城市医疗救助筹资与给付水平的地区不平等性

城市医疗救助试点自2005年初开始在全国范围内实施,其筹资与给付结构呈现很大的地区不平等性。第一,人均筹资水平的基尼系数高达0.881,处于极其不平等的状态,我国东部地区不平等程度最大;对于这一不平等,省际差异的贡献率为55.45%,省内各区县之间的差异贡献了38.35%。第二,人均给付水平总的基尼系数为0.652,也呈现极其不平等的状态,而东中西三大地区之间的差异对这一不平等状态的贡献较大。第三,对医疗救助人均筹资和人均给付水平的基尼系数的分解结果显示,省级和中央政府的转移支付没有产生拉平效应,未能对公共服务水平公平的实现发挥应有的作用。因此,健全医疗救助的公共财政体系是进一步努力的方向,其中最为关键的是实现转移支付的制度化。     

Ethnicity as skill: immigrant employment hierarchies in Norwegian low-wage labour markets

Immigrants are often concentrated in particular, often low-waged, segments of the labour market and employers tend to assume that immigrants posit (soft) skills which make them particularly suited for specific tasks. Less scholarly attention has been given to the real and perceived content of these skills and how employers may shift their view over time. We contribute to the literature by examining changing ethnic employment hierarchies in two immigrant-intensive labour markets in Norway. Drawing on qualitative data from the hotel and fish processing industries, we describe, first, how different ethnic groups are allocated into specific jobs forming a clear hierarchy in the eyes of employers, and, second, how employers’ preferences for particular groups change as new immigrants enter the labour market. Theoretically, we develop the concept of ‘ethnicity as skill’, which points to the tendency among employers to equate ethnic group membership with a set of informal qualifications.     

Income inequality,distributive fairness and political trust in Latin America

In the wake of rising levels of income inequality during the past two decades, widespread concerns emerged about the social and political consequences of the widening gap between the poor and the rich that can be observed in many established democracies. Several empirical studies substantiate the link between macro-level income inequality and political attitudes and behavior, pointing at its broad and negative implications for political equality. Accordingly, these implications are expected to be accentuated in contexts of high inequality, as is the case in Latin America. Despite these general concerns about the consequences of income inequality, few studies have accounted for the importance of individual perceptions of distributive fairness in regard to trust in political institutions. Even less is known about the extent to which distributive fairness perceptions co-vary with objective indicators of inequality. Moreover, the research in this area has traditionally focused on OECD countries, which have lower indexes of inequality than the rest of the world. This study aims at filling this gap by focusing on the relevance of distributive fairness perceptions and macro-level inequality for political trust and on how these two levels interact in Latin American countries. The analyses are based on the Latinobarometer survey 2011, which consists of 18 countries. Multilevel estimations suggest that both dimensions of inequality are negatively associated with political trust but that higher levels of macro-level inequality attenuate rather than increase the strength of the negative association between distributive fairness perceptions and political trust.     

农村内部收入不平等变动的成因——基于回归分解的研究途径

近年来中国农村居民收入持续增长,但是农村收入差距却持续扩大。采用回归分解的方法,利用吉林省农户抽样调查数据,对农村内部收入不平等及其变动趋势的成因进行分析。研究结果表明,劳动力投入、工资性收入和人力资本对农户收入的增加起到明显的作用;影响农村收入不平等水平的要素有劳动力投入、耕地、工资性收入、人力资本要素以及地区差异;耕地、工资性收入和劳动力投入对农村内部收入不平等的增加有显著影响,其中耕地的作用占51.60%,超过一半的解释能力,而教育对降低收入不平等水平有一定的作用。     

Counterspaces,Counterstructures: Low-Income,First-Generation,And Working-Class Students’ Peer Support At Selective Colleges1

Low-income, first-generation, and/or working-class students (LIFGWC) attending selective colleges and universities must navigate class-dominant spaces, often encountering microaggressions. In this paper, we examine how LIFGWC students support themselves and one another by analyzing the efforts of campus groups focused on LIFGWC students’ needs. We draw on the framework of counterspaces to show the provision of both peer-to-peer social connection and the creation of new services for LIFGWC students, such as career advising. We refer to these latter efforts as counterstructures. We introduce this term to highlight the structural location of these efforts and the ways that students are doing work that the college—whether in the form of administrators, staff, or faculty—typically should be doing. We contribute both to the understanding of ways that selective campuses underserve LIFGWC students and to research on the use of counterspaces in providing support in majority/minority spaces.     

