Yu Xie

Bio: Yu Xie is an academic researcher from Princeton University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & China. The author has an hindex of 52, co-authored 180 publications receiving 12934 citations. Previous affiliations of Yu Xie include University of Michigan & University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Cohabitation in China: Trends and Determinants.

Abstract: Using recent, nationally representative data, we examine the prevalence and social determinants of premarital cohabitation, an important sign of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in China. Descriptive results show that although only about 7 percent of Chinese adults born before 1980 cohabited before first marriage, cohabitation has grown sharply among recent birth cohorts. Based on the theoretical perspectives of “ideational change” and “economic development,” we conduct multivariate analyses of social determinants of cohabitation that may reveal potential mechanisms of its diffusion. We find that greater exposure to Western culture, higher educational attainment for men, and more advantaged family background were all positively related to premarital cohabitation. Our results also show the influence of a unique social institution in China, with Communist Party members less likely than their counterparts to cohabit before first marriage. Broadly speaking, the positive association between economic development and local rates of premarital cohabitation suggests the transformative influence of modernization on family systems.

Geographic mobility of scientists: sex differences and family constraints.

Abstract: Women scientists are much more likely than men scientists to be in two-career marriages. This study examines the argument that the higher prevalence of two-career marriages among women scientists presents a significant impediment to their geographic mobility. Three hypotheses are developed and tested. First. scientists in two-career families are less likely to migrate than scientists in one-career families. Second, the effect of two-career marriages on the probability of migration differs with gender; women are affected more negatively. Third, the effect of children on the probability of migration differs with gender; women are affected more negatively. The empirical work uses a data set of doctoral scientists extracted from the 5% Public Use Microdata Sample from the 1990 census. The first two hypotheses are not confirmed by the empirical results. but we find evidence supporting the third. Family constraints on women scientists’ careers generally appear to be weak. but become acute when they have children.

Is American Science in Decline

Abstract: Alarmists argue that the United States urgently needs more and better-trained scientists to compete with the rest of the world. Their critics counter that, far from facing a shortage, we are producing a glut of young scientists with poor employment prospects. Both camps have issued reports in recent years that predict the looming decline of American science. Drawing on their extensive analysis of national data sets, Yu Xie and Alexandra Killewald have welcome news to share: American science is in good health. "Is American Science in Decline?" does reveal areas of concern, namely scientists' low earnings, the increasing competition they face from Asia, and the declining number of doctorates who secure academic positions. But the authors argue that the values inherent in American culture make the country highly conducive to science for the foreseeable future. They do not see globalization as a threat but rather a potential benefit, since it promotes efficiency in science through knowledge-sharing. In an age when other countries are catching up, American science will inevitably become less dominant, even though it is not in decline relative to its own past. As technology continues to change the American economy, better-educated workers with a range of skills will be in demand. So as a matter of policy, the authors urge that science education not be detached from general education.

Interstate migration of the US poverty population: Immigration “pushes” and welfare magnet “pulls”

Abstract: This study evaluates the social and demographic structure of poverty migration during the 1985–90 period based on an analysis of recent census data. Particular attention is given to the roles of two policy-relevant factors that are proposed to be linked to poverty migration. The first of these is the role of immigration from abroad and its effect on the net out-migration of longer-term residents with below-poverty incomes, from States receiving the highest volume of immigrants. Such a response, it is argued, could result from job competition or other economic and social costs associated with immigration. The second involves the poverty population “magnet” effect associated with State welfare benefits (AFDC and Food Stamp payments) which has come under renewed scrutiny in light of the impending reform of the federal welfare program. The impact of both of these factors on interstate poverty migration is evaluated in a broader context that takes cognizance of other sociodemographic subgroups, and State-level attributes that are known to be relevant in explaining internal migration. This research employs an exceptionally rich data base of aggregate migration flows, specially tabulated from the full migration sample of the 1990 US census (based on the “residence 5 years ago” question). It also employs an analysis technique, the nested logit model, which identifies separately the “push” and “pull” effects of immigration, welfare benefits, and other State attributes on the migration process. Our findings are fairly clear. The high volume of immigration to selected US Statesdoes affect a selective out-migration of the poverty population, which is stronger for whites, Blacks and other non-Asian minorities as well as the least-educated. These results are consistent with arguments that internal migrants are responding to labor market competition from similarly educated immigrants. Moreover, we found that the impact of immigration occurs primarily as a “push” rather than a reduced “pull.” In contrast, State welfare benefits exert only minimal effects on the interstate migration of the poverty population—either as “pulls” or “pushes,” although some demographic segments of that population are more prone to respond than others. In addition to these findings, our results reveal the strong impact that a State's racial and ethnic composition exerts in both retaining and attracting migrants of like race and ethnic groups. This suggests the potential for a greater cross-state division in the US poverty population, by race and ethnic status. Data Used: 1990 US census tabulations of full migration (“residence 5 years ago”) sample. Note: Detailed 1990 census statistics on migration of the poverty and nonpoverty populations for individual states can be found in: William H. Frey “Immigration and Internal Migration for US States: 1990 Census Findings by Poverty Status and Race,” Population Studies CenterResearch Report No. 94-320.

Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks

Abstract: Similarity breeds connection. This principle—the homophily principle—structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localize...

Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research

Abstract: It is argued that P-values and the tests based upon them give unsatisfactory results, especially in large samples. It is shown that, in regression, when there are many candidate independent variables, standard variable selection procedures can give very misleading results. Also, by selecting a single model, they ignore model uncertainty and so underestimate the uncertainty about quantities of interest. The Bayesian approach to hypothesis testing, model selection, and accounting for model uncertainty is presented. Implementing this is straightforward through the use of the simple and accurate BIC approximation, and it can be done using the output from standard software. Specific results are presented for most of the types of model commonly used in sociology. It is shown that this approach overcomes the difficulties with P-values and standard model selection procedures based on them. It also allows easy comparison of nonnested models, and permits the quantification of the evidence for a null hypothesis of interest, such as a convergence theory or a hypothesis about societal norms.

A Treatise on the Family

Abstract: A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

Economic growth and income inequality

Abstract: We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline