Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 2013"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how neighborhood properties influence a host of phenomena such as crime, poverty, health, civic engagement, immigration, and economic inequality, and show that neighborhood properties can influence these phenomena.
Abstract: Nearly a century of empirical research examines how neighborhood properties influence a host of phenomena such as crime, poverty, health, civic engagement, immigration, and economic inequality. The...
316 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that a fatherhood wage premium often ignores the heterogeneity of fathering contexts, and they expect fatherhood to produce wage gains for men if it prompts them to alter their behav...
Abstract: Past research that asserts a fatherhood wage premium often ignores the heterogeneity of fathering contexts. I expect fatherhood to produce wage gains for men if it prompts them to alter their behav...
202 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine social capital's public good aspects, arguing that the benefits of social trust and organization memberships accrue not just to the individual but to the community at large.
Abstract: The literature on social capital and entrepreneurship often explores individual benefits of social capital, such as the role of personal networks in promoting self-employment. In this article, we instead examine social capital’s public good aspects, arguing that the benefits of social trust and organization memberships accrue not just to the individual but to the community at large. We test these arguments using individual data from the 2000 Census that have been merged with two community surveys, the Social Capital Benchmark Survey and the General Social Survey. We find that individuals in communities with high levels of social trust are more likely to be self-employed compared to individuals in communities with lower levels of social trust. Additionally, membership in organizations connected to the larger community is associated with higher levels of self-employment, but membership in isolated organizations that lack connections to the larger community is associated with lower levels of self-employment....
191 citations
TL;DR: In response to dramatic increases in imprisonment, a burgeoning literature considers the consequences of incarceration for family life, almost always documenting negative outcomes as discussed by the authors. But effects of incarceration on family life are often overlooked.
Abstract: In response to dramatic increases in imprisonment, a burgeoning literature considers the consequences of incarceration for family life, almost always documenting negative outcomes. But effects of i...
188 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore a broad framework for thinking sociologically about emancipatory alternatives to dominant institutions and social structures, especially capitalism, and propose a theory of transformation for realizing those alternatives.
Abstract: This address explores a broad framework for thinking sociologically about emancipatory alternatives to dominant institutions and social structures, especially capitalism. The framework is grounded in two foundational propositions: (1) Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in human flourishing are the result of existing institutions and social structures. (2) Transforming existing institutions and social structures in the right way has the potential to substantially reduce human suffering and expand the possibilities for human flourishing. An emancipatory social science responding to these propositions faces four broad tasks: specifying the moral principles for judging social institutions; using these moral principles as the standards for diagnosis and critique of existing institutions; developing an account of viable alternatives in response to the critique; and proposing a theory of transformation for realizing those alternatives. The idea of “real utopias” is one way of thinking about alternatives and transformation.
180 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined whether existing estimates of network size and social isolation, drawn from egocentric name generators across several representative samples, suffer from systematic biases and showed that they are not robust enough.
Abstract: This article examines whether existing estimates of network size and social isolation, drawn from egocentric name generators across several representative samples, suffer from systematic biases lin...
170 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the effect of an immigrant presence on the third-plus-generation (U.S.-born individuals of U.S. born parents), especially its white members, on academic achievement.
Abstract: Research on immigration, educational achievement, and ethnoraciality has followed the lead of racialization and assimilation theories by focusing empirical attention on the immigrant-origin population (immigrants and their children), while overlooking the effect of an immigrant presence on the third-plus generation (U.S.-born individuals of U.S.-born parents), especially its white members. We depart from this approach by placing third-plus-generation individuals at center stage to examine how they adjust to norms defined by the immigrant-origin population. We draw on fieldwork in Cupertino, California, a high-skilled immigrant gateway, where an Asian immigrant-origin population has established and enforces an amplified version of high-achievement norms. The resulting ethnoracial encoding of academic achievement constructs whiteness as having lesser-than status. Asianness stands for high-achievement, hard work, and success; whiteness, in contrast, represents low-achievement, laziness, and academic mediocri...
166 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a gendered focal concerns and crime opportunities framework was developed to predict minimal and marginal female involvement in corporate criminal networks, and two main pathways defined female involvement: relational (close personal relationship with a main male co-conspirator) and utility (occupied a financial gateway corporate position).
Abstract: We extend the scarce research on corporate crime to include gender by developing and testing a gendered focal concerns and crime opportunities framework that predicts minimal and marginal female involvement in corporate criminal networks. Lacking centralized information, we developed a rich database covering 83 corporate frauds involving 436 defendants. We extracted information from indictments and secondary sources on corporate conspiracy networks (e.g., co-conspirator roles, company positions, and distribution of profit). Findings support the gendered paradigm. Typically, women were not part of conspiracy groups. When women were involved, they had more minor roles and made less profit than their male co-conspirators. Two main pathways defined female involvement: relational (close personal relationship with a main male co-conspirator) and utility (occupied a financial-gateway corporate position). Paralleling gendered labor market segmentation processes that limit and shape women’s entry into economic rol...
