Triangle Research Data Center https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu Mon, 03 May 2021 16:29:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Exposure to Television and the American Family: Historical evidence from the United States https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/exposure-to-television-and-the-american-family-historical-evidence-from-the-united-states/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:29:54 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=413 Read More]]> Recent studies in developing countries indicate that exposure to television affects individual behavior and roles, and find that women change their fertility behavior and attitudes as a result of exposure to television. We will add a historical component to this literature, using 1950-1970 Decennial Census data to explore the impact of the introduction of commercial television on women’s fertility decisions and related socioeconomic outcomes in the United States. Outcomes to be studied include labor force participation, education, average household size, age at marriage, etc. We will undertake this research using “television question”! data from the 1960 and 1970 Censuses, with 1950 serving as a baseline. The study will also analyze how the spread of television affected the Decennial Census program itself. In particular, we will assess the extent to which the spread of television explains observed characteristics of the population in each Census from 1950 to 1970.

Francisco Javier Romero Haaker – Duke University
Erica Field – Duke University

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Race in rural America: differentials in teenage motherhood and high school completion https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/race-in-rural-america-differentials-in-teenage-motherhood-and-high-school-completion/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:29:36 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=411 Read More]]> We study differences in teenage motherhood and high school completion between races, and in particular how such differences relate to differences in housing. This research uses a combination of restricted-access data from the American Community Survey and Decennial Census, plus public data on household assets from corresponding years of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, to investigate omitted variable bias in the relationship between race, teenage motherhood, and high school completion. Our previous work indicates that among mobile home residents (a population group that on average has relatively few financial assets), rates of teenage motherhood and high school completion are similar between Blacks and Whites. The restricted-access data allow us to disentangle wealth effects from social interaction effects via fixed effect control variables created at the tract level to (approximately) group mobile home residents into mobile home parks. In so doing, we test the hypothesis that omitted variable bias drives the correlation between race, teenage motherhood, and high school completion.

Seth Sanders — Duke University
Laurel Wheeler — Duke University

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The incidence of a local labor demand shock with one-sided migration: American Indian-owned casino gaming https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/the-incidence-of-a-local-labor-demand-shock-with-one-sided-migration-american-indian-owned-casino-gaming/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:29:02 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=409 Read More]]> This research will use the unique nature of American Indian reservations, which constitute clearly defined local labor markets, to produce estimates describing how labor markets, housing markets, and migration respond to labor demand shocks in the context of limited in-migration. Labor demand shocks in the context of this study will be the opening of various American Indian-owned casino gaming operations on reservations over the past 35 years across the United States. Restricted access American Community Survey (ACS) and Decennial Census data are used to test a model of spatial equilibrium with one-sided migration.

The estimates will provide evidence on whether place-based development interventions can be effective in economically lagging localities, as well as the extent to which such interventions impose unanticipated externalities (positive or negative) on the surrounding economy. This research will also examine the fluidity of racial identification among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations.

Seth Sanders – Duke University
Laurel Wheeler – Duke University

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How Does Geography Matter in Ethnic Labor Market Segmentation Process? https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/how-does-geography-matter-in-ethnic-labor-market-segmentation-process/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:28:35 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=407 Read More]]>

In the context of continuing influxes of large numbers of immigrants to the United States, the urban labor market segmentation along the lines of race/ethnicity, gender, and class has drawn considerable growing attention. Using a confidential dataset extracted from the United States Decennial Long Form Data 2000 and a multilevel regression modeling strategy, this paper presents a case study of Chinese immigrants in the San Francisco metropolitan area.

A correspondent with the highly segregated nature of the labor market as between Chinese immigrant men and women, different socioeconomic characteristics at the census tract level are significantly related to their occupational segregation. This suggests the social process of labor market segmentation is contingent on the immigrant geography of residence and workplace. With different direction and magnitude of the spatial contingency between men and women in the labor market, residency in Chinese immigrant concentrated areas is perpetuating the gender occupational segregation by skill level. Whereas abundant ethnic resources may exist in ethnic neighborhoods and enclaves for certain types of employment opportunities, these resources do not necessarily help Chinese immigrant workers, especially women, to move upward along the labor market hierarchy.


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Demographic Individuals and Neighborhoods: A Reciprocal Relationship and its Consequences for Change over Time https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/demographic-individuals-and-neighborhoods-a-reciprocal-relationship-and-its-consequences-for-change-over-time/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:27:48 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=405 Read More]]> This study will look at how neighborhoods change over time, how this change affects residents’ perceptions and actions, and how residents’ actions impact on the neighborhood change. Using longitudinal data, it will test two competing theories explaining the relationship between residential instability and crime rates in neighborhoods. I will also test whether the social capital in an area (embodied in social networks, voluntary organizations, and various other institutions) can ameliorate negative impacts on the neighborhood and prevent the downward spiral experienced by some neighborhoods. But to understand how neighborhoods change it is necessary to have an accurate measure of neighborhood quality.

