A cohort analysis of female labor participation rates in the U.S. and Japan

Aggregate data of female labor participation rates in U.S. and Japan, classified by period and by age, are decomposed into age, period, and cohort effects using innovative Bayesian cohort models that were developed to overcome the identification problem in cohort analysis. The main findings are that in both countries, age effects are the largest and period effects are the smallest; in both countries, age effects are roughly consistent with life-cycle movements expected by labor economics, but the negative effects of marriage and/or childbearing on women?’s labor supply in Japan are much larger than those observed in the U.S.; and in both countries, upward movements of cohort effects during 1930s–1960s were found. However, cohort effects are larger for the U.S. than for Japan. All the cohort results are roughly consistent with the marriage squeeze hypothesis and the Easterlin hypothesis.     

Cognitive and non-cognitive traits and the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic inequality

This paper studies the roles of cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics in a standard Roemerian Inequality of Opportunity (IOP) model. Using Australian microdata, we model the effects of individuals’ backgrounds and their psychological traits on two adult income variables. We find that measurable psychological traits (intelligence, locus of control, big five personality traits) are slightly more important than background characteristics (such as race, gender, social class at birth) in explaining income disparities. However, the fraction of IOP confounded by psychological factors is small (11%–12%), which suggests that background inequalities do not meaningfully reflect differences in cognitive or non-cognitive ability.     

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.     

Untangling the tolerance of socioeconomic inequality: Comparing Japan,the United States,South Korea,and the People's Republic of China

The last three decades have witnessed major institutional and structural transformations across both economically developed and developing countries. While many individuals and groups have benefited from these changes, they have simultaneously resulted in growing disparities between the haves and have-nots. The growing socioeconomic inequalities, however, have not been met with significant resistance and it has been even observed that people have become more tolerant of inequalities. This article explores the motivations behind tolerating socioeconomic inequality, and investigates how the tolerance of socioeconomic inequality has changed over the past 25 years, while also comparing it across very distinctive political and socioeconomic regimes. This study overcomes a gap in research by employing longitudinal, cross-sectional survey data to analyze temporal change in attitudes towards inequality. Fixed effects models are applied on five waves of World Values Survey data (1994–2020) on four distinctly different post-industrial countries: Japan, the People's Republic of China, South Korea, and the United States. The paper argues that, on an individual level, there is a tendency to accept inequality normalizing narratives and defend one's own self-interest, derived from one's structural position. This accounts for a considerable part of the variation in tolerance for socioeconomic inequality across these nations. The article concludes that trends in tolerating socioeconomic inequality have over time become more similar across these four countries with distinctly different political–economic regimes.     

Racial inequality and social control: Historical and contemporary patterns in the U.S. South

Research dealing with disproportionate criminality, arrest, and incarceration among African Americans has tended to emphasize cultural, familial, and structural differences between racial groups while at the same time neglecting patterns and processes of race‐ and class‐based antagonism and subordination that are central, especially in the case of the U.S. South historically. We attempt to address this limitation by posing a model of the contemporary black‐white arrest differential across counties of one southern state. The model itself takes into consideration class‐ and race‐based subordination processes and their impact on local levels of stratification and arrest. Results suggest the continuing influence of racial competition and class dynamics. Racial competition enhances the arrest gap by disproportionately increasing unemployment and family dissolution among African Americans. The existence of a strong and concentrated traditional elite is shown to depress the racial gap, presumably by increasing poverty, unemployment, and family dissolution for both groups or by shaping what it means to go to jail, especially for blacks. In general, the arguments and findings presented suggest that criminological literature and theorizing should take note of local racial and political‐economic processes that, through the perpetuation of race and class inequality, reproduce disparate patterns of criminality, arrest, and incarceration.     

The influence of tax authorities on the employment of tax practitioners: Empirical evidence from a survey and interview study

Tax practitioners play a crucial role in the degree of taxpayers’ compliance – a role that has increased as tax systems worldwide have become more complex. However, little is known about tax authorities’ impact on taxpayers’ decisions to employ tax practitioners. Based on earlier research on motivations to employ a tax practitioner and the extended slippery slope framework of tax compliance, we conducted two studies which provide some answers. A survey study – comprising a representative sample of 500 Austrian self-employed taxpayers – revealed that financial gain is not the most important reason to employ a tax practitioner but instead the motivation to avoid problems with the tax authorities. Related to that, we also find that taxpayers’ perception of tax authorities wielding coercive power motivates them to employ tax practitioners. In the interview study with 33 self-employed taxpayers and 30 tax auditors, taxpayers indicated that they sought to avoid contact with tax officers by employing tax practitioners. This finding was supported by tax officers who reported preferring interaction with tax practitioners over direct contact with taxpayers. The two studies point to the complex relationship between taxpayers, tax authorities and tax practitioners, and allow the drawing of theoretical and practical implications.     

