Separating age,period, and cohort effects in white U.S. fertility, 1920–1970

Four models are developed to describe the odds transformation of period- and age-specific fertility rates as products of age, period, and cohort effects. These are applied to data for white U.S. women age 15–44 from 1920 to 1970, with equal weights given to each rate. All models which include age fit subsets of the data extremely well. Per effect, the incorporation of periods improves the fit much more than the incorporation of cohorts. It is shown that first differences are invariant in two-effect models, and second differences are invariant in the three-effect models.     

Solamente Mexicanos? Patterns and sources of Hispanic diversity in U.S. metropolitan areas

Rapid Hispanic growth has been a major source of increasing ethnoracial diversity in the United States. However, diversity within the Hispanic population is frequently obscured by the tendency to lump all Latinos together. Our study examines Hispanic diversity at the local level, drawing insights from the Mexican dominance, Caribbean-centric settlement, spatial assimilation, and economic opportunity perspectives. Measures of the magnitude and structure of Hispanic origin-group diversity during the 1990–2010 period are constructed for 363 metropolitan areas based on each area's shares of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and ‘others’. We find that diversity magnitude varies markedly across metropolitan Hispanic populations. Although the most diverse metro areas lack a majority origin group, Mexicans often constitute a majority or plurality of local Latinos. Diversity levels and structures have remained relatively stable over time. In both 1990 and 2010, metro areas with more diverse, multigroup Hispanic communities are distinguished by their larger size, smaller proportion of Hispanics, location farther from Mexico and closer to the Caribbean, and greater odds of being a military hub. They also exhibit higher rates of housing construction and lower rates of agricultural and manufacturing employment. We use weighted data to show that Dominican metro dwellers experience the highest Hispanic diversity while the average Mexican lives in an area where four-fifths of all Latinos are Mexican. Overall, our results provide primary support for the Mexican dominance perspective but some support for the other three perspectives as well.     

Black and white homebuyer,homeowner, and household segregation in the United States, 1990–2010

As homeownership has been expanding in the United States over the past several decades, residential segregation between blacks and whites has been declining in most metropolitan areas. However, the degree to which the residential patterns of new homebuyers have mirrored these overall trends in segregation and how the massive increase in home buying has related to changes in segregation has remained largely unexplored. This paper examines the segregation of new black homebuyers from white households, new white homebuyers from black households, and black and white households from each other using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 1992 to 2010 merged with data from the Census and ACS. I find that black homebuyers are less segregated from white households than black homeowners overall and black households in general, providing evidence in support of the spatial assimilation model that would predict better outcomes for homeowners. Also consistent with the spatial assimilation perspective, I found in the multivariate models that increased income parity between blacks and whites and growth in black lending are associated with average declines in black/white household segregation from 1990 to 2010. Although subprime lending was not associated with overall changes in segregation, metropolitan areas with higher percentages of loans to blacks from subprime lenders experienced increases in segregation of both black homeowners from white households as well as white owners from black households.     

Don’t ask or tell: Pay secrecy policies in U.S. workplaces

How widespread are workplace rules against discussing wages and salaries in the U.S.? And what are the core correlates of whether or not an employer prohibits or discourages this type of speech? Using a unique dataset that includes a measure of whether workers are prohibited or discouraged from discussing pay, this article investigates the prevalence of pay secrecy policies, and what worker- and workplace-level characteristics are associated with these rules. Key findings reveal that these policies are commonplace, despite being illegal, and that they are concentrated in more “coercive” rather than “enabling” organizations. These more coercive workplaces are disproportionately in the private sector, lack union representation, and have managers that are generally punitive in their approach and unaccommodating of employees. Findings also indicate that the greater discretion pay secrecy provides managers does not result in discriminatory application of these rules to women, racial/ethnic minorities, or immigrants. The article concludes with a call for data collection efforts that would allow researchers to analyze the consequences of this widespread managerial practice.     

In-services and empty threats: The roles of organizational practices and workplace experiences in shaping U.S. educators’ understandings of students’ rights

This paper applies theoretical frameworks from organizational sociology and sociolegal studies to examine factors associated with educators’ conceptions of students’ rights to due process in disciplinary actions. We analyze a unique representative data set of 402 teachers and 200 administrators in U.S. high schools to investigate how educators understand the rights to due process articulated in the Supreme Court case of Goss v. Lopez (1975). We then examine whether individual characteristics and participation in organizational processes are associated with educators’ understandings of students’ due process rights. Findings suggest that educators’ understandings of students’ entitlements to due process vary with educators’ level of education, experience of school-related legal threats, and participation in district or diocese in-service training programs on students’ rights. Results point to organizational climate as a key factor in shaping educators’ rights conceptions and the role of law in American schools.     

