Week Nine: North America

(Study Questions)

William Frey. 1996. Immigration, domestic migration, and demographic balkanization in America.

• What does Frey mean by demographic balkanization, in terms of the social composition of different areas in the United States, and what does he suppose might be causing it?
• How does Frey suggest that internal migration by native-born persons is linked to immigration? Why does he think that this happens?
• Which areas of the country does Frey describe as magnets for immigrants? Which areas are magnets for internal migration by native-born persons? Why are these not the same for both groups?

Ronald Lee & Shripad Tuljapurkar. 1997. Death and taxes: longer life, consumption, and social security.

• How would Americans living on average one year longer affect lifetime working income and consumer spending? (See Figure 2.) How much more would people need to work to balance this additional year of life?
• How high does the Social Security Administration think life expectancy will be by 2070? What life expectancy do Lee and Tuljapurkar predict, and why are the predictions different?
• How much higher would Social Security taxes have to be by 2070 if life expectancy rose to Lee & Carter's prediction rather than to the SSA prediction over these years? (See Table 2.)

Stephanie Huie et al. 2002. Individual and contextual risks of death among race and ethnic groups in the United States.

• How much higher was mortality for Black and Mexican Americans compared to whites, in Huie's baseline model before controlling for any other effects or causes? (model 1 in Table 3)
• Give examples of individual-level factors that Huie and colleagues consider. How much of the mortality gap for Black and Mexican Americans is explained away by these factors? (model 1 vs. model 6 in Table 3)
• Give examples of contextual-level factors that Huie and colleagues consider. How much of the remaining mortality gap for Black and Mexican Americans do these factors explain? (model 6 vs. model 12 in Table 3)