The curious under‐representation of women impact case leaders: Can we disengender inequality regimes?

Universities are increasingly expected to demonstrate the wider societal impacts of academic research. Yet women management scholars were disproportionately under‐represented in leading impact cases in the UK's REF (Research Excellence Framework) 2014. An analysis of 395 REF impact cases for business and management studies with an identifiable lead author revealed that only 25 per cent were led by women, of which 54 per cent were sole authored. Based on 12 in‐depth interviews with women impact case writers, we use Acker's inequality regimes framework to understand invisible and socially constructed gendering of the UK's policy that is designed to evaluate research impact. In a knowledge‐intensive workplace dominated by men, the shape and degree of gendered bases of inequality, systemic practices, processes and controls result in sub‐optimal talent management and gendered knowledge. We call for university leaders to be proactive in addressing barriers that fail to support or recognize women's leadership of research impact.     

Working to protect rights: Women's civil liberties in cross-cultural perspective

Using data for a majority of the world's countries over a 25- to 55-year period, this paper analyzes cross-cultural heterogeneity in women's civil liberties independently of and relative to men. Civil liberties include the freedoms of discussion and movement, freedom from forced labor, property rights, and access to justice. Regression analyses show that women's civil liberties vary considerably across cultural zones defined by the intersection of religious traditions and geographical regions. These patterns persist even when controlling for factors such as democracy and development. Accounting for women's political representation and educational attainment often reduces but never eliminates these cross-cultural differences; the same is true for embeddedness in world society. In contrast, women's labor force participation all but erases negative cultural effects, and instrumental-variables analyses suggest that this factor is a causal determinant of women's civil liberties. Efforts to improve women's rights should therefore focus on overcoming cultural barriers to their workforce participation.     

American Indian Poverty in the Contemporary United States

Little sociological attention over the last two decades has focused on the deprivation experienced by indigenous people. Fusing insights from American Indian history and the race and labor market inequality literatures, we address this gap in this article through a historically informed labor market analysis of poverty—an analysis that considers the pervasiveness of contemporary Native poverty, its potential basis in labor market opportunities, and the extent to which it has been patterned by two major demographic and economic shifts: (1) the rapid urbanization of the American Indian population and (2) the proliferation of tribally owned casinos. Findings reveal, most notably, the incredibly rigid and durable character of poverty for this population, historically and currently and across geographic space, and with little overall impact of local labor market opportunity. The presence of tribal casinos reduces such poverty, but only to a small degree and not nearly enough to compensate for sizable American Indian and white poverty differentials. Group history is key, we conclude, to shaping how space, labor markets, and economic development reduce or buttress relations of inequality.     

From Social Capital to Inequality: Migrant Networks in Different Stages of Labor Incorporation

How does social capital vary in the distinct stages (prehiring, hiring, and posthiring) of labor incorporation? Based on interviews with 71 Latino migrant workers engaged in residential construction in Las Vegas, Nevada, and 30 transnational migrants who returned to Mexico after working in the United States, I examined two primary issues: first, the structural labor mechanisms that create hyperexploitation, and second, how, in turn, such processes shape social capital. I discovered, at the prehiring phase, social networks connected to subcontractors and those who attempt to form a labor crew function as social capital, despite what may appear to be bonded labor. At the hiring stage, social capital continues to play a role, yet posthiring labor structures create hyperexploitation and immigrants experience inequality in social capital. In such contexts, undocumented Latinos are unable to retain their social capital as U.S. labor structures such as subcontracting and piece‐rate compensation lead to the subjugation of workers, who can become “ghost workers” and bonded laborers. I conclude that in the posthiring stage, such labor structures create what Lin (2000, 2001) refers to as capital deficit and return deficit in social capital that greatly limit the economic incorporation of Latino immigrants.     

“What About the Rest of Us?” An Overview of LGBT Poverty Issues and a Call to Action

In this article, I argue that, despite the myth of gay affluence, existing research is conclusive enough to claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adults are overall less financially secure than their heterosexual, cisgendered counterparts. I demonstrate that LGBT poverty is a broad social issue that can no longer be viewed as affecting only specific subpopulations of LGBT communities. I argue that the social work profession and the LGBT movement need to recognize LGBT poverty as a social issue. I then present a call to action for social work practitioners, researchers and LGBT organizations.