Previous IPUMS Research Award Winners

2022 IPUMS Research Award Winners

IPUMS USA Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Noah Zucker
Group Ties amid Industrial Change: Historical Evidence from the Fossil Fuel Industry

Zucker uses IPUMS MLP data to examine a question of current social science interest: how do economic conditions affect the social and political loyalties of ethnic groups? Zucker cleverly exploits the boom and bust nature of the coal industry which was located in multiple U.S. states, and employed people from diverse immigrant backgrounds to provide new insights on the intersections between the economy, ethnicity, and political behavior.

Student Research:

Hannah Postel
Record linkage for character-based surnames: Evidence from Chinese Exclusion

Hannah Postel makes an important methodological advance in showing how record linkage of Chinese immigrants in the United States census can be significantly improved, to raise linkage rates to levels seen for European immigrants. Postel's clear explanation of the method and results make this a valuable contribution to the census record linkage literature.

IPUMS CPS Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Zachary Parolin, Megan Curran, Jordan Matsudaira, Jane Waldfogel, and Christopher Wimer
Estimating Monthly Poverty Rates in the United States

Parolin and colleagues present a framework for estimating poverty on a monthly basis to produce more timely estimates, account for intra-year income volatility, and better inform the public of current economic conditions. Their analyses illustrate the utility of monthly poverty estimate as a supplement to the traditional annual poverty measure, especially for families with children.

Student Research:

Ahmed M. Ahmed, Kushal Kadakia, Alwiya Ahmed, Blake Shultz, and Xiaojuan Li
Trends in Labor Unionization Among US Health Care Workers, 2009-2021

Ahmed and colleagues examine rates of labor unionization among US health care workers and the impact of unionization on pay, noncash benefits, and work hours. While unionization remained low among health care workers between 2009 and 2021, union membership was associated with higher weekly earnings and better noncash benefits along with a small but greater number of work hours.

IPUMS International Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Brian Thiede, Heather Randell, and Clark Gray
The childhood origins of climate-induced mobility and immobility

This paper combines climate data with microdata from 81 population censuses across 31 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia to study the relationship between early-life exposure to climatic variability and the likelihood of (lifetime) migration or relocation through early adulthood. Thiede et al. find that early life climate conditions are associated with changes in lifetime migration in most regions of the tropics, most profoundly for people in sub-Saharan Africa. In parts of East and Southern Africa, women and people of lower socioeconomic status are most vulnerable to temperature shocks. The paper makes excellent use of key geographic and demographic information in the censuses to broaden the conversation about drivers of migration.

Student Research:

Adriana Robles
Reversal of the Gender Gap in Education, Singlehood, and Assortative Mating in Latin America

This paper uses multiple countries and decades of census microdata from Latin America to study change in assortative mating patterns during a period of rapid increase in educational attainment levels. The dramatic increases in educational completion rates combined with the closing of the educational gender gap constitute an interesting challenge to analysis of educational assortative mating. Robles adds age assortative mating to her analysis, providing a fuller and more nuanced understanding of both age and educational assortative mating dynamics in Latin America. She finds that changes in the educational gender gap were associated with higher levels of educational hypogamy. The gender gap had differing effects on the probabilities of being married and on age assortative mating patterns throughout countries. This paper provides a substantively rich picture of mating dynamics across countries in Latin America and effectively uses the availability of census series across time in the analysis.

IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards Winners: 

Published Research NHIS:

Hui Zheng and Wei-hsin Yu
Diminished Advantage or Persistent Protection? A New Approach to Assess Immigrants’ Mortality Advantages Over Time

Demographers agree immigrants to the United States initially display health advantages over natives, but results are mixed about whether this immigrant advantage erodes over time. Cross-sectional studies using years since immigration to measure duration of residence potentially confound cohort-of-arrival and age-of-arrival effects and may simply capture changes in immigrants’ awareness of health problems. Zheng and Hui avoid these problems by using a longitudinal dataset—IPUMS NHIS data for 1992 to 2009 with linked mortality data through 2011—and the unambiguous health measure of mortality risk. When comparing mortality risk among immigrants relative to natives over elapsed time, the authors find that foreign-born individuals’ survival advantage persisted over the life course and, indeed, increased over the observation period for most gender and racial subgroups. The consistency of their results leads the authors to conclude that health-based selection of who immigrates is the primary mechanism behind the lasting immigrant health advantage.

Published Research MEPS:

Robert D. Thomas, John W. Davis, Paula M. Cuccaro, and Gretchen L. Gemeinhardt
Assessing Associations between Insecure Income and US Workers’ Health: An IPUMS-MEPS Analysis

In the twenty-first century, insecure gig economy jobs with piece-rate, hourly, or daily pay schedules have increasingly displaced secure salary-based employment for US workers. The authors analyze IPUMS MEPS data from the start of the Great Recession in 2008 to 2019 and document how insecure work income is associated with worse self-reported health and higher levels of psychological distress than are found among workers with traditional salary-based employment, controlling for other factors. This analysis is highly policy-relevant, since nearly one-third of U.S. workers now work in the gig economy as their primary job and industries are pushing to erode traditional employment legal protections in favor of alternate work arrangements.

Student Research (NHIS):

Joshua M. Weinstein, Anna R. Kahkoska, and Seth A. Berkowitz
Food Insecurity, Missed Workdays, And Hospitalizations Among Working-Age US Adults with Diabetes

This paper demonstrates how pooling data from the large annual samples in IPUMS NHIS provides enough statistical power to study small subgroups—in this case, comparing outcomes for working-age adults with diabetes in food secure versus food insecure households. Using pooled data for 2011-18, the authors find that experiencing food insecurity increased the odds of health-related missed workdays, more than doubled the number of health-related missed workdays, and led to greater likelihood of overnight hospitalization in the past year for working-age adults with diabetes.  These results complement other studies that have found associations between food insecurity and poor clinical outcomes among diabetic adults. The authors note that such high levels of work absenteeism (nearly five work days/year) may in turn exacerbate food insecurity, reinforcing a negative feedback loop that could be addressed by policies such as paid sick leave and food assistance programs.

Student Research (MEPS):

Emmanuel Ezekekwu, Christopher Johnson, Seyed Karimi, Demetra Antimisiaris, and Doug Lorenz
Long Working Hours and Onset of Psychological Distress: A Longitudinal Analysis

The authors exploit the longitudinal structure of IPUMS MEPS data and the use of consistent measures across multiple question rounds to test whether full-time (30 plus hours/week) employees without psychological distress at baseline had a higher likelihood of reporting psychological distress later if they worked long hours. This hypothesis was confirmed, especially for those working very long hours, though the results varied by gender. This work represents an advance over previous studies that used cross-sectional data and were plagued by reverse causality problems. The authors posit that the effect of long working hours is mediated through two causal pathways--psycho-physiological and health-behavioral. Taking advantage of the richness of IPUMS MEPS data, the authors explore these pathways using chronic disease status and use of medications with sedative effects as indicators which proved statistically significant.

IPUMS Spatial Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Martin Fiszbein
Agricultural Diversity, Structural Change, and Long-Run Development: Evidence from the United States

Fiszbein combines NHGIS, IPUMS USA, patent, and climate data to examine the relationship between agricultural diversity and long-run county-level economic development. He finds that counties with higher levels of agriculture diversity in the 1860s began to show higher population densities and per capita incomes beginning in the early 1900s and persisting until the 21st century.

