California Center for Population Research

Mark Kaplan, UCLA
2017-10-25 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Title: The Impact of Socioenvironmental Stressors on Alcohol-Linked Suicides: A Nationwide Postmortem Study”
Abstract: Not only is suicide a major public health problem, but also, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8,179 deaths and 273,206 years of potential life lost resulted from alcohol attributable suicides in 2006-10 (the latest years available). Since 2011, Professor Kaplan and his colleagues have worked with the National Violent Death Reporting System Restricted Access Database on two projects funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, focusing on acute alcohol use immediately prior to suicide. This presentation will show that nearly a third of suicide decedents nationwide were intoxicated at the time of death. Furthermore, Prof. Kaplan will describe the effects of the 2008-09 economic contraction and other adverse socioenvironmental conditions on rates of suicide involving acute alcohol intoxication.
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Rodrigo Soares, Columbia University
2017-11-01 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Does Universalization of Health Work? Evidence from Health Systems Restructuring and Maternal and Child Health in Brazil“
Abstract: We investigate restructuring of the health system in Brazil motivated to operationalize universal health coverage. Using administrative data from multiple sources and an event study approach that exploits the staggered rollout of programmatic changes across municipalities, we find large reductions in maternal, foetal, neonatal and postneonatal mortality, and fertility. We document increased prenatal care visits, hospital births and other maternal and child hospitalization, which suggest that the survival gains were supply-driven. We find no improvement in the quality of births, which may be explained by endogenous shifts in the composition of births towards higher-risk births.
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Victoria Baranov, University of Melbourne
2017-11-08 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Mental health and women’s choices. Experimental evidence from a Randomized Control Trial. “
Abstract: We evaluate the long-term impact of treating maternal depression on women’s financial empowerment and parenting decisions by exploiting experimental variation induced by a cluster-randomized control trial which provided psychotherapy to perinatally depressed mothers in rural Pakistan. The trial, which is the largest psychotherapy trial in the world, was highly successful at reducing depression rates of mothers. We relocate mothers 6 years after the intervention concluded to evaluate the effects of the intervention on women’s financial empowerment, parental investments, fertility, as well as children development. We find that treating maternal depression increased women’s empowerment, particularly control over spending, both in the short-run and in the long-run. Consistent with the reports of increased control over spending, we find persistent effects of the intervention on both time- and monetary-intensive parental investment. We do not find any detectable effect on children development. The long-run treatment effects are concentrated among girls.
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Jennifer Skeem, UC Berkeley
2017-11-15 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“’What works’ for justice-involved people with mental illness”
Abstract: Each year, over 2 million people with serious mental illness are booked into U.S. jails. These people typically stay longer in jail than those without mental illness—and, upon release, are more likely to be reincarcerated. Today, over 300 counties have resolved to “step up” their efforts to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jail. In this presentation, I highlight research on “what works” to reduce re-offending among justice-involved people with mental illness. Programs must avoid the traditional assumption that mental illness is the direct cause of the problem, and linkage with psychiatric services is the solution. Evidence-based, cost-effective programs look beyond psychiatric explanations to address robust risk factors that are shared by people with- and without mental illness.
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Jessica Ho, USC
2017-11-29 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Contemporary Trends in American Mortality: International Comparisons and Emerging Challenges”
Abstract: The decades surrounding the turn of the 21st century have been a challenging period for American mortality. The United States is currently facing a large-scale opioid epidemic, and life expectancy barely increased between 2010 and 2015. This talk will cover various dimensions of contemporary trends in American mortality including the contribution of drug overdose to educational gradients in life expectancy, an analysis of the contemporary drug overdose epidemic in international perspective, and how the U.S.’s recent life expectancy stagnation has impacted its standing in international life expectancy rankings relative to other high-income countries.
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Nathaniel Osgood, University of Saskatchewan, "Dynamic modeling for health in the age of big data"
2017-12-12 14:00 - 15:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Abstract: Traditional approaches to public health concerns have conferred great advances in the duration and quality of life. Public health interventions – from improved sanitation efforts, to vaccination campaigns, to contact tracing and environmental regulations – have helped reduce common risks to health throughout many areas of the world. Unfortunately, while traditional methods from the health sciences have proven admirably suited for addressing traditional challenges, a troubling crop of complex health challenges confront the nation and the world, and threaten to stop – and even reverse the – rise in length and quality of life that many have taken for granted. Examples include multi-factorial problems such as obesity and obesity-related chronic disease, the spread of drug-resistant and rapidly mutating pathogens that evade control efforts, and “syndemics” of mutually reinforcing health conditions (such as Diabetes and TB; substance abuse, violence and HIV/AIDS; obesity & stress). Such challenges have proven troublingly policy resistant, with interventions being thwarted by “blowback” from the complex feedbacks involved, and attendant costs threaten to overwhelm health care systems. In the face of such challenges public health decision makers are increasingly supplementing their toolbox using “system science” techniques. Such methods – also widely known as “complex systems approaches” – provide a way to understand a system’s behavior as a whole and as more than the sum of its parts, and a means of anticipating and managing the behavior of a system in more judicious and proactive fashion. However, such approaches offer substantially greater insight and power when combined with rich data sources. Within this talk, we will highlight the great promise afforded by combining of Systems Science techniques and rich data sources, particularly emphasizing the role of cross-linking models with “big data” offering high volume, velocity, variety and veracity. Examples of such data include fine-grained temporal and spatial information collected by smartphone-based and wearable as well as building and municipal sensors, data from social media posts and search behavior, helpline calls, website accesses and rich cross-linked databases. Decision-oriented models grounded by such novel data sources can allow for articulated theory building regarding difficult-to-observe aspects of human behavior. Such models can also aid in informing evaluation of and judicious selection between sophisticated interventions to lessen the health burden of a wide variety of health conditions. Such models are particularly powerful when complemented by machine learning and computational statistics techniques that permit recurrent model regrounding in the newest evidence, and which allow a model to knit together holistic portrait of the system as a whole, and which support grounded investigation of between intervention strategies tradeoffs.
Sponsored by The Department of Community Health Sciences along with the Center for Social Statistics and the California Center for Population Research

