Different and Not Equal:The Uneven Association of Race, Poverty, and Abortion Laws on Abortion Timing

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexa L Solazzo

AbstractThe number of regulations surrounding abortion has increased drastically in recent years. It is important to assess how these laws relate to abortion timing, since the cost, safety, and accessibility of abortion varies by how many weeks pregnant a woman is when the procedure occurs. Research examining how state laws relate to abortion timing generally use rates or data from vital statistics; while informative, such methods do not allow researchers to examine how these laws may be disproportionately associated with abortion timing among select groups of women, including poor and nonwhite women. To fill this research gap, I analyze data from the nationally representative 2008 Abortion Patient Survey, with appended information on state laws regarding abortion in 2008. I find that laws requiring second trimester abortions be performed in a hospital and both in-person counselling and waiting periods have different associations with abortion timing based on race and income-to-poverty status. Predicted abortion timing for black and Hispanic women differs based on state laws and their income-to-poverty status, while for white women, models show that the association between state laws and abortion timing is not dependent on their income-to-poverty status. Overall, this research illustrates the relevance of state-level abortion laws for shaping abortion timing among women, highlighting how these relationships differ across racial and socioeconomic groups in the United States.

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (12) ◽  
pp. 1590-1611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander H. Updegrove ◽  
Erin A. Orrick

Mexico exerts a unique influence on Texas through immigration. As immigrants bring perspectives from their country of origin when they immigrate, studying attitudes toward capital punishment in Mexico may provide insight into ways Mexican immigrants could affect its future practice in Texas. Multilevel modeling is used to examine individual- and state-level predictors of death penalty support among a nationally representative sample of Mexicans. Results indicate age and Catholic affiliation are associated with death penalty support, although not in the expected directions, whereas states bordering the United States are less likely to support capital punishment, despite experiencing less overall peace and a higher average homicide rate. Findings suggest the need for researchers to use culture-specific factors to predict death penalty support.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe LaBriola ◽  
Daniel Schneider

Precarious work, which has become more prevalent in the United States in recent decades, is disproportionately experienced by workers of lower socio-economic classes, and research suggests that the erosion of worker power has contributed to this class polarization in precarity. One dimension of precarious work of growing interest to scholars and policymakers is instability faced by workers in the amount and regularity of their work hours. However, we know little about the magnitude of month-to-month or week-to-week (intra-year) volatility in hours worked, the extent of class-based polarization in this measure of job quality, and whether worker power moderates this polarization. In this paper, we make novel use of the panel nature of the nationally-representative Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate intra-year volatility in the actual hours respondents report working in the previous week across four consecutive survey months. Using this new measure, we then show that, net of demographic characteristics and controls for occupation and industry, low-wage workers experience disproportionately greater work hour volatility. Finally, we find evidence that reductions in marketplace bargaining power--as measured by higher state-level unemployment rates--increase wage- and education-based polarization in work hour volatility, while increases in associational power--as measured by union coverage--reduce wage-based polarization in work hour volatility.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Wudarski

This paper describes the development of the principles of fiduciary access to digital assets in the United States. It focuses on US legislation before the drafting of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) in 2015, examining the legal and social issues faced by American lawyers in their search for a balance between facilitating fiduciary access and respecting privacy. Special attention is paid to the first legislative initiatives at the state level as well as to two model regulations that represent opposite approaches to access to digital assets: the Privacy Expectation Afterlife and Choices Act (PEAC) and the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (UFADAA). The analysis considers the requirements for gaining access to the account of a deceased user, conflicts between legally protected interests and conflicting federal and state laws, and the meaning of such legal terms as digital assets, fiduciary, custodian, content of an electronic communication, et. al. The reasons for the failure of these acts to receive final approval are also analysed. Research is based on American doctrine, state and federal legal acts, documentation of the legislative process, and the work of expert groups, including, primarily, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC).  