Student Research:

Arnaud Maurel
Population Aging and Preferences for Government Investments and Public Debt

Maurel links NHGIS data to voting returns for city-, county-, and state-level bonding measures over multiple decades to investigate how changing age structures affect support for public investment. He finds that increasing proportions of people over age 65 decreases support for investment, particularly for investments with longer time horizons.

IPUMS Global Health Research Awards Winners:

Published Research DHS:

Valentina Rotondi & Kerim Can Kavakli
US foreign aid restrictions and maternal and children’s health: Evidence from the “Mexico City Policy”

This paper quantifies the multiple harmful effects on public health of the so-called “Mexico City Policy” (MCP) that, under Republican presidential administrations since the mid-1980s, has restricted US funding for nongovernmental organizations supplying abortion care abroad. Coupling country-level data for 134 countries with individual-level data from IPUMS DHS for 30 countries, the authors demonstrate that MCP not only limits access to family planning services, especially for countries highly dependent on US aid, but also has spillover effects raising infant and maternal mortality and HIV incidence rates. The authors estimate that reinstating the MPC between 2017 and 2021 resulted in approximately 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections. Quantifying the effects of this public policy brings into stark relief the consequences of a decision often discussed only in political and ideological terms.

Published Research PMA:

Andreas Backhaus
Pregnancies and contraceptive use in four African countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study provides rare insight into the fertility consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking advantage of the frequency of PMA surveys, the author compares pregnancy rates and modern contraceptive use for women of childbearing age in 2020/2021 to a pre-pandemic baseline in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (CDR), Kenya, and Nigeria. Despite the imposition of substantial restrictions to public life during the first year of the pandemic in these countries, there was overall little change in pregnancy rates, apart from some declines for the youngest and least-educated women. The pandemic apparently did not limit access to family planning services in these settings, since use of modern contraceptives rose for women of all age groups and educational levels in Burkina Faso, CDR, and Kenya.

Student Research:

Kalayu Brhane Mruts, Amanuel Tesfay Gebremedhin, Gizachew A. Tessema, Jane A. Scott, and Gavin Pereira
Interbirth Interval and Maternal Anemia in 21 Sub-Saharan African Countries: A Fractional Polynomial Analysis

While previous studies found an inconsistent relationship between (grouped) interbirth intervals and maternal anemia, the authors find in 21 African countries that both short and very long (continuous) birth intervals increase maternal anemia.  Short intervals are problematic due to maternal depletion; after birth intervals of greater than 60 months, women’s bodies may return to a high-risk primigravida state. Anemia is a serious health problem found in over one-third of the non-pregnant and almost half of the pregnant African women surveyed.

IPUMS Time Use Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Jennifer L. Hook, Leah Ruppanner, and Lynne M. Casper
Occupational characteristics and parents' childcare time

Hook and colleagues add nuance to the literature on work and parental time with children by combining occupational resource and demand data from O*NET with the ATUS. Examining the linkage between occupational conditions and parental time with children, they find that some occupational characteristics boost and others inhibit maternal engagement with children on work days; occupational characteristics are less salient for fathers' time with children.

Student Research:

Erin Ice
Bringing Family Demography Back In: A Life Course Approach to the Gender Gap in Caregiving in the United States

Ice examines how coresidential care demands shape the population gender gap in childcare and eldercare across ages 20–79. She finds that women have more coresidential care demands in early and late adulthood, and they are higher for men in midlife. Care demands are higher for Black and Latina women in early adulthood compared to later in the life course for White women. 

IPUMS Excellence In Research Award Winners: 

The IPUMS mission of democratizing data demands that we increase representation of scholars from groups that are systemically excluded in research spaces. This award is an opportunity to highlight and reward outstanding work using any of the IPUMS data collections by authors who are underrepresented in social science research*.

Student Research:

Yingyi Lin, Emily Smith-Greenaway, and Laura Ferguson
Fertility and child health: The relevance of the contraceptive context

This thought-provoking paper uses regional data from 29 sub-Saharan countries and finds higher levels of modern contraceptive use associated with less undernutrition in children under 5. High societal contraceptive use signals attitudes protective of child health, including women’s agency, future orientation, and trust in medical technology, beyond the effect of individual family size and mother’s own contraceptive use.

*Because IPUMS is based in the United States, we often include persons who identify as Black/African American, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino/a/x, Asian American, first-generation college graduates or students, LGBTQ persons, or persons with disabilities in our definition of systemically excluded groups. We recognize for scholars outside of the U.S., in particular, this list may not capture discrimination in their social contexts, and encourage submissions from persons who identify with a group that has been systemically excluded even if it is not explicitly listed here. 

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2021 IPUMS Research Award Winners

IPUMS USA Research Awards Winners:

Published Research: 

Cristina Groeger
The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston

This book combines the IPUMS USA 1880-1940 decennial census full count files with other qualitative data to illustrate how the rise of education created a new form of inequality in the U.S. It provides a great example for how IPUMS USA data can be used to understand demographic changes over time and how these changes may relate to the demographic patterns we observe today.

Student Research:

Lukas Althoff
The Geography of Black Economic Progress After Slavery

Althoff and Reichardt construct family histories using full-count census data from 1850 to 1940 to compare Black men descended from enslaved persons freed at Emancipation in 1865 to those whose ancestors were free prior to 1865. They find large gaps in education, income, occupational status, homeownership, and home value that persist through 1940. The gaps shrink substantially when controlling for place, which the authors argue provides evidence for location-specific “policies, institutions, or racial attitudes” in slave-holding areas that continued to hinder Black economic progress long after Emancipation.

IPUMS CPS Research Awards Winners:

Published Research: 

Nathan Wilmers and William Kimball
How Internal Hiring Affects Occupational Stratification

Wilmers and Kimball conduct a creative and careful analysis of 1995 to 2019 Current Population Survey (CPS) data. They leverage the panel component of the CPS to compare with- and between-employer job changes across pairs of months and assess the extent to which more internal hiring in a labor market impacts upward mobility for workers. They find that upward mobility is more prevalent for individuals in the lowest paid occupations who are embedded in labor markets with more external hiring versus more internal hiring. 

Student Research:

Matt Erickson and ChangHwan Kim
Tied Staying on the Rise? Declining Migration among Co-Breadwinner Couples in the United States, 1990s to 2010s

Erickson and Kim leverage two decades of Current Population Survey (CPS) data (1989-1998 and 2009-2018) on couples to examine the impact of increasing parity in husbands' and wives' earnings on migration. Comparing to the earlier period, in the 2009-2018 period co-breadwinner couples became less likely to move across state or county lines relative to other married couples. The authors argue that this represents an increase in tied staying where husbands' and wives' careers are treated more equally and thus couples are less willing to prioritize husbands' careers over wives' careers. They find that this pattern accounts for about one-third of the overall decline in migration among married couples.

IPUMS International Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Frederico Ramon Ramos and Justus Uitermark
An Introduction to DUIA: The Database on Urban Inequality and Amenities

The article by Ramos and Uitermark introduces DIUA, the Database on Urban Inequality and Amenities. Using household asset information and associated geographic boundary files from IPUMS International combined with remote sensing derived data from the Atlas of Urban Expansion, the authors have developed a database of socioeconomic development and amenities information on 86 cities with broad global coverage. The paper describes the methods and provides illustrative analyses on asset inequality to demonstrate the potential of the database. In addition to recognizing Ramos and Uitermark’s contribution to facilitating research about urban inequality and global development by developing a valuable resource on cities, IPUMS applauds their commitment to transparency, open source data, methods, and code sharing (R scripts) through GitHub.

