Social Forces 93(3)

Social Forces, March 2015: Volume 93, Issue 3

Biosocial

Cancer and the Plow
David Fielding

Past research has shown that the invention of the plow played a key role in human social evolution. The physical strength required to drive a plow gave men a comparative advantage in economically productive activity; this created gender norms that have persisted to the present day. However, there is an additional channel through which the invention of the plow could have influenced modern human societies: the creation of an economic environment favoring not only the sexual division of labor but also the selection of men with more upper-body strength. In this case, modern populations descended from plow-using communities should exhibit greater sexual dimorphism than others, and greater dimorphism should be associated with higher androgen levels in males. This has a direct epidemiological implication, because the incidence of many cancers is correlated with androgen levels. Using international data on cancer incidence, we show that there is a strong association between the magnitude of sex differences in cancer risk and the proportion of the population descended from plow-using communities. Although both of these characteristics are correlated with other socio-economic factors (such as the level of economic development), controlling for such correlations does not diminish estimates of the magnitude of the association between cancer risk and plow ancestry. In addition to their implications for cancer epidemiology, the results suggest that the international variation in gender norms might also be associated with variation in androgen levels.

Gene by Social-Environment Interaction for Youth Delinquency and Violence: Thirty-Nine Aggression-Related Genes
Hexuan Liu, Yi Li, Guang Guo

Complex human traits are likely to be affected by many environmental and genetic factors, and the interactions among them. However, previous gene-environment interaction (G × E) studies have typically focused on one or only a few genetic variants at a time. To provide a broader view of G × E, this study examines the relationship between 403 genetic variants from 39 genes and youth delinquency and violence. We find evidence that low social control is associated with greater genetic risk for delinquency and violence and high/moderate social control with smaller genetic risk for delinquency and violence. Our findings are consistent with prior G × E studies based on a small number of genetic variants, and more importantly, we show that these findings still hold when a large number of genetic variants are considered simultaneously. A key implication of these findings is that the expression of multiple genes related to delinquency depends on the social environment: gene expression is likely to be amplified in low-social-control environments but tends to be suppressed in high/moderate-social-control environments. This study not only deepens our understanding of how the social environment shapes individual behavior, but also provides important conceptual and methodological insights for future G × E research on complex human traits.

Economic Sociology

The Recruitment Paradox: Network Recruitment, Structural Position, and East German Market Transition
Richard A. Benton, Steve McDonald, Anna Manzoni, David F. Warner

Economic institutions structure links between labor-market informality and social stratification. The present study explores how periods of institutional change and post-socialist market transition alter network-based job finding, in particular informal recruitment. We highlight how market transitions affect both the prevalence and distribution of network-based recruitment channels: open-market environments reduce informal recruitment’s prevalence but increase its association with high wages. We test these propositions using the case of the former East Germany’s market transition and a comparison with West Germany’s more stable institutional environment. Following transition, workers in lower tiers increasingly turned toward formal intermediaries, active employee search, and socially “disembedded” matches. Meanwhile, employers actively recruited workers into higher-wage positions. Implications for market transition theory and post-socialist stratification are discussed.

Balancing Permission and Prohibition: Private Trade and Adaptation at the VOC
Stoyan V. Sgourev, Wim van Lent

The first wave of global trade, in which the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was a key player, writ large the problem of how “principals” could ensure that overseas “agents” protected company interests. The two principal mechanisms were suppression of opportunism and permission of agents to engage in private trade. There is near consensus in past research that the rigidity of the VOC in not permitting private trade left it unable to emulate more nimble rivals and contributed to its demise. Drawing on unique 18th-century archival data, a time-series analysis revises this assumption, showing that private-trade regulations, as a historical form of adaptation, occurred as a response to declining performance and exercised a beneficial financial impact. From the 1740s, control was more flexible than typically asserted, attempting to balance permission and prohibition. If principals recognized the economic upside of private trade, they were apprehensive about its social consequences. The study underlines the need of dynamic models to capture complex historical events, illustrating how seeming inactivity may in fact mask inconsistent activity. It also contributes to better understanding historical transitions when forms of adaptation may prove beneficial in the short run, but are insufficient to prevent decline in the long run.

