Height inequality and socioeconomic implications in Korea: analysis of individuals born between 1890 and 1919.

This study examined height inequality as an indicator of income inequality during the colonial period (1910-1945) in Korea. Data were taken from a sample of 1796 male prisoners from a wide range of geographical locations and with varied socioeconomic backgrounds. Height inequality was measured using the coefficient of variation of height (CV) for each birth decade. The results indicated that height inequality, as measured by the CV, increased slightly from 3.32 to 3.35 for the birth decades 1890-99 and 1900-09, then jumped to 3.50 for the birth decade 1910-19. Considering the Kuznets curve, the presented results have socioeconomic implications for Japan's impact in Korea, at least during the early colonial period.

Multigenerational Effects of Early-Life Health Shocks.

A large literature has documented links between harmful early-life exposures and later-life health and socioeconomic deficits. These studies, however, have typically been unable to examine the possibility that these shocks are transmitted to the next generation. Our study uses representative survey data from the United States to trace the impacts of in utero exposure to the 1918 influenza pandemic on the outcomes of the children and grandchildren of those affected. We find evidence of multigenerational effects on educational, economic, and health outcomes.

The Impact of Parental Death in Childhood on Sons' and Daughters' Status Attainment in Young Adulthood in the Netherlands, 1850-1952.

Previous research on the impact of parental loss on labor market outcomes in adulthood has often suffered from low sample sizes. To generate further insights into the long-term consequences of parental death, I use the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN). The HSN contains occupational information on life courses of a sample of more than 8,000 males and almost 7,000 females born between 1850 and 1922, a period of important labor market transformations. Roughly 20 % of the sample population experienced parental death before age 16. Linear regression models show that maternal loss is significantly associated with lower occupational position in adulthood for both men and women, which points to the crucial importance of maternal care in childhood for socioeconomic outcomes in later life. This interpretation is supported by the finding that a stepmother's entry into the family is positively related with sons' occupational position later in life. In contrast to expectations, the loss of economic resources related to the father's death is generally not associated with lower status attainment in adulthood for men or for women. The results indicate, however, that the negative consequences of paternal death on men's socioeconomic outcomes decreased over time, illustrating the complex interaction between individual life courses and surrounding labor market transformations.

Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as Birth Control in Pre-Transition England.

We use duration models on a well-known historical data set of more than 15,000 families and 60,000 births in England for the period 1540-1850 to show that the sampled families adjusted the timing of their births in accordance with the economic conditions as well as their stock of dependent children. The effects were larger among the lower socioeconomic ranks. Our findings on the existence of parity-dependent as well as parity-independent birth spacing in England are consistent with the growing evidence that marital birth control was present in pre-transitional populations.

The marriage boom and marriage bust in the United States: An age-period-cohort analysis.

In the 1950s and 1960s there was an unprecedented marriage boom in the United States. This was followed in the 1970s by a marriage bust. Some argue that both phenomena are cohort effects, while others argue that they are period effects. The study reported here tested the major period and cohort theories of the marriage boom and bust, by estimating an age-period-cohort model of first marriage for the years 1925-79 using census microdata. The results of the analysis indicate that the marriage boom was mostly a period effect, although there were also cohort influences. More specifically, the hypothesis that the marriage boom was mostly a response to rising wages is shown to be consistent with the data. However, much of the marriage bust can be accounted for by unidentified cohort influences, at least until 1980.

Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800-2015.

This article proposes explanations for the transformation of American families over the past two centuries. I describe the impact on families of the rise of male wage labor beginning in the nineteenth century and the rise of female wage labor in the twentieth century. I then examine the effects of decline in wage labor opportunities for young men and women during the past four decades. I present new estimates of a precipitous decline in the relative income of young men and assess its implications for the decline for marriage. Finally, I discuss explanations for the deterioration of economic opportunity and speculate on the impact of technological change on the future of work and families.

Capital-labor struggle: the unspoken causes of the crises.

