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on Minorities Research (Ethnic, LGBTQ+, Disabilities) |
| By: | Christiane Szerman; Lukas Althoff |
| Abstract: | The World War II GI Bill was the largest education subsidy in US history and a cornerstone of the postwar US transition to a knowledge economy. Although formally race-blind, the program's decentralized administration left implementation to local officials and segregated institutions, with sharply different consequences for Black and white veterans. This paper quantifies the GI Bill's impact on Black and white Americans' economic outcomes across two generations, using a regression discontinuity around WWII service eligibility cutoffs and a new data linkage from veterans in the 1940 and 1950 censuses to their sons' neighborhood outcomes between 1990 and 2025. The GI Bill widened racial inequality, doubling white veterans' college completion while steering Black veterans into often-fraudulent vocational programs with no earnings returns. The disparities persisted across generations, increasing the white-Black gap in sons' adult-neighborhood outcomes, including a 5-percentage-point (47 percent) widening of the racial college gap. Unequal returns to the same eligibility account for the intergenerational gap, with no contribution from prewar differences in socioeconomic status or geography. In sum, access to the GI Bill was not nearly the same economic opportunity for Black Americans as it was for white Americans, highlighting that race-blind policy does not guarantee racial equality. |
| Keywords: | Racial Inequality; Intergenerational Mobility; Race-Blind Policy; Discrimination; Education |
| JEL: | I24 I38 J15 J62 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26163 |
| By: | Roisin O'Neill; Shailee Manandhar; Douglas L. Kruse |
| Abstract: | People with disabilities are disproportionately represented in low-wage work, raising concerns that higher wage floors may reduce their employment opportunities, particularly for workers with more severe disabilities. We examine the effects of state minimum wage increases and state subminimum wage terminations on employment outcomes for people with disabilities using American Community Survey data from 2010–2023. We find little evidence that minimum wage increases reduce employment or labor force participation among people with disabilities, including those with more severe disabilities. While many estimates are statistically imprecise, confidence intervals generally rule out economically meaningful negative employment effects. We likewise find no evidence that terminating subminimum wages reduces employment opportunities for affected workers, and some estimates suggest positive employment effects for groups most likely to have been employed under subminimum wage arrangements. These gains may reflect complementary policies that often accompany repeal, such as Employment First initiatives. Overall, the results provide little support for the view that higher wage floors create disproportionate employment barriers for people with disabilities. |
| JEL: | J14 J21 J38 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35368 |
| By: | Hu, Yan (Copenhagen Business School); Maurer, Stephan (UPF Barcelona School of Management) |
| Abstract: | Do minorities benefit from social networks? In this paper, we study this question using the historical example of China’s first modern bureaucratic organization, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Drawing on newly digitized personnel records from 1876-1911, we first show that the Chinese clerks employed by the service were predominantly Cantonese. Using the plausibly exogenous transfers of clerks across stations, we then estimate that a non-Cantonese (minority) clerk benefited significantly from meeting at least one colleague from his same province and dialect. Such connections led to faster promotion and a 5.6% salary increase, with even stronger effects when meeting a clerk who was either senior or of high quality. |
| Keywords: | Chinese Maritime Customs Service, social connections, wages, promotion, minorities |
| JEL: | J15 J31 J45 N35 N75 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18689 |
| By: | Maciej Karpinski; Christoph Schimmele; Allison Leanage; Jing Shen; Rubab Arim |
| Abstract: | This study examines socioeconomic correlates of loneliness among immigrants with disabilities, using data from the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability. The findings show that the association between socioeconomic circumstances and severe loneliness differed between immigrants and Canadian-born persons with disabilities. Employment or school participation provided immigrants with disabilities less protection from severe loneliness than it did for Canadian born persons with disabilities. For both groups, food insecurity and core housing need were associated with a higher probability of severe loneliness; however, these associations were stronger for immigrants with disabilities. Immigrants with disabilities had a higher probability of severe loneliness than their Canadian-born counterparts, even in absence of food insecurity, core housing need and low income. Overall, the findings highlight the complex interplay between socioeconomic circumstances and emotional well being among immigrants with disabilities and point to the need for targeted supports that address the unique vulnerabilities of this population. |
| Keywords: | socioeconomic correlates, loneliness among immigrants, disabilities |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2026–04–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202600400004e |
| By: | Kennedy Johnston; Jonathan Meer; Danila Serra |
