Single parents are critical members of communities across the country, fundamental to their children’s well-being and the overall economy. In fact, 35 percent of parents in the United States are single parents. Moreover, these proposed policies would disproportionately harm women, who are more likely than men to be single parents and who are more economically insecure to begin with. Those most at risk are the children impacted by these policies, which are based on outdated ideas about families and gender roles.

In the United States, tax credits are one of the primary ways the federal government supports families with children. This dissertation focuses on the effect of tax credits on the way recipients spend their time and money. I use time use data to examine how tax credits change recipients’ time allocated to both labor supply and caregiving. I use consumption data to examine changes in spending and savings behavior induced by tax credits. Combined, these elucidate the mechanisms through which these policies affect the well-being of recipients and their family members. My first chapter is the first study to examine the effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on unpaid caregiving for adults, which could operate through the credit’s effects on labor supply and household income. Using a sample of unmarried mothers and data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I employ a simulated benefit approach to generate causal estimates of the effect of EITC generosity on time use. I find that increases in average EITC benefits have differential effects on assisting adults by both the age of the EITC recipient and the relationship between the EITC recipient and the care recipient. Results for other types of time use (paid work, home production, leisure, childcare, education, sleep), as well as probability of multigenerational co-residence, help explain these shifts. There has been relatively little causal examination of the Child Tax Credit (CTC)’s effect on parental labor supply, especially compared to the extensive empirical literature on the EITC. In my second chapter, I thus leverage a major federal expansion of the CTC that took place in 2018 as a part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) to estimate the marginal effect of a CTC dollar on parental labor supply for three groups of parents: unmarried mothers, married fathers, and married mothers. I use data from the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) to do so. I also examine treatment effect heterogeneity across parts of the CTC benefit schedule where theoretical predictions of the effects of increased generosity diverge (phase-in versus plateau ranges) and calculate labor supply elasticities. I find that in response to increased average CTC benefits, unmarried mothers and married parents in the phase-in range of the CTC benefit schedule are more likely to be employed or increase their hours worked. However, those beyond the phase-in range of the CTC benefit schedule are estimated to maintain or reduce their labor supply. In the third chapter, I return to the EITC and examine how policy generosity affects consumption and savings behavior. I use 1999-2019 data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) that includes annual spending data on a variety of disaggregated consumption categories, as well as annual measures of assets and debt. This expands the current literature, in which we know more about how EITC eligibility is associated with the timing of consumption, rather than the causal relationship between benefit generosity and annual consumption. These annual measures also speak more directly to the mechanisms through which the EITC may improve well-being. I find that policy-induced increases in EITC benefits increase spending on work-related costs like childcare and transportation; big-ticket purchases like owning a vehicle; goods and services with positive income elasticities like eating out, private health insurance, education, and recreation and entertainment; and wealth through decreased student debt and increased savings.

Progress toward the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the most recent Chesapeake Bay watershed agreement has slowed, with reports indicating either are unlikely to meet their goals. This essay examines the link between democratic backsliding and place-based voting and how in our current era of political polarization it will be especially difficult to meet the sustainable development goals of large-scale natural resources. This growing threat is examined through a critical review of seminal readings, research studies, and recent data describing how an alignment of national-level social identities with political parties has eroded peoples’ bond to place over the last 30 years in the United States. Place is presented as a personally, culturally, and spatially critical concept that informs and motivates the pro-environmental collective actions necessary to achieve sustainable development goals. The long-standing environmental problems of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a multi-jurisdictional natural resource necessary for the environmental, economic, and recreational well-being of millions of people, are described here to illustrate the importance of place-based efforts in coordinating collective action across a large, heterogeneous, socio-spatial natural resource.

