This study uses census microdata from 1960 to 2010 to look at the rates of suburbanization in the 100 largest metro areas. Looking at the racial and ethnic composition of the population, and then further breaking down these groups by income, it's clear that more affluent people were more likely to move to the suburbs. Also, the White non-Hispanic population has long been the most suburbanized group. A majority of the White population lived in suburbs by 1960 in the 100 largest metro areas, while most of the Black non-Hispanic population lived in urban core areas as late as 2000. The Hispanic and Asian populations went from majority urban to majority suburban during this period.
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Metropolitan Segregation: No Breakthrough in Sight
May 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-14
The 2020 Census offers new information on changes in residential segregation in metropolitan regions across the country as they continue to become more diverse. We take a long view, assessing trends since 1980 and extrapolating to the future. These new data mostly reinforce patterns that were observed a decade ago: high but slowly declining black-white segregation, and less intense but hardly changing segregation of Hispanics and Asians from whites. Enough time has passed since the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s to draw this conclusion: segregation will continue to divide Americans well into the 21st Century.
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The Racial and Ethnic Composition of Local Government Employees in Large Metro Areas, 1960-2010
August 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-38
This study uses census microdata from 1960 to 2010 to look at how the racial and ethnic composition of local government employees has reflected the diversity of the general population in the 100 largest metro areas over the last half century. Historically, one route to upward social mobility has been employment in local government. This study uses microdata that predates key immigration and civil rights legislation of the 1960s through to the present to examine changes in the racial and ethnic composition of local government employees and in the general population. For this study, local government employees have been divided into high- and low-wage occupations. These data indicate that local workforces have grown more diverse over time, though representation across different racial and ethnic groups and geographic areas is uneven. African-Americans were underrepresented in high-wage local government employment and overrepresented in low-wage jobs in the early years of this study, particularly in the South, but have since become proportionally represented in high-wage jobs on a national level. In contrast, the most recent data indicate that Hispanic and other races are underrepresented in this employment group, particularly in the West. Though the numbers of Hispanic and Asian high-wage local government employees are increasing, it appears that it will take several years for those groups to achieve proportional representation throughout the United States.
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Poverty Estimates for Places in the United States
September 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-12
This paper first describes some historical poverty trends, overall and for demographic groups and broad locations within the U.S. from an ongoing household survey, and then presents some specific information on poverty for localities by size, from the most recent decennial census (2000). Rural poverty exceeded urban poverty in 1969 and 1979, but urban poverty in 1999 was higher than rural poverty. Non-metropolitan area poverty exceeded metropolitan area poverty in each of the four censuses, but within each of those areas, rural poverty is now less than urban poverty. Within metropolitan areas, poverty is highest for those in central cities. For urbanized areas (50,000 or more population), the poverty rate is lower as the area gets larger, with the exception of the very largest-sized areas. This higher poverty for the largest places is accounted for entirely by the higher poverty rate for the central city or cities in those urban agglomerations, as the poverty rates for the parts of the urbanized areas not in the central place continue to fall as the area itself gets larger. Some of the critical relationships affecting the poverty rate of places appear to be the location of certain types of people - female householders, non-citizens, people of color, and college graduates.
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The Opportunities and Challenges of Linked IRS Administrative and Census Survey Records in the Study of Migration
July 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-06
This paper details efforts to link administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 Census microdata for the study of migration in the United States. Specifically, we (1) document our linkage strategy and methodology for inferring migration in IRS records; (2) model selection into and survival across IRS records to determine suitability for research applications; and (3) gauge the efficacy of the IRS records by demonstrating how they can be used to validate and potentially improve migration responses in ACS microdata. Our results show little evidence of selection or survival bias in the IRS records, suggesting broad generalizability to the nation as a whole. Moreover, we find that the combined IRS 1040, 1099, and W2 records may provide important information on populations that are hard to reach with traditional Census surveys. Finally, while preliminary, the results of our comparison of IRS and ACS migration responses shows that IRS records may be useful in improving ACS migration measurement for respondents whose migration response is proxy, allocated, or imputed. Taking these results together, we discuss the potential applications of our longitudinal IRS dataset to innovations in migration research in the United States.
