"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.

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Magne Mogstad Speaker canceled due to unavoidable circumstances.

Please join us to hear our residents interesting research and give feedback for their upcoming PAA presentations.

Schedule:

• 12:00 - 12:20pm – Sung S. Park “Changing Times and Places: First Home Leaving Among Late Baby Boomers and Early Millennials during the Transition to Adulthood”

• 12:20 - 12:40pm – Di Liang, “The Effects of Passive Urbanization on Children’s Family Support for Rural Elders in China”

• 12:40 - 1:00pm – Karra Greenberg, "Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Goal-Striving Stress"

• 1:00 – 1:20pm – Ashley Gromis, “Explaining the Spatial Clustering of Non-Medical Exemptions from School Vaccination Requirements”

"Race, Class and Affirmative Action"

Abstract: This book-length manuscript (forthcoming by the Russell Sage Foundation in the Fall 2015) evaluates the ability of class-based affirmative action to promote the social and economic mobility of disadvantaged populations and boost diversity at selective postsecondary institutions, as compared with race-based policy. The book draws from within- and between-country comparisons of several prototypes of affirmative action policy. She uses the United States as a case study of race-based preferences, and Israel as a case study of class-based preferences. For each country she compares the model that has actually been implemented to a simulated scenario of the alternative policy type. The overarching goal of this book is to develop new, and more global insights about the potential of race-neutral public policy to promote equality in higher education.

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"Self-reported racial identity, genomic ancestry, and health disparities in Brazil: an exploratory study"

Abstract: Health disparities based on skin color/racial identification are present in many societies. In Brazil, studies have shown that people who describe their skin color as other than white (e.g. mixed, black, and/or indigenous) are more likely to report discrimination, are less likely to receive some types of health services, experience higher mortality, and have higher rates of some negative health behaviors. But how should we interpret these disparities given Brazil’s complex, fluid, and changing system of ethnoracial classification and racial identity? This study explores the congruence between genome-wide measures of ancestry and self-reported ethnoracial identify in Brazil and assesses their relationship with 4 health outcomes with distinct etiologies: self-rated health, hypertension, complications from Chagas disease, and all-cause mortality. Preliminary results are discussed in terms of implications for measuring and addressing such disparities in a dynamic multiracial society.

“Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Awareness, Attitudes and Uptake Among Young Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) in California.”

Abstract: Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) in the United States (US) continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV with large racial/ethnic disparities among African-Americans and Latinos. The World Health Organization now recommends that all people at substantial risk of HIV should be offered pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). While PrEP awareness has generally increased, actual PrEP usage among MSM has been limited. Little is known about PrEP awareness, attitudes, and uptake among racially and ethnically diverse YMSM.

"The Death of the American Dream?"

Abstract: Whenever an election rolls around, we can count on dire warnings that the American Dream is under threat, that hard work and talent are no longer guarantees of success, and that what now matters most is winning the “birth lottery” and being raised by rich parents. But are these dire warnings true? Can a child born into a middle-class family expect to earn much more than a child born into a poor family? What about a child born into the one percent? Does that translate into a huge boon to the child’s earnings? Drawing on new tax-return data, the hard facts about social mobility in the U.S. are presented, with a special focus on differences in the mobility opportunities of boys and girls.

*Co-sponsored with the Dept. of Sociology & Inequality Working Group

"The Relationship between Income and Life Expectancy: Local Area Variation in the United States, 2001-2014"

Abstract: We examine inequality in life expectancy using 1.4 billion anonymous earnings and mortality records covering the U.S. population from 1999-2014. We present four main findings. First, higher income is associated with greater longevity throughout the income distribution. The richest 1% of American men live 15 years longer than the poorest 1%, while the richest 1% of American women live 10 years longer than the poorest 1%. Second, inequality in life expectancy has increased in recent years at the national level. From 2001-2014, the richest 5% of Americans gained approximately 3 years in longevity, but the poorest 5% experienced no gains. Third, life expectancy varies substantially across areas, especially for low-income individuals. Life expectancy varies by approximately 5 years between the areas with the highest and lowest longevity. Trends in life expectancy varied substantially across areas as well, ranging from gains of more than 4 years between 2001 and 2014, to losses of more than 2 years. Fourth, differences in life expectancy across areas for low-income individuals are highly correlated with differences in health behaviors such as smoking, obesity and exercise. In contrast, life expectancy for low-income Americans is not significantly correlated with measures of the quantity and quality of medical care, local income inequality, residential segregation, and labor market conditions. Low-income individuals tend to live the longest (and have the most healthful behaviors) in affluent cities with highly educated populations and high levels of government expenditures.

