Returning to a New Mexican Labor Market? Regional Variation in the Economic Incorporation of Return Migrants from the U.S. to Mexico

Population Research and Policy Review - In recent years, a historically unprecedented number of Mexican migrants to the U.S. returned to Mexico. Compared to previous cohorts, recent return migrants...     

Do Rainfall Deficits Predict U.S.-Bound Migration from Rural Mexico? Evidence from the Mexican Census

Environmental and climatic changes have shaped human mobility for thousands of years and research on the migration-environment connection has proliferated in the past several years. Even so, little work has focused on Latin America or on international movement. Given rural Mexico’s dependency on primary sector activities involving various natural resources, and the existence of well-established transnational migrant networks, we investigate the association between rainfall patterns and U.S.-bound migration from rural locales, a topic of increasing policy relevance. The new economics of labor migration theory provides background, positing that migration represents a household-level risk management strategy. We use data from the year 2000 Mexican census for rural localities and socioeconomic and state-level precipitation data provided by the Mexican National Institute for Statistics and Geography. Multilevel models assess the impact of rainfall change on household-level international out-migration while controlling for relevant sociodemographic and economic factors. A decrease in precipitation is significantly associated with U.S.-bound migration, but only for dry Mexican states. This finding suggests that programs and policies aimed at reducing Mexico-U.S. migration should seek to diminish the climate/weather vulnerability of rural Mexican households, for example by supporting sustainable irrigation systems and subsidizing drought-resistant crops.     

Relation of marriage and education to fertility in the U.S.S.R

Abstract One-half of the variation in Soviet fertility as measured by the child-woman ratio is attributable to the proportion of married women in the 20-24 age group. The familar sociological hypothesis of an inverse relation between human fertility and education also is fully substantiated with data for the 36 major ethnic groups in the U.S.S.R. The second and third best predicting variables fall into the two extreme age groups: (a) those 16 to 19 years of age with more than seven years of school completed and (b) those men and women aged 60 and over with the equivalent formal education. Results of this study support the modified hypothesis that complements previously publicized findings. It asserts that variations in fertility attributable to the traditionally religious values can be explained in terms of the age-specific marriage and educational differentials known to have existed in the past and still characteristic of the multi-national society in the Soviet Union.     

Immigration to the U.S.: the unfinished story

Annual totals of new immigrants and refugees in the US may now be up to the record highs of over a million immigrants counted in 6 years between 1905 and 1914. Since 1979, legal immigrants have averaged 566,000 a year (570,009 in 1985), newly arrived refugees and asylees approved have averaged 135,000, and the "settled" illegal immigrant population is growing by up to 1/2 million a year, according to some estimates. 1/2 of illegal immigrants are persons who entered the US legally but then overstayed the terms of temporary visas. Immigration and Naturalization Service apprehensions of illegal aliens, projected at a record 1.8 million for fiscal year 1986, indicate a sharp increase in illegal border crossers, driven by Mexico's and Central America's mounting population and economic pressures and lured by the prospect of jobs with employers who through a loophole in US immigration law can hire illegal aliens without penalty. The Census Bureau estimates that net immigration now accounts for 28% of US population growth and will account for all growth by the 2030's if fertility stays at the current low 1.8 births per woman. Public opinion strongly favors crubs on illegal immigration and legalization of illegal aliens long resident in the US, and in 1986 Congress enacted legislation to reduce illegal immigration to the US. Asians and Latin Americans now make up over 80% of legal immigrants and Latin Americans comprised 77% of illegal immigrants counted in the 1980 census. Asians far outstrip Latin American immigrants in education, occupational status, and income and might be expected to assimilate in the same manner as earlier immigrant group did. Hispanic immigrants so far appear to favor cultural pluralism, maintaining their own culture and the Spanish language. Research in California indicates that recent Hispanic immigrants (legal and illegal) have helped preserve low-wage industries and agriculture. Illegal immigrants appear to draw more on public health and education services than they pay back in taxes. With or without immigration reform, population and economic pressures in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin ensure that the numbers of people seeking to enter the US are only likely to increase.     

