Evolutionary psychologists have documented a widespread female preference for men of high status and resources, and evidence from several populations suggests that this preference has real effects on marriage success. Here, we show that in the US population of 1910, socioeconomic status (SES) had a positive effect on men's chances of marrying. We also test a further prediction from the biological markets theory, namely that where the local sex ratio produces an oversupply of men, women will be able to drive a harder bargain. As the sex ratio of the states increases, the effect of SES on marriage success becomes stronger, indicating increased competition between men and an increased ability to choose on the part of women.

This thesis is about the relationship between wage inequality and minimum wage, and then about parental choice and the impact of this on economic growth. First, it empirically examines the relation between wage inequality and the federal minimum wage. Then it develops a theory of how a parent of children with heterogeneous abilities makes choices on (a) investments in education for her children and (b) on the number of children she will have. Parental choices on these margins are shown to affect the rate of economic growth. Chapter 1 briefly introduces my studies for the dissertation. In Chapter 2, I use a time-series analysis to examine whether real federal minimum wage is an important factor of wage inequality. Revisionists claim that non-market factors --- falling real minimum wage and unionization in the United States labor market --- rather than market factors --- shifts in labor supply and demand --- are responsible for increasing wage inequality, especially in the 1980s. Traditional economists, while disagreeing with the revisionist view, have yet to show explicitly that the falling real minimum wage is unrelated to wage inequality. The chapter demonstrates, using a time-series analysis, that non-market factors (minimum wage) may have a spurious relationship with wage inequality, and that market factors (shifts in labor supply and demand) are still important in determining wage inequality. In Chapter 3, I show that when children's ability is heterogeneous, a parent's choices about educational expenditures and fertility may be a pooling equilibrium or a separating equilibrium. Which of the two equilibria will prevail depends on the probability of getting a child with high ability to accumulate human capital. The outcome of the pooling choice in the pooling regime and the outcome of the separating choice in the separating regime make the growth rate of human capital higher than otherwise. However, as the probability of producing a child with high ability increases, the growth rate of human capital in the separating equilibrium exceeds that in the pooling equilibrium. Finally, I summarize and conclude in Chapter 4.

During the Great Depression, as today, migrants were accused of taking jobs and crowding relief rolls. At the time, protest concerned internal migrants rather than the foreign born. We investigate the effect of net migration on local labor markets, instrumenting for migrant flows to a destination with extreme weather events and variation in New Deal programs in typical sending areas. Migration had little effect on the hourly earnings of existing residents. Instead, migration prompted some residents to move away and others to lose weeks of work and/or access to relief jobs. Given the period’s high unemployment, these lost work opportunities were costly to existing residents.

This article reviews conceptual and operational issues in defining the creative sector and its arts and cultural core. Some accounts use establishment data to measure creative industry employment, some use firm-level data, and others use occupational data. The authors examine how cultural-sector employment is conceptualized in three pioneering cultural economy studies driven by distinctive policy agendas and constituencies. Choices about which industries, firms, and occupations to include affect the resulting size and content of the cultural economy. In comparing these three studies and others, the authors show that the Boston metros creative economy varies in size from less than 1% to 49%, although most cultural definitions range from 1% to 4%. The authors explore how policy makers might use a combination of methods to produce a richer characterization of the regional cultural economy and reflect on the relevance of good numbers to cultural policy and creative region formation.

Urban proximity can reduce the costs of shipping goods and speed the ?ow of ideas.Improvements in communication technology might erode these advantages and allowpeople and ?rms to decentralize. However, improvements in transportation and com-munication technology can also increase the returns to new ideas, by allowing thoseideas to be used throughout the world. This paper presents a model that illustratesthese two rival eects that technological progress can have on cities. We then presentsome evidence suggesting that the model can help us to understand why the pastthirty-?ve years have been kind to idea-producing places, like New York and Boston,and devastating to goods-producing cities, like Cleveland and Detroit.

This article introduces an open access websitecitystats.uvic.ca designed to facilitate historical scholarship on ethnicity in post-Second World War Canada. Citystats offers access to two sociological measures of urban residential patterns, D and P*, applying the measures to the ethnic origins variables in the Canadian census for all urban areas since 1961. D, the index of dissimilarity, is the most common gauge of urban residential patterns, describing the extent to which ethnic groups are evenly (or unevenly) distributed across the city. P*, a measurement of the exposure of groups to one another, provides historians with a summary of the everyday surroundings of urban residents. The article explains the measures and highlights some puzzling patterns in the history of urban Canada, especially the segregation of Jewish Canadians and the relative integration of Aboriginal people. Just as scholars might be expected to know (at least approximately) the number of people comprising the group that they intend to study, they should also, I argue, be aware of their distribution across urban space and their exposure to other urbanites.

