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The Inequality of Lifetime Pensions

By on October 17, 2023 in Articles

Jiaxin Shi, Martin Kolk

Sociological Science October 17, 2023
10.15195/v10.a24

Abstract

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At older ages, most people are supported by pension systems that provide payments based on prior contributions. An important, but neglected, aspect of inequality in how much people receive in pensions is the number of years they live to receive their pension. We examine inequality in lifetime-accumulated pensions and show the importance of mortality for understanding inequalities in pension payments, and contrast it to inequalities in working-age earnings and yearly pension payments among older adults. In contrast to most previous research on old-age inequality comparing different social groups, we focused on total-population-level inequality. Using Swedish register data covering the retired population born from 1918–1939, we found that lifetime pensions are much more unequal than pre-retirement earnings and yearly pensions. Our findings also show that mortality explains more than 50 percent of the inequality of lifetime pensions within cohorts, and plays an important role in explaining changes in inequality across cohorts (192 percent among men and 44 percent among women). Pension policies can affect lifetime pension inequality, but such effects are limited in magnitude unless they directly affect the number of years of receiving pensions.
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Jiaxin Shi: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany. Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science & Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. Demographic Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: shi@demogr.mpg.de

Martin Kolk: Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, Sweden. Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
E-mail: martin.kolk@sociology.su.se

Acknowledgements: We thank Jenn Dowd, Christian Dudel, John Ermisch, Martin Hällsten, Robert Hummer, Guanghui Pan, Fabian Pfeffer, Yifan Shen, Joshua Wilde, Alyson van Raalte, and participants at the Oxford Sociology Monday Meeting for their helpful feedback on previous drafts. Jiaxin Shi was supported by the European Research Council (grant no. 716323) and a Leverhulme Trust Grant (Grant RC-2018-003) for the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford. Jiaxin Shi gratefully acknowledges the resources provided by the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS). Martin Kolk was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2019-02552 and 2022-02314) and the Swedish Research Council for Health,Working Life andWelfare (FORTE, grant no. 2016-07115).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Shi, Jiaxin, and Martin Kolk. 2023. “The Inequality of Lifetime Pensions” Sociological Science 7: 667-693.
  • Received: May 24, 2023
  • Accepted: July 31, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a24


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Does Unprecedented Mass Immigration Fuel Ethnic Discrimination? A Two-Wave Field Experiment in the German Housing Market

By on October 10, 2023 in Articles

Katrin Auspurg, Renate Lorenz, Andreas Schneck

Sociological Science October 10, 2023
10.15195/v10.a23

Abstract

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Literature suggests that sudden mass immigration can fuel xenophobic attitudes. However, there is a lack of reliable evidence on hostile actions, such as discrimination. In this study, we leverage the unexpected mass immigration of refugees to Germany in 2015 in combination with a two-wave field experiment to study the effect of immigration on ethnic discrimination. In 2015/2016, political and social tensions in the Middle East and North Africa led to a historic mass migration to European countries. We carried out a large-scale field experiment on ethnic housing market discrimination in Germany (paired e-mail correspondence test with ~5,000 e-mail applications to rental housing units in each wave) shortly before this “European refugee crisis” (1st wave). We repeated this experiment at the peak of the crisis (2nd wave of our experiment). By taking advantage of the unexpected refugee immigration between the two waves of our experiment and the quasi-random allocation of refugees across regions for causal identification, we find no credible evidence that the large influx of refugees changed the extent of ethnic discrimination of Turks in the rental housing market. This result holds regardless of the extent to which regions within Germany were already accustomed to immigration before the refugee crisis.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Katrin Auspurg: LMU Munich, Department of Sociology
E-mail: katrin.auspurg@lmu.de

Renate Lorenz: LMU Munich, Department of Sociology
E-mail: renate.lorenz@soziologie.uni-muenchen.de

Andreas Schneck: LMU Munich, Department of Sociology
E-mail: andreas.schneck@lmu.de

Acknowledgements: We thank the participants of the Annual Conference of Experimental Sociology (ACES) 2021, the Research Colloquium of the Doctoral School of Social Sciences at the University of Trento (2022) and the Social Science Research Colloquium at the TU Kaiserslautern (2022) for helpful suggestions. We are grateful for comments on earlier versions we received from Madison Garrett. Maximilian Sonnauer helped us compiling the database for the field experiments.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Auspurg, Katrin, Renate Lorenz, and Andreas Schneck. 2023. “Does Unprecedented Mass Immigration Fuel Ethnic Discrimination? A Two-Wave Field Experiment in the German Housing Market.” Sociological Science 10: 640-666.
  • Received: December 17, 2022
  • Accepted: April 17, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Maria Abascal
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a23


