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Research on educational mobility is concerned with inequalities between families. Differences in innate abilities and parental responses lead, however, to educational differences between siblings. If parental responses vary by family socioeconomic background, within-family inequality can affect between-family inequality (i.e., educational mobility). This study uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) to test whether sibling similarity in education varies by family socioeconomic background. In addition, I test whether the effects of birth order, birth spacing, and maternal age on education vary by family background. Results show that sibling similarity in education is similar in low– and high–socioeconomic status families. The negative influences of a higher birth order and a younger maternal age on educational attainment, however, are concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged families. These findings suggest that socioeconomically advantaged families do not generally compensate for ability differences between their children but that they compensate for disadvantageous life events.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Michael Grätz: Nuffield College, University of Oxford; Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University
E-mail: michael.gratz@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: I thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for supporting my research through a PhD scholarship. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no. 320116 for the research project FamiliesAndSocieties. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the European Consortium for Sociological Research conference in Tilburg, the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Boston, the ISA RC28 on Social Stratification and Mobility meeting in Budapest, the SOEP User Conference in Berlin, and at workshops in Zürich and Berlin. For their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this manuscript, I would like to thank Tina Baier, Fabrizio Bernardi, Diederik Boertien, Andrés Cardona, Dalton Conley, Juho Härkönen, Anne Christine Holtmann, and Florencia Torche.

Citation: Grätz, Michael. 2018. “Competition in the Family: Inequality between Siblings and the Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Advantage.” Sociological Science 5: 246-269.
Received: December 19, 2017
Accepted: April 2, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a11

Trump Voters and the White Working Class

By Parker Webservices on April 16, 2018 in Articles

Stephen L. Morgan, Jiwon Lee

Sociological Science, April 16, 2018
10.15195/v5.a10

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To evaluate the claim that white working-class voters were a crucial block of support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, this article offers two sets of results. First, self-reports of presidential votes in 2012 and 2016 from the American National Election Studies show that Obama-to-Trump voters and 2012 eligible nonvoters composed a substantial share of Trump’s 2016 voters and were disproportionately likely to be members of the white working class. Second, when county vote tallies in 2012 and 2016 are merged with the public-use microdata samples of the 2012-to-2016 American Community Surveys, areal variations across 1,142 geographic units that sensibly partition the United States show that Trump’s gains in 2016 above Romney’s performance in 2012 are strongly related to the proportion of the voting population in each area that was white and working class. Taken together, these results support the claim that Trump’s appeal to the white working class was crucial for his victory.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Stephen L. Morgan: Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University.
E-mail: stephen.morgan@jhu.edu.

Jiwon Lee: Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University.
E-mail: jiwonlee@jhu.edu.

Acknowledgements: We thank the seminar participants at Johns Hopkins University and
New York University for their suggestions.

Citation: Morgan, Stephen L., and Jiwon Lee. 2018. “Trump Voters and the White Working Class.” Sociological Science 5:234-245.
Received: February 19, 2018
Accepted: March 25, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a10

The Sources of Life Chances: Does Education, Class Category, Occupation, or Short-Term Earnings Predict 20-Year Long-Term Earnings?

By Parker Webservices on March 21, 2018 in Articles

ChangHwan Kim, Christopher R. Tamborini, Arthur Sakamoto

Sociological Science, March 21, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a9

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In sociological studies of economic stratification and intergenerational mobility, occupation has long been presumed to reflect lifetime earnings better than do short-term earnings. However, few studies have actually tested this critical assumption. In this study, we investigate the cross-sectional determinants of 20-year accumulated earnings using data that match respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to their longitudinal earnings records based on administrative tax information from 1990 to 2009. Fit statistics of regression models are estimated to assess the predictive power of various proxy variables, including occupation, education, and short-term earnings, on cumulative earnings over the 20-year time period. Contrary to the popular assumption in sociology, our results find that cross-sectional earnings have greater predictive power on long-term earnings than occupation-based class classifications, including three-digit detailed occupations for both men and women. The model based on educational attainment, including field of study, has slightly better fit than models based on one-digit occupation or the Erikson, Goldthorpe, and Portocarero class scheme. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for the sociology of stratification and intergenerational mobility.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ChangHwan Kim: Department of Sociology, University of Kansas
Email: chkim@ku.edu