Importance Abortion bans may lead to births among those who are unable to overcome barriers to abortion. The population-level effects of these policies, particularly their unequal impacts across subpopulations in the US, remain unclear. Objective To assess heterogeneity in the association of abortion bans with changes in fertility in the US, within and across states. Design, Setting, and Participants Drawing from birth certificate and US Census Bureau data from 2012 through 2023 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, this study used a bayesian panel data model to evaluate state-by-subgroup-specific changes in fertility associated with complete or 6-week abortion bans in 14 US states. The average percent and absolute change in the fertility rate among females aged 15 through 44 years was estimated overall and by state, and within and across states by age, race and ethnicity, marital status, education, and insurance payer. Exposure Complete or 6-week abortion ban. Main outcome and Measures Fertility rate (births per 1000 reproductive-aged females) overall and by subgroups. Results There were an estimated 1.01 (95% credible interval [CrI], 0.45-1.64) additional births above expectation per 1000 females aged 15 through 44 years (reproductive age) in states following adoption of abortion bans (60.55 observed vs 59.54 expected; 1.70% increase; 95% CrI, 0.75%-2.78%), equivalent to 22 180 excess births, with evidence of variation by state and subgroup. Estimated differences above expectation were largest for racially minoritized individuals (≈2.0%), unmarried individuals (1.79%), individuals younger than 35 years (≈2.0%), Medicaid beneficiaries (2.41%), and those without college degrees (high school diploma, 2.36%; some college, 1.58%), particularly in southern states. Differences in race and ethnicity and education across states explain most of the variability in the state-level association between abortion bans and fertility rates. Conclusion and Relevance These findings provide evidence that fertility rates in states with abortion bans were higher than would have been expected in the absence of these policies, with the largest estimated differences among subpopulations experiencing the greatest structural disadvantages and in states with among the worst maternal and child health and well-being outcomes.

Unpaid caregiving for adults is crucial to maintaining health, independence, and well-being at older ages, and serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. healthcare system. It is valued at about $600 billion dollars annually, which is more than all out-of-pocket spending on healthcare. 1 In their working years, caregivers potentially face trade-offs between unpaid caregiving and paid work and between caregiving for children and caregiving for adult family members. In recent years, the likelihood of sandwiched care demands from children and parents (or other adults) has increased. As of 2014, one in six workers were estimated to provide care to an aging adult, and over one-quarter of this group also had a dependent child. 2 Poor households face more costly tradeoffs between paid work and caregiving because the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)-one of the nation's largest antipoverty programs for families with children-requires recipients to work and provides benefits based on the level of earnings. About 23 million U.S. households received the EITC in 2022. 3 Thus, it is critical to assess whether the EITC reduces assistance to adult family members. This brief summarizes the findings of my recent paper, 4 which is the first to examine the effect of the EITC on unpaid caregiving for adults. I examined these effects using a sample of unmarried mothers ages 25-54 without a college degree who report detailed time diary data in the

Despite growing evidence that neighborhoods play a critical role in shaping economic mobility and well-being, effective policies to address neighborhood disadvantage remain elusive. This study evaluates the impact of the Promise Zone program, which aims to revitalize disadvantaged neighborhoods through streamlined federal support and grant incentives. I use an event study framework with newly obtained data on the location of failed finalist applications as a comparison group to estimate the program's effects. The results reveal significant improvements in poverty, household incomes, and employment in Promise Zone neighborhoods, particularly in later-designated zones and initially low-status neighborhoods. I also find that effects are driven partly by changes in residential composition, and that Promise Zones appear to induce positive spillovers in adjacent areas.

We ask what ethical regulations govern criminal legal system research that is not “biomedical and behavioral research”—including oral history and archival projects, legal work and research, journalistic projects, big data, and multidisciplinary projects—but nonetheless takes place inside the academy? We examine ethical frameworks for research in the social sciences, as well as participatory action, oral history, archival, and data use, attending to how these academic ethical frameworks define risk and how these definitions shape resulting research, in intentional and unintentional ways. Through analysis of examples from each of these frameworks, we argue that efforts to eliminate risk often create other harms, while distracting from more fundamental ethical questions about the well-being of research subjects and data contributors in the criminal legal system. We identify an alternative to risk elimination: risk metabolization, a more collaborative and iterative approach to managing risk in research ethics.

