It has been found empirically that social fractionalizationlimits economic growth and development. What has not been studied isthe extent to which social integrative processes may ease these limitationsand thus positively contribute to economic growth and development. Usinga panel of the 48 contiguous U.S. states as a case study, this paper exam-ines the role racial integration as measured by the percentage of interracialmarriages plays in the determination of income per capita. I ?nd that racialintegration as measured by the percentage of interracial marriages is a signif-icant predictor of income per capita across these states. To account for theproblem of reverse causality and thus endogeneity, the number of decadesthe states have allowed interracial marriages by repealing antimiscegenationlaws is used as instrument for interracial marriages for instrumental vari-able estimation. I also use the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court?s decision, whichoverturned the antimiscegenation laws of the states that continued to havesuch laws as an exogenous event for dierence-in-dierence estimation.

Why do levels of entrepreneurship differ across America's cities? This paper presents basic facts on two measures of entrepreneurship: the self-employment rate and the number of small firms. Both of these measures are correlated with urban success, suggesting that more entrepreneurial cities are more successful. There is considerable variation in the self-employment rate across metropolitan areas, but about one-half of this heterogeneity can be explained by demographic and industrial variation. Self-employment is particularly associated with abundant, older citizens and with the presence of input suppliers. Conversely, small firm size and employment growth due to unaffiliated new establishments is associated most strongly with the presence of input suppliers and an appropriate labor force. I also find support for the Chinitz (1961) hypothesis that entrepreneurship is linked to a large number of small firms in supplying industries. Finally, there is a strong connection between area-level education and entrepreneurship.

Background. This ecologic study examined the geographic distribution of childhood leukemias in Ohio, 19962000, among children aged 019 for evidence that population mixing may be a factor. Procedure. (1) State incidence rates were compared to Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) rates for each year and for the 5-year period, 19962000; (2) incidence rates for each of Ohios 88 counties were compared to statewide rates; and (3) county incidence rates were compared based on population density, population growth, and rural/urban locale. SEER*Stat version 5.0 was used to derive age-specific and 019 age-adjusted rates. Expected values, standardized incidence ratios (SIRs), and Poisson P-values were calculated with Excel using the indirect method of standardization. Results. Of the 585 cases, 73.3% were acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), 16.6% acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 3.2% acute monocytic leukemia (AMoL), and 2.6% chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Rates for total leukemia burden were significantly below national levels for all races (P0.00001), likely due to poor ascertainment of cases. Yearly incidence rates for 19962000 were stable for ALL and AML; CML rates declined over the period. Based on 2000 Census and intercensal population estimates for 19962000, statistically higher rates for ALL were noted for counties experiencing >10% population change 19902000 (P<0.05), especially for ages 14 (P<0.03) in counties with 1020% growth. Counties 67.999.2% urban experienced fewer than expected cases of AMLAMoL (P<0.06). Conclusion. Data support Kinlens theory of population mixing and warrant further studies in Ohio, the US and other countries.

The literature on the black middle class has focused predominantly on married-couple families with children, reflecting a conception of the black middle class as principally composed of this family type. If that conception is correct, then declining rates of marriage and childrearing would imply a decline in the presence and vitality of the black middle class. Indeed, this is the implication that researchers typically draw from the decline in black marriage rates. However, an alternative view suggests that the decline in marriage and childrearing is producing a shift in the types of households comprising the black middle class. This paper assesses - and affirms - that alternative view. This research shows that, indeed, never-married singles who live alone (Love Jones Cohort) constitute a rapidly growing segment of the black middle class, a development which requires rethinking how the black middle class is conceptualized and studied.

Over the past century, America changed from a nation of distinct cities separated by farmland, to a place where employment and population density is far more continuous. For some purposes, it makes sense to think of the U.S. as consisting of a number of contiguous megaregions. Using the megaregion definitions of the Regional Plan Association, this paper documents the remarkable differences between these areas in productivity, housing prices, commute times and growth rates. Moreover, over the past 20 years, the fastest growing regions have not been those with the highest income or the most attractive climates. Flexible housing supply seems to be the key determinant of regional growth. Land use regulations seem to drive housing supply and determine which regions are growing. A more regional approach to housing supply might reduce the tendency of many localities to block new construction. The Policy Research Institute for the Region at Pinceton University also provided support and funding.

