Residence and Income Inequality: Effects on Mortality Among U.S. Counties

Abstract Despite lower average incomes, greater percentages living in poverty, lower levels of health insurance, less preventive health care, and poorer health status, nonmetropolitan residents have been found to experience lower mortality than their metropolitan counterparts. Several pathways through which residence influences mortality have been proposed. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of income inequality on residential differentials in mortality. Using data from the Compressed Mortality File for counties in the coterminous United States for 1990, we estimate weighted least squares models of total mortality for 3,067 counties, and separately for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. Mortality is lower in nonmetropolitan counties than in metropolitan counties, once rates are standardized for age, sex, and race. Moreover, income inequality exerts stronger effects in nonmetro counties, an effect that persists when per capita income, median household size, and racial composition are controlled. The percentage of the population that is black exerts an independent effect on mortality in both metro and non‐metro counties.     

The effects of income inequality and income level on mortality vary by population size in Texas counties

OBJECTIVES: This study uses the counties of Texas to empirically test the predictions of Wilkinson's theory on the role of income and inequality in explaining health differentials in populations. Wilkinson predicts (1) that health is affected more by income inequality than average income in areas with large population, and (2) that health is affected more by average income than income inequality in areas with small population. We investigate how large the population of a unit must be for income inequality within the unit to affect mortality. METHODS: Measures of income inequality were computed from the 1990 U.S. census data and mortality was computed from Vital Statistics data. Poisson regressions estimated the age-adjusted relative risk of the top quintile relative to the bottom quintile for equality and for income among selections of Texas counties based on population size. County ethnic composition, educational level, and health care access were controlled for. RESULTS: Among counties with populations greater than 150,000, the risk of death was lower in counties with more equal income distribution than in counties with less equal income distribution. Among counties with population less than 150,000, median income affected relative risk in counties with less than 30 percent Hispanics, but not in those with more than 30 percent Hispanics. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides some support for the predictions of Wilkinson's theory.     

Inequality,Health Infrastructure,and Spatial Context: Understanding Pathways to Variations in the Causal Determinants of Race-Specific Mortality Rates

Previous research examines the ecological relationship between income inequality and mortality, and results are inconclusive. This analysis builds upon these findings by implementing a spatially weighted path analysis to better understand the mediating relationships of economic and social inequality, health infrastructure, and mortality. In the analysis, overall and race-specific mortality rates are combined with local health infrastructure data, income inequality and racial segregation data, and a series of ecological controls to undertake this examination. Ultimately, findings show that income inequality is a stronger determinant of mortality than is segregation, for whites and blacks, regardless of the existing health infrastructure. We also find racial disparities in the direct effect of local health infrastructure on mortality. In contrast to previous literature suggesting no association between income inequality and mortality after accounting for race and model sophistication, we argue that the significance of the relationship persists using race-specific, spatially weighted path models.     

Social Heterogeneity and Volunteering in U.S. Cities

In this research we explore the relationship between social heterogeneity and volunteering across U.S. metropolitan areas testing a theory that race heterogeneity, racial segregation, and income inequality are negatively associated with the rate of volunteering. Theorizing that social heterogeneity will have different effects for religious and secular volunteering rates, we analyze them separately. We use nonlinear multilevel models to analyze nearly 200,000 individuals across 248 cities, controlling for nonprofits per capita, religious congregations per capita, proportion of the population with college degrees, and the family poverty rate. While much of the intercity variation in volunteering is due to the composition of the population living in each city, we find general support for the predicted negative effect of social heterogeneity on volunteering. However, the effects vary by volunteering type. Race heterogeneity is negatively related only to secular volunteering, racial segregation is negatively related to both general volunteering and secular volunteering, and income inequality is negatively related to all types of volunteering.     

Race, ethnicity, and depression in Canadian society

This study examines racial/ethnic differences in mental health using data from the 1996-97 National Population Health Survey. Three hypotheses are tested. First, a socioeconomic hypothesis tests if differences in family income, education, and low income explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Second, a social resources hypothesis tests if differences in social support explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Finally, an interaction hypothesis tests if mental health variation stems from specific interactions of race/ethnicity with economic and social factors. Although there are socioeconomic, social resource, and interaction effects, the analysis shows that they do not fully explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Overall, our results suggest that East and Southeast Asian, Chinese, South Asian, and black Canadians have better mental health than English Canadians. Jewish Canadians have poorer mental health than English Canadians. All other racial/ethnic groupings have similar mental health as English Canadians.     

