United States

This study examines how employed, welfare-connected low-income mothers experience significant earnings losses around childbirth, spending roughly six months out of the labor force on average, though Black mothers tend to return sooner. It finds that social welfare programs, if fully utilized, can compensate for lost earnings after birth but not during pregnancy, with most available benefits being non-fungible nutrition assistance.

This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of population forecast error for San Diego County and its jurisdictions, analyzing multiple forecast vintages and increment years over more than five decades. It finds that forecast accuracy decreases as the forecast horizon lengthens and is shaped by population growth rate, population size, and jump-off discrepancy, confirming established patterns in the literature while extending them to errors in population change rather than just population level. The analysis also shows that simple naive extrapolation methods often matched or outperformed more complex forecasting approaches, underscoring the value of benchmarking forecast performance.

This paper traces how the U.S. Census Bureau created public use microdata as part of the 1960 Census, highlighting how the resulting public use sample transformed analysis of the U.S. population and spurred a wave of new census-based research. It emphasizes that collaboration between academics and the Census Bureau, particularly through the Population Association of America, was central to developing this first microdata product, and argues that sustained collaboration remains necessary to keep microdata broadly accessible and usable.

This study uses two survey experiments to test whether the order in which fertility preference questions (general ideal, personal ideal, wanted, and expected fertility) are asked influences respondents' answers. Results show that most measures, especially personal ideal and wanted fertility, are relatively stable and indistinguishable regardless of question order, though expected fertility declines when asked later and personal ideal can shift among older respondents when asked after general ideal. The findings suggest general ideal fertility is a distinct, non-interchangeable construct, and the authors offer guidance for survey design regarding comparability of fertility preference measures across studies.

This study examines lifespans of U.S. immigrants born between 1850 and 1890, finding that while these immigrants generally lived shorter lives than U.S.-born Whites, this mortality disadvantage was concentrated among certain origin groups. Notably, migrants tended to outlive both their origin-country populations and their nonmigrant siblings, with migration-mortality patterns varying based on both origin and destination contexts.