| Abstract: | Existing studies show that high school counselors can significantly influence students' graduation rates and college enrollment; less is known about their ability to direct students toward particular fields of study. We evaluate an information intervention aimed at increasing counselors' awareness of economics, a major often associated with misconceptions about its content and career opportunities, and characterized by substantial under-representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. Counselors from randomly selected Texas high schools were invited to participate in a one-day information workshop on the economics major. We evaluate the impact of the intervention on students' major preferences and outcomes using application and admissions data from a large public university attended by many graduates from the treatment schools, as well as enrollment and course-taking records from the Texas Education Research Center. The intervention led to substantial increases in interest in economics at the college application stage, particularly among high-achieving women, but did not lead to significant changes in college major outcomes. We conclude that high school counselors can play an important role in shaping students' field-of-study preferences, but translating preferences into enrollment requires additional exposure and reinforcement. |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I23 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35365 |
| By: | Elizalde, Aldo; Hidalgo, Eduardo; Kampanelis, Sotiris |
| Abstract: | Can violence erase an ethnic identity? We study this question using the Shining Path insurgency in Peru (1980-1992), which sought to replace competing affiliations with a single class identity and killed roughly 70, 000 people, three-quarters of them Indigenous. Combining individual-level data on self-identification and mother tongue with event-level data on Shining Path violence, we implement a difference-in-differences design that exploits variation in exposure across cohorts at different stages of identity formation, within a matched border sample of pre-conflict comparable districts. Individuals exposed during their formative years (ages 0-19) are substantially less likely to identify as Indigenous or to speak an Indigenous language than cohorts whose identity was already formed when violence arrived. The effect is concentrated mostly in early childhood and particularly pronounced for mother tongue; the margin most directly shaped by parental transmission. Violence against non-Indigenous victims has no comparable effect. The mechanism is intra-group violence: because perpetrators were overwhelmingly co-ethnics from the same villages, visible Indigenous identity offered no protection and imposed costs. Consistent with this, the effect is strongest in Indigenous-homogeneous districts. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic identity, violence, civil conflict, Indigenous populations, Peru |
| JEL: | D74 J15 O15 N36 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:341401 |
| By: | Amie Bostic |
| Abstract: | Single mothers often face worse health than their married counterparts. This disparity has been connected to single mothers’ economic disadvantage and lower societal position. As a result of this disadvantage, accessing healthcare and maintaining good health can be challenging. Publicly provided health insurance, such as Medicaid, however, may serve as an important buffer, helping to overcome the financial and social pressures of single motherhood and improving single mother health. Medicaid generosity may also narrow the health divide between white and nonwhite single mothers. This article considers the role of place and policy in alleviating or exacerbating health differences among poor single mothers. I find greater Medicaid spending corresponds with better self-rated health for poor single mothers and find an especially strong positive association between Medicaid spending and health for poor, Black single mothers. Specifically, poor single mothers in states with higher average spending on Medicaid between 1995-2019 are predicted to have higher self-rated health than single mothers in states with lower average Medicaid spending. This variation is associated with considerable spatial inequalities in health, as states that spend the least on Medicaid, per enrollee, also tend to have larger Black populations, further compounding patterns of place-based racial inequalities in health. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:915 |
| By: | Clot, Sophie (EDHEC Business School); Della Giusta, Marina (University of Turin); Dubois, Florent (University of Turin); Razzu, Giovanni (University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | How can cooperation be sustained in socially heterogeneous settings when institutions explicitly emphasize inclusion and diversity? We study this question in four European cities. Participants face a repeated cooperation dilemma framed as an investment in a local urban amenity. We randomly vary whether the project is described as benefiting the general population or explicitly benefiting a locally relevant marginalized group. We find that inclusive framing has no effect on average contribution levels or beliefs about others’ behavior, however, we document substantial heterogeneity. Minority participants and women increase their contributions under inclusive framing, particularly in later stages of the game. Using the strategy method, we classify individuals into cooperative strategy profiles and show that inclusive framing primarily activates equality-oriented behavioural strategies. Analysis of strategy stability further indicates that inclusion reshapes behaviour within existing strategy profiles rather than inducing shifts across them. Overall, our results suggest that inclusive institutional design can preserve collective action while redistributing cooperative effort across identities and behavioural motivations. |
