PhD Concentration in Economic and Racial Equity

Dissertation: The Role of Sending Countries’ Comprehensive Child Wellbeing Systems in the International Migration Patterns of Unaccompanied Minors to the United States

This dissertation This dissertation aims to understand the impact of Child-Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) and Child Protection (CP) systems in the Northern Triangle region on UC migration patterns to the U.S. Specifically, the research will investigate if having a comprehensive set of child well-being systems supporting children and their families in their countries of origin, overcomes or not, migration factors and the impact of child migration overall. This information can help decision-makers and policy analysts to evaluate and create policies and projects to support these systems in their home country to reduce UCs’ migration influx or delay UC’s migration journey. The dissertation will be presented as three publishable papers. The first paper aims to document the scope of the Child-Sensitive Social Protection Systems (CSPS) and Child Protection Systems (CPS) and identify the child migration determinants in countries of origin and assess which factors these systems are tackling and which ones are not. The second paper will create the “Child Wellbeing Index for Immigrating Children (CWIIC) to measure the magnitude of countries' focus on those two systems (CSPS and CPS). The last paper will use a Multilevel Interrupted Time Series model to measure the association between the combined performance of these two systems in the sending country, with the CWIIC created in paper 2, and migration patterns of UC to the US, controlling for the broader child migration determinants.

Dissertation: Race, debt, stress, and health in an older America: The relationship between race, older Americans’ debt, and their short-term health outcomes

Historically, Black Americans have experienced debt very differently from white Americans. From the mortgage redlining codified by the Federal Home Loan Bank in the 1930s to pervasive discrimination in the credit card industry¹ to the continued racial redlining perpetrated by banks² , debt has largely not been a path of economic prosperity for Black Americans. Instead, the racialized credit access and cost inequalities created generation after generation saddled by expensive debt or denied the wealth-building opportunities mortgages provide. My research uses a nationally representative longitudinal sample of older Americans to examines how the differences in the types and amounts of debt may reflect and exacerbate the health disparities of older Black and White Americans. Research is the next step in a journey of discovery, and my research is not meant to serve as a definitive response to the link between race, older adults’ health, and the debt they hold. Instead, the results will serve as a foundation for even more research in the future. In an aging America with escalating disparities in racial financial and health equity, finding answers to these questions between race, debt, and health is more important than ever.

1. Ethan Cohen-Cole, “Credit Card Redlining,” Review of Economics and Statistics 93, no. 2 (2011): 700–713; Andrea Freeman, “Racism in the Credit Card Industry,” NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW 95 (May 1, 2017): 91.
2. “Modern-Day Redlining: Banks Discriminate in Lending,” Reveal, February 15, 2018, http://revealnews.org/article/for-people-of-color-banks-are-shutting-the-door-to-homeownership/.

Dissertation: Advancing Abortion Justice: An Ethnography of Gender-Based Violence and Contentious Politics at Clinics

Abortion access is regulated by contested political geographies rather than self-determination. In the last year, 14 states have enacted abortion bans and widened reproductive health care inequalities nationwide. This escalating crisis requires rapid research and response. This project continues embedded ethnographic work at a Midwest abortion clinic forced to close following a near-total ban. Interviews with staff and local advocates will provide insight into why clinics are closing post-Dobbs and how communities are responding to growing abortion deserts. State and local-level modeling will calculate the economic burden of bans when people travel long distances to reach care. Policy recommendations will promote racial and gender equity approaches to reduce harm and advance reproductive freedom.

Read Jamie's dissertation on ProQuest