The literature on the causes of the current financial and economic crises often fails to consider both the causal role of the conflict between capital and labor, and this conflict's continued effect. This article analyzes the evolution of the conflict and its implications for the distribution of income during the post-World War II period. Especially emphasizing the relationship between the U.S. and European economies, it examines the genesis and development of the governing structures of the Eurozone as determining factors in the increasing gap between capital and labor. The history of the European economic trajectory and the current German financial leadership provide important context for the analysis. Evidence is provided that this conflict between capital and labor is at the roots of the current financial and economic crisis, a thesis has been dramatically underexposed in the current scientific literature.

Where's the capital? A geographical essay.

This paper is inspired by Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty does a wonderful job of tracing income and wealth over time, and relating changes to trends of economic and population growth, and drawing out the implications for inequality, inheritance and even democracy. But, he says relatively little about where capital is located, how capital accumulation in one place relies on activities elsewhere, how capital is urbanized with advanced capitalism and what life is like in spaces without capital. This paper asks 'where is the geography in Capital' or 'where is the geography of capital in Capital'? Following Piketty's lead, the paper develops its analysis through a number of important novels. It examines, first, the debate that Jane Austen ignored colonialism and slavery in her treatment of nineteenth century Britain, second, how Balzac and then Zola provide insight to the urban political economy of capital later in the century, and third, how Katherine Boo attends to inequality as the everyday suffering of the poor.

Balancing urban and peri-urban exchange: water geography of rural livelihoods in Mexico.

The peri-urban area is the region where there is a more dynamic interaction between the urban and rural. The peri-urban area supplies natural resources, such as land for urban expansion and agricultural products to feed the urban population. In arid and semi-arid lands, such as northern Mexico, these areas may also be the source of water for the city's domestic demand. In addition, scholars argue that peri-urban residents may have a more advantageous geographical position for selling their labour and agricultural products in cities and, by doing so, sustaining their livelihoods. A considerable number of studies have examined the peri-urban to urban natural resources transfer in terms of land annexation, housing construction, and infrastructure issues; however, the study of the effects of the reallocation of peri-urban water resources to serve urban needs is critical as well because the livelihoods of peri-urban residents, such as those based on agriculture and livestock, depend on water availability. In the case of Hermosillo there is a tremendous pressure on the water resources of peri-urban small farm communities or ejidos because of urban demand. Based on interviews and structured surveys with producers and water managers, this paper examines how peri-urban livelihoods have been reshaped by the reallocation of the city's natural resources in many cases caused some ejido members or ejidatarios to lose livelihoods.

The decrease in socioeconomic differences in mortality from 1920 to 2000 in the United States and England.

This study found that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality decreased steadily during the twentieth century. It examined trends in age-specific adult mortality rates for employed men and infants in a number of social classes based on occupation in England and Wales and for black, white, and immigrant nationality groups of men, women, and infants in the United States. Both countries experienced continuing decreases in mortality rates and narrowing of SES differences in mortality rates from 1920 to the end of the century. Most of the decrease and narrowing in England and Wales occurred before the establishment of the National Health Service and the unprecedented improvements in clinical and preventive medicine after midcentury. Current cancer mortality rates in both countries show no consistent relationship with SES. The very low mortality rates of some low SES immigrant nationality groups in the United States throughout the century demonstrate that other social factors can have a greater effect on health than SES.

The impact of retirement on health in Canada.

This study estimates the impact of retirement on subsequent health outcomes as measured by self-reported health status. The empirical study is based on seven longitudinal waves of the Canadian National Population Health Survey, spanning 1994 through 2006. To account for biases due to unobserved individual-specific heterogeneity, this study uses a fixed-effects method. The results indicate that retirement has a positive but insignificant impact on self-reported health status. The study further examined this issue using different subgroups based on gender and income and again found that retirement has no significant impact on health status.

High-end food, low-wage labor.

