This study examines the earnings of African immigrants across three waves of U.S. Census data (1980, 1990, and 2000). The authors find that the U.S. labor market favors White male immigrants, followed by Black male and White female immigrants, and finally Black women. The authors also find that male immigrants earned more per hour than female immigrants regardless of race. Considering change over time, this study finds that the earnings gap between Black and White male immigrants is growing larger over time, the positive association between foreign work experience and earnings is attenuated over time, and for women, the positive effect of earning a college degree on earnings is growing stronger over time. These findings confirm many of the conclusions reached by other race and gender scholars; however, the authors extend this work by focusing on male and female African immigrants, who are largely under-represented in the literature, and by examining change over time.

It is often asserted that the gender gap in educational attainment is larger for blacks than whites,but the historical trends that lead up to the current situation have received surprisingly littleattention. Analysis of historical data from the U.S. Census IPUMS Samples shows that thegender gap in college completion has evolved differently for whites and blacks. Historically, thefemale advantage in educational attainment among blacks is linked to more favorable labormarket opportunities and stronger incentives for employment for educated black women.Blacks, particularly black males, still lag far behind whites in their rates of college completion,but the striking educational gains of white women have caused the racial patterns of genderdifferences in college completion rates to grow more similar over time. While some have linkedthe disadvantaged position of black males to their high risk of incarceration, our estimatessuggest that incarceration has a relatively small impact on the black gender gap and the racialgap in college completion rates for males in the U.S.

We empirically investigate the effect of tolerance for gays on the spread of HIV in the United States. Using a state-level panel dataset spanning the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, we find that tolerance is negatively associated with the HIV rate. We then investigate the causal mechanisms potentially underlying this relationship. We find evidence consistent with the theory that tolerance for homosexuals causes low-risk men to enter the pool of homosexual partners, as well as causes sexually active men to substitute away from underground, anonymous, and risky behaviors, both of which lower the HIV rate. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Between 1996 and 2006, real housing prices rose by 53 percent according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency price index. One explanation of this boom is that it was caused by easy credit in the form of low real interest rates, high loan-to-value levels and permissive mortgage approvals. We revisit the standard user cost model of housing prices and conclude that the predicted impact of interest rates on prices is much lower once the model is generalized to include mean-reverting interest rates, mobility, prepayment, elastic housing supply, and credit-constrained home buyers. The modest predicted impact of interest rates on prices is in line with empirical estimates, and it suggests that lower real rates can explain only one-fifth of the rise in prices from 1996 to 2006. We also find no convincing evidence that changes in approval rates or loan-to-value levels can explain the bulk of the changes in house prices, but definitive judgments on those mechanisms cannot be made without better corrections for the endogeneity of borrowers decisions to apply for mortgages.

This paper analyzes partial identification of parameters that measure a distributions spread, for example, the variance, Gini coefficient, entropy, or interquartile range. The core results are tight, two-dimensional identification regions for the expectation and variance, the median and interquartile ratio, and many other combinations of parameters. They are developed for numerous identification settings, including but not limited to cases where one can bound either the relevant cumulative distribution function or the relevant probability measure. Applications include missing data, interval data, short versus long regressions, contaminated data, and certain forms of sensitivity analysis. The application to missing data is worked out in some detail, including closed-formworst-case bounds on some parameters as well as improved bounds that rely on nonparametric restrictions on selection effects. A brief empirical application to bounds on inequality measures is provided. The bounds are very easy to compute. The ideas underlying them are explained in detail and should be readily extended to even more settings than are explicitly discussed.

Internships are no longer a rare added bonus for students, but now a standard component of the college experience. A national survey in 2006 found that 84 percent of college students at four-year institutions had completed at least one internship before graduation. It is not hard to understand why so many students pursue these opportunities. Internships offer a myriad of benefits: experience in an organization and industry that gives insight on careers, new skill training, and exposure to a network of professionals in a field of interest. . .

Background: Asians and Hispanics have the highest incidence rates of liver cancer in the United States, but little is known about how incidence patterns in these largely immigrant populations vary by nativity, acculturation, and socioeconomic status (SES). Such variations can identify high-priority subgroups for prevention and monitoring. Methods: Incidence rates and rate ratios (IRR) by nativity among 5,400 Hispanics and 5,809 Asians diagnosed with liver cancer in 1988–2004 were calculated in the California Cancer Registry. Neighborhood ethnic enclave status and SES were classified using 2000 U.S. Census data for cases diagnosed in 1998–2002. Results: Foreign-born Hispanic males had significantly lower liver cancer incidence rates than U.S.-born Hispanic males in 1988–2004 (e.g., IRR ¼ 0.54, 95% confidence interval [CI] ¼ 0.50–0.59 in 1997–2004), whereas foreign-born Hispanic females had significantly higher rates in 1988–1996 (IRR ¼ 1.42, 95% CI ¼ 1.18–1.71), but not 1997–2004. Foreign-born Asian males and females had up to 5-fold higher rates than the U.S.-born. Among Hispanic females, incidence rates were elevated by 21% in higher-enclave versus lower-enclave neighborhoods, and by 24% in lower- versus higher-SES neighborhoods. Among Asian males, incidence rates were elevated by 23% in higher-enclave neighborhoods and by 21% in lower-SES neighborhoods. In both racial/ ethnic populations, males and females in higher-enclave, lower-SES neighborhoods had higher incidence rates. Conclusions: Nativity, residential enclave status, and neighborhood SES characterize Hispanics and Asians with significantly unequal incidence rates of liver cancer, implicating behavioral or environmental risk factors and revealing opportunities for prevention.