U.S. women at work

Women made up 43% of the U.S. labor force in 1980, up from 29% in 1950, and 52% of all women 16 and over were working or looking for work compared to 34% in 1950. The surge in women's employment is linked to more delayed marriage, divorce, and separation, women's increased education, lower fertility, rapid growth in clerical and service jobs, inflation, and changing attitudes toward "woman's place." Employment has risen fastest among married women, especially married mothers of children under 6, 45% of whom are now in the labor force. Some 44% of employed women now work fulltime the year round, but still average only $6 for every $10 earned by men working that amount. This is partly because most women remain segregated in low paying "women's jobs" with few chances for advancement. Among fulltime workers, women college graduates earn less than male high school dropouts. Working wives were still spending 6 times more time on housework than married men in 1975 and working mothers of preschool children are also hampered by a severe lack of daycare facilities. Children of working women, however, appear to develop normally. Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action measures have improved the climate for working women but not as much as for minorities. The federal income tax and social security systems still discriminate against 2 income families. Woman's position in the U.S. labor force should eventually improve with the inroads women are making in some male-dominated occupations and gains in job experience and seniority among younger women who now tend to stay in the labor force through the years of childbearing and early childrearing, unlike women in the 1950s and 1960s.     

An Index of the Condition of Children: The Ideal and a Less-than-Ideal U.S. Example

This paper uses recent data on U.S. children from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) to create indices that tally the number of problems or risks that individual children experience. We compare results with those from indices developed elsewhere that assess the change across sets of population-level indicators. While the two types of indices show similar trends over time, specific changes, as well as trends, depend on the specific domain of well-being or context examined, highlighting the importance of the distinction between well-being and context. Children with problems in multiple domains tend to be socio-economically and demographically disadvantaged compared with other children. We preface this work by providing an overview of the history of child well-being indicators and distinguish indices of child well-being from indices of the condition of children.

Correlates of divorce in the U.S.S.R.

The theoretical rationale of this study is that conditions associated with divorce reside outside the family within a broader social system where the family finds itself located. The absence of major differences in divorce law from one place to another within the Soviet Union makes it possible to explore this hypothesis by examining areal differentials in divorce rates. Crude divorce rates and crude marriage rates for 1960 have been published in Vestnik Statistiki for 109 political-administrative areas in the Soviet Union. Several indicators of modernization are available for the same areas from the 1959 U.S.S.R. Census of Population. About 80 per cent of the variation among areas with respect to the crude divorce rate is accounted for by six variables: the crude marriage rate, the percentage of urban population, and the employee-worker ratio in the labor force, each of which is positively associated with the divorce rate; and the proportion of poorly educated women, the ratio of children to adult males, and the mean household-family size, each of which is negatively associated with the divorce rate.     

Comparing the U.S. Decennial Census Coverage Estimates for Children from Demographic Analysis and Coverage Measurement Surveys

Following every U.S. decennial census since 1960, the U.S. Census Bureau has evaluated the completeness of coverage using two different methods. Demographic analysis (DA) compares the census counts to a set of independent population estimates to infer coverage differences by age, sex, and race. The survey-based approach (also called dual system estimation or DSE) provides coverage estimates based on matching data from a post-enumeration survey to census records. This paper reviews the fundamentals of the two methodological approaches and then initially examines the results of these two methods for the 2010 decennial census in terms of consistency and inconsistency for age groups. The authors find that the two methods produce relatively consistent results for all age groups, except for young children. Consequently, the paper focuses on the results for children. Results of the 1990, 2000, and 2010 decennial censuses are shown for the overall population in this age group and by demographic detail (age, race, and Hispanic origin). Among children, the DA and DSE results are most inconsistent for the population aged 0–4 and most consistent for ages 10–17. Results also show that DA and DSE are more consistent for Black than non-Black populations. The authors discuss possible explanations for the differences in the two methods for young children and conclude that the DSE approach may underestimate the net undercount of young children due to correlation bias.     

