Stratification
The Time Divide in Cross-National Perspective: The Work Week, Education and Institutions That Matter
Peter Frase, Janet C. Gornick
Prior empirical studies have found that American workers report longer hours than do workers in other highly industrialized countries, and that the highly educated report the longest hours relative to other educational levels. This paper analyzes disparities in working hours by education levels in 17 high- and middle-income countries to assess whether this finding holds cross-nationally, for both men and women. In contrast to many prior studies of working time, we use a measure of weekly rather than annual hours worked, which we argue provides a better window on the discretionary time available to individuals and households. We find that the within-country gradient in average hours by education is not uniform: higher income countries are more likely to show the U.S. pattern, and middle-income countries show the reverse pattern, with the less educated reporting longer hours. We conclude by assessing some possible macrolevel explanations for this variation, including per capita gross domestic product, tax rates, unionization, country-level regulations, earnings inequality, and the regulation of weekly work hours.
All Work and No Pay: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City
Annette Bernhardt, Michael W. Spiller, Diana Polson
Despite three decades of scholarship on economic restructuring in the United States, employers’ violations of minimum wage, overtime and other workplace laws remain understudied. This article begins to fill the gap by presenting evidence from a large-scale, original worker survey that draws on recent advances in sampling methodology to reach vulnerable workers. Our findings suggest that in America’s three largest cities, violations of employment and labor laws are pervasive across low-wage industries and occupations, affecting a wide range of workers. But while worker characteristics are correlated with violations, job and employer characteristics play the stronger role, including industry, occupation and measures of informality and nonstandard work. We therefore propose a framework in which employers’ noncompliance with labor regulations is one axis of a competitive strategy based on labor cost reduction, contributing to the reorganization of work and production in the 21st century labor market.
Employment and Earnings in High-Tech Ethnic Niches
Jennifer C. Lee
The increase in high-skilled immigrants to the United States coincided with the expansion of the high-technology sector, and now a large share of Asian immigrants concentrate in high-tech industries. Despite much research on the relationship between ethnic concentration and labor market outcomes, the association between ethnic niche employment and earnings within the high-technology sector of the labor market has yet to be examined. This study compares the relationship between employment in ethnic niches and earnings within high- and low-tech industries among Asian immigrants. In low-technology industries, ethnic niches are generally associated with lower earnings compared with non-niches, but in high-technology industries, employment in an ethnic niche is associated with higher earnings. These patterns vary by gender and ethnic group. This association is partly explained by the industries that comprise ethnic niches, as non-Hispanic white immigrants also experience some of the same advantages and disadvantages.
Economic Sociology
Is Deindustrialization Causing High Unemployment in Affluent Countries?: Evidence from 16 OECD Countries, 1970–2003
Christopher Kollmeyer, Florian Pichler
This study assesses the possibility that deindustrialization has been contributing to the persistently high unemployment rates experienced by most affluent countries since the mid-1970s. Combining insights from Lilien’s (1982) “sectoral shift” thesis and the literature on deindustrialization, the authors assert that the decades-long contraction of the manufacturing sector has been a significant source of high unemployment in affluent countries. This assertion is tested against the literature’s existing explanations for unemployment using data from 16 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries over a recent 34-year period. Two-way, fixed-effects regression models suggest that deindustrialization has not only contributed to unemployment in these countries, but that it has been one of the more important causes of this phenomenon. These findings are robust across various model specifications and estimating strategies. The study concludes by suggesting further ways to investigate this important topic.
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman: Gender, Income Share and Household Expenditure in South Africa
Elizabeth Gummerson, Daniel Schneider
This study examines how gendered household bargaining occurs in non-nuclear family households. We employ two South African data sets and use linear regression and household fixed effects to investigate the relationship between women’s income shares and household expenditures. In married couple households, when women garner larger shares of income, spending on food is higher and spending on alcohol is lower. However, the relationship between women’s income shares and expenditures attenuates with additional adults in the household. We find that in households with multiple adults, men and women bargain in gender groups to realize gendered preferences for expenditures. Future work should consider household members outside of the married dyad when modeling bargaining processes.