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Foreign-Born and Native-Born Migration in the U.S.: Evidence from IRS Administrative and Census Survey Records
July 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-07
This paper details efforts to link administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 Census microdata for the study of migration among foreign-born and native-born populations in the United States. Specifically, we (1) document our linkage strategy and methodology for inferring migration in IRS records; (2) model selection into and survival across IRS records to determine suitability for research applications; and (3) gauge the efficacy of the IRS records by demonstrating how they can be used to validate and potentially improve migration responses for native-born and foreign-born respondents in ACS microdata. Our results show little evidence of selection or survival bias in the IRS records, suggesting broad generalizability to the nation as a whole. Moreover, we find that the combined IRS 1040, 1099, and W2 records may provide important information on populations, such as the foreign-born, that may be difficult to reach with traditional Census Bureau surveys. Finally, while preliminary, the results of our comparison of IRS and ACS migration responses shows that IRS records may be useful in improving ACS migration measurement for respondents whose migration response is proxy, allocated, or imputed. Taking these results together, we discuss the potential application of our longitudinal IRS dataset to innovations in migration research on both the native-born and foreign-born populations of the United States.
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Adjusting imperfect data: overview and case studies
November 2004
Working Paper Number:
tp-2004-05
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Optimal Firm Size and the Growth of Conglomerate and Single-Industry Firms
October 1998
Working Paper Number:
CES-98-14
We develop a profit-maximizing neoclassical model of optimal firm size and growth across different industries based on differences in industry fundamentals and firm productivity. The model predicts how conglomerate firms will allocate resources across divisions over the business cycle and how their responses to industry shocks will differ from those of single-segment firms. We test our model and find that growth of conglomerate and single-segment firms is related to fundamental industry factors and individual firm-segment productivity suggested by our simple neoclassical theory. Conglomerates grow less in a particular segment if their other segments are more productive and if their other segments experience a larger positve demand shock. We find that the growth rates of peripheral segments are very sensitive to relative productivity an that conglomerate sharply cut the growth of unproductive peripheral segments. We do find some evidence consistent with agency problems for conglomerate firms that are broken up. However, the majority of conglomerate firms exhibit growth across business segments that is consistent with optimal behavior.
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Who Moves to Mixed-Income Neighborhoods?
August 2010
Working Paper Number:
CES-10-18
This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long Form data, to study the income dispersion of recent cohorts of migrants to mixed-income neighborhoods. If recent in-migrants to mixed-income neighborhoods exhibit high levels of income heterogeneity, this is consistent with stable mixed-income neighborhoods. If, however, mixed-income neighborhoods are comprised of older homogeneous lower-income (higher income) cohorts combined with newer homogeneous higher-income (lower-income) cohorts, this is consistent with neighborhood transition. Our results indicate that neighborhoods with high levels of income dispersion do in fact attract a much more heterogeneous set of in-migrants, particularly from the tails of the income distribution, but that income heterogeneity does tend to erode over time. Our results also suggest that the residents of mixed-income neighborhoods may be less heterogeneous with respect to lifetime income.
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Who Gentrifies Low Income Neighborhoods?
January 2008
Working Paper Number:
CES-08-02
This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long- Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990's. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification.
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Changes in Metropolitan Area Definition, 1910-2010
February 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-04
The Census Bureau was established as a permanent agency in 1902, as industrialization and urbanization were bringing about rapid changes in American society. The years following the establishment of a permanent Census Bureau saw the first attempts at devising statistical geography for tabulating statistics for large cities and their environs. These efforts faced several challenges owing to the variation in settlement patterns, political organization, and rates of growth across the United States. The 1910 census proved to be a watershed, as the Census Bureau offered a definition of urban places, established the first census tract boundaries for tabulating data within cities, and introduced the first standardized metropolitan area definition. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century, however, the Census Bureau in association with other statistical agencies had established a flexible standard metropolitan definition and a more consistent means of tabulating urban data. Since 1950, the rules for determining the cores and extent of metropolitan areas have been largely regarded as comparable. In the decades that followed, however, a number of rule changes were put into place that accounted for metropolitan complexity in differing ways, and these have been the cause of some confusion. Changes put into effect with the 2000 census represent a consensus of sorts for how to handle these issues.
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