Racial/Ethnic Composition and Violence: Size‐of‐Place Variations in Percent Black and Percent Latino Effects on Violence Rates

According to racial invariance positions and mainstream sociological perspectives on race and crime, race differences in structural conditions should account for most if not all of the racial composition (or percent black) effect on aggregate‐level violence rates. However, prior research (mostly conducted prior to 1990) generally provides mixed or contrary evidence for this position, showing instead that greater concentrations of blacks are linked to increased violence even after accounting for racial differences in socioeconomic conditions. The current study uses recent data and a novel unit of analysis to go beyond extant research in two ways. First, we include percent Latino in our examination of the extent to which both racial and ethnic composition effects on violent crime rates are mediated by racial/ethnic disparities in socioeconomic disadvantage. Second, we test whether racial/ethnic composition effects are conditioned by size of place, through the use of census places as a uniquely varying unit of analysis. We find that both black and Latino composition effects are partly explained by controlling for structural conditions (especially structural disadvantage), but this characterizes smaller places much more than the largest, most urbanized places.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Associations Among Ethnic–Racial Socialization,Ethnic Discrimination,and Ethnic Identity Among Urban Sixth Graders

Drawing from cultural ecological models of adolescent development, the present research investigates how early adolescents received ethnic–racial socialization from parents as well as how experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination are associated with their ethnic identity (i.e., centrality, private regard, and public regard). Data for this study were drawn from a multimethod study of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse early adolescents in three mid‐ to high‐achieving schools in New York City. After accounting for the influences of race/ethnicity, social class, gender, immigrant status, and self‐esteem, parental ethnic–racial socialization was associated with higher levels of ethnic centrality (i.e., the extent to which youth identify themselves in terms of their group), more positive private regard (i.e., feelings about one's own ethnic group), and public regard (i.e., perceptions of other people's perceptions of their ethnic group). Ethnic discrimination from adults at school and from peers was associated with more negative perceptions of one's ethnic group (i.e., public regard). In addition, the association of ethnic–racial parent socialization and ethnic identity beliefs was stronger for those who reported higher levels of adult discrimination. Results highlight key ways in which ethnic identity may be shaped by the social ecologies in which adolescents are embedded.     

Understanding the use of “twinkie,” “banana,” and “FOB”: Identifying the origin,role, and consequences of internalized racism within Asian America

Where does internalized racism come from? How is it sustained and perpetuated within the Asian American community? What is the role and consequence of internalized racism within the Asian American community? This article reviews the existing literature to map the origin, role, and consequences of internalized racism among Asian Americans. Research on internalized racism must examine more than individual behaviors, otherwise it falls victim to conceiving of individuals as “racial dupes” (i.e., an individual who has been deceived into supporting existing racial hierarchies and systems of racial inequalities). However, the research should also veer away from an over emphasis on individual agency and resistance because doing so ignores the larger structural systems of inequality that exist, via colonial mentality and racialization, which influence individual behaviors. Future research on internalized racism must engage both perspectives to hold accountable the connection between broader racialization processes and everyday interactions driven by internalized racism.     

Rethinking a universal framework in the psychiatric symptom-disorder relationship

Research on disparities in health and services should include a critical examination of how social, cultural, and contextual factors affect the connection between symptoms and psychiatric disorders. Systematic differences in this connection by these factors will mean that clinicians using a universalist approach to disorders may make more diagnostic errors for certain patients (e.g., ethnic minorities, the poor). Based on the literature on normative clinical decision-making, this study tests for whether the effect of specific psychiatric disorders on key symptoms is the same for certain groups of the population. The data come from the National Comorbidity Survey. Conditional probabilities of disorders and symptoms, the elements feeding into clinical decision-making, are calculated and tested for equivalence across various racial/ethnic, educational, income, and gender groups. We find some significant differences in the relation of key symptoms to disorders across groups. These findings should encourage testing relativistic frameworks in diagnostic nosology as a step to improve clinical decision-making and reduce diagnostic and treatment disparities in mental health services.     

