Costanzo, Joseph M., Cynthia J. Davis, and Nolan Malone. "Guide to International Migration Statistics : The Sources, Collection, and Processing of Foreign-Born Population Data at the U.S. Census Bureau." Population Division Working Paper Series, No. 68. Abstract: This report presents an overview of information available from the U.S. Census Bureau about the U.S. foreign-born population. Information about the foreign born is available from a variety of sources including: decennial censuses, current surveys, and demographic estimates based on administrative sources. Specifically, this report describes surveys fielded by the Bureau, the international migration-related items covered by the surveys, and the post-collection processing of these data. http://www.census.gov/population/www/techpap.html
Wang, Ching-li. "Evaluation of Census Bureau's 1995-2025 State Population Projections." Population Division Working Paper Series, No. 67. Abstract: The Census Bureau's latest series of state population projections for 1995 - 2025 was prepared in 1995 and released in 1996. This paper examines the performance of this series of projections during their first five years. Using the census 2000 counts and estimated births, deaths, domestic migration, and international migration from administrative records, this paper examines the accuracy of projected total population and projected components of change for 50 states and the District of Columbia. The paper also examines the historical trend of projection accuracy and the geographic variation of projection accuracy by U.S. regions and subdivisions. A multiple regression analysis is used to analyze the relative impact of errors in the projected components of change, errors in state estimates, and 1990 census undercount on the accuracy of the latest state population projections. A discussion of the accuracy of national projections is also included. We found that the latest series of state population projections are more accurate than previous projections series. The projections continue to perform poorly in the West. The percent errors in domestic migration continue to be the highest among all projected components of change, followed by international migration. The projected births had the lowest average percent errors. The results from the multiple regression analysis show that the percent errors in the projected births had the largest impact on the accuracy of projections, followed by international migration and projected deaths. The percent errors in domestic migration cannot explain the variation of projection accuracy among the 50 states and District of Columbia. When the 1990 census undercount and the accuracy of state estimates were taken into account, the percent errors in state estimates explain most of the errors in state projections followed by the census undercount. All the direct impact of percent errors in the projected components of change were reduced. It is also found that the errors in state estimates are correlated with the 1990 census undercount rates. Thus, it is concluded that the 1990 census undercount is responsible for a large proportion of the errors in state estimates which, in turn, affects the accuracy of state projections. In addition, the national projections which were used to control the state projections were also affected by the census undercount and the accuracy of the national estimates. http://www.census.gov/population/www/techpap.html
Le Hesran, Jean-Yves and Valerie Delaunay. "Therapeutic Patterns Among Children with Fever in Rural Senegal." HCPDS Working Paper Series, V. 12, No. 8. Abstract: Because of increasing drug resistance, malaria remains a major public health issue. This study examines health seeking behaviours in rural Senegal through 85 interviews conducted in 1997. We put parents in a hypothetical situation and recorded independently mother’s and father’s care intentions in response to fever among children 2-5 years. Our findings confirm that mothers initially decide when and which first aid should be given, mostly beginning with 12-24 hours' home treatment. Fathers are consulted when illness requires external care. Therapeutic failures seem to be misinterpretations of aetiological origin rather than inappropriate or ineffective treatment, and parents easily change them therapy. The delay following family treatment and therapeutic changes can explain the high frequency of severe attacks of malaria in this population. Moreover, the misuse of modern treatment is also a factor in drug resistance, leading to therapeutic failure. We conclude with the necessity to examine more closely health-seeking behaviour and their determinants, representations of symptoms, perceptions of health care systems and interpretation on therapeutic failure. Results of such a study could be very helpful to produce suitable health information messages, to improve population’s understanding of new sanitary conditions. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/workingpapers.html
Gupta, Neeru, Khassoum Diallo, Pascal Zurn, and Mario R. Dal Poz. "Human Resources for Health: An International Comparison of Health Occupations from Labour Force Survey Data." No. 331. Abstract: Human resources are an essential element of a health system's inputs, and yet there is little consistency between countries in how human resource policies and strategies are developed and implemented. The analysis of the impacts of services on population health and well-being attracts more interest than analysis of the situation of the workforce in this area. The objective of this paper was to present an international comparison of the health workforce in terms of skill mix, sociodemographics and other labour force characteristics, in order to establish an evidence base for monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health. Data were drawn from LIS/LES surveys conducted between 1989 and 1997 for 18 countries with developed market and transitional economies. Considerable cross-national variations were observed in terms of the share of the health workforce in the total labour market, with little discernible pattern by geographical region or type of economy. Increases in the share were found among most countries for which time-trend data were available. The evidence further suggested that gender inequity in human resources for health remains an important shortcoming of many health systems. However, unexpected patterns of occupational distribution and educational attainment for selected countries pointed to definitional inconsistencies in the classification of health occupations across surveys. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Pettit, Becky and Jennifer Hook. "The Structure of Women's Employment in Comparative Perspective." No. 330. Abstract: One of the most dramatic social transformations of the latter half of the twentieth century involved the massive influx of women into the paid labor force. A central debate in studies of women's labor force participation concerns the influence of demographic and economic structures and institutional conditions on female employment. Single-country studies show consistent relationships between demographic and economic conditions and women's labor force participation. In contrast, comparativists emphasize institutional explanations for observed cross-national variation in aggregate levels of female employment. In this paper we analyze social survey data from 18 countries using multi-level modeling methods in an effort to synthesize structural and institutional accounts for variation in women's employment. Structural conditions including unemployment and service sector growth are important predictors of the overall level of women's employment. The effects of demographic characteristics on women's employment vary significantly across countries, and results suggest differences in policy context are associated with women's employment. In particular, federally supported child care is associated with an increase in the probability of employment among married women and women with children. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Brandolini, Andrea and Piero Cipollone. "Urban Poverty in Developed Countries." No. 329. Abstract: In this paper we investigate the urban/rural dimension of poverty in developed countries. We provide original estimates for Italy, we gather published statistics for France and the United States, and we produce novel cross-country estimates from the LIS database. We show that the size of urban poverty depends on where the boundaries of metropolitan districts are drawn and we observe that overlooking geographical differences in the cost of living is a particularly relevant hypothesis. We find that in France and the United States postwar economic growth and urbanisation were accompanied by a substantial reduction of the poverty risk for the rural population, while poverty rates improved less, or even sometimes deteriorated, for the urban population. The lack of a standard definition of urban/rural area precludes a rigorous comparative study. Our results indicate, however, that only in few countries (Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States) the greatest poverty rates are found in central cities, while in all other developed countries poor persons are still relatively more frequent in rural areas. This pattern is stronger in the four non-developed economies examined here. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Puhani, Patrick A. "A Note on Changes in the Wage and Unemployment Structures in Spain: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study." No. 328. Abstract: This note tests whether the extraordinary rise in Spanish unemployment in the 1980s can be traced back to rigidities in the wage structure in the face of relative net demand shocks against the unskilled (this claim is also known as the 'Krugman hypothesis'). I can establish that youth joblessness is key to the Spanish unemployment problem, but sampling procedures in the data set make it impossible to track the youth unemployment problem across time in a satisfactory way. Even though high youth unemployment is consistent with the Krugman hypothesis, substantial skill upgrading of the Spanish labour force in the1980s explains why the low education groups did not experience an increase in relative unemployment. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Ferrarini, Tommy and Kenneth Nelson. "The Impact of Taxation on the Equalising Effect of Social Insurance to Income Inequality: a Comparative Analsysis of Ten Welfare States." No. 327. Abstract: Welfare state regimes vary in their redistribution strategies. Some welfare states have extensive taxable social insurance schemes, while others rely more on non-taxable means-tested benefits. In order to assess the distributive effects of different program types, it is necessary to analyse social insurance after taxes, something rarely practised in comparative research. In this paper, we evaluate distributive effects of social insurance after taking taxes into account in ten welfare states. However, a study of net social insurance raises estimation problems in countries where spouses are taxed separately and income data only is reported on household level. The paper therefore includes a series of validity tests of estimated levels of social insurance after taxes. The main conclusion is that it is possible and necessary to estimate social transfers net of taxes in order to not misspecify the redistributive outcome of social insurance in both inter-country and intra-country analyses of income distributions. The analyses are based on micro level income data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LLS) and the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) including ten countries. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Osberg, Lars. "How Much does Work Matter for Inequalty? Time, Money and Inequality in International Perspective." No. 326. Abstract: How much of the difference between countries in inequality of the distribution of income can be explained by work - i.e. by differing probabilities of any employment? Across OECD countries there are large differences in the average level and distribution of working hours. These differences arise from differing common entitlements to leisure (e.g. paid Public Holidays), plus differences in working hours per employee and in the percentage of the working age population who have some paid employment. The participation level is particularly important for inequality differences and there is persuasive evidence that country attitudes to paid employment, particularly for women, differ significantly. This paper uses Luxembourg Income Study data on Canada and the USA, UK, Germany, France and Sweden to simulate the income distributions that other countries would have if they had the Canadian pattern of workforce participation. Because employment rates in the US are quite similar to those in Canada, inequality in the USA would change only fractionally. In every other case, poverty and inequality would fall, indicating that measured differences in the inequality of money income between the North America and Europe understate the extent of cross country differences in well being. Put simply, in North America the relatively poor have to work harder, and still end up poorer, than in Europe. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Michielin, Francesca. "Lowest low fertility in an urban context. When migration plays a key role." WP-2002-050. Abstract: In countries with so-called "lowest-low" fertility, the lowest fertility levels are seen in the cities. The main reasons for this development is the difference in the cost of living expenses, combined with income constraints in cities, as compared to these same aspects in rural areas. If we focus our attention on the center of an urban area, migration needs to be taken into account, since it can contribute to particularly low yield fertility. In this paper we use the Turin Longitudinal Study, which has data on all people who have ever been residents in Turin (Italy) during the period 1971-2001. We study the interdependencies between fertility and out-migration choices for a selected group, from the 1956 birth-cohort. In order to fully understand fertility, we need to consider how fertility acts on out-migration choices. Our findings underline the important role of economic resources and life cycle events in such a context which seem to guide both fertility and migration behaviors. Moreover, while having a child significantly hampers long-distance migration, it also has a lower impact on short-distant moves. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Hank, Karsten and Gunnar Andersson. "Parental gender indifference or persistent sex preferences for children at the turn to the 21st century? A reflection on Pollard and Morgan (2002) with reference to the Swedish case." WP-2002-049. Abstract: In their recent ASR article on the sex composition of previous offspring and third births in the US, Pollard and Morgan (2002) argue that changes in the societal gender system - namely increasing opportunities for women - have lead to a decreasing effect of children´s gender on parents´ fertility decisions. If the authors were right in their conclusions, one should expect to find no sex preferences for children in countries with a high level of gender equality. In this reflection, we exploit population register data for the years 1961 to 1999 to examine the Swedish example. Our results show that even in the fairly gender equal Swedish society, a clear preference for one child of each sex has continued to exist until today. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Borgoni, Riccardo and Francesco C. Billari. "Bayesian spatial analysis of demographic survey data. An application to contraceptive use at first sexual intercourse." WP-2002-048. Abstract: In this paper we analyze the spatial patterns of the risk of unprotected sexual intercourse for Italian women during their initial experience with sexual intercourse. We rely on geo-referenced survey data from the Italian Fertility and Family Survey, and we use a Bayesian approach relying on weakly informative prior distributions. Our analyses are based on a logistic regression model with a multilevel structure. The spatial pattern uses an intrinsic Gaussian conditional autoregressive (CAR) error component. The complexity of such a model is best handled within a Bayesian framework, and statistical inference is carried out using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. In contrast with previous analyses based on multilevel model, our approach avoids the restrictive assumption of independence between area effects. This model allows us to borrow strength from neighbors in order to obtain estimates for areas that may, on their own, have inadequate sample sizes. We show that substantial geographical variation exists within Italy (Southern Italy has higher risks of unprotected first-time sexual intercourse), and that the spatial pattern is stable across birth cohorts. The findings are robust with respect to the specification of the prior distribution. We argue that spatial analysis can give useful insights on unmet reproductive health needs. (KEYWORDS: spatial statistical demography, contraceptive use, hierarchical Bayesian modeling, Monte Carlo Markov Chain, multilevel statistical models, Italy, FFS) http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Zeman, Kryštof. "Marital disruption in the Czech Republic: The role of personal characteristics, individuality, and premarital cohabitation." WP-2002-047. Abstract: In this paper, we apply event history analysis to examine the possible determinants of marital disruption in the Czech Republic. We use the method of hazard regression with the baseline captured by multiple duration clocks; the event under observation is the first marital union disruption. We use the Fertility and Family Survey data from 1997, which covers the period between the 1970s and the 1990s. We focus on personal characteristics, the attributes of individuality and on conditions of partnership formation. We are particularly interested in characteristics covering the development of respondent’s individuality in early life stages, like being an only child, experiencing the parents’ divorce, living alone after leaving parental home and cohabiting before marriage. We control among others for the effect of educational enrolment and attainment and for the effect of children on marital stability. Through introducing unobserved heterogeneity into model, we also control for unobserved personal characteristics and examine the role of selection in the marital dissolution process. Some of our results are similar to the results found among Western societies: Parental divorce and premarital cohabitation, as well as young age at marriage and childlessness are shifting the probability of marital breakdown towards upper levels. Moreover, we show that having no siblings and living independently in early adulthood contribute to higher marital disruption proneness of individuals. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Prskawetz, Alexia, Andres Vikat, Dimiter Philipov and Henriette Engelhardt. "Pathways to stepfamily formation in Europe: Results from the FFS." WP-2002-046. Abstract: Increasing proportions of couples are making childbearing decisions in stepfamilies but there has been no general comparative picture across European countries on stepfamily formation. The present paper aims to fill this gap and provides a comparison of European countries using macro-level indicators that describe union formation and dissolution and childbearing. We use the individual-level data files (standard recode files) of Fertility and Family Surveys from 19 European countries. Our results highlight the different pathways to a stepfamily in Europe, and show that in most European countries a considerable proportion of women form a stepfamily in childbearing ages, which needs to be considered in studies of fertility. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Bundorf, M. Kate and Mark V. Pauly. "Is Health Insurance Affordable for the Uninsured?" NBER Working Paper No.w9281. Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the meaning of affordability' in the context of health insurance. Assessing the relationship between the affordability of coverage and the large number of uninsured in the U.S. is important for understanding the barriers to purchasing coverage for the uninsured and evaluating the role of policy in reducing this number. We propose several definitions of affordability and examine the implications of alternative definitions on estimates of the proportion of currently uninsured who are unable to afford coverage. We find that, depending on the definition, health insurance was affordable to between one-quarter and three-quarters of the uninsured in 2000. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Bhattacharya, Jay and Darius Lakdawalla. "Does Medicare Benefit the Poor? New Answers to an Old Question." NBER Working Paper No.w9280. Abstract: Previous research has found that Medicare benefits flow primarily to the most economically advantaged groups and that the financial returns to Medicare are consequently higher for the rich than for the poor. Taking a different approach, we find very different results. According to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, the poorest groups receive the most benefits at any given age. In fact, the advantage of the poor in benefit receipt is so great that it easily overcomes their higher death rates. This leads to the result that the financial returns to Medicare are actually much higher for poorer groups in the population and that Medicare is a highly progressive public program. These new results appear to owe themselves to our measurement of socioeconomic status at the individual level, in contrast to the aggregated measures used by previous research. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Bergstresser, Daniel and James Poterba. "Asset Allocation and Asset Location: Household Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances." NBER Working Paper No.w9268. Abstract: The rapid growth of assets in self-directed tax-deferred retirement accounts has generated a new set of financial decisions for many households. In addition to deciding which assets to hold, households with substantial assets in both taxable and tax-deferred accounts must decide where to hold them. This paper uses data from the Survey of Consumer Finances to assess how many households have enough assets in both taxable and tax-deferred accounts to face significant asset location choices. It also investigates the asset location decisions these households make. In 1998, 45 percent of households had at least some assets in a tax-deferred account, and more than ten million households had at least $25,000 in both a taxable and a tax-deferred account. Many households hold equities in their tax-deferred accounts but not in their taxable accounts, while also holding taxable bonds in their taxable accounts. Most of these households could reduce their taxes by relocating heavily-taxed fixed income assets to their tax-deferred account. Asset allocation inside and outside tax-deferred accounts is quite similar, with about seventy percent of assets in each location invested in equity securities. For nearly three quarters of the households that hold apparently tax-inefficient portfolios, a shift of less than $10,000 in financial assets can move their portfolio to a tax-efficient allocation. Asset location decisions within IRAs appear to be sensitive to marginal tax rates; we do not find evidence for such sensitivity in other tax-deferred accounts. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Edwards, T. Huw and John Whalley. "Short and Long Run Decompositions of OECD Wage Inequality Changes." NBER Working Paper No.w9265. Abstract: This paper focuses on the causes of increased wage inequality in OECD countries in recent years and its decomposition into the component factors of trade surges in low wage products and technological change that has preoccupied the trade and wages literature. It argues that the length of production run and degree of fixity of factors is crucial in such analyses. In particular, if the observed wage inequality response to price and technology shocks reflects a short-run response in which factors and output have not adjustedfully across industries, then decomposition analysis of the causes of the observed increases in inequality is substantially altered relative to a long-run factors mobile world. This conclusion applies both when one type of labour has mobility costs and in the Ricardo-Viner case where there is an additional, sectorally immobile factor. Furthermore, only small departures from the fully mobile model can greatly change decompositions. This finding is important because most data used in earlier work are interpreted as reflective of a long-run full mobility response, when this may not be the case. Incorrect conclusions as to how trade surges and technology contribute to wage inequality can be easily drawn, if the data are in fact generated by a short-run adjustment process. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Angrist, Joshua D. and Kevin Lang. "How Important are Classroom Peer Effects? Evidence from Boston's Metco Program." NBER Working Paper No.w9263. Abstract: Most integration programs transfer students between schools within districts. In this paper, we study the impact of Metco, a long-running desegregation program that sends mostly black students out of the Boston public school district to attend schools in more affluent suburban districts. We focus on the impact of Metco on the students in one of the largest Metco-receiving districts. In the 2000 school year, Metco increased the proportion black in this district from about 7.5 percent to almost 12.5 percent. Because Metco students have substantially lower test scores than local students, this inflow generates a significant decline in scores, with an especially marked effect on the lower quantiles. The overall decline is due to a composition effect, however, since OLS estimates show no impact on average scores in the sample of all non-Metco students. On the other hand, OLS and fixed effects estimates show some evidence of an effect on the scores of minority 3rd graders in reading and language. Instrumental variables estimates for 3rd graders are imprecise but generally in line with OLS. Further analysis shows the negative effects on 3rd graders to be clearly present only for girls. Given the highly localized nature of these results, we conclude that any peer effects from Metco are modest and short-lived. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Kenkel, Donald S., Robert R. Reed III, and Ping Wang. "Rational Addiction, Peer Externalities and Long Run Effects of Public Policy." NBER Working Paper No.w9249. Abstract: The main purpose of this research is to understand the patterns of consumption of addictive goods, their economic and welfare consequences for society and the long-run effect of tax policy in a dynamic general equilibrium model of rational addiction. In contrast to prior research, we allow individuals to make their consumption decisions simultaneous with savings and labor supply. When addictive goods have a stronger habit formation effect (an addiction effect'), individuals choose to save less due to the anticipated adverse health consequences of addiction (a detrimental health effect'). This is particularly important since total savings pins down future productivity in the economy. We also consider the role of peer influence in the choice of addiction and find that more peer pressure' raises addictive consumption, lowers savings and reduces productivity. In light of the various distortions associated with addiction, we conclude by studying the long-run effects of an excise tax on addictive goods. Our calibration exercises suggest that incorporating capital formation and peer effects in a model of rational addiction are crucial for the design of public policy. In particular, accounting for peer externalities increases the optimal sin tax rate by more than 50 percent. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Chang, Sheng-Wen, N. Edward Coulson, and Ping Wang. "Optimal Drug Policy in Low-Income Neighborhoods." NBER Working Paper No.w9248. Abstract: Part of the debate over the control of drug activity in cities is concerned with the effectiveness of implementing demand- versus supply-side drug policies. This paper is motivated by the relative lack of research providing formal economic underpinning for the implementation of either policy. We construct a simple model of drug activity, in which the drug price and the distribution of population in a community are determined according to a career choice rule and a predetermined drug demand. Three potential government objectives are considered. We find that both demand- and supply-side policies have theoretical support under different community conditions. While the demand-side policy discourages active drug sellers, the supply-side policy has an additional drug-dealing replacement effect on inducing potential entry of drug dealers. In low-income neighborhoods, demand-side policy is more effective if the drug problem is more sever or if the government objective is to deter dealer entry or to promote community's aggregate income rather than minimizing active drug selling. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Chou, Shin-Yi, Michael Grossman, and Henry Saffer. "An Economic Analysis of Adult Obesity: Results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System." NBER Working Paper No.w9247. Abstract: Since the late 1970s, the number of obese adults in the United States has grown by over 50 percent. This paper examines the factors that may be responsible for this rapidly increasing prevalence rate. To study the determinants of adult obesity and related outcomes, we employ micro-level data from the 1984-1999 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. These repeated cross sections are augmented with state level measures pertaining to the per capita number of fast- food restaurants, the per capita number of full-service restaurants, the price of a meal in each type of restaurant, the price of food consumed at home, the price of cigarettes, clean indoor air laws, and hours of work per week and hourly wage rates by age, gender, race, years of formal schooling completed, and marital status. Our main results are that these variables have the expected effects on obesity and explain a substantial amount of its trend. These findings control for individual-level measures of household income, years of formal schooling completed, and marital status. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Coleman, Greg, Michael Grossman, and Ted Joyce. "The Effect of Cigarette Excise Taxes on Smoking Before, During and After Pregnancy." NBER Working Paper No.w9245. Abstract: Recent analyses suggest that cigarette excise taxes lower prenatal smoking. It is unclear, however, whether the association between taxes and prenatal smoking represents a decline among women of reproductive age or a particular response by pregnant women. We address this question directly with an analysis of quit and relapse behavior during and after pregnancy. We find that the price elasticity of prenatal quitting and postpartum relapse is close to one in absolute value. We conclude that direct financial incentives to stop smoking during and after pregnancy should be considered. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Grossman, Michael and Sara Markowitz. "I Did What Last Night?!!! Adolescent Risky Sexual Behaviors and Substance Use." NBER Working Paper No.w9244. Abstract: This purpose of this paper is to examine the causal impact of substance use on risky sexual behaviors by teenagers. Risky sexual behaviors, which include unprotected sex and multiple partners, are highly correlated with alcohol and illicit drug use, although the nature of the causal relationship is in question. This study uses two-stage least squares and reduced form models to examine the relationship between substance use and sexual behaviors by gender. Data come from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys. Result show that alcohol use does not increase the likelihood of having sex or of having multiple partners, although alcohol use does lower the probability of using birth control and condoms among sexually active teens. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Gray, Edith and Peter McDonald. "The Relationship Between Personal, Family, Resource and Work Factors and Maternal Employment in Australia." Labour Market and Social Policy - Occasional Paper No. 62. Abstract: The factors associated with mothers' attachment to the labour force are of interest to social researchers and policy makers. Previous research conducted had found that factors such as mother's education, number of children, partner's employment and gender role attitudes were related to employment of mother's. This paper adapts a theoretical model of the effect of family-household and work system factors on job turnover, to examine maternal employment in Australia using nationally representative longitudinal data. It is found that education, financial situation, the number of young children and attitudes are important factors in understanding maternal employment. http://www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-0-nodirectorate-no-10-no-0,00.html
