In the course of time families disperse and kin relationships change. In this study gender differences in spatial dispersion of adult children from their fathers were investigated in two areas of the world in 1850: the Skellefteå region in northern Sweden and the northern part of the USA, both largely rural populations. The results from the Skellefteå region where data on both genders were available were used to estimate gender differences among a native born population in the northern USA where women were often not followed in the sources after marriage. Most adult children resided in the same place as their fathers, but the distances separating relatives were greater in the USA. However, the proportion of adult sons living in the same locality as their fathers was the same in both. More daughters than sons were located elsewhere in Skellefteå and probably also in the USA. Although sisters in Skellefteå joined each other in places separate from their parents, men lived in patrilineal clusters to a greate...

Between 1950 and 1990, the aggregate population of central cities in the United States declined by 17 percent despite population growth of 72 percent in metropolitan areas as a whole. This paper assesses the extent to which the construction of new limited access highways has contributed to central city population decline. Using planned portions of the interstate highway system as a source of exogenous variation, empirical estimates indicate that one new highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 18 percent. Estimates imply that aggregate central city population would have grown by about 8 percent had the interstate highway system not been built.

Governments use redistributive policies to favor rel- atively unproductive economic sectors. Traditional economic wis- dom teaches that the government should instead buy out the agents in these sectors, and let them relocate to more productive sectors. We show that redistribution to a sector whose agents have highly correlated incomes generates an insurance value. Taking this insur- ance value into account, a buy-out is not sufficient to compensate the agents in the sector for relocating. In fact, it may be efficient for the government to sustain agents in an activity that, while less productive, is subject to correlated income shocks. US data sug- gests that indeed, sectors that receive transfers are subject to more correlated income shocks than others.

This study tests if there is the convergence of headship rates between White and Hispanic population in the Southern California region during the period of 1980 and 2000. Using Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) of the decennial census, the changing gap of the White and Hispanic headship rates is measured for each census year, over time, and across generations in order to test a linear assimilation theory. The study finds that the gap of the White and Hispanic headship rates were generally growing over time and across generations, after controlling for socioeconomic factors. In particular, Hispanic immigrants experience a linear assimilation toward the Non-Hispanic white headship rates over time, while U.S. born Hispanic residents do not show a linear assimilation toward the Non-Hispanic white headship rates. The findings from the study partly support the linear assimilation theory. The changing pattern of the headship rates of Hispanic immigrants might be fully explained by the linear assimilation theory. But, the increasing gap in the U.S. born Hispanic headship rates and the Non-Hispanic headship rates might be partly explained by familism theory. The extended family tradition plays a key role in familism theory, and might account for the lower headship rates of the U.S. born Hispanic population. The regional assimilation pattern is not simply location specific but a national experience. The changing pattern of headship rates of Hispanic population by nativity and the length of stay has important implications for projecting Hispanic households. The new approach, which requires projection of Hispanic population and headship rates by nativity and the length of stay, might develop more accurate projections of Hispanic households by immigration status, but might result in more uncertainties due to the increased number of projection variables.

Even a casual observer of American politics might notice the importance of family in political rhetoric like the Republicans' "family values" and the Democrats' "working families," but we know surprisingly little about the role of family in American politics. We typically think of family as "private" and out of the public realm of politics or we associate family and public policy with so-called family policies, such as welfare or family leave. The goal of this book is to clarify the relationship between seemingly private family life and federal public policies. It asks two important questions: How do policymakers employ the concept of family in the policy process? And, what are the consequences of employing this concept broadly in public policy?All in the Family is the first empirical study of family in the American policy process. It shows that, far from being "private" or only a part of "family policy," family is an important part of American policymaking even in seemingly "non-family" policies like immigration, tax, and agriculture. Policymakers rely on family to determine eligibility, distribute goods, and provide justification for their positions across a wide range of policies. Ultimately, this book shows that seemingly private life makes American public policy possible, and it suggests that the ability of policymakers to accomplish their goals is intimately tied to the strength and organization of American families. Yet, it also demonstrates that relying on a dynamic institution like family can have unintended consequences, potentially destabilizing policies over time.

This paper discusses the causes of mass migration from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to the United States in recent decades and how these migrants have fared in US labour markets. The evidence shows that LAC migrants have higher unemployment rates and substantially lower wages than other immigrants and natives. Furthermore, the relative wages of LAC migrants have been declining sharply over the last 25 years. The most significant factor explaining the latter is the lower (and declining) educational attainment of LAC migrants relative to other immigrants and natives, compounded by the rising rates of return to education in the US.