Social Contacts and the Economic Performance of Immigrants: A Panel Study of Immigrants in Germany

Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel, we examined the impact of social contacts on immigrant occupational status and income. In addition to general social contacts, we also analyzed the effects of bonding (i.e., co‐ethnic) and bridging (i.e., inter‐ethnic) ties on economic outcomes. Results show that general social contacts have a positive effect on the occupational status and, in particular, annual income of immigrants. We also find that bridging ties with Germans lead to higher occupational status, but not to increased income. These effects remain visible even when social contacts are measured (at least) 1 year prior to the economic outcomes, as well as when earlier investments in German human capital are considered. Finally, we show that co‐ethnic concentration in the region of residence weakly affects economic returns to German language proficiency and schooling.     

METROPOLITAN STRUCTURE AND CRIMINAL VIOLENCE

This article re-examines the conclusions of an earlier paper (Blau and Blau. 1982);i.e., that racial inequality in metropolitan places increases criminal violence and is accountable for various factors to which this violence is often attributed, notably poverty, race, and the Southern subculture of violence. The replication confirms the basic original hypothesis that a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area's (SMSA) racial inequality in socioeconomic status raises its rates of violent crime. This article also supports the earlier findings that rates of criminal violence are higher in larger SMSAs and in SMSAs with a great number of marital conflicts and disruptions (as indicated by the large proportion of divorced and separated), and that these rates are unrelated to an SMSA's poverty level once other conditions are controlled. However, when interaction effects and curvilinear relationships are taken into consideration, criminal violence is seen to depend considerably on an SMSA's racial composition and to be more prevalent in SMSAs with a largely Southern population than in others, which supports the thesis of a Southern subculture of violence.     

Effects of federal programs on children: Absolute poverty, relative poverty, and income inequality

Since the 1996 welfare reform, federal spending on means-tested programs targeting the poorest children has decreased, while programs that benefit children in low-income working families have been expanded substantially. With this background, this study examined changes in the antipoverty and anti-inequality effects of children's programs between 1995 and 2007 using data from the Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS). The findings suggest that although the poverty-reduction effects of the federal child programs increased between 1995 and 2007, the programs' effects on the reductions of children's absolute poverty gaps, relative poverty rates, relative poverty gaps, and income inequality all decreased. More importantly, the antipoverty effects of the federal child programs were most weakened for the poorest children (i.e., those in female-headed, immigrant, and nonworking families) between 1995 and 2007.     

Critical race theory speaks to the sociology of mental health: mental health problems produced by racial stratification

The sociology of mental health focuses on the epidemiology, etiology, correlates, and consequences of mental health (i.e., psychiatric disorder and symptoms, psychological distress, and subjective well-being) in an attempt to describe and explain how social structure influences an individual's psychological health. Critical race theory describes and explains iterative ways in which race is socially constructed across micro- and macro-levels, and how it determines life chances implicating the mundane and extraordinary in the continuance of racial stratification (i.e., racism). This paper invoked critical race theory to inform the sociology of mental health's approach to studying race and mental health by conceptualizing five hypothetical mental health problems that could exist because of racial stratification. These problems were: (1) nihilistic tendencies, (2) anti-self issues, (3) suppressed anger expression, (4) delusional denial tendencies, and (5) extreme racial paranoia. Mental health problems such as these and undocumented others can only be recognized given awareness of the social and personal implications of racial stratification.     

WHY DOES CHILD LABOR PERSIST WITH DECLINING POVERTY?

We develop a dynamic overlapping generations model to highlight the role of income inequality in explaining the persistence of child labor under declining poverty. Differential investment in two forms of human capital—schooling and health—in the presence of inequality gives rise to a nonconvergent income distribution in the steady state characterized by multiple steady states of relative income with varying levels of education, health, and child labor. The child labor trap thus generated is shown to preserve itself despite rising per capita income. Policy recommendations include public provision of education targeted toward reducing schooling costs for the poor or raising the efficacy of public health infrastructure. (JEL I1, J2, O1, O2)     

