This paper uses March Current Population Survey data from 1985 to 2004 to explore whether social policy reforms implemented throughout the 1990s have different impacts on employment and welfare use depending on economic conditions, a topic with important policy implications but which has received little attention from researchers. I find evidence…

This report describes the demographic and educational characteristics of the U.S. immigrant population and discusses barriers faced by legal immigrants seeking to enroll in postsecondary education. The report focuses on older immigrants, who confront significant challenges in understanding and gaining access to the U.S. system of higher education…

This paper reviews the recent literature on the demographic and social aspects of immigrant adaptation. Demographic information includes age and family structure, fertility behavior, intermarriage, and residential segregation. Social dimensions refer to native-language retention, English-language acquisition, and educational attainment. Most…

Public and private provision of vocational education and training (or Further Education and Training in the South African usage) exist in a relationship with each other but are rarely considered together. An analysis is provided of recent quantitative evidence on both sectors in South Africa in order to advance the case for further policy and…

The Department of Defense (DoD) is committed to meeting the need for child care among military families. DoD supports the largest employer-sponsored system of high-quality child care in the country. Through accredited child development centers (CDCs), family child care (FCC) homes, youth centers, and other after-school programs, DoD currently…

The millennium marks the beginning of a second century for the formal system of juvenile justice in the United States. From its inception, the central focus of the system has been delinquency, an amorphous construct that includes not only "criminal" behavior but also an array of youthful actions that offend prevailing social norms. Thus,…

This analysis exploits the variation across states in the timing of policy implementation to determine if family cap policies lead to a reduction in births to women aged 15 to 34. Vital statistics birth data for the years 1989 to 1998 offer no such evidence. The data reject a decline in births of more than one percent. The finding is robust to…

Argues that, since at least 1969, the Census Bureau, under pressure from political special interest groups, has misrepresented the "racial" character of the U.S. population and has misplaced 6 to 8 million persons of Native American ancestry into a scientifically useless "Hispanic/Spanish" category. Contains approximately 45…

The growing Latino presence in the United States underscores the need to address Latino poverty, previously overlooked in public policy discussions. Latinos are the fastest growing U.S. minority group, and Latino poverty is also rising. In 1990, one in every four Latinos was poor, and 40 percent of Latino children lived in poverty. Latino poverty…

The research in this paper was motivated by continuing Soviet claims that the country's language problems have been solved. First, the nature of Soviet nationality policy is reviewed, and then available evidence and the question of linguistic and cultural assimilation of the non-ethnic Russian minorities through Russian language and culture are…

Over the past 20 years, California has experienced a continuous, growing flow of Mexican immigrant laborers. Although Mexican labor was originally linked to agriculture, by 1980 Mexican-born labor was filling a substantial proportion of jobs in all sectors of the California economy, particularly in manufacturing. Because they are concentrated in…

This report examines the social indicators available for monitoring the situation of children and families in the United States. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the indicators for facilitating an informed public and private debate, and it recommends ways in which social indicators can be improved and supplemented to contribute more…

This study examined academic growth of high school age Hispanics as compared with that of non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks. It explored the following issues: (1) academic growth between the sophomore and senior years; (2) the courses the students take while in high school; and (3) the relationship of schooling and student characteristics to academic…

Canada's policy of increasing support for university research on the condition that the private sector also contribute, and the policy's results, are discussed. Trends in the awarding of federal grants and the national priorities in research directions are outlined. (MSE)

Examines the need to reconsider spatial conceptualizations and categories such as urban-rural and core-periphery in light of two recent trends: migration out of cities and the geographic redistribution of economic activities. Suggests that these trends and related policy issues would be better articulated in a regional or local economy framework.…