12/01/2016
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TITLE: Cohort Emergence: Health Impacts of Differential Exposure to Historical Conditions at Critical Periods ABSTRACT: For decades, studies have shown differences in health across cohorts, often defined as some set of evenly-spaced birth years. Life course perspectives suggest that some of these differences may be related to shared exposure to historical conditions. Bringing life course perspectives into studies of cohort differences, cohorts emerge not from evenly-spaced birth years, but instead from shared experiences during critical periods. Differences in health outcomes across cohorts arise from differential exposure to historical conditions. This presentation will illustrate the emergence of diverging cohort health profiles in two different empirical contexts. The first study, using the Hispanic Established Populations and Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (1995-2013) focuses on Mexican immigrants, and defines cohorts at the critical period of migration to the United States. This study finds different baseline levels of disability and different growth in disability are associated with differential exposure to four major Immigration Policy Regimes effective in the United States between 1920 and 2000. The second study, using the General Social Surveys (1994-2014), defines cohorts at the critical period of young adulthood. This study finds different levels of happiness are associated with differential exposure in young adulthood to economic slowdowns occurring between 1920 and 2005. In both cases, the health associations persist among cohorts across the life course.Contact: Laura Satterfield
11/03/2016
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Contact: Laura Satterfield
10/06/2016
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Tony Bardo "Can We Expect to Become Happier with Age? Life Course Patterns in Subjective Well-Being"
Abstract: Over the past forty years a great deal of attention, in light of increasing life expectancy, has been given to whether we are simply adding years to life or life to years. Despite all the recent happiness research, we know very little about the relationship between age and well-being. One key detriment is that conceptual links between subjective well-being and life course theories are underdeveloped. Drawing on subjective well-being’s “domains-of-life approach” and Gunhild Hagestad’s “normal expectable life course,” I show that the age pattern in happiness is a net result of satisfaction with specific areas of life that differ in importance across the life course. Furthermore, the relationship between age and happiness is found to be relatively consistent over the past four decades. This suggests that we have potentially added life to years, given that the proportion of community-dwelling older adults has increased substantially over this same period of time.Contact: Laura Satterfield
09/01/2016
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Speaker and abstract TBAContact: Laura Satterfield
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TBAContact: Laura Satterfield
05/05/2016
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Patricia Homan Rethinking the Role of Childhood SES in Adult Health: Direct Effects are Limited to Less Serious Conditions Mounting evidence indicates that childhood socioeconomic status (SES) has long-term effects on health and mortality in later adulthood. However, findings are mixed regarding how it influences health. Specifically, does childhood SES affect adult health only through adult SES, or does it exert an independent influence? We investigate whether inconsistent findings in the literature are attributable to the use of different health outcomes across studies. Using data from the 1998-2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we estimate a series of hazard models and random effects models for 20 health outcomes, ranging from specific conditions of different levels of seriousness, to indexes of physical functioning, to indexes of serious disability, to mortality. We uncover a previously unrecognized pattern in the effect of childhood SES on adult health: The extent to which childhood SES exerts an influence on adult health over and above its influence through adult SES diminishes as the seriousness of the health condition increases. Theoretical implications are discussed. Carlos Tavares Racism and Health among the Black Middle Class: The Role of Racial Identity as a Buffering Mechanism The growth of the black middle-class has important implications for scholars interested in understanding how race and class affect long-term health trends. While scholars generally find that high socio-economic status results in better health, racial health disparities persist controlling for group socio-economic status differences. Recent health stratification research is increasingly sensitive to the role perceived racism plays in shaping physical and mental health outcomes. Perceived racism is generally associated with negative mental and physical health. However, little research specifically examines this relationship among the black middle-class. Few studies examine long-term temporal patterns between perceived racism and health. Further, even less is known about what social and economic resources black middle-class individuals possess that may mediate the effects of perceived racism on health. In this paper, I examine the extent to which strength of racial identity mediates the relationship between perceived racism and health among the black middle-class. Using longitudinal panel data from the American Changing Lives Study (ACL), I investigate strength of racial identity’s attenuating role between perceived racism and mental/self-rated health. The results suggest that perceived racism significantly shapes self-rated health among the black middle class.Contact: Laura Satterfield
04/07/2016
