Manufacturing jobs in the United States were widely considered to provide an important opportunity for less-educated workers to climb the U.S. economic ladder by offering high pay and stable careers. Research shows that the decline in manufacturing jobs since the 1970s coincided with a decline in upward mobility: Children born in the 1980s are less likely to grow up to earn as much as their parents than children born in the 1950s were, particularly in the post-industrial heartland. This project examines how increases in high-wage manufacturing work opportunity affected individual opportunity following the industrial mobilization for World War II. Garin and Rothbaum will exploit the fact that the siting of new plants was based on idiosyncratic short-run strategic considerations, leading to the construction of massive new publicly financed manufacturing plants in places that would not have been chosen by private firms. This historical dynamic gives rise to an ideal laboratory for studying how public investments that create high-wage employment impact upward mobility in the long run. The authors have digitized data on the locations of World War II manufacturing facilities using the War Production Board data books. Focusing on children who grew up in those areas in the 1940s, the two researchers will then trace those individuals’ income trajectories using the later-20th century Current Population Survey data linked to Social Security Administration-based income histories to examine mobility rates.

This project will build on the relatively thin body of work on informal, home-based child care providers in the United States. It aims to better understand how that community can be supported in meeting societal priorities around increasing affordable access to high-quality early childhood care. Home-based care providers deliver essential care services but occupy a structurally challenging position. These providers are poorly compensated and face challenges when it comes to meeting licensing requirements or achieving high-quality ratings. This study will identify impediments to these child care providers’ abilities to provide high-quality, affordable child care that is accessible to the families that need it. The authors will take advantage of a collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education to conduct interviews with licensed and unlicensed providers in Virginia through participatory action research, a research design that helps create unsilencing opportunities for those who have been silenced. This is especially important since the voices of home-based providers are often not included in the conversation about quality care.

Prior research suggests that the pathways through which childhood poverty shapes poverty in adulthood include physical and mental well-being, educational attainment, employment, and family structure. Income support policies, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and cash assistance from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, are all known to reduce levels of child poverty and have the potential to reduce racial disparities in child poverty. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1967–2018, the researchers plan to investigate how the introduction of and/or policy changes to the EITC, SNAP, and TANF programs are effective at reducing racial differences in the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The authors will disaggregate their findings by race and use individual-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to identify children in poverty who were exposed to these programs and will follow them through early adulthood, assessing their poverty status.