Christopher R. Tamborini: Office of Retirement Policy, U.S. Social Security Administration
Email: chris.tamborini@ssa.gov

Arthur Sakamoto: Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University
Email: asakamoto@tamu.edu

Acknowledgements: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Social Security Administration (SSA). Access to SSA data linked to Census Bureau survey data is subject to restrictions imposed by Title 13 of the U.S. Code. The data are accessible at a secured site such as the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (https://www.census.gov/fsrdc) and must undergo disclosure review before their release. For researchers with access to these data, the computer programs used in this analysis are available upon request.

Citation: Kim, ChangHwan, Christopher R. Tamborini, and Arthur Sakamoto. 2018. “The Sources of Life Chances: Does Education, Class Category, Occupation or Short-Term Earnings Predict 20-Year Long-Term Earnings?” Sociological Science 5:206-233.
Received: December 19, 2017
Accepted: February 6, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a9

Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities

By Parker Webservices on March 12, 2018 in Articles

Robert Manduca

Sociological Science, March 12, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a8

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More than 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, black–white family income disparities in the United States remain almost exactly the same as what they were in 1968. This article argues that a key and underappreciated driver of the racial income gap has been the national trend of rising income inequality. From 1968 to 2016, black–white disparities in family income rank narrowed by almost one-third. But this relative gain was negated by changes to the national income distribution that resulted in rapid income growth for the richest—and most disproportionately white—few percentiles of the country combined with income stagnation for the poor and middle class. But for the rise in income inequality, the median black–white family income gap would have decreased by about 30 percent. Conversely, without the partial closing of the rank gap, growing inequality alone would have increased the racial income gap by 30 percent.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Robert Manduca: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: rmanduca@g.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Victoria Asbury, Alex Bell, Lawrence Bobo, Hope Harvey, Nathaniel Hendren, Roland Neil, Devah Pager, Robert Sampson, Roseanna Sommers, James Sidanius, Mo Torres, Adam Travis, Bruce Western, and the seminar participants at the Harvard University Contemporary Studies of Race and Ethnicity Workshop for their helpful comments and feedback. This research has been supported by the Harvard Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy.

Citation: Manduca, Robert. 2018. “Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities.” Sociological Science 5: 182-205.
Received: December 11, 2017
Accepted: January 6, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a8

The Problems and Promise of Hierarchy: Voice Rights and the Firm

By Parker Webservices on March 5, 2018 in Articles

Robert F. Freeland, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan

Sociological Science, March 5, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a7

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The firm’s continued importance for coordinating economic activity is puzzling given that (1) economists have not demonstrated that the greater alignment of effort they expect from hierarchical coordination overcomes the reduction in employee effort created by “low-powered” incentives, (2) employee effort is further threatened by the alienating effects of hierarchical control, and (3) firms, as we show, are necessarily hierarchical. Why, then, do firms dominate the capitalist economy? Our theory is rooted in a more subtle set of rights that is also intrinsic to the firm hierarchy: “voice rights” (who can speak within and on behalf of the firm). Control of voice is crucial for endowing the firm with a capacity that cannot be acquired by a mere “nexus” of contractors: it can become a reliable and accountable actor. This, in turn, gives the firm three necessary (if insufficient) ingredients for creating strong identification with the collective enterprise. Our theory thus suggests why firms remain important despite their inherent limitations and why some firms are marked by alienation and perfunctory performance while others are marked by strong identification and consummate performance.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Robert F. Freeland: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: freeland@ssc.wisc.edu

Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: ewzucker@mit.edu

Acknowledgements: We are grateful for feedback from the following conference and seminar audiences: ESSEC Business School (2011), the American Sociological Association (2012), the Saïd Business School (2014), the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (2012), and the Economic Sociology Working Group (2012), the IWER Seminar (2013), and the MIT-Harvard Economic Sociology Seminar. We have also benefited from help, advice, and feedback from Matthew Bidwell, Rodrigo Canales, Phech Colatat, Gabriella Coleman, Frank Dobbin, Bob Gibbons, Sandy Jacoby, Ethan Mollick, Woody Powell, Tom Kochan, Kieran Healy, Pam Oliver, Paul Osterman, Jeff Pfeffer, Mike Piore, Hiram Samel, Mike Sauder, Cat Turco, Eric van den Steen, and Nate Wilmers. The usual disclaimers apply.