Del Boca, Daniela. "Low Fertility and Labour Force Participation of Italian Women: Evidence and Interpretations." Labour Market and Social Policy - Occasional Paper No. 61. Abstract: In Italy, as well as in other Southern European countries, low labor market participation rates of married women are observed together with low birth rates. Our proposed explanation for this apparent anomaly involves the Italian institutional structure, particularly as reflected in rigidities and imperfections in the labor market and characteristics of the publicly-funded child care system. These rigidities tend to simultaneously increase the costs of having children and to discourage the labor market participation of married women. http://www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-0-nodirectorate-no-10-no-0,00.html
Gustafsson, Siv. S., Eiko Kenjoh and Cécile M. M. P. Wetzels. "Postponement of Maternity and the Duration of Time Spent at Home After First Birth." Labour Market and Social Policy - Occasional Paper No. 59. Abstract: This paper analyses the postponement of first births of the 1990s compared to the 1980s, using panel data from four countries, namely, Germany (GSOEP), Great Britain (BHPS), the Netherlands (OSA) and Sweden (HUS). We find substantial postponement of maternity in all four countries for all educational groups with the most pronounced postponement among highly educated women in all four countries. However the mean age of the mother when giving birth to the first child reamained the lowest in Great among the four countries in both decades. http://www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-0-nodirectorate-no-10-no-0,00.html
Cohen, Daniel and Marcelo Soto. "Why Are Some Countries So Poor? Another Look at the Evidence and a Message of Hope." Technical Paper No. 197. Abstract: The paper attempts to explain why single factor explanations of the poverty of nations areusually found to be unsatisfactory. Poor countries outside Africa, for instance, have an income per head which stands at about one third of the rich countries' income per head. Yet each of the three items of the Solow model, namely human capital, physical capital (appropriated weighted) and total factor productivity, are each equal to about 70 per cent of the corresponding levels of rich countries. But 70 per cent to the power of three is 35 per cent! Multiplying small or relatively benign handicaps can yield dramatic effects on a country's income. The paper then moves on to explain each of the three items. It argues that the Lucas paradox on why capital is scarce can readily be solved, once market prices rather than PPP prices are used to assess the return to capital mobility, and on the same ground it argues that PPP calculations bias downwards the TFP of poor countries. It then argues that human capital is lower in poor countries because of the fact that the returns to human capital are nonconcave so that the marginal propensity to turn one additional year of life expectancy into higher education is lower in poor countries than in the rich. The message of hope is that "transpiration" strategies in which saving rates and education achievement are improved, à la Singapore, may work. http://www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-0-nodirectorate-no-10-no-0,00.html
Agyeman, Dominic K. and John B. Casterline. "Social organization and reproductive behavior in Southern Ghana." Working Paper No. 167. Abstract: The objective of this research is to examine the association between social organization and reproductive behavior in one setting in sub-Saharan Africa. The particular focus is on the effects of social organization on the diffusion of innovative reproductive ideas and behaviors. Social diffusion is assumed to be strongly affected by patterns of informal social interaction, and these in turn are assumed to be determined in part by the social organization of local communities (gender relations, employment activity, voluntary organizations). The research draws on data collected in six communities in southern Ghana. The analysis reveals a weaker than expected association between the social organization of the communities and key reproductive indicators (fertility preferences, age at first marriage, postpartum practices, use of modern contraception). Closer examination of the six communities suggests that the weak association is explained by the idiosyncratic histories of several of the communities, in particular their histories of health and family planning provision. Explanations for reproductive change that place social organization on center stage must be enlarged to incorporate the potentially powerful influence of community history. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Kaufman, Carol E. and Stavros E. Stavrou. "Bus fare, please: The economics of sex and gifts among adolescents in urban South Africa." Working Paper No. 166. Abstract: Force or coercion are often a part of sexual relationships in South Africa, especially among adolescents. This coercion is also often pinioned by an economic exchange: gifts or favours for sex. Studies have pointed out the negative consequences of the exchanges which are often characterised by large age differences (‘sugar daddies’) or power imbalances. Perhaps morepervasive but largely ignored, gift-giving in same-age relationships also may be associated with sexual leverage, an exchange which somehow entitles one partner physical and sexual rights to the other’s body. The circumstances surrounding gifts and favours may shape young women’s and men’s sexual experiences, their ability to negotiate the circumstances of those encounters, and the possibility of concluding or remoulding a relationship into another form. Using focus group discussions collected in the Durban metropolitan area between September and December of 1999 among adolescents age 14–22, we examine the economic context of gift giving or receiving and its relationship to patterns of risky sexual behaviour such as unsafe sex practices, and reports of sexual coercion or force. We find that gift-giving among same-age adolescents is common and important to shaping sexual relationships. Adolescents associate money or cash with prostitution, but do not consider gifts as such. Types of gifts and their meaning varied considerably by racial group and by gender. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Hallman, Kelly Agnes R. Quisumbing, Marie Ruel, and Benedicte de la Briere. "Childcare, mothers' work, and earnings: Findings from the urban slums of Guatemala City." Working Paper No. 165. Abstract: This study investigates the effects of childcare on work and earnings of mothers in the slums of Guatemala City. Recognizing that mother’s work behavior may depend on the availability of childcare, the modeling approach allows participation in the labor force and use of formal daycare to be jointly determined. We also investigate whether a mother’s “status” within her household (as measured by the value of the assets she brought to her marriage) influences her entry into the labor force. Finally, we explore the impact of childcare prices on a mother’s earnings, conditional on her decision to work. The study uses a survey of 1,363 randomly selected mothers (working and nonworking) with preschool children carried out in 1999 by the International Food Policy Research Institute. In this sample, 37 percent of mothers with preschoolers worked for pay in the 30 days before the survey. Mothers were employed in a variety of occupations and sectors and used an assortment of different informal and formal childcare arrangements. Our results indicate that participation in the labor force and use of formal daycare are in fact joint decisions for mothers. Life-cycle and household demographic actors have important effects on both decisions. Maternal education is an important determinant of use of formal daycare, but does not have large effects on whether a mother works for pay or not. Higher household wealth reduces her chances of working. However, the higher the value of assets she brought to her marriage, the more likely she is to be working. Greater travel time from home to formal daycare reduces its use. Controlling for endogeneity of labor market participation and formal daycare use, childcare prices have no impact on maternal earnings. This suggests that policies to increase the availability of formal daycare in poor urban areas have the potential to raise labor force participation rates of mothers in such neighborhoods, but not necessarily their earnings conditional upon their entry into the labor force. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Lloyd, Cynthia B., Cem Mete, and Zeba A. Sathar. "The effect of gender differences in primary school access, type, and quality on the decision to enroll in rural Pakistan." Working Paper No. 164. Abstract: The paper explores the effect of primary school access, type, and quality on the decision to enroll in rural Pakistan using a 1997 survey especially designed for this purpose. A unique contribution of the paper is the construction of gender-specific dimensions of school accessibility and school quality according to school type (i.e., public vs. private). Within the same village, girls and boys often face starkly different options for schooling in terms of distance, type, and quality. Public primary schools are segregated by sex; private schools, whose numbers have grown rapidly in recent years in response to rising demand and the inadequate supply of public schools, are more typically mixed. The decision to enroll in school and the choice of school type are modeled simultaneously using a nested multinomial logit model. Simulations of alternative scenarios in terms of school access (measured as whether or not a primary school is located in the village), type, and quality are used to express our findings. The presence of a public school for girls in the village makes an enormous difference for girls in primary enrollment given parents’ reluctance for girls to travel far from home; for boys this is less of an issue because most villages have at least one public school for boys. We find that the addition of a private school option in a village that already has a public school has little impact on overall enrollment rates but rather leads to a redistribution of enrollment from public to private school. Girls’ enrollment in public primary is particularly responsive to improvements in some aspects of school quality, in particular whether or not the teacher resides in the village. This would suggest that school quality is important not only for retention but also for enrollment. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Mensch, Barbara S., Wesley H. Clark, and Dang Nguyen Anh. "Premarital sex in Vietnam: Is the current concern with adolescent reproductive health warranted?" Working Paper No. 163. Abstract: To the extent that research on Vietnamese adolescents has been conducted, it has been concerned with unprotected and unsanctioned sexual activity and its health consequences, namely abortion and sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV. The question we pose is whether this concern is warranted. Is the population community justified in focusing its attention on early sexual activity and HIV risk? Even if the sexual behavior of young people can be considered problematic, are there perhaps other aspects of young people’s lives that should give us greater pause? The paper reviews the literature on adolescent sexual behavior in Vietnam and analyzes data on premarital sex and reproductive behavior from a 1999 survey conducted in six provinces among nearly 1,500 adolescent boys and girls aged 15–22. Data on other aspects of young people’s lives are summarized, in particular schooling and work, in order to put the sexual activity data in perspective. We conclude that the lack of adequate employment opportunities may be more of a threat to adolescent reproductive health than risky sexual behaviors per se—a situation that effective economic policies can remedy. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Rutenberg, Naomi, Carol E. Kaufman, Kate Macintyre, Lisanne Brown and Ali Karim. "Pregnant or positive: Adolescent childbearing and HIV risks in South Africa." Working Paper No. 162. Abstract: In communities where early age of childbearing is common and HIV prevalence is high, adolescent boys and girls may place themselves at risk of HIV to realize their childbearing preferences. In this paper, we analyze survey data from Kwa-Zulu-Natal province that explores whether an association exists between pregnancy preferences and behavioral and perceptual measures of HIV risk among adolescents in South Africa. Our analysis is based on data from 1,426 sexually active respondents aged 14–22 who participated in wave 1 of the “Transitions to Adulthood in the Context of AIDS in South Africa” study. We use logistic regression to model the probability of reporting that pregnancy would be a problem, using measures of HIV risk together with controls for individual and community measures that are also likely to affect pregnancy preferences. We find that educational and employment opportunities affect fertility preferences but also that the HIV pandemic, specifically adults’ perception of HIV risk for the young in the community and peer opinions about HIV risk, affect fertility preferences. Some significant differences by sex emerge concerning the influence of the perceptions of HIV risk. The analysis suggests that although individual and structural factors remain important, for some adolescents—and for girls more than for boys—the danger of HIV infection is becoming part of their calculus of the desirability of pregnancy. For both boys and girls, the unprotected sex required for conception puts them at danger of HIV transmission. For girls, the environment of risk may be particularly influential because the double threat of pregnancy and HIV infection carries an additional risk of HIV transmission to the infant, as well as the possibility of learning one’s serostatus at an antenatal clinic during pregnancy. http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Amin, Shahina and Julie DaVanzo. "The Impact of Wives' Earnings Inequality among Married-Couple Households in Malaysia." 02-09. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Beckett, Megan and Marc N. Elliott. "Does the Association Between Marital Status and Health Vary by Sex, Race, and Ethnicity?" 02-08. Abstract: The authors analyze the two-year perspective relationship between marital status and health - mortality, chronic conditions, functional status, self-rated health, and depressive symptoms - in midlife. The authors find no evidence that marriage is more strongly associated with health among men and women. They find that prior health selection accounts for half of the prospective relationship between marital status and health and that initial differences in socioeconomic status account for the rest of these effects. The authors find some evidence that the association between marital status and health among women varies between blacks and whites and for men varies between non-whites and whites. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Heron, Melonie P., Robert F. Schoeni, and Leo Sergio Morales. "Health Status of Older Immigrants in the United States." 