Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 1999"

Beyond Social Capital: Spatial Dynamics of Collective Efficacy for Children

Abstract: We propose a theoretical framework on the structural sources and spatially embedded nature of three mechanisms that produce collective efficacy for children. Using survey data collected in 1995 from 8,782 Chicago residents, we examine variations in intergenerational closure, reciprocal local exchange, and shared expectations for informal social control across 342 neighborhoods. Adjusting for respondents' attributes, we assess the effects of neighborhood characteristics measured in the 1990 census and the role of spatial interdependence. The results show that residential stability and concentrated affluence, more so than poverty and racial/ethnic composition, predict intergenerational closure and reciprocal exchange. Concentrated disadvantage, by contrast, is associated with sharply lower expectations for shared child control. The importance of spatial dynamics in generating collective efficacy for children is highlighted-proximity to areas high in closure, exchange, and control bestows an advantage above and beyond the structural characteristics of a given neighborhood. Moreover, spatial advantages are much more likely to accrue to white neighborhoods than to black neighborhoods

Embeddedness in the making of financial capital : How social relations and networks benefit firms seeking financing

Abstract: The article investigates how social embeddedness affects an organization's acquisition and cost of financial capital in middle-market banking-a lucrative but understudied financial sector Using existing theory and original fieldwork, Author develops a framework to explain how embeddedness can influence which firms get capital and at what cost I then statistically examine my claims using national data on small-business lending At the level of dyadic ties, author finds that firms that embed their commercial transactions with their lender in social attachments receive lower interest rates on loans At the network level, firms are more likely to get loans and to receive lower interest rates on loans if their network of bank ties has a mix of embedded ties and arm's-length ties These network effects arise because embedded ties motivate network partners to share private resources, while arm's-length ties facilitate access to public information on market prices and loan opportunities so that the benefits of different types of ties are optimized within one network Author concludes with a discussion of how the value produced by a network is at a premium when it creates a bridge that links the public information of markets with the private resources of relationships

Bureaucracy and growth: a cross-national analysis of the effects of "weberian" state structures on economic growth*

Abstract: The role of bureaucratic authority structures in facilitating economic growth has been a sociological concern since Max Weber's classic contributions almost 100 years ago. Using a recent and original data set, we examine the characteristics of core state economic agencies and the growth records of a sample of 35 developing countries for the 1970-1990 period. Our "Weberianness Scale" offers a simple measure of the degree to which these agencies employ meritocratic recruitment and offer predictable, rewarding long-term careers. We find that these "Weberian " characteristics significantly enhance prospects for economic growth, even when we control for initial levels of GDP per capita and human capital. Our results imply that "Weberianness" should be included as a factor in general models of economic growth. They also suggest the need for more attention by policymakers to building better bureaucracies and more research by social scientists on variations in how state bureaucracies are organized.

The Ties That Bind: Principles of Cohesion in Cohabitation and Marriage

Abstract: A vast literature addresses the correlates of marital stability, but little is known about what unites cohabiting partners over time. Although a specialized division of labor might increase the benefits of marriage and strengthen ties between husband and wife, transactional considerations make specialization unattractive for cohabitors. Drawing from work on the emergence of commitment, we argue that cohabitors are more likely to remain together under conditions of equality. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we test these ideas by modeling the stability of married and longterm cohabiting unions in the United States. We find that married couples who adopt a more specialized division of labor are less likely to divorce, but the effect is modest. Among cohabitors, partners whose employment and earnings are increasingly similar face sharply reduced risks of breaking up, but the effect is asymmetric. Inequality is more disruptive when the female cohabitor earns more than her partner.

