Ambition gone awry: the long-term socioeconomic consequences of misaligned and uncertain ambitions in adolescence

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate whether misaligned or uncertain ambitions in adolescence influence the process of socioeconomic attainment. Methods: Using 34 years of longitudinal data from the British Cohort Study (BCS70), we considered whether youth with (1) misaligned ambitions (i.e., those who either over- or underestimate the level of education required for their desired occupation), (2) both low occupational aspirations and educational expectations (low-aligned ambitions), and (3) uncertainty with regard to their future occupations (uncertain ambitions) at age 16 experienced more unemployment spells, lower educational attainment, and lower hourly wages in adulthood compared to youth with high occupational aspirations and educational expectations (high-aligned ambitions). Results: Youth who hold misaligned or uncertain aspirations show long-term deficits in employment stability and educational attainment, which in turn leads to lower wage attainments at age 34. Conclusion: Misaligned and uncertain ambitions in adolescence compromise the construction of life paths and the realization of long-term educational and occupational goals.     

Are Naturalized Voters Driving the California Latino Electorate? Measuring the Effect of IRCA Citizens on Latino Voting*

Objectives. The 1990s witnessed the growth and maturation of the Latino electorate in California and many scholars have posited as to the reasons. One argument is that naturalizations by way of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) drove the increases in Latino participation. In this article we investigate the extent to which this is the case. Methods. Using unpublished INS data, we offer the first empirical test of the IRCA theory by examining Latino IRCA petitions by zipcode to determine whether or not IRCA legalizations and subsequent naturalizations were the force behind increased Latino turnout, and the overall growth of the Latino vote. We merge IRCA data with Registrar of Voter data to examine real growth in the Latino vote at the zipcode level from 1996–2000 in southern California. Results. Although Latino voting grew substantially, we find that IRCA naturalizations did not spur the increases in Latino voting in the 1990s as some have expected. Instead, demographic and mobilization variables explain why the Latino vote grew between 1996 and 2000. Conclusions. As Congress debates new proposals to “legalize” the millions of undocumented immigrants living and working in this country, many will inevitably ask what impact their citizenship will have on the electorate. This study sheds some light on the relationship between amnesty programs, citizenship, and voting among Latinos.     

Additively Decomposable Segregation Indexes. The Case of Gender Segregation by Occupations and Human Capital Levels in Spain

Building upon the ideas first exposed by Theil and Finizza (1971) and Fuchs (1975), this paper presents an additively decomposable segregation index based on the entropy concept used in information theory. For any pair of classification variables in a given year, the index is decomposed into a between-group and a within-group term. To analyze intertemporal changes in gender segregation for a given partition, the index is decomposed into two terms that capture, respectively, gender composition effects, and changes in the groups' demographic importance. These decompositions are illustrated with Spanish data on occupations and human capital levels for 1977 and 1992. It is found that, in both years, the higher the educational level, the smaller is gender segregation for most age groups. Moreover, gender segregation decreases with age in all educational categories. However, most gender segregation takes place within, rather than between, age/education categories. Lastly, changes in gender composition across occupations, nearly offset by occupational mix changes, account for a decline of 2% in total gender segregation over this period.     

Linear functional regression: The case of fixed design and functional response

The authors consider the problem of simple linear regression when the exogenous and endogenous variables are functional and the design is fixed. They propose an estimator for the underlying linear operator and prove its consistency under some conditions which ensure that the design is sufficiently informative. They consider the classical calibration (or inverse regression) problem and analyze a consistent estimator. They also give a simulation study. The proposed method is not hard to implement in practice.     

Balanced allocation methods for claims problems with indivisibilities

We study claims problems in which a certain amount of indivisible units (of an homogeneous good) has to be distributed among a group of agents, when this amount is not enough to fully satisfy agents’ demands. Our aim is to find solutions fulfilling procedural and fairness properties. To do that, we define the M-down methods, which are the unique robust (composition down and consistency) and fair (balancedness and conditional full compensation) rules. Besides, we also establish the relationship between these M-down methods and the constrained equal awards rule.