A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98044356.pdf

Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61706-7.pdf

Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries

This paper conceives of residential segregation as a multidimensional phenomenon varying along 5 distinct axes of measurement: evenness exposure concentration centralization and clustering. 20 indices of segregation are surveyed and related conceptually to 1 of the 5 dimensions. Using data from a large set of US metropolitan areas the indices are intercorrelated and factor analyzed. Orthogonal and oblique rotations produce pattern matrices consistent with the postulated dimensional structure. Based on the factor analyses and other information 1 index was chosen to represent each of the 5 dimensions and these selections were confirmed with a principal components analysis. The paper recommends adopting these indices as standard indicators in future studies of segregation. (authors)

/pdf/the-dimensions-of-residential-segregation-4y6x4yvclv.pdf

The Dimensions of Residential Segregation

Family processes affecting the socioemotional functioning of children living in poor families and families experiencing economic decline are reviewed. Black children are of primary interest in the article because they experience disproportionate shares of the burden of poverty and economic loss and are at substantially higher risk than white children of experiencing attendant socioemotional problems. It is argued that (a) poverty and economic loss diminish the capacity for supportive, consistent, and involved parenting and render parents more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of negative life events, (b) a major mediator of the link between economic hardship and parenting behavior is psychological distress deriving from an excess of negative life events, undesirable chronic conditions, and the absence and disruption of marital bonds, (c) economic hardship adversely affects children's socioemotional functioning in part through its impact on the parent's behavior toward the child, and (d) father-child relations under conditions of economic hardship depend on the quality of relations between the mother and father. The extent to which psychological distress is a source of race differences in parenting behavior is considered. Finally, attention is given to the mechanisms by which parents' social networks reduce emotional strain, lessen the tendency toward punitive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting behavior, and, in turn, foster positive socioemotional development in economically deprived children.

The Impact of Economic Hardship on Black Families and Children: Psychological Distress, Parenting, and Socioemotional Development

This paper represents the first analysis of black-white residential segregation for 1980-1990. It evaluates patterns for all metropolitan areas with substantial black populations. The results show a continued reduction in residential segregation across metropolitan areas suggesting that the forces aimed at lowering institutionalized segregation have had some effect. The next section recounts the primary influences on black-white segregation historically through the mid-1960s. The subsequent section points up forces which evoked since the 1960s that have acted to reduce segregation. These introductory sections will be followed by an evaluation of 1980-1990 segregation patterns. An appendix presents 1980 and 1990 segregation scores for all metropolitan areas. (excerpt)

Changes in the segregation of whites from blacks during the 1980s: small steps toward a more integrated society.

Unlike most other causes of death, homicide has been increasing in the United States, especially since the mid-1960s. Its impact is greatest among nonwhite men. The elimination of homicide would add approximately one and one-half years to their life span. This analysis examines trends and differentials using vital statistics data about homicide victims. A decomposition of components of change reveals that almost all of the rise in homicide mortality among nonwhites and a substantial fraction of the rise among whites results from the increasing use of firearms to kill people.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2061058

Homicide trends in the united states

Data from Census 2000 show that black-white segregation declined modestly at the national level after 1980, while Hispanic and Asian segregation rose in most metropolitan areas. Changes that may have produced greater changes for blacks proved to have insignificant effects: there was no net shift of the black population toward less-segregated areas, segregation at the metropolitan level did not decline more in areas where the incomes of blacks came closer to the incomes of whites over time, and the emergence of more multiethnic metropolises had no impact. As in the past, declines were centered in the South and West and in areas with smaller black populations. Increases in Hispanic and Asian segregation in individual metropolitan areas were counterbalanced by a net movement of these two groups toward areas of lower segregation. These increases were associated especially with the more rapid growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations. Hispanic segregation increased more in regions where group members had declining incomes relative to the incomes of whites and included a growing share of immigrants.

Segregation of Minorities in the Metropolis: Two Decades of Change

Two opposing hypotheses seek to explain why black-white residential segreration persists despite open housing laws. One perspective argues that discriminatory practices in the marketing of real estate are responsible. Another view contends that it is the preferences of both blacks and whites for their own neighborhoods that maintain segregation. Using data from the Detroit Area Study of 1976 and 1992, the authors test the hypothesis that stereotypes among whites play an important role in explaining their resistance to integrated neighborhoods. They conclude that stereotype use links white preferences to discriminatory real estate practices in a way that helps to explain the persistence of segregation in the Detroit area.

Stereotypes and Segregation: Neighborhoods in the Detroit Area

This study undertaken for the National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census is one in a series of volumes concerned with analyses of the 1980 U.S. census results. In the present volume the authors "compare demographic social and economic characteristics of blacks and whites to discover how and to what extent racial identity influences opportunities and outcomes in our society." Data are primarily from the 1980 census but are supplemented by earlier censuses and national and local surveys. "Each chapter in this book examines the comparative status of black and white Americans. We look at the internal diversity of blacks and whites; we also look at the groups in relation to one another and over time. Chapters 2-5 examine the dynamic population processes of fertility mortality growth and migration. Over time these processes have changed not only the size but also the age structure and geographic location of the black and white populations in the United States. Chapter 6 describes marital status and family structure; Chapter 7 describes educational attainment and school enrollment; Chapters 8-11 focus on the economic statuses of blacks and whites as revealed in the 1980 census. Of special importance in this connection is the relationship of economic status to other characteristics of the individual. In Chapter 12 we compare foreign-born and native-born blacks....We consciously examine the impact of race on the lives of black and white Americans and find that the sociological reality of race is more important than its biological reality." (EXCERPT)

Reynolds Farley

Papers

Changes in the segregation of whites from blacks during the 1980s: small steps toward a more integrated society.

Homicide trends in the united states

Segregation of Minorities in the Metropolis: Two Decades of Change

Stereotypes and Segregation: Neighborhoods in the Detroit Area

The color line and the quality of life in America