Mass Education, International Travel, and Ideal Ages at Marriage
AbstractOpportunities to document associations between macro-level changes in social organization and the spread of new individual attitudes are relatively rare. Moreover, of the factors generally understood to be influential, little is known about the potential mechanisms that make them so powerful. Here we use longitudinal measures from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) to describe the processes of ideational change across 12 years among a representative sample from a rural agrarian setting in South Asia. Findings from lagged dependent variable models show that (1) two key dimensions of social organization ––edu...
Source: Demography - December 9, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
The Impact of the Flint Water Crisis on Fertility
AbstractFlint switched its public water source in April 2014, increasing exposure to lead and other contaminants. We compare the change in the fertility rate and in health at birth in Flint before and after the water switch to the changes in other cities in Michigan. We find that Flint fertility rates decreased by 12 % and that overall health at birth decreased. This effect on health at birth is a function of two countervailing mechanisms: (1) negative selection of less healthy embryos and fetuses not surviving (raising the average health of survivors), and (2) those who survived being scarred (decreasing average health). ...
Source: Demography - December 4, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Many Kinds of Poverty: Three Dimensions of Economic Hardship, Their Combinations, and Children ’s Behavior Problems
AbstractIncome poverty, material deprivation, and subjective financial stress are three distinct dimensions of economic hardship. The majority of the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of economic hardship on children has treated material deprivation and subjective financial stress as only mediators of the effects of income poverty, not considering the independent effects of each dimension or the effects of their combinations. Using nationally representative, longitudinal data from the Millennium Cohort Study on more than 18,000 families in the United Kingdom, we propose seven distinct experiences of econo...
Source: Demography - December 4, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Using an Online Sample to Estimate the Size of an Offline Population
AbstractOnline data sources offer tremendous promise to demography and other social sciences, but researchers worry that the group of people who are represented in online data sets can be different from the general population. We show that by sampling and anonymously interviewing people who are online, researchers can learn about both people who are online and people who are offline. Our approach is based on the insight that people everywhere are connected through in-person social networks, such as kin, friendship, and contact networks. We illustrate how this insight can be used to derive an estimator for tracking thedigit...
Source: Demography - December 2, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Educational Variations in Cohort Trends in the Black-White Earnings Gap Among Men: Evidence From Administrative Earnings Data
This study adopts a demographic perspective to examine the evolution of earnings trajectories among white and black men across cohorts in the United States. Using more than 40 years of longitudinal earnings records from the U.S. Social Security Administration matched to the Survey of Income and Program Participation, our analyses reveal that the cohort trends in the racial earnings gap follow quite different patterns by education. Race continues to be a salient dimension of economic inequality over the life course and across cohorts, particularly at the top and the bottom of the educational distribution. Although the narro...
Source: Demography - December 1, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Marriage Age, Social Status, and Intergenerational Effects in Uganda
This study examines whether Ugandan women who marry at younger ages fare differently on a wide range of later-life outcomes than women who marry at later ages. Using a nationally representative data set, I identify the plausibly causal impacts of women ’s marriage age by using age at menarche as an instrumental variable. Results indicate that a one-year delay in marriage for Ugandan women leads to higher educational attainment (0.5–0.75 years), literacy (10 percentage points), and labor force participation (8 percentage points). I also explore intergenerational effects of later marriage and find that the children of mo...
Source: Demography - December 1, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Immigration and the Wage Distribution in the United States
This article assesses the connection between immigration and wage inequality in the United States. Departing from the focus on how the average wages of different native groups respond to immigration, we examine how immigrants shape the overall wage distribution. Despite evidence indicating that an increased presence of low-skilled immigrants is associated with losses at the lower end of wage distribution, we do not observe a similar result between high-skilled immigrants and natives at the upper end. Instead, the presence of foreign-born workers, whether high- or low-skilled, is associated with substantial gains for high-w...