Collective religiosity and the gender gap in attitudes towards economic redistribution in 86 countries, 1990–2008

What is the relationship between gender and the demand for redistribution? Because, on average, women face more economic deprivation than men, in many countries women favor redistribution more than men. However, this is not the case in a number of other countries, where women do not support redistribution more than men. To explain this cross-national paradox, we stress the role of collective religiosity. In many religions, theological principles both militate against public policies designed to redistribute income, and also promote traditionally gendered patterns of work and family involvement. Hence, we hypothesize that, in those countries where religion remains influential either through closer church-state ties or an intensely religious population, men and women should differ less in their attitudes towards redistribution. Drawing upon the World Values Survey, we estimate three-level regression models that test our religiosity-based approach and two alternative explanations in 86 countries and 175 country-years. The results are consistent with our hypothesis. Moreover, in further support of our theoretical approach, societal religiosity undermines pro-redistribution preferences more among women than men. Our findings suggest that collective religiosity matters more to the gender gap in redistributive attitudes than traditional political and labor force factors.     

Ethnic intermarriage in longitudinal perspective: Testing structural and cultural explanations in the United States, 1880–2011

Focusing on macro-level processes, this article combines Decennial Census and Current Population Survey data to simultaneously test longitudinal and cross-sectional effects on ethnic intermarriage using structural and cultural explanations. Covering a 130 year period, the results of our multilevel analysis for 140 national-origin groups indicate that structural characteristics explain why some origin groups become more “open” over time while others remain relatively “closed”. Ethnic intermarriage is more likely to increase over time when the relative size of an immigrant group decreases, sex ratios grow more imbalanced, the origin group grows more diverse, the size of the third generation increases and social structural consolidation decreases. Cultural explanations also play a role suggesting that an origin group’s exogamous behavior in the past exerts long-term effects and exogamous practices increase over time when the prevalence of early marriage customs declines. For some of the discussed determinants of intermarriage, longitudinal and cross-sectional effects differ calling for a more careful theorizing and testing in terms of the level of analysis (e.g., longitudinal vs. cross-sectional).     

The declining earnings gap between young women and men in the United States, 1979–2018

We examine the dynamics of the gender earnings gap over the 1979 to 2018 period among full-time workers aged 25–29, focusing on the role of marital status and the presence of children. Using data from multiple years of the Current Population Survey, we find that the earnings gap declined among all groups of men and women, and by 2018 there was earnings parity among the those who were not married and without children. The share of people in this group also grew over the period, and comprised a majority of both men and women by 2018. We also find that while marriage was associated with lower earnings among women in 1979, by 2018 it was associated with higher earnings, suggesting greater positive selection of women with high earnings potential into marriage. The positive association between marriage and earnings among men remained stable. While we found a persistent earnings penalty for having children among women over the period, we found an emerging dampening effect of having children over time among men, which suggests that greater participation in childcare among men has led to lower earnings than in the past (i.e., a causal connection) and/or an emerging selection effect of young men more interested in childrearing over time, perhaps reflecting a cultural shift.     

Segregation by race and income in the United States 1970–2010

A systematic analysis of residential segregation and spatial interaction by income reveals that as income rises, minority access to integrated neighborhoods, higher levels of interaction with whites, and more affluent neighbors also increase. However, the income payoffs are much lower for African Americans than other groups, especially Asians. Although Hispanics and Asians have always displayed declining levels of minority-white dissimilarity and rising levels of minority-white interaction with rising income, income differentials on these outcomes for blacks did not appear until 1990 and since then have improved at a very slow pace. Given their higher overall levels of segregation and income's limited effect on residential attainment, African Americans experience less integration, more neighborhood poverty at all levels of income compared to other minority groups. The degree of black spatial disadvantage is especially acute in the nation's 21 hypersegregated metropolitan areas.     