163 citations
TL;DR: A comprehensive evaluation of the specialization hypothesis is provided, arguing that, if specialization causes the male marriage premium, married women should experience wage losses and specialization by married parents should augment the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood premium for married as compared to unmarried parents.
Abstract: Married men’s wage premium is often attributed to within-household specialization: men can devote more effort to wage-earning when their wives assume responsibility for household labor. We provide ...
158 citations
TL;DR: The U.S. job structure became increasingly polarized at the turn of the twenty-first century as high and low-wage jobs grew strongly and many middle wage jobs declined as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The U.S. job structure became increasingly polarized at the turn of the twenty-first century as high- and low-wage jobs grew strongly and many middle-wage jobs declined. Prior research on the sourc...
156 citations
TL;DR: For both men and women, absolute mobility rates (i.e., total, up to three generations of family members) were found to be higher for men than women.
Abstract: Using data from three British birth cohort studies, we examine patterns of social mobility over three generations of family members. For both men and women, absolute mobility rates (i.e., total, up...
TL;DR: The overall gender gap in time for sleep as well as gaps within family life-course stages based on age, partnership, and parenthood statuses are examined, finding that overall and at most life course stages, women slept more than men.
Abstract: Do women really sleep more than men? Biomedical and social scientific studies show longer sleep durations for women, a surprising finding given sociological research showing women have more unpaid work and less high-quality leisure time compared to men. We assess explanations for gender differences in time for sleep, including compositional differences in levels of engagement in paid and unpaid labor, gendered responses to work and family responsibilities, and differences in napping, bedtimes, and interrupted sleep for caregiving. We examine the overall gender gap in time for sleep as well as gaps within family life-course stages based on age, partnership, and parenthood statuses. We analyze minutes of sleep from a diary day collected from nationally representative samples of working-age adults in the American Time Use Surveys of 2003 to 2007. Overall and at most life course stages, women slept more than men. Much of the gap is explained by work and family responsibilities and gendered time tradeoffs; as such, gender differences vary across life course stages. The gender gap in sleep time favoring women is relatively small for most comparisons and should be considered in light of the gender gap in leisure time favoring men at all life course stages.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address an important trend in contemporary income inequality, a decline in labor's share of national income and a rise in capitalists' profits share, since the late 1970s.
Abstract: This article addresses an important trend in contemporary income inequality—a decline in labor’s share of national income and a rise in capitalists’ profits share. Since the late 1970s, labor’s sha...
TL;DR: This paper extended existing world society research on ideational diffusion by going beyond examinations of national policy change to investigate the spread of ideas among non-elite individuals, and found that the diffusion of ideas is not limited to a single group.
Abstract: This study extends existing world society research on ideational diffusion by going beyond examinations of national policy change to investigate the spread of ideas among nonelite individuals. Spec...
TL;DR: Using a multilevel comparative framework, this article proposed that politically receptive city contexts facilitate the viability of marginalized neighborhoods, and examined the impact of these contexts on marginalized neighborhoods in a city context.
Abstract: Using a multilevel comparative framework, we propose that politically receptive city contexts facilitate the viability of marginalized neighborhoods. To illustrate this proposition, we examine the ...
TL;DR: Although the working poor are a much larger population than the unemployed poor, U.S. poverty research devotes much more attention to joblessness than to working poverty as mentioned in this paper, which is not the case.
Abstract: Although the working poor are a much larger population than the unemployed poor, U.S. poverty research devotes much more attention to joblessness than to working poverty. Research that does exist o...
TL;DR: This article used a novel decomposition approach to determine the relative contributions of distributive processes and compositional change in the apparent resegregation of schools from 1993 to 2010, finding that whites and minorities actually became more evenly distributed across schools, helping increase minority students' exposure to whites.
Abstract: Today’s typical minority student attends school with fewer whites than his counterpart in 1970. This apparent resegregation of U.S. schools has sparked outrage and debate. Some blame a rollback of desegregation policies designed to distribute students more evenly among schools; others blame the changing racial composition of the student population. This study clarifies the link between distributive processes of segregation, population change, and school racial composition by framing school segregation as a mode of social closure. I use a novel decomposition approach to determine the relative contributions of distributive processes and compositional change in the apparent resegregation of schools from 1993 to 2010. For the most part, compositional changes are to blame for the declining presence of whites in minorities’ schools. During this period, whites and minorities actually became more evenly distributed across schools, helping increase minority students’ exposure to whites. Further decompositions reve...
