Demography最新文献

Disparities in educational trajectories and outcomes of segregated social groups concern population scientists and policymakers worldwide. This study examines the role of decision-making processes in generating educational disparities across groups in a segregated society. We argue that the unequal opportunity structure associated with segregation yields systematic disparities in decision-making that underlie choices, resulting in suboptimal outcomes for disadvantaged social groups. We test this argument using unique administrative records on the college application choices of Jewish and Arab applicants to universities in Israel, a country characterized by pronounced segregation, educational disparities, and labor market stratification. The data and settings allow us to isolate factors frequently used to explain disparities in university application choices by discounting costs, geographic proximity, and information constraints. Results from conditional logit (choice) models reveal group variations in how academically equivalent applicants weigh program characteristics, leading to significant disparities in the incidence of academic mismatch. These variations explain a substantial portion of the gap in university admissions between Jewish and Arab applicants. These findings demonstrate that stratified decision-making processes are an important link between segregation and inequality in life chances.

We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate whether and how intergenerational income stratification mediates the long arm of childhood income for mature adult health. Using three different mediation techniques, we analyze prospective high-quality data on childhood income (ages 0-17) and six health outcomes (ages 40-67): self-rated health, psychological distress, heart attack, stroke, and life-threatening and non-life-threatening chronic conditions. We focus on the mediating role of adult income (ages 30-39). For comparison, we also analyze several alternative potential mediators, including education, health behaviors, and occupation. The results show that adult income is a critical mediator in the long arm of childhood income, mediating almost all the relationship for self-rated health and psychological distress, roughly one half of the relationship for heart attack and stroke, and roughly one third of the relationship for life-threatening chronic conditions. The models also confirm that childhood income has a significant mediated or indirect relationship with health outcomes. Further analyses provide evidence that adult income plays a greater mediating role than the alternative potential mediators. Altogether, the evidence supports intergenerational income stratification as a key mediating process within the long arm of childhood income.

This study examines the effects of communal violence-violence inflicted on a particular group along ethnic or religious lines-on women's marital outcomes. Communal violence, with its accompanying psychological and physical trauma, can have important socioeconomic consequences. The 2002 Gujarat riots stand out as one of the most significant and abrupt occurrences of communal violence in post-independence India. The riots were marked by widespread violence against women, providing a setting to study the impacts of violence on women. Using individual-level survey data from India and a difference-in-differences approach, the study shows that women's age at marriage decreased and their probability of marrying before age 18 increased after the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002. Event-study and synthetic control methods suggest that these effects were prominent two years after the riots and have increased over time. Women who married after the riots also had fewer years of education and poorer social and economic status, such as a lower probability of employment and lower autonomy in household decision-making.

The latter half of the twentieth century saw dramatic increases in mothers' labor force participation rates, accompanied by declining job quality and increasing labor market inequality. Despite evidence of growing labor market inequality in wages and benefits, less is known about how job quality changed with respect to work schedules. This study tests the hypothesis that mothers' employment in jobs with nonstandard schedules increased between 1988 and 2019 and that such schedules are increasingly concentrated among mothers with lower education levels, single mothers, and mothers of color, who are overrepresented in low-wage jobs. We find that mothers' employment in jobs with nonstandard schedules stayed relatively flat at 15% to 16%, and the prevalence of weekend work increased from 15% to 18%. Moreover, we find growing disparities in who works nonstandard schedules. The propensity to work such schedules increased among mothers with less than a college degree, single mothers living without other adults, and Black mothers relative to mothers with a college degree, married mothers, and White mothers, respectively. Additionally, mothers are more likely to work nonstandard schedules for involuntary reasons than before the Great Recession.

Research indicates that a new pattern of motherhood well-being advantage emerged in the 2010s for U.S. women. Although scholars have argued that maternal mental health worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the parenthood mental health gap changed during the pandemic is unclear. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (N  =  29,241), this study examines the parenthood gap in yearly and quarterly changes in anxiety and depression during 2019-2021 for women aged 18-59, with attention to variation by partnership status. The results show that changes in anxiety and depression prevalence were similar across parental and partnership statuses, with indications that maternal advantages expanded among women who were single. In October-December 2020, anxiety prevalence increased more for single women without minor children of their own living in the household ("nonmothers") than for single or partnered mothers. In April-June 2021, anxiety declined among mothers, especially single mothers, but remained higher than before the pandemic among single nonmothers. Some of these group differences in anxiety changes became nonsignificant after we controlled for household economic conditions, which were better in 2021 than in 2019 for all groups, particularly single mothers. In sum, trends in motherhood mental health advantages continued throughout the pandemic.