Aggregate male and female labor force participation functions: An analysis of structural differences, 1947–1977

The hypothesis that the structure of the forces that affect male and female labor force participation rates are distinct has been corroborated in numerous studies using microdata. This paper examines the validity of this structural distinctiveness hypothesis in the context of aggregate, time series data on male and female labor force participation in the post-World War II United States. Standard economic and sociological theories are used to specify sex-specific participation functions that contain indexes of the sex-specific general opportunity for employment, the sex-specific rates of participation in the armed forces and in postsecondary schooling institutions, the average real wage rate, the average number of hours worked, and the fertility rate. It is found that the female rate is more responsive than the male rate to the general employment opportunities and average hours indexes, but less responsive to the wage rate. Also, the female rate responds positively to the armed forces participation and college enrollment rates, whereas the male rate is negatively related to these indexes. However, no evidence is found for another component of the structural distinctiveness hypothesis, namely, that the fertility rate bears a consistent negative relationship to the female participation rate. While this relationship may have held during the early postwar years, it seems to have been substantially attentuated since the early 1960s. Prospects for convergence of the male and female participation functions are evaluated. Although current social trends suggest that the female function eventually will resemble more closely the male funtion, it is concluded that substantial sex differences are likely to persist for at least another decade. Implications of this for the structure of the labor force participation functions used in macroeconometric forecasting models are discussed.     

Partisan strength,political trust and generalized trust in the United States: An analysis of the General Social Survey, 1972–2014

The literature on political parties suggests that strong partisan identities are associated with citizens’ effective interaction with the political system, and with higher levels of political trust. Traditionally, party identity therefore is seen as a mechanism that allows for political integration. Simultaneously, however, political parties have gained recent attention for their role in promoting societal polarization by reinforcing competing and even antagonistic group identities. This article uses General Social Survey data from 1972 – 2014 to investigate the relationship between partisan strength and both political and generalized trust. The findings show that increases in partisan strength are positively related to political trust, but negatively related to generalized trust. This suggests that while partisan strength is indeed an important linkage mechanism for the political system, it is also associated with a tendency toward social polarization, and this corrosive effect thus far has not gained sufficient attention in literature on party identity.     

Declining family size and the number of children in poor families in the United States: 1964–1983

Change in the number of children in poor white or black families with a male or female as head of the family is examined for the periods 1964–1973, 1973–1978, and 1978–1983. All periods are characterized by declining family size in all four family types. In families with male heads the change in poverty rates specific to family size is generally the major factor behind change in the number of poor children. Declines in family size greatly accelerated declines(or impeded increases) due to changing poverty rates in all three periods. Declining family size also moderated the otherwise large increase in the number of children in poor white and black families with a female head resulting from successive increases in all three periods in the number of white or black female singleparent families. Sizable declines in the number of poor children stemming from further declines in family size are unlikely, but possible changes in fiscal policies that affect marriage and family building by husband-wife couples might reverse policies that may have tended to increase the number of poor children in America in recent decades.     

We trust in government,just not in yours: Race,partisanship, and political trust, 1958–2012

Although it is generally accepted that political trust is reflective of satisfaction with the performance of the incumbent administration, this is only considered true for White Americans. Because their trust reflects a larger discontent with the political system, Black Americans, it is held, do not respond in the same way in the short term. This argument has yet to be tested with over-time data. Time matters. Not only does the race gap in trust change over time but the impact of partisanship and political winning is, by definition, time-dependent. The results of an analysis of the 1958–2012 American National Election Studies data show that Black Americans and White Americans are equally likely to tie short-term performance to trust in government. However, the relationship between partisanship and political trust and, therefore, system discontent, clearly differs for the two groups. Aggregate models that do not take race-partisan sub-group differences into account will therefore be misleading.     

Unemployment among Mexican immigrant men in the United States, 2003–2012

Based on their socioeconomic characteristics, Mexican immigrant men should have very high unemployment. More than half do not have a high school diploma. One in four works in construction; at the height of the recent recession, 20% of construction workers were unemployed. Yet their unemployment rates are similar to those of native-born white men. After controlling for education and occupation, Mexican immigrant men have lower probabilities of unemployment than native-born white men – both before and during the recent recession. I consider explanations based on eligibility for unemployment benefits, out-migrant selection for unemployment, and employer preferences for Mexican immigrant labor.     

Causes of ethnic conflict and protest in Urban America, 1877–1889

Studies of ethnic conflict and protest find patterns of systematic “cycles of protest” in which minorities become the targets of concentrated attack or instigate protests against discrimination and prejudice. Such cycles have been linked to the persistence of economic exploitation and the occurrence of economic contractions, which exacerbate ethnic tensions. Proponents of competition theory claim that rising levels of ethnic competition over jobs, housing, and other resources increases the likelihood of ethnic collective action. This paper extends competition theory by specifying the effects of changes in immigration flows and economics on ethnic competition. It uses data on collective actions in 80 large cities in the United States from 1877 through 1889 to test propositions about competition and contagion. Analyses reported here support the contention that (a) high levels and rapid rates of immigration, (b) increases in the wages of common laborers, (c) increases in business failures, and (d) contagion, indicated by the recency of prior waves of events, all raise rates of ethnic collective action.     

