Significant strides have been made in increasing post-secondary enrollments among high school graduates. In a recent cohort, nearly 90 percent of high-income students enrolled in some type of higher education after high school, as did three-quarters of low-income students. Degree completion is another matter. Only nine percent of youth in the lowest income quartile complete a four-year degree, whereas 77 percent of youth in the highest quartile graduate from college.

About one out of eight households are food insecure each year, with a higher prevalence among households with children. Food insecurity is associated with numerous negative outcomes, including poor nutrition, poor child development, and depression and anxiety. A large literature has examined factors that are associated with food insecurity, but much remains unknown about its causes and consequences. Most experiences of food insecurity are intermittent, with households cycling in and out as they experience events such as job loss, unexpected expenses, or loss of food stamp (SNAP) benefits.

Fatal police shootings (FPS), particularly of unarmed racial minorities, have received sustained political and media attention. Yet major questions of where and when they occur, and why they are so heavily racialized, remain unanswered. There are two significant limitations to scholarship on FPS. First, systematic, high-quality data are lacking. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has only recently instituted a National Use-of-Force data collection effort with data collection set to begin as of January 1, 2019.

Nearly 1.4 million immigrants from El Salvador now live in the U.S. About 200,000 of them are Temporary Protection Status (TPS) holders and 26,000 are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) status beneficiaries. About 465,000 of the total are estimated to be unauthorized.

Inspired by the broken windows theory of crime, many cities adopted zero-tolerance policing that targets minor forms of disorderly behavior. In New York City, such policing has disproportionately affected minority youth. For undocumented and immigrant youth, many of whom are also black and Latino, these police encounters also pose the threat of deportation.

This qualitative interview study will examine the experiences of older immigrants with the social safety net and the implications for their wellbeing and for perceptions of inclusion and belonging in U.S. society. In 2015, Hispanics 65 years old and older made up eight percent of the U.S. elderly population. By 2050, they are expected to account for 19.8 percent of that age group. Little research on immigrant integration has focused on the growing number of older adults.

There is increasing interest in having data that recognize gender diversity by offering non-binary response options on surveys and official data collection. Much attention has focused on “third gender” or “third sex” categories that acknowledge the existence of transgender and intersex people. Several states, including California, now allow non-binary responses on birth certificates and documents such as driver’s licenses. However, simply adding new categories does not address the limitations of conventional approaches to measuring these concepts.

Union jobs provide livable wages and good benefits, including pensions, for those without four-year college degrees. But they have been declining for decades. Now that fewer workers have access to good-paying jobs and benefits, and public benefits are difficult to access, those with union ties may find themselves serving as a private safety net for needy relatives, sharing their resources across households and generations. How do workers balance providing help with satisfying their own economic needs?

Sociologist David Grusky and computer scientist Jure Leskovec will convene a workshop to launch data analysis for the Opportunity Study (OS), a project that combines qualitative, survey, administrative, and experimental approaches to study the lived experiences of people in poverty. OS is based on three premises: (1) that existing quantitative protocols for counting those in poverty tell us relatively little about the day-to-day experience of poverty; (2) that existing qualitative studies do not allow for systematic comparisons across different types

Approximately 70-80 percent of people in jail and prison and 30-50 percent of those on probation or parole have a mental health or substance use disorder, compared to about 10 percent of all adults.