Co-Morbidity and Other Complexities Affecting Black Women’s Health

This paper presents some of the major health concerns that affect black women, and examines how various individual health problems co-exist and coincide to create complex health concerns for women. It posits the idea that to effectively address a Black woman’s health, her mental, emotional, social, economic and even spiritual health must be considered as well as her physical condition. The paper focuses largely on the information from individual health-related research presentations at “The Invisible Woman” conference held at Bennett College in March 18–19, 2011 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this event, scholars presented new research on HIV, obesity and mental health—three areas of critical concern for African–American women—examining ways in which these conditions affect Black women. The paper also addresses the role of health care access and policy in addressing these and other health concerns among women and within the black community. The review of the literature highlights the importance of examining health—perhaps especially Black women’s health—from social, cultural, behavioral, environmental and economic perspectives. It also points out the continued need for research that includes women and people of color.     

Black women who head families: An economic struggle

Black families headed by women have much lower incomes and higher poverty rates than almost any other type of family. They are disproportionately dependent on welfare and are less likely to receive support from absent fathers. This is a very serious problem for the black community because of the increasing proportion of black families headed by women alone. This article outlines the dimensions of the economic problem and reviews the likely impact of recent policy changes on these families.     

Does Ethnicity Matter for Access to Childhoodand Adolescent Health Capital in China? Evidence from the Wage-Height Relationship in the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey

This paper considers whether ethnicity conditions the return and access to health capital in China. Given that the wage-height relationship reflects the labor market earnings returns to childhood and adolescent health capital, differences in the labor market returns to height by ethnicity reflect ethnic differences in access to health capital during childhood and adolescence. We theoretically motivate the role of height in earnings by providing a Bioeconomic rationale for stature and height determining individual wages, and estimate height-augmented Mincerian earnings functions with data from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey. Our results show that when the effects of unobserved genetic influences on adult height are accounted for, the labor market return on height is higher for Chinese ethnics. This suggests that in China there are ethnic disparities in access to the inputs that produce childhood and adolescent health capital.     

General health conditions and medical insurance issues concerning black women

In the last 30 years the health status of black women has improved. However, the likelihood of health problems from complications of pregnancy and childbirth or prolonged illness from combined effects of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity remains. The need for continuity of care for these conditions and the low economic status of black women suggest that current policy shifts away from emphasis on increased access to medical care will adversely affect the health status of black women. Policies to contain health-care costs should therefore be designed to assure appropriate access to needed care for black women and other low-income groups.     

Introduction to Articles on Black Women and Work

Black women are one of the hardest working groups in the country. However, hard work is not always properly rewarded. The existence of wage inequities based on race has been shown to exist (Darity The Journal of Human Resources XVII: 72–91 1982), and black women have not been exempt from its implications. In addition, African American women still experience higher unemployment levels than their white female counterparts. In papers examining black women in the nursing profession, their income and earnings volatility, and inequities in their employment, Richard McGregory, Bradley Hardy, and Linda Loubert provide an overview of where black women stand in the U.S. labor market with respect to work and earnings. While these pieces show that African American women have made significant inroads into the American labor market there is still further to go.     

Employment implications of a changing health-care system

The American health-care system has undergone rapid growth and structural change over the past 20 years. Because of the increase in expenditures flowing into the system, total employment in the industry has increased significantly. Along with total employment, the employment of black women has also grown. Unfortunately, however, black women continue to be concentrated in the lowest paying of the health occupations. Efforts to improve the occupational distribution of blacks in general and black women in particular are going to be more difficult in the future because of the dominance of cost containment as the nations primary health policy goal.     

The economic interests of black and white women: Are they similar?

Are the economic interests of black and white women similar? This article explores this question by reviewing data on the “feminization of poverty,” data on changes in the economic status of blacks, and differences in the occupational status of black and white women. The article reviews several policy questions, discusses ways in which the interests of black and white women differ in the policy arena, and concludes that although there are some similarities in the interests of black and white women, the racial interests of black women suggest that the interests of black and white women may frequently differ.     