Some people work in restaurants as a lifestyle choice: they love the fast pace, the quick jokes, the often easy-flowing booze. At the height of a busy shift, if everything's going right, a team of skilled cooks and waiters can enter a kind of adrenaline-fueled flow state that's hypnotic and addictive. Some people choose it because they got burned out as grad students or software engineers or attorneys. Some people work in restaurants to make money until they graduate or get their big break in show business. It can be lucrative, especially for young, good-looking, and agile waiters, working for a great employer in a big city, where customers practically fight for the chance to buy expensive wines and $50 entrées and truffle supplements from the latest hotspot.

Decoupling migration effects from income effects on reproduction in Central American migrant-sending households.

Contemporary data for three Central American countries (Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua) surveyed by the Latin American Migration Project were analyzed to determine if migration length and remittance transfers had an influence on fertility. The analysis was structured to separate societal influences on fertility attributable to migration from the income effects associated with remittance transfers. At the couple level, the odds that a birth would occur were negatively associated with an increase in U.S. remittance receipts and an increase in a wife's migration duration. However, no correlation was found between length of male migration and couple fertility.

Limited access: gender, occupational composition, and flexible work scheduling.

The current study draws on national data to explore differences in access to flexible work scheduling by the gender composition of women's and men's occupations. Results show that those who work in integrated occupations are more likely to have access to flexible scheduling. Women and men do not take jobs with lower pay in return for greater access to flexibility. Instead, jobs with higher pay offer greater flexibility. Integrated occupations tend to offer the greatest access to flexible scheduling because of their structural locations. Part-time work is negatively associated with men's access to flexible scheduling but positively associated with women's access. Women have greater flexibility when they work for large establishments, whereas men have greater flexibility when they work for small establishments.

Families, time, and well-being in Canada.

We study changes in time and money available to families with children from 1971 to 2006. Increases in incomes at the top of the Canadian income distribution since the mid-1990s have taken place without any significant increases in total family hours of paid work. On the other hand, for families in the middle of the income distribution, family income has stagnated, despite the fact that parents jointly supply significantly higher hours of paid work. If both time and money are valuable resources for the production of well-being for family members, these findings suggest that inequality in well-being has increased even more than inequality of income.

Enduring pictures in our heads: the continuance of authoritarianism and racial stereotyping.

This study highlights the importance of examining the influence of personality measures, specifically authoritarianism, on negative racial stereotyping, even in an era of alleged color blindness. The authors examine the relationship of various demographic variables and authoritarianism with negative racial stereotyping in a sample of White urban respondents. Current literature suggests that age, sex, marital status, religious identification, religious service attendance, education level, income, political affiliation, level of authoritarianism, and the demographic composition in an individual's local population all affect racial stereotyping. The evidence presented, using path analysis, suggests that some demographic characteristics influence the level of negative racial stereotyping. While the effects of most included demographic characteristics were statistically significant, others, which continually resurface in the literature, remained insignificant (such as the demographic composition of the respondent's area). The results of this study challenge the loss of traditional prejudice with color blindness and point to the importance of authoritarianism as a mediating factor in negative racial stereotyping. The authors conclude the greatest indicators of negative racial stereotyping included in this study are authoritarianism, education, and income, while many other demographics - such as marital status, religious identification and attendance, and political affiliation - have indirect influences through authoritarianism.

Lethal differences: a short history of the concepts of wealth and poverty in Danish epidemiological writings, 1858-1914.

Through a study of the history of the concepts of wealth and poverty, this paper investigates the onset of a tradition in the conceptual architecture of epidemiological research concerning social differences in mortality rates from 1858 to 1914. It raises the question as to what the concepts of wealth and poverty meant to those who used them and what objects of interventions the conceptual architecture surrounding the concepts enabled the researchers to create. It argues that a transition began in the late 19th century in which an important framework for the understanding of causal relations behind the mortality patterns changed and that this change in turn influenced the scope of what was conceived as relevant objects of intervention.