Sandwiched between aging parents and boomerang kids in two cohorts of American women

Abstract In late middle age, individuals may face competing demands on their time and financial resources from elderly parents and young adult children. This study uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine changes over time in the probability of having children and living parents for women age 45 to 64. We compare two cohorts: those born in the 1920s and 1930s and those born in the 1940s and 1950s. We find that there has been a dramatic increase in the probability of having children and living parents and that this increase has been driven by changes in life expectancy of the parent generation. We further examine obligations of money and co-residence for women in the later cohort. We find that while women may not always face concurrent demands from parents and children, approximately thirty percent of them have provided support to both parents and children at some point in the past. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Sloan Foundation grant 2011-6-24

Projecting population and labour market trends in rural areas.

End of Project ReportThis purpose of this project is to develop a spatial model to project population and labour market variables at the small area level in Ireland. The model is called SMILE (Simulation Model for the Irish Local Economy) and is a static and dynamic spatial microsimulation model. Microsimulation attempts to describe economic and social events by modelling the behaviour of individual agents such as persons or firms. Microsimulation models have proved useful in evaluating the impact of policy changes at the micro level. Spatial microsimulation models contain information on geographic units and allow for a regional or local approach to policy analysis. SMILE is based on modelling work on urban systems and employs similar techniques for analysing rural areas. The static model creates a spatially referenced synthetic population of Ireland. Each individual enumerated in the 1991 Census of Population is synthetically constructed and is assigned 11 census characteristics including a District Electoral Division (DED) location. The dynamic element incorporated in SMILE ages the synthetic population by modelling demographic processes including fertility, mortality and internal migration. The dynamic process is used to project population in the medium term; it ages the synthetic 1991 population to 1996. For validation purposes, these 1996 projections are then compared to the 1996 Census of Population. The same process was used to project between the 1996 and the 2002 Census of Population. The results indicate that the accuracy at DED and county level is within acceptable limits. The model will be extended in the next three years, beginning in 2003, with additions including validating individual attributes such as employment status and social class and also including households in the model. This project has created a basic model that can be expanded and developed in the future

Spatial Distance Between Parents and Adult Children in the United States

ObjectiveThis brief report presents contemporary national estimates of the spatial distance between residences of parents and adult children in the United States, including distance to one’s nearest parent or adult child and whether one lives near all of their parents and adult children.BackgroundThe most recent national estimates of parent–child spatial proximity come from data for the early 1990s. Moreover, research has rarely assessed the spatial clustering of all parents and adult children.MethodData are from the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics on residential locations of adults aged 25 years and older and each of their parents and adult children. The following two measures of spatial proximity were estimated: the share of adults who have their nearest parent or adult child at a given distance and the share of adults who have all parents and/or all adult children at a given distance. Sociodemographic and geographic differences were examined for both measures.ResultsAmong the adults with at least one living parent or adult child, a significant majority (74.8%) had their nearest parent or adult child within 30 miles, and about one third (35.5%) had all parents and adult children living that close. Spatial proximity differed substantially among sociodemographic groups, with those who were disadvantaged more likely to have their parents or adult children nearby. In most cases, sociodemographic disparities were much higher when spatial proximity was measured by proximity to all parents and all adult children instead of to the nearest parent or nearest adult child.ConclusionDisparities in having all parents and/or adult children nearby may be a result of family solidarity and also may affect family solidarity. This report sets the stage for new investigations of the spatial dimension of family cohesion.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154398/1/jomf12606_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154398/2/jomf12606.pd

Disparities in Vulnerability to Severe Complications from COVID-19 in the United States

Preexisting health conditions increase vulnerability to severe complications from COVID-19. Among middle-aged and older Americans, vulnerability to severe COVID-19 complications based on preexisting conditions is 2-3 times greater for those with low versus high income. Vulnerability is about 40% higher for middle-aged and older adults with a high school degree or less than adults with a four-year college degree. In every age group, Blacks are more vulnerable than Whites, but Hispanics are at lower risk based on fewer preexisting health conditions

Reconciling Trends in U.S. Male Earnings Volatility: Results from Survey and Administrative Data

There is a large literature on earnings and income volatility in labor economics, household finance, and macroeconomics. One strand of that literature has studied whether individual earnings volatility has risen or fallen in the U.S. over the last several decades. There are strong disagreements in the empirical literature on this important question, with some studies showing upward trends, some showing downward trends, and some showing no trends. Some studies have suggested that the differences are the result of using flawed survey data instead of more accurate administrative data. This paper summarizes the results of a project attempting to reconcile these findings with four different data sets and six different data series--three survey and three administrative data series, including two which match survey respondent data to their administrative data. Using common specifications, measures of volatility, and other treatments of the data, four of the six data series show a lack of any significant long-term trend in male earnings volatility over the last 20-to-30+ years when differences across the data sets are properly accounted for. A fifth data series (the PSID) shows a positive net trend but small in magnitude. A sixth, administrative, data set, available only since 1998, shows no net trend 1998-2011 and only a small decline thereafter. Many of the remaining differences across data series can be explained by differences in their cross-sectional distribution of earnings, particularly differences in the size of the lower tail. We conclude that the data sets we have analyzed, which include many of the most important available, show little evidence of any significant trend in male earnings volatility since the mid-1980s