Student Research:

Ercio Muñoz Saavedra
The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper estimates intergenerational mobility (upward and downward) in primary education using data from 91 censuses of 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean over the span of half a century. Drawing on the availability of sub-national geographic regions, available in the census data from IPUMS (across 400 first-level subnational units and more than 6,000 second-level units), Munoz finds wide cross- and within-country heterogeneity in educational mobility. Findings show a general declining trend in the mobility gap between urban and rural population and small differences by gender. Distance to the capital and share of employment in agriculture have negative effects on mobility, while employment in industry correlates positively. Munoz has made the disaggregated cross-temporal estimates of educational mobility for LAC countries available in an online data appendix for future research.

IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards Winners:

Published Research (TIE):

Anna Zajacova, Hanna Grol-Prokopczyk, and Zachery Zimmer
Pain Trends Among American Adults, 2002-2018: Patterns, Disparities, and Correlates

Addressing an aspect of health disparities overlooked by demographers, the authors use 17 years of IPUMS NHIS data to estimate trends in chronic pain in U.S. adults by age, sex, race, and SES. Pain prevalence increased across nearly all population subgroups; socioeconomic disparities widened, due to steeper increases in pain experienced by low SES groups; psychological distress, alcohol use, obesity, and arthritis were correlated with pain; and approximately half of surveyed adults reported experiencing joint, back, neck, facial, or headache pain.

Hui Liu and Rin Reczek
Birth Cohort Trends in Health Disparities by Sexual Orientation

The authors use IPUMS NHIS data from 2013-2018 to study psychological distress, depression, anxiety, self-rated health, and activity limitation among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Millennials, Generation Xer’s, and Baby Boomers and pre-Boomers. Health disadvantages of the LGB population, relative to the straight-identified, have increased across cohorts. The authors explain this finding by generational differences in perspective and changes in the composition of who identifies as LGB. 

Student Research:

Sarah Garcia
The Role of Labor Market Polarization in Physical Disability Rates among Working-Age Americans

Garcia theorizes that deindustrialization has created a polarized workforce in which economic and social circumstances increase rates of physical disabilities among marginalized adults. Based on county-level economic data linked to IPUMS NHIS data from 1980-1996 and 1997-2017, for the later period only, increases in goods-producing industries were associated with decreasing disability rates, while increases in service-providing industries were associated with rising disability rates.

IPUMS Spatial Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Wenfei Xu
Legacies of Institutionalized Redlining: A Comparison Between Speculative and Implemented Mortgage Risk Maps in Chicago, Illinois

Xu makes an essential contribution to research on “redlining” by analyzing the impacts of the only extant Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage risk map, covering Chicago. Using 1930-2010 NHGIS census tract data and a novel modeling strategy, she finds evidence that neighborhoods placed in the FHA’s highest risk class experienced lower home values and homeownership rates between 1940 and 1980 along with other disparate trends after 1980. Unlike the FHA maps, the risk maps of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) are now widely available and widely studied, but comparing effects related to both maps’ zones in Chicago, Xu finds the FHA effects are clearer.

Student Research:

Disa M. Hynsjö and Luca Perdoni
The Effects of Federal “Redlining” Maps: A Novel Estimation Strategy

Hynsjö and Perdoni geocode full-count 1930 microdata from IPUMS to train a random forest algorithm on cities mapped by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) and generate simulated HOLC maps for cities that were not mapped in the 1930s. They then conduct difference-in-difference analyses comparing the trajectories of neighborhoods in historically mapped cities to similar tracts in the simulated maps. They find that homeownership rates in D-graded ("red") neighborhoods and property values in both C- ("yellow") and D-graded categories decreased relative to counterpart neighborhoods in non-graded cities, persisting through at least 1980.

IPUMS Global Health Research Awards Winners:

Published Research: IPUMS DHS

Kirsten Stoebenau, Sangeetha Madhavan, Emily Smith-Greenaway, and Heide Jackson
Economic Inequality and Divergence in Family Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa

The authors extend a pattern observed in wealthy countries to Sub-Saharan Africa, demonstrating that rising within-country economic inequality has led to divergent family formation in both contexts.  Cohort data on age at marriage and first birth from multiple rounds of IPUMS DHS data for 12 countries show elites are increasingly delaying family formation in African countries with high or rising inequality, while the economically vulnerable risk disadvantaged life course experience.

Published Research: IPUMS PMA

Wei Chang and Katherine Tumlinson
Free Access to a Broad Contraceptive Method Mix and Women's Contraceptive Choice: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Chang and Tumlinson use IPUMS PMA to study 8 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, use advanced modeling, and most of all, their paper demonstrates well the research possibilities of linking the female and health facility data together. While they found that free access to contraceptives lead to small increases in uptake in some women, their results suggest that cost is not the main barrier to family planning use.

Student Research:

Kathryn McMahon and Clark Gray
Climate Change, Social Vulnerability, and Child Nutrition in South Asia

The authors demonstrate that early life exposure to climate change events (precipitation extremes and anomalous heat) increase child stunting (indicative of long-term malnutrition) in South Asian countries. This careful study examines three key developmental periods and identifies intervening social factors, such as disadvantaged caste status, toilet access, and women’s education, thus pointing to possible policy interventions. 

IPUMS Time Use Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Audrey M. Dorélien, Aparna Ramen, Isabella Swanson and Rachelle Hill
Analyzing the demographic, spatial, and temporal factors influencing social contact patterns in U.S. and implications for infectious disease spread

Dorélien and colleagues utilize the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to conduct a novel analysis of social contact patterns. They argue that given limited social contact data in the United States, the ATUS and its rich data on where and with whom individuals spend time could inform population-level variation in risk of disease. Their analyses indicate that social contact patterns vary by age, gender, and race. Incorporating O*NET data on physical proximity, they show that Non-Hispanic Blacks are the most likely to work in jobs where they are in close proximity to others, which may help explain racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.

Student Research:

Thomas Lyttelton, Emma Zang, and Kelly Musick
Telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents' paid and unpaid work before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Lyttelton and colleagues use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) to analyze the link between telecommuting and the gender division of labor at home and at work prior to and during the pandemic. In their innovative analyses, they match ATUS respondents in similar occupations and by gender to compare the time use patterns of parents working from home and in the workplace. They find that telecommuting reduces gender gaps in childcare but is associated with women doing more housework and experiencing more work interruptions. 

IPUMS Excellence in Research Awards Winners:

The IPUMS mission of democratizing data demands that we increase representation of scholars from groups that are systemically excluded in research spaces. This award is an opportunity to highlight and reward outstanding work using any of the IPUMS data collections by authors who are underrepresented in social science research*.

Published Research:

Paolo Nicola Barbieri and Hieu M.Nguyen
When in America, do as the Americans? The evolution of health behaviors and outcomes across immigrant cohorts

The authors use 30 years of IPUMS NHIS data to add nuance to the "immigrant paradox" literature by examining composition and assimilation of immigrant cohorts over time with regard to health behaviors and conditions.  Despite noting some heterogeneity in health patterns and cohort composition, they find immigrants generally "de-assimilate" unhealthy behaviors (smoking and drinking) yet still converge towards the poorer health outcomes of American natives (as measured by asthma, vision problems, and coronary heart conditions).