John Hipp
Kenneth Bollen

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Starting School at Four: The Effects of Universal Pre-Kindergarten on Children and Mothers https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/starting-school-at-four-the-effects-of-universal-pre-kindergarten-on-children-and-mothers/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:27:23 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=403 Read More]]> Publicly subsidized universal prekindergarten (pre-K) programs have received considerable attention in recent years as an avenue for both promoting school readiness and providing childcare. In this study, we will estimate the effects of Pre-K programs on children’s enrollment in preschool and on the labor supply (e.g., hours worked and wages) and welfare receipt of mothers. Each program has an age cutoff for enrollment. The methodology will employ exogenous differences in eligibility across states and from these age restrictions to create ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ groups which will be used to determine program effects. The dataset used will be the 2000 confidential decennial long-form sample.

The proposed project will increase the utility to the U.S. Census Bureau of the data it collects by satisfying Criteria 9 and Criteria 11. The project will produce valuable estimates for use in an academic journal article. Also, as was pointed out to us in discussions with Census Bureau officials in the Demographic Directorate program areas, the better understanding of family behavior regarding work and childcare produced by this project will allow for insight that could change the way the Census Bureau asks its questions regarding early childhood education and care.

Maria Fitzpatrick
Sarah Turner

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Should my car move or should I? A model of residential and commuting choices https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/should-my-car-move-or-should-i-a-model-of-residential-and-commuting-choices/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:21:48 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=401 Read More]]> Communities across the country are implementing policies to address their increasing commuter congestion. These policies are relatively new and vary from city to city, so not much is known about their full effects. To evaluate different congestion reduction policies, this project will develop a discrete choice structural model of the joint decision of individual residence and commuting mode, given the characteristics of the housing market and commuting options. The model is estimated for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area using individual level, restricted-access data from the 1996–2013 American Community Surveys (ACS), which includes information on where individuals live and work, together with data on the structure of the transportation network, to map each individual’s optimal commute for each option in the individual’s choice set.

The mappings will create a dataset of commute options and characteristics that will be used to estimate the trade-offs that individuals make among consumption, housing amenities, and leisure when choosing a home and commuting mode pair. The model estimates will be used to simulate the effects of transportation policies that alter the financial and time costs of commuting. These policies include congestion pricing schemes, fuel or carbon taxes, and increased parking fees.

Christopher Clapp

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Community Hazard Mitigation and the Community Rating System of the National Flood Insurance Program https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/community-hazard-mitigation-and-the-community-rating-system-of-the-national-flood-insurance-program/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:21:30 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=399 Read More]]> Little empirical evidence exists to shed light on what factors influence the establishment of local hazard mitigation projects. One objective of this study is to provide such evidence through an examination of patterns in the Community Rating System (CRS) scores across a panel of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) communities. In the process, this work will benefit the Census Bureau by developing means for increasing the utility of Census Bureau-collected data, linking relevant external data, and producing population estimates. The researchers will test a number of hypotheses previously offered to explain why some local governments adopt hazard mitigation but others do not.

The research will focus on flood hazard mitigation projects in 1104 NFIP communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia between 2005 and 2009, but the results will generalize across other flood-prone communities around the nation. By examining the influence of physical, risk, and socioeconomic factors on community hazard mitigation decisions as reflected in CRS scores for these areas, the results will forge a better understanding of community decision making under natural hazard risk on a national scale.

Craig Landry
Jingyuan Li

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Housing Values and Eminent Domain https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/housing-values-and-eminent-domain/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:21:09 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=397 Read More]]> This study will use data from the American Community Survey (ACS), American Housing Survey (AHS), and Decennial Censuses to examine the impact of eminent domain takings decisions on housing values in geographic areas affected by those decisions. Most of the empirical work in this field focuses on the relationship between property rights and investment in developing countries. Theoretical arguments exist as to how takings decisions might, on net, either increase or decrease housing values, yet relevant empirical work using U.S. data focuses on producing area-level estimates of housing value changes. In contrast, this research will take advantage of restricted-use household-level microdata to examine changes in individual housing values, producing more accurate estimates of the effects of takings decisions on housing values. This research will also assess alternative methods of imputing missing data in the AHS and assess the impact eminent domain law has on ACS and AHS data collection.

Daniel Chen

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Demographic Generating A Geographic Wage Comparison Index https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/demographic-generating-a-geographic-wage-comparison-index/ Mon, 03 May 2021 16:20:50 +0000 https://trdc.cpc.unc.edu/?p=395 Read More]]> This research will create a new implementation of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) comparable wage index (CWI), based on confidential data from the 2005-2009 American Community Survey (ACS). The CWI is an annual measure of uncontrollable variation in wages across geographical regions, and has been published by NCES for the years 1997 through 2005. The base year CWI was originally created using 2000 Decennial Census long form Integrated Public Use Microdata Series data (IPUMS), and the CWI for the other years were created using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Expenditure Survey (OES).

This project aims to produce a new CWI using restricted-access ACS data for the years 2005 forward, and to compare index estimates produced from these files to estimates computed using public use ACS microdata. In the process, the CWI methodology will be modified based on recommendations of a Technical Expert Panel convened on behalf of NCES. The project will benefit the ACS data by producing population estimates (the wage index) that allow a direct comparison with estimates produced using publicly available data.

Satkartar Kinney
Alan Karr
Ivan Carillo-Garcia

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