Since the onset of HIV/AIDS awareness in the early 1980s, much attention has centered around the substantial negative effects of the disease throughout the world. This paper provides evidence of a secondary effect the disease has had on sexual behavior in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences estimation framework and state level data, we show that the perceived threat of HIV resulted in a drop in unwanted pregnancies, as demonstrated by a lower incidence of abortions. Our results suggest that each additional reported case of HIV per 1,000 individuals resulted in 85.5 fewer abortions per 1,000 live births.

The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven primarily by an increase in claims from Vietnam veterans, raising concerns about costs as well as health. We use the draft lottery to study the long-term effects of Vietnam-era military service on health and work in the 2000 Census. These estimates show no significant overall effects on employment or work-related disability status, with a small effect on non-work-related disability for whites. On the other hand, estimates for white men with low earnings potential show a large negative impact on employment and a marked increase in non-work-related disability rates. The differential impact of Vietnam-era service on low-skill men cannot be explained by more combat or war theatre exposure for the least educated, leaving the relative attractiveness of VDC for less skilled men and the work disincentives embedded in the VDC system as a likely explanation.

Objectives/Aims: Later life migration among the baby boomer generation will have far-reaching implications of economic development and for planning strategies to ensure adequate health, housing and welfare in the right place at the right time. However, much of the current debate about the future trajectory of this type of human mobility has been based on speculation. The goal of this research is to gain a better understanding of later life migration and the likely future trajectory of the retired baby boomers in Europe. Methodology The objective of this report is to focus on the effects of an ageing population in terms of urban development and retirement migration. The report discusses the regional population projections and its social impacts. An analysis on the impacts of urbanization and differential ageing across regions will be given. Moving beyond the simple assumption of a continuation of current trends, a number of alternative scenarios are explored to simulate the likely future trajectories of the baby boomers. Potential impacts on retirement migration caused by changes in average retirement age, altered lifestyle preferences and the large size of the baby boomer generation are considered. Results / findings / conclusion Contrary to the view of Keyfitz (1982: 729), empirical knowledge about past demographic trends can improve the accuracy of predictions (see also Sanderson, 1998). However, the importance of uncertainty in projecting future retirement migration behaviour has to be acknowledged. Factors such as the size of the cohort can be predicted beforehand, whereas the boomers’ decision making and preferences in retirement are inherently unpredictable. Using scenarios that take into account potential shifts in intensity and spatial structure caused by the distinctive behaviour of the baby boomer generation helps to bound the uncertainty, but it does not help to incorporate into the projections factors such as the high cultural diversity and income inequality among the boomers, the impact of the global financial crisis on pension funds, and the increasing diversity of transitions from work to retirement.

In this study I first discuss that within-country inequality indexes give enduring response to thestructural changes in the economy due to the cohort structure of the population. This is importantsince it may lead to relationships between inequality and other variables going undetected in linearregression estimates, or in similar methods measuring linear correlation. I suggest an alternativemeasure of inequality to be used in regression estimates: the average growth rate of within-cohortinequalities. As an empirical methodology, I first construct within-cohort inequalities from US andUK micro data, and then re-examine the effect of globalization on inequality. My emphasis ison trade liberalization, as current regression estimates using aggregate inequality indexes find aweakening effect of trade liberalization on inequality, inconsistent with the general consensus. Withthe proposed measure of inequality, I find that the relationship between the variables are found tobe positive and significant, which is consistent with trade theory and a substantial part of the tradeliterature.

This paper analyzes the consequences of immigration on wages and education with a labor market equilibrium structural model. Heterogeneous workers make yearly decisions on education, participation, and occupation. The labor demand takes into account skill-biased technical change. The equilibrium approach allows to disentangle price from composition effects of immigration on wages. Preliminary results suggest that the 40 years of mass immigration experimented by the US reduced wages a 5% on average, with a more severe fall of blue-collar wages. Natives, onthe other hand, adjusted their human capital investment behavior to partially compensate the fall. Further counterfactuals (still work in progress) (will) analyze theexisting literature using data simulated by the model, and I (will) evaluate two immigration policies: a quota system and a selective admission policy.

