California Center for Population Research

A Cross-Center Collaboration DemSemX
2020-08-21 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The DemSemX is a new cross-center collaborative effort that will virtually bring together faculty and students from 9 U.S. population research centers (Bowling Green, Cornell, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Texas, UCLA, UW-Madison, and Brown) to enhance scholarly interaction and graduate training across institutions. Leaders/senior faculty of these centers are all alumni of UW-Madison, where the weekly Demography Seminar (‘DemSem’) has for decades been a key feature of the intellectual community there, much as is our center’s regular seminar here. Together, we aim to take advantage of new virtual technologies and economies of scale to provide opportunities for scholarly interaction and training across our 9 centers.
Marta Bornstein, UCLA CCPR
“Infertility and Perceived Infertility in Malawi”

Nick DiRago, UCLA CCPR
“Spatial and Demographic Dynamics of the Diffusion of Land Banks and Relationship to Neighborhood Inequality”
Breakout rooms links and information available here: DemSemX Aug2020 Breakouts_corrected links

Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
2020-06-15 - 2020-06-26 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
CCPR
June 15 – 26, 2020
4240 Public Affairs Building
The purpose of the Summer Institute is to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career faculty interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute is open to both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).

Rob Mare Student Lecture
2020-06-03 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
TBD

A Cross-Center Collaboration DemSemX
2020-05-29 11:00 - 12:00
“Social Science Research and Social Distancing: COVID-19 Research Opportunities and Challenges”
Wendy D. Manning, Bowling Green State University
Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University. She is a family demographer, and her research examines how family members define and understand their obligations to each other in an era of increasing family complexity and diversity.
“What Can We Learn from Cities’ Stop/Start Patterns of Social Distancing in the 1918 Flu Pandemic”
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, University of Minnesota
Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate of the Minnesota Population Center at the
University of Minnesota. As a formal demographer and sociologist, her work integrates demographic methods designed to shift perspectives between population-level patterns and individual-level transitions between social statuses.
Plenary Session: 11am-12pm PT/1-2pm CT/2-3pm ET
Link to join: https://go.wisc.edu/4rtgy7
Breakout Rooms w/ Student Presentations: 12-1pm PT/2-3pm CT/3-4pm ET

Margot Kushel, University of California San Francisco
2020-05-20 12:00 - 13:30
“Aging Among the Homeless in the time of COVID: A crisis upon a crisis”
Abstract: In this talk, Margot Kushel will explore the aging of the homeless population, including causes, consequences and solutions. She will end the conversation with implications for the COVID-19 crisis.
Bio: Margot Kushel, MD is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and the Director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations. Margot’s research focuses on reducing the burden of homelessness on health through examining efforts to prevent and end homelessness and mitigating the effects of housing instability on health care outcomes.
Co-sponsored with the California Policy Lab
Find out more about Prof. Kushel
Zoom Recording Available Here
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom

Silvia Helena Barcellos, University of Southern California
2020-05-13 12:00 - 13:30
Is Education the Great Equalizer?
Abstract: We investigate the role of education in equalizing differences in socio-economic status (SES) across groups determined by two at-birth “lotteries:” birthplace and genetics. Birthplace and genetics are strongly related to long-term SES and education is believed to be a way to overcome disadvantages on such initial endowments. We ask how the effects of a compulsory schooling law-induced increase in secondary education vary with the quality of an individual’s birth neighborhood and their polygenic score for educational attainment. We use a regression discontinuity framework and a large sample that allows for well-powered estimates of such interactions. While the law change reduced differences in educational attainment across birthplace and genetic groups, it increased existing differences in middle age SES. In particular, the extra education benefited those with high genetic scores the most, doubling the gradient between the polygenic score and SES. Our findings suggest that compulsory schooling policies, while equalizing educational attainment, might have limited ability in reducing lifecycle SES inequalities by genetics and birthplace.
Find out more about Prof. Barcellos
Zoom Recording Available Here
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom

Kate Baldwin, Yale University
2020-05-07 12:00 - 13:30
Accountability and Inclusion in Customary Institutions: Evidence from a Village-Level Experiment in Zimbabwe (with Eric Mvukiyehe and Shylock Muyengwa)
Find out more about Prof. Baldwin
*Co-sponsored with the Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom

Amani Allen, University of California Berkeley
2020-04-29 12:00 - 13:30
Race, Racism and (Un)healthy Aging: How socially-assigned race gets in to the body
Abstract: This talk will explore the concept of race and interrogate how ontological conceptions of race impact the questions we ask, the nature of our scientific investigations, and the conclusions we draw from scientific evidence. Drawing on recent findings from the African American Women’s Heart & Health Study, the talk will demonstrate the use of mixed methods research and intersectional framing to examine how racism gets into the body to impact racial health disparities, resulting in premature biological aging; and conclude with a discussion of implications for how we approach population health.

