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The Social Life of Mortgage Delinquency and Default

By on July 26, 2018 in Articles

Brian J. McCabe

Sociological Science, July 26, 2018
10.15195/v5.a21

Abstract
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Although falling behind on a mortgage loan has significant personal consequences, we know little about whether the experience of delinquency or default influences the housing market behavior of other people in the defaulter’s social networks. In this article, I ask how exposure to mortgage default through social networks affects perceptions of the housing market, judgments about the strategic default behavior of other households, and expectations for homeownership. Although individuals purposively draw on information from their social networks to aid in their housing search, theories of social influence have yet to be applied to the negative experience of mortgage delinquency or default. Drawing on the National Housing Survey, I find that individuals exposed to mortgage strain through their social networks express more negative expectations for the housing market and hold more permissive attitudes about strategic default. Homeowners reporting network exposure to mortgage strain are more likely to prefer rental housing when they next move. These results are strongest when individuals are connected to someone who has fallen behind on a mortgage payment in the previous three months.
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Brian J. McCabe: Department of Sociology, Georgetown University
E-mail: mccabeb@georgetown.edu

Acknowledgements: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: McCabe, Brian J. 2018. “The Social Life of Mortgage Delinquency and Default.” Sociological Science 5: 489-512.
  • Received: April 18, 2018
  • Accepted: May 26, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a21


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Benefit Inequality among American Workers by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity, 1982–2015

By on July 19, 2018 in Articles

Tali Kristal, Yinon Cohen, Edo Navot

Sociological Science, July 19, 2018
10.15195/v5.a20

Abstract
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Gender, racial, and ethnic gaps in wages are well known, but group disparities in employer-provided benefits, which account for one-quarter of total compensation, are not. We use benefit costs data to study levels and trends in gender, racial, and ethnic gaps in voluntary employer-provided benefits. Analyzing Employer Costs for Employee Compensation microdata on wages and benefit costs for the years 1982 to 2015, matched to Current Population Survey files by wage decile in the industrial sector, we find that (1) benefit gaps were wider than wage gaps for minorities but were narrower for gender, (2) racial and ethnic gaps in benefits increased faster than wage gaps, and (3) the gender gap in benefits decreased faster than the wage gap. We show that these findings reflect the types of jobs women, blacks, and Hispanics have held for the past three decades.
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Tali Kristal: Department of Sociology, University of Haifa
E-mail: kristal@soc.haifa.ac.il

Yinon Cohen: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
E-mail: yc2444@columbia.edu

Edo Navot:United States Department of Labor
E-mail: navot.edo@dol.gov

Acknowledgements: We thank the United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation for its partial support of this project. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the summer meeting of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (in 2017) and the Intergenerational Mobility and Income Inequality Workshop held at the University of Haifa (in March 2018). We thank Yitchak Haberfeld and the participants in these meetings for their comments. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and its staff, who facilitated this research with generosity and patience. The research was conducted with restricted access to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The views expressed in any publication resulting from an analysis of these data do not necessarily reflect the views of the BLS. Additionally, the views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor or any agency within it.

  • Citation: Kristal, Tali, Yinon Cohen, and Edo Navot. 2018. “Benefit Inequality among American Workers by Gender, Race and Ethnicity, 1982–2015.” Sociological Science 5: 461-488.
  • Received: April 17, 2018
  • Accepted: June 5, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a20


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"I Didn't Want To Be 'That Girl'": The Social Risks of Labeling, Telling, and Reporting Sexual Assault