| Keywords: | Institutional framing; Diversity and Inclusion; Common-pool resources; Conditional cooperation; Field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 H41 D91 J14 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18714 |
| By: | Draeger, Christina; Tran, Martino; Mumford, Ben |
| Abstract: | Vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by climate change and face limited adaptive resources, yet remain largely overlooked in regional planning and decision-making. Future population composition and the spatial distribution of vulnerability shape both mitigation strategies, which reduce the magnitude of climate change, and adaptation strategies, which reduce its impacts, with direct implications for policy interventions and planning. This study provides high-resolution (1 km) population projections for Canada until 2100 across age, sex, ethnicity, income, and education under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. Using a novel deep learning–based population dynamics model that simultaneously predicts full population compositions and incorporates macroeconomic, governance, and land surface variables, we examine demographic shifts at national, regional, and local scales. Results reveal substantial variability across scenarios: the proportion of seniors rises most in low-mitigation-challenge scenarios, particularly along lower-emission pathways, while the share of children and youth increases most in scenarios with high mitigation challenges. Ethnic diversity expands when mitigation challenges are low but decreases or stagnates when they are high. Income and education distributions are most sensitive to adaptation challenges, with the strongest polarization of socioeconomic groups into a three-class society and the largest increase in the share of individuals without a diploma occurring when both adaptation and mitigation challenges are high, highlighting the need for high-resolution, disaggregated demographic projections to guide targeted and equitable interventions for vulnerable communities. |
| Date: | 2026–06–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7kszw_v1 |
| By: | Thomas J. Charters; Leanne C. Findlay |
| Abstract: | In 2021, the Canadian federal government committed over $27.2 billion in funding through bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories toward building the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system. Integral to these agreements were investments allocated by provinces and territories toward five foundational pillars of the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework: provision of accessible, affordable, inclusive, flexible and high-quality care. This study uses data from the 2024 Canadian Survey on the Provision of Child Care Services to examine the characteristics of child care centres in Canada during this period of policy reform, with an emphasis on elements of care reflective of the five pillars of the multilateral framework. Results suggest that the proportion of centres offering flexible or non-standard care options was limited, that 15% of centres had expanded their maximum capacity in the previous year to improve accessibility, that nearly three-quarters of centres had accommodations in place to improve inclusivity for children with long-term conditions or disabilities, and that the affordability of child care as indicated by child care fees varied considerably across child age category and jurisdiction. Further analysis contrasted centres that had received specific funding with those that had not. About 7 in 10 centres outside of Quebec reported that they had received funding from Federal-provincial/territorial agreements. These centres were more likely to be larger in terms of staffing and enrolment and were more likely to be not-for-profit. |
| Keywords: | early learning and child care, child care centres, supply, quality, service delivery |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2026–04–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202600400001e |
| By: | Landry Kuate; Amélie Lafrance-Cooke; Jenny Watt |
| Abstract: | This study examines the educational pathways and outcomes of first-generation postsecondary students—students whose parents did not complete postsecondary education (PSE)—relative to non-first-generation students. Using descriptive statistics, this article leverages a unique integrated dataset formed by 2006 Census data and the Postsecondary Student Information System to examine (1) enrolment rates, (2) the graduation and persistence rates per enrolled cohorts from 2010/2011 to 2015/2016, and (3) the students’ time to graduation. The findings suggest a higher enrolment rate (75.08%) for potential non-first-generation individuals, compared with first-generation ones (58.91%). Results also suggest that among those enrolled students, the graduation rate was also higher for non-first-generation postsecondary students (73.66%) compared with first-generation students (68.60%). Furthermore, the persistence rate—the proportion of students in the entry cohort who are still enrolled in the program at the designated graduation threshold time—is 4.30% for non-first-generation postsecondary students, compared with 5.44% for first-generation students. Breaking down the results by selected characteristics, larger differences are observed by education qualifications, sex, student entry age and racialized population group. |
| Keywords: | first-generation students, postsecondary education, educational outcomes, Canada |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2026–02–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202600200004e |