Nathaniel Osgood, University of Saskatchewan, "Using Smartphones and Wearables for Public Health Insight: A Hands-On Introduction"
2017-12-13 12:00 - 13:30 | CHS 61-269
Abstract: Acquisition of evidence-based understanding of human health behavior and exposure to environments forms a central focus of health research, and a critical prerequisite for effective health policy. The use of mobile devices to study health behavior via cross-linked sensor data and on-device self-reporting and crowdsourcing offer compelling advantages to complement traditional techniques. Data collected on such devices can be particularly powerful in supporting understanding of health behaviors in areas where accurate self-reporting is difficult, including nutritional intake, physical activity and sedentary behaviour, and exposures to physical and social environments. Through structured surveys and crowdsourcing mechanisms, such devices can further provide potent means of gaining insight into knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions in health areas. Finally, while little explored, some of the most powerful uses of such day lie in terms of understanding the particular causal pathways impacted by interventions. This hands-on talk will provide public health researchers and practitioners with a high-level introduction to the motivation, state-of-the-art in and tools for use of mobile data collection in public health. Topics touched on include elements of motivation, study design, behavioral ethics concerns and needs, data collection systems requiring low technical involvement, and analysis. Participants will be invited to experience a state-of-the-art and widely used mobile data collection system during the talk that illustrates many of the principles discussed.
Sponsored by The Department of Community Health Sciences along with the Center for Social Statistics and the California Center for Population Research