Parental networks, social closure, and mathematics learning : A test of Coleman's social capital explanation of school effects

Abstract: Through an analysis of gains in mathematics achievement between the tenth and twelfth grades for respondents to the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we examine Coleman's explanation for why Catholic schools apparently produce more learning than public schools. According to Coleman, Catholic schools benefit from larger endowments of social capital, generated in part through greater intergenerational social closure (i.e., dense network connections between the parents of students). Instead, we find that for public schools, social closure among parents is negatively associated with achievement gains in mathematics, net of friendship density among students. This evidence of a negative effect of parental social closure within the public school sector lends support to our alternative hypothesis that horizon-expanding schools foster more learning than do norm-enforcing schools. Moreover, this result renders social closure incapable of explaining any portion of the Catholic school effect on learning, even though within the Catholic school sector there is some evidence that social closure is positively associated with learning

Immigrant groups in the suburbs : A reexamination of suburbanization and spatial assimilation

Abstract: For a number of contemporary immigrant groups, suburbanization is occurring at high levels, and either increased or remained stable during the 1980s, a decade of high immigration. We investigate whether these settlement patterns are consistent with spatial-assimilation theory. Using Public Use Microdata from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. censuses, we examine the link between suburban residence and life-cycle, socioeconomic, and assimilation characteristics for 11 racial/ethnic groups, including those growing most from contemporary immigration as well as non Hispanic whites. We find support for some aspects of the theory. The determinants of suburban residence are consistent between the 1980 and 1990 models, with some important exceptions: Among several groups, especially Asian groups, the effects of very recent immigration and linguistic assimilation have weakened. Our findings indicate that barriers to the entry of new immigrants to suburbia are nov lower than before. The growing numbers of recent immigrants there suggest the emergence of new ethnic concentrations and infrastructure

Building the iron cage: Determinants of managerial intensity in the early years of organizations.

Abstract: We examine how founding conditions shape the proliferation of management and administration in a sample of young technology start-up companies in California's Silicon Valley, Analyzing quantitative and qualitative information, we examine the enduring imprint of two aspects of founding conditions. (1) the initial gender mix in start-ups and (2) the founder's employment model. Both factors influence the extent of managerial intensity that develops over time. In particular, firms with bureaucratic-model founders subsequently became more administratively intense than otherwise similar companies, particularly when compared with companies with commitment-model founders. Also, firms with proportionately more women during the first year subsequently bureaucratized less than otherwise similar firms. Our analyses thus support notions of path-dependence in the evolution of organizational structures and underscore the importance of the logics of organizing that founders bring to new enterprises

Property values drop when blacks move in, because... : Racial and socioeconomic determinants of neighborhood desirability

Abstract: Are housing prices lower in neighborhoods with high concentrations of black residents. If so, is this relationship evidence of pure discrimination, or can it be explained by considering nonracial neighborhood traits? These questions derive their importance from the link between mobility patterns and residential segregation, and the consequent relationship between high levels of segregation and a host of deleterious outcomes. I assess the magnitude and motivations of racial aversion by conducting a hedonic price analysis of geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I find clear evidence of lower property values in neighborhoods with relatively high proportions of black residents. However, whether it is blacks' race or their socioeconomic status that affects property values depends on whether housing units are rented or owner-occupied

Utility of health data from social surveys : Is there a gold standard for measuring morbidity?

Abstract: Most sociological and epidemiological studies of health status in adulthood rely on reports of morbidity from respondents to social surveys. This study compares self-reported morbidity with indicators of morbidity from physicians' evaluations and examines the predictive validity of each indicator on self-assessed health and mortality in adulthood. Special attention is given to differences in the measures between white and African American adults. Adults from a large national survey received a detailed medical examination by a physician; they also were asked about the presence of 36 health conditions. Results indicate that self-reported morbidity is equal or superior to physician-evaluated morbidity in a prognostic sense. Both types of morbidity predict self-assessed health for white respondents, but physician-evaluated morbidity is not related to either self-assessed health or mortality for African American respondents

In Search of Smoking Guns: What Makes Income Inequality Vary over Time in Different Countries?

