Social Movements
Subnational Opposition to Globalization
Paul Almeida
Using a unique dataset on the geographic distribution of reported protest events from local sources, the study explains the variation in community-level mobilization in response to neoliberal reforms in two countries in the global periphery. Building on insights from macro, cross-national studies of protests related to market reforms, this article highlights local structural conditions that more likely generate popular contention in poorer countries. Count regression models show that localities with greater levels of state and community infrastructure (highways, administrative offices, universities, NGOs and local chapters of oppositional parties) were associated with heightened collective action opposing the privatization of health care and public utilities. These state and community infrastructures were shaped by national contexts in the era of state-led development preceding the current epoch of accelerated globalization.
Political Reform and the Historical Trajectories of U.S. Social Movements in the Twentieth Century
Edwin Amenta, Neal Caren, James E. Stobaugh
We propose a political reform theory, a political and historical institutionalist argument that holds that shifts in political structures, partisan regimes and policy greatly influence movements. We appraise this argument, along with resource mobilization, political opportunity and media alternatives, by analyzing 600,000 articles in the New York Times and Washington Post that mention national U.S. social movement organizations (SMOs) in the largest 34 SMO industries across the twentieth century. We provide multivariate analyses of industry-level article mentions of SMOs and detailed analyses of the historical trajectories of coverage across the century. Although we find some support for major theories of movements and media influences, the political reform theory is strongly supported and outperforms standard political opportunity models. We conclude with suggestions to synthesize theories and for research on movement and media outcomes.
Economic Inequality
Lawyers' Lines of Work: Specialization's Role in the Income Determination Process
Erin Leahey, Laura A. Hunter
Income inequality has been increasing in the United States, and intraoccupational processes are partly responsible (Kim and Sakamoto 2008; Mouw and Kalleberg 2010). To date, scholars have focused on suboccupational divisions, such as specialty areas, to understand why some members of an occupation earn more than others. In this article we theorize, operationalize, and assess the economic effect of another way in which members of the same profession can be distinguished: by the extent to which they specialize. Using two large secondary datasets on lawyers in the United States, we find that lawyers who specialize earn more. This effect arises partly through two mechanisms—individual productivity and firm size—and depends upon specialty area prestige: lawyers in low-prestige areas actually benefit more from specializing.
Debt and Graduation from American Universities
Rachel E. Dwyer, Laura McCloud, Randy Hodson
The goal of "college-for-all" in the United States has been pursued in an environment of rising tuition, stagnant grant aid and already strapped family budgets with the gap filled by college loans. College students are thus facing increasing levels of debt as they seek to develop their human capital and improve their career options. Debt is a useful resource for making needed investments. It is unique as a resource, however, because it must be repaid and can thus also increase vulnerabilities and limit options. We find that lower levels of educational debt do support college completion. However, additional educational debt beyond about $10,000 actually reduces the likelihood of college completion compared to lower levels of debt as the burden of repayment looms. Graduation likelihoods for students from the bottom 75% of the income distribution at public universities are especially influenced by debt. The article considers how the macro-level changes in financing societal functions influence the individual-level risks and vulnerabilities of life in a debt-based society.
Do Survey Data Estimate Earnings Inequality Correctly?: Measurement Errors Among Black and White Male Workers
ChangHwan Kim, Christopher R. Tamborini
Few studies have considered how earnings inequality estimates may be affected by measurement error in self-reported earnings in surveys. Utilizing restricted-use data that links workers in the Survey of Income and Program Participation with their W-2 earnings records, we examine the effect of measurement error on estimates of racial earnings inequality. Results show that varying levels of mean-reverting error causes underestimation of earnings inequality. Notably, mean reversion is steeper for Black men than for White men, bringing about substantial downward bias in the estimated earnings gaps between Whites and Blacks at lower percentiles as well as large underestimation of within-racial group inequality for Black men. Together, our results call attention to the potential distortions generated by systematic measurement error on economic inequality estimates.