Doug Massey, Princeton University
2018-01-10 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Train Wreck: US Immigration and Border Policy 1965-2010”
Abstract: Despite the massive increase in border enforcement after 1986, undocumented population growth did not decrease, but rose. In this talk I undertake a systematic analysis of border enforcement as a policy for immigration control. Empirical results explain not only why it failed, but how and why it backfired. In the end, the militarization of the border did not increase the probability of apprehension at the border or reduce the likelihood of unauthorized entry; but it did dramatically change the geography of border crossing, increase the costs of undocumented migration, and elevate the physical risks of border crossing. Ironically, these trends had no effect on the likelihood of undocumented departure for the United States, but instead reduced the probability undocumented returns back to Mexico, thereby increasing the net volume of undocumented migration and accelerating undocumented population growth.
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*Co-Sponsored with;
The Center for the Study of International Migration
The Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility Working Group
The Center for Mexican Studies
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Diversion in the Criminal Justice System: Regression Discontinuity Evidence on Court Deferrals: Kevin Schnepel, University of Sydney, School of Economics
2018-01-18 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Kevin Schnepel, University of Sydney, School of Economics
The historically unprecedented size of the U.S. criminal justice system has necessitated the development of diversion programs to reduce caseloads as a cost containment strategy. Court deferrals, which allow felony defendants to avoid formal convictions through probation, are one example. Using two discontinuities in deferral rates in Harris County, Texas, separated by 13 years, we find consistent evidence that diversion reduces reoffending and unemployment among first-time felony defendants. Similar benefits are not observed for repeat offenders suggesting felony record stigma as a key mechanism. Young, African American men drive the total effect, a pattern consistent with over-targeting by law enforcement.

Chenoa Flippen, University of Pennsylvania
2018-01-19 12:00 - 13:30 | Bunche 10383
“The Uphill Climb: A Transnational Perspective on Wealth Accumulation among Latino Immigrants in Durham, NC”
Abstract: Wealth accumulation is a key dimension of ethno-racial stratification, and, among immigrants, an important indicator of incorporation. Dramatically low assets among immigrant Latinos is thus a pressing concern, necessitating a better understanding of the social forces that shape wealth assimilation. Drawing on a survey of Latino immigrants in Durham, NC, I argue for the importance of a transnational perspective on wealth for immigrant populations. Nationally representative surveys designed to assess inequality among the general population generally lack information on wealth held abroad, which accounts for the lion’s share of assets held by immigrants in our sample. Likewise, these data sources rarely have information on factors salient to immigrants, particularly legal status and informal employment. Finally, I show that the socio-demographic characteristics central to life-cycle wealth models operate in different ways for U.S. and foreign assets, and for men and women. For instance, while household earnings and duration of Durham residence are associated with greater U.S. assets among Durham’s Latino migrants, they fail to predict wealth held abroad. Likewise, low educational attainment and informal employment are associated with lower U.S., but not foreign, wealth. Instead, the key predictors of wealth abroad relate to family structure. I further document structural barriers to immigrant Latino wealth accumulation, such as employment marginality and lack of access to mainstream financial institutions.
*Co-Sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration
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Rob Warren, University of Minnesota
2018-01-24 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“When Should Researchers Use Inferential Statistics When Analyzing Data on Full Populations?“
Abstract: Many researchers uncritically use inferential statistical procedures (e.g., hypothesis tests) when analyzing complete population data—a situation in which inference may seem unnecessary. We begin by reviewing and analyzing the most common rationales for employing inferential procedures when analyzing full population data. Two common rationales—having to do with handling missing data and generalizing results to other times and/or places—either lack merit or amount to analyzing sample (not population) data. Whether it is appropriate to use inferential procedures depends on whether researchers are analyzing sample or population data and on whether they seek to make causal or descriptive claims. When doing descriptive research, the distinction between sample and population data is paramount: Inferential statistics should only be used to analyze sample data (to account for sampling variability) and never to analyze population data. When doing causal research, the distinction between sample data and population data is unimportant: Inferential procedures can and should always be used to distinguish (for example) robust associations from those that may have come about by chance alone. Crucially, using inferential procedures to analyze population data to make descriptive claims can lead to incorrect substantive conclusions—especially when population sizes and/or effect sizes are small.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for Social Statistics
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Cynthia Feliciano, UC Irvine
2018-01-31 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“How Multiracial Identities and Racial Classification Shape Latinos’ Dating Preferences“
Abstract:Understanding how life experiences vary by different dimensions of race may help clarify the growing Latino population’s place in the U.S. racial structure. This study examines how self-identifying with more than one racial group and racial classification relate to racial dating choices among Latinos. Analyses of data from online dating profiles reveal divergent patterns in stated racial preferences among Latinos depending upon whether and how they also identify with other racial groups. Latinos who identify as White express racial preferences that are more similar to Whites than to monoracial Latinos, while the preferences of Black-identified Latinos are more similar to Blacks, consistent with Whitening and Black exceptionalism theories. However, regardless of racial self-identity, Latino online daters vary in their exclusion of Whites depending upon how they are racially classified by others. These findings suggest that Latinos’ racial preferences are influenced by the existing racial structure and that Latinos contribute to maintaining the racial hierarchy through their dating choices. In addition, the findings suggest multiple assimilation trajectories within this diverse population.
*Co-Sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration
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Amparo González Ferrer, Spanish Scientific Research Council
2018-02-02 12:00 - 13:30 | Bunche 10383
“Intergenerational Relationships among Latino Immigrant Families in Spain: Conflict and Emotional Intimacy”
*Co-sponsored with The Center for the Study of International Migration
Abstract: Relationships with parents have been identified as a major factor in shaping adolescents’ well-being and cognitive development. Compared to adolescents in native families, immigrant children face multiple stressors associated with international migration that may cause the relationship with their parents to be more conflictive or emotionally distant. In this paper, we compare the levels of mother-child conflict and emotional intimacy among Latino immigrant and Spanish native families living in Spain. Our analysis shows that Latino adolescents do not describe the relationship with their mothers as more conflictive than natives do. However, they report more emotional distance with their mothers than native adolescents. This differential with natives cannot be fully attributed to migration-related factors like physical separation from parents due to staggered family migration, to the lower life satisfaction of Latino mothers’ in their new destination or to an acculturation gap between mother and child. However, the fact that immigrant mothers spend less time doing activities with their children, probably due to their harder working conditions, explains part of the differential in emotional intimacy with native families. Finally, our analyses clearly establish an equally negative relationship between conflict and emotional intimacy for both native and Latino immigrant families.

