College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item CHRONIC SUFFERING: CHRONIC ILLNESS, DISABILITY, AND VIOLENCE AMONG MEXICAN MIGRANT WOMEN(2022) Guevara, Emilia Mercedes; Getrich, Christina M; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation seeks to better understand how Mexican migrant women who work in the Maryland crab industry make sense of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma, and musculoskeletal pain while at the same time living spatially and temporally complicated lives as circular temporary migrant laborers. I explore how immigration and labor policies and practices, constrained and conditional access to resources and care, and exposure to multiple forms of violence structure their chronic illness experiences and entanglements of biological and social processes that intersect. Together, these embodied biological and social processes coalesce into what I describe as problemas crónica-gendered “chronic problems” – and other disruptions that migrant women endure across time and transnational space. I describe how problemas crónicas manifest themselves throughout the lives and migratory careers of Mexican migrant women and how they grapple with obstacles as they seek care, renegotiate their identities, and re/build their lives.Item CONTEXTUALIZING DRIVERS AND OUTCOMES OF RURAL-TO-URBAN MIGRATION: LESSONS FROM MOZAMBIQUE(2021) Anderson, Kelly Jean; Silva, Julie A; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Migration is a critical strategy for households negotiating environmental risk, yet the extent to which it represents an adaptation remains poorly understood. This dissertation research investigates the relationship between migration and climate change vulnerability using examples from two rural-to-urban migrant communities located in the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique. In order to understand the extent to which adverse weather influences migration decision-making and the vulnerability to climate change experienced by migrants relative to non-migrants, perceptions and lived experiences of adverse weather are explored. Over 2,500 households were mapped from which semi-structured interviews and surveys were conducted with a random sample of migrant (n=79) and non-migrant (n=79) households. Content analysis and descriptive statistics reveal (1) the weather’s influence on rural-to-urban migration falls on a spectrum of attribution, (2) most migrants relocate in response to the impoverishing effects of weather, (3) migrants and non-migrants experience comparable levels of environmental vulnerability in urban settings, and (4) neighborhood characteristics are significant in shaping experiences of urban flood vulnerability. Results indicate that people prefer in situ adaptation regardless of extreme weather, provided resilient economic livelihoods exist and government is held accountable. Decolonizing research methodologies offer a promising path forward to better understand the needs of those vulnerable to climate change and facilitate adaptation to climate change.Item MULTICULTURAL POLITICS AND NATIONAL BOUNDARY MAKING IN KOREA: Mapping the intersectional dimensions of nation, gender, class, and ethnicity in state policy and practice(2019) Yu, Sojin; Marsh, Kris; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the conception and implementation of state multicultural policy to analyze how migrants are received and incorporated within South Korea, a newly emergent migrant receiving country in Asia. To this end, I conducted ethnographic research at two Centers established to enact governmental multicultural policy, focusing on the separate accounts and experiences of ground-level policy practitioners (Koreans) and targeted recipients (migrants) in relation to the policy implementation and its ‘real world’ effects. The results show the varied and conflicting perspectives of those involved, and how they are informed by the intersecting social constructs of nation, ethnicity, gender, family, and class. These intersectional workings and effects also contribute to the unequal social relations between Koreans and migrants, especially in shaping a particular national form of ‘racism’ against migrants, and helping to maintain the previously unchallenged formation of national identity in Korea. Three thematically arranged analysis chapters discuss specifically how these social processes serve to form and naturalize social hierarchies and powers in Korea, with each chapter examining a specific intersectional circumstance: The intersection of gender inequality and nationalism; the intersection of class and nation(ality); and, the emphasis of joint Korean nationality and ethnicity in the multicultural policy. Each chapter illustrates the predominance of nationalism, as the critical mechanism and rationale behind Korea’s contested multicultural politics, and the central axis to connect with other dimensions of power including gender, class, and ethnicity. The combined research outcomes reveal the complex ways in which the inter-group relations and hierarchies are organized, through the state policy, bureaucratic practice and individual agency.Item ESSAYS ON DISPLACED WORKERS AND RESIDENTIAL MIGRATION(2016) Ueda, Ken Masahiro; Hellerstein, Judith; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I explore how workers’ human capital, local industry composition, and business