Abstract: We investigate the forces affecting the distribution of income by analyzing an unbalanced panel of information for 16 industrialized countries for the years 1966 through 1994. Income inequality is measured with the Gini coefficient of equivalent disposable income; individuals are the unit of analysis; the statistical analysis uses panel methods. The results suggest that many factors affect the development of income inequality. Some factors are strictly economic: A decreased industrial sector generally fosters inequality, and some support is found for the view that increased trade of manufactured goods from developing countries is also a factor. Other forces are outside a strictly defined market sphere: Low inequality is found when a large proportion of the labor force belongs to a trade union and also when there is a large public sector. In addition, demographic circumstances are important, since the proportion of the population under age 15 has a positive effect on inequality. We find, however, no association between the unemployment rate and inequality

The effect of marriage and divorce on women's economic well-being

Abstract: This article focuses on the question of whether divorced women would experience the same absolute levels of economic well being by staying married as women who remain married experience. The study additionally examines the argument that all women are economically vulnerable once marriage ends by examining whether the average married women would if she were to divorce experience the same low levels of economic well being as divorced women do. Longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households are utilized to estimate endogenous switching regression models that simultaneously predict the odds of divorce and subsequent economic well being for women who divorce and for those who remain married. Findings suggest that divorced women would not fare as well economically as married women had they remained married instead of divorcing. This study concludes that women generally are economically vulnerable outside marriage. By virtue of the division of labor in marriage many women still accrue lower levels and less continuity of employment than their husbands. This study indicates that the typical married woman would experience the same financial distress if she were to divorce thus underscoring womens economic vulnerability.

Power in Negotiated and Reciprocal Exchange

Abstract: While classical exchange theorists excluded bargaining from the scope of their theories, most contemporary theorists have done the opposite, concentrating exclusively on negotiated exchanges with binding agreements. We analyze how the form of social exchange - negotiated or reciprocal - affects the distribution of power in exchange networks. These two forms of exchange differ in fundamental ways that affect how actors use power and the kinds of risk and uncertainty they face. We predict that these basic differences will affect the relation between the availability of alternative partners and actors' use of power, and will produce lower power use in reciprocal exchange than in negotiated exchange. We test our predictions in a laboratory experiment. The results support the underlying logic of our theory, partially support its specific predictions, and raise new questions about the importance of the different time perspectives required by negotiated and reciprocal exchange

Sibship size and intellectual development: Is the relationship causal?

Abstract: In this study we test the alternative interpretation of the effect of sibship size on childs intellectual development through sibling analysis and analysis of repeated measures of the same individuals. Both analyses are variations of change models or fixed-effects models. Change models enable us to control permanent family effects including family socioeconomic status (SES) family genetic makeup and intellectual atmosphere in the home by `differencing them out. Thus we can determine if and how much the sibship-size effect is confounded by other family influences that are difficult or impossible to control in conventional regression analysis. The data are from the [U.S.] National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Also included are comments by Meredith Phillips (pp. 188-92) and D. B. Downey B. Powell L. C. Steelman and S. Pribesh (pp. 193-98) and a reply by Guo and VanWey (pp. 199-206). (EXCERPT)

Income inequality, development, and dependence: A reconsideration

Abstract: We reconsider the role of foreign investment in income inequality in light of recent critiques that question the results of quantitative cross-national research on foreign capital penetration. We analyze an unbalanced cross-national data set in which countries contribute different numbers of observations, with a maximum of 88 countries and 488 observations, dated from 1967 to 1994. Random-effects regression models that control for unmeasured country heterogeneity are used to investigate effects of foreign capital penetration on inequality (measured as the Gini coefficient) against the background of an internal-developmental model of inequality. We adapt Firebaugh's (1992, 1996) critique of the literature on the effect of foreign investment on economic growth to the study of income inequality and find that the stock of foreign direct investment has an effect on inequality that is independent of the mechanisms identified by Firebaugh. We explore Tsai's (1995) claim that the effect of foreign capital penetration is spurious and find that foreign stock has a significant positive effect on inequality net of region-specific differences. An alternative interpretation of the findings of the foreign investment/inequality literature is discussed in light of the discovery of an inverted-U shaped relationship between income inequality and foreign investment stock per capita. We conclude that thinking on the relationship between income inequality and investment dependence should be revised in light of an investment-development path relating the inflow and outflow of foreign capital to economic development.

