Data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the CPS indicate that the proportion of part-time workers who are primary earners has grown over the past three decades; part-time primary earners face numerous social welfare challenges, whereas part-time secondary earners have social welfare outcomes that compare well with those of full-time workers.

The intention of resource packages in DDI is to provide a publishing structure that promotes reuse of common material by removing certain metadata content from the context of a specific study and publishing it for the primary purpose of reuse. Reuse of common material such as concept schemes, geographic location schemes, and coding schemes provides implicit comparison between those studies that reference a common source of information. Publication of DDI schemes as resource packages both within organizations or projects and for broader public access requires the consideration of how these materials may be used and incorporated into other studies. Resource packages need to be structurally designed to facilitate reuse among the potential users of the content. In addition, the publication of similar schemes as resource packages supports potential comparison and publication of the structured relationship between two or more schemes. Resource packages are published with the primary intention that their contents be reused and therefore the expectation that they will be maintained and available in perpetuity.

Over the last half-century, social scientists have documented a shift in the way many of society‟s resources are distributed by gender such that – on average – the United States is moving toward greater gender parity. This shift is especially apparent when examining changes in the family and in paid work over time. In the family, women‟s median age at first marriage has risen from almost 21 years in 1965 to over 25 years in 2005. A later age at first marriage means that women are more likely to finish their education, establish a career, and gain some sort of financial independence before the time they enter into marriage. Gender ideology has also changed dramatically. Whereas 66% of people in the mid-seventies believed the breadwinner/homemaker model was best, only 35% agreed thirty years later. These trends suggest that the family has changed such that many aspects of the traditional . . .

Forty years ago—when the discovery of North Slope oil was about to transform Alaska’s economy— Alaska Natives had among the lowest income, em- ployment, and education levels in the U.S. Today their economic conditions are better, but they still fall consid- erably below averages among other Alaskans and other Americans. This note first reports how current economic conditions among Alaska Natives compare with U.S. averages, and then looks at changes since 1970 in poverty, employment, income, and education levels among Alaska Natives. We relied mainly on data from federal censuses in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 and from the annual American Com- munity Survey for 2005 to 2007. We also used the most recent population estimates from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The West Nile virus (WNV) is an infectious disease transmitted to humans and other mammals by mosquitoes that acquire the virus by feeding on WNV-infected birds. Since its initial occurrence in New York in 1999, the virus has spread rapidly west and south, causing seasonal epidemics and illness among thousands of birds, animals, and humans. Yet, we only have a rudimentary understanding of how the mosquito-borne virus operates in complex avian-human-environmental systems. The virus first reached Minnesota in 2002 and resulted in several hotspots by 2003. The year 2007 saw one of the severest incidences of WNV in Minnesota. For my dissertation research, I have developed novel approaches to understand the spread and dynamics of the virus by using key environmental, built environment, and anthropogenic risk factors that determine why, when, and where WNV strikes in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area (TCMA). The first study demonstrates the use of a novel spatiotemporal approach to identify exposure areas. The method retrospectively delineates transmission cycles as exposure areas in their entirety, involving dead birds, mosquito pools, and human cases. Given the strong spatial clustering of WNV infections in the urban areas of TCMA, the next study explores how urban landscape features contributed to the viral activities. This investigation contributed to the broader research question in the field of health geography, of how the heterogeneous urban landscape affects human health and disease patterns. The remaining studies focus on the building and interpreting a nonlinear model which captures the complex relationships between the disease incidences and the hypothesized risk factors. The goal of these studies is to identify risk factor(s) whose management would result in effective disease prevention and containment. This dissertation has applied contributions to the vector control policies. The findings from the studies can answer two fundamental questions to eliminate larva and adult mosquitoes capable of carrying WNV. First, when is the optimal time to apply insecticides and pesticides? Second, where (area) should we target spraying of pesticides? This will lead to efficient allocation of resources and allow a balance between mosquito eradication and environmental conservation efforts with respect to insecticide usage.

A causal relationship between black male incarceration rates and black female obesity is possible through mechanisms of the marriage market. I argue that as the black male incarceration rate increases, the marriage market tightens, and black females gain incentive to lose weight. The opposite relationship may also be true: a more one-sided marriage market may reduce the gains from weight loss, in turn decreasing the incentive for women to control their weight. For single low-educated black females (perhaps those most inclined to marry crime- oriented males), empirical evidence shows that an increase in the black male incarceration rate significantly reduces the prevalence of their obesity.

At first glance A World of Speechis anodd title for this particular study but,on reflection, it makes sense since itlargely comprises interviews withmembers of Hungarian communities inAmerica. Immigrants face many chal-lenges. Yet language bonds and sharedroots help them to form a diverse range ofcommunities, even if heritage siphonedfrom the homeland to the new worldleaks along the way (an idea which isnicely depicted by the montage on thefront jacket: the red of the Stripes blendswith green while . . .