• Divorce is a zero sum game that typically results in a greater negative financial impact on divorced women than on divorced men (Peterson 1996). But little is known about the factors that cause the different financial consequence between genders. • Financial planning services and financial planning self-help tools are available to help those preparing for divorce as they embark on legal proceedings; however little of this advice specifically addresses interlacing financial planning and existing personal factors during the divorce process. • Using U.S. Census data from 1980 to 2000 to examine factors including age, children, education, and the presence of a significant other we show that these demographics significantly affect the relative income differential of divorcees by gender. • Being older having fewer children, remarriage, and higher levels of education helped offset the negative impact of a divorce on the income of females. • We also find that the trend in income disparity has declined somewhat over the period 1980-2000.

Although multiple-race responses are now allowed on federal forms like the census, most interracially married single-race parents report their children as single race. I argue that homelands physical places with cultural meaning are an important component of the intergenerational transfer of a single-race identity in multiracial families. I make my case by focusing on families with an interracially married American Indian who was living with his or her spouse and child in 2000 (Census 2000 5% PUMS). Logistic regression reveals that there is a strong effect of living in an American Indian homeland on the childs chances of being reported as single-race American Indian. This effect remains even after accounting for family connections to American Indians and other groups, family and area poverty levels, geographic isolation, and the racial composition of the area. The intergenerational transmission of strong indigenous identities can continue in this multiracial era (as it has for centuries) in the context of culturally meaningful physical places.

Using the same approach and model found in Peri & Ottaviano (2006), this paper analyzes the effect of immigration on native wages from 1990-2004. Instead of examining the effects on a national scale, this analysis divides the country into four separate regions. This paper supports the conclusion that the effect of immigration on wages is small, less than one percent in some regions, but does not support the conclusion found in Peri & Ottaviano that immigration has increased native wages. Additionally, changing the order of aggregation in Peri & Ottaviano’s model leads to different estimates for wages. This suggests a theoretical weakness in using nested constant elasticity of substitution functions to describe different skill groups of labor’s contribution to output.

We evaluate the first controlled field experiment on Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Including their own contributions and matching funds, treatment group members in the Tulsa, Oklahoma program could accumulate $6750 for home purchase or $4500 for other qualified uses. Almost all treatment group members opened accounts, but many withdrew all funds for unqualified purposes. Among renters at the beginning of the experiment, the IDA increased homeownership rates after 4 years by 711 percentage points and reduced non-retirement financial assets by $700$1000. The IDA had almost no other discernable effect on other subsidized assets, overall wealth, or poverty rates.

Examines Theravada Buddhist populations (from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri Lanka) in the United States.

This paper explores whether the stigma of slavery can explain the maltreatment of blacks by whites by considering the effects former slave status had on a brutal form of maltreatment—lynching. Parameter estimates from shared frailty Cox proportional hazard specifications reveal that consistent with a theory of stigma in which former slave status conditions maltreatment, former slaves were frail—or more likely to be subjected to lynching. Overall, our parameter estimates suggest that while the stigma of slavery has some power in explaining the inferior outcomes blacks realize in their interactions with whites, race and the race discrimination engendered by job competition are more important explanatory factors.

Children in immigrant families account for nearly one-in-four children in the U.S. They are the fastest growing population of children, and they are leading the nations racial and ethnic transformation. As a consequence, baby-boomers will depend heavily for economic support during retirement on race-ethnic minorities, many of whom grew up in immigrant families. Because the current circumstances and future prospects of children in immigrant families are important not only to these children themselves, but to all Americans, this report uses data from Census 2000 to portray the lives of children with immigrant parents and highlights policy and program initiatives that will foster the future success of these children.This report begins by discussing the diverse origins and destinations of children in immigrant families. It then highlights substantial evidence that children in immigrant families have deep roots in the U.S. reflected in their own citizenship, as well as their parents citizenship and length of residence in this country, their own and their parents English fluency, and their family commitment to homeownership. Based on a new alternative to the official poverty measure, the report continues by discussing economic challenges confronted by many immigrant families. It also portrays additional immigrant strengths and challenges associated with family composition, parental education and employment, and access for children of immigrants to early education and the later years of schooling. Looking toward fostering a successful future for these children, the report identifies promising policy and programmatic initiatives for language and literacy training, and for assuring access to education, health, and other essential services, and it identifies immigrant-related questions that should be asked in all research studies involving children and families.