By on July 12, 2018 in Articles

Shamus R. Khan, Jennifer S. Hirsch, Alexander Wamboldt, Claude A. Mellins

Sociological Science, July 12, 2018
10.15195/v5.a19

Abstract
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This article deploys ethnographic data to explain why some students do not label experiences as sexual assault or report those experiences. Using ideas of social risks and productive ambiguities, it argues that not labeling or reporting assault can help students (1) sustain their current identities and allow for several future ones, (2) retain their social relationships and group affiliations while maintaining the possibility of developing a wider range of future ones, or (3) avoid derailing their current or future goals within the higher educational setting, or what we call “college projects.” Conceptually, this work advances two areas of sociological research. First, it expands the framework of social risks, or culturally specific rationales for seemingly illogical behavior, by highlighting the interpersonal and institutional dimensions of such risks. Second, it urges researchers to be more attentive to contexts in which categorical ambiguity or denial is socially productive and to take categorical avoidance seriously as a subject of inquiry. Substantively, this work advances knowledge of why underreporting of campus sexual assault occurs, with implications for institutional policies to support students who have experienced unwanted nonconsensual sex regardless of how those students may label what happened.
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Shamus R. Khan: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
E-mail: sk2905@columbia.edu

Jennifer S. Hirsch: Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
E-mail: jsh2124@columbia.edu

Alexander Wamboldt:Department of Sociology, Columbia University
E-mail: asw2176@columbia.edu

Claude A. Mellins: Division of Gender, Sexuality and Health, Departments of Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center
E-mail: cam14@cumc.columbia.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors thank the research participants, the Undergraduate Advisory Board, Columbia University, and the entire Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation team who contributed to the development and implementation of this ambitious effort, particularly Matthew Chin, Gloria Diaz, Abby DiCarlo, and Megan Kordenbrock. Leigh Reardon, Gloria Diaz, Matthew Chin, and Megan Kordenbrock assisted in the data collection and analysis of this project. Several scholars commented on previous drafts; we owe particular thanks to Maria Abascal, Christopher Muller, and Adam Reich for their suggestions.

This research was funded by Columbia University through generous support from multiple donors. The research benefited from infrastructural support from the Columbia Population Research Center, which is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under award number P2CHD058486. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

  • Citation: Khan, Shamus R., Jennifer S. Hirsch, Alexander Wamboldt, and Claude A. Mellins. 2018. “”I Didn’t Want To Be ‘That Girl'”: The Social Risks of Labeling, Telling, and Reporting Sexual Assault.” Sociological Science 5: 432-460.
  • Received: February 24, 2018
  • Accepted: May 26, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a19

1

Network Evolution and Social Situations

By on July 5, 2018 in Articles

Per Block

Sociological Science, July 5, 2018
10.15195/v5.a18

Abstract
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Studying the evolution of friendship networks has a long tradition in sociology. Multiple micromechanisms underlying friendship formation have been discovered, the most pervasive being reciprocity, transitivity, and homophily. Although each mechanism is studied in depth on its own, their relation to one another is rarely analyzed, and a theoretical framework that integrates research on all of them does not exist. This article introduces a friendship evolution model, which proposes that each micromechanism is related to interactions in different social situations. Based on this model, decreasing returns to embedding in multiple mechanisms are hypothesized. Complete social network data of adolescents and statistical network models are used to test these hypotheses. Results show a consistently negative interaction in line with the formulated model. The consequences of this negative relation between the network evolution mechanisms are explored in a simulation study, which suggests that this is a strong determinant of network-level integration and segregation.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Per Block: Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich
E-mail: per.block@gess.ethz.ch

Acknowledgements: This work greatly benefited from discussions with and advice from Zsofia Boda, James Hollway, Janne Jonsson, Isabel Raabe, Tom Snijders, Christoph Stadtfeld, Christian Steglich, Andras Vörös, as well as comments by the attendees of the Sunbelt Conference in Redondo Beach, the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS) conference in Boston, the Sociology seminar in Groningen, and the Nuffield Network Seminar. This work was partially carried out at the University of Oxford and benefited from a scholarship from Nuffield College.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Block, Per. 2018. “Network Evolution and Social Situations.” Sociological Science 5:402-431.
  • Received: April 30, 2018
  • Accepted: May 16, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a18