This paper identifies the salient features in the19851990 and 19952000 destination choicesof newly arrived immigrants, and performsmultivariate explanation of these choices,based on an application of a multinomial logitmodel to the state-specific immigration data ofthe 1990 and 2000 censuses. The salientfeatures are that: (1) the destination choicepattern of the newly arrived immigrantsbecame more dispersed from the late 1980s tothe late 1990s; (2) the change was pervasive inthe sense that it was true for all combinationsof five broad ethnic groups and four levels ofeducational attainment; (3) the change wasmuch greater for Hispanics and Blacks thanfor Asians and Whites; (4) the lower the levelof education, the greater the increase indispersion; and (5) the Hispanics with thelowest education experienced the greatestincrease in dispersion. Our multivariateanalysis reveals that: (1) while the attraction ofco-ethnic communities as destinationsremained strong for both periods, it becamemuch less intense in the late 1990s, especiallyfor Hispanics and Blacks; (2) the newlyarrived immigrants were subject to the strongpull of higher income level in both periods; (3) the pull of employment growth becamestronger and more industry-specific from thelate 1980s to the late 1990s; and (4) the pull ofservice employment growth, especially for theleast-educated Hispanic immigrants, becamemuch stronger in the later period. In thecontext of the progressive entrenchment ofneoliberalism and the major changes inimmigration policies, our empirical findingssuggest that the ethnically selective dispersalof immigrants in the late 1990s is probably thebeginning of a new trend.

We investigate how the gender composition of migrant flows and the intra-household allocation of labor are employed as risk-coping strategies in El Salvador. We show that agricultural productivity shocks primarily increased male migration to the US and, at the same time, increased the number of hours that the household devoted to agricultural activities. In contrast, damage sustained from the 2001 earthquakes exclusively stunted female migration. We argue that the reasons for this were that the earthquakes increased the demand for home production and that the costs of retaining women at home in the disaster’s wake were lower than for men.

Using data spanning half a century for adjacent jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada, we study the long-term effects of a very generous unemployment insurance (UI) program on the distribution of weeks worked among all workers. We find large effects. For example, in 1990, about 6 percent of employed men in Maine's northernmost counties worked fewer than 26 weeks per year; just across the border in New Brunswick that figure was over 20 percent. According to our estimates, New Brunswick's much more generous UI system accounts for about two thirds of this differential. Even greater effects are found among women and less-educated men. We argue that both the generosity and permanence of the policy changes studied here may help explain their substantial effects on a region's entire labor force.

The concept of reproductive labor is central to an analysis of gender inequality, including understanding the devaluation of cleaning, cooking, child care, and other "women's work" in the paid labor force. This article presents historical census data that detail transformations of paid reproductive labor during the twentieth century. Changes in the organization of cooking and cleaning tasks in the paid labor market have led to shifts in the demographics of workers engaged in these tasks. As the context for cleaning and cooking work shifted from the dominance of private household servants to include more institutional forms, the gender balance of this reproductive labor workforce has been transformed, while racial-ethnic hierarchies have remained entrenched. This article highlights the challenges to understanding occupational segregation and the devaluation of reproductive labor in a way that analyzes gender and race-ethnicity in an intersectional way and integrates cultural and structural explanations of occupational degradation.

How do we understand the racial and ethnic re-composition of New Orleanss diminished population in the year following Hurricane Katrina? Optimists viewing the influx of Latino migrants see in it a revival of the multicultural past of New Orleans, while skeptics suspect that delays in government assistance for residents to return to the city are an attempt to keep out low-income blacks and make the city whiter and wealthier. The shifts in the population of New Orleans are familiar to sociologists and economists who study labor-market demand for low-skill, inexpensive, and flexible workers. The low-prestige jobs they do are reserved for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy, most often immigrants or members of stigmatized minorities.1 The sociodemographic characteristics of workers building and rebuilding the city shift only when social and market forces combine to make one group less expensive and more flexible than the other. I use this sociological insight to analyze New Orleanss population history and the way race has been socially constructed and reconstructed there.

Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we document and explore three alternative explanations for the sexual orientation wage gap: occupational sorting, human capital differences, and discrimination. We find lesbian women earn more than their heterosexual counterparts irrespective of marital status while gay men earn less than their married heterosexual counterparts but more than their cohabitating heterosexual counterparts. Using a Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition we find that differences in human capital accumulation (particularly education) are the main reason behind the observed wage advantages, while discrimination and occupational sorting play a minimal role at best. Wage penalties, on the other hand, are largely explained by discrimination. Interestingly, while we do find there are some differences in the relative roles of our three alternative explanations across the wage distribution using a DiNardo, Fortin, Lemieux decomposition, the main conclusions from the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition persist.Keywords: sexual orientation wage gap, occupational sorting, human capital, discriminationJEL Classifications: J24, J31, J71

Using the biological and adoptive families in the Minnesota-based Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study, we investigated the associations among genetic and environmental influences on IQ, parenting, parental expectations for offspring educational attainment, engagement in school, and school grades. All variables showed substantial genetic influence, and very modest sharedenvironmental influence. No gender differences were evident. There were significant genetic influences common to IQ and parental expectations of educational attainment, parenting and engagement in school, school grades and engagement in school, parental expectations for offspring educational attainment and school grades, and IQ and school grades. A possible interpretation of the common genetic influences involving parenting is that parents use their own experience with school in shaping the ways in which they parent their offspring.

The concept of reproductive labor is central to an analysis of gender inequality, including understanding the devaluation of cleaning, cooking, child care, and other "women's work" in the paid labor force. This article presents historical census data that detail transformations of paid reproductive labor during the twentieth century. Changes in the organization of cooking and cleaning tasks in the paid labor market have led to shifts in the demographics of rovorkers engaged in these tasks. As the context for cleaning and cooking work shifted front the dominance of private household servants to include more institutional forms, the gender balance of this reproductive labor workforce has been transformed, while racial-ethnic hierarchies have remained entrenched. This article highlights the challenges to understanding occupational.segregation and the devaluation of reproductive labor in a way that analyzes gender and race-ethnicity in an intersectional way and integrates cultural and structural explanations of occupational degradation.

Becoming a citizen is a component of a larger process of immigrant incorporation into U.S. society. It is most often treated as an individual-level choice, associated with such personal characteristics as the duration of residence in the U.S., age, education, and language acquisition. This study using microdata from Census 2000 in conjunction with other measures at the level of community areas, states, and nations, is designed to examine collective aspects of naturalization. It probes for characteristics of the community and policy context that influence individual outcomes. The results confirm previous research on the effects of individual-level characteristics on attaining citizenship. They offer strong evidence of collective effects, and they show that both the varied political histories of immigrant groups in their home country and the political environment that they encounter in the U.S. have significant impacts on their propensity of naturalization.

This paper provides two-stage estimates of the economic impact of Indian gaming on tribal members. Gaming increases income among tribal members in all areas and increases employment, by reducing the number of out of the labor force, in rural areas.

This paper uses multiple data sources and a unified methodology to estimate the trends and levels of the U.S. high school graduation rate. Correcting for important biases that plague previous calculations, we establish that (a) the true high school graduation rate is substantially lower than the official rate issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics; (b) it has been declining over the past 40 years; (c) majority/minority graduation rate differentials are substantial and have not converged over the past 35 years; (d) the decline in high school graduation rates occurs among native populations and is not solely a consequence of increasing proportions of immigrants and minorities in American society; (e) the decline in high school graduation explains part of the recent slowdown in college attendance; and (f) the pattern of the decline of high school graduation rates by gender helps to explain the recent increase in male-female college attendance gaps.

This paper uses the 2000 Census 1-in-6 sample to look at the long-term impact of Vietnam-era military service. Instrumental Variables estimates using draft-lottery instruments show post-service earnings losses close to zero in 2000, in contrast with earlier results showing substantial earnings losses for white veterans in the 1970s and 1980s. The estimates also point to a marked increase in schooling that appears to be attributable to the Vietnam-era GI Bill. The net wage effects observed in the 2000 data can be explained by a flattening of the experience profile in middle age and a modest return to the increased schooling generated by the GI Bill. Evidence on disability effects is mixed but seems inconsistent with a long-term effect of Vietnam-era military service on health.

Cross-sectional studies find a positive relationship between a state's welfare benefits and single motherhood. But is this evidence of a "welfare effect" or rather of cross state differences in social attitudes that influence both policy and behavior? This paper demonstrates that the spatial variation in welfare policy long preceded the spatial correlation of policy and behavior, undermining the social norm hypothesis. But the findings also raise doubts about the role that welfare policy played in the changes in family structure over the century. The correlation between welfare benefits and family structure only appears in 1970, and then only for whites.