scholarly journals Boomerang Kids in the Pandemic: How High-Income Families Are Their Own Safety Net

Author(s):  
Rachel Widra ◽  
André Victor D. Luduvice

In this Economic Commentary, we use the Current Population Survey to identify and examine the influx of young adults who moved in with their parents during the COVID-19 pandemic—the so-called boomerang kids—and how being in their family home influences their labor market decisions and sensitivity to occupational risk relative to that of other young adults. We find that most boomerang kids come from high-income families that can financially support them through nonemployment spells that are, on average, longer than those of young adults not living with their parents. Young adults living with their parents are also more responsive to the risk of COVID-19 exposure in the workplace and are less likely to work in occupations with high exposure risk.

ILR Review ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 792-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Funkhouser ◽  
Stephen J. Trejo

Using data from special supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS), the authors track the education and hourly earnings of recent male immigrants to the United States. In terms of these measures of labor market skills, the CPS data suggest that immigrants who came in the late 1980s were more skilled than those who arrived earlier in the decade. This pattern represents a break from the steady decline in immigrant skill levels observed in 1940–80 Census data. Despite the encouraging trend over the 1980s, however, the average skills of recent immigrants remain low by historical standards.


ILR Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 818-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Clemens ◽  
Jennifer Hunt

Studies have reached conflicting conclusions regarding the labor market effects of exogenous refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in Miami. The authors show that contradictory findings on the effects of the Mariel Boatlift can be explained by a large difference in the pre- and post-Boatlift racial composition in certain very small subsamples of workers in the Current Population Survey. This compositional change is specific to Miami and unrelated to the Boatlift. They also show that conflicting findings on the labor market effects of other important refugee waves are caused by spurious correlation in some analyses between the instrument and the endogenous variable, introduced by applying a common divisor to both. As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and it fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental effects on workers with less than a high school education.


ILR Review ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J. Schumacher ◽  
Barry T. Hirsch

Registered nurses (RNs) employed in hospitals realize a large wage advantage relative to RNs employed elsewhere. Cross-sectional estimates indicate a hospital RN wage advantage of roughly 20%. This paper examines possible sources of the hospital premium, a topic of some interest given the current shifting of medical care out of hospitals. Longitudinal analysis of Current Population Survey data for 1979–94 suggests that a third to a half of the advantage is due to unmeasured worker ability, and the authors conclude that the remainder of the advantage probably reflects compensating differentials for hospital disamenities. Supporting these conclusions is evidence that hospital RNs have higher cognitive ability and higher-quality job experience than non-hospital RNs, and indications that shift work accounts for roughly 10% of the hospital premium.


Author(s):  
Roberto B. Pinheiro ◽  
Alan Dizioli

This Commentary discusses how the presence of foreign-born workers in a local labor market affects the decisions of native-born workers to leave the labor force or move to another state. We analyze short panels obtained through the Current Population Survey and find that, in the short run, less-educated native-born workers react to a larger stock of foreign-born workers by either moving to a different state or dropping out of the labor force. In terms of magnitude, the effect is small but not insignificant.


ILR Review ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Christopher Ferrall

This study, using data from the Professional, Administrative, Technical, and Clerical Pay Survey and the Current Population Survey, examines how the assignment of responsibility within firms affected the structure of wages of U.S. engineers between 1961 and 1986. Patterns of wage dispersion in this sample mirrored patterns found in broader segments of the labor market during the same period. In engineering, wage dispersion within levels of responsibility fell steadily between 1976 and 1986, while wage dispersion between levels rose. At the same time, engineering jobs began to migrate to lower levels within firms. The author explains the trends in wages and job assignments as responses to changes in the supply of and demand for engineers, within the framework of hierarchy models of responsibility.


1996 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne E Polivka

The Current Population Survey (CPS), a national survey of 50,000 households, is a major source of information about the American labor market. In January 1994, the CPS underwent a major redesign both in the wording of the questionnaire and the methodology used to collect the data. This article reviews the motivation for the redesign, compares several key CPS estimates before and after the implementation of the new survey, and explains some of the new data collected in the redesigned CPS.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. L Elsby ◽  
Ryan Michaels ◽  
Gary Solon

A dominant trend in recent modeling of labor market fluctuations is to treat unemployment inflows as acyclical. This trend has been encouraged by recent influential papers that stress the role of longer unemployment spells, rather than more unemployment spells, in accounting for recessionary unemployment. After reviewing an empirical literature going back several decades, we apply a convenient log change decomposition to Current Population Survey data to characterize rising unemployment in each postwar recession. We conclude that a complete understanding of cyclical unemployment requires an explanation of countercyclical inflow rates, especially for job losers (layoffs), as well as procyclical outflow rates. (JEL E24, E32)


2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney C Coile ◽  
Phillip B Levine

This paper examines how labor market fluctuations around the time of retirement affect the labor force status and Social Security receipt of individuals ages 55 to 69 and the income of retirees in their 70s, using data from the March Current Population Survey, Census, and American Community Surveys. We find that workers are more likely to leave the labor force, to collect Social Security earlier, and to have lower Social Security income when they face a recession near retirement. The impact is greatest for the less-educated, who are more susceptible to job loss and rely more heavily on Social Security.


1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis M Segal ◽  
Daniel G Sullivan

Temporary services employment grew rapidly over the past several decades and now accounts for a sizable fraction of aggregate employment. The authors use Current Population Survey data to examine the changing nature of temporary work and discuss explanations for its growth. Temps are no longer overwhelmingly female or limited to clerical occupations. They have less labor market security than permanent workers, being prone to more unemployment and more underemployment. Few, however, are in temp positions a year later and the majority transition to permanent employment. Temp wages are approximately 20 percent below permanent workers, but individual and job characteristics explain approximately two-thirds of the gap.


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