We apply methods of exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and spatial regression analysis to examine intercounty variation in child poverty rates in the US. Such spatial analyses are important because regression models that exclude explicit specification of spatial effects, when they exist, can lead to inaccurate inferences about predictor variables. Using county-level data for 1990, we re-examine earlier published results [Friedman and Lichter (Popul Res Policy Rev 17:91–109, 1998)]. We find that formal tests for spatial autocorrelation among county child poverty rates confirm and quantify what is obvious from simple maps of such rates: the risk of a child living in poverty is not (spatially) a randomly distributed risk at the county level. Explicit acknowledgment of spatial effects in an explanatory regression model improves considerably the earlier published regression results, which did not take account of spatial autocorrelation. These improvements include: (1) the shifting of “wrong sign” parameters in the direction originally hypothesized by the authors, (2) a reduction of residual squared error, and (3) the elimination of any substantive residual spatial autocorrelation. While not without its own problems and some remaining ambiguities, this reanalysis is a convincing demonstration of the need for demographers and other social scientists to examine spatial autocorrelation in their data and to explicitly correct for spatial externalities, if indicated, when performing multiple regression analyses on variables that are spatially referenced. Substantively, the analysis improves the estimates of the joint effects of place-influences and family-influences on child poverty. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006Child poverty, Exploratory spatial data analysis, Spatial error models, Spatial lag models, Spatial regression,

The idea of a long and stable career rewarded by retirement is a fixture of the American social ethos and political economy. The paradox is that many Americans' careers do not fit this image. Here, we examined how the structure of the career, as compared to only those circumstances proximate to retirement, is important for understanding career endings. Based on labor force histories drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, we observed that the occupational roles held through the mid and late career combine additively to influence retirement and disability experiences, with different conditions of work coming into play depending on the career stage. Occupational roles in the mid career also have long-term, indirect effects, operating through the onset of health problems and the adequacy of pension benefits. Although retirement and disability are not hinged to occupational mobility per se, these career endings are sensitive to major discontinuities in the career and work role in terms of unemployment and labor force mobility.

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In this paper we use a data set created especially for New York City to evaluate whether the locational attainment of households with children, as indicated by the context of the neighborhoods in which they live, varies by their immigrant status. In addition, we evaluate whether the relationship between immigrant status and neighborhood conditions varies by the householder's race/ethnicity. Overall, when compared with native-born households with children, immigrant households with children live in neighborhoods of lower quality, characterized by higher teenage fertility rates and higher percentages of students in local schools scoring below grade level in math and of persons receiving AFDC, but lower rates of juvenile detention. Further analyses, however, revealed that race/ethnicity is far more potent than immigrant status per se in predicting where households with children live.

The purpose of this essay is to present a new database and index for urban immigrant destinations and contrast it with existing rankings of world cities. Most world city rankings privilege economic measurements, ignoring immigration as an important component of world city formation. We argue that immigration is a powerful example of 'globalization from below' and needs to be integrated into our understanding of global city dynamics. By linking global cities and immigration, this research highlights those cities that are experiencing dramatic socio-cultural changes brought about by large and often diverse streams of immigrants.With the systematic assessment of urban immigrant destinations, cities that are often ignored in the global cities literature (such as Dubai or Tel Aviv) may invite more scholarly attention. Our research also demonstrates that many global cities are largely bypassed by immigrants. Thus, the value of ranking urban immigrant destinations lies in revealing a range of urban outcomes from the hyper diversity of London to the largely bypassed nature of Tokyo. Since a systematic study of the world's urban immigrant destinations does not exist, this study begins to fill the empirical void and in the process we hope to generate new ways of conceptualizing socio-cultural change in global cities.In cities around the world, unprecedented levels of global immigration challenge us to assess how and where immigrants are influencing the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions of cities. This huge task is beyond any one scholar or research team but will best be carried out by a number of detailed urban case studies (for example see Ley and Murphy, 2001; Anisef and Lanphier, 2003;Stepick et al. , 2003; Price et al. , 2005). The goal of this research is to expand the range of criteria used to assess the 'globalness' of cities, to inspire others to include immigration in world cities research, and to call attention to cities experiencing dramatic social and demographic change due to immigration.It is impossible to understand the processes of globalization without studying cities, since they are the central locale for globalization. Urban geographers and sociologists, among others, have attempted to give meaning and coherence to the rapid and dramatic changes to cities in the past 30 years (for example, Hall, 1984;Sassen, 1991; Knox and Taylor, 1995;Clark, 1996; Short and Kim, 1999;Nijman, 2000;Robinson, 2002;Samers, 2002). There appears to be consensus that cities and the dynamics of urbanization have been changed by the intensification of global processes. The most important cities -the command and control centers for economic, political or cultural globalization -are called world cities. World cities have been defined as: major sites for the accumulation of capital; command points in the world economy; headquarters for corporations; important hubs of global transportation and communication; intensified

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of the Equal Rights Center, who also made contributions to the design of the project.A panel of expert advisers made valuable contributions to the understanding of the housing issues faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and of the e-mail testing approach. We express special thanks to Gregory M. Herek, Jim McCarthy, Robert Schwemm, and Gregory D. Squires; as well as Lee Badgett, Roger Doughty, Kate Kendall, Jerry Malitz, Justin Nelson, Terry Stone, and Laura Young.We also thank Jennifer A. Stoloff, the project's Government Technical Representative from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, for providing significant guidance and support at all stages.We offer special thanks to Louisa Elfman of M. Davis and Company, Inc., for managing the packaging of the report.The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. government. List of Tables List of Figures Executive SummaryThis is the first large-scale, paired-testing study to assess housing discrimination against same-sex couples in metropolitan rental markets via advertisements on the Internet. The research is based on 6,833 e-mail correspondence tests conducted in 50 metropolitan markets across the United States from June through October 2011. For each correspondence test, two e-mails were sent to the housing provider, each inquiring about the availability of the unit advertised on the Internet. The only difference between the two e-mails was the sexual orientation of the couple making the inquiry. Two sets of correspondence tests were conducted, one assessing the treatment of gay male couples relative to heterosexual couples and one assessing the treatment of lesbian couples relative to heterosexual couples. This methodology provides the first direct evidence of discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples compared with the treatment of heterosexual couples when searching for rental housing advertised on the Internet in the United States.The study finds that same-sex couples experience less favorable treatment than heterosexual couples in the online rental housing market. The primary form of adverse treatment is that same-sex couples receive significantly fewer responses to e-mail inquiries about advertised units than heterosexual couples. Study results in jurisdictions with state-level protections against housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation unexpectedly show slightly more adverse treatment of same-sex couples than results in jurisdictions without such protections. This study provides an important initial observation of discrimination based on sexual orientation at the threshold stage of the rental transaction and is a point of departure for future research on housing discrimination against same-sex couples. BackgroundFederal fair housing laws, seeking to ensure equal access to housing, prohibit housing discrimination based on race...