U.S. Fertility Decline and Recuperation Following the Great Recession by County-Level Industrial Composition of the Labor Force

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongsoo Kim
Author(s):  
Lindsay A. Owens ◽  
Karen S. Cook

The effects of recessions on social and political attitudes are likely smaller than the effects on employment, income, and wealth, but relatively modest aggregate effects may be masking differences in attitudes between individuals who live in areas most and least affected by recessions. To investigate social and political attitudes in geographical context, we exploit a new data source that matches individuals to their county of residence to analyze whether changing economic conditions at the county level are associated with changing confidence in major social institutions and with changing levels of interpersonal trust. We find that individuals in particularly affected counties are more likely to decrease their support for organized labor and the federal government. County-level hardship does not appear to be associated with changes in interpersonal measures of trust, however, suggesting that two very different processes may be at play.


Author(s):  
Randall Akee

This article examines the earnings and employment experience of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) residing in the United States during and after the Great Recession. I compare these populations to non-Hispanic whites over the same time period with respect to median earnings and inequality, labor force participation rates, earnings by location, educational attainment, and occupational status. I find that the AIAN population has the lowest median earnings and highest level of earnings inequality. NHPI and AIAN experience a sharp increase in earnings inequality over the Great Recession and AIAN have a pronounced drop in labor force participation; these inequality measures remained elevated and stable over the recovery period especially for the AIAN population. Indigenous peoples employed in food services occupations experienced the least amount of earnings decline over the Great Recession, while those employed in construction and sales experienced larger declines. Labor force participation rates dropped most dramatically for the AIAN population over the Great Recession and remained at a new lower level in the recovery period. The analysis shows that there are stark differences across time, space, and occupation for these groups.


2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 171-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry S. Farber ◽  
Jesse Rothstein ◽  
Robert G. Valletta

Unemployment Insurance benefit durations were extended during the Great Recession, reaching 99 weeks for most recipients. The extensions were rolled back and eventually terminated by the end of 2013. Using matched CPS data from 2008-2014, we estimate the effect of extended benefits on unemployment exits separately during the earlier period of benefit expansion and the later period of rollback. In both periods, we find little or no effect on job-finding but a reduction in labor force exits due to benefit availability. We estimate that the rollbacks reduced the labor force participation rate by about 0.1 percentage point in early 2014.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Gemmill ◽  
Caroline Sten Hartnett

We examine trends in demographic drivers of fertility—including fertility intentions, postponed childbearing, and unintended pregnancy—to better understand the decline of U.S. fertility since the Great Recession. As noted by others, the fall in fertility in the post-recessionary period was most pronounced for younger women, suggesting that part of the decline in total fertility may be transitional, as women shift to having children later in their lives. Here, we show that period total fertility rates (TFRs) that adjust for tempo effects indicate little evidence of large declines; in 2017, the adjusted TFR was over 2.1, substantially higher than the observed TFR of 1.77. Importantly, though, we also show that recent declines in fertility are not just the result of declining intensities of first births, but also declining intensities of higher order births. Much of the fertility decline was also driven by reductions in unintended pregnancy and reductions in births to Latina women. We argue that the future of U.S. fertility, therefore, rests on whether those who delay childbearing will ultimately meet their fertility goals, whether averted unintended pregnancies will be made up later, and whether childbearing patterns of Latina women will grow increasingly similar to those of non-Latina women.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document