"Does Competition Eliminate Discrimination? Evidence from the Commercial Sex Market in Singapore"

Abstract: The street sex worker market in Geylang, Singapore is a highly competitive market in which clients can search legally at negligible cost, making it ideal for testing Diamond's hypothesis regarding search and monopoly pricing. As Diamond predicts, price discrimination survives in this market. Despite an excess supply of workers, but consistent with their self-reported attitudes and beliefs, sex workers charge Caucasians (Bangladeshis) more (less), based on perceived willingness to pay, and are more (less) likely to approach and reach an agreement with them. Consistent with taste discrimination, they avoid Indians, charge more and reach an agreement with them less frequently.

"How the Motherhood Penalty Varies by Wage, Cognitive Skill, and Race: A Reassessment"
*Co-sponsored with the Family Working Group.

Abstract: Motherhood reduces women’s wages. Is the size of this penalty largest among the most or least advantaged women? Two 2010 papers using the same panel data suggest opposite answers to this question. With and without controls for years of employment experience, Wilde et al. find higher motherhood wage penalties for those with higher cognitive skill, while Budig and Hodges find higher penalties for women at lower wage levels. Taken together, these findings are puzzling, because women with higher cognitive skills typically have higher wages. Using unconditional quantile regression, panel data, and fixed effects, we assess how penalties vary by intersections of skill, wage level, and race. We find that the most advantaged women—white women with high cognitive skills and high wages—experience the highest total proportionate penalties, estimated to include effects mediated through experience. Although this group has the most continuous experience, their high returns to experience make even the small amounts of time they typically take out of employment for child rearing costly. Penalties net of experience, which might represent employer discrimination or effects of motherhood on job performance, do not differ consistently by race, skill, or wage; they afflict advantaged and disadvantaged women approximately equally.

"Energy Efficiency Investments, Self-Selection, and Welfare"

Abstract: This paper evaluates the welfare consequences, rather than simply measuring energy savings, of a popular energy efficiency program exploiting a 100,000 household field experiment in Wisconsin. There are five main findings.  First, nudges, information, and behavioral interventions do not increase program participation but monetary incentives do. Second, the take-up of energy efficiency investments is relatively inelastic to expected returns and reveals substantial non-monetary benefits and costs. Third, individuals that select into the energy efficiency program based on financial incentives are less likely to make efficiency investments than individuals that select in on their own, suggesting that these programs' returns may decline as they expand. Fourth, we find that realized energy savings are just 64% of projected savings and the social internal rate of return on these investments is -1.8%. Fifth, the revealed preference welfare analysis suggests that the program reduced welfare, primarily because subsidies exceeded uninternalized externality damages.

“Early-Life Undernourishment in Developing Countries: Prevalence, Associations/Impacts over the Life Cycle and Determinants”

Abstract:  This presentation first summarizes the prevalence of undernutrition among children in developing countries.  It then summarizes impacts and associations over the life cycle using the Guatemalan INCAP longitudinal data (to estimate the impacts of both a protein-rich nutritional supplements allocated randomly among a small number of villages and of height-for-age z scores at 24-36 months) and the Young Lives longitudinal data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to investigate whether the critical window for nutrition ends in infancy.   Finally it summarizes estimates using longitudinal data from Guatemala and Cebu in the Philippines of the impact of protein and non-protein energy on early childhood height and weight.

"Firming Up Inequality"

ABSTRACT

We use a massive, new, matched employer-employee database for the United States to analyze the contribution of firms to the rise in earnings inequality from 1978 to 2013. We find that two thirds of the rise in the variance of earnings is associated with workers' employers, whereas one third occurs within firms. The employer-related rise in the variance can be decomposed into two roughly equally important forces - a rise in the assortative matching of high-wage workers to high-wage firms and a rise in segregation of similar workers between firms. In contrast, we do not find a rise in the variance of firm-specific pay once we control for worker composition. The rise in the employer-related inequality was particularly strong in smaller and medium-sized firms (explaining 84% for firms with fewer than 10,000 employees), driven by worker sorting and segregation. In contrast, in the very largest firms with 10,000+ employees, almost half of the increase in the variance of earnings took place within firms, driven by both declines in earnings for employees below the median and a substantial rise in earnings for the 10% best-paid employees. We also find that for the very top earners, who experienced particularly large earnings gains over the last decades, a larger share of earnings growth occurred within firms. However, the contribution of these top earners to the overall increase in earnings inequality is small.