Industrialized swine facilities adversely affect the health and well-being of Eastern North Carolina residents in the U.S.and are an issue of environmental racism. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) emit various harmful and noxious airpollutants, including ammonia (NH3). There are limited measurements of CAFO-related air quality, contributing to disputes aroundits severity. We use NH3 vertical column densities from the space-based Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) toreport systematic, distributive inequalities in NH3 column enhancements (ΔNH3 columns), equal to NH3 columns less anobservationally determined tropospheric background. Population-weighted block group-scale ΔNH3 columns are higher by 27 ± 3%for Black and African Americans, 35 ± 3% for Hispanics and Latinos, and 49 ± 3% for American Indians compared to non-Hispanic/Latino whites in Eastern North Carolina (April−August 2016−2021). Surface winds and air temperature influence block group-scaleNH3 distributions, with higher absolute NH3 inequalities for all groups on calm days and for Black and African Americans andHispanics and Latinos on hot days, consistent with effects from NH3 volatization downfield of facilities from, e.g., manure-coveredfields, particles, and other surfaces. ΔNH3 columns correspond spatially with permitted swine facilities, with residents living multiplekilometers from swine CAFOs chronically exposed to elevated NH3. Trends in NH3 columns over 2008−2023 are driven byregional-scale atmospheric processes rather than localized NH3 changes in CAFO emissions. Results are discussed in local decision-making contexts that have broad relevance for air quality issues without protective federal regulatory standards.

Motor vehicle crashes are the second leading cause of injury death among adults aged 65 and older in the U.S., second only to falls. A common state-level approach to mitigating older adult crash risk is the implementation of driver license renewal policies which vary largely between states and data on their effectiveness in preventing crashes and injuries are limited. To fill this gap, the aim of this study is to examine the association between state driver license renewal policies and older driver crash and injury rates. Historical crash data, license renewal policy data, and other relevant policy and demographic data were gathered from 13 U.S. states (CO, IL, IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, UT, WI, WY) for years 2000 through 2019, inclusive. Main exposures included six license renewal policies: renewal period, in-person renewal frequency, vision testing, knowledge testing, on-road drive testing, and mandatory physician reporting. The primary outcomes were crash and injury rates per 100,000 population. The study population included 19,010,179 crash-involved drivers aged 40 and older. State policies became less restrictive in many states over the study period, even for drivers aged 75 and older, resulting in longer times between renewals and fewer in-person renewal requirements. Loosening of in-person renewal from every time to less than every time was associated with increased crash rates, among drivers aged 65 to 74 (RRcrash = 1.08, 95% CI: 1.01–1.16). A longer duration between in-person renewals was associated with increased injury rates among drivers 75 and older (RRinjury = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.00–1.39). Generally, state policies became less restrictive and resulted in longer required intervals between license renewal. Loosening of driver license renewal policies was associated with increased crash and injury rates. However, safety benefits of restrictive older driver licensing policies should be carefully weighed against costs to older adult well-being and quality of life following licensure loss. Additional methods to assess fitness to drive are necessary to identify the mechanisms behind the increased rates.

This paper develops a novel axiomatic analysis of exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour, derives an empirical exploitation index at the individual level, and provides the first estimation of the distribution of exploitation in the US in 1975-2022. We show that, among possible definitions of exploitation, only one satisfies a small set of formally weak and normatively salient axioms. From this definition, we derive an individual-level exploitation intensity index which provides a new measure of well-being and inequality, complementary to existing ones and able to jointly take into account the distributions of income and work time. In US data, exploitation intensity provides additional information compared with standard income inequality measures and predicts important well-being and political outcomes. Inequality in exploitation increased more than income inequality since 1975.

Unpaid labor—such as caregiving and housework—remains foundational to the functioning of families and society, yet continues to be undervalued, invisible, and unequally distributed. This dissertation examines the lived experiences and consequences of unpaid labor focusing on three groups—grandparents, parents of minor children, and working parents—using nationally representative data. It asks: How do caregiving expectations shape labor force participation in later life? How do parenting practices aligned with intensive parenting norms relate to stress and fatigue? And how is unpaid labor timed across the workday in relation to paid work and subjective well-being? The first chapter examines how gendered dynamics unfold across generations to shape older adults’ labor force participation. The second chapter introduces “backdrop parenting”—moments of child presence without active care—and suggests that mothers experience greater fatigue than fathers from these experiences due to overlapping unpaid tasks. The third chapter explores how working parents schedule unpaid labor around paid work, revealing that stress and fatigue vary with its timing across the day.