Toward a U.S. population policy

The gratifying media results from a concerted national and local publicity effort when Zero Population Growth (ZPG) released its recommendations for a national population policy are reported. Support was received from 10 members of Congress and local leaders. 8 ZPG chapters and the Washington office held press conferences casting the meaning of increased population growth in regional terms. In Cincinnati, ZPG focused on the shortage of landfill space, in San Francisco the water shortage, and in Massachusetts the rapid urbanization of prime farmland. The Congressmen emphasized that the U.S. must have a comprehensive population policy before it can tell other countries they must. Among the ZPG policies recommended are: zero population growth by 2008, increased funding for family planning services and education, special programs for teenagers, greater public education on population dynamics, increased funding for contraceptive research, enforcement of existing immigration laws, comprehensive review of immigration policy, equal rights for women, and more equitable income tax policy.     

The fecundability of U.S. women

Abstract In this note I shall define fecundability as the probability that a non-pregnant woman will achieve a recognizable pregnancy during a month of exposure to risk.     

The fecundability of U.S. women

In this note I shall define fecundability as the probability that a non-pregnant woman will achieve a recognizable pregnancy during a month of exposure to risk.     

Future warming for U.S. cities

In this study, a model is developed to predict future warming for metropolitan areas in the United Sates to the year 2035. According to model results, most U.S. cities of 200,000 population or more can expect significant local warming. The average predicted warming for 104 cities analyzed is .34 degrees Farenheit. The greatest warming can be expected in sunbelt cities experiencing rapid population growth. Such localized warming is in addition to any heating which might occur from an enhanced greenhouse effect. Most cities can expect changes in energy demand, human health, and water supply.The author wishes to thank Stuart Simpson of the George Washington University's Center for Administrative and Academic Computing for his generous support and cooperation.     

Multi-Dimensional Deprivation in the U.S.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of multidimensional deprivation in the U.S. since the Great Recession, from 2008 to 2013. We estimate a Multidimensional Deprivation Index by compiling individual level data on several well-being dimensions from the American Community Survey. Our results indicate that the proportion of the population that is multidimensional deprived averages about 15 percent, which exceeds the prevalence of official income poverty. Lack of education, severe housing burden and lack of health insurance were some of the dimensions in which Americans were most deprived in. Though deprivation increased during the recession, it trended towards a decline between 2010 and 2013. Unlike the official and the supplemental poverty measure which did not show any decline, the deprivation index better reflects the economic recovery since the recession. Overall, the prevalence of deprivation was higher in the southern and the western states and among the Asian and the Hispanic population. Importantly, there was not much overlap between individuals who were income poor and those who were multidimensional deprived. In fact, almost 30 % of individuals with incomes slightly above the poverty threshold experienced multiple deprivations. Our analysis underscores the need to look beyond income based poverty statistics in order to fully realize the impact of the recession on individuals’ well-being.     

Residential expansion as a continental threat to U.S. coastal ecosystems

Spatially extensive analysis of satellite, climate, and census data reveals human-environment interactions of regional or continental concern in the United States. A grid-based principal components analysis of Bureau of Census variables revealed two independent demographic phenomena, α-settlement reflecting traditional human settlement patterns and β-settlement describing relative population growth correlated with recent construction in non-agricultural areas, notably in coastal, desert, and “recreational” counties and around expanding metropolitan areas. Regression tree analysis showed that β-settlement was differentially associated with five distinct combinations of seasonality, summer heat or cool, intensity of agriculture, and extent of “barren” land. Beta-settlement was greatest in coastal and desert areas, and coincided with national concentrations of threatened and endangered species.     