In the 1990s, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Brazil passed dual citizenship laws granting their expatriates the right to naturalize in the receiving country without losing their nationality of origin. I estimate the effects of these new laws on naturalization rates and labor market outcomes in the United States. Based on data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. censuses, I find that immigrants recently granted dual nationality rights are more likely to naturalize. They also experience employment and earning gains, together with drops in welfare use, suggesting that dual citizenship rights not only increase the propensity to naturalize but may also promote economic assimilation. The effects of dual citizenship on improved economic performance, if mediated through naturalization, are consistent with American citizenship conferring greater economic opportunities.

Economists have long debated whether an abundance of natural resources adversely affects long term economic performance. Focusing on three economic channels discussed in the literature, I investigate whether resource abundance slows down industrialization or the accumulation of education, or whether it raises inequality. I examine these channels using geological variation in oil abundance in the Southern United States. In 1890 oil abundant counties were mostly agricultural and similar to other nearby counties, but after oil was discovered they began to specialize in its production. From 1940-1990 oil abundant counties developed a manufacturing sector that was smaller in terms of its share of employment, but not in terms of its absolute size. At the same time, these counties enjoyed a better educated workforce and higher per capita income, and attracted population at a faster rate. By 1990 these advantages had diminished, but oil abundant counties still had slightly higher per capita income without suffering from worse inequality. Taken together, my results suggest that while resource based specialization involves some long term costs, it can serve as an important lever for development.

The California Report Card is a yearly report issued by Children Now that presents key indicators health, education, and family well-being, along with an assessment of policy and budget progress for children and families. The 2006-07 Report Card highlights gains made in health insurance coverage, preschool, and afterschool and issues a call to legislators and advocates to continue to pursue pro-child policies statewide.

This dissertation compares the importance of the time availability, relative resources and gender ideology perspectives, by empirically evaluating their influence in explaining gender and racial differences in the division of household labor of heterosexual married black and white couples. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (1992–1994), I explore a wide array of employment combinations, including the traditional breadwinner-homemaker arrangements, households where women earn equal or greater incomes than their husbands, where men are unemployed for periods of time when their wives are not, and where men and women combine shifts in employment where much of their time at home does not overlap. The findings suggest that the amount husbands' earn relative to their wives' income, and husbands' employment status relative to wives' status all come together to shape how husbands express their masculinity. Further, I show that there is a shift toward greater . . .

Extreme commuting denotes a one-way commute time of 90 min or more to work. Research into why individuals make such unusually long commutes is limited. In this paper, regression analyses by the use of Microdata files from the Bureau of the Census reveal the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that increase an individuals odds of extreme commuting. Commuters in four metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Houston, Texas; and Tampa, Florida) were examined. The model results are consistent with the findings in the literature that define lengthy commutes as a constrained, rather than optimized, choice behavior.

This study explores the probabilities of being employed, unemployed, and not in the labour force, for men and women in same-sex couples and married and unmarried opposite-sex couples. Same-sex partners were more likely to be unemployed than married opposite-sex partners but less likely than unmarried opposite-sex partners. Laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination had positive and larger effects on unemployment for same-sex partners than for other partners. The presence of young children increased the probability of being out of the labour force more for male same-sex partners than for other men, and less for female same-sex partners than for other women.

This briefing paper focuses on the educational and health status of children and families on the California/Mexico border. Guided by input from community activists and local government officials, this briefing paper will present easy-to-understand stats on children and families, supplemented by case studies drawn from the border communities studied.

This work presents the encounter between African Americans struggling northward and the expanding state sponsored psychiatric system in Illinois. In the spirit of recent scholarship in disability history, it treats people who experienced disability as its subject, specifically individuals who belonged to two minority groups, one racial and the other disabled. Yielding insights that shed new light on American history generally, a disability studies approach here fills two particular voids by illuminating the experience of African Americans in psychiatric care and the history of medicine from the patients' perspective. In addition to exploring many unique facets of individual experience in the community and in the hospital, this dissertation examines how race became a criterion for distinguishing pathology from criminality, as well as determining the type and quality of mental health treatment. Following emancipation, African Americans began moving out—first to southern cities and then, by the early 20th century, to cities in the North. In their travels, they sought social and economic freedom, as well as an escape from physical violence. Many found a near equivalent to the promised land, while others found themselves segregated with a number of their peers in the ward of a northern asylum. Drawing from hospital case records, newspaper articles, census data and psychiatric literature, this dissertation tells the story of what happened when African Americans confronted psychiatry in one Midwestern state.

