Social unrest and the Highway Beautification Act of 1965

The recent series of very senseless shootings of both African American males and police officers are chilling visual demonstrations of the current degree of racial tension and social unrest in the United States. Stricter gun control laws are critically important but only part of the issue. Basic human and civil rights are at the heart of the issue. We must move toward a society in which individuals from varied backgrounds are valued, respected, and included. We must all accept the fact that we are all human beings and very much alike. This will require a national effort very similar to the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. We must adopt and implement policies that will specifically address multiple issues (discrimination, racism, marginalization, exclusion, implicit bias, and the lack of economic mobility) serving as drivers of our current social state. A key component should be increased investment in the educational system (starting in primary school) resulting in an increased college graduation rate and the development of curricula on race and racism and supporting cultural sensitivity and implicit bias training from kindergarten through professional schools.     

Does an Immigrant Background Ameliorate Racial Disadvantage? The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second‐Generation African Americans1

Although there is a growing literature on the socioeconomic circumstances of the second generation, this issue has not been systematically considered for African Americans. To help fill this research gap, we investigate the extent to which the socioeconomic attainments of second‐generation African Americans differ from mainstream (i.e., third and higher generation) African Americans. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the 2000 Census, our results indicate that the schooling and wages of second‐generation African Americans consistently exceed those of third‐ and higher generation African Americans. Our findings also reveal that second‐generation African Americans do at least as well as whites in terms of years of schooling, but wage differentials differ significantly by gender. Second‐generation African‐American women earn wages that are at least as high as comparable white women, but second‐generation African‐American men earn wages that are, on average, about 16% less than measurably comparable white men. While no one theoretical perspective can account for all these results, they nonetheless indicate the continuing significance of racial disadvantage for African‐American men, including those with an immigrant background.     

Skin color,sex, and educational attainment in the post-civil rights era

We assess the relationship between skin color and educational attainment for native-born non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, using data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. CARDIA is a medical cohort study with twenty years of social background data and a continuous measure of skin color, recorded as the percent of light reflected off skin. For Black men and women, we find a one-standard-deviation increase in skin lightness to be associated with a quarter-year increase in educational attainment. For White women, we find an association approximately equal in magnitude to that found for Black respondents, and the pattern of significance across educational transitions suggests that skin color for White women is not simply a proxy for family background. For White men, any relationship between skin color and attainment is not robust and, analyses suggest, might primarily reflect differences in family background. Findings suggest that discrimination on the basis of skin color may be less specific to race than previously thought.     

我国人力资源文化素质存量及其经济分析

本文以人均受教育年限作为一个测度人力资源文化素质存量的指标,以此进行了国际比较和国内省际比较的实证分析,提出了我国人力资源发展水平的区划分类;在此基础上,应用相对比值法比较了全国31个省市人力资源文化素质存量利用效率,提出了人力资源文化素质存量经济利用效率的木桶原理。      

Educational expansion and changes in occupational returns to education in Korea

We use data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) conducted in 1998 by the Korean Labor Institute to examine the school-to-work transition across three labor market entry cohorts of Korean men and women. Taking into account the dramatic expansion of educational system and economic changes Korean society has experienced during the last few decades, we develop hypotheses about possible changes in the effects of educational qualifications on first occupational attainment. We first conduct an OLS regression of first occupational prestige scores on education. We then look at the effects of education on the odds of entering an occupational class using multinomial logit models. The results of the two analyses indicate that educational qualifications strongly affect occupational attainment for both men and women. The effects of education, particularly junior college and university, on first occupation have declined across three labor market cohorts for women but not for men.     

The role of assets in improving college attainment among Hispanic immigrant youth in the U.S.

Despite the importance of higher education, Hispanic immigrant youth still have far lower college attainment rate than whites in the U.S. Existing studies show the significant role of household assets on educational attainment even after controlling for income. Thus, this study examines the role of homeownership and school savings on Hispanic immigrant youth's college attendance and graduation. Findings show that homeownership is a significant positive predictor of Hispanic immigrant youth's college attendance and graduation, but parent school savings is not a significant predictor. Policy and practice implications discussed.     