Student Research (TIE):

Ziyao Tian
Intergenerational Social Mobility of Asian Americans Under the Shadow of Asian Exclusion (1882–1943)

The authors use linked census data from 1900-1940 to explore the previously elusive question of intergenerational mobility among Asian Americans in the early 20th century. Their contrasting findings on educational and socioeconomic mobility and their changes over time lay bare the importance of discriminatory policies in moderating the relationship between education and economic success.

Danyang Zhang
Marriage Market Signaling and Women’s Occupation Choice

Using data from eight decennial censuses and over three decades of the CPS, the author proposes a new model for understanding gender disparities in the labor market that focuses on caregiving occupations. Hypothesizing that occupational choice includes a signaling game to potential marriage partners, the paper finds that women's selection into caregiving occupations is responsive to marriage rates, divorce legislation, and the sex ratio of immigrants.

*Because IPUMS is based in the United States, we often include persons who identify as Black/African American, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino/a/x, Asian American, first-generation college graduates or students, LGBTQ persons, or persons with disabilities in our definition of systemically excluded groups. We recognize for scholars outside of the U.S., in particular, this list may not capture discrimination in their social contexts, and encourage submissions from persons who identify with a group that has been systemically excluded even if it is not explicitly listed here. 

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2020 IPUMS RESEARCH AWARDS

IPUMS USA Research Awards Winners:

Published Research: 

Natasha V. Pilkauskas, Mariana Amorim, and Rachel E. Dunifon

Historical Trends in Children Living in Multigenerational Households in the United States: 1870–2018

Using decennial census and ACS data from IPUMS-USA, this paper traces long-run trends and differentials in the frequency of children residing in multigenerational families, defined as residing with both a parent and a grandparent. The frequency of such multigenerational families increased from 1870 to 1940 owing to demographic change, then declined sharply until 1980. In recent decades, multigenerational families among children have been rising, and they are now almost as common as they were at the peak in the mid-twentieth century. The authors demonstrate that racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in multigenerational living arrangements expanded greatly over the course of the past 150 years.

Student Research:

Ian Lundberg

Occupational segregation contributes to racial disparities in health: A gap-closing perspective

Lundberg uses linked IPUMS CPS data to document the impact of occupational segregation on race disparities in work-related disabilities. The analysis concludes that about a third of the race difference in disabilities would disappear if Blacks and Whites shared the same occupational distribution.

IPUMS International Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Valerie Mueller, Clark Gray, and Douglas Hopping

Climate-Induced migration and unemployment in middle-income Africa

Mueller, Clark, and Hopping study the effects of climate anomalies on migration activity over a 22-year period in three African countries: Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia. The study combines detailed individual characteristics (subnational migration, employment, and demographic information) of 4 million individuals from IPUMS International censuses with high-resolution gridded climate data from the Climate Research Unit’s (CRU) Time Series. The harmonized microdata facilitate comparative work across the three middle-income, rapidly urbanizing countries with relatively high internal migration rates. Microdata also enable the authors to examine how labor market conditions influence migration responses to climate by analyzing the direction of relationships between migration and climate versus employment and climate. Climate anomalies affect mobility in all three countries, but do so in ways that are context-specific and often related to unemployment, inactivity, and demand for labor. Findings are consistent with other research that has found climate migration processes to vary widely across countries and extend prior research by leveraging comparable cross-country data on migration and employment available through IPUMS. Given the differing effects of climate on migration by country context and mechanism, the research does not support claims that climate change drives urbanization in Africa.

Student Research:

Raoul van Maarseveen

The Effect of Urban Migration on Educational Attainment: Evidence from Africa

Using census data from 14 African countries, Van Maarseveen assesses the effect of childhood exposure to cities on primary school completion, school attendance, and literacy rates. Van Maarseveen constructs moving histories of children’s schooling and urban/rural status using harmonized educational attainment variables; demographic and household characteristics; and sub-national geographic units from the censuses in combination with enhanced urban vs. rural status information from the Africopolis database. The detail in the microdata enable van Maarseveen to conduct tests for robustness (measure of urban, time-varying household shocks, age at time of census, and country selection), heterogeneity (gender, parental education) and explore possible confounding mechanisms (urbanization and family formation or labor force participation) by which urban advantage in educational outcomes might operate. While acknowledging complexity of urbanization and other risks of moving to cities, van Maarseveen finds that childhood exposure to urban environments increases educational attainment across a wide range of countries in Africa. Van Maarseveen’s argues urbanization may promote economic development by increasing human capital accumulation—a robust predictor of economic growth—even in the absence of structural transformation.

IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Justin T. Denney and Jason D. Boardman

Hearing Impairment, Household Composition, Marital Status, and Mortality Among U.S. Adults

The authors use 11 years of IPUMS NHIS data and take advantage of two unusual features of NHIS: linkage of adult survey participants to the National Death Index and collection of health data about persons within households and families. This analysis demonstrates a strong association between hearing impairment and higher mortality for adults over age 40, but this relationship was unexpectedly not modified by hearing impaired persons’ household composition and marital status, evaluated as indicators of social support.

Student Research:

Samuel Arenberg, Seth Neller, and Sam Stripling

The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration

The authors take advantage of a policy-based natural experiment: a 1990 increase in Medicaid eligibility for individuals born after September 30, 1983, which primarily affected Black children and adolescents. Comparing Black children born before and after the cutoff date, the analysis shows a 5 percent reduction in the likelihood of incarceration by age 28 as a spillover from access to public health insurance. This work makes an important contribution to the literature on how social welfare benefits during childhood pay off in enhanced well-being in adulthood, and the work shows how IPUMS NHIS data can be fruitfully coupled with other sources, in this case incarceration data.

IPUMS Spatial Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Kendra Bischoff and Laura Tach

School Choice, Neighborhood Change, and Racial Imbalance Between Public Elementary Schools and Surrounding Neighborhoods

Bischoff and Tach use demographic and socioeconomic data from the School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS) and NHGIS, combined with school enrollment data, to explore how school choice relates to racial imbalances between neighborhood schools and their surrounding attendance zones. They find that “the presence of more school-choice options generates racial imbalances,” but “this association differs by type of choice-based alternative,” with private schools reducing non-Hispanic white enrollment and charter schools reducing nonwhite enrollment in neighborhood schools.

Student Research:

Christopher Sichko

Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought

Sichko leverages data on residence five years prior to the census in the 1940 full count dataset from IPUMS USA, combined with spatiotemporal data on drought conditions and NHGIS data from the 1935 agricultural census, to investigate county-level migration patterns throughout the United States during the drought of 1935-1939. He finds that individuals with more education from drought-afflicted counties were more likely to migrate than individuals with less education or from non-drought counties and that the majority of migrants relocated to rural areas.

IPUMS Global Health Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Xinguang Fan and María Vignau Loría

Intimate Partner Violence and Contraceptive Use in Developing Countries: How Does the Relationship Depend on Context?

Fan and Loria resolve a puzzle in prior research on intimate partner violence (IPV): Why is the relationship between IPV and contraceptive use negative in some countries and positive in others? Using 30 IPUMS DHS samples from 17 countries, the authors demonstrate that the relationship between IPV and family planning is modified by macro contextual factors, including legal prohibitions and national levels of female empowerment. This study stands out not just for answering an important social science question but also in its creative use of the broad range of information collected in the DHS, including variables on contraceptive use and type, family size preferences, husband-wife disagreement on fertility goals, various indicators of women’s status (e.g., education, employment, decision-making), and domestic violence. In addition, the authors draw on IPUMS DHS variables to determine the direction of causality: from the experience of IPV to increased contraceptive use, rather than from contraceptive use to increased incidence of IPV.ta from IPUMS DHS, with informative maps displaying findings across countries and regions.