Will the extra years of life gained by the increase in life expectancy be lived in good or poor health? Because forecasts support social, economic, and medical decisions, as well as individuals' choices, there is a clear rationale for forecasting healthy life expectancy (HLE). However, only a limited number of models are available to forecast HLE. We suggest two models to forecast health and mortality simultaneously and coherently. One model is based on the Sullivan method to estimate HLE, and the second one is based on the multistate life table method. Both models use Compositional Data Analysis to account for the coherence between health and mortality. Mortality and health at age 50 and older is forecast for French, Spanish, Swedish, and United Kingdom females. Both models provide nonsignificantly different estimates and forecasts of HLE, in most cases. In addition, the models can improve forecast accuracy compared with other forecast models.

Measures of kinship size are increasingly common in sociodemographic studies. The size and structure of older adults' kinship networks can be ascertained via direct observation in a social survey or modeled using demographic techniques. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, but whether the two provide comparable estimates of kinship size is an open question. In this research note, we answer this question using social survey data and demographic models to estimate the size of older adults' kinship networks in 22 European countries. We find an impressively high association between the two approaches, with important variations by the kin type considered. We discuss the reasons for the divergence in the estimates and provide guidance for researchers interested in using either approach to quantify kinship size.

Paid parental benefits, with individually earmarked time for mothers and fathers, aim to promote gender equality in labor force participation, wages, and childcare. The Canadian province of Québec expanded parental benefits over and above the federal policy in 2006 with the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), which introduced paid paternity leave and lower eligibility criteria as its key features. This policy aimed to increase gender equality by encouraging fathers to use parental benefits and expanding coverage to low-income parents. Using Canadian administrative data and exploiting the policy changes in 2006 as a natural experiment, we examine the effects of Québec's extended parental benefits policy on parents' employment and earnings over 10 years after the transition to parenthood. First, we find that fathers' use of parental benefits had positive long-run effects on mothers' and fathers' earnings 8-10 years after a first birth. Second, we find that among women with low earnings before the transition to parenthood, QPIP increased the likelihood of employment 1-7 years after a first birth. This article provides the first evidence that a policy dramatically expanding parental benefits and encouraging use among both parents can have long-term positive effects on parents' labor market outcomes.

We examine whether union dissolution is associated with partners' (mis)match on political preferences, defined as self-reported closeness, intention to vote, or reported vote for a specific party. Previous studies have shown that partners' heterogamy by ethnicity, education, and other dimensions increases the risk of union dissolution because of differences between partners in lifestyles, attitudes, and beliefs or because of disapproval from family and community members. We posit that similar arguments can apply to political heterogamy and test this hypothesis using UK data from the British Household Panel Study and the UK Household Longitudinal Study. The data offer a unique opportunity to assess the role of heterogamy by political preferences while controlling for heterogamy in other domains and for other partners' characteristics over a long period (1991-2019). The data also facilitate a more specific analysis of the referendum on the United Kingdom's permanence in the European Union (known as the Brexit referendum). We find a positive association between political heterogamy and union dissolution, which is as strong as some other forms of heterogamy. The role of diverging opinions on the Brexit referendum in union dissolutions appears to be even more important than the role of partners' differing party preferences.

The number and age of kin determine the companionship and support individuals provide or receive. Over recent decades, fertility and mortality rates have changed considerably, with varying speeds across countries. We investigate the changes in kinship networks in response to time-varying demographic rates, with a focus on the speed of change. We start with stylized demographic trajectories to determine the separate effects of fertility and mortality. First, we find that differences in the number of living kin depend strongly on the speed of fertility decline. In a fast fertility transition (as in China), a 65-year-old could have 20% fewer daughters than a 70-year-old in a specific year. However, in a slow transition (as in India), this difference is only 7%. Second, the speed of fertility decline has large effects on the mean and variability of the ages of kin. Third, a cohort perspective provides valuable insight into the changes in the number and age of kin. Fourth, we show how changes in the age pattern of mortality affect kinship for individuals at different ages. We use these conclusions to examine and understand kin dynamics based on empirical demographic data from four illustrative countries (Thailand, Indonesia, Ghana, and Nigeria).