*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Allen
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom
Zoom Recording Available Here

Harold A. Pollack, University of Chicago
2020-04-22 12:00 - 13:30
Improving Emergency first Response and Follow-up for Individuals Who Experience Behavioral Crisis
Abstract: Men and women who experience serious mental illness and other challenges face increased risk of violent encounters with police officers and other first-responders. This talk describes person-, place-, and event-based strategies to improve emergency response to such incidents. It also discusses promising strategies of prevention and follow-up to reduce the risk of such violent encounters from occurring or re-occurring.
Co-sponsored with the California Policy Lab
Find out more about Prof. Pollack
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom
Zoom Recording Available Here

PAA Practice, UCLA
2020-04-15 12:00 - 13:30
Please join us to hear our residents interesting research and give feedback for their PAA presentations
Presenters:
Michelle Nakphong Kao: “Contemporary Trends in Marriage Formation and Dissolution in Cambodia”
Jacob Thomas: “From “Illegal” to “Undocumented”—The Impact of a Lexical Shift In a Political Campaign Against Dehumanization”
Heidi West: “Are wives of migrants in rural Bangladesh really “Left Behind”? A nuanced analysis of how spousal migration affects women’s healthcare utilization and mental, social, and general health”
Seminar will be presented via zoom

Jessica Trounstine, University of California Merced
2020-04-08 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
This event has been canceled.
Find out more about Prof. Trounstine

Workshop: Remote Research Tools, All You Ever Wanted to Know
2020-04-08 12:00 - 13:00
We will have a remote workshop to demo useful tools to help researchers work remotely. We plan to demo VPNs, remote server options, zoom, github, jupyter notebooks, etc.
Please RSVP in the survey. We will send out the zoom link to those who signed up. If you have a specific tool you want to learn about (or install) please mention it in the survey.
https://forms.gle/1EQ4BZvYCxD4mv3o9

Census 2020: Everyone Counts
2020-04-02 13:00 - 2020-04-03 18:00 | TBD
The event has been canceled
Census 2020: Everyone Counts
Sponsored by: UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration, the California Center for Population Research, the Luskin Center for History and Policy, and the California Policy Lab

Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Special Advisor to the President, Columbia University & former Director, U.S. Census Bureau. “The End of the Line: Why the Census in 2030 will Less Resemble the 2020 Census, than 2020 did the 1790 Census.”
William O’Hare, President, O’Hare Data and Demographic Services, “How we will be able to assess the success of the 2020 Census?”
Nancy Bates, U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Hard-to-Survey Populations and the 2020 Decennial Census.”
Eric Jensen, U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Improving the Count of Young Children in the 2020 Census.”
Randall Kuhn, Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA, “Uncovered, unsheltered, unfollowed and unasked: Addressing gaps in our understanding of homeless populations.”
Benjamin Francis-Fallon, Western Carolina University, “The Twinned Emergence of the Hispanic Category and the Movement to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants from the Decennial Census.”
Joel Perlmann, Bard College, “How America classified Immigrants for half a century: The List of Races and Peoples.”
Brendan Shanahan, Yale University, “Counting the Community and/or Conscribing the Polity? Inclusion, Exclusion, and “Equal Representation” in U.S. Census-Making, 1790-2020.”
Paul Ong, Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA, “Complete Count and Political Representation.”
Cindy Quezada, Sierra Health Fund, “Utilizing a grassroots, community organizing approach to ensure the San Joaquin Valley’s hardest to count populations participate in the 2020 Census.”
Joseph Salvo, NYC Department of Planning, “Small Area Data Utility in the Era of Differential Privacy: A Local User’s Perspective.”
Matthew Snipp, Stanford University, “Knowledge At-Risk: what we won’t learn and might not learn about race and ethnicity from the 2020 Census.”
Natalie Masuoka, UCLA, “From Assignment to Identification: Changing Norms and the Census Racial Identification Question.”
Wendy Roth, University of Pennsylvania, “What dimension of race does the Census measure?”

