Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons^™

“Reverse Policies?” Reducing The Legal Minimum Age At Marriage Increases Child Marriage Among The Poorest In Mali, Ewa Batyra, Luca Maria Pesando

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Child marriage is associated with adverse outcomes related to women’s wellbeing. To curb child marriage, many countries introduced laws that ban child marriage, and a growing number of studies evaluated their impact. Scant research focused on instances where countries lowered the legal minimum age at marriage, even though such “reverse policies” could result in stalled progress in eradicating child marriage, thus threatening the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Using visualization techniques, regression analysis and a series of robustness checks, we document changes in the prevalence of child marriage in Mali where, with the introduction of the Family Code in …

Citizenship Matters: Non-Citizen Covid-19 Mortality Disparities In New York And Los Angeles, Jason A. Douglas, Georgiana Bostean, Angel Miles Nash, Emmanuel B. John, Lawrence M. Brown, Andrew M. Subica

Health Sciences and Kinesiology Faculty Articles

U.S. non-citizen residents are burdened by inequitable access to socioeconomic resources, potentially placing them at heightened risk of COVID-19-related disparities. However, COVID-19 impacts on non-citizens are not well understood. Accordingly, the current study investigated COVID-19 mortality disparities within New York (NYC) and Los Angeles (LAC) to test our hypothesis that areas with large proportions of non-citizens will have disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality rates. We examined ecological associations between March 2020–January 2021 COVID-19 mortality rates (per 100,000 residents) and percent non-citizens (using ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA) for NYC and City/Community units of analysis for LAC) while controlling for sociodemographic factors. …

Substance Abuse During The Pandemic: Implications For Labor-Force Participation, Jeremy Greenwood, Nezih Guner, Karen A. Kopecky

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

The labor-force participation rates of prime-age U.S. workers dropped in March 2020—the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—and have still not fully recovered. At the same time, substance-abuse deaths were elevated during the pandemic relative to trend indicating an increase in the number of substance abusers, and abusers of opioids and crystal methamphetamine have lower labor-force participation rates than non-abusers. Could increased substance abuse during the pandemic be a factor contributing to the fall in labor-force participation? Estimates of the number of additional substance abusers during the pandemic presented here suggest that increased substance abuse accounts for between 9 and 26 …

Life On The Sidewalk: A Comparative Analysis Of Pratt Street And Park Street In Hartford, Connecticut, And Its Implications, Rocio Fernandez Gutierrez

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Montana Voices Amplified: My Perspective: I Run My Own Iep; You Can Too!, Heath Montgomery, University Of Montana Rural Institute

Independent Living and Community Participation

An Individual Education Plan (IEP) meeting is an opportunity to meet with the school team to build rapport, express appreciation, brainstorm ideas, and more. This conversation with teachers, school therapists, and parents might be just as important as what ends up in the actual document if it builds respect for you as a self-advocate.

Harnessing The Potential Of Google Searches For Understanding Dynamics Of Intimate Partner Violence Before And After Covid-19 Outbreak, Selin Köksal, Luca Maria Pesando, Valentina Rotondi, Ebru Şanlıtürk

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Most social phenomena are inherently complex and hard to measure, often due to under-reporting, stigma, social desirability bias, and rapidly changing external circumstances. This is for instance the case of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), a highly-prevalent social phenomenon which has drastically risen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores whether big data — an increasingly common tool to track, nowcast, and forecast social phenomena in close-to-real time — might help track and understand IPV dynamics. We leverage online data from Google Trends to explore whether online searches might help reach “hard-to-reach” populations such as victims of IPV …

Change In Subjective Well-Being, Affluence And Trust In Politicians, Vani S. Kulkarni, Veena S. Kulkarni, Katsushi S. Imai, Raghav Gaiha