Randall Kuhn, UC Los Angeles
2018-02-07 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“A Large-Scale Survey of International Migrants from Rural Bangladesh: Longitudinal Evidence on Migration Costs, Earnings and Health”
Abstract: Popular attention has focused on the harsh conditions facing overseas guest workers from countries such as Bangladesh to the states of the Persian Gulf, with the assumption of negative health consequences. In contrast, the global empirical literature on migrant health finds generally positive health outcomes for migrants relative to those left-behind, due in large part to self-selection. Yet most such studies match separate datasets from sending and destination country rather than using a binational panel survey. Few focus on guest workers or migrants to non-OECD destinations. The Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey (MHSS) is a binational panel survey that follows a representative sample of a rural area of Bangladesh from 1996-7 to 2012-4. Between survey rounds, one quarter of young adult males moved outside the country (most to the Persian Gulf), with one-third migrating internally. All out-migrants were followed, including festival and phone interviews with overseas migrants. MHSS2 achieved a 92% reinterview rate, including 87% of overseas migrants. This paper provides preliminary assessment of data quality for phone and festival interviews, and measures the effects of migrant status (international, internal), return migrant and country of destination on livelihoods, physical health and mental health. Regression estimates account for the potential confounding effects of current and past socioeconomic characteristics of the migrant, his parents, family and community using data back to 1974. Propensity score estimates account for the effects of self-selection into migration, while bounding exercises address the potential effects of differential inter-survey mortality.
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Joscha Legewie, Yale University
2018-02-14 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Policing and the Educational Performance of Minority Youth”
Abstract: How does the expansion of police presence in poor urban communities affect educational outcomes? Exploiting a quasi-experimental design from New York City, we present causal evidence of the impact of aggressive, zero-tolerance policing on the educational performance of minority youth. Under Operation Impact, the New York Police Department (NYPD) saturated high crime areas with additional police officers with the mission to engage in aggressive order maintenance policing. We used administrative data from about 680,000 adolescents aged 10 to 14 and exploited quasi-random variation in the relative timing of police surges and the date of standardized exams among children in the same neighborhood. Exposure to police surges significantly reduced test scores for African-American boys. The size of the effect increases with age but there is no discernible effect for African-American girls and Hispanics. Aggressive policing can thus lower the educational performance of African-American youth and perpetuate the racial achievement gap.
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Yu Xie, Princeton
2018-02-21 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Heterogeneous Causal Effects: A Propensity Score Approach “
Abstract: Heterogeneity is ubiquitous in social science. Individuals differ not only in background characteristics, but also in how they respond to a particular treatment. In this presentation, Yu Xie argues that a useful approach to studying heterogeneous causal effects is through the use of the propensity score. He demonstrates the use of the propensity score approach in three scenarios: when ignorability is true, when treatment is randomly assigned, and when ignorability is not true but there are valid instrumental variables.

