While much is known about patterns of racial academic achievement gaps at the national and state level, little is known about their patterns at smaller geographic scale. In this paper, we use new data to estimate racial achievement gaps in almost every metropolitan area and school district in the US with a significant population of black or Hispanic students.
No seminar today
Analysis of the long term economic mobility using longitudinal household survey data requires an understanding of patterns of household recombination--that is the processes by which households divide and fuse over time. In this paper we examine, in particular, educational mobility at the household and village level in Matlab Bangladesh over a 40-year period.
ABSTRACT: This talk explores various "non-conventional" predictors of short-term survival. Social scientists have been arguing that a simple question asking respondents to rate their overall health in several categories (a question often labeled "self-rated health") is a strong predictor of downstream health and survival. But can external assessors - such as physicians or interviewers - provide as good or perhaps better ratings than individuals themselves?
ABSTRACT: Nonmedical exemptions from school-entry immunization mandates have increased dramatically in the past decade. In California, high exemption rates were implicated in the "Disneyland" measles outbreak late in 2014, and in response, the California legislature voted to eliminate nonmedical exemptions entirely. In a series of studies, I investigate the causes and consequences of California's nonmedical exemption rate, analyze and anticipate responses to legislative changes in the state, and assess the role of vaccine-related social norms within school communities. #4821
This study traces out the evolution of American marriage between 1960 and 2010. First, I attempt to reconcile conflicting conclusions in the literature about recent trends in marriage and divorce. I then develop and extend two-sex models of the marital life cycle to quantify how changes in marriage, divorce, mortality, assortative mating, and the education distribution have shaped marital life cycles over the past half-century.
ABSTRACT: How does life improve and/or worsen with age? On the one hand, there is a rich gerontological literature that documents age-related declines in objective components of life quality, such as health and wealth. On the other hand, the relationship between age and subjective well-being (SWB) is relatively unknown. For example, how is SWB distributed across age, across society over time, and across birth cohorts?
ABSTRACT: We study the effect of differences in payment frequencies (monthly and bimonthly) across two noncontributory pension programs in Yucatan, Mexico. Compared to the bimonthly program, the monthly program increased doctor visits, reduced the incidence of hunger spells and lessened the need for support from charities. Under the bimonthly program expenditures on food and beverages significantly decreased near the end of the pay-cycle, while in comparison with the monthly program expenditures on more expensive non-cereal food as well as ownership of durable goods are higher.
Following the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, #BlackLivesMatter exploded into the social media sphere. As evidence by protests and unrest in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD, the hashtag social movement to curtail racial profiling and police brutality is still progressing three year later. Social scientists, public health scholars, and activists have documented the severity of police brutality, particularly for Blacks and Latinos.
The Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) is a multi-purpose pregnancy and birth cohort study that has now spanned more than 3 decades. Conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the US and the Philippines, the CLHNS has followed a cohort of Filipino women who gave birth between May 1, 1983, and April 30, 1984. The CLHNS was designed with the Mosely and Chen health determinants framework as an anchoring theoretical perspective.