Societal development and the shifting influence of the genome on status attainment

This paper builds on consensus areas within the study of societal development to theorize variation in the strength of genetic influence on status across primary societal types. Its thesis is developed by first constructing a general model of the genome → status relationship positing the strength of genetic influence on status attainment to be a function of specific structural elements of the society. The model is supported by two primary premises: (a) as inequality levels increase, the characteristics and abilities intrinsically useful in status attainment are increasingly influenced by individuals’ social backgrounds and decreasingly determined by their genomes; (b) as social closure and inequality increase, the utility of these characteristics and abilities to status attainment is diminished. After the model is elaborated, it is applied to assess the relative strength of genome → status relationship for each of the major phases of societal development. The results indicate that genetic influence on status attainment has followed a reverse ‘J’ curve, with the genome → status relationship being relatively strong among hunter-gatherers, sharply declining among horticultural and agrarian groups, and then moderately increasing among advanced industrial societies.     

Ethnic differences in the labour market: a comparison of the samples of anonymized records and Labour Force Survey

The public use sample from the 1991 UK census makes it possible to conduct individual level analyses of ethnic minorities' educational and occupational attainments. Unfortunately, however, the census asked only about higher level qualifications obtained after reaching 18 years of age. A comparison with the Labour Force Surveys (LFSs) shows that the census gives in some respects a misleading impression of qualifications among the first-generation members of ethnic minorities: the LFS data show that ethnic minorities tend to be more polarized in their qualifications than the British-born whites, with relatively large proportions at the two extremes, either with degrees or with no qualifications at all. It follows that the census's treatment of qualifications may tend to exaggerate the scale of disadvantage of ethnic minorities in the labour market, and particularly in access to the salariat where qualifications play a particularly large role in recruitment. Regression analyses of sample of anonymized records and LFS data confirm these expectations although they indicate that the results of the census are not seriously misleading as regards the pattern of ethnic disadvantages in the competition to avoid unemployment. The LFS data also confirm earlier findings that the ethnic penalties are in general of similar magnitude among the second generation to those among the first generation, despite the substantial equalization of educational experience that has taken place. There is some evidence that disadvantages in access to the salariat may have been reduced, but this is counterbalanced by the evidence that disadvantages in the avoidance of unemployment may have deteriorated.     

美国不同家庭背景子女高等教育机会差异研究

在美国高等教育大众化过程中,不同家庭背景子女"上大学"的机会差异总体上呈现缩小的趋势.然而,他们在"上什么样的大学"方面的机会差异不但没有缩小反而进一步扩大,即高收入家庭子女更多地就读于层次较高的四年制大学(最终可获得学士学位),而低收入家庭子女大多就读于两年制学院(最终只能拿到一个副学位或一个证书).导致不同家庭背景子女受高等教育机会差异的原因极其复杂,应通过各种制度性倾斜政策,尽量为不同家庭背景子女提供大体相同的教育资源,以缩小他们在基础教育阶段和家庭收入之间的差距,使不同家庭背景子女间的高等教育机会差异处于社会可以接受的范围之内,以实现公众认可的教育机会平等.     

汶川地震后贫困村儿童的发展：灾害影响与异地安置的作用

自然灾害会依严重程度对事件经历者的心理产生重大影响,异地安置是自然灾害发生后较为普遍的干预措施,大部分已有研究表明异地安置对受灾者灾后身心具有负面影响。本文利用2009年2月对汶川地震受灾地区随机抽样所抽取的10个地震受灾县的100个贫困村庄的3000户家庭的抽样调查数据,在通过GIS工具变量回归有效控制地震灾害损害影响的基础上,估计了地震灾害以及灾后异地安置对儿童心理和学业的影响。结果表明,地震损害中的学校损毁程度（相对于家庭住房和成员伤亡）对儿童心理的消极影响最大,同时也影响儿童的灾后入学率;在控制灾害损害影响的条件下,学校的县内异地安置对儿童心理具有积极影响,学校的县外异地安置则有助于提高灾后儿童学业表现,而家庭的长期异地安置对灾后的入学率和学业表现都具有显著的积极影响。这些结果并不支持多数已有研究所得出的异地安置具有负面影响的结论,也为自然灾害的灾后应对措施的设计提供参考依据。