Between 1980 and 2000, the U.S. experienced a significant rise in geographic sorting and educational homogamy, with college graduates increasingly concentrating in high-skill cities and marrying similarly educated spouses. We develop and estimate a spatial equilibrium model with local labor, housing, and marriage markets, incorporating a marriage matching framework with transferable utility. Using the model, we estimate trends in assortative preferences, quantify the interplay between marital and geographic sorting, and assess their combined impact on household inequality. Welfare analyses show that after accounting for marriage, the college well-being gap grew substantially more than the college wage gap.

The archipelago of Puerto Rico has faced multiple natural disasters, including hurricanes and earthquakes, disrupting the mental health and daily lives of its residents. These disasters, combined with socio-political abandonment, have led to the deterioration of the electrical grid, exacerbating health disparities. This study aimed to explore the linkages between natural and structural disasters, mental health, and energy independence in Puerto Rico. In this setting, the community organization Casa Pueblo has installed solar panels in the homes of people with chronic health conditions. Through ethnographic fieldwork in the town of Adjuntas and qualitative interviews with 45 individuals with different levels of access to solar power, we explore the implications of ongoing natural and structural disasters on the mental health of individuals and how access to solar energy could help mitigate their effects. Results indicate that participants with direct and indirect access to solar panels held positive and hopeful narratives regarding their mental well-being and quality of life. This innovative model of communal energy security through solar power for climate adaptation holds promises for enhancing mental health in the town of Adjuntas and potentially in other regions.

The housing unaffordability and cost-of-living crisis is affecting millions of people in US cities, yet the implications for urban dwellers' well-being and social reproduction remain less clear. This article presents a longitudinal analysis of household access to running water—a vital component of social infrastructure—in the 50 largest US cities since 1970. The results indicate that water access has worsened in an increasing number and typology of US cities since the 2008 global financial crash, disproportionately affecting households of color in 12 of the 15 largest cities. We provide evidence to suggest that a 'reproductive squeeze'—systemic, compounding pressures on households' capacity to reproduce themselves on a daily and societal basis—is forcing urban households into more precarious living arrangements , including housing without running water. We analyze the case study of Portland (Oregon) to illustrate the racialized nature of the reproductive squeeze under a housing crisis. Our insights reveal that plumbing poverty—a lack of household running water—is expanding in scope and severity to a broader array of US cities, raising doubts about equitable progress towards Sustainable Development Goals for clean water and sanitation for all (SDG 6) and sustainable cities (SDG 11) in an increasingly urbanized United States.

The housing unaffordability and cost-of-living crisis is affecting millions of people in US cities, yet the implications for urban dwellers’ well-being and social reproduction remain less clear. This Article presents a longitudinal analysis of household access to running water—a vital component of social infrastructure—in the 50 largest US cities since 1970. The results indicate that water access has worsened in an increasing number and typology of US cities since the 2008 global financial crash, disproportionately affecting households of color in 12 of the 15 largest cities. We provide evidence to suggest that a ‘reproductive squeeze’—systemic, compounding pressures on households’ capacity to reproduce themselves on a daily and societal basis—is forcing urban households into more precarious living arrangements, including housing without running water. We analyze the case study of Portland (Oregon) to illustrate the racialized nature of the reproductive squeeze under a housing crisis. Our insights reveal that plumbing poverty—a lack of household running water—is expanding in scope and severity to a broader array of US cities, raising doubts about equitable progress towards Sustainable Development Goals for clean water and sanitation for all (SDG 6) and sustainable cities (SDG 11) in an increasingly urbanized United States. Meehan and colleagues study access to running water in large US cities since 1970, finding that the 2008 financial crisis worsened household ‘plumbing poverty’ in many cities. This disproportionately impacted households of color and generally squeezed lower-income households into more precarious living situations.

Although it is widely acknowledged that high-skilled teachers are integral to service quality and young children’s well-being in child care settings, little is known about the qualifications and skills of the child care workforce. This paper combines data from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of the quality of individuals employed in the child care sector. I find that today’s workforce is relatively low-skilled: child care workers have less schooling than those in other occupations, they score substantially lower on tests of cognitive ability, and they are among the lowest-paid individuals in the economy. I also show that the relative quality of the child care workforce is declining, in part because higher-skilled individuals increasingly find the child care sector less attractive than other occupations. Furthermore, I provide evidence that at least three other factors may be associated with the decline in worker quality. First, the recent proliferation of community college programs offering child care-related certificates and degrees may divert students away from attending four-year schools. Second, those majoring in child care-related fields are negatively selected for their cognitive skills, thereby decreasing the quality of the child care labor pool. Third, I show that the increased availability of outside employment options for high-skilled women had a detrimental effect on the quality of the child care workforce.