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The Ethnic Lens: Social Networks and the Salience of Ethnicity in the School Context

By on October 3, 2023 in Articles

Clemens Kroneberg, Mark Wittek

Sociological Science October 3, 2023
10.15195/v10.a22

Abstract

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Research on ethnic segregation in schools regularly assumed that ethnic homophily—the tendency to befriend same-ethnic peers, above and beyond other mechanisms of tie formation—is associated with salient ethnic boundaries. We devise a more direct test of this assumption based on a novel measure of ethno-racial group perceptions. In a network study of more than 3000 students in 39 schools of a metropolitan region in Germany, we asked students to indicate which cliques they perceived in their school grade and to describe these groups in their own words. We find that ethno-racial labels are more likely directed at larger cliques that include a higher share of Muslim students or more students with stronger ethnic identification. Still, ethno-racial labels are rarely employed, both absolutely and relative to other modes of classification. Moreover, net ethnic segregation in friendships (“ethnic homophily”) and the reverse pattern in dislike relations (“ethnic heterophobia”) are not associated with a more frequent use of ethno-racial labels. Our results have substantive and methodological implications for the study of social networks and diversity in educational settings.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Clemens Kroneberg: Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne
E-mail: c.kroneberg@uni-koeln.de

Mark Wittek: Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne
E-mail: wittek@wiso.uni-koeln.de

Acknowledgements: Both authors contributed equally to this work. Earlier versions of the article were presented at the “Frontiers in Quantitative Migration Research” colloquium series at the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research and the Hertie School of Governance, at the 3rd Cultural Diversity, Migration, and Education Conference, Potsdam Center for Empirical Research on Inclusive Education, and at the 3rd Conference of the Academy of Sociology “Cohesive Societies?” at the University of Leipzig. We thank the various participants for their helpful feedback and especially Philipp Jugert who provided stimulating comments on a first version of this work. We would also like to thank Rosa Flore, Anna Bahß, Madita Zöll, Senami Viktoria Hotse, Katharina Burkart, Hannah Rose Tendal, Jan Nguyen, Alexandra Bothe, Zara Mansius, Juliane Reichelt, Mira Böing, Chiara Barfuß, and Agnes Tarnowski who helped in the coding of qualitative clique descriptions.

Funding: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 716461). Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2126/1–390838866.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Kroneberg, Clemens, and Mark Wittek. 2023. “The Ethnic Lens: Social Networks and the Salience of Ethnicity in the School Context.” Sociological Science 10: 613-639.
  • Received: February 7, 2023
  • Accepted: March 14, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Wener Raub
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a22


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Inclusive but Not Integrative: Ethnoracial Boundaries and the Use of Spanish in the Market for Rental Housing

By on September 26, 2023 in Articles

Ariela Schachter, John Kuk, Max Besbris, and Garrett Pekarek

Sociological Science September 26, 2023
10.15195/v10.a21

Abstract

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Increasing Spanish fluency in the United States likely shapes ethnoracial group boundaries and inequality. We study a key site for group boundary negotiations—the housing market—where Spanish usage may represent a key source of information exchange between landlords and prospective renters. Specifically, we examine the use of Spanish in advertisements for online rental housing and its effect on White, Black, and Latinx Americans’ residential preferences. Using a corpus of millions of Craigslist rental listings, we show that Spanish listings are concentrated in majority-Latinx neighborhoods with greater proportions of immigrant and Spanish-speaking residents. Furthermore, units that are advertised in Spanish tend be lower priced relative to non-Spanish ads in the same neighborhood. We then use a survey experiment to demonstrate that Spanish usage decreases White, Black, and non-Spanish-speaking Latinx Americans’ interest in a housing unit and surrounding neighborhood, whereas Spanish-speaking Latinx respondents are less affected. We discuss these findings in light of past work on neighborhood demographic preferences, segregation, and recent theorizing on within-category inequality.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ariela Schachter: Department of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis
E-mail: ariela@wustl.edu

John Kuk: Department of Political Science, Michigan State University
E-mail: jskuk@msu.edu

Max Besbris: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
E-mail: besbris@wisc.edu

Garrett Pekarek: Department of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis
E-mail: g.e.pekarek@wustl.edu

Acknowledgements: For their generous and thoughtful engagement with previous drafts, we gratefully acknowledge René Flores and Elizabeth Korver-Glenn. We thank Maddy Molina and Leslye Quintanilla for their support as research assistants. This work has been supported by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University and is based on work supported by National Science Foundation (grants 1947591 and 1947598).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Schachter, Ariela, John Kuk, Max Besbris, and Garrett Pekarek. 2023. “Inclusive but Not Integrative: Ethnoracial Boundaries and the Use of Spanish in the Market for Rental Housing.” Sociological Science 10: 585-612.
  • Received: March 6, 2023
  • Accepted: March 22, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Filiz Garip
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a21