Ellora Derenoncourt, University of California Berkeley
2020-03-11 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration”
Abstract: This paper shows that racial composition shocks during the Great Migration (1940-1970) lowered black upward mobility in the northern United States. I identify northern black population increases using a shift-share instrument, interacting pre-1940 black migrants’ location choices with predicted southern county out-migration. The Migration’s effects on children are driven by locational factors, not negative selection of families. Using data I assembled on destinations from 1920- 2015, I show the Migration led to persistent segregation and higher police spending, crime, and incarceration from the 1960s onwards. The changes induced by the Migration explain 27% of the region’s racial
upward mobility gap today.
Co-Sponsored with the Dept. of Economics
Find out more about Prof. Derenoncourt

"How Not to Destroy the World with AI" Prof. Stuart Russell
2020-03-11 11:00 - 13:00 | Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA
*Event has been canceled
Stuart Russell, UC Berkeley
March 11, 2020 11am – 1pm
UCLA Ackerman Grand Ballroom
Stuart Russell received his B.A. in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1986. He then joined the faculty of UC Berkeley, where he is Professor (and formerly Chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the founding Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI. He is the recipient of many honors, including the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, the Mitchell Prize of the American Statistical Association, the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize, Outstanding Educator Awards from both ACM and AAAI, the Chaire Blaise Pascal (2012-2014), and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2019-2021). He is also an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House). His movie “Slaughterbots” received the coveted Golden Dolphin award at Cannes in the viral category.
Stuart’s book “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach” (with Peter Norvig) is well known in AI; it has been translated into 14 languages and is used in over 1450 universities in 128 countries. His research covers almost all subfields of AI, with a focus on probabilistic reasoning and machine learning. His current concerns include the threat of autonomous weapons and the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity. The latter topic is the subject of his new book, “Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control “(Viking/Penguin, 2019), as well as this lecture.
RSVP Here

Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth University
2020-03-04 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Hospital Productivity and the Misallocation of Healthcare Inputs
Abstract: There is growing evidence for wide variation in total factor productivity across hospitals, with large differences in risk-adjusted health outcomes as well as expenditures. In this paper, we consider the additional contribution of misallocation in input choices – the underuse of effective inputs and overuse of ineffective ones — to explain why some hospitals get better outcomes at lower cost. The sample is of 1.7 million patients in the Medicare fee-for-service population with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), or heart attacks, during 2007-17. The problem of confounding health factors is addressed in several ways, including the use of tourists, whose assignment to hospitals resembles random assignment (Doyle, 2011), and ZIP-code fixed effects. Briefly, we find strong evidence for input misallocation across hospitals; greater use of highly effective inputs, such as beta blocker, statin, and ACE/ARB drug treatments, primary care support, and stenting are predictive of highly-productive hospitals, while an excess of multiple physicians, scans, and potentially fraudulent excess home health care billings are predictive of low-productivity hospitals.
Co-Sponsored with the Dept. of Economics
View Presentation
Find out more about Prof. Skinner

Darrick Hamilton, Ohio State University
2020-02-26 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Race, Millennials and Wealth in the Aftermath of the Great Recession
Abstract: As America becomes more plural, it is critical to view race as a pillar and not just an issue in our economy. Despite the narrative that with hard work, resilience, grit, and personal responsibility – people can pull themselves up, and achieve economic success; high achieving black Americans, as measured by education, still exhibit large economic and health disparities relative to their white peers, especially in the domain of wealth. This may be worsening, in the aftermath of the great recession, the homeownership gap for young adult black Millennials is larger than any other generation in over 100 years. This talk will examine these issues, and present a political economy and policy apparatus that can bring about a racially and economically inclusive America.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Hamilton

Population Statistics Journal Club
2020-02-25 10:00 - 12:00 | 4335 Public Affairs Building
A journal club to discuss measuring intersectional and structural racism, further with a lens on structural bias and how statistical models can be developed/adjusted to partner with the research being developed in other areas such as public health and racism.
Faculty sponsors: Chandra Ford and Gilbert Gee