The Effect of Nativity, Ethnicity and Race on the Earnings of Cape Verdean Americans

This paper estimates the net effects of nativity, ethnicity and race on the earnings of Cape Verdean Americans, a small, Afro-European group who speak a Portuguese-based Creole. While in their homeland, most Cape Verdeans identify as mestiço, but in America they are usually perceived as black. The data come from the 2000 US Census and the American Community Survey (2000–2007); Native Born Non-Hispanic Whites and African Americans serve as benchmarks. The results show that, controlling for pre-migration education, foreign birth is not a handicap; indeed, for women it is an advantage. Ethnicity too is never a handicap and occasionally an advantage. Race, on the other hand, penalizes males. Native born Cape Verdean men who identify as “Other”, “Black Other” or “Black” earn significantly less than NBNH Whites. On the other hand, regardless of racial identity, Native born Cape Verdean women earn at least as much as NBNH Whites. Finally, one subgroup of native born Cape Verdean men and women, those who identify racially as “Black”, earn slightly more than African Americans.     

Arrival Cohort, Assimilation, and the Earnings of Caribbean Women in the United States

Utilizing data on U.S.-born and Caribbean-born black women from the 1980–2000 U.S. Censuses and the 2000–2007 waves of the American Community Survey, I document the impact of cohort of arrival, tenure of U.S. residence, and country/region of birth on the earnings and earnings assimilation of black women born in the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. I also test whether selective migration accounts for earnings differences between U.S.-born and Caribbean-born black women in the United States. I show that almost all arrival cohorts of Caribbean women earn less than U.S.-born black women when they first arrive in the United States. However, over time the earnings of early arrival cohorts from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean are projected to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born black women. Indeed, this crossover is most pronounced for women from the English-speaking Caribbean. In models that account for selective migration by comparing the earnings of Caribbean women to U.S.-born black women who have moved across states since birth, I show that more time is required for early arrival cohorts from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born black internal migrants. Women from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean do not seem to experience earnings growth as their tenure of U.S. residence increases. In summary, the findings suggest that selective migration is an important determinant of earnings differences between U.S.-born black women and black women from the Caribbean.     

Educational Attainment,Citizenship, and Black American Women in Elected and Appointed National Leadership Positions

This article examines the issue of American citizenship and how it is related to Black Americans, especially from the perspectives of educational attainment and national political leadership positions (focusing on the U.S. Senate, office of governor, and the U.S. Supreme Court). The article presents seven interrelated conceptual or theoretical perspectives of American citizenship (Three Citizenships; Gender; Equality; Race; Belonging; Military Service; and Protestant Christianity), and where Black Americans (especially Black women) fit in them. The article claims that while Black American women have made substantial progress in college degree attainment, they have done so at a very high financial cost. The article claims that compared with other groups in the society, the gains in educational attainment made by Black American women have not resulted in them being elected or selected to these national leadership positions. Among the factors presented for this exclusion of Black women are: lack of strong support from Black American male leaders and institutional support; ambition; first occupy public office within the states of the Union; they must become moderate politicians; perception that Black women have more privileges in the society than Black men and other groups; and negative media portrayal of Black female candidates. The article claims that despite being one of the oldest and most native groups in the United States, with over nine out of every 10 of them being native-born citizens, Black American women in particular tend to have the characteristics of non-citizens.     

Substantive Black Political Representation: Evidence from Matching Estimates in the United States House of Representatives

I seek to determine whether race is a factor in how black representatives vote in the United States House of Representatives; if so, this suggests electing more black representatives may improve the economic and political position of blacks if policy positions taken by black representatives on bills that fail to pass would provide tangible positive impacts to members of the black community if passed. Confounding the impact of legislator race, districts represented by blacks on average are quite different than those represented by whites. While past research on this topic uses linear regression techniques with undesirable properties, I improve on past research using matching techniques with more desirable properties. Utilizing a combination of Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, within-caliper matching, and exact matching using data from the 100th–113th Congress, I show black representatives are more likely to vote in agreement with the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus on all votes and on Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Americans for Democratic Action, and Congressional Quarterly key votes, indicating a substantive racial impact on roll-call voting.     

What explains the missing girls in nineteenth-century Spain?