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Maria Laurito- Displacement, Housing Reconstruction and Long-Term Well-Being after the Indian Ocean Tsunami ABSTRACT: The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami displaced large numbers of people. In Aceh, Indonesia, an estimated 500,000 people left their communities after the disaster. Using data from the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), a large-scale population-representative longitudinal survey, we provide a demographic perspective on displacement and longer-term adaptation and recovery after a disaster. We describe patterns of mobility among tsunami survivors, including the displaced who did not return to their origin communities, the displaced who did return, and those who never left. We also consider mobility among those living in communities out of harm’s way. We then examine how the likelihood of receiving housing aid as well as the timing of receipt varies across these subgroups. Finally, we consider how measures of subjective well-being evolve after the disaster. Preliminary results confirm displaced populations strongly benefited from housing aid, in particular in areas where tsunami damage was high. Ed Berchick- Is Childhood Health Associated with Fertility? Evidence from a Cohort of British Women ABSTRACT: A growing body of research has focused on the contribution of child health to the reproduction of socioeconomic advantage across generations. However, considerations of childbearing processes have been largely absent from the literature. On an individual level, lower fertility (via reduced completed family size) is associated with improved child wellbeing. On a population level fertility is part of a population “metabolism” (Duncan 1966) that helps to determine the distribution of exposures in the next generation. To investigate whether there is a connection between child health and childbearing, I use data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine the links between a number of measures of child health (including birth weight, chronic conditions, and mental health) and fertility. Preliminary results suggest that individuals who have poor health as children tend to have fewer children than those who were healthier, thereby offsetting some of child health’s other inequality-producing consequences.Contact: Laura Satterfield
03/03/2016
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One of the primary goals of social demographers is to measure and understand socioeconomic differentials in life expectancy. However, recent research has questioned whether shifting education distributions across cohorts are contaminating our estimates of socioeconomic status gradients in mortality. In this study, we use high-quality Finnish register data for 1971-2005 to identify a new empirical regularity in the relationship between exact SES (percentile rank in the education distribution) and mortality ratios (the ratio of education-specific mortality to total mortality). We find that these two variables are related by a negative logarithmic curve. We specify and estimate a two parameter model that captures the great majority of the variation in this relationship. We then apply this method to generate SES quintile-specific life expectancies which are adjusted for changing education distributions. Our main findings are that SES differentials in life expectancy appear to have increased for men, but not for women between 1971 and 2005. SES inequality in mortality has increased for both sexes, but this has been cancelled out for women due to more rapid declines in overall mortality. Roughly 59% and 100% of the increase in educational differentials in life expectancy for men and women, respectively, can be attributed to shifting education distributions. Had the inequality parameters governing the Finnish population not changed over time, the difference in life expectancy between the top and bottom SES quintiles would have narrowed by 0.9 years for men and 0.4 years for women.Contact: Laura Satterfield
02/04/2016
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Regional differences in health in the US are well-established, with southerners typically experiencing the worst health. Regional differences in life satisfaction have been less studied, but some research indicates that southerners have higher levels of life satisfaction than persons living elsewhere. These two broad regional patterns seem paradoxical, because health is commonly assumed to be a key component of life quality. Although understanding this seeming paradox is therefore important for understanding quality of life, no research has investigated geographic variation in the relationship between health and life satisfaction. In this study, we do so, with a particular focus on age. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we find that the relationship between health and life satisfaction is much weaker in the south than elsewhere, and that this pattern is most pronounced at the oldest ages, suggesting health is not a key component of life quality for elders.Contact: Laura Satterfield
05/04/2017
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Speaker and abstract TBAContact: Laura Satterfield
03/30/2017
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Abstract TBAContact: Laura Satterfield
03/02/2017
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Abstract TBAContact: T. Alexis Williams
02/02/2017
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Abstract TBAContact: Laura Satterfield
01/19/2017
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Although gender inequality has been recognized as a crucial factor influencing population health in the developing world, research has not yet thoroughly documented the role it may play in shaping U.S. infant mortality rates (IMRs). This study uses administrative data with fixed-effects and random-effects models to (1) investigate the relationship between political gender inequality in state legislatures and state infant mortality rates in the United States from 1990 to 2012, and (2) project the population level costs associated with women’s underrepresentation in 2012. Results indicate that higher percentages of women in state legislatures are associated with reduced IMRs, both between states and within-states over time. According to model predictions, if women were at parity with men in state legislatures, the expected number of infant deaths in the U.S. in 2012 would have been lower by approximately 14.6% (3,478 infant deaths). These findings underscore the importance of women’s political representation for population health.Contact: Laura Satterfield
