LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND POVERTY STATUS AMONG RURAL AND URBAN WOMEN WHO HEAD FAMILIES

This paper examines differentials in the propensity to be living in poverty among women who head families with minor children. Characteristics of mothers are examined for four subgroups: residents of central cities, suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. Using Public Use Microdata Sample data from the 1980 Census, results are presented using Multiple Classification Analysis. After controlling for the effects of mother's race, marital status, education, work status, and ages of her children, single mothers in central cities and smaIl towns have the highest rates of poverty (48% and 45% respectively), closely followed by those in rural areas (41%). Suburban single mothers are least likely to live in poverty (33%). Copyright 1988 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Unobserved Heterogeneity Can Confound the Effect of Education on Mortality

Two opposing hypotheses were proposed to explain the life course pattern in the effect of education on mortality: “cumulative advantage,” where the education effect becomes stronger with age, and “age-as-leveler,” where the effect becomes weaker in old age. Most empirical studies bring evidence for the latter hypothesis, but the observed convergence of mortality patterns could be an artifact of selective mortality due to unobserved heterogeneity. A simulation shows that unobserved heterogeneity can bias the estimated effect of education downward so that the cohort-average effect of education decreases in old age regardless of the shape of the underlying subject-specific trajectory.age-as-leveler, cumulative advantage, education, heterogeneity, life course, mortality,