Citation: Freeland, Robert F., and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2018. “The Problems and Promise of Hierarchy: Voice Rights and the Firm.” Sociological Science 5: 143-181.
Received: July 15, 2017
Accepted: January 7, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a7

Grandparent Effects on Educational Outcomes: A Systematic Review

By Parker Webservices on February 21, 2018 in Articles

Lewis R. Anderson, Paula Sheppard, Christiaan W. S. Monden

Sociological Science, February 21, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a6

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Are educational outcomes subject to a “grandparent effect”? We comprehensively and critically review the growing literature on this question. Fifty-eight percent of 69 analyses report that grandparents’ (G1) socioeconomic characteristics are associated with children’s (G3) educational outcomes, independently of the characteristics of parents (G2). This is not clearly patterned by study characteristics, except sample size. The median ratio of G2:G1 strength of association with outcomes is 4.1, implying that grandparents matter around a quarter as much as parents for education. On average, 30 percent of the bivariate G1–G3 association remains once G2 information is included. Grandparents appear to be especially important where G2 socioeconomic resources are low, supporting the compensation hypothesis. We further discuss whether particular grandparents matter, the role of assortative mating, and the hypothesis that G1–G3 associations should be stronger where there is (more) G1–G3 contact, for which repeated null findings are reported. We recommend that measures of social origin include information on grandparents.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Lewis R. Anderson: Trinity College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford
Email: lewis.anderson@sociology.ox.ac.uk

Paula Sheppard: Nuffield College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford
Email: paula.sheppard@sociology.ox.ac.uk

Christiaan W. S. Monden: Nuffield College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford
Email: christiaan.monden@sociology.ox.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Patrick Präg for his many useful comments and suggestions, to Guido Neidhöfer for sharing with us the results of his literature search, and to the participants of the Multigenerational Social Mobility Workshop held at Nuffield College, University of Oxford on September 21 and 22, 2017, for their comments. This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 681546 (FAMSIZEMATTERS).

Citation: Anderson, Lewis R., Paula Sheppard, and Christiaan W. S. Monden. 2018. “Grandparent Effects on Educational Outcomes: A Systematic Review.” Sociological Science 5: 114-142.
Received: November 3, 2017
Accepted: January 6, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a6

Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Denmark and the United States

By Parker Webservices on February 14, 2018 in Articles

Stefan B. Andrade, Jens-Peter Thomsen

Sociological Science, February 14, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a5

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An overall finding in comparative mobility studies is that intergenerational mobility is greater in Scandinavia than in liberal welfare-state countries like the United States and United Kingdom. However, in a recent study, Landersø and Heckman (L & H) (2017) argue that intergenerational educational mobility in Denmark and the United States is remarkably similar. L & H’s findings run contrary to widespread beliefs and have been echoed in academia and mass media on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In this article, we reanalyze educational mobility in Denmark and the United States using the same data sources as L & H. We apply several different methodological approaches from economics and sociology, and we consistently find that educational mobility is higher in Denmark than in the United States.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Stefan B. Andrade: Department of Social Policy and Welfare, The Danish Center for Social Science Research
Email: sba@vive.dk

Jens-Peter Thomsen: Department of Social Policy and Welfare, The Danish Center for Social Science Research
Email: jpt@vive.dk

Citation: Andrade, Stefan B., and Jens-Peter Thomsen. 2018. “Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Denmark and the United States.” Sociological Science 5: 93-113.
Received: December 7, 2017
Accepted: January 9, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a5

