Demography最新文献

Owning a home has long been touted as a key component of the idealized "American Dream." Homeownership is associated with greater wealth and better health, but the causal impact of homeownership on health remains unclear. Using linked complete-count census and Social Security mortality records, I document Black-White disparities in homeownership rates and produce the first U.S.-based estimates of the association between homeownership in early adulthood and longevity. I then use a sibling-based identification strategy to estimate the causal effect of homeownership on longevity for cohorts born in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The results indicate that homeownership has a significant positive impact on longevity, which I estimate at approximately 4 months.

Prior research has found that immigrants are often overeducated: their educational attainment is higher than required or commonly observed in their occupation. Yet, less is known about the education-occupation mismatch among immigrants' children and grandchildren (the second and third generations). Using the French Trajectories and Origins 2 (TeO2, 2019-2020) survey, we test theoretically grounded hypotheses on the level of vertical (educational attainment) and horizontal (field of study) mismatch in the first, second, and third generations as well as on the mechanisms underlying the mismatch. Results indicate that vertical mismatch is substantially lower in the second and third generations than in the first, supporting the hypothesis that vertical mismatch is largely the result of imperfect international transferability of credentials. By contrast, higher levels of horizontal mismatch persist in the second and third generations among men of non-European descent. Differences in horizontal mismatch between immigrants' and natives' descendants are largely accounted for by initial sorting into fields of study.

Having children is widely regarded as one of the most important benefits and purposes of marriage, particularly in societies that uphold traditional family values. Consequently, the suppression of fertility could have far-reaching implications for marital life that transcend childbearing itself. Previous studies have examined the impact of health-induced fertility suppression, but a gap remains in understanding how policy-induced fertility restrictions affect marital satisfaction. This study employs a nationally representative sample to examine whether Chinese couples' marital satisfaction improves when the potential marital utility on fertility is enhanced following the transition from the one-child to the universal two-child policy in China. Using a difference-in-differences design, the study finds that men who desire multiple children experience increased marital satisfaction after the policy change. Conversely, the same is not observed for women. Our study provides compelling evidence that the increase in marital satisfaction for husbands is driven by the improved evaluation of the marital fertility value rather than other unintended policy effects. Further, the policy-induced satisfaction improvement is more pronounced among men with more severely constrained or deeply ingrained fertility desires. The article discusses the broad impact of fertility policy on family life, the gender-imbalanced perception of this policy shift, and its theoretical and policy implications.

Economic and social development are closely linked with fertility. Several studies have shown that the relationship follows an inverse J-shape: the association is negative at low and intermediate levels of development and reverses to become positive at high development levels. However, more recent research building on subnational and U.S. data found only mixed evidence for the inverse J-shape. In this article, we draw on subnational data on development and fertility in the U.S. states between 1969 and 2018 to examine the relationship between development and fertility. Using a longitudinal approach and addressing several criticisms of the fertility reversal hypothesis, our results support the inverse J-shaped pattern under most model specifications. However, this pattern might have vanished since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Our findings provide insights into the mechanisms that link development and fertility, showing that gender equality and economic uncertainty mediate the relationship between development and fertility.

High levels of poverty and economic precarity in the United States relative to other countries have led to academic and policy debates about whether welfare state investments accomplish what they are intended to. Although social safety net spending clearly has antipoverty effects at the national level, there is scant evidence on the "resource pathway" presumed to underlie the effects of the local welfare state on families with children. Which types of public investments have especially contributed to the total resources of households with children? Understanding this question at the state level is important, given dramatic variation in states' safety net spending on children and the rise of federalism, which increases state autonomy in designing and administering social programs. Using annual data from the 1997-2016 State-by-State Spending on Kids Dataset linked to data from the Census Bureau's Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey, we examine the relationship between transfer spending in states and household income sources. Findings suggest that government transfers raise the total income of households with the lowest income and educational levels and that transfer income among these households is more multidimensional than among higher resource households. Further, analyses using variation within and across states demonstrate that state-level spending in each area is associated with an increase in corresponding transfer income among non-college-educated households and those in the bottom half of the income distribution; such spending is associated with no increase (or a decrease) in transfer income among college-educated households and those in the top quarter of the income distribution. These results suggest that increases in state-level spending disproportionately benefit the budgets of households with the lowest resources and might be a promising means to reduce resource gaps between households.