Student Research:

Siyu Heng, Wendy P. O’Meara, Ryan A. Simmons, and Dylan S. Small

Relationship between Changing Malaria Burden and Low Birth Weight in sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the effect of reduced malaria burden on the low birth weight rate, by leveraging geographic heterogeneity in the extent of recent malaria decline. Specifically, the authors analyze IPUMS DHS data from 19 sub-Saharan African countries with at least two surveys and GPS data on survey cluster locations. After using optimal matching to pair DHS clusters separated in time, the study uses a difference-in-difference approach to compare the incidence of low birth weight in areas that did and did not experience malaria decline. This careful and cleverly designed study revealed a substantial decline in low birth weight (which is associated with cognitive and physical difficulties) resulting from declines in malaria prevalence, especially for first-born children.

IPUMS Time Use Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn, Matthew Comey, Amanda Eng, Pamela Meyerhofer, and Alexander Willén 

Culture and gender allocation of tasks: source country characteristics and the division of non-market work among US immigrants

Blau and colleagues analyze the gender division of non-market work comparing immigrant and native-born men and women. Incorporating data on source country gender equality, the authors find smaller gender gaps in non-market work for first-generation immigrants from more gender equal source countries, though still larger than gender gaps between native born men and women.

Student Research:

Joe LaBriola and Daniel Schneider

Class Inequality in Parental Childcare Time: Evidence from Synthetic Couples in the ATUS

Labriola and Schneider's analysis leverages the large ATUS sample to create synthetic couples and reassess inequality in parental time investments in young children. Their results suggest that class gaps in parental time investments during early childhood may be larger than previously documented.

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2019 IPUMS RESEARCH AWARDS

Spatial Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Megan Doherty Bea

Policy to Protect Financially Vulnerable Populations: A Look at the 2007 Military Lending Act

Using data on the locations of payday lender storefronts and military bases in combination with census tract data from NHGIS, Doherty Bea finds that federal regulation specifically targeted to restrict payday lending to military service members was less effective at reducing the number of lenders near bases than statewide policies addressing payday lending more generally.

Published Research:

Jacob William Faber

Segregation and the Cost of Money: Race, Poverty, and the Prevalence of Alternative Financial Institutions

Faber examines how the prevalence of alternative financial services (payday lenders, check cashers, etc.) is associated with neighborhood and metropolitan-area characteristics, using a wide range of American Community Survey data from NHGIS. One of several compelling findings is that disparities between white and non-white neighborhoods are greatest in the most segregated metropolitan areas.

IPUMS Health Surveys Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Morgan Peele

Is Declining Mental Health in the U.S. a White Phenomenon? Racial Disparities in Mental Health from 1997 to 2018

Analyzing psychological distress by racial-ethnic group using IPUMS NHIS, Peele uncovered three distinct trends. Among all groups, psychological distress decreased between 1997 and 2002, then increased. Beginning in 2012, psychological distress stayed the same or decreased among all groups except non-Hispanic whites. For non-Hispanic whites, psychological distress sharply increased beginning in 2012, due to rising anxiety among better-educated whites rather than deteriorating socioeconomic conditions among less-educated whites.

Published Research Co-Winners (TIE):

Ning Hsieh and Hui Liu

Bisexuality, Union Status, and Gender Composition of the Couple: Reexamining Marital Advantage in Health

Using information from IPUMS NHIS on bisexuality, relationship status, and partner's gender, Shieh and Liu evaluated whether married bisexuals experienced the same health premium enjoyed by married heterosexual, gay, and lesbian couples. They found married bisexuals exhibited poorer health than unmarried bisexuals and, among married bisexuals, same-gender unions proved healthier than different-gender unions.

Published Research Co-Winners (TIE):

Jason Schnittker and Duy Do

Pharmaceutical Side Effects and Mental Health Paradoxes among Racial-Ethnic Minorities

Schnittker and Do examined the apparent paradox of racial-ethnic minorities having better mental health than non-Hispanic whites, despite their poorer physical health and greater discrimination and stress. Using IPUMS MEPS linked to MEPS-HC prescribed drug files, they investigated the role played by non-Hispanic whites' higher consumption of prescription drugs with depression and suicide side effects, finding that the racial-ethnic minority advantage was then either attenuated or eliminated.

IPUMS USA Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Sun Kyoung Lee

Crabgrass Frontier Revisited in New York :Through the Lens of 21st-century Data

Lee aims to understand the suburbanization process of New York City between 1870 and 1940. The common understanding set for by Jackson (1985) is that rich households moved to the periphery and the poorest stayed in the core, and that the households that moved to the periphery were richer than those before them. Lee shows that this was not entirely the case in NYC. People who stayed in the core were richer than the ones who left the city center and the people who moved to the periphery where poorer than those already living in the periphery. Moreover, the people who stayed at the periphery got richer as the metropolis grew. Lee’s analysis relies primarily on the restricted-access IPUMS complete count datasets from 1870 to 1940. Lee links individuals over time using a “machine learning” approach and is a great example of the sort of research that was impossible before the availability of these datasets.

Published Research:

Xi Song, Catherine G. Massey, Karen A. Rolf, Joseph P. Ferrie, Jonathan L. Rothbaum, and Yu Xie

Long-term decline in intergenerational mobility in the United States since the 1850s

Song et al. undertook the ambitious task of linking households and population records from 1850 to 2015 in order to study intergenerational social mobility in the United States. The team relied heavily on IPUMS data. Among their datasets they included cross-sectional IPUMS data from 1850-2015 and also linked three sets of historical IPUMS samples (1850-1880, 1880-1910, and 1910-1940). By creating father-son dyads, the authors are able to show that intergenerational mobility declined substantially over the past 150 years but more slowly than previous literature suggested.

IPUMS International Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Tejesh Pradhan

Socioeconomic Consequences of birth Year Rainfall Shocks: Evidence from Rural Nepal

Pradhan uses district-level measures monsoon rainfall in combination with birth year and location information from census microdata of Nepal, available through IPUMS International, to investigate effects of rainfall shocks during infancy on later life outcomes. The research builds on an assumption that weather shocks affect nutrition, especially for subsistence households. Using a series of robust tests, Pradhan finds that higher birth year rainfall has statistically significant and positive effects on adult educational outcomes for females generally, for both males and females in the highest quintile of rainfall, and that effects are slightly exaggerated for individuals from subsistence-level groups. The author suggests that findings provide further support for implementing agricultural insurance and safety net programs in order to combat food insecurity and poor infant nutrition.

Published Research:

Giulia Ferrari and Ross Macmillan

Until work do us part: Labour migration and occupational stratification in non-cohabiting marriage

Capitalizing on the availability of high-density census samples with broad geographic and temporal coverage from IPUMS International, Ferrari and Macmillan examine labor migration and occupational stratification in non-cohabiting marriage across individuals and households from 70 countries. The work extends our understanding of the relationship between non-cohabiting marriage and occupational stratification by considering the larger social context, particularly as it relates to labor mobility and economic development. Overall, Ferrari and Macmillan find broad cross-national differences in the prevalence of non-cohabiting marriage, a slight increase in risk over time, and a pattern of accumulating risk associated with social disadvantage. The work adds important dimensions to the study of modern families and the social factors that influence diverse family structures.