Family

Non-Standard Work Schedules and Childbearing in the Netherlands: A Mixed-Method Couple Analysis
Katia Begall, Melinda Mills, Harry B. G. Ganzeboom

This study examined the effect of working at non-standard times on the transition to first and second childbirth. Using quantitative couple data from two waves of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (N = 742) and semi-structured qualitative interviews (N = 29), we found a lower probability of having a first child when the female partner was engaged in non-standard schedules, and a higher likelihood of second childbirth for couples where either partner worked in a non-standard schedule. In line with expectations about the institutional and normative context of the Netherlands, we concluded that women adjusted their work schedules to their fertility plans and that couples had a preference for the personal care of their children rather than relying on formal care arrangements. Non-standard schedules served as a means to achieve this.

A Life-Changing Event: First Births and Men’s and Women’s Attitudes to Mothering and Gender Divisions of Labor
Janeen Baxter, Sandra Buchler, Francisco Perales, Mark Western

Previous research has shown that the transition to parenthood is a critical life-course stage. Using data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and fixed-effects panel regression models, we investigate changes in men’s and women’s attitudes to mothering and gender divisions of labor following the transition to parenthood. Key findings indicate that attitudes become more traditional after individuals experience the birth of their first child, with both men and women becoming more likely to support mothering as women’s most important role in life. We argue that these changes are due to both changes in identity and cognitive beliefs associated with the experience of becoming a parent, as well as institutional arrangements that support traditional gender divisions. More broadly, our results can be taken as strong evidence that attitudes are not stable over the life course and change with the experience of life events.

Inequality and Stratification

Mexican American Mobility: Early Life Processes and Adult Wealth Ownership
Lisa A. Keister, Jody Agius Vallejo, E. Paige Borelli

Mexican Americans are a large group whose mobility patterns can provide important insight into immigrant assimilation processes. It is well known that Mexicans have not attained economic parity with whites, but there is considerable debate about the degree to which Mexican immigrants and their American-born children experience mobility over their lives. We contribute to this literature by studying Mexican American wealth ownership, focusing on three interrelated processes. First, we examine childhood poverty and inheritances to establish financial starting points and to identify the degree to which resources from prior generations affect wealth ownership. Second, we study impediments to mobility in young adulthood to understand how childhood conditions create early adult obstacles to well-being. Third, we study midlife net worth and homeownership to better understand whether childhood and young adult impediments necessarily reduce adult wealth ownership. We find high levels of early life disadvantage among Mexican Americans, but these disadvantages are least pronounced in the second and third generations compared to the first generation. Consistent with prior research, we also find high levels of young adult impediments to mobility for Mexican Americans. However, we find that these early roadblocks do not necessarily translate into lower adult wealth: we show that Mexican Americans have less total wealth than whites but more than African Americans, even when early life impediments are controlled. Our results suggest that Mexican Americans are establishing a solid financial foundation that is likely to lead to long-term class stability.

Income Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Deirdre Bloome

Is there a relationship between family income inequality and income mobility across generations in the United States? As family income inequality rose in the United States, parental resources available for improving children’s health, education, and care diverged. The amount and rate of divergence also varied across US states. Researchers and policy analysts have expressed concern that relatively high inequality might be accompanied by relatively low mobility, tightening the connection between individuals’ incomes during childhood and adulthood. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and various government sources, this paper exploits state and cohort variation to estimate the relationship between inequality and mobility. Results provide very little support for the hypothesis that inequality shapes mobility in the United States. The inequality children experienced during youth had no robust association with their economic mobility as adults. Formal analysis reveals that offsetting effects could underlie this result. In theory, mobility-enhancing forces may counterbalance mobility-reducing effects. In practice, the results suggest that in the US context, the intergenerational transmission of income may not be very responsive to changes in inequality.