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Shattered Dreams: Paternal Incarceration, Youth Expectations, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage

By on September 19, 2023 in Articles

Garrett Baker

Sociological Science September 19, 2023
10.15195/v10.a20

Abstract

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Children’s expectations and aspirations have a substantial effect on a variety of life course outcomes, including their health, education, and earnings. However, little research to date has considered empirically how expectations and aspirations are shaped by adverse events—such as experiencing a parent be incarcerated. In this article, I leverage Add Health’s retrospective parental incarceration questions to employ an innovative analytic strategy that accounts for selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity above and beyond typical observational methods. Results indicate that paternal incarceration is associated with one-fourth to one-third of a standard deviation lower youth expectations and aspirations, and these results are robust to various methods and specifications. Given that paternal incarceration is both common and disproportionately experienced by disadvantaged youth, the large magnitude and robust nature of these results reveal an important pathway through which mass incarceration has contributed to the intergenerational transmission of inequality in the U.S. in recent decades.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Garrett Baker: Duke University Department of Sociology and Sanford School of Public Policy
E-mail: garrett.baker@duke.edu

Acknowledgements: I am especially grateful to Chris Wildeman for his immense patience and continued guidance as this article evolved over the years. I would also like to thank Brielle Bryan, Anna Gassman-Pines, Sarah Komisarow, Martin Ruef, and Steve Vaisey for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Participants at the 2022 American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, the 2022 Population Association of America (PAA) Annual Meeting, and the 2022 American Society of Criminology (ASC) Annual Meeting also provided helpful feedback. This research uses data from Add Health, funded by grant P01 HD31921 (Harris) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Add Health is currently directed by Robert A. Hummer and funded by the National Institute on Aging cooperative agreements U01 AG071448 (Hummer) and U01AG071450 (Aiello and Hummer) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Add Health was designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Baker, Garrett. 2023. “Shattered Dreams: Paternal Incarceration, Youth Expectations, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage.” Sociological Science 10: 559-584.
  • Received: February 21, 2023
  • Accepted: March 27, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Peter Bearman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a20


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Why Net Worth Misrepresents Wealth Effects and What to Do About It

By on September 18, 2023 in Articles

Jascha Dräger, Klaus Pforr, Nora Müller

Sociological Science September 18, 2023
10.15195/v10.a19

Abstract

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Wealth plays an important role in social stratification but the results that can be obtained when analyzing wealth as a predictor variable depend on modeling decisions. Although wealth consists of multiple components it is often operationalized as net worth. Moreover, wealth effects are likely non-linear, but the functional form is often unknown. To overcome these problems, we propose to 1) split up net worth into gross wealth and debt and evaluate their joint effect and 2) use non-parametric Generalized Additive Models. We show in a simulation study that this approach describes systematic wealth differences in more detail and overfits less to random variation in the data than standard approaches. We then apply the approach to re-analyze wealth gaps in educational attainment in the US. We find that the operationalization of wealth as net worth results in a misclassification of which children have the best and the worst educational prospects. Not negative net worth is associated with the worst educational prospects but only the combination of low gross wealth and low debt. The most advantaged group are not only children with high net worth but all children with high gross wealth independent of the households’ amount of debt.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jascha Dräger: Strathclyde Institute of Education, University of Strathclyde
E-mail: Jascha.draeger@web.de

Klaus Pforr: Department of Data and Research on Society, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
E-mail: klaus.pforr@gesis.org

Nora Müller: Department of Data and Research on Society, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
E-mail: nora.mueller@gesis.org

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under Grant No. 403547843. We thank Barbara Felderer, Max Thaning, Alejandra Rodríguez Sánchez, Øyvind Wiborg, the reviewer, and the editor for their helpful comments. Replication files can be found via https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/187561/version/V1/view.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Dräger, Jascha, Klaus Pforr, and Nora Müller. 2023. “Why Net Worth Misrepresents Wealth Effects and What to Do About It.” Sociological Science 10: 534-558.
  • Received: January 26, 2023
  • Accepted: March 28, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Cristobal Young
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a19


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"Was It Me or Was It Gender Discrimination?" How Women Respond to Ambiguous Incidents at Work