Political Sociology
Who Gets Designated a Terrorist and Why?
Colin J. Beck, Emily Miner
This study examines formal terrorism designations by governments through the lens of organization studies research on categorization processes. It is argued that designations hinge on markers from the organizational profile of a militant group. Using cross-sectional data on militant organizations and designations by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, multivariate analyses find that listed organizations do not merely have a track record of violence against a government’s citizens, but also tend to target aviation and have an Islamic ideological basis. Mixed support for geopolitical factors is found, but imageries of hegemonic interest are not confirmed. Secondary analyses suggest that newer images of terrorism may replace older ones in classification schemes but further research is needed to know whether this is because of policy adaptation or the effect of spectacular events like September 11th.
Discursive Obstruction and Elite Opposition to Environmental Activism in the Czech Republic
Thomas E. Shriver, Alison E. Adams, Sherry Cable
Extant research on social movements has highlighted activists’ discursive tactics to challenge the state, yet little analytical attention focuses on elite efforts to dominate the discourse arena through the deployment of oppositional frames. This paper analyzes elite oppositional framing surrounding the placement of a highway bypass in the Czech Republic. Our research examines how democratic states deploy oppositional frames and enlist elite countermovement support for their efforts to obstruct challenges. Using a range of data sources, we delineate the mechanisms used by these elite actors to vilify and stigmatize environmental activists, paving the way for more violent forms of public harassment. The concept we initiate, discursive obstruction, adds the critical dimension of power relations to analyses of both framing processes and discursive opportunity structures. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for social movement research.
Civic and Political Participation
Union Membership and Political Participation in the United States
Jasmine Kerrissey, Evan Schofer
This article examines the effect of union membership on civic and political participation in the late 20th century in the United States. We discuss why and how unions seek to mobilize their members and where mobilization is channeled. We argue that union membership affects electoral and collective action outcomes and will be larger for low socioeconomic status individuals. Statistical analyses find that union membership is associated with many forms of political activity, including voting, protesting, association membership, and others. Union effects are larger for less educated individuals, a group that otherwise exhibits low levels of participation. Union membership is not associated with outcomes distant from union political agendas, such as general volunteering and charitable giving, suggesting that unions generate political capital rather than generalized social capital.
Are Homeowners Better Citizens?: Homeownership and Community Participation in the United States
Brian J. McCabe
Proponents of homeownership policies often argue that homeowners participate more actively in community life and civic affairs than renters. Although research suggests higher rates of participation among homeowners, the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship are unclear. On one hand, the locally dependent financial investments homeowners make in their communities could lead them to participate as a means of protecting their principal investment. On the other hand, home-ownership could stimulate participation by increasing residential stability, enabling households to overcome the institutional barriers and to develop the social networks that drive community participation. The failure to differentiate between these pathways muddies our understanding of how homeownership matters for community life. Drawing on the November supplement of the Current Population Survey, this article investigates whether homeowners are more likely to vote in local elections, participate in neighborhood groups and join civic associations. A falsification strategy compares these outcomes to a set of placebo measures to address concerns that the findings are driven by selection. The research identifies an independent role for residential stability and locally dependent financial investments in explaining why homeowners participate in their communities.
Race
W. E. B. Du Bois: Reform, Will, and the Veil
Lynn England, W. Keith Warner
While W. E. B. Du Bois is widely recognized for his contributions to the sociology of race, his contributions to the foundations of sociology are largely ignored. His sociology is based on African American reformism, a version of pragmatism, and a contingent historicism. The basic view of sociology is one that emphasizes the role of chance and will as opposed to law and certainty. He called sociology “the science of free will.” His view of society is one that focuses on the historical contingency of the structure of society, the malleability of society, and the fundamental feature of American society: a society built around the “color line” or “veil.” This view of society is not merely an interesting historical anomaly, but has significant implications for the understanding of and development of contemporary sociology.
