Intergenerational Socioeconomic Mobility and Cognitive Impairment in Chinese Older Adults: Does Gender Matter?

The prevalence of dementia among older adults in mainland China is projected to increase rapidly in the next few decades. This study aimed to examine the impact of intergenerational socioeconomic mobility on the risk of cognitive impairment in a cohort of Chinese older adults, with a focus on potential gender differences. Data were derived from the 2011 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. Socioeconomic mobility in this study includes three dimensions: occupational mobility, educational mobility, and residential mobility. Cognitive impairment was assessed using the Chinese version of Mini-Mental State Examination. The final sample included 6,233 older adults aged 80 years and above. Logistic regression models were performed to assess the impact of the three dimensions of socioeconomic mobility on the risk of cognitive impairment in older men and women. For men, those with stable high occupational status across generations had the lowest risk of cognitive impairment. For women, those who received no education and lived in rural areas across generations had the highest risk of cognitive impairment. These findings lend support to the cumulative risk theory, which highlights the accumulation of risk factors that places individuals in jeopardy for negative health consequences in later life. The findings have implications for advancing supportive policies and practices related to maximizing the benefits of education and occupation for cognition in later life, especially for women in rural China.

Socioeconomic and environmental patterns behind H1N1 spreading in Sweden

Identifying the critical factors related to influenza spreading is crucial in predicting and mitigating epidemics. Specifically, uncovering the relationship between epidemic onset and various risk indicators such as socioeconomic, mobility and climate factors can reveal locations and travel patterns that play critical roles in furthering an outbreak. We study the 2009 A(H1N1) influenza outbreaks in Sweden’s municipalities between 2009 and 2015 and use the Generalized Inverse Infection Method (GIIM) to assess the most significant contributing risk factors. GIIM represents an epidemic spreading process on a network: nodes correspond to geographical objects, links indicate travel routes, and transmission probabilities assigned to the links guide the infection process. Our results reinforce existing observations that the influenza outbreaks considered in this study were driven by the country’s largest population centers, while meteorological factors also contributed significantly. Travel and other socioeconomic indicators have a negligible effect. We also demonstrate that by training our model on the 2009 outbreak, we can predict the epidemic onsets in the following five seasons with high accuracy.

“In Today’s Society, It’s a Necessity”: Latino/a Postsecondary Plans in the College-for-all Era

Latino/a enrollments at U.S. colleges are rapidly increasing. However, Latinos/as remain underrepresented at four-year universities, and college completion rates and household earnings lag other groups’. Yet, little theoretical attention has been paid to the processes that drive these trends, or to what happens when students not traditionally expected to attend college begin to enroll in large numbers. Longitudinal interviews with 50 Latino/a college aspirants in the San Francisco East Bay Area reveal near-universal college enrollment among these mostly low-income youth, despite significant barriers. East Bay Latino/a youth draw on a set of interrelated logics (economic, regional, family/group, college-for-all) supporting their enrollment, because they conclude that higher education is necessary for socioeconomic mobility. In contrast to the predictions of status attainment and rational choice models, these rationally optimistic college aspirants largely ignore known risks, instead focusing on anticipated gains. Given a postrecession environment featuring increasing costs and uncertain employment, this approach led many to enroll in low-cost, less supportive two-year institutions, resulting in long and winding pathways for some. Results suggest that without structural supports, access to college fails to meaningfully redress stratification processes in higher education and the postrecession economy that significantly shape possibilities for mobility.

China and the United States

The United States and China are the world’s largest economies. Together they are responsible for about one-third of the world’s economic output. This chapter aims to examine whether the two economic giants are also lands of opportunity where resources are allocated in a way that minimizes unrealized human potential. Our analysis shows that despite stark differences in their levels of development, the US and China report remarkably similar levels of socioeconomic mobility—levels considered low by international standards. The US’s level of mobility has historically been low. Before it embarked on its transition from planned to market economy, socioeconomic mobility was relatively high in China. However, as it underwent a period of rapid economic growth, China’s socioeconomic mobility declined significantly. The chapter concludes that the world’s two major economic powers have converged to a low level of socioeconomic mobility where talent from disadvantaged backgrounds is excluded.

Paths to Mobility: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Earnings Among Latino/a DACA Recipients in California

Undocumented immigration status is a structural barrier to socioeconomic mobility. The regularization of legal status may therefore promote the socioeconomic mobility of formerly undocumented immigrants. The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program provided protection against deportation and access to work authorization for eligible undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. While studies using cross-sectional data find that DACA led to improved socioeconomic status, no studies have examined the socioeconomic status of DACA recipients over time and few have disaggregated among groups of DACA recipients. Drawing from one of the only longitudinal studies of DACA recipients, we use growth curve models to estimate individuals’ wage trajectories from the year prior to DACA receipt up to 77 months post-DACA receipt among Latino/a DACA participants in California. In this sample, DACA is associated with improved earnings trajectories for recipients, compared with nonrecipients. Among DACA recipients, there is variation in earnings growth by stage of the life course, as measured by age and educational attainment. Notably, DACA tenure appears to be particularly beneficial for individuals who attain DACA at earlier ages and who earn college degrees. This study contributes to our understanding of the role of immigration laws and policies in structuring immigrant integration and socioeconomic mobility in the United States.

The Contingent Problem: A Counter-Narrative on Race and Class in the Field of Slavic Studies

This essay explores the unique challenge the proliferation of adjunct labor in higher education poses to efforts at eliminating racial bias and promoting diversity in our field. Relying on published research and personal experience, I argue that the pervasive exploitation of contingent labor makes academic careers, particularly in far-flung fields such as Slavic studies, unattractive to many college graduates from the Black community, a large portion of which considers education a meritocratic means of escaping intergenerational poverty. Because the economic, social, and cultural inequalities at play in determining who obtains a tenure-track job fly in the face of this myth of meritocracy so fundamental to historic Black hopes for socioeconomic mobility, I call for a reckoning with adjunctification as a critical first step to addressing racial bias and ensuring inclusivity in our field.