Global Health Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Wei Chang

Abortion Laws and Life Choices of Young Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Cross-County Analysis

Using a difference-in-differences approach, Chang compares marriage, birth, and schooling rates in 10 countries that expanded the legal grounds for abortion and in eight countries where abortion laws remained extremely restrictive between 1996 and 2015. This analysis demonstrates how IPUMS DHS data can be used fruitfully to look at change over time across multiple countries and uses policy changes as a clever natural experiment. The work also has important policy implications, showing that increasing legal access to abortion enhances girls' and young women's ability to delay marriage and childbearing.

Published Research:

Benjamin Schwab and Ralph Armah

Can Food Safety Shortfalls Disrupt 'Ag for Nutrition' Gains? Evidence from Eid al-Adha

Using a natural experiment of increased meat consumption and home slaughter by Moslem households during the Eid holiday in 12 African and Asian countries, compared to non-Muslim households and Muslim households at other times of year, the authors find an increase in diarrheal disease in young children associated with higher consumption of animal source foods. The authors take advantage of data from multiple countries and use variables (such as RELIGION) requiring the integration supplied by IPUMS DHS. They raise a previously overlooked health issue, that attempts to improve nutrition through increasing smallholder livestock production may have non-trivial negative effects on child health through increased risk of diarrheal disease.

Time Use Research Award Winners:

Student Research:

Daniela Negraia

Unpacking the ‘Mixed Bag’ of Parents and Nonparents' Emotional Well-being across Contexts.

Negraia and Augustine compare the experienced well-being of parents and non-parents in micro and macro contexts to unpack the mixed bag of emotions associated with parenting. They find that the parenting gap existed primarily during leisure, somewhat during housework, and not during market work. The presence of children during activities is a major driver of these differences as indicated by few differences between parent and non-parent well-being during activities when children are not present.

Published Research:

Eric A. Morris

Do cities or suburbs offer higher quality of life? Intrametropolitan location, activity patterns, access, and subjective well-being

Do city dwellers have all the fun, or are the suburbs the best place to find what is good in life? Morris leverages multiple dimensions of the American Time Use Survey to compare time use and well-being of Americans living in cities versus suburbs, finding, on balance, few differences between suburbanites and city dwellers. The results show that activity patterns are similar among city residents and suburbanites and that travel time differences for activities are minor. The activities in which city residents and suburbanites engage are associated with very similar degrees of subjective well-being (SWB), including both life satisfaction and affect. The most noteworthy difference is that suburbanites have modestly but measurably higher SWB than demographically similar urbanites in terms of feelings of happiness (hedonic affect), a sense of meaning (eudaimonic affect), and life satisfaction. These findings suggest that there may be advantages for suburban living.

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2018 IPUMS RESEARCH AWARDS

IPUMS USA Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

William J. Collins and Gregory T. Niemesh. “Unions and the Great Compression of wage inequality in the US at mid-century: evidence from local labour markets.” The Economic History Review. Doi: 10.1111/ehr.12744.

Collins and Niemesh examine a current policy-relevant question from a historical perspective: do places with higher levels of unionization tend to have larger declines in wage inequality? Using IPUMS USA's 1940 complete-count file and the 1960 5-percent sample, the authors find evidence that higher exposures to unionization in 1940 are correlated with reductions in wage inequality. This paper demonstrates how IPUMS USA's historical datasets can be used for "new research on the economic history of inequality and labour market institutions.

Student Research:

Joe LaBriola and Daniel Schneider. “Worker Power and Class Polarization in Intra-Year Work Hour Volatility.” UC Berkeley. SocArXiv.

Precarious workers, or workers who fill a full-time permanent job but without the rights of permanent employees, have increased in the US in recent decades. LaBriola and Schneider examine an important dimension of precarious work: instability in the amount and regularity of work hours. Taking advantage of IPUMS CPS's new linking keys to exploit the panel aspect of the CPS, the authors find that "low-wage workers experience disproportionately greater work hour volatility.

IPUMS International Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Aude Bernard and Martin Bell. “Educational selectivity of internal migrants: A global assessment.” Demographic Research 39(29): 835-854.

Bernard and Bell's descriptive but ambitious work systematically evaluates the extent to which educational attainment influences internal migration across a global sample of 56 countries. Leveraging IPUMS harmonization of educational attainment into basic categories of primary, secondary, and tertiary, Bernard and Bell find near universal regularity that the likelihood of internal movement increases with educational attainment. Contrary to prior theory, educational selectivity of migrants does not decline as education expands; more highly educated persons are generally more likely to migrate even in countries with higher overall levels of education. Though educational expansion does not explain variation in educational selectivity, substantial regional and national variation does exist, suggesting avenues for further investigation.

Student Research:

Peter M. Macharia, Emanuele Giorgi, Pamela N. Thuranira, Noel K. Joseph, Benn Sartorius, Robert W. Snow and Emelda A Okiro. “Sub national variation and inequalities in under-five mortality in Kenya since 1965.” BMC Public Health.

Macharia et al. analyze variation in under-five mortality at sub-national levels in Kenya since 1965. They compile birth history information using multiple data sources (including census microdata available from IPUMS International) to understand spatio-temporal variation and inequalities in child morality. Kenya has made enormous progress in child survival between 1965 and 2015, but improvements have been highly heterogeneous across counties within Kenya. They argue for better resource allocation focusing on areas of highest need, which could further boost progress and improve the chances of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of Agenda 2030.

IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Justin T. Denney, Jarron M. Saint Onge, and Jeff A. Dennis. “Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Adult Mortality: Insights for Racial and Ethnic Differences.” Population Research and Policy Review 37(2): 301-321.

Making a contribution to social theory and policy debates as well as demography, Denney, Saint Onge, and Davis examine the disparate effects of neighborhood disadvantage on mortality for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and U.S. and foreign-born Hispanics. Based on IPUMS NHIS data linked to the national death index and focusing on adults living at or below 300% poverty in different kinds of neighborhoods, the authors find that higher likelihood of death is associated with neighborhood disadvantage for non-Hispanic whites only.

Student Research:

Ilya Gutin and Robert A. Hummer. “Putting 'Work' Back in Working-Aged Mortality: Employment Status, Occupation, and Cause-Specific Mortality among Contemporary Working-Age U.S. Adults.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Addressing the recent rise in "deaths of despair" and "precarious jobs," Gutin and Hummer use the harmonized occupational codes from IPUMS NHIS (OCC1995) linked to the LMF data for working-age adults. After controlling for education, they find elevated mortality risk, varying by cause of death, for unemployed persons and those working in stressful, low-reward, and insecure jobs.

IPUMS Spatial Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Christopher Muller. “Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South.” American Journal of Sociology 124(2): 367-405.

By linking Georgia convict records to 1880 IPUMS USA microdata, NHGIS county data, and other historical data, Muller shows that “black men were most likely to be imprisoned in the convict lease system [in counties] where they overcame whites’ efforts to preserve their position as dependent agricultural laborers.

Student Research:

Ankit Rastogi. “The New Suburb: Multiethnic Racial Residential Integration in the United States.” University of Wisconsin-Madison. SocArXiv.

Rastogi uses NHGIS geographically standardized time series to identify cities with persistently high levels of racial integration. These places are typically suburbs in coastal metropolitan areas, and they share high levels of military, university, and public sector employment, larger stocks of new housing, and high levels of metropolitan political fragmentation.

