Effects of neighborhood walkability on healthy weight: assessing selection and causal influences

Studies that examine the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and weight are limited because residents are not randomly distributed into neighborhoods. If associations are found between neighborhood characteristics and weight in observational studies, one cannot confidently draw conclusions about causality. We use data from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) that contain body mass index (BMI) information from all drivers holding a Utah driver license to undertake a cross-sectional analysis that compares the neighborhood determinants of BMI for youth and young adults. This analysis assumes that youth have little choice in their residential location while young adults have more choice. Our analysis makes use of data on 53,476 males and 47,069 females living in Salt Lake County in 2000. We find evidence of residential selection among both males and females when BMI is the outcome. The evidence is weaker when the outcomes are overweight or obesity. We conclude that studies that ignore the role of residential selection may be overstating the causal influence of neighborhood features in altering residents’ BMI.     

Modeling Earnings Dynamics

In this paper, we use indirect inference to estimate a joint model of earnings, employment, job changes, wage rates, and work hours over a career. We use the model to address a number of important questions in labor economics, including the source of the experience profile of wages, the response of job changes to outside wage offers, and the effects of seniority on job changes. We also study the dynamic response of wage rates, hours, and earnings to various shocks, and measure the relative contributions of the shocks to the variance of earnings in a given year and over a lifetime. We find that human capital accounts for most of the growth of earnings over a career, although job seniority and job mobility also play significant roles. Unemployment shocks have a large impact on earnings in the short run, as well as a substantial long‐term effect that operates through the wage rate. Shocks associated with job changes and unemployment make a large contribution to the variance of career earnings and operate mostly through the job‐specific error components of wages and hours.     

National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur?

There are marked variations between nations in reported subjective well-being (SWB), but the explanations for this diversity have not been fully explored. It is possible that the differences are entirely due to true variability in SWB, but it is also reasonable that the differences may be due to factors related to self-report measurement such as variation across nations in whether it is desirable to say one is happy. At a substantive level, there might be differences in the norms governing the experience of emotion such that cultural differences in SWB are due to affective regulation. Pacific Rim countries (e.g., Japan, the People's Republic of China, and S. Korea) appear to have lower SWB than their material circumstances warrant, and the U.S.A. has higher SWB than is predicted based on its income per person. The genesis of these differences was explored by comparing students in S. Korea, Japan, and the People's Republic of China to students in the U.S.A., and it was concluded that: (1) The Pacific Rim subjects score lower on both happiness and life satisfaction in both absolute terms and when income is controlled, (2) There probably is not a general negative response set in the Pacific Rim which causes lower SWB, as evidenced by the fact that the Asians express dissatisfaction in some areas (e.g., education and self) but not in other areas (e.g., social relationships), (3) Artifacts are not causing the lower reported SWB, (4) The general suppression of mood in the Pacific Rim is unlikely to be the cause of SWB differences, but Chinese students do appear to avoid negative affect, (5) SWB is no less important and salient in Japan and S. Korea, but does appear to be a less central concern in China, and (6) There are different patterns of well-being depending on whether life satisfaction or hedonic balance are considered.     

Wage subsidies as an anti-discrimination policy

Using the statistical theory of discrimination, we argue that initial wage offers may be lower for minority workers, but that wage differences for a given level of productivity should diminish with the worker's job tenure. If a wage subsidization policy is designed so that initial wage offers are equal for majority and minority workers and is maintained for a time period sufficient to demonstrate true productivity, then wage differences for a given level of productivity should disappear. We also provide an empirical test of the effectiveness of such a policy by using a sample of participants in a government job program that enforced equal wage schedules for White and Black workers. Our results show that measured discrimination declined among program participants, supporting the hypothesis that wage subsidies would be an effective anti-discrimination policy.     

Changing patterns of family growth: The value of linked vital records as a source of data

Abstract Marriage and birth registrations for the Canadian province of British Colombia have been 'linked' by computer into family groupings to provide reproductive histories of married couples. The usefulness of the approach is illustrated by a comparison of the early productivities of marriages contracted in 1961 and in 1951, taking into account the age of the bride, the duration of the marriage, and the religions of the groom, bride and officiating clergyman. Older Catholic brides are shown to run counter to the otherwise general trend towards increasing productivity in the early years of marriage.     

Age-sex structure of the United States in 2000: Early results from Census 2000

Recently data on age and sex for the United States have beenreleased in the Census 2000 data product Summary File 1. This paper presents someearly analysis on the shape of the age and sex structure from Census 2000 data throughstatistics and graphics on national and sub-national levels. Also highlighted are comparisonswith data from the 1990 census.     

A decomposition of trends in the nonmarital fertility ratios of blacks and whites in the united states, 1960–1992*

We use a method of standardization and decomposition developed by Das Gupta to update Smith and Cutright’s analysis of demographic factors responsible for increases in the nonmarital fertility ratio (illegitimacy ratio) among blacks and whites in the United States. We create standardized rates for each year between 1960 and 1992, and consistent, exhaustive decompositions of the nonmarital fertility ratio for any interval during this period in terms of four components: (1) the age distribution of women of reproductive age, (2) the proportion of women unmarried at each age, (3) the age-specific birth rates of married women, and (4) the age-specific birth rates of unmarried women. Nonmarital fertility ratios are much higher among blacks than among whites, but both increased monotonically from 1960 to 1992. During the last 10 years, each increased by nearly 10 percentage points. Increases in the proportion of women not married, at all ages, account for the preponderance of the increase in black nonmarital fertility ratios. Increasing rates of unmarried childbearing, however, have played a role during the most recent decade (1983–1992). For whites, from 1960 until 1975, declines in marital fertility were most important in producing increases in the proportion of children born out of wedlock. Since then, these proportions have increased primarily because of increases in unmarried women s birth rates, and secondarily because of declines in the proportion of women who are married. These trends are consistent with arguments that emphasize declining economic incentives to marry and reduced access to, and acceptability of, abortion.     

Has the Chinese family planning policy been successful in changing fertility preferences?

Has China’s strict one-child policy been successful in changing fertility preferences? Using linked data from surveys conducted in four counties of northern China in 1991 and 1994, we compare reproductive behavior against prior fertility preferences and show when and where women change from wanting to not wanting more children. The acceptance of policy-sanctioned family size follows a development gradient and reflects the degree of enforcement. High acceptance occurs in the most urban, industrialized county and in the county with the most rigid family planning policy. Acceptance is weaker among women living in the poorest county and in the county where enforcement is most lenient.