Developing Difference: Social Organization and the Rise of the Auto Industries of South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, and Argentina

Abstract: Theories of economic development as diverse as modernization, dependency, world-system, and market reform take a "critical factor" view. Proponents of each theory argue that countries fail to develop because of an obstacle to economic growth. We argue instead that neither a critical factor nor a single path leads to economic development; viable paths vary. Economic growth depends on linking a country's historically developed patterns of social organization to the opportunities of global markets. We formulate a sociological theory of cross-national comparative advantage including not only economic factor endowments but also institutionalized patterns of authority and organization. Such patterns legitimize certain actors and certain relationships among those actors, which facilitate development success in some activities but not in others. We illustrate this approach to understanding development outcomes with a comparative analysis of the difficult rise of the automobile assembly and components industries in South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, and Argentina.

Economic hardship across the life course

Abstract: We test two hypotheses about the relationship between age and reported difficulty paying bills or buying things the family needs, such as food, clothing, medicine, and medical care. The affluence-trajectory hypothesis follows from age-group differences in income, income per capita, and official poverty, suggesting that economic hardship declines in successively older age groups up to late middle age but then rises. The adequacy-gradient hypothesis follows from research suggesting a progressively favorable balance of resources relative to needs in successively older age groups, suggesting that economic hardship declines progressively in successively older age groups. Two U.S. surveys (1990 and 1995) find a progressive decline in economic hardship in successively older age groups consistent with the adequacy-gradient hypothesis. Most age-group differences in economic hardship appear attributable to differences in the presence of children in the home, in resources such as homeownership and medical insurance, and in behaviors such as moderation and thrift

Religious congregations and welfare reform : Who will take advantage of Charitable Choice?

Abstract: The Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation requires states that contract with nonprofit organizations for delivery of social services to include religious organizations as eligible contractees. This legislation altered the conditions under which religious organizations can provide publicly funded social services. I use data from the National Congregations Study, a 1998 survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,236 religious congregations, to address two questions: To what extent will congregations seek government support for social service activity? Which subsets of congregations are most likely to take advantage of these new opportunities? Univariate statistics show that more than one-third of congregations are potentially open to pursuing government funds to support social service activities. Multivariate analyses show that liberal and moderate congregations are much more likely than conservative congregations to pursue charitable-choice opportunities, and predominantly African American congregations are particularly likely to move in this direction. These results are consistent with sociological theory and research, but they are surprising in the context of the national politics of charitable choice

Children of the Cultural Revolution : The state and the life course in the People's Republic of China

Abstract: From 1967 to 1978, the state send-down policy in the People's Republic of China forced 17 million urban youth to live and work in rural areas. We examine the life experiences of the children of the Cultural Revolution - those youths who entered the labor force during this period. The send-down episode provides a natural experiment - an opportunity to study the effects of state policies on the life course in a state socialist society. We focus on two theoretical issues: (1) how the effects of adverse state policies on the life course were mediated by the structure of social stratification, and (2) how the send-down experience affected individuals' later life course and economic well-being. We compare and contrast patterns of entry into the labor force, subsequent major life events, and the economic well-being of sent-down youth with those who stayed in urban areas. Our findings show that all social groups were negatively affected by adverse state policies, but the bureaucratic class had some capacity to reduce such negative effects on their children. The send-down experience has had lasting effects on individuals' life courses, as reflected in the patterns of the later life course events and in the determinants of personal income.

Neighborhood effects on family formation : Concentrated poverty and beyond

Abstract: We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in conjunction with decennial census data, to examine the impact of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on young women's risk of premarital childbearing and the timing of their transition to first marriage. Discrete-time event-history models reveal that, among black women, neighborhood disadvantage has little impact on the risk of premarital childbearing, but has a significant nonlinear effect on the probability of marriage prior to first birth. Among white women, as neighborhood disadvantage increases, premarital childbearing rates rise nonlinearly, and marriage rates rise linearly. The nonlinear effects of neighborhood disadvantage on white women's premarital childbearing and black women's first prebirth marriage are generally consistent with arguments regarding the detrimental consequences of concentrated poverty, as opposed to merely high poverty. We find no evidence that the effects of individual socioeconomic status on these dimensions of family formation vary by neighborhood quality. And although white women's estimated rates of premarital childbearing may approach those of blacks in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, socioeconomic differences between the neighborhoods inhabited by black women and white women explain only a modest proportion of the pronounced racial differences in premarital childbearing and the timing of first marriage.