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Wendy Manning, Bowling Green State University
2018-02-28 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Boomer and Millennial Young Adulthood Relationships: A Demographic Perspective“
Abstract: Baby Boomers were at the forefront of many changes in young adult relationship and family experiences. Today a new cohort, Millennials, outnumber Boomers and have redefined young adulthood. Dr. Manning will contrast the relationship experiences of young adult Boomers and Millennials. She will share new findings about recent patterns and trends in the formation and stability of young adult relationships. Concluding comments will focus on challenges and opportunities for research on young adults in the United States.
Bio: Wendy D. Manning, Ph.D., Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Co-Director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, Bowling Green State University
*Co-sponsored with The Family Working Group at UCLA
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Fernando Riosmena, University of Colorado
2018-03-07 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“A re-appraisal of thinking on and the empirical evaluation of migration theories”
Abstract: Over the last quarter Century, there has been considerable efforts to systematize knowledge on and empirically test the drivers of population mobility around a set of eight theories that either explain the initiation or continuation of international labor migration flows. In this presentation, I provide a reflection aimed at furthering theoretical development and empirical testing of these theories. I do so by: (1) providing more specific guidance on how the different theories’ overlapping scales of influence interrelate more specifically than examined in prior work; (2) arguing for a more complete formulation of some of these theories to better explain contemporary immigration flows; and (3) discussing whether/how these theories can help bridge the understanding of the “drivers” of internal vs. international migration, and of labor vs. other kinds of mobility, including some forms of forced displacement. Throughout, I also discuss how the quantitative testing of these theories has fallen into pitfalls of both thinking measurement, which have likely led to a misattribution of the relative importance of some theories, suggesting some refinements on the empirical validation of and the more general use of these theories in guiding empirical analysis going forward.
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Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration and the Center for Mexican Studies
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David Card, UC Berkeley
2018-03-14 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“The Health Effects of Cesarean Delivery for Low-Risk First Births”
Abstract: Cesarean delivery for low-risk pregnancies is generally associated with worse health outcomes for infants and mothers. The interpretation of this correlation, however, is confounded by potential selectivity in the choice of birth mode. We use birth records from California, merged with hospital and emergency department (ED) visits for infants and mothers in the year after birth, to study the casual health effects of cesarean delivery for low-risk first births. Building on McClellan, McNeil, and Newhouse (1994), we use the relative distance from a mother’s home to hospitals with high and low c-section rates as an instrument for c-section. We show that relative distance is a strong predictor of c-section but is orthogonal to many observed risk factors, including birth weight and indicators of prenatal care. Our IV estimates imply that cesarean delivery causes a relatively large increase in ED visits of the infant, mainly due to acute respiratory conditions. We find no significant effects on mothers’ hospitalizations or ED use after birth, or on subsequent fertility, but we find a ripple effect on second birth outcomes arising from the high likelihood of repeat c-section. Offsetting these morbidity effects, we find that delivery at a high c-section hospital leads to a significant reduction in infant mortality, driven by lower death rates for newborns with high rates of pre-determined risk factors.
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CEGA-EASST Scholars Visit from East Africa
2018-03-16 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
On Friday, March 16, UCLA is hosting three CEGA-EASST scholars from East Africa. EASST invites East African researchers to apply for a 4-month fellowship at UC Berkeley to build skills in rigorous social science research and impact evaluation-these are the fellows who won this fellowship. Each scholar will present on the following topics from 12:00-1:30PM in Public Affairs building room 4240. Lunch will be served. They will be visiting all day so let us know if you would like to meet with any of them individually. Hope you can join us. Register Here

