Sexual Orientation Identity Mobility in the United Kingdom: A Research Note.

Sexual identity is fluid. But just how fluid is it? How does such fluidity vary across demographic groups? How do mainstream measures fare in capturing the fluidity? In analyzing data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (N = 22,673 individuals, each observed twice), this research note provides new, population-wide evidence of sexual identity mobility-change and continuity in individuals' sexual orientation identification-in the United Kingdom. Overall, 6.6% of the respondents changed their sexual identity reports between 2011-2013 and 2017-2019. Sexual identity mobility follows a convex pattern over the life course, with higher mobility rates at the two ends than in the middle of the age spectrum. Sexual identity mobility is more prevalent among women, ethnic minority individuals, and the less educated. Changes in people's self-reported sexual identity are closely associated with changes in their partnership status and partner's sex. However, inferring individuals' sexual identity from their partner's sex substantially underestimates the degree of sexual fluidity compared with people's self-reported sexual identity. Our findings encourage researchers and data collectors to fully examine sexual identity mobility and consider its implications for measuring sexual identity.

Immigrants in Their Parental Homeland: Half a Million U.S.-born Minors Settle Throughout Mexico.

In the past 10 years, a historical change occurred in migration flows within North America: specifically, Mexico-U.S. migration reached zero net migration. Alongside Mexican adults returning to their homeland was an unprecedented number of U.S.-born minors. Little is known about this massive migration of U.S. citizen children. We analyze Mexican census data from 2000 to 2015 to estimate the size and characteristics of the population of U.S.-born minors residing in Mexico. Between 2000 and 2010, the population of U.S.-born minors doubled to more than half a million. The population stabilized, aged, and became longer-term Mexican residents thereafter. The large majority of U.S.-born minors are primary school-aged. Although concentrated in the northern border and traditional migrant-sending regions, U.S.-born minors are distributed throughout Mexico. The majority of U.S.-born minors live in Mexico with two Mexican-born parents, but one-third are separated from one or both parents, and most of those separated from parents reside with grandparents. We interpret these trends in reference to the determinants of Mexico-U.S. migration, transnational and mixed-status families, and the future spatial and social mobility of U.S.-born minors living in Mexico.

Sexual orientation and self-employment: New evidence.

Early studies and theory suggest sexual minorities are drawn towards the relative independence of self-employment to avoid discrimination in paid employment. However, recent evidence is mixed, suggesting that a higher propensity for self-employment (relative to heterosexual people) is found only among lesbian women relative to heterosexual women. This study overcomes the data limitations of prior research by using data pooled from 2007-2017 cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and multivariate logistic regression to provide new evidence on LGB self-employment. The results show that self-employment is particularly high for bisexual people, especially bisexual women-but not for gay men or lesbian women. Overall, this study examines the enduring but nuanced relationship between self-employment and sexual orientation and discusses countervailing factors related to socio-economic resources, gender, and family structure.

Des recherches et des théories antérieures suggèrent que les minorités sexuelles sont attirées par l'indépendance relative du travail indépendant pour éviter la discrimination dans l'emploi rémunéré. Cependant, les preuves récentes sont mitigées, suggérant que la propension plus élevée à l'emploi indépendant (par rapport aux personnes hétérosexuelles) ne se retrouve que chez les femmes lesbiennes par rapport aux femmes hétérosexuelles. Cette étude surmonte les limites des données des recherches antérieures en utilisant des données regroupées des cycles 2007-2017 de l'Enquête sur la santé dans les collectivités canadiennes (ESCC) et une régression logistique multivariée pour fournir de nouvelles preuves sur le travail indépendant des LGB. Les résultats montrent que le travail indépendant est particulièrement élevé pour les personnes bisexuelles, notamment les femmes bisexuelles-mais pas pour les hommes gays ou les femmes lesbiennes. Dans l'ensemble, cette étude examine la relation durable mais nuancée entre l'emploi indépendant et l'orientation sexuelle et discute des facteurs compensatoires liés aux ressources socio-économiques, au sexe et à la structure familiale.

Balancing Gender Bias in Job Advertisements With Text-Level Bias Mitigation.