cycles affect employment outcomes and residential migration for job losers and other workers. I first examine whether the poor employment outcomes of job losers are due to a lack of jobs that require their human capital within their local labor market. I answer this question by analyzing the extent to which the industry composition in the job loser’s local labor market affects employment outcomes when job loss occurs during expansions and during recessions. I find that if job losers reside in an area with a high employment concentration of their original industry of employment, they are 2.1-2.8 percent more likely to be re-employed at another job if job loss occurs during an expansion; I find an insignificant relationship in most specifications when job loss occurs during a recession, and in some specifications I even find a negative relationship between industry concentration and employment. I conclude that the industry composition within an area matters for job losers, since firms are more willing to hire workers from within their own industry, as these workers have more relevant accumulated human capital. However, firms are less likely to hire during a recession, making job losers’ human capital less important for job finding. Next, Erika McEntarfer, Henry Hyatt, and I examine whether the business cycle affects earnings changes for job losers, and the factors that explain these differences across time. We find that job losers who lost their job during the Great Recession have earnings changes that are 10 percent more negative relative to other job losers from other periods. This result is driven primarily by longer nonemployment lengths and worse subsequent job matches. Finally, Erika McEntarfer, Henry Hyatt, Alexandria Zhang, and I explore the extent to which residential migration is driven by job opportunities. We use four databases and find that changes in job moves explain some of the changes in residential migration, but the relationship is not as strong as previously documented. We find that migration patterns differ across databases, with some databases documenting steeper declines and more cyclicality.Item Studying the Causes and Consequences of Internal Labor Migration Using Survey and Administrative Data Sources(2016) Goetz, Christopher F.; Haltiwanger, John; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation comprises three chapters. The first chapter motivates the use of a novel data set combining survey and administrative sources for the study of internal labor migration. By following a sample of individuals from the American Community Survey (ACS) across their employment outcomes over time according to the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) database, I construct a measure of geographic labor mobility that allows me to exploit information about individuals prior to their move. This enables me to explore aspects of the migration decision, such as homeownership and employment status, in ways that have not previously been possible. In the second chapter, I use this data set to test the theory that falling home prices affect a worker’s propensity to take a job in a different metropolitan area from where he is currently located. Employing a within-CBSA and time estimation that compares homeowners to renters in their propensities to relocate for jobs, I find that homeowners who have experienced declines in the nominal value of their homes are approximately 12% less likely than average to take a new job in a location outside of the metropolitan area where they currently reside. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that housing lock-in has contributed to the decline in labor mobility of homeowners during the recent housing bust. The third chapter focuses on a sample of unemployed workers in the same data set, in order to compare the unemployment durations of those who find subsequent employment by relocating to a new metropolitan area, versus those who find employment in their original location. Using an instrumental variables strategy to address the endogeneity of the migration decision, I find that out-migrating for a new job significantly reduces the time to re-employment. These results stand in contrast to OLS estimates, which suggest that those who move have longer unemployment durations. This implies that those who migrate for jobs in the data may be particularly disadvantaged in their ability to find employment, and thus have strong short-term incentives to relocate.Item Essays on Migration and Agricultural Development(2011) Gonzalez Velosa, Carolina; Lafortune, Jeanne; Hellerstein, Judith K; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The economic consequences of international migration have spurred vigorous debates among policy makers. There also are discussions within the economics literature, with labor economists disagreeing on whether immigration is beneficial for host economies and development economists having dissenting views about the impact of emigration and remittances on source countries. In this dissertation I make a contribution to both academic debates. The two empirical studies in the dissertation are motivated by a core result of the Hecksher-Olin theory which states that open economies can absorb factor supply shocks by adapting their technology and output mix, thereby attenuating the effects of the shocks on factor prices. I investigate if local