CCPR Seminar

"Social Network Influences on and for Behavior Change"

Abstract: In this presentation, Valente will show how social networks influence behaviors across a wide variety of applications.  Recent research on the diffusion of innovations will also be presented along with results from the study of the diffusion of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).  Models for how social networks can be used for program implementation and network interventions will also be detailed.

View Podcast Here

"Precarious employment and fertility: Insights from Japan’s “Lost 20 Years”"

Abstract: In this paper, we examine relationships between precarious employment and fertility. We focus on Japan, a country characterized by a prolonged economic downturn, significant increases in both unemployment and non-standard employment, a strong link between marriage and childbearing, and pronounced gender differences in economic roles and opportunities. Analyses of retrospective employment, marriage, and fertility data for the period 1990-2007 indicate that changing employment circumstances for men are associated with lower levels of marriage while changes for women are associated with higher levels of marital fertility. These two offsetting relationships combine to limit the overall association between changes in employment circumstances and declining fertility. Results of counterfactual standardization analyses suggest that Japan’s total fertility rate (TFR) would have been slightly lower than observed if aggregate- and individual-level employment conditions had remained unchanged from the 1980s. We discuss the implications of these results in light of ongoing policy discussions about fertility promotion and academic debates about the changing nature of gender relations within the family.

"Race Matters: Income Inequality and Mobility from 2000 to 2013"

Abstract: Using unique linked Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Census Bureau data matched at the individual level, we examine the differences in levels and trends for income inequality across racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Our data span 2000 to 2013, a period including the Great Recession, and will thus inform us on how financial crises affect inequality for important sub-groups of Americans. Previous research has focused on the increasing concentration of income and assets in the top decile of tax filers; this analysis will provide information on the entire distribution of income by decile, highlighting the circumstances of those at the lower end of the distribution as well. Because our data include both administrative and census data, our research is the first to provide detailed income and wage inequality information for racial and ethnic groups. Finally, we focus on short-run measures of mobility and document this measure over the decade and post-Great Recession era.

View Podcast Here

"Measuring neighborhoods in the new data economy."

Abstract:  The data economy in the United States has changed dramatically in the past 5-10 years.  Naively one might argue that this new data economy holds particular promise for academics, because revolutions in science are often preceded by revolutions in measurement.   But for social scientists who study cities in the United States these changes are mixed.  The new data economy is complex complicates the study of neighborhoods.  In this talk I'll describe one such complication - the replacement of the long form of the decennial census with the American Community Survey in 2010.  The ACS produces estimates for thousands of variables at a variety of geographic scales.  However, estimates from the ACS are terribly imprecise, for many policy relevant variables ACS estimates are almost unusable.  In this talk I’ll describe the quality of the ACS and use its shortcomings to motivate a discussion of changing the way we measure neighborhoods.  Rather than just talk about alternatives I’ll present results from two novel computational methods that leverage new ways of thinking about the measurement of neighborhoods.  One of these methods can be used to process existing public domain ACS estimates to dramatically reduce the margin of error.

"Community Norms, Collective Practices, and Partner Violence against Women in Bangladesh"

Study 1: Child marriage, before age 18, is a collective practice reflecting institutionalized male dominance and is a risk factor for intimate partner violence (IPV) against women. Worldwide, Bangladesh has the highest prevalence of IPV and very early child marriage, before age 15. How the community prevalence of very early child marriage influences a woman’s risk of IPV is unknown. Using panel data (2013–2014) from 3,355 women first married 4–12 years prior in 77 Bangladeshi villages, we tested the protective effect of a woman’s later first marriage (age 18 or older), the adverse effect of a higher village prevalence of very early child marriage, and whether any protective effect of a woman’s later first marriage was diminished or reversed where very early child marriage was more prevalent, suggesting that later marriage in such communities evokes violent backlash. Almost half (44.5%) of women reported incident physical IPV, and most (78.9%) had married before age 18. At the village-level, the incidence of physical IPV ranged from 11.4% to 75.0%, and the mean age at first marriage ranged from 14.8 to 18.0 years. The mean village-level prevalence of very early child marriage was 20.3% and ranged from 3.9% to 51.9%. In main-effects models, marrying at 18 or later protected against physical IPV, and more prevalent very early child marriage (village % married before age 15) was a risk factor. The interaction of individual later marriage and village very early child marriage prevalence was positive; thus, the likely protective effect of marrying later was negated in villages where very early child marriage was prevalent. Collectively reducing very early child marriage may be needed to protect women from IPV.

Study 2: Men’s perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) is common, but its multilevel determinants are understudied. Using a probability sample of 570 married men 18–34 years in 50 urban and 62 rural communities in the Bangladesh survey of the 2011 UN Multi-Country Study of Men and Violence, we tested for (a) a positive relationship of more equitable community gender norms among senior men (n=938; married, 35-49 years) and (b) a negative relationship of a junior man’s greater exposure to childhood violence with his lifetime rate of physical IPV perpetration (n=570; married, 18–34 years). We also tested whether more equitable community gender norms mitigated the rate of physical IPV perpetration associated with more childhood exposure to violence. Among younger married men, 50% reportedly ever perpetrated physical IPV, the mean lifetime number of physical IPV types perpetrated was 1.1 (SD 1.3) out of 5.0 listed. A majority (64%) reported childhood exposure to violence. In multilevel Poisson models, a man with more childhood exposure to violence had a higher log rate (Est. 0.31, SE 0.04, p<.001) and a man living amidst the most equitable gender norms had a lower log rate (Est. -0.52, SE 0.19, p<.01) of perpetrating physical IPV; however, no significant cross-level interaction was observed. Interventions that address the trauma of childhood violence and promote more equitable community gender norms may be needed to mitigate IPV perpetration by younger men.

View Podcast Here