Despite progress toward gender equality in the labor market over the past few decades, gender segregation in labor force composition and labor market outcomes persists. Evidence has shown that job advertisements may express gender preferences, which may selectively attract potential job candidates to apply for a given post and thus reinforce gendered labor force composition and outcomes. Removing gender-explicit words from job advertisements does not fully solve the problem as certain implicit traits are more closely associated with men, such as ambitiousness, while others are more closely associated with women, such as considerateness. However, it is not always possible to find neutral alternatives for these traits, making it hard to search for candidates with desired characteristics without entailing gender discrimination. Existing algorithms mainly focus on the detection of the presence of gender biases in job advertisements without providing a solution to how the text should be (re)worded. To address this problem, we propose an algorithm that evaluates gender bias in the input text and provides guidance on how the text should be debiased by offering alternative wording that is closely related to the original input. Our proposed method promises broad application in the human resources process, ranging from the development of job advertisements to algorithm-assisted screening of job applications.

A Research Note on Canada's LGBT Data Landscape: Where We Are and What the Future Holds.

There is a growing international literature on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. One of the biggest limitations for researchers in this field continues to be the dearth of population-based surveys that include questions on sexual orientation, gender identity, and high-quality demographic, health, social, political, or economic variables. This research note provides an overview of the current LGBT data landscape in Canada. We start with some of the challenges for researchers studying the LGBT community, including issues of sample size, measurement, response bias, and concealment. Next, we provide an overview of Canadian surveys that include questions on sexual orientation and/or gender identity, including the strengths and weaknesses of each. We end with a brief discussion on newly available administrative data and provide recommendations for researchers and policymakers moving forward.

Mental retirement and health selection: Analyses from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study.

BACKGROUND: Research has recently suggested that retirement may decrease cognitive engagement, resulting in cognitive aging. Few studies have systematically documented whether or how selectivity into retirement shapes the relationship between retirement and cognitive aging. METHODS: We draw on data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2012) to examine the relationship between cognition and retirement for 18,575 labor force participants. Longitudinal regression discontinuity modeling was used to examine performance and decline in episodic memory. Models differentiated three forms of selection bias: indirect and direct selection as well as reverse causation. To further interrogate the disuse hypothesis, we adjust for confounding from health and socioeconomic sources. RESULTS: Results revealed that individuals who retired over the course of the panel were substantially different in terms of health, wealth and cognition when compared to those who remained employed. However, accounting for observed selection biases, significant associations were found linking longer retirement with more rapid cognitive decline. DISCUSSION: This study examined respondents who were in the labor force at baseline and transitioned into retirement. Analyses suggested that those who retired over the course of the panel had worse overall functioning, but also experienced more rapid declines after retirement that increased the rate of aging by two-fold, resulting in yearly losses of 3.7% (95% CI = [3.5, 4.0]) of one standard deviation in functioning attributable to retirement. Results are supportive of the view that retirement is associated with more rapid cognitive aging.

Unhealthy assimilation or persistent health advantage? A longitudinal analysis of immigrant health in the United States.

Existing evidence on immigrant health assimilation, which is largely based on cross-sectional data, suggests that immigrants' initial health advantage erodes over time. This study uses longitudinal data to directly compare the self-rated health trajectories of immigrants and the native-born population. Data come from four panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (1996, 2001, 2004, and 2008), with each panel containing 2-4 years of health information. Results show that immigrants' self-rated health remained stable during the period under study, but there was a concomitant decline in health for the native-born population. This result pointed to a persistent health advantage of immigrants during the period under study. The pattern held for immigrants of different length of residence and was especially salient for those originally from Latin America and Asia. Our findings that immigrants maintain their health advantage do not support the pattern of unhealthy assimilation commonly reported in cross-sectional studies.

Retirement and Cognition: A Life Course View.

This study examines the relationship between retirement and cognitive aging. We build on previous research by exploring how different specifications of retirement that reflect diverse pathways out of the labor market, including reason for leaving the pre-retirement job and duration spent in retirement, impact three domains of cognitive functioning. We further assess how early-life factors, including adolescent cognition, and mid-life work experiences, condition these relationships. To do so, we draw on longitudinal data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a cohort study of Wisconsin high school graduates collected prospectively starting in 1957 until most recently in 2011 when individuals were aged 71. Results indicate that retirement, on average, is associated with improved abstract reasoning, but not with verbal memory or verbal fluency. Yet, when accounting for the reason individuals left their pre-retirement job, those who had retired for health reasons had both lower verbal memory and verbal fluency scores and those who had retired voluntarily or for family reasons had improved abstract memory scores. Together, the results suggest that retirement has an inconsistent effect on cognitive aging across cognitive domains and that the conditions surrounding the retirement decision are important to understanding cognitive functioning at older ages.