Voluntary Association Membership and Social Cleavages: A Micro-Macro Link in Generalized Trust
Chan-ung Park, S.V. Subramanian
Generalized trust varies across individuals and countries. Past studies on trust have demonstrated that voluntary association membership, inequality and ethnic homogeneity at country level are important. However, those studies examined either individual-level or country-level factors separately. In this paper, we conceptualized the emergence of generalized trust as a multilevel process in which the effects of individual-level attributes are influenced by social contexts. Using a multilevel modeling approach on World Values Survey in 48 countries, we estimated a cross-level interaction between voluntary association membership at individual level and income inequality and ethnic homogeneity as two types of social cleavages at country level. We found that the positive effect of voluntary association membership decreases with the level of income inequality.
Social Networks and Social Capital
Aggression, Exclusivity, and Status Attainment in Interpersonal Networks
Robert Faris
This paper engages two core ideas: first, that status mobility is facilitated through connectivity, or having a large number of ties to others, as suggested by theories of social capital and social networks; and second, that aggression is an expressive or irrational reaction to frustrations, humiliations, or social pathologies. In contrast, I argue that in certain contexts, both of these propositions are reversed: status is attained through selective bridging rather than high network connectivity, and aggression is instrumental for social climbing, particularly when it is directed toward high status, aggressive, or socially close targets. The argument is expected to hold only in contexts that are small (in terms of the number of participants), bounded (in terms of the ease and frequency with which they are entered and exited), and flat (in terms of formal hierarchy). Data from a longitudinal survey of adolescents combined with information from their high school yearbooks provide a unique opportunity to test these propositions, which are supported. High connectivity decreases the likelihood of attaining high status, while selective bridging increases it. Status is further enhanced by reputational, as opposed to physical, aggression, and decreased by victimization. Moreover, aggression toward aggressive, high status, or socially close peers provide additional status boosts. These effects hold regardless of the extent to which status is desired.
What's in a Relationship?: An Examination of Social Capital, Race and Class in Mentoring Relationships
S. Michael Gaddis
After 25 years of intense scrutiny, social capital remains an important yet highly debated concept in social science research. This research uses data from youth and mentors in several chapters of Big Brothers/Big Sisters to assess the importance of different mentoring relationship characteristics in creating positive outcomes among youths. The literature on social capital suggests that key characteristics are: (1. the amount of time spent between individuals, (2. racial similarity, (3. level of trust, (4. social class difference, and (5. intergenerational closure. I examine the effects of these social capital measures on academic and deviant behavioral outcomes and run models using propensity score weights to address selection bias. The results indicate that both the amount of time spent in a relationship and the level of trust consistently have positive effects for youths. Counter to what some theory suggests, race-matching and closure between parent and mentor have limited effects, and social class difference between individuals has no significant effect on any of the examined outcomes. These findings have important implications for future work on social capital and adolescent relationships in general.
Homophily Through Nonreciprocity: Results of an Experiment
David R. Schaefer
This study outlines a new explanation for homophily in social networks that is neither intended nor imposed by constraints on partner choices. Rather, homophily is an endogenous product of the emergent exchange process, in which actors seek high-value partners who reciprocate their gestures. Whereas all actors initially direct exchange toward higher value partners, the gestures of lower value actors are more likely to go unreciprocated. This imbalance drives lower value actors to seek new partners, who end up being others who are also lower value. The consequence is homophily on value despite no such preference. I draw upon social exchange theory to articulate how this process unfolds in a newly forming network. A laboratory experiment tests hypotheses about how exchange patterns change over time. Findings reveal that shifts in participants' behavior over time were consistent with a concern for reciprocity, resulting in increasing levels of homophily in the network.