TL;DR: A double movement within the field of crime control characterized by the prison boom and intensive policing, on the one hand, and widespread implementation of new appr... as mentioned in this paper has witnessed a double movement in crime control.
Abstract: Recent decades have witnessed a double movement within the field of crime control characterized by the prison boom and intensive policing, on the one hand, and widespread implementation of new appr...
TL;DR: This article used a comparative analysis of the U.S. Hispanic population to understand how race affects welfare state development beyond the Black-White divide. But their analysis was limited to the United States.
Abstract: With the dramatic rise in the U.S. Hispanic population, scholars have struggled to explain how race affects welfare state development beyond the Black-White divide. This article uses a comparative ...
TL;DR: It is found that only whites live in significantly more disadvantaged neighborhoods after prison than prior to prison, and this racial variation in the effect of incarceration is attributed to the high degree of racial neighborhood inequality in the United States.
Abstract: Each year, more than 700,000 convicted offenders are released from prison and reenter neighborhoods across the country. Prior studies have found that minority ex-inmates tend to reside in more disadvantaged neighborhoods than do white ex-inmates. However, because these studies do not control for pre-prison neighborhood conditions, we do not know how much (if any) of this racial variation is due to arrest and incarceration, or if these observed findings simply reflect existing racial residential inequality. Using a nationally representative dataset that tracks individuals over time, we find that only whites live in significantly more disadvantaged neighborhoods after prison than prior to prison. Blacks and Hispanics do not, nor do all groups (whites, blacks, and Hispanics) as a whole live in worse neighborhoods after prison. We attribute this racial variation in the effect of incarceration to the high degree of racial neighborhood inequality in the United States: because white offenders generally come from much better neighborhoods, they have much more to lose from a prison spell. In addition to advancing our understanding of the social consequences of the expansion of the prison population, these findings demonstrate the importance of controlling for preprison characteristics when investigating the effects of incarceration on residential outcomes.
TL;DR: This article found that public support for government social programs declined sharply between 2008 and 2010, yet both fixed-effects and repeated survey analyses suggest economic change had little impact on policy-attitude formation.
Abstract: Did Americans respond to the recent Great Recession by demanding that government provide policy solutions to rising income insecurity, an expectation of state-of-the-art theorizing on the dynamics of mass opinion? Or did the recession erode support for government activism, in line with alternative scholarship pointing to economic factors having the reverse effect? We find that public support for government social programs declined sharply between 2008 and 2010, yet both fixed-effects and repeated survey analyses suggest economic change had little impact on policy-attitude formation What accounts for these surprising developments? We consider alternative microfoundations emphasizing the importance of prior beliefs and biases to the formation of policy attitudes Analyzing the General Social Surveys panel, our results suggest political partisanship has been central Gallup and Evaluations of Government and Society surveys provide further evidence against the potentially confounding scenario of government o
TL;DR: An unintended consequence of the genomic revolution may be the reinvigoration of age-old beliefs in essential racial differences, as shown in the Backdoor Vignette.
Abstract: Could the explosion of genetic research in recent decades affect our conceptions of race? In Backdoor to Eugenics, Duster argues that reports of specific racial differences in genetic bases of disease, in part because they are presented as objective facts whose social implications are not readily apparent, may heighten public belief in more pervasive racial differences. We tested this hypothesis with a multi-method study. A content analysis showed that news articles discussing racial differences in genetic bases of disease increased significantly between 1985 and 2008 and were significantly less likely than non-health-related articles about race and genetics to discuss social implications. A survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of 559 adults found that a news-story vignette reporting a specific racial difference in genetic risk for heart attacks (the Backdoor Vignette) produced significantly greater belief in essential racial differences than did a vignette portraying race as a social construction or a no-vignette condition. The Backdoor Vignette produced beliefs in essential racial differences that were virtually identical to those produced by a vignette portraying race as a genetic reality. These results suggest that an unintended consequence of the genomic revolution may be the reinvigoration of age-old beliefs in essential racial differences.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role of national human rights institutions, defined as domestic but globally legitimated agencies charged with promoting and protecting human rights, in international human rights.
Abstract: National human rights institutions, defined as domestic but globally legitimated agencies charged with promoting and protecting human rights, have emerged worldwide. This article examines the effec...
TL;DR: The authors found that parental financial aid decreases student GPA, but it increases the odds of graduation, net of explanatory variables and accounting for alternative funding, while a more-is-less perspective, rooted in a different model of rational behavior, suggests that parental investments create a disincentive for student achievement.