Health of newly arrived immigrants in Canada and the United States: Differential selection on health.

Canada and the U.S. are two major immigrant-receiving countries characterized by different immigration policies and health care systems. The present study examines whether immigrant health selection, or the "healthy immigrant effect", differs by destination and what factors may account for differences in immigrant health selection. We use 12 years of U.S. National Health Interview Survey and Canadian Community Health Survey data to compare the risks of overweight/obesity and chronic health conditions among new immigrants in the two countries. Results suggest a more positive health selection of immigrants to Canada than the U.S. Specifically, newly arrived U.S. immigrants are more likely to be overweight or obese and have serious chronic health conditions than their Canadian counterparts. The difference in overweight/obesity was explained by differences in source regions and educational levels of immigrants across the two countries. But this is not the case for serious chronic conditions. These results suggest that immigration-related policies can potentially shape immigrant health selection.

Self-Employment among Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Couples in Canada.

This study presents novel evidence on the relationship between sexual orientation and self-employment. Using data from the 2001 and 2006 Census of Canada and the 2011 Canadian National Household Survey, we explore the propensity for self-employment among same- and opposite-sex couples. We examine the demographic, human capital, and family characteristics of coupled gay men and lesbians relative to their coupled heterosexual counterparts to offer potential mechanisms generating differences in rates of self-employment. Our analysis further considers occupational variability in the likelihood of self-employment. We find that gay men are less likely and lesbians more likely than heterosexuals to be self-employed; however, there is significant variation across occupations. Gay men are more likely to be self-employed in arts and culture, sales and service, and natural and applied sciences, but less likely in business, finance, and health-related occupations. Lesbians are much more likely to be self-employed in health-related occupations, natural and applied sciences, and arts and culture. Marriage and having children are significant predictors of self-employment for coupled heterosexual women but not lesbians. Cette étude présente des évidences empiriques concernant la relation entre l'orientation sexuelle et le travail indépendant. Utilisant des données provenant du Recensement du Canada de 2001 et de 2006, ainsi que l'Enquête nationale auprès des ménages (ENM) de 2011, nous explorons la tendance du travail indépendant parmi les couples de même sexe et ceux de sexe opposé. Ainsi, nous examinons les caractéristiques démographiques, du capital humain et familiales des couples gais et lesbiens par rapport à leurs homologues hétérosexuels, afin de démontrer une corrélation entre l'orientation sexuelle et la probabilité d'être travailleur indépendant - une causation qui nous semble évident et que nous analysons plus en profondeur. Nous concluons d'ailleurs que les hommes gais sont moins probables - et les lesbiennes plus probables - d'être travailleurs indépendants que les hétérosexuels. Cependant, il existe des variantes significatives entre les différentes occupations. Les hommes homosexuels tendent plutôt à être travailleurs indépendants dans les domaines des arts et de la culture, la vente et les services, ainsi que les sciences pures et les sciences naturelles. Par contre, ils le sont moins dans les domaines des affaires, de la finance et des domaines reliés à la santé. De leur côté, les femmes homosexuelles tendent plutôt à être travailleuses indépendantes dans les domaines reliés à la santé, aux sciences pures et aux sciences naturelles, ainsi qu'aux arts et la culture. Finalement, le fait d'être marié et d'avoir des enfants sont des indicateurs significatifs du travail indépendant pour les femmes en couples hétérosexuels, mais pas pour les lesbiennes.

Immigrant employment and earnings growth in Canada and the USA: evidence from longitudinal data.

We study the short-term trajectories of employment, hours worked, and real wages of immigrants in Canada and the U.S. using nationally representative longitudinal datasets covering 1996-2008. Models with person fixed effects show that on average immigrant men in Canada do not experience any relative growth in these three outcomes compared to men born in Canada. Immigrant men in the U.S., on the other hand, experience positive annual growth in all three domains relative to U.S. born men. This difference is largely on account of low-educated immigrant men, who experience faster or longer periods of relative growth in employment and wages in the U.S. than in Canada. We further compare longitudinal and cross-sectional trajectories and find that the latter over-estimate wage growth of earlier arrivals, presumably reflecting selective return migration.