By on September 11, 2023 in Articles

Laura Doering, Jan Doering, András Tilcsik

Sociological Science September 11, 2023
10.15195/v10.a18

Abstract

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Research shows that people often feel emotional distress when they experience a potentially discriminatory incident but cannot classify it conclusively. In this study, we propose that the ramifications of such ambiguous incidents extend beyond interior, emotional costs to include socially consequential action (or inaction) at work. Taking a mixed-methods approach, we examine how professional women experience and respond to incidents that they believe might have been gender discrimination, but about which they feel uncertain. Our interviews show that women struggle with how to interpret and respond to ambiguous incidents. Survey data show that women experience ambiguous incidents more often than incidents they believe were obviously discriminatory. Our vignette experiment reveals that women anticipate responding differently to the same incident depending on its level of ambiguity. Following incidents that are obviously discriminatory, women anticipate taking actions that make others aware of the problem; following ambiguous incidents, women anticipate changing their own work habits and self-presentation. This study establishes ambiguous gendered incidents as a familiar element of many women’s work lives that must be considered to address unequal gendered experiences at work.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Laura Doering: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
E-mail: laura.doering@rotman.utoronto.ca

Jan Doering: Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
E-mail: jan.doering@utoronto.ca

András Tilcsik: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
E-mail: andras.tilcsik@rotman.utoronto.ca

Acknowledgements: For their feedback on previous drafts, we thank Anne Bowers, Clayton Childress, Stefan Dimitriadis, Angelina Grigoryeva, Wyatt Lee, Sida Liu, Ryann Manning, Kim Pernell-Gallagher, Lauren Rivera, Patrick Rooney, Sameer Srivastava, and Ezra Zuckerman, and the Toronto Group of Seven, as well as seminar audiences at Cornell University, McGill University, and the University of Toronto. We gratefully acknowledge research assistance from Abigail Alebachew, Claire Corsten, Pablo Guzmán Lizardo, Branchie Mbofwana, Kristen McNeill, Priyanka Saini, and Vincent Zhang. This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Institute for Gender and the Economy.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Doering, Laura, Doering, Jan, and Tilcsik, András. 2023. “‘Was It Me or Was It Gender Discrimination?’ How Women Respond to Ambiguous Incidents at Work” Sociological Science 10: 501-533.
  • Received: March 8, 2023
  • Accepted: April 29, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Kristen Schilt
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a18


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Resilience and Stress in Romantic Relationships in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By on September 6, 2023 in Articles

Michael J. Rosenfeld, Sonia Hausen

Sociological Science September 6, 2023
10.15195/v10.a17

Abstract

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We measure the perceived effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on romantic relationships in the United States. We contrast Family Stress theories emphasizing potential harms of the pandemic with Family Resilience Theory suggesting that crises can lead couples to build meaning and strengthen their relationships. We examine closed-ended and open-ended questions about relationship responses to the pandemic from the How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys from 2017, 2020 and 2022. We analyze potential correlates of relationship outcomes including education, children at home, gender, time spent together and pre-pandemic relationship quality. Subjects were three times as likely to describe pandemic relationship benefits compared to harms. Couples in high quality relationships were especially resilient to pandemic stresses, and derived benefits from more time together. Couples made meaning out of the pandemic and used the normalcy of their domestic situations to make a common front against an external threat.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Michael J. Rosenfeld: Stanford University
E-mail: mrosenfe@stanford.edu

Sonia Hausen: Stanford University

Responsibilities: The article grew from conversations between Rosenfeld and Hausen. Rosenfeld wrote the grants to gather the data. Hausen had primary responsibility for coding the open-ended question about how the pandemic affected relationships. Rosenfeld performed the analyses and wrote the article with feedback from Hausen.

Acknowledgements: Data were gathered through the support of the National Science Foundation grant SES 2030593 (funding HCMST 2020 and 2022), and a grant from the United Parcel Service endowment at Stanford University (funding HCMST 2017). An earlier version of the article was presented at the Population Association of America meetings, 2022. For feedback, thanks to Kimberly Higuera, Hannah Tessler, Stanford’s Graduate FamilyWorkshop, and to anonymous reviewers. Replication statement: The HCMST 2017-2022 data, documentation, and a replication package for Tables 1-6 are available at https://data.stanford.edu/hcmst2017. The HCMST data and documentation have been deposited to and will eventually be available from ICPSR as well (timing subject to ICPSR’s production schedule for curated datasets). The open-ended text answers, in edited form, will be deposited to ICPSR and will be available as a restricted dataset addition to HCMST 2017-2022.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Rosenfeld, Michael J., and Sonia Hausen. 2023. “Resilience and Stress in Romantic Relationships in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic” Sociological Science 10:472-500.
  • Received: May 15, 2023
  • Accepted: June 12, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Kristen Schilt
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a17


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"Looking for It in Genetix": Response to Comment