12/03/2015
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Epidemiological evidence indicates that most people will develop a diagnosable mental disorder, suggesting that only a minority experience enduring mental health. This minority has received little empirical study, leaving the prevalence and predictors of enduring mental health unknown. We report an analysis of early-life demographic, family-environment, physical-health, cognitive, temperamental/personality, and family-history characteristics of individuals who have never been diagnosed with a mental disorder (N=171; 17% prevalence) during the course of the 4-decade, Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. We then examine how these individuals report coping with stress, and how they fare on a set of midlife outcomes, including educational attainment, socioeconomic status, life satisfaction, and relationship quality. Our findings draw attention to “enduring mental health” as a revealing psychological phenotype and suggest it deserves further study.Contact: Laura Satterfield
11/05/2015
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Since the late 1970s, the U.S. has experienced dramatic increases in the costs of a college education, sizable fluctuations in housing wealth and, a rise and persistence in the inequality of family income and overall wealth. These trends are likely to have important consequences for the role of parents in the attainment of the next generation, since parents have long been the primary source of financial support for their children’s post-secondary education their children’s home purchases. In this paper, we examine the relationships between parental wealth and children’s higher education and housing decisions using data from the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the new Rosters and Transfers Module. In particular, how parents’ decisions about providing financial transfers to their children in support to fund their children’s education and housing. We examine how such transfers differ across the distribution of parental wealth and income for different types of households and across time and across macroeconomic conditions. Finally, we use measures of local labor and housing market conditions over time to identify the causal effect of parental wealth on the provision and amounts of these two types of transfers to their adult children.Contact: Laura Satterfield
10/01/2015
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Numerous studies have shown that the mental health of workers is negatively impacted during economic downturns. This decline in psychological well-being is associated with the declines in job security resulting from these downturns. This study expands prior research, which was limited to full-time workers and did not address respondents' prior experiences with recessions. Using the GSS 2006-2010 and HRS 2002-2012, this study finds that declining mental health in nonworkers, such as the retired, is also associated with declining job security. The study also finds that experiencing a recession during young adulthood strengthens the relationship between poor mental health and job insecurity.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
05/07/2015
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This study examines how rapid mortality declines, shifting education distributions, and the intensification of assortative mating in the last half-century have patterned changes in the survivorship experience of married couples. I introduce a new formal demographic model linking the life cycles of married couples with changes in the joint distribution of spouses' characteristics, including age at marriage and education. Using data on mortality and the characteristics of married couples from 1960 through 2010, I calculate trends in the life cycles of married couples—the number of years couples spend in the married state, the probability of widowhood, and the number of years spent widowed—over time. I then decompose these trends into the portions due to changes in mortality, assortative mating, and the age and education composition of the population.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
04/16/2015
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This study examines the effect of food environments characterized as food swamps on adult obesity. I aim to operationalize the concept of a food swamp, a spatial metaphor comparable to food deserts. Food swamps have been described as areas that are inundated with high-calorie fast food and junk food relative to healthier food options. In this paper, I present multiple ways of categorizing food environments as county-level food swamps and food deserts. Also, I introduce more comprehensive versions of the Retail Food Environment Index (RFEI) that consider the density of food store outlets in addition to grocery stores and fast food restaurants. Furthermore, I employ an instrumental variables (IV) strategy to correct for the endogeneity problems associated with food environments. More explicitly, individuals self-select into certain neighborhoods and may consider food availability in their decision process. Highway exits have been used as an instrument for fast food access in previous studies. Based on historical evidence dating the start of the system to the 1940s, I exploit highway exits as a source of exogenous variation in order to explore causal links between food swamps and the prevalence of adult obesity. Preliminary findings provide evidence for zoning strategies to simultaneously restrict access to unhealthy food outlets and incentivize healthy food retailers to locate in underserved neighborhoods. The results of this study suggest that zoning ordinances might establish quotas for the number of fast food restaurants or convenience stores in a municipality or target establishments that make unhealthy foods more convenient for drivers (i.e. drive-thrus).