0

At the Expense of Quality

By on June 28, 2018 in Articles

Brittany M. Bond, Tatiana Labuzova, Roberto M. Fernandez

Sociological Science, June 28, 2018
10.15195/v5.a17

Abstract
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Many organizations use employee referral programs to incentivize employees to refer potential applicants from their social networks. Employers frequently offer a monetary bonus to employees who refer an applicant, and this is often contingent on whether the person is then hired and retained for a given length of time. In deciding whether to refer someone, referrers face a potential role conflict, as they need to balance their motivations for helping connections find job opportunities with concerns regarding their reputations with their employers. To the extent that monetary incentives shift an employee’s considerations away from finding the best matches for the employer, referral bonuses may increase the chances that lower-quality candidates are referred. Using a survey vignette experiment, we find that even a small referral bonus increases the likelihood that referrers will refer lower-quality candidates, and they are more likely to refer people they do not know well. We further discuss theoretical and practical implications regarding the efficiency of incentivized referral programs in producing quality applicant pools for employers.
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Brittany M. Bond: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E-mail: bbond@mit.edu

Tatiana Labuzova: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E-mail: labuzova@mit.edu

Roberto M. Fernandez: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E-mail: robertof@mit.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank our colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and elsewhere for their feedback on earlier versions of this article. We have also benefitted from help, advice, and feedback from Matthew Amengual, Rhett Andrew Brymer, Santiago Campero, John Carroll, Emilio Castilla, Minjae Kim, Ezra Zuckerman Sivan, Heather Yang, and participants in the Economic Sociology Working Group at MIT Sloan and the Ninth Annual Meeting of the People and Organizations Conference at The Wharton School.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Bond, Brittany M., Tatiana Labuzova, and Roberto M. Fernandez. 2018. “At the Expense of Quality.” Sociological Science 5: 380-401.
  • Received: March 27, 2018
  • Accepted: April 17, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a17

0

The Diverging Beliefs and Practices of the Religiously Affiliated and Unaffiliated in the United States

By on June 21, 2018 in Articles

Aaron Gullickson

Sociological Science, June 21, 2018
10.15195/v5.a16

Abstract
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Since 1990, the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation has grown substantially. Prior work has shown that between 1990 and 2000, the religiously unaffiliated population also became more religious in belief and practices, both in absolute terms and relative to the affiliated population. This curious empirical finding is believed to be driven by a dilution effect in which moderate believers disaffiliated from organized religion without giving up religious beliefs and practices. In the current article, I use data from the General Social Survey to show that this convergence of beliefs and practices of the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated ended around 2000. Since 2000, the religiously unaffiliated have decreased their belief in God and the afterlife and have not increased their prayer frequency. The trends for the affiliated have been either increasing or unchanging, and thus, the religious practices and beliefs of the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated have diverged since 2000. The change in trend for the religiously unaffiliated after 2000 cannot fully be explained by generational succession or the growing percentage of Americans raised without religion. Although the unaffiliated remain very heterogeneous in their beliefs and practices, these results point to a growing religious polarization in the United States.
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Aaron Gullickson: Department of Sociology, University of Oregon
E-mail: aarong@uoregon.edu

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Michael Hout and Claude Fischer for comments on early drafts of this article. Direct all correspondence to aarong@uoregon.edu. All code and data used to conduct this analysis as well as supplementary material is available at https://osf.io/94kv6/.

  • Citation: Gullickson, Aaron. 2018. “The Diverging Beliefs and Practices of the Religiously Affiliated and Unaffiliated in the United States.” Sociological Science 5: 361-379.
  • Received: April 23, 2018
  • Accepted: May 14, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a16