Using samples of Integrated Public Use Micro-data Series (IPUMS) from the 1980, 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census, this dissertation focus on two main objectives: the first objective is to examine the labor market assimilation and changes in cohort quality of Arab immigrants (as a homogeneous group) in the United States during the period 1980-2000. The second objective is to examine the labor market assimilation and changes in cohort quality of different Arab immigrant groups (Arab immigrants from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gulf and North Africa) in the United States during the period 1980-2000. Two models, Cross-section and quasi-panel, are used in order to achieve these main objectives.The empirical analysis of the first objective of this dissertation reveals that Arab immigrants in the labor market of the United States experienced substantial assimilation rates between 1980 and 2000. Also, the results show that within-cohort growth is insignificantly smaller than the cross-section growth for most Arab immigrant cohorts during the 1980s, whereas the within-cohort growth is significantly smaller than the cross-section growth for most Arab immigrant cohorts during the 1990s. Therefore, I can argue that the quality of Arab Immigrant cohorts has not changed much during the 1980s and has declined during the 1990s.The analysis regarding the assimilation and changes in quality of Arab immigrants by their country of origin shows that there is a significant difference in the assimilation profiles among the seven Arab countries. Again, there are evidences that the quality of Arab Immigrant groups had not showed much change during the 1980s and 1990s. There are exceptions to this result, the case of Arab immigrants from Egypt and Arab immigrants from North Africa who may experience a quality decline during the 1990s because of their positive and significant (in most cases) across-cohort growths. Another exception is the case of Arab immigrants from Lebanon who may have been of increasing quality during the period of 1990s.xFinally, the investigation of the sensitivity of estimates of assimilation shows that rates of assimilation of Arab immigrants are largely sensitive to the choice of base group which used to normalize for secular earnings growth. Estimates of assimilation are showed to be indifference to the selection of U.S. natives or Arab Americans as the base group.

Census data show that since 1980 low-skill workers in the United States have been increasingly employed in the provision of non-tradeable time-intensive services-such as food preparation and cleaning-that can be broadly thought as substitutes of home production activities. Meanwhile the wage gap between this sector and the rest of the economy has shrunk. If skilled workers, with their high opportunity cost of time, demand more of these time-intensive services, then wage gains at the top of the wage distribution (such as those observed in the last three decades) are expected to raise the consumption of these services, consistent with these stylized facts. Using both consumption expenditure data and city-level data on employment and wages of workers of different skills, we provide several pieces of evidence in favor of these demand shifts, and we argue that they provide a viable explanations for the growth in wages at the bottom quantiles observed in the last fifteen years.

Online tool that provides a comprehensive look at the health, education, and economic status of children and families in California, at the county and sub-group level. The resource offers county-level profiles, regional averages, and county-by-county comparisons on key indicators.

I use longitudinal earnings data from Social Security records to study the effect of selective emigration on the measured progress of immigrants to the United States. The immigrant‐native earnings gap closes by 10–15 percent during immigrants’ first 20 years in the United States, or about half as fast as typical estimates from repeated cross sections of the decennial census. The divergent results indicate that emigration by low‐wage immigrants has systematically led past researchers to overestimate the wage progress of immigrants who remain in the United States. Selective back‐and‐forth migration also leads typical estimates to overstate the measured decline in earnings among successive immigrant arrival cohorts between 1960 and 1980.

Report provides community-level data for child and family well-being, including economic, educational, and health elements. We sought to provide up-to-date information about the demographic and lifestyle characteristics of this region while challenging negative stereotypes about residents.

This article uses census microdata to address key issues in the Mexican immigration debate. First, we find striking parallels in the experiences of older and newer immigrant groups with substantial progress among second- and subsequent-generation immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Mexican Americans. Second, we contradict a view of immigrant history that contends that early-twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe found well-paying jobs in manufacturing that facilitated their ascent into the middle class. Both first and second generations remained predominantly working class until after World War II. Third, the erosion of the institutions that advanced earlier immigrant generations is harming the prospects of Mexican Americans. Fourth, the mobility experience of earlier immigrants and of Mexicans and Mexican Americans differed by gender, with a gender gap opening among Mexican Americans as women pioneered the path to white-collar and professional work. Fifth, public-sector and publicly funded employment has proved crucial to upward mobility, especially among women. The reliance on public employment, as contrasted to entrepreneurship, has been one factor setting the Mexican and African American experience apart from the economic history of most southern and eastern European groups as wellas from the experiences of some other immigrant groups today.