Does computerization increase or reduce the extent of skills that workers are required to have? Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) show empirically that adoption of computer-based technologies (CBT) was greater in industries historically intensive in routine tasks, and that computerization increased complex problem-solving and communication activities and reduced routine cognitive and manual activities. We extend this argument and claim that the effects of CBT are neither universal nor uniform, but a bifurcation emerges: occupations that historically (pre-computerization) required low skills and entailed low-complexity tasks do not experience a lot of CBT in their environment, or if they do, they remain low skill (or in extremis become less skilled) occupations, whereas historically high-skill occupations that entailed high complexity see much CBT as well as increases in the skills they require. We test these propositions in a unique dataset that includes measures of the degree of computerization and changes attendant to computerization in the level of seven skills of core employees (content, complex problem-solving, etc.) for a sample of 819 firms in 2000. We link this dataset by core employees occupation to US occupation-level data on three dimensions of task complexity (with respect to data, people and things) in 1971 (pre-CBT). We find that: (1) higher pre-CBT task complexity is associated with subsequent adoption and intensity of CBT; and (2) for occupations that were historically characterized by complex tasks, CBT affects most skills positively, but for simple tasks, CBT does not affect skills or affects them negatively. Our results shed light on the skill-based technological change and skilling-deskilling debates and suggest that the relationships are contingent in more nuanced ways than the literature has suggested.

Capturing the conditions of children of color living in single-parent families has become more complex due to the growing presence of interracial households. This analysisassesses the size and poverty status of single-female headed families housing multiracial children. Using data from the 2000 Census, we find that 9 percent of female-headedfamilies house either children who are classified with more than one race or are classified as a single race different than their mothers compared to only 3 percent of marriedcouple families. Logistic regression analyses assessing the odds of poverty status for families finds that being a multiracial family does not constitute a uniform advantage ordisadvantage for female headed households. Rather, these families, like most families of color, are more likely to experience poverty than white monoracial families. The twoexceptions are White multiracial families who are more likely to be in poverty relative to this reference group and Asian multiracial families who have similar poverty rates aswhite monoracial families (and a lower rate than Asian monoracial families).

We examined indicators of health status and healthcare utilization according to immigration status to assess the 'healthy immigrant effect' for Chinese adults. Data for Chinese in Taiwan (n = 15,549) were from the 2001 Taiwan National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Data for U.S.-born Chinese (n = 964) and Chinese Immigrants in the U.S. (n = 253) were from the 1998-2004 U.S. NHIS. We used multivariate logistic regression to estimate the adjusted odds of perceived poor health, having ever smoked, and past year emergency room visits according to immigration status. For Chinese immigrants, more years in the U.S. were associated with lower odds of reporting poor health (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2-0.8) and past-year emergency room use (OR = 0.5; 95% CI = 0.3-0.9). Compared with recent Chinese immigrants (<5 years in U.S.), Chinese in Taiwan had higher odds of reporting poor health (OR = 6.2; 95% CI = 3.2-12.1) and having ever smoked (OR = 1.6; 95% CI = 1.1-2.5). Our results suggest that those who migrate have better health profiles than those who do not migrate. However, recent Chinese immigrants were not significantly different than U.S.-born Chinese.

This research focused on labor force participation rates of single Black and White American mothers within metropolitan areas and factors that may have influenced labor participation. The geographical area of study included states located within the northeastern section of the United States. Using labor data from the Bureau of Labor for the years 1976 to 2005, the research focused on the gaps between Black and White American single mothers in labor market participation, number of children, education, employment characteristics, and the likelihood of being above or below poverty levels. Single mothers were chosen because of perceived existing research gaps in the investigation of economic differences between Black and White American single mothers in the Northeastern section of the U.S. Results were that there were noticeable gaps between Black and White American single mothers regardless of education and geography; Black American single mothers were more likely to be below poverty levels than their White American counterparts would. Job decentralization continued to contribute to both economic challenges of metropolitan businesses in their quest to maintain stability and for urban individuals looking for local employment. Transitioning untapped labor groups, such as single mothers in metropolitan areas, will help support local businesses in addressing geography issues and labor shortages.

Disparities in cancer screening among U. S. women are well documented. However, little is known about Pap test use by Asian women living in the U. S. Data for women, ages 18 and older, living in the U. S. were obtained from National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) files from 1982 to 2005. Outcomes were ever having a Pap test and having a Pap test within the preceding 3 years. Pap test prevalence trends were estimated by race and ethnicity and for Asian subgroups. Fractional logit models were used to predict Pap test use in 2010. Although the rate of having a Pap test within the preceding 3 years increased slightly from 1982 to 2005 for all U. S. women, Asian women continue to have the lowest rate. Pap test use also varied within Asian subpopulations living in the U. S. None of the races and ethnicities are predicted to reach the Pap test targets of Healthy People 2010. To reduce or eliminate continuing disparities in Pap test use requires targeted policy interventions.

Extant research testing the Southern culture of violence theory has not fully investigated the logical implications of the theoretical mechanisms asserted to be at work. This analysis builds on prior research by examining the effects of a widely used measure of Southern cultural influence on homicide-type differentiation across cities and over time. Specifically, we examine whether the measure of Southern cultural influence is more likely to generate argument or conflict homicides than other types and whether the Southern influence has been diminishing over time.The results of multilevel latent variable models of homicide-type differentiation for 1980, 1990, and 2000 suggest that the Southern cultural influence does contribute to differentiation toward more argument homicides relative to other types. Relative to felony homicides, the data indicate this pattern has been easing off over time, but relative to drug and gang homicides, it has not.