Farm forestry investment in Ireland under uncertainty

This paper develops a model to explain farmers? decision to move from agricultural activities to forestry. Farmers in Ireland have strong links with land and are reluctant to enter into forestry even when the returns from it exceed those from farming. This paper examines whether the reluctance among farmers to plant forestry originates in the nature of forestry investment, which is characterised by the irreversibility of the decision, the uncertainty about future returns, and the ability to delay investment in forestry. In this paper we use a real options method and focus on the contribution of uncertainty in returns and costs to the decision to invest in forestry

Projecting population and labour market trends in rural areas.

End of Project ReportThis purpose of this project is to develop a spatial model to project population and labour market variables at the small area level in Ireland. The model is called SMILE (Simulation Model for the Irish Local Economy) and is a static and dynamic spatial microsimulation model. Microsimulation attempts to describe economic and social events by modelling the behaviour of individual agents such as persons or firms. Microsimulation models have proved useful in evaluating the impact of policy changes at the micro level. Spatial microsimulation models contain information on geographic units and allow for a regional or local approach to policy analysis. SMILE is based on modelling work on urban systems and employs similar techniques for analysing rural areas. The static model creates a spatially referenced synthetic population of Ireland. Each individual enumerated in the 1991 Census of Population is synthetically constructed and is assigned 11 census characteristics including a District Electoral Division (DED) location. The dynamic element incorporated in SMILE ages the synthetic population by modelling demographic processes including fertility, mortality and internal migration. The dynamic process is used to project population in the medium term; it ages the synthetic 1991 population to 1996. For validation purposes, these 1996 projections are then compared to the 1996 Census of Population. The same process was used to project between the 1996 and the 2002 Census of Population. The results indicate that the accuracy at DED and county level is within acceptable limits. The model will be extended in the next three years, beginning in 2003, with additions including validating individual attributes such as employment status and social class and also including households in the model. This project has created a basic model that can be expanded and developed in the future

Reconciling Trends in Male Earnings Volatility: Evidence from the SIPP Survey and Administrative Data

As part of a set of papers using the same methods and sample selection criteria to estimate trends in male earnings volatility across survey and administrative datasets, we conduct a new investigation of male earnings volatility using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) survey and SIPP-linked administrative earnings data (SIPP GSF). We find that the level of volatility is higher in the administrative earnings histories in the SIPP GSF than in the SIPP survey but that the trends are similar. Between 1984 and 2012, volatility in the SIPP survey declines slightly while volatility in the SIPP GSF increases slightly. Including imputations due to unit nonresponse in the SIPP survey data increases both the level and upward trend in volatility and poses a challenge for estimating a consistent series in the SIPP survey data. Because the density of low earnings differs considerably across datasets, and volatility may vary across the earnings distribution, we also estimate trends in volatility where we hold the earnings distribution fixed across the two data sources. Differences in the underlying earnings distribution explain much of the difference in the level of and trends in volatility between the SIPP survey and SIPP GSF.</p

Political affiliation and risk taking behaviors among adults with elevated chance of severe complications from COVID-19.

This study determines whether COVID-related risk-taking behavior was different among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, in adults with elevated chance of severe complications from COVID-19. Using US national survey data collected September 30-October 27, 2020 (N&nbsp;=&nbsp;6095), behaviors in the prior week examined were: 7 potentially risky activities, mask wearing anywhere, and mask wearing while undertaking each activity. Differences among political affiliations were estimated for adults with 0 and with ≥1 medical risk factors for severe complications, adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Among adults with medical risk factors, the adjusted number of potentially risky activities was higher among Republicans (3.83) but not Independents (3.17) relative to Democrats (2.98). The adjusted percentage of adults with medical risk factors who wore a mask anywhere in the past week was lower for Republicans (87%) and Independents (91%) than for Democrats (97%). While undertaking each specific activity, the adjusted percentage of at-risk adults never wearing a mask was higher for Republicans than Democrats: 24% vs 8% at bar/club; 6% vs 0% at grocery/pharmacy; 63% vs 30% visiting at friend's home; 68% vs 41% hosting visitors; 30% vs 5% at gathering of ≥10 people; 25% vs 11% while within 6&nbsp;ft of someone they do not live with. Rates of mask wearing among political Independents were between rates among Democrats and Republicans. Efforts to reduce COVID-related risky behavior should recognize that although Republicans take more risks, rates of mask wearing at common activities are low across political affiliations, even for populations vulnerable to severe complications