Racial and Spatial Targeting: Segregation and Subprime Lending within and across Metropolitan Areas
Jackelyn Hwang, Michael Hankinson, Kreg Steven Brown

Recent studies find that high levels of black-white segregation increased rates of foreclosures and subprime lending across US metropolitan areas during the housing crisis. These studies speculate that segregation created distinct geographic markets that enabled subprime lenders and brokers to leverage the spatial proximity of minorities to disproportionately target minority neighborhoods. Yet, the studies do not explicitly test whether the concentration of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods varied by segregation levels. We address this shortcoming by integrating neighborhood-level data and spatial measures of segregation to examine the relationship between segregation and subprime lending across the 100 largest US metropolitan areas. Controlling for alternative explanations of the housing crisis, we find that segregation is strongly associated with higher concentrations of subprime loans in clusters of minority census tracts but find no evidence of unequal lending patterns when we examine minority census tracts in an aspatial way. Moreover, residents of minority census tracts in segregated metropolitan areas had higher likelihoods of receiving subprime loans than their counterparts in less segregated metropolitan areas. Our findings demonstrate that segregation played a pivotal role in the housing crisis by creating relatively larger areas of concentrated minorities into which subprime loans could be efficiently and effectively channeled. These results are consistent with existing but untested theories on the relationship between segregation and the housing crisis in metropolitan areas.

Inequality Preservation through Uneven Diffusion of Cultural Materials across Stratified Groups
Neha Gondal

Inequality between groups is frequently maintained through the construction and legitimation of inter-group cultural differences. I draw on Blau’s multiform heterogeneity and complex contagion models to theorize and develop a relational mechanism that shows how inequality can be preserved when additional, new bases of differentiating between groups layer over existing ones. I investigate the conditions under which variations in the distribution of the population across stratified groups and homophily of social networks along the stratifying attribute interact in such a way that a belief/practice diffuses widely in one group but not the other—an outcome referred to as differential diffusion. I also analyze how size of ego networks and adoption thresholds affect differential diffusion. Using mathematical and agent-based models, I find a positive correlation between adoption thresholds and homophily: when social networks are highly homophilous (e.g., race and socioeconomic class), uneven diffusion of non-normative behavior reproduces inequality; inclusive networks (e.g., in diverse city schools), in contrast, reestablish inequality through differential diffusion of low-risk behavior. This suggests that cultivating diversity is likely to mitigate inequality preservation in conservative situations where adoption of new beliefs/practices needs considerable affirmation. Encouraging status-based solidarity is more appropriate in receptive contexts where adoption of new behaviors entails comparatively lower risk. The results also imply that analyses of diffusion need to be sensitive to contextual factors, including homophily, cultural institutionalization of the diffusing material, and population distribution. Finally, I extend Ridgeway’s seminal work to show how relational structure can not only construct status hierarchies but also contribute to their symbolic maintenance.

Double Jeopardy: Why Latinos Were Hit Hardest by the US Foreclosure Crisis
Jacob S. Rugh

Recent research has demonstrated that Latinos have been hit hardest by the US foreclosure crisis. In this article, I combine place stratification and spatial assimilation theory to explain why Latinos suffered a devastating double blow during the foreclosure crisis. Using a national sample of borrowers who received risky mortgage loans during the boom and following them through the crisis, I find that Latinos were most likely subject to high-cost subprime lending and especially risky low-/no-documentation lending as Latino suburbanization and immigration peaked along with national home prices. As a result, while Latino borrowers were no less likely to lose their homes to foreclosure than blacks prior to the crisis or in the Rust Belt, they were significantly more likely to lose their homes after the crisis began and in the Sand States of Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada. Taken together, the results demonstrate the risk of rising Latino immigration, suburbanization, and homeownership during the stages of the housing boom and foreclosure crisis.