In the past 50 years, the age at first birth in Norway and other European countries has shifted, leading to concerns that individuals begin childbearing too late to reach their intended family size. This article analyzes the effect of school starting age on fertility and family formation by utilizing Norway's age-based school entry policy. Using individual-level register data and a regression discontinuity design, we find that being born after the age cutoff for school start results in an increased age at first birth of 2.9 months for women and 4.0 months for men, whereas completed cohort fertility was unchanged. Similarly, being born after the cutoff increased the age at first marriage by 4.7 months for women and 2.4 months for men, with no effect on the overall probability of having a partner. Results show that age at completed education and earnings development are important mechanisms in this fertility postponement. Additionally, we analyze detailed age- and parity-specific effects, providing important insights into how age at starting school affects fertility timing but not overall fertility.

Child fostering-children living apart from their biological mothers-is an established strategy to support children and families throughout Africa. Little is known about how fostering decisions might be influenced by maternal migration and place of residence when women move to urban slums, which are home to a sizable proportion of Africa's urban population. Using a mixed-methods approach, we triangulate in-depth interviews with birth histories collected in two slum settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, to explore the interconnections between maternal migration experience, slum residence, and child fostering decisions. Our quantitative results reveal substantial fostering of children among women in slum contexts, with fostering being significantly higher among children of migrant women, particularly those who have recently arrived. Qualitative findings suggest that migration acts as an important impetus to foster, as do transitions in women's romantic relationships, economic uncertainty, poor slum conditions, and desires to send children to rural areas for schooling. This novel finding on children's schooling is supported in quantitative analyses, which show that older school-age children are more likely than younger children to be fostered. This study highlights the central roles of maternal migration, economic and social precariousness, and place of residence in determining the fostering of children among mothers living in informal settlements.

Self-rated health (SRH) is consistently related to mortality and morbidity. Yet, health ratings are subjective and reflect an individual's social context. Prior work has found differences in the structure of SRH-that is, in how self-assessments relate to underlying health conditions-across social groups, including by gender. However, prior work has not included transgender adults despite evidence that widespread interpersonal and structural stigma uniquely shapes their subjective experience of health. This study draws on information about 12 health conditions for a sample of transgender men, transgender women, nonbinary adults, cisgender men, and cisgender women. It examines whether the probabilities of reporting poor or fair SRH are similar among those with various underlying health problems. Findings reveal differences by gender identity and age group. For more than half of the examined conditions, self-rated health is poorer among nonbinary adults and younger transgender men than among other gender groups. These differences likely reflect distinct self-assessment processes that consider minority stress and structural stigma, as well as underlying differences in severity and comorbidity that stem from such stigma processes. SRH remains a useful, holistic measure of well-being, including for transgender groups.

Income is positively correlated with pregnancy health and birth outcomes, but the causal evidence for this association is limited. Leveraging a natural experiment based on the Pennsylvania boom economy created by the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale geological formation, we test whether area-level income gains impact birth outcomes (birth weight, gestational length, and preterm birth) and pregnancy health (prepregnancy and prenatal smoking, prepregnancy weight status, gestational weight gain, and the timing and adequacy of prenatal care). We append tax data to birth certificate data and compare health outcomes before and after the boom for births occurring in school districts above the Marcellus Shale. We also explore income effects with a subsample of siblings and test for nonlinear income effects by considering preboom district poverty rates. Using instrumented difference-in-differences models, we find that plausibly exogenous income gains increase the likelihood of having adequate prenatal care in the full sample. In the sibling sample, income gains decrease the likelihood of low birth weight but increase the likelihood of prepregnancy underweight among birthing parents. Results are statistically significant in initially high-poverty districts. We thus affirm prior findings of a causal effect of income on birth weight and prenatal care use but find minimal area-level income effects on other pregnancy-related health behaviors and birth outcomes.

This research note examines the long-term effect of female teachers' longer maternity leave on children's education and disability in Vietnam. Having a child a few months before or just after the summer vacation can increase paid leave for female teachers. Using variation in months of childbirth and applying difference-in-differences with family fixed-effect estimators, I find that female teachers in Vietnam tend to avoid giving birth during summer vacation. In the long run, longer maternity leave is positively associated with their children's education and negatively associated with the probability of child disability.