Rethinking empirical approaches to racial segregation

Within empirical approaches to racial residential segregation, there has been a tendency to draw on the work of or influenced by Robert E. Park and his ecological hypothesis to explore social and spatial relations between members of different ethnic and racial groups, thus framing research within a race relations paradigm. This has promoted an analysis which naturalizes racial differences but which also sidelines structural considerations. In turn this approach has also fed into political discourses on segregation, at times supporting more reactionary positions. This paper seeks to address this debate by considering whether emphasis on minority ethnic concentration sidelines the more pertinent issue of concentration in deprived areas, suggesting that neighbourhood deprivation as a measure can be more easily aligned with structural conditions which have influenced the settlement and historical experience of many ethnic minority communities. Specifically, I consider the extent to which a measure of neighbourhood deprivation is more important than the ethnic composition of an area for thinking about the distribution of inequalities in unemployment (as one example of socio‐economic inequality). Using multilevel logistic regression I find neighbourhood income deprivation to be more important than levels of co‐ethnic concentration for explaining ethnic differences in unemployment. The findings imply that neighbourhood deprivation is significantly more important for considering inequalities in unemployment for ethnic minorities than the ethnic composition of an area.     

Examining Discrimination,Ethnic‐Racial Identity Status,and Youth Public Regard Among Black,Latino, and White Adolescents

How positively adolescents believe others feel about their ethnic‐racial group (i.e., public regard) is an important part of their ethnic‐racial identity (ERI), which is likely informed by contextual and individual factors. Using cluster analyses to generate ERI statuses among Black, Latino, and White adolescents (n = 1,378), we found that associations between peer versus adult discrimination and public regard varied across ERI status and ethnic‐racial group. However, among all adolescents, an achieved ERI (i.e., having explored ethnicity‐race and having a clear sense about its personal meaning) buffered the negative association between adult discrimination and public regard, but not between peer discrimination and public regard. Implications for understanding the interplay between contextual and individual factors for public regard are discussed.     

Growth,Inequality and Poverty in Emerging and Transition Economies

This paper aims to explore the quality of economic growth in a sample of 50 emerging and transition economies (ETEs), which are countries experiencing a process of fast growth and institutional change. Economic growth during 1995–2006 is regressed against poverty, inequality and human development variables using OLS cross-country regression models. The main findings are that growth did not reduce poverty and income inequality worsened too. On the one hand, economic growth occurred despite the worsening of income inequality. However, this result does not identify a “U-shaped” Kuznets curve because even after a consistent period of growth, inequality did not decrease and it remained at higher levels. Only countries with higher education levels and public expenditure in strategic dimensions seem to escape from this trap. On the other hand, growth occurred at the expense of an important human development variable i.e., life expectancy, and of an important indicator of democracy, i.e., voice and accountability.     

Minority Composition,Inequality and the Growth of Municipal Police Forces, 1960–71

Abstract

Recent studies, in finding that community variables such as percentage Black and income inequality have significant effects on police size and expenditures, call into question the findings of earlier research. However, these recent studies are themselves subject to serious methodological limitations and leave open the question of whether it is class or racial conflict which affects the deployment of police resources. In this study we estimate several simultaneous equation models of police size per capita in 1971 for 88 non-Southern cities. Bach of these models holds constant the effects of per capita police size in 1960. Racial composition and racial inequality are found to be the only significant predictors of the growth in the number of police per capita.     

THE DYNAMICS OF ETHNIC INEQUALITIES: The Case of Israel

Three alternative trends of ethnic or racial inequality are formulated: diminishing inequality, rising inequality and stabilizing inequality. The last trend is hypothesized to hold for industrial ‘welfare states’ which lack both blatant discrimination against ethnic groups and systematic efforts to close the ethnic gaps.

A comprehensive study of inequalities in income, occupation, education and power between Oriental (non-European) and Ashkenazi (European) Jews in Israel has shown that the thesis of ‘stabilizing inequality’ fits Israel best. The various areas of Oriental-Ashkenazi inequality are conducive to conflict not only because of their persistence, but also for being appreciable and discrepant. It is concluded that more radical means are needed if greater ethnic equality is desired.     

Growth with equity: income inequality in Vietnam, 2002–14

We use the 2002 through 2014 Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys to construct comparable measures of household income and estimates of income inequality over this high-growth period. We focus on two questions: How have benefits from growth been distributed; and do changes in the structure of the economy map into changes in inequality? We explore dimensions in which inequality may vary, notably urban versus rural, and by ethnic status. We also decompose inequality by income source to highlight key factors underlying the relatively low levels of inequality during this period. We find that agricultural opportunities played an important role in dampening inequality, but more important has been the steady development of wage-labor markets in both urban and rural areas. An important caveat to the generally rosy picture we paint is the deteriorating position of ethnic minorities. Finally, we draw comparisons with China and document key differences in their growth-inequality experiences.