High- and low-wage occupations are expanding rapidly relative to middle-wage occupations in both the U.S. and the E.U. We study the reallocation of workers from middle-skill occupations towards the tails of the occupational skill distribution by analyzing changes in age structure within and across occupations. Because occupations typically expand by hiring young workers and contract by curtailing such hiring, we posit that growing occupations will get younger while shrinking occupations will 'get old.' After verifying this proposition, we apply this observation to local labor markets in the U.S. to test whether markets that were specialized in middle-skilled occupations in 1980 saw a differential movement of both older and younger workers into occupations at the tails of the skill distribution over the subsequent 25 years. Consistent with aggregate trends, employment in initially middle-skill-intensive labor markets hollowed-out between 1980 and 2005. Employment losses among non-college workers in the middle of the occupational skill distribution were almost entirely countered by employment growth in lower-tail occupations. For college workers, employment losses at the middle were offset in roughly equal measures by gains in the upper- and lower-tails of the occupational skill distribution. But gains at the upper-tail were almost entirely limited to young college workers. Consequently, older college workers are increasingly found in lower-skill, lower-paying occupations.

Labor economists know that a year of schooling raises earnings but have little evidence on the impact of specific courses completed. I identify the impact of math coursework on earnings using the differential timing of state-level increases in high school graduation requirements as a source of exogenous variation. The increased requirements induced large increases in both the completed math coursework and earnings of blacks, particularly black males. Two-sample instrumental variable estimates suggest that each additional year of math raised blacks' earnings by 5-9%, accounting for a large fraction of the value of a year of schooling. Closer analysis suggests that much of this effect comes from black students who attend non-white schools and who will not attend college. The earnings impact of additional math coursework is robust to changes in empirical specification, is not driven by selection into the labor force, and persists when earnings are conditioned on educational attainment. The reforms close one fifth of the earnings gap between black and white males. Estimates for whites are similar to those of blacks but are much noisier due to the reforms' weaker impact on white students' coursework. These results suggest that math coursework is an important determinant of the labor market return to schooling, that simple minimum requirements largely benefit low-skilled students, and that more demanding requirements might be necessary to improve the outcomes of high-skilled students.

Recent trends in housing prices and wages have made it increasingly difficult for moderate-wage workers such as teachers and police officers to afford housing in the communities in which they work. Commonly referred to as the workforce housing problem, the inability of many communities to provide housing affordable to essential workers has exposed a number of weaknesses in the current urban economics literature. Specifically, little is known about the determinants of the supply of affordable housing and the extent to which wages adjust to differences in housing prices and commutes. Composed of three essays addressing various aspects of the workforce housing problem, this dissertation marks an attempt to address these weaknesses. In the first essay, I discuss the administration and results of a survey I designed to gain a greater understanding of the extent of workforce housing problems in Florida. Administered in the spring of 2008, this survey solicited valuable information about a myriad of housing and labor force issues from nearly 13,000 educators throughout the state. These data reveal that a large fraction of Florida's teachers spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, with many of these individuals also enduring lengthy commutes. These problems appear to be particularly acute in southern, coastal counties. The second essay of the dissertation investigates the determinants of the affordable housing stock, attempting to answer the question: What makes a community affordable? Following a critical review of the affordable housing literature, I develop an econometric model of affordable housing supply. Results from the empirical models indicate that, consistent with theory, wealthier jurisdictions and locales with higher construction costs are less affordable. Results suggesting that stringent land use regulations may reduce the stock of affordable housing are also advanced. The third essay in this dissertation investigates the extent to which wages respond to differences in housing prices and commute times. To motivate the empirical modeling, a theoretical spatial equilibrium model of compensating differentials is developed and a number of testable hypotheses are derived. These hypotheses are then tested using a rich set of data that includes information on salaries, commute times, and neighborhood housing prices for more than 100,000 educators throughout the state of Florida. Results from these empirical models confirm the theoretical predictions, as educators receive compensating differentials for living in high cost areas and enduring lengthy trips to work. Additionally, differences in the estimated size of compensating differentials across models highlight the importance of recognizing the endogeneity of locational variables in wage equations; failure to do so leads to downwardly-biased estimates of the differentials.