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Using nationally-representative household panel data in the India Human Development Surveys for 2005-6 and 2011-12, we examine the causal relationship between trust in politicians and the change in SWB between 2005 and 2012 where the politicians comprise Members of State Legislative Assemblies, Members of Parliament and other political aspirants. Our analysis is unique as it takes account of the loss of public trust in politicians due to the scourge of criminality among the elected members. More specifically, we test (i) whether criminality among the politicians influences trust in them, and (ii) whether the trust in politicians influences perceived well-being, drawing …

More Coffins Than Cradles In 2,300 U.S. Counties: Covid's Grim Impact, Kenneth M. Johnson

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief, Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that COVID’s impact is reflected in the sharp rise in U.S. deaths, reaching 3,434,000 between July 2020 and July 2021. This is a record high and 20 percent more than two years ago before the COVID pandemic. Births diminished to just 3,582,000, the fewest since 1979. The primary driver of U.S. population growth has long been the substantial surplus of births over deaths. This surplus has now dwindled to just 148,000, compared to 923,000 two years ago—an 84 percent decline. With immigration also at a low ebb, the population grew by …

Life Cycle Surplus And Life Cycle Deficit Of Immigrants Versus Natives, Persida Cica Tofoska Apostolova, Tanja Istenič, Jože Sambt

Economic and Business Review

Recently, immigration and its socio-economic aspects have been in the centre of the European Union leaders’ agenda. In this paper, we apply the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology to calculate the complete set of NTA results for immigrants and natives in five EU countries. We find that due to the lower labour income, which cannot be offset by the lower consumption, immigrants experience a shorter independence period and a much lower aggregate life cycle surplus than natives. The identified cross country differences between immigrants and natives could be used as a proxy of the achieved level of integration of immigrants.

Care Labor Demand Shocks And Inequality: How Childcare Costs Exacerbate Inequality Among American Families, Pilar Gonalons-Pons, Ioana Marinescu

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

This article argues that care infrastructures can shape family income inequality and examines access to childcare services in the US as a case study. We propose that market-priced childcare systems generate inequalities in how births impact mothers’ income contributions to families and aggravate family income inequality as a result. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) merged with state-level childcare prices, we estimate individual fixed effects regression models for the consequences of births on family income and on its proximate determinants: mothers’ labor supply and earnings, and partners’ labor supply and earnings. Our models include state and year …

Work And Family Disadvantage: Mechanisms Of Gender Gaps In Paid Work During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Yasmin Mertehikian, Pilar Gonalons-Pons

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of mechanisms driving the increase in gender inequality in paid work during the pandemic to address existing disagreement about the relative relevance of labor market and work-family conflict processes. Using panel data from the United States Current Population Survey (CPS), we examine four mechanisms in an integrated analysis that explicitly includes single-parent households and assesses the moderating role of women’s economic position relative to their partners. The results indicate that increases in gender inequality during the pandemic were largely driven by a direct gender mechanism in households with children and partly driven by gender …

Rural Adults Report Worse Covid-19 Impacts Than Urban Adults, Shannon M. Monnat

Population Health Research Brief Series

COVID-19 infection and mortality rates have been higher in rural than in urban America since late-2020. However, the consequences of COVID-19 extend far beyond the deaths that it has caused. This brief uses data from a national survey of working-age adults (ages 18-64) collected in February and March of 2021 to describe rural-urban differences in reported impacts of COVID-19 on physical and mental health, employment, financial wellbeing, and social relationships. Nearly 3 out of 5 respondents (58%) reported that COVID-19 has had a negative impact on their lives. Across most outcomes, rural residents fared worse than their urban peers. Recovery …

A Portrait Of Partnership Statuses In The United States Between 1990 And 2017, Daeshin Hayden Ju

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines partnership rates among the US population by race and ethnicity from 1990 to 2017.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2017.

Discussion:

Over the past thirty years, the general proportion of married …

Montana Voices Amplified: My Perspective: Planning For Crisis – Benefits Of A Family Safety Plan, Elizabeth Cummings, University Of Montana Rural Institute

Independent Living and Community Participation

Crisis can be a part of many families’ experiences, including those with a loved one with special needs. It can be hard to talk about, and too often a source of shame or stigma. Like many other families, mine has experienced a crisis, so I understand the challenges as well as the need to discuss the subject. The hard part is knowing where to start.