Samuel Muhula: Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Manager at Amref Health Africa, from Kenya
“Social Dynamics and HIV Treatment Retention: Can Non-monetary Incentives and Facility-Based Psychosocial Support Improve Patients’ Retention in the Early Stages of HIV Care?”
Suboptimal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) treatment retention has profound impacts on morbidity and mortality among HIV positive participants. Monetary incentives and psychosocial support have been shown to be effective in various aspects of HIV control and may improve retention of participants in the early stages of HIV continuum of care. This two-armed randomized control trial evaluates the effectiveness of social dynamics involving non-monetary incentives and facility-based psychosocial support for HIV treatment on retention in the first six months of antiretroviral therapy (ART). The control group will receive standard care while the intervention group will receive standard care and the treatment which includes non-monetary incentives and participants enrolled into psychosocial support groups. The study will be implemented in Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.

Danish Us Salam: Senior Research Associate at BRAC Uganda, from Pakistan
“Play & Learn – Using Intramural Sports to tackle Health and Educational Outcomes in Sierra Leone”
Political and economic pressures on education systems to improve standardized test scores have had the unintended consequence of reducing or eliminating physical education curricula and thus students’ opportunities for physical activity. Extensive scientific evidence demonstrates that regular physical activity promotes growth and development in youth and has multiple benefits for physical, mental and cognitive health whereas the lack of it can be detrimental to optimizing child health and development. I propose an experiment to test whether introducing a sport’s curriculum in under-resourced schools can drive health and educational outcomes among primary and secondary school students. More specifically, I’m interested in the impact of supervised sports participation and school-sport performance-linked cash benefits in curbing teacher absenteeism, teacher effort and improving student health and educational status across gender, class level and socio-economic status.

Patrick Okello: Research Fellow at BRAC Uganda, from Uganda
“The Unemployment Problem and the Informal Economy: Can Evaluative Conditioning increase Labor Market Engagement?”
Youth unemployment presents a major challenge in Uganda and is estimated to be as high as 64%. Only 30% of the labor force is engaged in the formal sector as it cannot absorb the large numbers entering the labor market annually. The informal sector, however, contributes considerably to the national GDP. There is anecdotical evidence that the reluctance to engage in the informal sector is attitudinal rather than structural, partly as a result of asymmetrical information flows between the informal sector and job seekers. Therefore, job seekers delay employment in expectation of a higher reservation wage attainable from a job in the formal sector. By exposing different groups to stimuli to reshape their negative opinions about self-employment, we query whether this could be a cost-effective way to promote labor force participation rates.