02-07. Abstract: In light of increased immigration to the U.S. over the past thirty years, the authors objective is to examine the unique patterns of health status among immigrants aged 55 and over, using more detailed racial/ethnic categories than previously done. The authors explore health disparities within the immigrant population and between immigrants and natives of the same racial/ethnic group. Logistic regression is used to analyze data from the 1992-1995 National Health Interview Survey. Immigrants are less likely than natives to report an activity limitation or to be obese, but more likely than natives to report themselves in poor or fair general heatlh. There are significant differences among immigrants arriving from different coutries and between immigrants and natives who are of the same race/ethnicity. For some groups and health measures, a large share of the differences are explained by disparities in socioeconomic status; however, for others, the majority of the differences remain after adjusting for education and income. Older immigrants are not a large enough share of the population, nor do they have distinct enough health status, to substantially alter the aggregate prevalence of health conditions in the total population. However, the diversity in health status within the immigrant population is enormous. These estimates can be used to target populations with especially high rates of obesity and limitations. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Heron, Melonie P. and Leo Sergio Morales. "Latino Health, Nativity and Socioeconomic Status." 02-06. Abstract: The authors examine differences in health among Latino subgroups using the 1992-1996 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). They explore immigrant-native differences in health within detailed racial/ethnic group, by gender. For most groups, immigrants have better general health, activity limitation, and obesity outcomes than natives. Overall, Puerto Ricans and blacks are most likely to report being in poor or fair health or to have an activity limitation; Mexicans and blacks have the highest prevalence of obesity. Multivariate logistic regressions reveal substantial variation in the health outcomes of Latinos by immigrant status, national origin, and measure of health. Furthermore, patterns of health disparities vary by gender. For some groups, disadvantages in health are explained by group differences in socioeconomic resources. For other groups, disadvantage persists despite control for socioeconomic, demographic and geographic factors. These findings suggest varied group-sensitive approaches to addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Regina H. Powers, and Thomas J. Kniesner, and Thomas W. Croghan "Patterns of Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy Among Antidepressant Users." CPR Working Paper Series No. 47. Executive Summary: Depression is a condition with various modes of treatment, including pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and some combination of each. The role of psychotherapy in the treatment of depression relative to the role of pharmacotherapy is not well understood, and guidelines for psychotherapy in the primary care setting differ from guidelines for specialty care. There is little evidence about the circumstances in actual practice that affect the use of psychotherapy in conjunction with pharmacotherapy. We retrospectively identify the most important factors associated with the use of psychotherapy in combination with pharmacotherapy in the treatment of depression. Specifically, we study provider choice, health plan characteristics, and patient characteristics. We use a comprehensive medical and pharmacy claims data sample of 1,023 individuals during 1992–1994. We select persons prescribed with an antidepressant medication and diagnosed with a depressive disorder by a primary care physician, psychiatrist, or non-physician mental health specialist. Controlling for depression diagnosis and severity, comorbidity, and demographics, we examine the role of provider type and plan benefit characteristics. We study the intensity of psychotherapy using zero-inflated count regression, the intensity of pharmacotherapy using truncated count regression, and the likelihood of relapse of depression using logistic regression. Patients initially seeing a psychiatrist receive more than double the amount of psychotherapy and slightly more pharmacotherapy than patients of other providers. An additional prescription for antidepressant medication reduces by five percent the likelihood of relapse into depression, but the amount of psychotherapy does not affect relapse. Patients seeing a psychiatrist are half as likely to relapse, independent of any effect of psychotherapy. Case management and coinsurance rates do not affect the amount of psychotherapy, but the presence of case management has a positive effect on the amount of pharmacotherapy and on the likelihood of relapse. We find no discernible pattern of complementarity or substitution between pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy across providers. Although the amount of psychotherapy provided in conjunction with medication does not affect the rate of relapse to depression, psychotherapy may nonetheless provide beneficial outcomes not studied here. Choice of a psychiatrist reduces the likelihood of relapse, independent of the number of psychotherapy sessions and antidepressant prescriptions. The effect of provider choice on relapse could be an artifact of differences in provider follow-up practices or could represent a difference in provider skills. Managed care strategies do not appear to reduce the intensity of depression treatment, but case management does increase the likelihood of relapse. Pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy appear to be neither substitutes nor complements in the treatment of depression, suggesting that treatment is individualized. Choice of psychiatrist as the initial provider appears to reduce the likelihood of relapse, suggesting models of coordinated care may be beneficial. The link between psychiatrists and more psychotherapy is consistent with the hypothesis that patients resistant to treatment may nonetheless receive high quality care. Managed care tools such as case management and coinsurance rates do not appear to restrict the use of either psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. The association of case management with an increased likelihood of relapse suggests that plan characteristics can affect outcomes. Our study focuses on psychotherapy combined with medication and does not psychotherapy alone in the treatment of depression, which may be a preferred mode of treatment for some. Outcomes other than relapse, as well as costs, should also be considered. Our findings that psychiatrists are associated with a decreased likelihood of relapse and that case management is associated with an increased likelihood of relapse despite a correlation with greater pharmacotherapy intensity present avenues for additional study. http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/cprwps/wpslst.htm
Colen, Cynthia G., Arline T. Geronimus, and Maureen G. Phipps. "Getting a Piece of the Pie? Declining Teen Birth Rates During the 1990s." PSC Research Report 02-528. Abstract: This study seeks to examine whether declining teen fertility rates in the United States during the 1990s were responsive to the unprecedented economic expansion of that decade. Poisson regression models were estimated to assess the relationship between rates of first and second births and state specific unemployment among black and white women aged 10 to 29 from 1970 to 1999. Falling unemployment rates in the 1990s were associated with decreased fertility among African-American women aged 15 to 24. Young black women, especially older teens, may have adjusted their reproductive behavior to take advantage of expanded labor market opportunities. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/search-results.shtml?query=seriesList&seriesCode=rr
Beaujot, Roderic P. "Effect of Immigration on Demographic Structure." Discussion Paper 02-09. http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp2002.html