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The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused widespread death and destruction in Aceh, Indonesia, the region hardest hit by the disaster. About five percent of the population was killed and property damages were estimated at $4.5 billion. In its aftermath, Indonesia received some $7 billion in aid, which they used to “build back better” infrastructure. We use data from the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), a large-scale population-representative longitudinal survey, to examine the tsunami's impact on housing and the subsequent reconstruction program's effect on housing over time.Preliminary results confirm that housing aid was strongly targeted toward communities that experienced significant damage and, within those communities to those who experienced destruction.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
03/19/2015
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Life course theory predicts that individuals in a critical developmental period may experience differential impacts from economic downturns. Because a recession implies difficulty for new workers, a superficial expectation may be to anticipate lower aggregate well-being and higher stress for a long period of time. Deeper reflection suggests that experiencing a recession in young adulthood may have nonlinear effects. It may actually be protective in the long run, perhaps through the collective reshuffling of ideal scripts and norms, or a greater propensity to engage in downward counterfactuals. Using General Social Surveys from 2002-2009, I investigate whether experiencing a recession in young adulthood is associated with better self-reported psychological well-being decades later.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
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U.S. racial health disparities are related to socio-economic status (SES) differences between groups. However, scholars find that accounting for SES differences generally does not eliminate racial health disparities. Further, high SES provides diminishing health returns for blacks. Researchers interested in explaining racial gaps examine how perceived racism affects mental and physical health. However, less research explores resources that may buffer racism's effect on health over the life course. In the current study, I investigate how strength of racial identity, generation middle-class and social support act as buffering mechanisms in the relationship between perceived racism and health among the black middle-class. I use data from the American Changing Lives Study to examine changes in self-rated health and depressive symptoms over time.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
02/26/2015
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Has the shape of the association between educational attainment and U.S. adult mortality changed in recent decades? If so, is it changing consistently across demographic groups? This paper develops the argument that societal technological change may have had profound effects on the importance of educational attainment - particularly advanced education - in the U.S. adult population for garnering health advantages and that these changes should be reflected in changes in the functional form of the association between educational attainment and mortality. We review the historical evidence on the changing functional form of the association between educational attainment and mortality, drawing from studies based in the United States, to assess whether documented changes in the functional form are consistent with our argument about the role of technological change in influencing the association. We also provide an updated analysis of these functional form patterns and trends, contrasting data from the early 21st Century. This updated evidence suggests that the shape of the association between educational attainment and U.S. adult mortality appears to be reflecting lower and lower adult mortality for very highly educated Americans compared to their low-educated counterparts in the 21st Century. We draw on this review and updated evidence to reflect on the question whether education's association with adult mortality has become increasingly causal in recent decades, why, and the potential research, policy, and global implications of these changes.Contact: Mekisha Mebane
01/15/2015