Family
Maternity Leave in Turbulent Times: Effects on Labor Market Transitions and Fertility in Russia, 1985-2000
Theodore P. Gerber, Brienna Perelli-Harris
Maternity leave policies are designed to ease the tension between women's employment and fertility, but whether they actually play such a role remains unclear. We analyze the individual-level effects of maternity leave on employment outcomes and on second conception rates among Russian first-time mothers from 1985-2000 using retrospective job and fertility histories from the Survey of Stratification and Migration Dynamics in Russia. During this period Russia experienced tremendous economic and political turbulence, which many observers believed would undermine policies like maternity leave and otherwise adversely affect the situation of women. Nevertheless, we find that maternity leave helped women maintain a foothold in the labor market, even during the more turbulent post-transition period. Also, women who took extended leave (6-36 months) in connection with a first birth had elevated rates of second conceptions after they returned to the workforce.
More Careful or Less Marriageable?: Parental Divorce, Spouse Selection and Entry into Marriage
Jani Erola, Juho Härkönen, Jaap Dronkers
Despite the large literature on the long-term effects of parental divorce, few studies have analyzed the effects of parental divorce on spouse selection behavior. However, the characteristics of one's spouse can have important effects on economic well-being and on marital success. We use discrete-time, event-history data from Finnish population registers to study the effects of parental divorce on entry into marriage with spouses who have different educational qualifications (both absolute and relative to one's own education), using conditional multinomial logistic regression models. The results show that Finnish children of divorce have lower rates of marriage than those from intact families. In particular, children of divorce have a lower likelihood of marrying spouses with secondary education or more, and especially low rates of marrying someone with a tertiary degree. The latter gap is smaller among those with tertiary education, as a result of the higher rates of homogamous marriage among the children of divorce with high education. Our findings suggest that children of divorce carry with them traits and behaviors that make them less marriageable candidates in the marriage market. We discuss the possible implications of these findings.
Support for Homosexuals' Civil Liberties: The Influence of Familial Gender Role Attitudes Across Religious Denominations
Kristin Kenneavy
Religious denominations vary in both their approach to the roles that men and women play in familial contexts, as well as their approach to homosexuality. This research investigates whether gender attitudes, informed by religious tradition, predict a person's support for civil liberties extended to gays and lesbians. Using data from the 1996 and 2006 waves of the General Social Survey, structural equation models are employed to relate the concepts. Traditional gender role attitudes and support for homosexuals' civil liberties are found to negatively co-vary over time. Denominational differences in attitudes toward gender and support for homosexuals' civil liberties are evident in 1996 and generally conform to an exclusivist-inclusivist continuum, but in 2006, differences are noticeably absent, suggesting that there has been a decline in the explanatory power of denominational affiliation during this decade.
Deviance
Placing Deviance in a Legal and Local Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Cigarette Use in the European Union
Mike Vuolo
Though it has produced a high-quality body of research, the study of substance use has remained highly individualized in its focus. This paper adds further sociological understanding to that research. Using hierarchical models, the following explores how institutional and criminological theories can be incorporated into substance use research by examining cigarette smoking at 3 levels of variation. Two main findings emerge. First, national legal context plays a role in understanding individual-level probabilities of substance use, even after controlling for individual and local characteristics. For example, lower probabilities of smoking occur where there are smoking bans and minimum purchase ages. Second, the effects of local context, such as unemployment and the percentage of young people, exhibit significant effects on individual-level cigarette use.
Punishment and Welfare: Paternal Incarceration and Families' Receipt of Public Assistance
Naomi F. Sugie
The United States criminal justice and welfare systems are two important government institutions in the lives of the poor. Despite many theoretical discussions about their relationship, their operation at the level of offenders and families remains poorly understood. This paper utilizes Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to examine how recent paternal incarceration is associated with families' receipt of TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid/SCHIP. Results robust to multiple tests find that incarceration is not related to subsequent TANF receipt but is significantly associated with increased receipt of food stamps and Medicaid/SCHIP. The findings suggest that greater government involvement among poor families is an unexpected consequence of mass imprisonment; however, increased participation does not include TANF - the cash assistance program of most concern to theorists.
Book Review Essay
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (review)
Samuel R. Lucas
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