Pathways to Carbon Pollution: The Interactive Effects of Global, Political, and Organizational Factors on Power Plants’ CO₂ Emissions

By Parker Webservices on January 25, 2018 in Articles

Don Grant, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Wesley Longhofer

Sociological Science, January 25, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a4

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Climate change is arguably the greatest threat to society as power plants, the single largest human source of heat-trapping pollution, continue to emit massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Sociologists have identified several possible structural determinants of electricity-based CO₂ emissions, including international trade and global normative regimes, national political–legal systems, and organizational size and age. But because they treat these factors as competing predictors, scholars have yet to examine how they might work together to explain why some power plants emit vastly more pollutants than others. Using a worldwide data set of utility facilities and fuzzy-set methods, we analyze the conjoint effects of global, political, and organizational conditions on fossil-fueled plants’ CO₂ emissions. Findings reveal that hyperpolluters’ emission rates are a function of four distinct causal recipes, which we label coercive, quiescent, expropriative, and inertial configurations, and these same sets of conditions also increase plants’ emission levels.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Don Grant: Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder
Email: Don.GrantII@colorado.edu

Andrew K. Jorgenson: Department of Sociology and Environmental Studies, Boston College
Email: jorgenan@bc.edu

Wesley Longhofer: Department of Organization and Management, Emory University
Email: wesley.longhofer@emory.edu

Acknowledgements: Direct all correspondence to Don Grant, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder CO 80309. This research was supported with a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation (#1357483, 1357495, 1357497). We thank Jamie Vickery and Urooj Raja for their excellent research assistance. We also thank Jason Boardman and Ryan Masters for their technical comments and assistance. Liam Downey, Giacomo Negro, David Frank, Elizabeth Boyle, Sarah Babb, Juliet Schor, and audiences at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, 2016 Future of World Society Theory Conference, Boston College’s Environmental Sociology Workshop, and Emory Law School provided helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Citation: Grant, Don, Andrew K. Jorgenson, and Wesley Longhofer. 2018. “Pathways to Carbon Pollution: The Interactive Effects of Global, Political, and Organizational Factors on Power Plants’ CO₂ Emissions.” Sociological Science 5: 58-92.
Received: November 15, 2017
Accepted: December 8, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a4

Social Influence on Observed Race

By Parker Webservices on January 18, 2018 in Articles

Zsófia Boda

Sociological Science, January 18, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a3

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This article introduces a novel theoretical approach for understanding racial fluidity, emphasizing the social embeddedness of racial classifications. We propose that social ties affect racial perceptions through within-group micromechanisms, resulting in discrepancies between racial self-identifications and race as classified by others. We demonstrate this empirically on data from 12 Hungarian high school classes with one minority group (the Roma) using stochastic actor-oriented models for the analysis of social network panel data. We find strong evidence for social influence: individuals tend to accept their peers’ judgement about another student’s racial category; opinions of friends have a larger effect than those of nonfriends. Perceived social position also matters: those well-accepted among majority-race peers are likely to be classified as majority students themselves. We argue that similar analyses in other social contexts shall lead to a better understanding of race and interracial processes.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Zsófia Boda: Chair of Social Networks, ETH Zürich; Nuffield College, University of Oxford; MTA TK “Lendület” Research Center for Educational and Network Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Email: zsofia.boda@gess.ethz.ch

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA; grant K 881336) and the Economic and Social Research Council (grant ES/J500112/1). The data were collected in the scope of the MTA TK “Lendület” Research Center for Educational and Network Studies. I would like to thank Tom Snijders, Janne Jonsson, Károly Takács, Bálint Néray, András Vörös, Christoph Stadtfeld, Per Block, Brooks Paige, James Moody, John Ermisch, and many other colleagues for helpful comments on different versions of this article.

Citation: Boda, Zsófia. 2018. “Social Influence on Observed Race.” Sociological Science 5: 29-57.
Received: November 4, 2017
Accepted: December 4, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a3

Last Name Selection in Audit Studies

By Parker Webservices on January 11, 2018 in Articles

Charles Crabtree, Volha Chykina

Sociological Science, January 11, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a2

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