美国与沙特准联盟外交的理论与实证研究

二战结束以来，美国与沙特特殊关系的构建主要依靠准联盟外交，这类外交具有合作载体的非正式性、解决任务的选择性、合作手段的灵活性和战略指向的模糊性等特点。美沙准联盟外交的形成具有国际层面、国家层面和单元内部层面三重原因，双方的安全共同体和利益共同体意识强化了准联盟外交。“9·11”事件后，美国在海湾地区由依靠沙特转向依靠海合会其他成员，其准联盟外交战略呈现多元化趋势；沙特则积极利用欧盟、俄罗斯、中国和印度等来平衡美国的影响力。美沙各自外交战略的调整使美沙准联盟暗藏危机。     

Intergenerational Mobility in East Asian Countries: A Comparative Study of Japan, Korea and China

Abstract:  There have been fewer cross-national comparative works on social mobility in East Asian countries than in Western countries. The present study aims to explore the similarities and differences of intergenerational social mobility in three East Asian countries and to examine whether the Featherman–Jones–Hauser (FJH) hypothesis would fit well into the mobility tables for Japan, Korea, and China. Log-linear and log-multiplicative models are applied to the mobility tables of respondents' occupations according to the father's occupation in the three countries. The analysis of relative rates of mobility did not completely support the FJH hypothesis in a strict sense, even though it reasonably accounts for the total association of origin and destination in the three countries. My analysis demonstrates that a level of social fluidity has been higher in Korea and China than in Japan. Focusing on how relative mobility patterns differ between the three countries, intergenerational mobility in Korea is characterized by lower rates of class inheritance compared to Japan, while there seems to be a similarity between the patterns of social fluidity in Japan and Korea, even though they are to a certain extent deviant from Erikson and Goldthorpe's core model. In contrast to Korea, class inheritance rates in China are almost as large as in Japan. However, the mobility pattern between classes appears to differ substantially between the post-socialist and two capitalist countries. In particular, both downward and upward mobility between the white collar bloc and the unskilled manual position are more pervasive in China than in Japan and Korea. These results imply that sociologists interested in cross-national comparison of the social mobility between the East Asian countries should pay attention to both political institutions and the local labor market situatuion which can substantially affect social mobility.     

The Case of Cubans: Racial Inequality in U.S. Homeownership and Home Values

Prior research finds that human capital may explain racial housing inequality, whereas others note the historical role that race played in creating unequal housing conditions. This study uses the case of Cubans in the United States to examine whether human capital explains Black–White housing inequalities, or if they are a result of nativity/cohort differences—a proxy for the federal policies that supported Cubans’ economic and social incorporation. Using pooled data from the American Community Survey, I examine how human capital characteristics and nativity/migration cohorts shape odds of homeownership and predicted home values among Cubans. Extended analyses using decomposition methods find that although human capital characteristics are important, they play a smaller role in explaining Black–White differences in homeownership and home values. Indicative of the changing structure of racial stratification in the United States, results reveal substantial inequality among the oldest of Cuban immigrants and U.S.‐born Cubans, despite a trend toward declining inequality among recent arrivals. Supported by the literature of systemic racism, the case of Cubans shows how human capital explanations do not sufficiently explain racial housing inequalities and how the future of racial stratification is one of inter‐ and intra‐ethnic group inequality.     

Driven by Inequalities: Exploring the Resurgence of Domestic Work in U.S. Cities

Domestic work, once the most common occupation for women around the globe, was thought to be well on its way to extinction at the end of the twentieth century. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, evidence began to appear that domestic work was in many places again becoming a growth occupation. My goal in this article is to examine the factors related to the recent expansion of domestic work in countries in the Global North, using the United States as a case study. I draw on U.S. Census data to document the resurgence of domestic work both nationally and in many large cities across the country, and then use multivariate analysis to compare rates of domestic work across these cities. The results indicate that rates of domestic work are highly related to variables measuring structural inequalities (racialization of the labor force, immigration, and economic polarization), while showing little relationship with variables measuring unmet care needs (care dependency ratios, female/maternal labor force participation, and availability of institutional care options). These findings underline the urgency of providing protections to domestic workers and point to the need for scholarship that better theorizes the relationships among unpaid care and different forms of paid care.     

婚姻观代际变迁的实证分析

通过运用对数线性模型,对离婚、独身等婚姻观念受教育程度、代际更迭的影响分析发现：教育获得对传统婚姻观念构成巨大的冲击,随着教育程度的提高,人们会越来越淡漠传统的婚姻观念。而代际更替的效应分析表明,随着代际的推进,年轻一代比年长一代倾向于反对传统观念,喜欢接受新观念,从而使得新的婚姻观念多样化、常态化和普遍化。     

Biases of the ordinary least squares and instrumental variables estimators of the intergenerational earnings elasticity: Revisited in the light of panel data

The OLS estimator of the intergenerational earnings correlation is biased towards zero, while the instrumental variables estimator is biased upwards. The first of these results arises because of measurement error, while the latter rests on the presumption that the education of the parent family is an invalid instrument. We propose a panel data framework for quantifying the asymptotic biases of these estimators, as well as a mis-specification test for the IV estimator. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Uneven Development and Local Inequality in the U.S. South: The Role of Outside Investment,Landed Elites,and Racial Dynamics