Alyson van Raalte, Max Planck Institute
2020-02-19 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Beyond Life Expectancy—The Case for Monitoring Lifespan Variation
Abstract: Human population health is generally monitored by average mortality levels, typically in terms of life expediencies or age-standardized death rates, which belie substantial variation in length of life. Variation in ages at death, captured by a metric of lifespan variation, should be used to supplement measures of average longevity when comparing or monitoring societies and population subgroups. Although lifespan variation has historically been strongly inversely correlated with life expectancy, we are beginning to see this relationship reversed, resulting in positive correlation in some countries or sub-national populations. Often these changes reflect midlife mortality crises with roots in stratified education and wealth. In this talk I will present empirical examples from around the developed world, pressing the case to monitor lifespan variation.
View Presentation
Find out more about Prof. Van Raalte

Tips on Giving Effective PAA Presentations and Posters, Job Talks, and the Like, Including Ethical Considerations
2020-02-12 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Workshop: Tips on Giving Effective PAA Presentations and Posters, Job Talks, and the Like, Including Ethical Considerations
Speakers: Don Treiman, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Sociology
Comments by: Anne Pebley, Fred H. Bixby Chair and Distinguished Professor, Community Health Science & Patrick Heuveline, Professor, Sociology.
View Slides Here

Workshop: Homelessness M4H UCLA/VA
2020-02-03 12:00 - 13:00 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The goal of this workshop is to share information among a broad group of investigators who are employing mobile technology to study persons who have experienced homelessness. Projects discussed will include studies of homelessness among Veterans and non-Veterans. Presented projects will range from early-stage studies that are in progress to completed studies, including those that use mobile technology for active survey and assessment as well as studies using passive data collection, such as GPS. The structure of the workshop will provide ample opportunity for discussion across members of different research teams and agencies. It is hoped that the workshop will lead to sharing research methods and substantive collaborations.
Instructor: Randall Kuhn and Till von Wachter
Time: February 3, 2020
Location: Public Affairs Building CCPR Seminar Room

Nancy Krieger, Harvard University
2020-01-29 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Structural Racism and the People’s Health: History and Context Matters”
Abstract: In this presentation on “Structural racism & the people’s health: history & context matters,” I commence with a brief reminder as to our current societal and ecological context, after which I introduce the ecosocial theory of disease distribution, which guides my work, including conceptualization and measurement of structural injustice. I then offer empirical examples of my research on structural racism and health inequities, in relation to Jim Crow and both past and present residential segregation, as measured using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes for racialized economic segregation and also historical redlining (as delineated by the 1930s federally-sponsored maps produced by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)). Health outcomes addressed include: preterm birth; infant mortality; child mortality; cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, and mortality; and breast cancer estrogen receptor status. The presentation concludes with reflections on embodied histories, health inequities, and the people’s health.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Krieger

An introduction: The Library Data Science Center
2020-01-29 10:30 - 11:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
An Introduction: The Library Data Science Center
Description: This talk will provide an introduction to the Library Data Science Center, the services and research support it provides.
Tim Dennis is the Director of the Data Science Center, whose mission is to foster a welcoming research community by developing data literacy and foundational coding skills through consulting and education.

Multilevel Structures in Statistics and Data Science
2020-01-22 13:30 - 14:30
We’ll look at how different multilevel groupings are used in different analysis methods. As examples, Longitudinal, Hierarchical, and Crossed grouping structures have been used in Sports, Survey, Time till Event, Spatial, and Network analyses. Participants should come in thinking of a project and we can work out possible approaches as a group.
Note: This is directly after the Wednesday Seminar
Please RSVP Below
https://forms.gle/y2iUkUGRR36ufuGg8
slides

Christian Dippel, University of California, Los Angeles
2020-01-22 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“The Effect of Land Allotment on Native American Households During the Assimilation Era”
Abstract: In the early twentieth century, the U.S. government broke up millions of acres of communally owned reservation lands and allotted them to individual Native American households. Households initially received land allotments with limited property rights (‘in trust’), and were incentivized to prove themselves “competent” in order to obtain full legal title (‘fee simple’) after a set period. Indian allotment thus had elements of a conditional transfer program aimed at assimilation. The policy was ended suddenly in 1934, locking in-trust land into its status in perpetuity. We link land allotment information to the universe of Native American households in the 1940 U.S. Census. We exploit quasi-random variation in being allotted as well as in securing the allotment in fee simple. Obtaining an allotment significantly increased the likelihood of living on a farm but not of working as a farmer, indicating that allottees leased out their land. Allotments also impacted wages and occupational rank. Surprisingly, allotment most significantly impacted educational attainment. We interpret education as a way of signalling “competency” to government agents. Obtaining the land in fee simple was associated with decreased likelihood of living on a farm and owning one’s home, evidence that many allottees sold their land once they were deemed competent and obtained title. The fee-simple effects were more pronounced within tribes whose ancestral tribal norms emphasized private over communal property, indicating a cultural determinant in how the wealth transfer was utilized. Consistent with this, households in tribes with traditions of private property also engaged in more signalling of their assimilation.
More on Prof. Dippel