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ABSTRACT: Recent Trends in United States' drug laws and law enforcement practices have inspired much research on punishment inequality and the mass incarceration of illicit drug users. Existing studies have indentified important contributing factors, such as racial discrimination and unequal access to sufficient legal counsel, but many mechanisms that could contribute to punishment inequality remain unexamined. Using the life-course perspective this study examines whether posterior predicted probabilities of arrest for given levels of drug use are impacted by attending a college or university and living on campus. With NLSY data from the 1997 cohort, I model the probability of an individual being arrested for a drug charge on level of drug activity and demographic characteristics. I use group-based finite mixture models to detect trajectory clustering in the predicted probabilities. I then condition the trajectories on college enrollment and dormitory living, simulating enrollment in college and living on campus for each latent trajectory of respondents. I find college enrollment and living on campus decrease the risk of being arrested and for a drug charge. Further, I find the effects of college on the probability of a drug arrest hold net of the level of drug use. I conclude that campuses and dormitories protect drug using college students from punishment, and group differences in college enrollment may be an important, unexamined mechanism contributing to inequalities in drug arrests and incarceration.Contact: Vickie Bowes
12/04/2014
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ABSTRACT: Hispanics compromise a rapidly growing proportion of the U.S. older adult population, so a firm grasp of their mortality patterns is paramount for identifying racial/ethnic differences in life chances in the popluation as a whole. Documentation of Hispanic mortality is also essential for assessing whether the Hispanic paradox - the similarity in death rates between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites depsite Hispanics' socioeconomic disadvantage - charaterizes all adult Hispanics, or just some age, gender, nativity, or national-origin subgroups. We estimate age/sex-and cause-specific mortality rate ratios and life expectancy for foreign-born U.S.-born Hispanics, foreign-born and U.S.-born Mexican Americans, non-Hispanic blacks, and non-Hispanic whites ages 65+ using the 1989-2006 National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files. Results affirm that Hispanic mortality estimates are favorable relative to blacks and whites, but particularly so for foriegn-born Hispanics and smoking-related causes. However, if not for Hispanics' socioeconomic disadvantage, their mortality levels would be even more favorable.Contact: Vickie Bowes
11/11/2014
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ABSTRACT: Early-life intelligence has been shown to predict later morbidity and mortality in populations around the world. Intelligence appears to predict multiple specific causes of death, suggesting the hypothesis that intelligence might influence mortality through its effects on a more general process of physiological deterioration that renders individuals more susceptible to death and disease (i.e. individual variations in “biological age”). We tested whether intelligence assessed at three points throughout the first half of the life course (early childhood, middle childhood, and midlife) predicted individual differences in measures of biological age assessed at midlife (age 38). Intelligence measured in early childhood, middle childhood, and midlife correlated significantly with perceived facial age, a 10-biomarker algorithm developed using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and heart age (using the Framingham Study risk calculator). Correlations between intelligence and telomere length were more modest. Nevertheless, the associations between intelligence and biological age were not explained by differences in childhood health or parental socioeconomic status, and intelligence remained a significant predictor of our biological aging measures regardless of whether it was assessed before or after Study members began their formal schooling. Accelerated aging may thus function as one of the factors linking low early-life intelligence to increased rates of disease and death. This finding also suggests the hypothesis that interventions that enhance intelligence may slow aging and prevent disease.Contact: Vickie Bowes
10/16/2014
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ABSTRACT: A large literature evaluates health consequences of exposure to air pollution. An important possibility is that exposure to high levels of pollution in childhood and early adulthood can result in a lifetime of health problems, leading to increased mortality rates at older ages. Second, epidemiological and medical literature suggests that exposure to pollutants is linked to particular health deficits, and so it is plausible that those exposed to pollution in early-life have an increased risk of dying from certain diseases. I evaluate this issue using a unique proprietary dataset, Medicare Part B records matched to Social Security and NCHS Vital Statistics. My focus is on a sample of over 390,000 individuals born in small cities (“towns") in Pennsylvania during the years 1916 through 1927. Many of these individuals were born in places with steel production, and thus likely had exposure to high levels of air pollution in childhood and early adulthood. These individuals have significantly higher rates of mortality post-age 65 than those born in comparable towns that did not have steel production facilities. Additionally, for those individuals who can be uniquely matched to an underlying cause of death, I observe a relatively increased risk of dying from cancer. There are three notable features of the relationship between “birth in a steel town" and later-life mortality and cause of death. First, the relationship holds even for an analysis that makes comparisons within counties, i.e., in a model with county fixed effects. Second, the relationship is stronger in towns that had relatively high levels of steel production in 1930. Third, there is some evidence that old-age mortality is especially high for individuals born in small cities with relatively high levels of steel production and relatively low elevation, a finding consistent with the possibility that low-elevation locations were subject to atmospheric inversions that tend to trap air pollution, thereby increasing lasting health deficits due to pollution exposure.Contact: Vickie Bowes