Social Capital

Intrinsically Advantageous?: Reexamining the Production of Class Advantage in the Case of Home Mortgage Modification
Lindsay A. Owens

Social class confers a bundle of capabilities, practices, and beliefs that are conventionally assumed to be hierarchical, rigid, and self-perpetuating. However, this framework often belies the fact that these qualities needn’t be necessarily or exhaustively advantageous. In particular, social change may render obsolete class-linked characteristics that were advantageous in previous periods. Drawing on interviews with homeowners at risk of foreclosure and a yearlong ethnography of a housing counseling organization, I find that although the housing crisis of the “Great Recession” affected both working- and middle-class homeowners alike, the practices of working-class borrowers better positioned them to exploit a number of informational advantages in the rapidly changing mortgage modification setting. My findings are a departure from existing research that treats middle-class capabilities and practices as intrinsically advantageous.

Ethnic Diversity, Economic and Cultural Contexts, and Social Trust: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence from European Regions, 2002–2010
Conrad Ziller

A growing literature investigates the relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust. Comparative research in the European context employing country-level indicators has predominantly produced inconclusive results. This study examines the relationship between immigration-related diversity and social trust at the sub-national level of European regions. The regional perspective allows the capture of relevant variations in ethnic context while it still generates comparable results for a broader European context. Using survey data from the European Social Survey 2002–2010 merged with immigration figures from the European Labour Force Survey, this study builds upon previous research by testing the relationships between various diversity indicators and social trust in cross-sectional and longitudinal perspective. In addition, it investigates the role of economic and cultural contexts as moderators. The results show that across European regions, different aspects of immigration-related diversity are negatively related to social trust. In longitudinal perspective, an increase in immigration is related to a decrease in social trust. Tests of the conditional hypotheses reveal that regional economic growth and ethnic polarization as a cultural context moderate the relationship. Immigration growth is particularly strongly associated with a decrease in social trust in contexts of economic decline and high ethnic polarization. However, there is some evidence that in contexts of low polarization the relationship is actually positive.

Humor

Using “Wild” Laughter to Explore the Social Sources of Humor
Mike Reay

Analyses of the multiple cognitive structures and social effects of humor seldom look at why these tend to center on particular topics. The puzzle of how humor can be highly varied yet somehow constrained by its source “material” is explored using a corpus of over 600 incidents, not of deliberate jokes, but of the “wilder,” unplanned laughter that occurred during a set of interviews with economists—professionals who at the time (1999–2000) enjoyed an unprecedented degree of status and influence. The analysis finds that the source material for this laughter typically involved three kinds of socially structured contradiction: between ideals and reality, between different socially situated viewpoints, and between experiences occurring at different times. This illustrates how particular kinds of content can have a special laughter-inducing potential, and it suggests that wild laughter may at root be an interactional mechanism for dealing with social incongruity—even for members of relatively powerful groups. It is argued that this could not only help solve the larger puzzle of simultaneous variety and constraint in deliberate comedy, but also explain why the characteristic structures of humor are associated with a particular range of social effects in the first place.

Disasters

Governing Natural Disasters: State Capacity, Democracy, and Human Vulnerability
Thung-Hong Lin

From the perspective of historical institutionalism, I argue that state capacity, democracy, and their interaction shape the distribution of human vulnerability in natural disasters. The ruling elite, irrespective of whether it is democratic, has the incentive to develop state capacity to prevent damage caused by natural disasters, which is considered a threat to its rule and revenue. To win elections in a democracy, the elite may increase public spending for disaster mitigation in favor of voters’ demands. Democracy also empowers civil society and stimulates social spending, which benefits vulnerable citizens. Thus, a strong state capacity effectively reduces human vulnerability, especially in a democracy. I used panel data from 150 countries between 1995 and 2009 to demonstrate the relationship among state capacity, democracy, and the impact of disasters. After controlling for the density and magnitude continuity of natural-disaster hazards, the empirical results I obtained from the multilevel models indicate that democracy reduces the disaster mortality rate, and a strong state capacity mitigates the effect of a disaster on a population, especially in a democracy. I also found that state capacity and democracy are more effective in preventing human losses caused by predictable disasters such as floods and storms, rather than earthquakes.