Abstract: Evidence shows that parental financial investments increase college attendance, but we know little about how these investments shape postsecondary achievement. Two theoretical frameworks suggest diametric conclusions. Some studies operate from a more-is-more perspective in which children use calculated parental allocations to make academic progress. In contrast, a more-is-less perspective, rooted in a different model of rational behavior, suggests that parental investments create a disincentive for student achievement. I adjudicate between these frameworks, using data from nationally representative postsecondary datasets to determine what effect financial parental investments have on student GPA and degree completion. The findings suggest seemingly contradictory processes. Parental aid decreases student GPA, but it increases the odds of graduating—net of explanatory variables and accounting for alternative funding. Rather than strategically using resources in accordance with parental goals, or maximizing ...
TL;DR: The model of modern fame has been conceptualized as an open system in which people continually move in and out of celebrity status as mentioned in this paper, which stands in stark contrast to the traditional not...
Abstract: Contemporary scholarship has conceptualized modern fame as an open system in which people continually move in and out of celebrity status. This model stands in stark contrast to the traditional not...
TL;DR: Investigating the links between men’s participation in core and non-core household tasks and sexual frequency shows that both husbands and wives in couples with more traditional housework arrangements report higher sexual frequency, suggesting the importance of gender display rather than marital exchange for sex between heterosexual married partners.
Abstract: Changes in the nature of marriage have spurred a debate about the consequences of shifts to more egalitarian relationships, and media interest in the debate has crystallized around claims that men who participate in housework get more sex. However, little systematic or representative research supports the claim that women, in essence, exchange sex for men’s participation in housework. Although research and theory support the expectation that egalitarian marriages are higher quality, other studies underscore the ongoing importance of traditional gender behavior and gender display in marriage. Using data from Wave II of the National Survey of Families and Households, this study investigates the links between men’s participation in core (traditionally female) and non-core (traditionally male) household tasks and sexual frequency. Results show that both husbands and wives in couples with more traditional housework arrangements report higher sexual frequency, suggesting the importance of gender display rather ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that large-scale macro-political change can powerfully condition how institutional practices shape individual cultural choice, and they study the paired comparison of Portugal an Portugal an...
Abstract: In this article, we show that large-scale macro-political change can powerfully condition how institutional practices shape individual cultural choice. We study the paired comparison of Portugal an...
TL;DR: In this paper, the accumulation of industrial hazards over time and space is investigated by extending theories of modern risk society and classic urban ecology to investigate the industrial hazards in urban areas, and the historical accumulation of hazardous parcels in relation to changing patterns of industrial land use, neighborhood composition, new residential development, and environmental regulation.
Abstract: Endemic uncertainties surrounding urban industrial waste raise important theoretical and methodological challenges for understanding the historical nature of cities. Our study advances a synthetic framework for engaging these challenges by extending theories of modern risk society and classic urban ecology to investigate the accumulation of industrial hazards over time and space. Data for our study come from a unique longitudinal dataset containing geospatial and organizational information on more than 2,800 hazardous manufacturing sites operating between 1956 and 2006 in Portland, Oregon. We pair these site data with historical data from the U.S. population census and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to examine the historical accumulation of hazardous parcels in relation to changing patterns of industrial land use, neighborhood composition, new residential development, and environmental regulation. Results indicate that historical accumulation of hazardous sites is scaling up in ways ...
TL;DR: In this paper, a decision-making model of unauthorized labor migration was developed and tested using survey data collected in Mexico through the Mexican Migration Project, and the model considered the economic motivations of prospective migrants, as well as their beliefs, attitudes, and social norms regarding U.S. immigration law and legal authorities.
Abstract: Why are there so many unauthorized migrants in the United States? Using unique survey data collected in Mexico through the Mexican Migration Project, I develop and test a new decision-making model of unauthorized labor migration. The new model considers the economic motivations of prospective migrants, as well as their beliefs, attitudes, and social norms regarding U.S. immigration law and legal authorities. My findings show that perceptions of certainty of apprehension and severity of punishment are not significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally; however, perceptions of availability of Mexican jobs and the dangers of border crossing are significant determinants of these intentions. In addition, individuals’ general legal attitudes, morality about violating U.S. immigration law, views about the legitimacy of U.S. authority, and norms about border crossing are significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally. Perceptions of procedural justice are significantly related to beliefs...
TL;DR: Human capital theory posits that individuals increase their labor market returns through investments in education and training as discussed by the authors, and this concept has been extensively studied across several disciplines including finance, economics, and psychology.
Abstract: Human capital theory posits that individuals increase their labor market returns through investments in education and training. This concept has been studied extensively across several disciplines....