This paper estimates the impacts of labor-mobility restrictions on job-transitions and wages in the postbellum U.S. South. In particular, I estimate the effects of changes in criminal fines, collected from BLS commission of labor reports, charged for "enticement" (offers made to workers already under contract) on sharecropper mobility, tenancy choice, and agricultural wages. I present three different pieces of evidence. The first is a retrospective work history panel of farmers from Jefferson County, Arkansas. The second is a state-year panel, using USDA agricultural wages as a dependent variable. The third is a cohort-state regression using the 1940 IPUMS census micro sample, estimating the effects of antienticement laws on the returns to experience in agricultural labor. I find that a 10% increase in the fine ($13) charged for enticement a)lowered the probability of a move by black sharecroppers by 6 percentage points, a 12% decline, and b) lowered agricultural wages, by reducing the exit probability to sharecropping, by 0.11% (1 cent of daily wages), and c) lowered the returns to experience in agriculture for blacks by 0.6% per year. These results are consistent with an on-the-job search model, where the enticement fine raises the cost of offering a job to employed workers.

Civic Hopes and Political Realities bridges the fields of civic engagement and immigrant adaptation for the first time. S. Karthick Ramakrishnan and Irene Bloemraad examine community organizations in six cities across California and find that even in areas with high rates of immigrant organizing, local policymakers remain unaware of the interests of ethnic organizations. Kristi Andersen examines new immigrant destinations, and finds that with political parties no longer serving as the primary vehicle for newcomers' political incorporation, community organizations are increasingly stepping in to fill this void. However, the success of civic groups in connecting their members to the local political machinery depends on their ability to forge connections with mainstream organizations. Floris Vermeulen and Maria Berger document how government policies lead to very different civic and political outcomes for ethnic organizations. Amsterdam's more welcoming multicultural policies help immigrant community groups attain a level of political clout that similar organizations in Berlin lack. Janelle Wong, Kathy Rim, and Haven Perez report on a study of Latino and Asian American evangelical churches. While the church shapes members' views on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, church members may also question the evangelical movement's position on such issues as civil rights and immigration. Els de Graauw finds that many non-partisan service organizations play a crucial role in advancing the political interests of immigrants. Recent cuts in non-profit funding, she argues, block not only the provision of key social services, but also an important avenue for immigrants' political voice." "Many observers worry that America's increasing diversity is detrimental to civic life and political engagement. Civic Hopes and Political Realities boldly advances an alternative mode of thinking: if civic life is declining in an age of increasing immigration, it may well be due to the fact that America's civic playing field is alarmingly unequal.

Veronica is a white woman, born in the 1950s, and raised in an all-white staunchly conservative town fifty miles outside of New York City. Veronica had so little exposure to blacks that she can remember very distinctly the black nurse who came to take care of her mother. I think I was probably about seven, and I remember distinctly, in fact we laugh about it now, being in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, and my dad was shaving. And I looked up at him and I asked him if the nurse had a black bottom [laughs] . . . Karl is a black man, born in the early 1950s and raised in inner-city Detroit. Karl’s father was a janitor, and Karl’s mother was a housekeeper, occupations that were dominated by blacks in those days. Karl’s parents found an integrated public school for Karl and his siblings to attend—the school started out as mostly white, but ended up being mostly black. After high school Karl joined the Air Force, and, the Air Force helped pay for his college education. After his time in the armed forces was over, in the late 1970s Karl became a restaurant manager . . .

This article compares marriage patterns by race, education and religion in the United States during the 20th century, using a variety of data sources. The comparative approach allows several general conclusions. First, racial endogamy has declined sharply over the 20th century, but race is still the most powerful division in the marriage market. Second, higher education has little effect on racial endogamy for blacks and whites. Third, the division between Jews and Christians is still strong, but the division between Catholics and Protestants in the marriage market has been relatively weak since the early 1900s. Fourth, educational endogamy has been relatively stable over time.