Infant and childhood sex ratios in nineteenth-century Spain were abnormally high, thus pointing to some sort of unexplained excess female mortality. This article analyses internal regional variation and shows that certain economic and social factors mitigated gender discrimination against newborn and/or young girls. In particular, the presence of wage labour opportunities for women and the prevalence of extended families in which different generations of women cohabited had beneficial effects on girls’ survival. Likewise, infant and child sex ratios were lower in dense, more urbanized areas.     

The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.     

African American Women Voters: Review Article

This article reviews a book written by Lisa Nikol Nealy entitled: African American Women Voters: Racializing Religiosity, Political Consciousness and Progressive Political Action in U.S. Presidential Elections from 1964 Through 2008 (2009). I extracted the following themes from the book: (1) the importance and influence of the Black church or religious organizations and their leaders on the level of political participation of African Americans, especially Black women in the United States; (2) that Black and White gentile European Americans are experiencing two racial religiosities, which is reflected in the voting booth during national elections; (3) that relative to their Black male counterparts and members of other racial groups, Black women have made enormous contributions to U.S. politics especially in voting trends from the 1960s to present; and (4) there continues to be a serious division between Black and White American females, a division which is rooted in religious and racial histories of the two groups.     

Trends in Job Quality for African-American Workers, 1979–2011

Economists expect that increases in education and work experience will increase workers’ productivity and translate into higher compensation. We use data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that over the past four decades, the “human capital” of the employed black workforce has increased enormously, yet the share of black workers in a “good job” --one that pays at least $19 per hour (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars), has employer-provided health insurance, and an employer-sponsored retirement plan-- has actually declined. The CPS data show that black women saw a modest increase in access to “good jobs,” but the share of black men in good jobs decreased. Despite improvements for black women, they were consistently less likely to be in a good job than black men in every year in our sample. Black workers at every age and education level were also less likely to be in a good job in 2011 than they were in 1979.     

Forced Intercourse,Mental Health,and Human Capital

Previous studies have found evidence that experiencing a traumatic event during childhood or adolescence can interfere with the acquisition of human capital. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the effects of being the victim of forced intercourse on the mental health, academic performance, and educational attainment of young women paying careful attention to the role of unobservables at the individual, family, and community levels. Our results suggest that forced intercourse is strongly related to depression. Moreover, there is evidence that the psychological damage caused by forced intercourse leads to reduced academic performance and educational attainment.     

Early poverty exposure predicts young adult educational outcomes in China

Comparative research suggests that poverty in childhood, and especially in the early years, impedes educational attainment. With longitudinal data from China, we estimate hazard models of dropping out of school in young adulthood with two dynamic measures of childhood poverty: poverty spell indicators that distinguish poverty in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence, and poverty indices that measure the depth of poverty and distinguish chronic from transient poverty.Four main results emerge: 1) Children who experience spells in poverty leave school at a higher rate than others, even adjusting for poverty in later periods; 2) Transient poverty is more widespread, and shows a greater negative association with school-leaving, than chronic poverty; 3) Early childhood poverty shows greater negative associations with education outcomes than poverty in later periods; and 4) Girls may be more susceptible than boys to early poverty. We further test two possible mechanisms of impact: early nutrition poverty and school fees. While lower protein intake at an early stage of life is related to poorer educational outcomes in young adulthood, adjusting for nutritional deprivation does not attenuate the associations of early transient income poverty. Results do not suggest that cohorts that experienced school-fee abolishment policies experienced different poverty effects than other cohorts.     

The origin,birth, and adolescence of the review of black political economy and the black economic research center

The Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE) and the Black Economic Research Center (BERC) arose from the atmosphere of the late sixties, when black nationalism was at its apex and vigorous efforts were under way to give meaning to the concepts of “black economic development” and “black capitalism.” They were created as vehicles to assist black economists and economic activists to analyze and disseminate relevant data on black economic affairs and to explore and facilitate new approaches to black economic problems.RBPE offered black economists a place where they could publish their work and share it with their colleagues. The flavor ofRBPE has changed somewhat over its twenty-three year life, becoming less polemical and more scholarly.