The Contribution of Smoking to Black-White Differences in U.S. Mortality

Smoking has significantly impacted American mortality and remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. No previous study has systematically examined the contribution of smoking-attributable deaths to mortality trends among blacks or to black-white mortality differences at older ages over time in the United States. In this article, we employ multiple methods and data sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of this contribution. We find that smoking has contributed to the black-white gap in life expectancy at age 50 for males, accounting for 20 % to 48 % of the gap between 1980 and 2005, but not for females. The fraction of deaths attributable to smoking at ages above 50 is greater for black males than for white males; and among men, current smoking status explains about 20 % of the black excess relative risk in all-cause mortality at ages above 50 without adjustment for socioeconomic characteristics. These findings advance our understanding of the contribution of smoking to contemporary mortality trends and differences and reinforce the need for interventions that better address the needs of all groups.     

Environmental Quality in the U.S. States

This analysis of data on environmental quality differentials in the U.S. states shows, first, that the many physical measures of the environment in the U. S. states form two coherent factors: pollution (which became the criterion variable for the study) and waste management. Likewise, budget allocations for the environment reduce to 'contemporary' and 'traditional' expenditures. The former type, along with per capita miles driven and the proportion of the population in metropolitan centers, were used as control variables in tests of three explanatory models: 'industrial capitalism', 'sectoral political economy' and 'sociological structuralism.' No one of these explanations was completely supported by the regression analyses. Therefore, a factor analysis of 16 measures of structure and environmental policy characteristics was run that generated three types of state structure: industrial, high-change and commercial. The first and third types proved to be strong predictors, positive and negative respectively, of pollution level. The major implication of these findings is that social structure, policy and pollution levels are inextricably intertwined.     

U.S. births and limit cycle Models

Lee's (1974) formal demographic feedback models summarize the implications for births and age-structure of neo-Malthusian theories of baby booms such as those of Easterlin. For some parameter values, such models imply sustained cycles, so-called "limit cycles", in births. Frauenthal and Swick recently reestimated a continuous-age version of Lee's basic cohort model with U.S. series and, contrary to Lee's original findings, concluded that "limit cycles oscillations have been occurring in U.S. births." This article disputes their conclusion, ascribing it to an inconsistency in detrending procedures. Furthermore, it corrects Lee's original conclusion by showing that his alternative period labor-force feedback model, estimated from U.S. series, leads to cycles of implausibly long period. This article thus reopens the question of whether any feedback model could account for the observed cycles in U.S. births.     

Alternative Projections of the U.S. population

The U.S. Bureau of the Census recently released a set of population projections that include middle and high projections that we argue are too conservative. The projections discount the possibility of future baby booms and assume slow rates of mortality decline and low levels of immigration. In this article we explore the impact on the size and age composition of the U.S. population of alternative scenarios of plausible fertility, mortality, and immigration assumptions. We conclude that (1) the Census Bureau's highest projection might be interpreted as a reasonable middle projection, (2) a reasonable high projection would yield a U.S. population in 2080 some 300 million persons larger than the Bureau's highest projection, with the population 85 and older more than twice the Bureau's greatest estimate, and (3) uncertainty about the pace of population growth is substantially greater than the Bureau's projections suggest.     

Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality

We use recently released, nationally representative data from the National Health Interview Survey-Multiple Cause of Death linked file to model the association of religious attendance and sociodemographic, health, and behavioral correlates with overall and cause-specific mortality. Religious attendance is associated with U.S. adult mortality in a graded fashion: People who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with people who attend more than once a week. This translates into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at age 20 between those who never attend and those who attend more than once a week. Health selectivity is responsible for a portion of the religious attendance effect: People who do not attend church or religious services are also more likely to be unhealthy and, consequently, to die. However, religious attendance also works through increased social ties and behavioral factors to decrease the risks of death. And although the magnitude of the association between religious attendance and mortality varies by cause of death, the direction of the association is consistent across causes.