By on July 10, 2023 in Articles

Mads Meier Jæger, Stine Møllegaard

Sociological Science July 10, 2023
10.15195/v10.a16

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Mads Meier Jæger: Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
E-mail: mmj@soc.ku.dk

Stine Møllegaard: The Danish Evaluation Institute
E-mail: SPE@eva.dk

  • Citation: Jæger, Mads Meier, and Stine Møllegaard. 2023. “‘Looking for It in Genetix’: Response to Comment.” Sociological Science 10: 467-471.
  • Received: March 1, 2023
  • Accepted: March 3, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a16


Eurythmics or Xenakis? Cultural Tastes (Are Not Made of Genes): Comment on Jæger and Møllegaard, “Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences”

Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences

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Eurythmics or Xenakis? Cultural Tastes (Are Not Made of Genes): Comment on Jæger and Møllegaard, "Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences"

By on July 10, 2023 in Articles

Julien Larrègue, Frédéric Lebaron, Hervé Perdry, Nicolas Robette

Sociological Science July 10, 2023
10.15195/v10.a15

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Julien Larrègue: Département de sociologie, Université Laval – Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie, Quebec, Canada
E-mail: julien.larregue@ulaval.ca

Frédéric Lebaron: IDHES, CNRS, École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, and Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
E-mail: frederic.lebaron@ens-paris-saclay.fr

Hervé Perdry: CESP Inserm U1018, Université Paris-Saclay, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, Villejuif, France
E-mail: herve.perdry@inserm.fr

Nicolas Robette: Laboratoire Printemps, UMR8085, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, Guyancourt, France
E-mail: nicolas.robette@uvsq.fr

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Larrègue, Julien, Frédéric Lebaron, Hervé Perdry, and Nicolas Robette. 2023. “Eurythmics or Xenakis? Cultural Tastes (Are Not Made of Genes): Comment on Jæger and Møllegaard, ‘Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences.'” Sociological Science 10: 454-466.
  • Received: November 18, 2022
  • Accepted: February 20, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Jeremy Freese
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a15


Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences

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Money, Birth, Gender: Explaining Unequal Earnings Trajectories following Parenthood

By on May 17, 2023 in Articles

Weverthon Machado, Eva Jaspers

Sociological Science May 17, 2023
10.15195/v10.a14

Abstract

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Using population register data from the Netherlands, we analyze the child penalty for new parents in three groups of couples: different-sex and female same-sex couples with a biological child and different-sex couples with an adopted child. With a longitudinal design, we follow parents’ earnings from two years before to eight years after the arrival of the child and use event study models to estimate the effects of the transition to parenthood on earnings trajectories. Comparing different groups of couples allows us to test hypotheses related to three types of within-couple differences that are difficult to disentangle when studying only heterosexual biological parents: relative earnings, childbearing, and gender. Our results offer strong support for gender as the main driver of divergent child penalties. The gender of their partners is more consequential for mothers’ earnings trajectories than is childbearing or the pre-parenthood relative earnings in the couple.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Weverthon Machado: Corresponding author. Department of Sociology, Utrecht University
E-mail: w.barbosamachado@uu.nl

Eva Jaspers: Department of Sociology, Utrecht University
E-mail: e.jaspers@uu.nl

Acknowledgments: We are grateful for valuable feedback from members of the GENPARENT project, namely, Marie Evertsson, Maaike van der Vleuten, Ylva Moberg, Allison Geerts, and Madeleine Eriksson Kirsch. Previous versions of his article were presented at theWork and Family seminar of the Department of Sociology at Utrecht University, the Inter-university Working Group on Social Inequality and Life Courses (ISOL), the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN) conference 2022, the European Population Conference (EPC) 2022, the European Consortium for Sociological Research (ECSR) conference 2022, and the ODISSEI Conference for Social Science in the Netherlands 2022. We thank participants in these sessions for their comments and suggestions.

Funding: This work was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, ERC Consolidator Grant (no. 771770) awarded to principal investigator Marie Evertsson. We also benefited from the support of ODISSEI, the Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations.

Data availability: We use population register data provided by Statistics Netherlands. The data are not publicly available, but interested researchers can, subject to eligibility, apply for access. See instructions at https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/onze-diensten/customised-services-microdata/microdata-conducting-your-own-research. Code for reproducing our analyses is available at https://osf.io/gmcjv/.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Machado, Weverthon, and Eva Jaspers. 2023. “Money, Birth, Gender: Explaining Unequal Earnings Trajectories following Parenthood.” Sociological Science 10: 429-453.
  • Received: January 3, 2023
  • Accepted: March 21, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Vida Maralani
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a14


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Differences in the Risk of Grade Retention for Biracial and Monoracial Students in the United States, 2010 to 2019