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (suppl 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Burgard ◽  
Debora de Pina Castiglione ◽  
Katherine Y. Lin ◽  
Aline A. Nobre ◽  
Estela M. L. Aquino ◽  
...  

Abstract: There has been little cross-national comparison of perceived discrimination, and few studies have considered how intersectional identities shape perception of discriminatory treatment in different societies. Using data from the ELSA-Brasil, a study of Brazilian civil servants, and the Americans’ Changing Lives Study, a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults, we compare reports of lifetime discrimination among race-by-gender groups in each society. We also consider whether educational attainment explains any group differences, or if differences across groups vary by level of education. Results reveal higher lifetime discrimination experiences among Black respondents in both countries, especially Black men, than among Whites, and lower reports among White women than White men. Brown men and women also reported higher levels than White men in Brazil. For all race-by-gender groups in both countries, except Brazilian White men, reports of discrimination were higher among the more educated, though adjusting for educational differences across groups did not explain group differences. In Brazil, we found the greatest racial disparities among the college educated, while U.S. Black men were more likely to report discrimination than White men at all levels of education. Results reveal broad similarities across countries, despite important differences in their histories, and an intersectional approach contributed to identification of these similarities and some differences in discrimination experiences. These findings have implications for social and public health surveillance and intervention to address the harmful consequences of discrimination.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M Blank ◽  
Kerwin Kofi Charles ◽  
James M Sallee

This paper demonstrates that administrative data may be inferior to survey data under particular circumstances. We examine the effect of state laws governing the minimum age of marriage in the United States. The estimated effects of these laws are much smaller when based on retrospective reports from census versus administrative records from Vital Statistics data. This discrepancy appears due to systematic avoidance behavior of two kinds. Some young people marry in states with less restrictive laws; others appear to have misrepresented their age on their marriage certificate. Our results have important implications regarding legal avoidance and the use of administrative data. (JEL J12 K36)


Social Forces ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 973-999
Author(s):  
Joe LaBriola ◽  
Daniel Schneider

Abstract Precarious work, which has become more prevalent in the United States in recent decades, is disproportionately experienced by workers of lower socio-economic classes, and research suggests that the erosion of worker power has contributed to this class polarization in precarity. One dimension of precarious work of growing interest to scholars and policymakers is instability faced by workers in the amount and regularity of their work hours. However, we know little about the magnitude of month-to-month or week-to-week (intra-year) volatility in hours worked, the extent of class-based polarization in this measure of job quality, and whether worker power moderates this polarization. In this paper, we make novel use of the panel nature of the nationally-representative Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate intra-year volatility in the actual hours respondents report working in the previous week across four consecutive survey months. Using this new measure, we then show that, net of demographic characteristics and controls for occupation and industry, low-wage workers experience disproportionately greater work hour volatility. Finally, we find evidence that reductions in marketplace bargaining power—as measured by higher state-level unemployment rates—increase wage- and education-based polarization in work hour volatility, while increases in associational power—as measured by union coverage—reduce wage-based polarization in work hour volatility.


PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e2153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui G. Cheng ◽  
James C. Anthony