Unlike the many studies on intermarriage that focus on black-white couples, this study differs in three important ways: 1) I focus on immigrants from Asia and Latin America and their U.S.-born children; 2) I make a key distinction between interethnic and interracial relationships; and 3) I move beyond a strong bias towards marriage, to include cohabiting unions. The first way in which this study differs is a focus on immigration as a key trend that influences the number, composition, and identity of mixed couples, and accounts for much of the diversity in the U.S. for the past four decades (since the 1960s). Until recently, black-white intermarriage was virtually synonymous with intermarriage; however, this pattern is drastically changing with increasing immigration from Asia and Latin America. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the U.S. immigrant-origin population (first and second generations) numbers close to 64 million over one-fifth of the national population. Of these, close to 38 million were born in Latin America and Asia. Furthermore, this immigrant population is new: among immigrants arriving since 1960, just over 50% came from Latin America (more than 25% from Mexico alone) and close to 30% from Asia, making up 80% of first generation immigration since 1960. In addition, one-third of this population resides in California alone, whereas California only makes up 12% of the population in the U.S. This study examines the process of assimilation between different minority groups involved in intimate relationships in the United States, with a focus on first and second generations of immigrants from the Pacific Rim region (i.e., from Asia and Latin America living in California, and in the San Diego metropolitan area in particular). Mixed couples in San Diego are different from those in other parts of the country because of the high proportion of couples that involve immigrants from the Pacific Rim and their U.S.-born children. In 2000, San Diego was among the top ten metropolitan areas in the U.S. in numbers and percentage of first and second generation immigrants. Specifically, San Diego hosts a wide variety of immigrants from the following Pacific Rim countries: Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Mexico (and to a lesser extent, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India). In fact, San Diego is one of the most common destinations for Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians. Moreover, no other place except for Los Angeles has a greater number of Filipinos in the country. Second, I make a distinction between race and ethnicity among mixed couples. Research on racial intermarriage originated in countries with high rates of immigration, such as the U.S. and has focused almost exclusively on racial groups. I treat race and ethnicity as two separate but sometimes overlapping phenomena. I refer to racial groups as those groups with an identity that is typically assigned to them by others, based on perceived common physical characteristics that are held to be inherent (i.e., white, Asian, black), and ethnic groups as those having common descent, a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements (i.e., Irish, Chinese, Jamaican, Cuban). In a discussion of definitions of race and ethnicity, I also focus on the process of how these definitions are assigned and accepted, i.e., processes of racialization and ethnicization. Most studies on racial intermarriage leave out marriages that I would term interethnic (i.e., Japanese-Korean, or Cuban-Mexicanassuming they both identify by the same race in the Census). It is therefore imperative that we add interethnic relationships to what we often refer to as mixed unions. Whether interethnic relationships are different from interracial relationshipsand if so, how and whyare among the key questions that this research will address. Finally, I make a distinction between married and cohabiting couples. In the United States, we have witnessed enormous changes in the realm of marriage and family, which include rising divorce rates, more women entering the workforce, and increases in non-marital cohabitation and non-marital reproduction. In terms of this study, cohabiting unions are a crucial demographic component of intermarriage. The number of cohabiting couples has been on the rise for decades and now comprises 9% of all couples in the U.S. To not include these couples in studies of intermarriage clearly biases our sample in important ways. Even if it is true that cohabitation is often a preliminary step before marriage, focusing only on the later stage leaves out important information on the early stages of mixed relationships. Indeed, the 2000 Census shows that interracial couples are twice as likely to cohabit as to marry. Overall, the following questions that this research will address are: Who enters into mixed relationships and what are the implications? What role does marital assimilation play in the process of assimilation? Which of the two perspectives of assimilationstraight-line perspective or segmented perspectivewill Asian and Latin American immigrants and their children follow? I will use a variety of dataCensus, survey questionnaire, and in-depth interviewsto answer these questions.

Fertility treatments have been available since the 70s and more and more women turn to them when facing fertility problems. Several US states enacted mandates forcing insurance companies to cover infertility treatment to different extents. The availability of infertility insurance is likely to affect birth rates through several mechanisms. First, the price of treatment is reduced and therefore more women with fertility problems can access it. Second, multiple births are more frequent in pregnancies originated in fertility treatments. Previous studies show that mandated infertility insurance increases first birth rates for women over 35 (Schmidt, 2007, Buckles, 2005) as well as the incidence of multiple births (Buckles, 2005). Instead of focusing on the amount of births, we focus on their timing: women may delay childbearing because they know that infertility treatment is covered by their insurance; on the other hand, infertile women may seek treatment earlier because its price is lower. Moreover, to the extent that marriage and fertility are often intertwined decisions, the timing of first marriages may also be affected. We analyze the impact of infertility insurance mandates on the timing of first marriages and births using Abadie et al. (2007) synthetic control method, a data-driven procedure to construct "ideal" control groups. Our data comes from the National Vital Statistics System and the Current Population Survey and the timing of the mandates adopted by the states is consistent with the literature. Preliminary results show that infertility insurance mandates effects on women's ageat first marriage are heterogeneous across states.

In 2002, Advocates for Children and the Public Advocate of New York City published a landmark report revealing the large number of New York City high school students who are “discharged” from the school system without graduating.3 Discharged students are removed from the city’s enrollment rolls entirely; they are not counted as dropouts, nor are they counted in the denominator when graduation rates are calculated. As the number of discharges rises, so too does the graduation rate. Based on evidence that high schools had illegally ejected students entitled to continue attending public schools, Advocates for Children coined these students “push-outs” and subsequently filed three class action complaints against the city. 4 In summer 2003, Chancellor Joel Klein condemned the practice. "The problem of what's happening to the students is a tragedy," Klein said, "It's not just a few instances, it's a real issue.”5 In a message to principals, Klein made it “unequivocally clear” that he did not support this practice and would take steps to end it, “It is a disservice to our students and ourselves to rely on shortcuts or play numbers games in order to make things look better than they really are.''6 Following the Advocates for Children lawsuits, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) revised its policy on transfers and discharges in January 2004 to bar schools from discharging students without their consent, and required schools to conduct planning interviews before discharging students to non-high school diploma granting programs. 7 In addition, the DOE created an “Office of Multiple Pathways” in order to better serve overage students who had . . .