Andrew Oswald, University of Warwick
2018-04-04 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“The Midlife Crisis in Humans and Other Animals”
Abstract: The talk will discuss the concept of the midlife crisis. It will examine international evidence on happiness, mental health, suicide, antidepressant consumption, sleep, and so on. Not all the data will be on human beings. The talk will say something about where we are scientifically, and what we need to understand next. Plenty of time will be left for open discussion.
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*Co-Sponsored with Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)

Emmanuel Saez, UC Berkeley
2018-04-11 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Inequality around the World: Evidence and Implications”
Abstract: The lecture will present new evidence on global inequality and growth since 1980 using the World and Wealth Income Database. We combine data across countries in a homogeneous way to analyze world inequality. Global inequality has increased since 1980 in spite of fast growth in large emerging countries. We plot the curve of cumulated growth from 1980 to 2016 for each percentile of the global distribution of income per adult. This curve has an elephant shape as growth rates have been particularly high around the median (due to growth in China and India), growth rates have been low for the middle classes of advanced economies, and growth rates have been explosive for the global top income earners. We estimate the future evolution of global inequality between now and 2050 combining projected macro growth rates and within country inequality evolution based on past trends.
Podcast Here
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*Co-sponsored with the Department of Economics and Anderson School of Management and Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)

CCPR 2018 PAA Practice Session
2018-04-18 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Please join us to hear our residents interesting research and give feedback for their upcoming PAA presentations.
Presenters:

Elior Cohen, “The impact of skilled immigration on innovation in the Age of Mass Migration”
Sara Johnsen, “Continuity and Change in Contraceptive Female Sterilization in the United States, 1982 – 2015”
Wookun Kim, “Does Pro-Natalist Cash Transfer Work? Evidence from Local Programs in South Korea”
Ravaris Moore, “The Effects of Exposure to Community Gun-Violence on the High School Dropout Rates of California Public School Students”

Bruce Western, Harvard University and Columbia University
2018-05-02 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison”
Abstract: This talk will address my new book, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison. The book tells the stories of the men and women I met through the Boston Reentry Study, a series of interviews my research team and I conducted with people leaving prison for neighborhoods around Boston. We were trying to understand what happens when people return to a community, and the challenges faced by them and their families. How did they look for work and housing? How did they manage their addictions or mental illness, and why did some return to incarceration? In trying to answer these questions, I hoped to bear witness to the lives held captive in America’s experiment with mass incarceration. The research showed that imprisonment is followed by deep poverty, in which unemployment is widespread and survival is assisted only by government programs and family support. While earlier studies have focused on the stigma of a criminal record, the men and women of Boston also struggled greatly with human frailty — mental illness, addiction, and physical disability — that threatened success after incarceration and impaired the effectiveness of programs. They had experienced serious violence, often as perpetrators, but just as frequently as victims and witnesses, and often since early childhood. Under these conditions, freedom after prison was not a status granted by release, but something attained gradually. Becoming free was a process of social integration where one had to find one’s place with kin and community.
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*Co-sponsored with the California Policy Lab

Susan Cassels, UC Santa Barbara
2018-05-09 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Self-selection or enabling environments: What predicts the association between short-term mobility and sexual behavior?”
Abstract: Short-term mobility is often associated with increased risk behavior. For example, mobile individuals often have higher rates of sexual risk behavior compared to non-mobile individuals, but the reasons why are not clear. Using monthly retrospective panel data from Ghana, we test whether short-term mobility is associated with differences in total and unprotected sex acts, and whether the association is due to enabling, selection, or influential reasons. In other words, do mobile individuals express higher levels of risk due to an environment that enables that risk? Alternatively, mobile individuals may be selected on some trait that predicts less aversion to risk. Men who were mobile in a given month had more sex acts compared to non-mobile men. Regardless of short-term mobility in a given month, both men and women who were mobile in future months had more sex acts compared to individuals not mobile in future months. Our findings support the hypothesis that both men and women who are mobile are positively selected on sexual risk behavior. The enabling hypothesis, that the act of being mobile enables sexual risk behavior, was only supported for men.
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Fabian Pfeffer, University of Michigan: Multigenerational Cycles of Poverty?
2018-05-14 15:00 - 16:30 | Haines 279
Fabian Pfeffer, University of Michigan
Multigenerational Cycles of Poverty?
Monday May 14th, 3:00 pm- 4:30pm, Haines 279
*co-sponsored with the Stratification, Inequality and Mobility Working Group and the Family Working Group