Background. State-level ‘age 21’ drinking laws conform generally with the United States National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (US), and are thought to protect young people from adverse drinking experiences such as heavy episodic drinking (HED, sometimes called ‘binge drinking’). We shed light on this hypothesis while estimating the age-specific risk of transitioning from 1st full drink to 1st HED among 12-to-23-year-old newly incident drinkers, with challenge to a “gender gap” hypothesis and male excess described in HED prevalence reports.Methods. The study population consisted of non-institutionalized civilians in the United States, with nine independently drawn nationally representative samples of more than 40,000 12-to-23-year-olds (2006–2014). Standardized audio computer-assisted self-interviews identified 43,000 newly incident drinkers (all with 1st HED evaluated within 12 months of drinking onset). Estimated age-specific HED risk soon after first full drink is evaluated for males and females.Results. Among 12-to-23-year-old newly incident drinkers, an estimated 20–30% of females and 35–45% of males experienced their 1st HED within 12 months after drinking onset. Before mid-adolescence, there is no male excess in such HED risk. Those who postponed drinking to age 21 are not spared (27% for ‘postponer’ females; 95% CI [24–30]; 42% for ‘postponer’ males; 95% CI [38–45]). An estimated 10–18% females and 10–28% males experienced their 1st HED in the same month of their 1st drink; peak HED risk estimates are 18% for ‘postponer’ females (95% CI [15–21]) and 28% for ‘postponer’ males (95% CI [24–31]).Conclusions. In the US, one in three young new drinkers transition into HED within 12 months after first drink. Those who postpone the 1st full drink until age 21 are not protected. Furthermore, ‘postponers’ have substantial risk for very rapid transition to HED. A male excess in this transition to HED is not observed until after age 14.


Author(s):  
Judith K Hellerstein ◽  
Melinda Sandler Morrill

Abstract For almost a century, anecdotes have suggested that divorce rates decline during recessions. However, until very recently there has been surprisingly little formal empirical evidence on whether such a link exists, let alone its magnitude if it does. Moreover, the anticipated direction of the effect is ambiguous theoretically. Although previous studies have concluded that individual job loss destabilizes marriages, macroeconomic conditions may affect divorce probabilities even for those not directly experiencing a job shock. We add to the few existing contemporaneous studies of the effects of macroeconomic shocks on divorce by conducting an empirical analysis of the relationship between state-level unemployment rates and state-level divorce rates using vital statistics data on divorces in the United States from 1976-2009. We find a significant and robust negative relationship between the unemployment and divorce rates, whereby a one percentage point rise in the unemployment rate is associated with a decrease of 0.043 divorces per one thousand people, or about a one percent fall in the divorce rate. The result that divorce is pro-cyclical is robust to a host of alternative empirical specifications, to disaggregating by state characteristics and time period, to expanding the unemployment series back to 1970, and to using alternative measures of local economic conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-53
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Jones ◽  
Spencer C. Usrey ◽  
Thomas Z. Webb

ABSTRACT Under current federal and state laws within the United States, the taxation of gambling activities is complex and largely inefficient. At the federal level, taxes on gambling providers are virtually nonexistent outside of normal corporate taxation laws. At the state level, the varying tax regimes within states lead to a complicated reporting environment, with differing calculation methods and varying tax rates for gamblers and gambling operations. For individuals, tax reporting can be cumbersome, complex, and ineffective. This paper discusses the current tax reporting environment in the United States, as well as the tax environments in other nations with large gambling industries, such as France, Macau, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Finally, we calculate an estimate of tax revenues on gambling earnings based on the current U.S. tax regimes and compare them to hypothetical tax revenues calculated by using tax regimes in foreign jurisdictions. Data Availability: All data are publically available and cited in the article.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candis Watts Smith ◽  
Rebecca J. Kreitzer ◽  
Feiya Suo

Although many scholars who study the role of racial animus in Americans’ political attitudes and policy preferences do so to help us understand national-level politics, (racialized) policy is largely shaped at the state level. States are laboratories of policy innovation whose experiments can exacerbate or ameliorate racial inequality. In this article, we develop state-level scores of racial resentment. By using linear multilevel regression and poststratification weighting techniques and by linking nationally representative survey data with US Census data, we create time-varying, dynamic state-level estimates of racial resentment from 1988 to 2016. These measures enable us to explore the extent to which subnational levels of racial attitudes fluctuate over time and to provide a comparative analysis of state-level racial resentment scores across space and time. We find that states’ levels of racial animus change slowly, with some exhibiting increases over time while others do just the opposite. Southern states’ reputation for having the highest levels of racial resentment has been challenged by states across various regions of the United States. Many states had their lowest levels of symbolic racism decades ago, contrary to the traditional American narrative of racial progress.


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