0

Mass Imprisonment and the Extended Family

By on June 14, 2018 in Articles

Pil H. Chung, Peter Hepburn

Sociological Science, June 14, 2018
10.15195/v5.a15

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This study employs microsimulation techniques to provide an accounting of exposure to imprisoned or formerly imprisoned kin. We characterize the risk and prevalence of imprisonment within full kinship networks and find that the life course trajectories of familial imprisonment experienced by black and white Americans take on qualitatively distinct forms: the average black American born at the height of the prison boom experienced the imprisonment of a relative for the first time at age 7 and by age 65 belongs to a family in which more than 1 in 7 working-age relatives have ever been imprisoned. By contrast, the average white American who experiences the imprisonment of a relative does not do so until age 39 and by age 65 belongs to a family in which 1 in 20 working-age relatives have ever been imprisoned. Future reductions in imprisonment rates have the potential to meaningfully reduce these racial disparities in family imprisonment burden.
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Pil H. Chung: Departments of Sociology and Demography, University of California, Berkeley
E-mail: pchung@berkeley.edu

Peter Hepburn: Departments of Sociology and Demography, University of California, Berkeley
E-mail: pshepburn@demog.berkeley.edu

Acknowledgements: We gratefully acknowledge David Harding, Kristin Turney, Sandra Susan Smith, Daniel Schneider, Christopher Wildeman, Robert Pickett, and Elayne Oliphant for the invaluable advice and feedback they provided at various stages of this work.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Chung, Pil H., and Peter Hepburn. 2018. “Mass Imprisonment and the Extended Family.” Sociological Science 5: 335-360.
  • Received: March 29, 2018
  • Accepted: April 24, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a15

0

Moore–Penrose Estimators of Age–Period–Cohort Effects: Their Interrelationship and Properties

By on June 7, 2018 in Articles

Ethan Fosse, Christopher Winship

Sociological Science, June 7, 2018
10.15195/v5.a14

Abstract
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The intrinsic estimator (IE) has become a widely used tool for the analysis of age–period–cohort (APC) data in sociology, demography, and other fields. However, it has been recently recognized that the IE is a subtype of a larger class of estimators based on the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse (MP estimators) and that different estimators can lead to radically divergent estimates of the true, unknown APC effects. To clarify the differences and similarities of MP estimators, we introduce a canonical form of the linear constraints imposed on the true temporal effects. Using this canonical form, we compare the IE to related MP estimators, examining the conditions under which they recover the true temporal effects, the impact of the size and sign of nonlinearities on the estimated linear effects, and their sensitivity to the number of age, period, and cohort categories. We show that two MP estimators, which we call the difference estimator (DE) and the orthogonal estimator (OE), impose constraints that are both less sensitive and easier to interpret than those of the IE. We conclude with practical guidelines for researchers interested in using MP estimators to estimate temporal effects.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ethan Fosse: Department of Sociology, Princeton University
E-mail: efosse@princeton.edu

Christopher Winship: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: cwinship@wjh.harvard.edu


  • Citation: Fosse, Ethan, and Christopher Winship. 2018. “Moore–Penrose Estimators of Age–Period–Cohort Effects: Their Interrelationship and Properties.” Sociological Science 5: 304-334.
  • Received: March 12, 2018
  • Accepted: April 2, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a14

0

Gender Convergence in Housework Time: A Life Course and Cohort Perspective

By on May 31, 2018 in Articles

Thomas Leopold, Jan Skopek, Florian Schulz

Sociological Science, May 31, 2018
10.15195/v5.a13

Abstract
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Knowledge about gender convergence in housework time is confined to changes studied across repeated cross-sections of data. This study adds a dynamic view that links broader social shifts in men’s and women’s housework time to individual life-course profiles. Using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (1985–2015), our analysis is the first to trace changes in housework time across the entire adult life course (ages 20–90) and across a large range of cohorts (1920–1990). The results revealed two types of gender convergence in housework time. First, the gender gap converged across the life course, narrowing by more than 50 percent from age 35 until age 70. Life-course profiles of housework time were strongly gendered, as women’s housework time peaked in younger adulthood and declined thereafter, whereas men’s housework time remained stably low for decades and increased only in older age. Second, the gender gap converged across cohorts, narrowing by 40 percent from cohorts 1940 until 1960. Cohort profiles of housework time showed strong declines in women and moderate increases in men. Both cohort trends were linear and extended to the most recently born, supporting the notion of continued convergence in housework time.
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Thomas Leopold: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, and State Institute for Family Research at the University of Bamberg
E-mail: t.leopold@uva.nl

