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Algorithmic Risk Scoring and Welfare State Contact Among US Children

By on August 23, 2024 in Articles

Martin Eiermann

Sociological Science August 23, 2024
10.15195/v11.a26

Abstract

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Predictive Risk Modeling (PRM) tools are widely used by governing institutions, yet research on their effects has yielded divergent findings with low external validity. This study examines how such tools influence child welfare governance, using a quasi-experimental design and data from more than one million maltreatment investigations in 121 US counties. It demonstrates that the adoption of PRM tools reduced maltreatment confirmations among Hispanic and Black children but increased such confirmations among high-risk and low-SES children. PRM tools did not reduce the likelihood of subsequent maltreatment confirmations; and effects were heterogeneous across counties. These findings demonstrate that the use of PRM tools can reduce the incidence of state interventions among historically over-represented minorities while increasing it among poor children more generally. However, they also illustrate that the impact of such tools depends on local contexts and that technological innovations do not meaningfully address chronic state interventions in family life that often characterize the lives of vulnerable children.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Martin Eiermann: Department of Sociology, Duke University
E-mail: martin.eiermann@duke.edu.

Acknowledgements: The author thanks Olivia Kim and Henry Zapata for invaluable research assistance, and thanks Garrett Baker, Alexandra Gibbons, Sarah Sernaker, and Christopher Wildeman for constructive feedback.

Replication Package: Access to restricted-use NCANDS data can be requested through the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN). Other data and replication code are available at: https://osf.io/dq3xp/.

  • Citation: Eiermann, Martin. 2024. “Algorithmic Risk Scoring and Welfare State Contact Among US Children” Sociological Science 11: 707-742.
  • Received: May 20, 2024
  • Accepted: July 2, 2024
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Maria Abascal
  • DOI: 10.15195/v11.a26


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Unemployment Insurance and the Family: Heterogeneous Effects of Benefit Generosity on Reemployment and Economic Precarity

By on August 16, 2024 in Articles

Ursina Kuhn, Debra Hevenstone, Leen Vandecasteele, Samin Sepahniya, Dorian Kessler

Sociological Science August 16, 2024
10.15195/v11.a24

Abstract

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We investigate how unemployment insurance generosity impacts reemployment and economic precarity by family type. With Swiss longitudinal administrative data and a regression discontinuity design using potential benefit duration, we examine differences between single households and primary and secondary or equal earners, as well as differences by gender and presence of children. Less generous unemployment insurance (shorter potential benefit duration) speeds up reemployment for all family types during the period with benefit cuts whereas longer-term effects are stronger for single households, secondary and equal earners, and those without children. Economic precarity increases for singles, single-parents, and primary earners during the period with lower benefits though there are no long-term effects. We argue that those with higher financial responsibility (i.e., primary earners or those with children) face pressure to find jobs irrespective of benefit generosity whereas those with lower financial responsibility (i.e., secondary or equal earners and those without children) have more capacity to react.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ursina Kuhn: Social Work, Bern University of Applied Sciences. Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS)
E-mail: ursina.kuhn@fors.unil.ch

Debra Hevenstone: SocialWork, Bern University of Applied Sciences
E-mail: debra.hevenstone@bfh.ch

Leen Vandecasteele: Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES), Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne
E-mail: leen.vandecasteele@unil.ch

Samin Sepahniya: Social Work and Health, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland
E-mail: samin.sepahniya@fhnw.ch

Dorian Kessler: Social Work, Bern University of Applied Sciences
E-mail: dorian.kessler@bfh.ch

Acknowledgements: This article was written as part of the project Family Models and Unemployment (grant number 176371) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). We would like to acknowledge the SNSF project “Coupled Inequalities. Trends and Welfare State Differences in the Role of Partner’s Socio-Economic Resources for Employment Careers” (grant number 100017_182406) and the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES) for fruitful collaboration and exchange. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments which helped to clarify the paper. We also thank the SNSF for open access funding of this article.

Supplemental Material

Replication Package: The code for data analysis, data description, and instructions on how data can be requested for replication is provided on SwissUbase. https://doi.org/10.25597/tm2k-jf98

  • Citation: Kuhn, Ursina, Debra Hevenstone, Leen Vandecasteele, Samin Sepahniya and Dorian Kessler. 2024. “Unemployment Insurance and the Family: Heterogeneous Effects of Benefit Generosity on Reemployment and Economic Precarity.” Sociological Science 11: 649-679.
  • Received: July 4, 2024
  • Accepted: March 18, 2024
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Vida Maralani
  • DOI: 10.15195/v11.a24


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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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The Missing Main Effect of Welfare State Regimes: A Comment

By on February 17, 2016 in Articles

David L. Weakliem

Sociological Science, February 17, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a6

Abstract

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This article discusses Nate Breznau’s critique of Brooks and Manza’s “Social Policy Responsiveness in Developed Democracies.” Brooks and Manza found that public opinion influenced welfare state spending, but Breznau argued that this conclusion was an artifact of their model, which included an interaction between opinion and welfare state type but omitted the main effect of welfare state type. Breznau is correct in saying that interactions should not be used without including the main effect, except in rare circumstances which do not apply in this case. However, the classification of welfare state type is made partly on the basis of the dependent variable, welfare spending, so it should not be used as an independent variable. There is, however, a case for including a variable for the type of legal system (common law or civil law), which is correlated with welfare state type. The estimates from a regression including both main and interaction effects support Brooks’s and Manza’s original conclusions about the effect of public opinion. The paper concludes by discussing the strength of the evidence provided by the data.

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

David L. Weakliem: Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut  Email: david.weakliem@uconn.edu

  • Citation: David L. Weakliem. 2016. “The Missing Main Effect of Welfare State Regimes: A Comment”. Sociological Science 3: 109-115
  • Received: November 10, 2015
  • Accepted: December 2, 2015.
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a6

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