Hajar Yazdiha, University of Southern California
2020-01-22 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Find out more about Prof. Yazdiha

Pablo Barberá, University of Southern California
2020-01-15 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Does Online Partisan Media Affect Attitudes and Behavior?”
Abstract: In today’s fragmented online media ecosystem, does exposure to political news through partisan media have a measurable effect on citizens’ political attitudes and behavior? Or are these outlets merely preaching to the choir? And if such media effects exist, are they durable and homogeneous across political groups? To answer these questions, we conducted a pre-registered, randomized field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey. We incentivized participants to temporarily alter features of their information environment during the 2018 U.S. midterm election campaign. Subjects in the treatment groups were asked to change their default browser homepage to either FoxNews.com or HuffPost.com. Using web browsing data collected for our respondents, we find that our intervention exogenously and durably altered news consumption habits. We then evaluate how our treatment affected political attitudes, voting behavior, and civic knowledge, which we measure based on survey responses collected at periodic intervals after our intervention, up to one year later. Our results generally show negligible persuasive and agenda-setting effects, consistent with the minimal media effects hypothesis. However, we uncover a meaningful decrease in overall media trust among those exposed to Fox News and an increase in support for liberal immigration policies among those in the Huffington Post treatment group.
Find out more about Prof. Barberá

Ken Smith, University of Utah
2020-01-08 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Biodemography of Fertility and Longevity Using the Utah Population Database”
Abstract: There is growing awareness that fertility affects rates of aging, adult survival prospects, and the likelihood of reaching exceptionally old ages. Much of this work, including our own, has focused on women and their ages at last birth, a proposed biodemographic marker for rates of aging. This literature has given far less attention to men, the risk of specific causes of death, the role of early initiation of fertility and how these forces may change over historical time. We use the Utah Population Database to examine how fertility alters adult mortality risks. We give special attention the role of late age at last birth, but also the role of early and late ages first birth Increasing parity is associated with worse survival for women and better for men. This talk will also present the opportunities made possible by the Utah Population Database, a unique resource of 11 million persons comprising genealogies, vital and medical records, as well as demographic and spatial data.
More on Prof. Smith
Access Seminar Recording

W. Bradford Wilcox, University of Virginia
2019-12-11 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Talking Left, Living Right: Education, Ethnicity & Family Stability in the Golden State”
Co-Author: Wendy Wang, Institute for Family Studies
Abstract: California has a reputation as a vanguard for the kinds of progressive values—like expressive individualism, personal fulfillment, and tolerance—associated with the second demographic transition (SDT). The SDT is associated with less marriage and greater family instability, among other things. But it turns out that, when it comes to the practice of family life, California has more intact, married families than the nation as a whole. Why is this? We argue that California has a disproportionate share of Asians and especially immigrants, and these two groups are more likely to embrace a familistic way of life and reject SDT values. We also note that more educated Californians, while they embrace progressive values in theory and in public, are more likely to embrace and live out familistic values in their own private family lives. So, immigrants, Asians, and more educated Californians disproportionately make up the ranks of Californians who are living in intact, married families.
More on Prof. Wilcox

Emily Smith-Greenway, USC
2019-12-04 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Life after death: The scale and salience of mortality in sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract: Dramatic reductions in the infant and under-five mortality rates over the last half century are among the global health community’s most notable achievements. The trends are clear and the message is positive: the world today is healthier and safer for young people than it has ever been. Sub-Saharan African countries, in particular, have experienced some of the most dramatic reductions in early life mortality. However, the all-time low infant and under-five mortality rates conceal the pervasiveness by which contemporary populations experience the phenomenon of having an infant or under-five-year-old child die—a life event that can leave parents vulnerable in myriad ways. In this talk I will introduce new population measures that capture the scale at which infant and child deaths are experienced by and dispersed across mothers in contemporary African populations. I will then demonstrate the disadvantage mothers can experience following a child’s death, and will conclude by discussing how I am extending this research with a data collection project in rural Malawi.
Co-Sponsored with the Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility Working Group
More on Prof. Smith-Greenway