Composition and decomposition in US gender-specific self-reported health disparities, 1984–2007

Variance function regression models and demographic decomposition methods are applied to identify two dimensions of changes in health disparities (SES-demographic effects vs. compositional effects, between-group disparities vs. within-group disparities) in the US from 1984 to 2007. Using National Health Interview Survey data on self-reported health, we find that disparities in men’s health increased, while those of women decreased, for the whole period. Widening men’s health disparities are largely driven by increases in the effects of SES-demographic statuses on within-group disparities. These increases are moderated by increasing levels of men’s college attainment. But decreasing middle and upper income attainment and a decreasing employment rate further increase men’s health disparities. For women, the effects of SES-demographic statuses on health disparities also increased over time. This, however, was outweighed by increases in women’s college attainment, middle and upper income attainment, and employment rate. The result is overall declining self-reported health disparities for women.     

Population migration and children’s school enrollments in China, 1990–2005

This paper examines the impact of migration on children’s school enrollment by analyzing the micro-data from Chinese population censuses in 1990 and 2000 and mini-census in 2005. We match school-age children (7–14 years old) with their parents, and examine how migration status and parents’ absence affect children’s school enrollment in urban China. We also compare rural–urban migrant children with their peers in both origin counties and destination districts. Results show that migrant children are less likely to be enrolled in school than urban local children and that children of rural registration status are particularly disadvantaged in school enrollment over the whole examined period in urban China. Rural–urban migrant children fare significantly worse than non-migrant children in both origins and destinations and noticeably they are even less likely than left-behind children to be enrolled in school. The likelihood of being enrolled in school increases for rural–urban migrant children as they spend more time in destinations.     

Irreconcilable differences? Ethnic intermarriage and divorce in the Netherlands, 1995-2008

This study uses population data of the Netherlands (municipality registers) between 1995 and 2008 to describe and explain the occurrence of divorce among recently newlywed interethnic and mono-ethnic couples (N = 116,745). In line with homogamy theory, divorce risks are higher for interethnic couples, in particular if the spouses were born and raised in countries that are culturally distant from each other. In addition, the effect of cultural distance is smaller for second generation immigrants than for first generation immigrants. There is no evidence for a higher risk of divorce among Black-White marriages. In line with convergence theory, results show that the higher the divorce propensity in the wife’s origin country, the higher the divorce risk of a couple is.     

The relationship between societal change and rising support for gender egalitarianism among men and women: Results from counterfactual analyses in the Netherlands, 1979–2012

This study examines the relationship between important social, cultural, economic, and demographic changes and the rise of support for gender egalitarianism within the Dutch population between 1979 and 2012. Cohort replacement, educational expansion, secularization, and the feminization of the labor force are important processes that have taken place in western societies in ways that may have fostered support for gender egalitarianism. Using unique data from 16 repeated cross-sectional surveys in the Netherlands, we estimate age-period-cohort regression models, and the outcomes are subsequently applied in counterfactual simulation designs. Our results show that the social, cultural, economic, and demographic changes explain only a small part of the modest rise in support for gender egalitarianism for men, while they provide a much better explanation of the stronger rise among women. Especially the replacement of older female cohorts by younger ones seems to have propelled support for gender egalitarianism among women throughout the years.     

Socially organized sentiments: Exploring the link between religious density and protest mobilization, 1960–1995

Extensive research has shown individual religiosity to have an impact upon U.S. protest participation. But very little work has examined the role of religious density in a community on the likelihood of protest mobilization. Our research links the religious density across 62 counties in New York State to various protest mobilization issues during the period of 1960–1995. In this research, we develop a theory of socially organized sentiments to examine religious influences on overall protest event mobilizations in local communities, a specific example of a more general theory that can link community structure to multiple forms of civic engagement. The impact of various religious traditions is assessed by using measures for the density of religious population per congregation of three religious traditions—Mainline Protestantism, Evangelical Protestantism and Catholicism. The analysis also assesses the likelihood of mobilization concerning four specific issues—African-American civil rights, gender, anti-nuclear/peace, and anti-poverty movements.