Aging And Disability Services Are Unequally Distributed Across The United States, Claire Pendergrast, Danielle Rhubart

Population Health Research Brief Series

As the U.S. population ages, demand for aging and disability services will increase, but 15% of U.S. counties have no aging and disability services organizations. This brief shows that rural counties and counties with the highest rates of poverty, highest shares of older adults, and highest shares of non-Hispanic Blacks are most likely to be aging and disability services deserts. To support healthy aging across the country, policymakers should invest in aging services infrastructure and should prioritize resources for places that are aging and disability services deserts.

Rural America Lost Population Over The Past Decade For The First Time In History, Kenneth M. Johnson

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson examines rural demographic trends between 2010 and 2020 using data from the 2020 Census. The economic turbulence beginning with the Great Recession and continuing through the next decade had a significant demographic impact on rural America. Between 2010 and 2020 rural population loss was widespread, with more than two-thirds of all nonmetropolitan counties losing population. With fewer births, more deaths, and more people leaving than moving in, rural America experienced an overall population loss for the first time in history. Population losses were greatest in remote rural counties, but even in rural …

Union Formation, Within-Couple Dynamics, And Child Well-Being In Global Comparative Perspective, Ewa Batyra, Luca Maria Pesando, Andrés F. Castro, Frank F. Furstenberg, Hans-Peter Kohler

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Studies on global changes in families have greatly increased over the past decade, adopting both a country-specific and, more recently, a cross-national comparative perspective. While most studies are focused on the drivers of global changes in families, little comparative research has explored the implications of family processes for the health and well-being of children. This study aims to fill this gap and launch a new research agenda exploring the intergenerational implications of union-formation and within-couple dynamics for children’s health and well-being across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), both globally, regionally, and by the stage of fertility transition. We do so …

Racial, Ethnic, And Urban/Rural Differences In Transitions Into Diabetes: Evidence From The Health And Retirement Survey Biomarker And Self-Reported Data, Hyeran Chung, Mary Arends-Kuenning

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

We examine differences in transitions between stages of type 2 diabetes across racial, ethnic, and urban/rural statuses. The individual-level data from the 2006 to 2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and county-level data from the 1990-2000 U.S. Censuses, the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research are used to analyze the transition from the stage of prediabetic to diabetic, and the transition from having no diabetes to being prediabetic and diabetic. The HRS includes both biomarker data and self- reported doctors’ diagnoses of diabetes, which allow us to identify people …

Exploring Rural-Urban Differences In Polygenic Associations For Health Among Older Adults In The United States, Trent Davidson, Jason D. Boardman, Lori M. Hunter

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

A complex combination of genes and environment influence health and, as a result, both genes and environment can play a role in shaping health disparities. We consider distinctions in these influences across rural and urban settings, expanding upon work that shows lower genetic associations in rural compared to urban places by studying an older age group and examining more than the typical outcomes of alcohol/substance abuse. Using a sample of 14,994 adults from the 1992 through 2016 waves of the Health andRetirement Study, our results suggest genetic associations for BMI and heart conditions are significantly lower in rural compared to …

Socio-Spatial Disparities In County-Level Availability Of Aging And Disability Services Organizations, Claire Pendergrast, Danielle Rhubart

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Aging and disability services are essential for supporting older adults in living independently in their homes and communities as they age. Applying theoretical perspectives of community gerontology and spatial inequality, we use county-level data (N=3142) from the National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA) and the American Community Survey to explore if and how availability of aging and disability services organizations varies across the rural-urban continuum and across compositional characteristics of counties. Results show that rural counties are significantly more likely to be aging and disability services deserts. Stratified models show that poverty rates and relative shares of non-Hispanic Blacks are positively …