By on May 15, 2023 in Articles

Aaron Gullickson

Sociological Science May 15, 2023
10.15195/v10.a13

Abstract

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Understanding how outcomes for biracial individuals compare with those for their monoracial peers is critical for understanding how patterns of racial inequality in the contemporary United States might be shifting. Yet, we know very little about the life chances of biracial individuals because of limitations in most available data sources. In this article, I utilize American Community Survey data from 2010 to 2019 to examine the risk of being clearly behind expected grade among biracial and monoracial K-12 students, helping to fill a gap in our understanding. With large sample sizes for most biracial groups, I am able to estimate grade retention risk for biracial students with enough precision to differentiate even modest differences in risk relative to monoracial groups. The results indicate that for most biracial groups, biracial students have risk similar to their lower-risk monoracial constituent group. Although biracial students tend to have favorable family resource characteristics, controlling for these characteristics does little to change the overall placement of their outcomes.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Aaron Gullickson: University of Oregon, Sociology
E-mail: aarong@uoregon.edu

Acknowledgments: Supplementary materials provided with this article include full model results upon which figures are based as well as any sensitivity analysis described herein. All code and data for this project are available at https://osf.io/4fevt/?view_only=4abc6d86595c4313a8d4792471e9bc0d.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Gullickson, Aaron. 2023. “Differences in the Risk of Grade Retention for Biracial and Monoracial Students in the United States, 2010 to 2019.” Sociological Science 10: 403-428.
  • Received: January 9, 2023
  • Accepted: March 17, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Filiz Garip
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a13


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Income Inequality and Residential Segregation in "Egalitarian" Sweden: Lessons from a Least Likely Case

By on May 10, 2023 in Articles

Selcan Mutgan, Jonathan J. B. Mijs

Sociological Science May 10, 2023
10.15195/v10.a12

Abstract

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Drawing on individual-level full-population data from Sweden, spanning four decades, we investigate the joint growth of income inequality and income segregation. We study Sweden as a “least likely” case comparison with the United States, given Sweden’s historically low levels of inequality and its comprehensive welfare state. Against the background of U.S.-based scholarship documenting a close link between inequality and segregation, our study provides an important insight into the universality of this relationship. Using entropy-based segregation measures, we analyze trends and patterns of income segregation between and within income groups along different sociodemographic dimensions—migration background and family type. Our findings reveal that growing income inequality in the last 30 years has been accompanied by a sharp uptake in income segregation, especially for the bottom quartile of the income distribution who are facing increasing isolation. Income segregation is most extensive for individuals with children in the household, among whom it has increased at a higher rate than those without children. Interestingly, income segregation is lower among non-Western minorities than among majority-group Swedes. We conclude that changes to the welfare state, liberalization of the housing market, and rapid demographic changes have led Sweden onto a path that is difficult to distinguish from that taken by the United States.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Selcan Mutgan: Department of Management and Engineering, Institute for Analytical Sociology, Linköping University
E-mail: selcan.mutgan@liu.se

Jonathan J. B. Mijs: Department of Sociology, Boston University; Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam
E-mail: mijs@bu.edu

Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Maria Brandén, Jackelyn Hwang, Peter Hedström, and Jaap Nieuwenhuis for helpful feedback and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. For their parts in the research on which the results are based, S.M. received funding from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), grant numbers DNR 340-2013-5460, 445-2013-7681, and DNR 2020-02488, and J.J.B.M. received funding from a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, EU Commission Horizon 2020 grant number 88296, and a Veni grant (number VI.Veni.201S.003) from the Dutch Research Council.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Mutgan, Selcan, and Jonathan J. B. Mijs. 2023. “Income Inequality and Residential Segregation in ‘Egalitarian’ Sweden: Lessons from a Least Likely Case.” Sociological Science 10:374-402.
  • Received: December 9, 2022
  • Accepted: January 14, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Cristobal Young
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a12


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Recreating a Plausible Future: Combining Cultural Repertoires in Unsettled Times

By on May 3, 2023 in Articles

Shira Zilberstein, Michèle Lamont, Mari Sanchez

Sociological Science May 3, 2023
10.15195/v10.a11

Abstract

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This article analyzes how young adults draw on cultural resources to understand their identities, aspirations, and goals when taken-for-granted scripts of success are perceived as less desirable or achievable. Drawing on pragmatism, we propose the concept of “plausible futures” to capture how people rearrange elements within cultural repertoires as a practical and moral project to define their identities, aspirations, and goals. We draw on interviews with 80 college students concerning how they understand their future aspirations, including how they define personal success and broader social goals, when they face unpredictability in, and dissatisfaction with, achieving dominant meritocratic and socioeconomic ideals. We find that respondents combine elements from four cultural repertoires to work toward and envision their future: the American dream and neoliberalism, the therapeutic culture, ordinary cosmopolitanisms, and a “Gen Z” cohort narrative. The combining of elements from each repertoire enables a hybrid set of cultural tools that hold to tenets of hard work and self-reliance while accommodating the quest for greater recognition and inclusion. We show that respondents combine cultural elements based on their ability to connect elements to futures perceived as viable and valuable.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Shira Zilberstein: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: szilberstein@fas.harvard.edu

