMS Terra, which then are shared with the scientific community and the broader public to advance understanding of the population and agricultural systems that are central to many complex human-environment systems.