04/17/2014
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ABSTRACT: Over time the body undergoes a progressive breakdown of various physiological systems, and as a result, the risk of disability, mortality and morbidity increase steadily with age. Nevertheless, there is significant variation across individuals in the timing of such events. Accordingly, there is an emphasis on studying variations in levels of risk and identifying the factors which contribute to them. Using data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) the aim of this research was to: 1) compare and contrast various methods for estimating mortality risk using biomarker data, 2) examine whether these methods account for racial disparities in mortality, and 3) compare populations over time on the basis of these measures, and determine the relative contribution of health behavior patterns to changes in the pace of aging within the population. Overall, results showed that a newly developed measure for estimating biological age was the most reliable predictor of mortality risk and predicted significantly better than chronological age or other well-known measures, like Allostatic Load. Additionally, the measure was found to completely account for racial differences in all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality. Finally, there is evidence that the biological age of the population has decreased over the past 20 years, suggesting that the pace of aging may be slowing. Nevertheless, improvements were not universal across age and sex groups, potentially as a result of differential changes in health behaviors over time. The development of algorithms for identifying differences in health risks may facilitate our understanding of the mechanisms contributing to heterogeneity in the pace of aging, and improve prevention and treatment interventions with the potential to increase the healthspan of the population.Contact: Vickie Bowes
04/02/2014
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ABSTRACT: A primary focus of criminology research is determining which social covariates predict criminal involvement. Yet, despite expectations from social theory of a strong class-crime link, the relationship between social class and criminality is continuously described as a “quandary” or proposed to be nonexistent (Botchkovar et al. 2009; Tittle and Meier 1990). This is particularly surprising given the amount of past criminological research on the subject. While a number of studies have moved beyond a singular count or scale of criminality, few disaggregate crime into empirically justifiable or theoretically useful types of crime. If social class has heterogeneous effects on different types of criminality, it would be difficult for research designs used in many existing studies on the subject to detect them. This study confronts this challenge using modern Bayesian statistics, specifically a Bayesian approach to latent class analysis (LCA). This technique permits the detection of latent types of criminal behavior using data based clustering. I then examine the relationship between a variety of class schemas on participation in these latent types of criminal behavior, and the Bayesian method alleviates common concerns with LCA by quantifying uncertainty and allowing multiple membership in latent classes.Contact: Vickie Bowes
03/20/2014
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ABSTRACT: Large wage differences exist between married and single men. This paper argues that this marriage wage premium can arise from statistical discrimination on the basis of marital status in a labor market with incomplete information and employer learning. Using NLSY79, this hypothesis is tested separately for high school graduates and college graduates. The results suggest that high school graduates face a labor market with information friction and experience statistical discrimination on marital status, while college graduates are on the contrary. This paper also provides a framework to quantify the treatment effect of marriage in an incomplete information setting.Contact: Debra Fincham
02/20/2014