Jan Skopek: Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin
E-mail: skopekj@tcd.ie

Florian Schulz: State Institute for Family Research at the University of Bamberg, and Department of Sociology, University of Bamberg
E-mail: florian.schulz@ifb.uni-bamberg.de

Acknowledgements: This study was supported by the German Research Foundation (grant number SCHU 3081/1-1). Replication files to this article are available at the authors’ websites: http://www.thomasleopold.eu, http://www.skopek.org, and http://www.floschulz.de.


  • Citation: Leopold, Thomas, Jan Skopek, and Florian Schulz. 2018. “Gender Convergence in Housework Time: A Life Course and Cohort Perspective.” Sociological Science 5: 281-303.
  • Received: March 29, 2018
  • Accepted: April 19, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a13

0

Gaydar and the Fallacy of Decontextualized Measurement

By on May 24, 2018 in Articles

Andrew Gelman, Greggor Mattson, Daniel Simpson

Sociological Science, May 24, 2018
10.15195/v5.a12

Abstract
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Recent media coverage of studies about “gaydar,” the supposed ability to detect another’s sexual orientation through visual cues, reveal problems in which the ideals of scientific precision strip the context from intrinsically social phenomena. This fallacy of objective measurement, as we term it, leads to nonsensical claims based on the predictive accuracy of statistical significance. We interrogate these gaydar studies’ assumption that there is some sort of pure biological measure of perception of sexual orientation. Instead, we argue that the concept of gaydar inherently exists within a social context and that this should be recognized when studying it. We use this case as an example of a more general concern about illusory precision in the measurement of social phenomena and suggest statistical strategies to address common problems.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Andrew Gelman: Department of Statistics and Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York
E-mail: gelman@stat.columbia.edu

Greggor Mattson: Department of Sociology and Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Oberlin College, Ohio
E-mail: gmattson@oberlin.edu

Daniel Simpson: Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, Canada
E-mail: dp.simpson@gmail.com

Acknowledgements: We thank Michal Kosinski and Martin Plöderl for helpful comments.


  • Citation: Gelman, Andrew, Greggor Mattson, and Daniel Simpson. 2018. “Gaydar and the Fallacy of Decontextualized Measurement.” Sociological Science 5: 270-280.
  • Received: March 6, 2018
  • Accepted: April 1, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a12

0

Competition in the Family: Inequality between Siblings and the Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Advantage

By on May 17, 2018 in Articles

Michael Grätz

Sociological Science, May 17, 2018
10.15195/v5.a11

Abstract
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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.
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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.

Supplemental Material

  • 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

0

Trump Voters and the White Working Class

By on April 16, 2018 in Articles

Stephen L. Morgan, Jiwon Lee

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

Abstract
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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.
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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.

Supplemental Material

  • 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

0

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

By on March 21, 2018 in Articles

ChangHwan Kim, Christopher R. Tamborini, Arthur Sakamoto

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

Abstract
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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.

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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

0

Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities

By on March 12, 2018 in Articles

Robert Manduca

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

Abstract
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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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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

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

By on March 5, 2018 in Articles

Robert F. Freeland, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan

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

Abstract
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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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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

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Grandparent Effects on Educational Outcomes: A Systematic Review

By 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

Abstract
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1 Citation

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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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).

Supplemental Material

  • 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

1

Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Denmark and the United States

By on February 14, 2018 in Articles

Stefan B. Andrade, Jens-Peter Thomsen

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

Abstract
PDF (5935 views)
3 Citation

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.

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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

Supplemental Material
Comment Rejoinder

  • 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

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

By on January 25, 2018 in Articles

Don Grant, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Wesley Longhofer

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

Abstract
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0 Citation

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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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.

Supplemental Material

  • 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

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