Seminar Series

Compared to the US-born, Black immigrants have higher child poverty rates despite their comparatively higher levels of schooling. This disadvantage is inconsistent with human-capital theory and is unseen among other immigrant racial groups. This research examines whether this inconsistency is explained by the influence of parental education-occupation mismatch status on child poverty. It shows that the parents of Black children in immigrant families are considerably more likely to be over-educated, or have more schooling for their jobs, than their counterparts in US-born families.

This paper examines whether associations between personality and attained status are socially contingent such that valued personality characteristics are stronger predictors of attainments at lower levels of parental education (the resource substitution hypothesis) but such characteristics are less likely among the children of less educated parents (the structural amplification hypothesis).

Radical changes in the nature of romantic relationships are reflected in the decoupling of what were once considered "marital behaviors" from the institution of marriage. Cohabitors can engage in many of the same experiences of shared living, such as economies of scale, risk pooling, production of relationship-specific capital, and joint consumption, without marrying. This study examines whether financial attributes of shared living are associated with transitions to marriage or separation among current cohabitors.

ABSTRACT: Academic and policy literatures on intergenerational transmissions of poverty and inequality suggest that improving schooling attainment and income for parents in poor households will lessen poverty and inequality in their children's generation through increased human capital accumulated by their children. However, magnitudes of such effects are unknown.

ABSTRACT: In the social sciences, there is a longstanding tension between data collection methods that facilitate quantification and those that are open to unanticipated information. Advances in technology now enable new, hybrid methods that can combine some of the benefits of both approaches. Drawing inspiration both from online information aggregation systems like Wikipedia and from traditional survey research, we propose a new class of research instruments called wiki surveys.

ABSTRACT: This presentation will discuss several studies examining the associations among life course socioeconomic indicators and health. Specifically, we will discuss how life course socioeconomic indicators influence cognitive function, metabolic conditions, infection and immune response using data from several cohort studies in the US.

ABSTRACT: Although climate-related extreme events---floods, rain-induced landslides, and droughts---are receiving increasing attention in the development and disaster risk-reduction communities, demographic analysis of the incidence and consequences of these events has remained very scarce indeed. In part this is because spatially-specific data are needed not only on where extreme events take place, but also on the demographic characteristics of those exposed to risk.

ABSTRACT:The contribution of preterm birth and birthweight extremes to a child's health risks, ranging from infant mortality to later onset diseases in adulthood, has been examined extensively. The direct causal relationship between gestational age, birthweight, and later life health has been questioned because they may be measures of confounding factors that are related both to birth characteristics and to later life health. With a few exceptions, this large body of work does not consider the patterns of birthweight and preterm births within a family.

ABSTRACT: Scholars question whether Latino, especially Mexican American, communities contain social, financial, and ethnic resources that foster mobility and integration. This research examines Latino ethnobanks in Los Angeles that are chartered by Mexican American elites. We find that Mexican American elites charter ethnobanks to make a profit, but they operate them within a "banktivist" model. They view Latino ethnobanks as community capital institutions that have the potential to grow the Latino middle class by providing access to capital for Latino entrepreneurs.

ABSTRACT: A broad literature in social psychology has established that respondents react negatively when women engage in traditionally masculine actions in the workplace (Heilman and Chen 2005; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, and Tamkins 2004; Rudman and Glick 1999; Rudman 1998; Rudman and Glick 2001; Bowles, Babcock, and Lai 2006; Amanatullah and Morris 2010). This negative reaction is described as a "backlash effect." In this study, I test two hypotheses.