Sarah Baird, George Washington University
2018-05-16 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“When the Money Runs Out: Do Cash Transfers Have Sustained Effects on Human Capital Accumulation?”
Abstract: The five-year evaluation of a cash transfer program targeted to young women points to both the promise and limitations of cash transfers for persistent welfare gains. Conditional cash transfers produced sustained improvements in education and fertility for initially out-of-school females, but caused no gains in other outcomes. Significant declines in HIV prevalence, pregnancy and early marriage observed during the program among recipients of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) evaporated quickly after the cessation of support. However, children born to UCT beneficiaries during the program had significantly higher height-for-age z-scores at follow-up pointing to the potential importance of cash during critical periods.
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Ethnic/Racial Characteristics and Inequality of Opportunity in Mexico
2018-05-17 12:30 - 14:30 | Haines 279
More Information: http://www.international.ucla.edu/lai/event/13239#.WuoL1C7waUl
Household surveys in Mexico include only limited information on race and ethnicity. The identification of racial and ethnic characteristics beyond membership to indigenous populations has been historically a difficult topic, in part because it defies the “mestizo” ideology, that is, the image of Mexico as a racially integrated society through the mix of ancient indigenous and European populations. In 2016, the National Institute of Statistics of Mexico (INEGI) executed a national survey on social mobility (MMSI). In this presentation, I will talk about the process that led to the inclusion of racial/ethnic characteristics in this survey, the media and academic debate that emerged after its publication, and the main results of the survey, which suggest that the effects of ethnic and racial characteristics on social inequality in Mexico extend well beyond the dichotomous indigenous/non-indigenous divide.
Patricio Solís is Professor-Researcher at the Center for Sociological Studies of El Colegio de México (2004-present) and Editor in Chief of the journal Estudios Sociológicos (2016-present). He obtained a PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin (2002), and a MD in Population Studies from FLACSO-México (1995). His research interests are social stratification, intergenerational social mobility, and educational inequality. He was the principal academic advisor of the Intergenerational Social Mobility Module (MMSI) 2016, a national survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistic and Geography of Mexico (INEGI). Two of his most recent publications are the books “Discriminación estructural y desigualdad social” (2017, Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación-CEPAL) and “Desigualdad, movilidad social y curso de vida en la Ciudad de México” (2017, El Colegio de México).
Light refreshments will be served. RSVP to Jennifer Laínez.
Cost: Free & Open to the Public
For more information please contact
Jennifer Lainez
jlainez@international.ucla.edu
Download File: Solis_Flyer-55-uub.pdf
Sponsor(s): Center for Mexican Studies, California Center for Population Research, Race & Ethnicity Working Group

Meeting the Challenge of Homelessness
2018-05-21 18:00 - 20:00 | UCLA NPI Auditorium CHS C8-183
UCLA & Homelessness: See. Study. Solve
Public Lecture:
Meeting the Challenge of Homelessness
UCLA NPI Auditorium CHS C8-183
Ending homelessness and serving the needs of our most vulnerable individuals and families is possible, but it requires sustained effort. Culhane will kick off the week by reviewing the national situation, including progress and continued hurdles. He will also describe unique challenges for cities like LA where many homeless are unsheltered.
Dennis P. Culhane PhD
Hosted by Fielding School of Public Health Dean Jody Heymann

Dennis Culhane, University of Pennsylvania
2018-05-23 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“The Promise of Integrated Data Systems for Social Science Research”
Abstract: Integrated Data Systems (IDS) linking administrative, public agency data hold great promise for rapid and low-cost implementation and evaluation of homeless initiatives. Culhane will review the legal, ethical, scientific and economic challenges of interagency data sharing, as well as systematic efforts including policy reform and inter-agency collaboration to overcome these challenges. Finally, he will review important new IDS initiatives in LA County and California.
More on Prof. Culhane