Plotnick, Robert D., Irwin Garfinkel, Sara S. McLanahan, and Inhoe Ku. "The Impact of Child Support Enforcement Policy on Nonmarital Childbearing." DP 1258-02. Abstract: A simple model of fatherhood and marriage choice implies that stricter child support enforcement will tend to reduce nonmarital childbearing by raising the costs of fatherhood. We investigate this hypothesis by examining nonmarital childbearing during 1980-1993, a period when child support policy and enforcement underwent enormous changes. We use a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44, both before marriage and during periods of nonmarriage following divorce or widowhood. Discrete-time hazard models of nonmarital childbearing provide evidence that women living in states with more effective child support collection were less likely to bear children when unmarried. The findings suggest that policies that shift more costs of nonmarital childbearing to men may reduce this behavior. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/dp/dplist-02.htm
Oliver, Pamela and James Yocom. "Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice: Madison and Dane County in Context." DP 1257-02. Abstract: This report draws on national, state, and local-level data on imprisonment rates of African Americans and whites in Wisconsin, particularly in Dane and Milwaukee Counties. We find that Wisconsin has very high rates of black imprisonment and slightly lower rates of white imprisonment than the national average, resulting in one of the highest black/white disparities in incarceration in the nation. The very high contribution of drug crimes to imprisonment rates is striking. Arrest and prosecution of these crimes has disproportionately affected blacks but is unlikely to accurately reflect differences in actual offending. A difference in imprisonment rates between racial groups does not prove discrimination. Factors such as family disruption, unemployment, and poverty are important influences on rates of offending as well as on rates of arrest and sentencing. In addition, policies and practices of the criminal justice system contribute to racial disparities, even without conscious prejudice or discriminatory intent. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/dp/dplist-02.htm
Agénor, Pierre-Richard. "Does Globalization Hurt the Poor?" Working Paper No. 2922. Abstract: Agénor attempts to examine analytically and empirically the extent to which globalization affects the poor in low- and middle-income countries. He begins with a description of various channels through which trade openness and financial integration may have an adverse effect on poverty. However, the author also stresses the possible nonlinearities involved—possibilities that have seldom been recognized in the ongoing debate. Agénor then presents cross-country regressions that relate measures of real and financial integration to poverty. The regressions control for changes in income per capita and output growth rates, as well as various other macroeconomic and structural variables, such as the inflation tax, changes in the real exchange rate and the terms of trade, health and schooling indicators, and macroeconomic volatility. The author uses not only individual indicators of trade and financial openness but also a “globalization index” based on principal components analysis, and tests for both linear and nonlinear effects. The results suggest the existence of a nonmonotonic, Laffer-type relationship between globalization and poverty. At low levels, globalization appears to hurt the poor; but beyond a certain threshold, it seems to reduce poverty—possibly because it brings with it renewed impetus for reform. So, globalization may hurt the poor not because it went too far, but rather because it did not go far enough. This paper—a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division, World Bank Institute—is part of a larger effort in the institute to study the impact of globalization on the poor in developing countries. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Adugna, Abebe, Hinh T. Dinh, and Bernard Myers. "The Impact of Cash Budgets on Poverty Reduction in Zambia: A Case Study of the Conflict between Well-Intentioned Macroeconomic Policy and Service Delivery to the Poor." Working Paper No. 2914. Abstract: Facing runaway inflation and budget discipline problems in the early 1990s, the Zambian government introduced the so-called cash budget in which government domestic spending is limited to domestic revenue, leaving no room for excess spending. Dinh, Adugna, and Myers review Zambia’s experience during the past decade, focusing on the impact of the cash budget on poverty reduction. They conclude that after some initial success in reducing hyperinflation, the cash budget has largely failed to keep inflation at low levels, created a false sense of fiscal security, and distracted policymakers from addressing the fundamental issue of fiscal discipline. More important, it has had a deeply pernicious effect on the quality of service delivery to the poor. Features inherent to the cash budgeting system facilitated a substantial redirection of resources away from the intended targets, such as agencies and ministries that provide social and economic services. The cash budget also eliminated the predictability of cash releases, making effective planning by line ministries difficult. Going forward, Zambia must adopt measures that over time will restore the commitment to budget discipline and shelter budget execution decisions from the pressures of purely short-term exigencies. This paper—a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division 1, Africa Region—is part of a larger effort in the region to review public expenditure management.http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Lanjouw, Jean O., Chris Elbers, and Peter Lanjouw. "Micro-Level Estimation of Welfare." Working Paper No. 2911. Abstract: The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can be used at a remarkably disaggregated level. They have a clear interpretation, are mutually comparable, and can be assessed for reliability using standard statistical theory. Using data from Ecuador, the authors obtain estimates of welfare measures, some of which are quite reliable for populations as small as 15,000 households—a “town.” They provide simple illustrations of their use. Such estimates open up the possibility of testing, at a more convincing intra-country level, the many recent models relating welfare distributions to growth and a variety of socioeconomic and political outcomes. This paper—a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to develop tools for the analysis of poverty and income distribution. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Guinnane, Timothy W., Carolyn M. Moehling, and Cormac O. Grada. "The Fertility of the Irish in America in 1910." Center Discussion Paper No. 848. Abstract: In most western societies, marital fertility began to decline in the nineteenth century. But in Ireland, fertility in marriage remained stubbornly high into the twentieth century. Explanations of Ireland's late entry to the fertility transition focus on the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish society. These arguments are often backed up by claims that the Irish outside of Ireland behaved the same way. This paper investigates these claims by examining the marital fertility of Irish Americans in 1910 and produces three main findings. First, the Irish in America had smaller families than both the rural and urban Irish and their fertility patterns show clear evidence of fertility control. Second, despite the evidence of control, Irish-Americans continued to have large families, much larger, in fact, than the U.S. native-born population. The fertility differential between these populations was not due to differences in other population characteristics. Rather it was due to the fact that conditional on characteristics, Irish-Americans chose to have larger families. Third, the differential fertility patterns of Irish-Americans were not just due to the effects of being immigrants. Germans and English immigrants also had higher fertility than the native-born population, but to a much larger extent than for the Irish, this higher fertility could be explained by the population characteristics of these groups. http://www.library.yale.edu/socsci/egcdis2.html
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