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ABSTRACT: The literature on teenage motherhood suggests that women who have more years of education or better test scores are less likely to give birth during teenage years. However, quasi-experimental studies yield mixed evidence as to whether years of education have a negative causal impact on teenage childbearing, with studies using school entry laws showing no evidence of a causal relationship. This paper uses a similar empirical strategy with a highly detailed dataset which includes not only birth certificate data but also individually linked school administrative records. Consistent with previous research, the evidence suggests that individuals affected by school entry laws have fewer years of education but also better test scores. Using an IV regression strategy to distinguish the impacts of years of education and test scores, I show that both measures of educational success have negative causal impacts on teenage childbearing.Contact: Debra Fincham
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ABSTRACT: The literature on teenage motherhood suggests that women who have more years of education or better test scores are less likely to give birth during teenage years. However, quasi-experimental studies yield mixed evidence as to whether years of education have a negative causal impact on teenage childbearing, with studies using school entry laws showing no evidence of a causal relationship. This paper uses a similar empirical strategy with a highly detailed dataset which includes not only birth certificate data but also individually linked school administrative records. Consistent with previous research, the evidence suggests that individuals affected by school entry laws have fewer years of education but also better test scores. Using an IV regression strategy to distinguish the impacts of years of education and test scores, I show that both measures of educational success have negative causal impacts on teenage childbearing.
01/16/2014
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ABSTRACT: A large literature evaluates health consequences of exposure to air pollution. An important possibility is that exposure to high levels of pollution in childhood and early adulthood can result in a lifetime of heal problems, leading to increased mortality rates at older ages. I evaluate this issue using a unique proprietary dataset, Medicare records matched to Social Security records that identify birthplace. My focus is on a sample of over 390,000 individuals born in small cities ("towns") in Pennsylvania during the years 1916 through 1927. Many of these individuals were born in places with steel production, and thus likely had exposure to high levels of air pollution in childhood and early adulthood. These individuals have significantly higher rates of mortality post-age 65 than those born in comparable towns that did not have steel production facilities. There are three notable features of the relationship between "birth in a steel town" and later-life mortality. First, the relationship holds even for an analysis that makes comparisons within counties, i.e., in a model with county fixed effects. Second, the relationship is stronger in towns that had relatively high levels of steel production in 1930. Third, there is some evidence that old-age mortality is especially high forindividuals born in small cities with relatively high levels of steel production and relatively low elevation---a finding consistent with the possibility that low-elevation locations were subject to atmospheric inversions that tend to trap air pollution, thereby increasing lasting health deficits due to pollution exposure.Contact: debra.fincham@duke.edu
12/05/2013
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ABSTRACT: While economists have long recognized the importance of risk aversion and patience in decision making, how these characteristics are formed remains largely unknown. Evidence from psychology suggests that exposure to traumatic events and stress induced by such events may play a role. Using longitudinal data collected before and after the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami, this project uses exogenous variation in exposure to disaster to estimate the impact of exposure on risk aversion and patience in both the short and longer runs. Preliminary analysis suggests that greater exposure to the disaster and higher levels of post-traumatic stress decreased risk aversion (but not patience) in the first 1-2 years after the disaster but did not have lasting impacts.Contact: Debra Fincham
10/17/2013
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ABSTRACT: This research examines the toll the current drug war in Mexico is having on the human capital endowment of the next generation. Specifically, this analysis, through the study of a sudden and violent event and use of rich longitudinal data that allows sibling comparisons, is able to document and control behavioral responses (migration and family planning) to and measure the birth outcome impact of exposure to increased local conflict. The estimates, across multiple samples and specifications, consistently indicate that exposure to the average 2005-2009 increase in local violence in early gestation leads to substantial decreases in birth weight (~70 grams and a 40% increased risk of being < 2,500 grams) that are exacerbated for mothers of low socioeconomic status (~120 grams).Contact: Vickie Bowes