Medical debt, or medical costs owed for health care services, is a pressing issue across the U.S., with implications for health and well-being for those facing debt burden. While recognition of medical debt as a social problem is growing, details about who is most at risk of holding this debt remain less clear. We address this gap by examining the differences in the proportion of people with medical debt in collections and median amount of medical debt by rural-urban location. We also focus on additional differences within rural and urban communities of color. The high cost of health care and associated medical debt in the U.S. persist as pressing social issues with an estimated over 100 million people having some medical debt.1,2 The consequences of medical debt are wide-reaching. Beyond the financial and household budget strain, individuals also report being denied, delaying, or not seeking health care because of cost and debt with repercussions for health, mental health, and well-being

Ways of leaving the labor force has been an understudied aspect of labor market outcomes. Labor market institutions such as occupational licensing may influence how individuals transition to retirement. When and how workers transition from career jobs to full retirement may contribute to pre-and post-retirement well-being. Previous investigations of retirement pathways focused on the patterns and outcomes of retirement transitions, yet the influence of occupational licensing on retirement transition has not been analyzed. In this study, we use the Current Population Survey and Survey of Income and Program Participation to investigate how occupational licensing influences American later-career workers' choice of retirement pathways. Our results show that licensed workers are less likely to choose to change careers but more likely to reduce work hours in transitioning out of the workforce. These results are consistent with the findings that licensed workers receive more benefits in the form of preferable retirement options, suggesting that these workers tend to have higher wages, benefits, and flexibility even toward the end of their careers.

Objectives Sleep plays an essential role in well-being. Although U.S. immigrants are considerably growing, few studies have examined sleep in this diverse population, particularly those from Asian backgrounds. It is also unclear how sleep differs by the length of residence across immigrant groups. In this study, we examined the relationships among race/ethnicity, length of residence, and sleep using a nationally representative cohort of U.S. immigrants. Methods We analyzed data from the 2013-2018 National Health Interview Survey. The sample (N = 27,761; 14% ≥65 years old) included foreign-born adults from the following racial/ethnic backgrounds: non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Asian (Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian), and Hispanic/Latino. Length of residence was categorized as <5, 5-9, 10-14, and ≥15 years. Sleep was assessed with self-reported sleep duration (normal, short, and long) and poor sleep quality (trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and waking up unrested). Results Filipino and Hispanic/Latino immigrants reported the highest prevalence of short (41.8%) and long (7.0%) sleep, respectively. Non-Hispanic White immigrants had the highest prevalence rate across all three poor sleep quality measures (range 17.7-41.5%). Length of residence ≥15 years was significantly associated with worse sleep, and it moderated White-Asian differences in sleep quality. Immigrants from different racial/ethnic groups showed variations in sleep patterns as they resided longer in the US. Conclusions Immigrants exhibited substantial heterogeneities in sleep. Future research should investigate the contributing factors to the variations in their sleep patterns, both between groups and within the same group of immigrants, in order to inform tailored interventions.

Mounting evidence signals that cohabitation operates as an alternative to remarriage inlater life. However, others have maintained that cohabitation is an incomplete institution marked byless favorable outcomes than remarriage. We appraise these two frameworks by examining thewell-being of remarried and previously married cohabiting older adults. Drawing on the 2010–2020 Health and Retirement Study, we assessed whether remarriedand previously married cohabiting older adults differed in their depressive symptoms and loneliness.We also tested whether the association between relationship quality and well-being varied by uniontype. Among women, cohabitors reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than their remar-ried counterparts. In contrast, union type was not appreciably associated with men’s depressive symp-toms. Meanwhile, among men, cohabitors reported less loneliness, on average, than did those inremarriages. No corresponding union-type differential emerged among women. Additionally, the association between relationship quality and psychological well-being did not differ by union type for both men and women.