his study develops and estimates a model of the naturalization process in the United States. The model is based on both the characteristics of immigrants and features of their countries of origin. The empirical analysis is based on the 2000 US Census. Both the characteristics of immigrants and the origin-country variables are shown to be important determinants of citizenship status. The individual characteristics that have the most influence are educational attainment, age at migration, years since migration, veteran of the U.S.

This paper applies the quantile regression methodology to the study of the determinants of the distribution of earnings among the native born and immigrants in the United States and Australia. The analysis for immigrants is performed separately for those from English-speaking and non-English speaking origins. Using Census data, the quantile regressions permit the measurement of the partial effect of explanatory variables (such as schooling and experience) and the native born-immigrant earnings differential at the different deciles of the earnings distribution.

The demand for long-term care is large and growing rapidly throughout the nation. In Illinois alone there are almost 800 nursing homes with more than 100,000 beds. In addition, about 1.24 million family caregivers provide more than 1.33 billion hours of care each year, conservatively valued at more than $13 billion. Clearly, both the formal and informal long-term care sectors are quite large. Less evident is that both sectors will need to expand and function very well, both separately and together, to meet the predicted growth in demand over the next decades.