agricultural economies adapted their crop and technology mix in response to migration-induced changes in the availability of factors. In order to identify the causal effects of migration-induced shocks on agriculture, an empirical strategy that combines regional-level fixed effects with instrumental variables is used. The instruments are constructed exploiting within-country variation in the historic location choices of migrants as well as arguably exogenous national shocks to migration. In the second chapter I investigate the question in the context of a migrant sending economy, the Philippines, and derive causal province-level estimates of the effects of emigration and remittance flows on measures of the size of agriculture and the use of capital-intensive farming practices. I also estimate the effects on the adoption of risk-coping mechanisms since remittances may play an insurance role. I provide evidence that remittances have transformed farming practices, increasing the degree of specialization, the production of high value commercial crops and the adoption of mechanized farming. These effects seem to be driven by an increase in the availability of working capital and the provision of insurance. In contrast, I find no evidence that emigration has an impact on farming practices, something that can be explained by the absence of hiring constraints and the existence of a highly elastic labor supply. Overall, the findings suggest that, to the extent that agricultural production in most developing countries is limited by insurance and capital constraints and not by labor shortages, remittances can be a source of insurance and investment finance that fosters agricultural development. The third chapter is a study of adjustments to immigration-induced changes in labor supply in a host economy, written in collaboration with Jeanne Lafortune and Jose Tessada. In contrast to the Philippines' study, we find an impact of early 20th century labor supply shocks on agricultural practices in the United States, something that can be explained by the fact that the US, as opposed to the Philippines, is a land-abundant country. We find that an immigration-induced increase in farm labor led to changes in crop choice and in several measures of production organization such as farm size, tenancy and use of tractors and animal traction. We also study effects on input mix and land and capital productivity which, according to a simple theoretical framework, will provide insights about the wage effects of immigration. Overall, our results suggest that even though the US agricultural sector adapted to an increase in labor supply through output and technological adjustments, such adjustments were insufficient to mitigate the wage effects of immigration.Item Transforming Espacios Culturales into Cultural Spaces: How the Salvadoran Community is Establishing Evangelical Protestan Churches as Transtional Institutions in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area(2008-12-04) Luna, Ronald W; Geores, Martha; Townshend, John; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Transnationalism is a theoretical concept that explains the current migration patterns that are in stark contrast to the prevailing theories of Acculturation and Assimilation. Migration can no longer be described as a linear process. Transnational "migrants" have a foot in both worlds. No matter where their legal citizenship lies, they have a dual social citizenship. Transnationalism is used not just to identify how immigrants maintain their culture in the host country but just as importantly, how they establish and maintain social and economic linkages between both countries. Transnationalism lacks a cohesive definition and a way to test whether it is present. The Salvadoran Evangelical Protestant Churches in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area serves as case study to examine how the transnationalism process occurs. Key findings include understanding first how transnational communities are established in the host country, as well as how transnational institutions such as Salvadoran Evangelical Protestant Churches began their process of transnationalism in the home country. Furthermore, the Salvadoran Evangelical Protestant Churches reflect and parallel the overall transnational Salvadoran historical and demographic trends. In addition, Salvadoran Evangelical Protestant Churches reinforce the process of transnationalism in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area through memory, ethnic identity, transmigration, networks, and cultural space. It is important to understand that ethnic churches are a major facilitator of transnationalism in the host country; however, there are many other transnational institutions that reinforce the process of transnationalism. This study examines independently each element, which contributes to the process of transnationalism: memory, ethnic identity, transmigration, networks, and cultural space. The research concludes by redefining transnationalism as the process that by which transmigrants create economic, political, social, or cultural networks by participating directly or indirectly in transmigration. Furthermore, transnationalism refers to the process by which migrants become transnational agents when they create linkages at various scales, over time, and across space between the host and home countries and vice versa.