Source: Demography - November 21, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
The Mechanism Underlying Change in the Sex Gap in Life Expectancy at Birth: An Extended Decomposition
AbstractThe relationship between differential mortality rates and differences in life expectancy is well understood, but how changing differential rates translate into changing differences in life expectancy has not been fully explained. To elucidate the mechanism involved, this study extends existing decomposition methods. The extended method decomposes change in the sex gap in life expectancy at birth into three components capturing the effects of the sex difference in mortality improvement ( ρ-effect), life table deaths density by age (f-effect), and remaining life expectancy by age (e-effect). These three effects oppo...
Source: Demography - November 19, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Does Hypersegregation Matter for Black-White Socioeconomic Disparities?
AbstractMassey and Denton ’s concept of hypersegregation describes how multiple and distinct forms of black-white segregation lead to high levels of black-white stratification. However, numerous studies assessing the association between segregation and racial stratification applied only one or two dimensions of segregation , neglecting how multiple forms of segregation combine to potentially exacerbate socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. We address this by using data from the U.S. Census from 1980 to 2010 and data from the American Community Survey from 2012 to 2016 to assess trajectories for black-wh it...
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
(Source: Demography)
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Gradual Change, Homeostasis, and Punctuated Equilibrium: Reconsidering Patterns of Health in Later Life
We describe the assumption of gradual change built into several influential statistical models and draw on widely used, nationally representative survey data to empirically compare the conclusions drawn from mixed-regression methods (growth curve models and latent class growth analysis) designed to capture trajectories with key descriptive statistics and methods (multistate life tables and sequence analysis) that depict discrete states and transitions. We show that individual-level data record stasis irregularly punctuated by relatively sudden change in health status or mortality. Although change is prevalent in the sample...
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Fragmentation or Diversification? Ethnoracial Change and the Social and Economic Heterogeneity of Places
AbstractOur study investigates the diversification and fragmentation theses, fueled by claims that greater diversity is reshaping the social fabric of American life and that the United States is an increasingly fragmented nation. We take a multidimensional view of heterogeneity that considers whether growing ethnoracial diversity within U.S. communities (i.e., incorporated and unincorporated places) has resulted in the consolidation or differentiation of demographic, sociocultural, and economic distinctions between 1980 and 2010. As communities have become more ethnoracially diverse, they have become more heterogeneous in ...
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Heterogeneous Consequences of Teenage Childbearing
This study finds heterogeneous effects of teen childbearing on education and labor market outcomes across socioeconomic status and race. Using miscarriages to put bounds on the causal effects of teen childbearing, results show that teen childbearing leads to lower educational attainment, lower income, and greater use of welfare for individuals who come from counties with better socioeconomic conditions. However, there are no significant adverse effects for individuals who come from counties with worse socioeconomic conditions. Across race, teen childbearing leads to negative consequences for white teens but no significant ...
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Contribution of the Rise in Cohabiting Parenthood to Family Instability: Cohort Change in Italy, Great Britain, and Scandinavia
In this study, we investigate through microsimulation the link between cohabiting parenthood and family instability. We identify mechanisms through which increases in cohabiting parenthood may contribute to overall increases in separation among parents, linking micro-level processes to macro-level outcomes. Analyses are based on representative surveys in Italy, Great Britain, and Scandinavia (represented by Norway and Sweden), with full histories of women ’s unions and births. We first generate parameters for the risk of first and higher-order birth and union events by woman’s birth cohort and country. The estimated pa...
Source: Demography - November 10, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Matters for the Subjective Well-being of Individuals in Same-Sex Unions
AbstractWe investigate whether the subjective well-being of individuals in same-sex unions improved following the legalization of same-sex marriage in England and Wales in March 2014. We employ repeated cross-sectional data from the 2011 –2016 Annual Population Surveys on 476,411 persons, including 4,112 individuals in coresidential same-sex relationships. The analysis reveals increases in subjective well-being for individuals in same-sex relationships following legalization. Additional analysis documents higher subjective well-be ing for individuals in married same-sex couples compared with individuals who are in a civi...
Source: Demography - November 5, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research