This paper develops a historically contingent understanding of patterns of uneven economic development in the U.S. South. We conceptualize spatial variation in economic development and its consequences for inequality to be embedded in both local and international dynamics. The character of local economic development, it is argued, reflects the organizational base and heterogeneity of local elites, the divisions and relative power of nonelites, and the embeddedness of the local political economy in national and world systems of politics and production. These ideas are developed and made historically and spatially specific through an analysis of uneven development in one Southern state, North Carolina. Our findings suggest that contemporary patterns of uneven development and the resulting income deprivations and inequality reflect conditional interactions between elite economic projects and racial divisions within the working class. We find that outside investment seems to reproduce rather than disrupt local patterns of inequality and poverty.     

How culture influences foreign trade: evidence from the U.S. and China

Using a gravity model of trade and the U.S. and Chinese panel data, I present evidence that supports the views that linguistic links have become more important in foreign trade than geographical proximity and that linguistic influence on trade is more significant in China than in the U.S. The estimated result based on a broad panel of economies shows little overall relation between religious similarity and foreign trade in both the U.S. and China. But there is an indication that the religious dissimilarity tends to retard foreign trade with poor countries and regions and to encourage foreign trade with richer places. I also found that, although religious retardation on foreign trade is more significant in China than in the U.S., religious dissimilarity tends to retard the US export more than that of China; by contrast, it tends to retard the Chinese import more than that of the U.S. At last, the socio-economic implications of the estimated results are discussed.     

反恐战争与美国-伊斯兰世界矛盾的演进

“9·11”事件后，随着美国反恐战争的深入推进，伊斯兰世界对美国反恐战争的认识和反应发生了深刻变化。这些变化导致美国与伊斯兰世界的矛盾超出国家范畴，向社会和意识形态领域延伸，形成了一个国家对抗一种宗教群体的局面。美国与伊斯兰世界矛盾的重大演变导致双方的敌意和对立进一步加剧，成为影响当前国际局势的主要因素之一。     

Attitudes Towards Food Safety and the Environment: A Comparison of Conswners in Japan and the U.S.1

Abstract Numerous studies have demonstrated dwindling consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply and growing interest in purchasing "safe" foods. However, this research has painted no consistent picture of those concerned about food safety, nor has it investigated the relationship between environmental and food safety attitudes. A mail survey of Japanese and the United States consumers is used to evalulate whether selected environmental attitudes can explain food safety concerns and behavior. Findings indicate high concern about food safety in both countries, but income, age, education, and attitudes about the impacts of fossil fuel use explain little of the variance. Instead, that concern appears to be prompted largely by an interest in obtaining a healthy diet. It is also noted that Japanese consumers are more concerned about both food safety and the impacts of fossil fuel use, perhaps because of Japan's lack of natural resources and high food import levels.     

Social capital and the reproduction of economic inequality in polarized societies

This paper explores the idea that the distribution of wealth across social groups fundamentally affects the evolution of economic inequality. By providing microfoundations suitable for this exploration, this paper hopes to enhance our understanding of when social forces contribute to the reproduction of economic inequality. In tackling this issue, this paper offers contributions in two domains. First, it models social capital as a real capital asset with direct use and collateral values. Second, it extends the concepts of identity, alienation and polarization originally advanced by Esteban and Ray (Esteban, J.M. and Ray, D.: On the measurement of polarization, Econometrica 62(4) (1994), 819–851). This generalization permits us to consider the multiple characteristics that shape social identity, inclusion and exclusion. It also underwrites a higher-order measure of socio-economic polarization that permits us to explore the hypothesis that economic inequality is most pernicious and persistent when it is socially embedded. Holding constant the initial levels of economic polarization and wealth inequality, we show that higher socio-economic polarization increases subsequent income and wealth inequality. Far from being a distributionally neutral panacea for missing markets, social capital in this model may itself generate exclusion and deepen existing economic cleavages.     

The development of an evidence based assessment protocol for intimate partner violence in the U.S. Army

The importance of conducting evidence based assessment has been widely acknowledged by many professions, including social work. In this study, the U.S. Army, in partnership with University researchers, developed an evidence based assessment protocol to assist the individual social worker in conducting his/her assessment of intimate partner violence. The protocol development process involved posing answerable research questions about intimate partner violence assessment content and method and then adhering to the steps of evidence based practice to answer those questions. Key to the protocol development process was the partnership created between researchers and practitioners as part of an expert panel.     

Immigration and the earnings of youth in the U.S.

"This article reports findings that have emerged from an effort made at statistically measuring the effects of immigration on the earnings of U.S.-born youth. The presence of immigrants arriving before 1965 has a positive impact on youth earnings. Recently arrived immigrants impact negatively, however. These results are consistent with recent findings that the skill level of immigrants arriving within the last two decades is lower relative to that of immigrants arriving earlier. The results also show that the negative effects diminish as the youth ages, reflecting skill acquisition and job mobility of the young worker into jobs less vulnerable to competition from immigrant workers."