IPUMS Global Health Research Awards Winners:

Published Research:

Grady, Sue C., et al. “Neonatal mortality in East Africa and West Africa: a geographic analysis of district-level demographic and health survey data.” Geospat Health 21(1): 501.

We chose this paper because it demonstrates how IPUMS DHS can be leveraged for analyzing data from multiple countries and to measure SDG goals, and because of the important conclusions regarding causes of neonatal mortality in East and West Africa. The paper also effectively uses integrated geographic data from IPUMS DHS, with informative maps displaying findings across countries and regions.

Student Research:

Lovisa Kallmark. “How Does Drought Affect Child Health Outcomes in Zimbabwe.” Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

This paper effectively joins IPUMS-DHS data on children's chronic malnutrition with climate data on drought. Kallmark contributes to a broader literature on income shocks and child health outcomes in low-income countries, particularly for countries vulnerable to drought and with widespread child undernutrition.

The Winners Of The IPUMS Time Use Research Awards Are:

Published Research:

Greg Kaplan and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl. “The Changing (Dis-)utility of Work.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 32(3): 239-258.

Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl combine ATUS well-being module data with Census and ACS data from 1950 to 2015 to examine change over time in the nonpecuniary costs and benefits of work. They find gender differences with women shifting toward occupations that produce more happiness and meaningfulness and less sadness while men have moved into occupations that are more stressful and associated with less happiness and meaningfulness.

Student Research:

Yun Cha. “Converging, not Diverging, Educational Differences in Parents’ Time Use in Developmental Child Care in the U.S., 2003-17.” University of Pennsylvania.

Cha uses ATUS data from 2003 to 2017 to examine the persistent education gap in parents’ time with children in developmental care. Cha finds that parents with less than a college degree increased their time in developmental childcare since 2003 resulting in a substantial narrowing of the education gap in parents’ time with children.

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2017 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards are:

Published Research Co-Winners (TIE):

Marcella Alsan and Marianne Wanamaker. "Tuskegee and the Health of Black Men" The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(1): 407-455.

Alsan and Wanamaker’s innovative research combines 1969-1977 NHIS data with other data sources to estimate that the mistrust in the medical system fostered by the 1972 disclosure of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male substantially decreased health care utilization by black men and accounted for large portions of the 1980 black-white life expectancy gap among men and the male-female gap among blacks.

Jessica Ho. "The Contribution of Drug Overdose to Educational Gradients in Life Expectancy in the United States, 1992-2011" Demography 54(3): 1175-1202.

Ho used 1992-2011 linked NHIS-LMF data to investigate the contribution of drug overdose fatalities to the well-established educational gradient in mortality. While the years of life lost due to drug overdose increased for both men and women and across all educational levels, Ho found that they increased most for non-Hispanic whites aged 30-60, and that the increase was most rapid for women.

Student Research:

Monica King. "Under the Hood: Revealing Patterns of Motor Vehicle Fatalities in the United States" University of Pennsylvania. Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2396.

King leverages the linked NHIS mortality data in her dissertation to investigate the social determinants of the black-white disparity in a leading cause of death in the United States: motor vehicle accidents. She found that poverty, marriage, and education explain away the black disadvantage in motor vehicle fatalities.

The winners of the IPUMS International Research Awards are:

Published Research:

Joshua Wilde, Bénédicte H. Apouey, and Toni Jung. "The Effect of Ambient Temperature Shocks During Conception and Early Pregnancy on Later Life Outcomes" European Economic Review 97: 87-2017.

Wilde, Apouey, and Jung combine IPUMS International census microdata with temperature data and supplemental health data to model the effects of temperature shocks during conception and early pregnancy on later life outcomes. They use individual level information on place and timing of birth as well as the fully harmonized geographic units and corresponding GIS shapefiles to take full advantage of their data on temperature shocks.

Student Research:

Zheli He. "Trade and Real Wages of the Rich and Poor: Cross-region Evidence" Columbia University. Open Science Framework.

He combines data from multiple sources to examine the impact of trade liberalization on real wages of individuals by developing a framework that accounts for changes in nominal wages as well as changes in consumer price indices. Using the flexibility of IPUMS International microdata to fuel the supply side of the model, He is able to disaggregate effects on real wages for people at different wage levels. Findings contradict those of less robust models suggesting that real-wage inequality falls in all areas with trade liberalization.

The winners of the IPUMS USA Research Awards are:

Published Research:

Trevon Logan and John Parman. "The National Rise in Historical Segregation" Journal of Economic History 77(1): 127-170.

Logan and Parman develop a much more subtle measure of segregation that was previously impossible and come up with results that contradict the trends and regional differentials that have been found using conventional measures.

Student Research

Nathan Seltzer. "Beyond The Great Recession: Labor Market Polarization And Ongoing Fertility Decline In The United States" Demography (56)2.

The fertility boom that social scientists predicted would accompany the rebound following the 2007-2009 economic recession and housing crisis has yet to materialize. Seltzer's paper makes innovative use of IPUMS USA data to examine how structural changes in industry composition have had a larger depressive impact on TFR than more volatile shifts in general unemployment.

The winners of the IPUMS Spatial Research Awards are:

Published Research:

Lara P. Clark, Dylan B. Millet and Julian D. Marshall. "Changes in Transportation-Related Air Pollution Exposures by Race-Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status: Outdoor Nitrogen Dioxide in the United States in 2000 and 2010" Environmental Health Perspectives 125(9).

Combining annual nitrogen dioxide concentrations with NHGIS geographically standardized time series for census block groups from 2000-2010, Clark, Millet, and Marshall find persistent relative disparities in NO2 exposure between nonwhites and whites throughout the U.S., even while overall NO2 exposure and absolute disparities decreased.

Student Research:

Jacob Krimmel. "Persistence of Prejudice: Estimating the Long Term Effects of Redlining" The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. SocArXiv.

Krimmel links historical credit risk zones with NHGIS tract data across seven censuses to demonstrate convincingly that black neighborhoods were disproportionately redlined and that redlined areas experienced declines in housing supply and population density beyond baseline expectations, providing striking evidence of the discriminatory costs of mid-century federal mortgage insurance policy.

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2016 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS Health Surveys Research Awards were:

Published Research:

Family structure and child health: Does the sex composition of parents matter?
Corrine Reczek, Russell Spiker, Hui Liu, Robert Crosnoe

Student Research:

“Unhealthy” Returns to Education: Variation in BMI-Associated Premature Adult Mortality by Educational Attainment
Iliya Gutin

The winners of the IPUMS International Research Awards were:

Published Research Co-Winners:

Regional Variations in Farming Household Structure for the Swedish Elderly, 1890-1908
Mark Magnuson

Mapping internal connectivity through human migration in malaria endemic countries
Alessandro Sorichetta, Tom Bird, Nick Ruktanonchai, Elisabeth zu Erbach-Schoenberg, Carla Pezzulo, Natalia Tejedor, Ian Waldock, Jason Sadler, Andres Garcia, Luigi Sedda & Andrew Tatem

Student Research:

The Effects of Free Primary Education on Occupational Choice and Internal Migration in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia
Celine Zipfel

The winners of the IPUMS USA Research Awards were:

Published Research:

Does Educational Equality Increase Mobility? Exploiting 19th Century U.S. Compulsory Schooling Laws
Emily Rauscher

Student Research Co-Winners:

More is Less? The Impact of Family Size on Education Outcomes in the United States, 1850-1940
Hui Ren Tan