Bilingualism and the academic achievement of first- and second-generation asian americans: accommodation with or without assimilation?*

Abstract: Recent scholarship claims that bilingualism has a positive effect on the academic achievement of immigrant children. According to this perspective, growing up speaking two languages is beneficial because it stimulates cognitive development and allows immigrants a means of resisting unwanted assimilation. Immigrant children who are fluent bilinguals can use their nutive-language ability to maintain beneficial aspects of their ethnic culture while accommodating to the linguistic demands of an English-speaking society. Using data on first- and second-generation Asian American students from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study, we test for these hypothesized effects of bilingualism. We find no evidence that bilingualism per se has a positive effect on achievement. Instead, speaking a native language with parents has a temporary positive effect if the parents are not proficient in English. These results indicate that the academic importance of bilingualism is transitional: The educational benefits of delaying linguistic assimilation exist only before immigrant parents achieve a moderate level of English-language proficiency.

Organizational Mediation of Project-Based Labor Markets: Talent Agencies and the Careers of Screenwriters

Abstract: We examine how organizations that mediate life-of-project employment segment the labor market in a culture industry. Using longitudinal data on writers for television and feature films, we examine trends in the extent to which type of agency representation affects writers' employment and earnings. Elite or core agencies are those that transcend their role as market brokers between the suppliers and purchasers of writing services by participating actively in the production process. Writers who are represented by such agencies are substantially more likely to find employment, and they earn considerably more than equally accomplished writers with non core agency representation. We discuss the implications of these findings for contingent employment of professionalized employees in other highly institutionalized industrial sectors.

Boon or Bane? Reassessing the Productivity of Foreign Direct Investment

Abstract: We assess the effects of foreign and domestic capital on economic growth using the latest data and better models of economic growth than those previously used. We explicitly consider the role of human capital in the process of economic development. We find no evidence that foreign direct investment harms the economic prospects of developing countries. The flow of foreign capital from 1980 to 1991 spurred growth in gross domestic product per capita, while the level of foreign stock, or foreign penetration, had no discernible effect. Indeed, new foreign investment was more productive dollar for dollar than was capital from domestic sources. Previous suggestions that foreign investment flows are less beneficial than domestic ones were based on a misinterpretation. Moreover, foreign direct investment stimulates investment from domestic sources. Consequently, developing countries have no reason to eschew foreign capital, as dependency theorists urge

Real in their consequences: A sociological approach to understanding the association between psychotic symptoms and violence.

Abstract: Studies conducted over the past three decades have consistently reported an association between mental illness and violence. We propose a sociologically inspired explanation for this association by referring to the Thomas Theorem - if situations are defined as real, they are real in their consequences. We identify a small subset of psychotic symptoms, termed threat/control-override symptoms, that tend to induce violence because they influence the definitions of situations. Our data come from an epidemiological study conducted in Israel that includes a psychiatrist-administered diagnostic interview. We find an association between violent behaviors and psychiatric diagnosis that cannot be accounted for by sociodemographic variables. Threat/control-override symptoms also are strongly related to violent behaviors and explain a substantial part of the association between violence and psychiatric diagnoses. Other equally severe psychotic symptoms are not related to indicators of violence when threat/control-override symptoms are controlled. These findings support our explanation for the association between mental illness and violence, and challenge the stereotype that most people with mental illnesses are dangerous

Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract: Commemorative images of the past not only reflect the commemorated event and the contemporary circumstances, but are path-dependent products of earlier commemorations as well. Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, I specify the central mechanism of this path-dependency - genre memory - and reconceptualize commemoration dialogically. In a case study of May 8, 1945 anniversaries in the Federal Republic of Germany, I take an integrated approach that includes the politics of commemoration (context-dependence), the history of commemoration (long-term development of commemorative forms), and most important, the memory of commemoration (prosaic path dependence), illuminating a subtle yet crucial feature of the 50th anniversary commemoration of May 8 1945: its response to the memory of the 40th anniversary

Explaining deindustrialization : Globalization, failure, or success?