Public Sector Transformation, Racial Inequality and Downward Occupational Mobility
George Wilson, Vincent J. Roscigno, Matt L. Huffman
“New governance” reforms entailing shifts toward privatization have permeated the public sector over the last decade, possibly affecting workplace-based attainments. We examine the consequences of this reform for African American men, who during the civil rights era reached relative parity with whites. We analyze race-based inequities on one socioeconomic outcome–downward occupational mobility–among professionals, managers and executives. Results from a Panel Study of Income Dynamics sample indicate that the “new government business model,” characterized by increased employer discretion has disproportionately disadvantaged African Americans. Narrower racial gaps in the incidence, determinants and timing of downward mobility found in the public sector, relative to the private sector, during the pre-reform period (1985–90) eroded during the reform period (2002–07) because of widening racial gaps in the public sector.
Health
Childhood (Mis)fortune, Educational Attainment, and Adult Health: Contingent Benefits of a College Degree?
Markus H. Schafer, Lindsay R. Wilkinson, Kenneth F. Ferraro
College-educated adults are healthier than other people in the United States, but selection bias complicates our understanding of how education influences health. This article focuses on the possibility that the health benefits of college may vary according to childhood (mis)fortune and people’s propensity to attain a college degree in the first place. Several perspectives from life course sociology offer competing hypotheses as to whether the most or the least advantaged see the greatest return of a college education. The authors use a national survey of middle-age American adults to assess risk of two cardiovascular health problems and mortality. Results from propensity score and hierarchical regression analysis indicate that the protective effect of college attainment is indeed heterogeneous. Further, the greatest returns are among those least likely to experience this life course transition (i.e., compensatory leveling). Explanations for this selection effect are offered, along with several directions for future research on the health benefits of completing college.
The Social Consequences of Postcommunist Structural Change: An Analysis of Suicide Trends in Eastern Europe
Yuka Minagawa
Guided by Durkheim’s classic theory of suicide, this article examines suicide trends and determinants in Eastern European countries for the period of 1989–2006, with particular attention given to the association between postcommunist social change and suicide mortality. I find that countries characterized by more drastic structural change experienced increased suicide rates during the period immediately after the fall of communism. Yet continued reforms were associated with reductions in suicide in more recent years. Further, I observe large gender differences in suicide patterns. Male suicide rates are consistently and strongly related to structural change, while female rates remain almost unaffected. By directly and statistically substantiating the relationship between postcommunist transition and suicide death rates, this study provides a more thorough and textured account of the social consequences of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
Experimental Research
Do Descriptive Norms Solve Social Dilemmas?: Conformity and Contributions in Collective Action Groups
Kyle Irwin, Brent Simpson
Collective action researchers have focused on injunctive norms that specify approved behavior as a panacea for collective action problems. We investigate whether descriptive norms (similar behavior) can also solve these problems. We argue that descriptive norms generate social identification, which then sustains conformity to expectations. Consequently, descriptive norms can characterize both cooperation and noncooperation, such that cooperative norms sustain successful collective action while noncooperative norms result in collective action failure. Results from two laboratory experiments supported the hypothesis that descriptive norms can sustain collective action success and failure. Further, while normative non-cooperation eroded cooperation for high contributors, normative cooperation had little affect on low contributors. This asymmetry points to a paradox: because they promote group identification, noncooperative descriptive norms can be self-sustaining, with deleterious outcomes.
Status, Numbers and Influence
David Melamed, Scott V. Savage
We develop a theoretical model of social influence in n-person groups. We argue that disagreement between group members introduces uncertainty into the social situation, and this uncertainty motivates people to use status characteristics to evaluate the merits of a particular opinion. Our model takes the numerical distribution of opinions and the relative status of the opinion holders as factors that contribute to social influence, such that the effect of status becomes stronger as uncertainty about a particular position rises due to the distribution of opinions in the group. Our theoretical model implies three hypotheses, which we empirically evaluate with data from a controlled laboratory experiment. The results support the theoretical model. We conclude with limitations, implications and several directions for future research.
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