The Citizenship Advantage: Immigrant Socioeconomic Attainment across Generations in the Age of Mass Migration
Peter Catron

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2015 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS International Research Awards were:

Faculty:

Childbearing within Marriage and Consensual Union in Latin America, 1980-2010
Benoît Laplante, Teresa Castro-Martín, Clara Cortina, and Teresa Martín-García

Graduate Student:

Social Structure, Social Class and Fertility Decline in Latin America between 1950 and 2000
Andres Castro Torres

The winners of the IHIS Research Award were:

Faculty:

California’s Early ACA Expansion Increased Coverage and Reduced Out-of-Pocket Spending for the State’s Low-Income Population
Ezra Golberstein, Gilbert Gonzales, and Benjamin D. Sommers

Graduate Student:

Interracial Marriage and Self-Reported Health of Whites and Blacks in the United States
Yan-Liang Yu, and Zhenmei Zhang

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Faculty Co-winners:

Lynched: The Victims of Southern Mob Violence
Amy Kate Bailey, and Stewart E. Tolnay

Ethnic Names and Occupational Success in the Last Era of Mass Migration
Joshua R. Goldstein, and Guy Stecklov

Graduate Student Co-winners:

The Effect of Municipal Water Filtration on Children’s School Enrollment and Employment in American Cities, 1880-1920
Chon-Kit Ao

The Historical Demography of Racial Segregation
Angelina Grigoryeva, and Martin Ruef

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2014 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS International Research Awards were:

Faculty:

The Double Disadvantage Reconsidered: Gender, Immigration, Marital Status, and Global Labor Force Participation in the 21st Century
Katharine M. Donato, Bhumika Piya, and Anna Jacobs

Graduate Student:

New Patterns of Structural Change and Effects on Inclusive Development: A Case Study of South Africa and Brazil
Joshua Greenstein

The winners of the IHIS Research Award were:

Faculty:

Hispanic Older Adult Mortality in the United States: New Estimates and an Assessment of Factors Shaping the Hispanic Paradox
Joseph T. Lariscy, Robert A. Hummer, and Mark D. Hayward

Graduate Student Co-winners:

Quality of Life and Psychological Distress among Older Adults: The Role of Living Arrangements
Carrie E. Henning-Smith
Labor Market and Health Insurance Impacts Due to ‘Aging Out’ of the Young Adult Provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Heather Dahlen

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Faculty:

Fertility Transitions Along the Extensive and Intensive Margins
Daniel Aaronson, Fabian Lange, and Bhashkar Mazumder

Graduate Student Co-winners:

Dollars and Dropouts: The Minimum Wage and Schooling Decisions of Teenagers
Alex Smith

Long-Term Effects of Women’s Suffrage on Children’s Education
Esra Kose, Elira Kuka, and Na'ama Shenhav

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2013 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Published work: Aliya Saperstein and Aaron Gullickson for their article “A Mulatto Escape Hatch in the United States? Examining Evidence of Racial and Social Mobility during the Jim Crow Era” (Demography 50 (2013): 1921-1942).

Graduate Student: Taylor Jaworski’s article, “’You’re in the Army Now’: The Impact of World War II on Women’s Education, Work, and Family” (Journal of Economic History 74 (2014): 169-195).

The winners of the IPUMS-International Research Awards were:

Published work: Paola Giuliano, Alberto Alesina, and Nathan Nunn for their article “On the Origin of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough” (The Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (2013): 469-513).

Graduate Student: Natalie Bau’s “Cultural Norms, Strategic Behavior, and Human Capital Investment” (Harvard Working Paper, 2013).

The winners of the IHIS Research Awards were:

Published work co-winners: Jennifer Karas Montez and Anna Zajacova for their article “Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women” (Journal of Health and Social Behavior 54 (2013): 165-181)

Published work co-winners: Justin T. Denney, Bridget K. Gorman, and Cristina B. Barrera for their article “Families, Resources, and Adult Health: Where Do Sexual Minorities Fit?” (Journal of Health and Social Behavior 54 (2013): 46-63).

Graduate Student: Christopher Holmes and Anna Zajacova for their paper “Education as ‘the Great Equalizer’: Health Benefits for Black and White Adults.”

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2012 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Published work co-winner: Jeffrey Lin and Hoyt Bleakley for their article "Portage and Path Dependence" Quarterly Journal of Economics 127.2 (2012): 587-644.

Published work co-winner: I-Fen Lin and Susan L. Brown for their article "Unmarried Boomers Confront Old Age: A National Portrait" The Gerontologist 52.2 (2012): 153-165.

Graduate Student: Ryan Brown for his paper "On the Long Term Effects of the 1918 U.S. Influenza Pandemic."

The winners of the IPUMS-International Research Awards were:

Published work: Carlos Gradin for his article "Occupational Segregation of Afro-Latinos" Research on Economic Inequality 20 (2012): 63-88.

Graduate Student: Aude Bernard for her article "Cross-national comparison of internal migration age profiles: Measurement issues and solutions," Population Studies (forthcoming).

The winners of the IHIS Research Awards were:

Published work: Katy Backes Kozhimannil, Jean M. Abraham, and Beth A. Virnig for their article "National Trends in Health Insurance Coverage of Pregnant and Reproductive-Age Women, 2000 to 2009." Women's Health Issues 22.2 (2012): 135-141.

Graduate Student: Tapan Mehta, et al. for their article "Does obesity associate with mortality among Hispanic persons?: Results from the National Health Interview Survey." Obesity (2012).

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2011 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Published work co-winner: Martha J. Bailey and William J Collins for their article "Did Improvements in Household Technology cause the Baby Boom? Evidence from Electrification, Appliance Diffusion, and the Amish." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3.2 (2011): 189-217.

Published work co-winner: Anne McDaniel, Thomas A. DiPrete, Claudia Buchmann and Uri Shwed for their article "The Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment Historical Trends and Racial Comparisons." Demography 48.3 (2011): 889-914.

Graduate Student: Emily Rauscher for her paper "Does Educational Equality Increase Mobility? Exploiting U.S. Compulsory Schooling Laws 1850-1930."

The winners of the IPUMS-International Research Awards were:

Published work: Jeroen J.A. Spijker and Albert Esteve for their article "Changing Household Patterns of Young Couples in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," The History of the Family 16.4 (2011): 437-455.

Graduate Student: Andrew Halpern-Manners for his article "The Effect of Family Member Migration on Education and Work Among Nonmigrant Youth in Mexico," Demography 48.1 (2011): 73-99.

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2010 IPUMS Research Awards

The winners of the IPUMS-USA/IPUMS-CPS Research Awards were:

Published work co-winner: Matthijs Kalmijn and Frank van Tubergen for their article "A Comparative Perspective on Intermarriage: Explaining Differences among National-Origin Groups in the United States." Demography 47.2 (2010): 459-479.

Published work co-winner: Leah Boustan, Price Fishback, and Shawn Kantor for their article "The Effect of Internal Migration on Local Labor Markets: American Cities during the Great Depression." Journal of Labor Economics 28.4 (2010): 719-746.

Graduate Student: Elias Walsh for his paper "The Role of Wage Persistence in the Evolution of the College-High School Wage Gap."

The winners of the IPUMS-International Research Awards were:

Published work: Hoyt Bleakley for his article "Malaria Eradication in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Explosure," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2.2 (2010): 1-45.

Graduate Student: Willa Friedman, for her paper "Local Economic Conditions and Participation in the Rwandan Genocide."

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