Abstract: Although sociologists have expressed growing interest in globalization, they have devoted little sustained empirical attention to the many claims made in its name. I focus on the link that has been drawn between globalization and the deindustrialization of the advanced industrial societies. To examine this, I employ a pooled time-series of cross-sections data set that combines observations on 18 OECD nations across the 1968-1992 period. Fixed-effects regression models that control for unmeasured country-specific effects reveal support for arguments that implicate foreign direct investment and North-South trade in the declining percentage of the labor force employed in manufacturing in the OECD countries. Regression results also show that deindustrialization across this period is largely explained by a model that combines an attention to the post-Golden Age troubles of northern manufacturing with classic generalizations of the process of development. Interpretation of the empirical findings is tempered by an exercise in counterfactual history, which reveals that deindustrialization would have been considerable in these countries even if the upswings in direct investment and southern imports had not occurred or if the performance of the manufacturing sector had been stronger

Choice Shift and Group Polarization

Abstract: I extend the theoretical domain of sociology into an area of social psychology that heretofore has been the exclusive domain of psychologists. Specifically, I develop a social structural perspective on the choice shifts that individuals make within groups. During interpersonal discussions of issues, choice shifts occur when there is a difference between group members' mean final opinion and their mean initial opinion. Explanations of choice shifts have emphasized group-level conditions (e.g., a norm, a decision rule, a pool of persuasive arguments, a distribution of initial opinions). I argue that choice shifts are a ubiquitous product of the inequalities of interpersonal influence that emerge during discussions of issues. Hence, I bring choice shifts squarely into the domain of a structural social psychology that attends to the composition of networks of interpersonal influence and into broader sociological perspectives concerned with the formation of status structures. he etiology of networks of interpersonal _ interaction and the effects of these net

Americans' increasing belief in life after death : Religious competition and acculturation

Abstract: A greater fraction of American adults believe in life after death in the 1990s than in the 1970s. According to data from the General Social Survey, year-to-year changes are significant, but the increase is most evident when we compare across cohorts and separate religious groups. Protestants have not changed; in every cohort 85 percent believe in life after death. It has been Catholics, Jews, and persons with no religious affiliation who have become more likely to believe in an afterlife. The percentage of Catholics believing in an afterlife rose from 67 percent to 85 percent across cohorts born from 1900 to 1970. Among Jews, this percentage increased from 17 percent (1900 cohort) to 74 percent (1970 cohort). Immigration is a key factor in this increase, as immigrants are significantly less likely to believe in an afterlife than are their grandchildren. We connect the increase among Catholics to the organizing and teaching led by Irish American priests and bishops. There is no evidence that contact with Protestants increases belief in life after death among persons who do not convert to a Protestant denomination

Collective violence and group solidarity : Evidence from a feuding society

Abstract: Sociological explanations of group conflict usually presuppose that the various factors that breed hostility between collectivities also generate internal solidarity. Outside of the protest literature, studies of conflict therefore pay little attention to the collective-action problem facing groups in contention, and therefore overestimate the likelihood of group conflict: Intergroup struggle is implicitly regarded as a sufficient condition for group participation in violent conflict. Examination of nineteenth-century court documents from Corsica, a society known for its tradition of collectivist feuding, shows that violent incidents typically did not involve groups. The group character of violence - in the form of collaborative use of lethal force and inclusion of disputants kin - was conditional on collective contention having occurred before violence began. This and other empirical patterns support the view that collective violence occurs when group action fails to convince an adversary to back down. The failure to prevent escalation calls the group's solidarity into question, compelling members to demonstrate that they are able to overcome their collective-action problem