Michèle Lamont: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: mlamont@wjh.harvard.edu

Mari Sanchez: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: mjsanchez@g.harvard.edu

Acknowledgments: Michèle Lamont acknowledges a residential fellowship at the Russell Sage Foundation (2019–20) and a Carnegie Fellowship (2019–21). The authors thank the other members of the research team: Laura Adler, Jonathan Cook, Elena Ayala-Hurtado, Nicole Letourneau, Derek Robey, and Priya Thelapurath. We also thank Lisa Albert and Kathleen Hoover for their technical assistance. This article benefited from comments from members of the American Sociological Association panel on Between Collapse and Utopia; the Culture workshop at New York University; the Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Workshop at Columbia University; and the Comparative Inequality and Inclusion Cluster, Culture and Social Analysis Workshop, and “Inside the Sausage Factory” workshop at Harvard University. We thank the following colleagues for their comments: Francesca Polletta, Manja Klemencic, Ann Mische, and Elena Ayala-Hurtado.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Zilberstein, Shira, Michèle Lamont, and Mari Sanchez. 2023. “Recreating a Plausible Future: Combining Cultural Repertoires in Unsettled Times.” Sociological Science 10: 348-373.
  • Received: August 27, 2022
  • Accepted: March 14, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a11


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Marginal Odds Ratios: What They Are, How to Compute Them, and Why Sociologists Might Want to Use Them

By on April 27, 2023 in Articles

Kristian Bernt Karlson, Ben Jann

Sociological Science April 27, 2023
10.15195/v10.a10

Abstract

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As sociologists are increasingly turning away from using odds ratios, reporting average marginal effects is becoming more popular. We aim to restore the use of odds ratios in sociological research by introducing marginal odds ratios. Unlike conventional odds ratios, marginal odds ratios are not affected by omitted covariates in arbitrary ways. Marginal odds ratios thus behave like average marginal effects but retain the relative effect interpretation of the odds ratio. We argue that marginal odds ratios are well suited for much sociological inquiry and should be reported as a complement to the reporting of average marginal effects. We define marginal odds ratios in terms of potential outcomes, show their close relationship to average marginal effects, and discuss their potential advantages over conventional odds ratios. We also briefly discuss how to estimate marginal odds ratios and present examples comparing marginal odds ratios with conventional odds ratios and average marginal effects.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kristian Bernt Karlson: Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
E-mail: kbk@soc.ku.dk

Ben Jann: Institute of Sociology, University of Bern
E-mail: ben.jann@unibe.ch

Acknowledgments: We thank the following for invaluable comments and feedback: Tim Liao, Mike Hout, Rudolf Farys, and Jesper Fels Birkelund, as well as participants at the Hans Schadee Research Methods Center Seminar on November 3, 2022, at Trento University; the Seminar on Analytical Sociology on November 14–17, 2022, at Venice International University; and the 2022 Swiss Stata Meeting on November 18, 2022, at University of Bern. For Kristian Bernt Karlson, the research leading to the results presented in this article has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 851293). Replication materials for the examples reported in this article are available here: https://osf.io/xkre6/.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Karlson, Kristian Bernt, and Ben Jann. 2023. “Marginal Odds Ratios: What They Are, How to Compute Them, and Why Sociologists Might Want to Use Them.” Sociological Science 10: 332-347.
  • Received: January 31, 2023
  • Accepted: February 17, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a10


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From Social Alignment to Social Control: Reporting the Taliban in Afghanistan

By on April 17, 2023 in Articles

Patrick Bergemann, Austin L. Wright

Sociological Science April 17, 2023
10.15195/v10.a9

Abstract

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In many settings, witnesses can report wrongdoing to internal authorities such as officials within an organization or to external authorities such as the police. We theorize this decision of where to report as rooted in the policing of group boundaries, as the use of different reporting channels symbolically affirms or disaffirms affiliation with different social categories. As such, both witnesses and other social actors have an interest in where witnesses report. We evaluate this theory using villagers’ reporting of illegal Taliban activity in Afghanistan in 2017 and 2018, where witnesses could report externally (e.g., to the national police) or internally (e.g., to village elders). We show how responses to wrongdoing arose from the interaction between self and others’ attitudes toward the Taliban, and we reveal how reporting can be simultaneously punitive for the wrongdoer and affiliative for the category to which the wrongdoer belongs.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Patrick Bergemann: Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine
E-mail: pbergema@uci.edu

Austin L. Wright: Harris School of Public Policy, The University of Chicago
E-mail: austinlw@uchicago.edu

Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to the U.S. Military for granting access to the survey materials used in this study. A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Phil Eles, senior research scientist at NATO, for providing continued support for this research and related projects. The authors would also like to thank Amanda Sharkey and Daniel Karell for their helpful comments. This article benefited from presentations at the Comparative Research Workshop at Yale University and at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine.

  • Citation: Bergemann, Patrick, and Austin L. Wright. 2023. “From Social Alignment to Social Control: Reporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.” Sociological Science 10: 286-331.
  • Received: January 12, 2023
  • Accepted: February 19, 2023
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Andreas Wimmer
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a9


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Findings on Summer Learning Loss Often Fail to Replicate, Even in Recent Data

By on March 30, 2023 in Articles

Joseph Workman, Paul T. von Hippel, Joseph Merry

Sociological Science March 30, 2023
10.15195/v10.a8

Abstract

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It is widely believed that (1) children lose months of reading and math skills over summer vacation and that (2) inequality in skills grows much faster during summer than during school. Concerns have been raised about the replicability of evidence for these claims, but an impression may exist that nonreplicable findings are limited to older studies. After reviewing the 100-year history of nonreplicable results on summer learning, we compared three recent data sources (ECLS- K:2011, NWEA, and Renaissance) that tracked U.S. elementary students’ skills through school years and summers in the 2010s. Most patterns did not generalize beyond a single test. Summer losses looked substantial on some tests but not on others. Score gaps—between schools and students of different income levels, ethnicities, and genders—grew on some tests but not on others. The total variance of scores grew on some tests but not on others. On tests where gaps and variance grew, they did not consistently grow faster during summer than during school. Future research should demonstrate that a summer learning pattern replicates before drawing broad conclusions about learning or inequality.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Joseph Workman: University of Missouri, Kansas City
E-mail: workmanj@umkc.edu

Paul T. von Hippel: University of Texas, Austin
E-mail: paulvonhippel@utexas.edu

Joseph Merry: Furman University
E-mail: joseph.merry@furman.edu

Acknowledgments: Replication code is available at https://osf.io/f4jrb/. Unfortunately, we cannot share vendor data from NWEA and Renaissance Learning, but the ECLS-K:2011 is available to any researcher with a restricted-data license.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Workman, Joseph, Paul T. von Hippel, and Joseph Merry. 2023. “Findings on Summer Learning Loss Often Fail to Replicate, Even in Recent Data.” Sociological Science 10: 251-285.
  • Received: January 6, 2023
  • Accepted: February 6, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Richard Breen
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a8


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Homophily, Setbacks, and the Dissolution of Heterogeneous Ties: Evidence from Professional Tennis

By on March 24, 2023 in Articles

Xuege (Cathy) Lu, Shinan Wang, Letian Zhang

Sociological Science March 24, 2023
10.15195/v10.a7

Abstract

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Why do people engage with similar others despite ample opportunities to interact with dissimilar others? We argue that adversity or setbacks may have a stronger deteriorative effect on ties made up of dissimilar individuals, prompting people to give up on such ties more easily, which, over the long run, results in people forming ties with similar others. We examine this argument in the context of Association of Tennis Professionals tournaments, using data on 9,669 unique doubles pairs involving 1,812 unique players from 99 countries from 2000 to 2020. We find that doubles pairs with players from different countries are more likely to dissolve after a setback, especially if those countries lack social trust and connections with one another; this reality further contributes to the individual player’s increased tendency to collaborate with same-country players in the next tournament. Our study has direct implications for interventions for diversity and inclusion.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Xuege (Cathy) Lu: Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
E-mail: xuegelu@umn.edu

Shinan Wang: Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
E-mail: shinan.wang@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Letian Zhang: Harvard Business School
E-mail: lzhang@hbs.edu

Acknowledgments: We thank Alice (Can) Wang for excellent research assistance. Our data and replication code can be found via https://osf.io/x23ay/?view_only=9521ee27707944fa80004f0561372943.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Lu, Xuege (Cathy), Shinan Wang, and Letian Zhang. 2023. “Homophily, Setbacks, and the Dissolution of Heterogeneous Ties: Evidence from Professional Tennis.” Sociological Science 10: 227-250.
  • Received: September 28, 2022
  • Accepted: December 12, 2022
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Andreas Wimmer
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a7


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