bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Migration and Infant Death: Assimilation or Selective Migration among Puerto Ricans?
Authors: Landale Nancy S. , Oropesa R. S. , Gorman Bridget K.
Published: August 2023

Using pooled origin/destination data from the Puerto Rican Maternal and Infant Health Study, we examine the implications for infant mortality of migration from Puerto Rico to the United States. An analysis restricted to the U.S. mainland shows that children of migrants have lower risks of infant mortality than do children of mainland-born Puerto Rican women. A critical question is whether this pattern indicates that maternal exposure to U.S. culture undermines infant health or whether it is largely a result of the selective migration of healthier or more advantaged mothers to the United States. Our findings show that mother's duration of U.S. residence is positively related to infant mortality among the children of migrants, suggesting that a process of negative assimilation is occurring. However, inclusion of Puerto Rico in the analysis demonstrates the importance of selective migration in explaining the U.S. mainland pattern: Infant mortality is substantially lower among recent migrants to the mainland than it is among nonmigrant women in Puerto Rico. The roles of socioeconomic status, cultural orientation, health habits, and health care utilization in accounting for differences in infants’ survival chances by maternal migration status are assessed.
Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Feagin Joe R.
Published: August 2023

The world's peoples face daunting challenges in the twenty-first century. While apologists herald the globalization of capitalism, many people on our planet experience recurring economic exploitation, immiseration, and environmental crises linked to capitalism's spread. Across the globe social movements continue to raise the issues of social justice and democracy. Given the new century's serious challenges, sociologists need to rediscover their roots in a sociology committed to social justice, to cultivate and extend the longstanding “ countersystem” approach to research, to encourage greater self-reflection in sociological analysis, and to re-emphasize the importance of the teaching of sociology. Finally, more sociologists should examine the big social questions of this century, including the issues of economic exploitation, social oppression, and the looming environmental crises. And, clearly, more sociologists should engage in the study of alternative social futures, including those of more just and egalitarian societies. Sociologists need to think deeply and imaginatively about sustainable social futures and to aid in building better human societies.
Social Movements and Policy Implementation: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, 1965 to 1971
Authors: Andrews Kenneth T.
Published: August 2023

This study of the Mississippi civil rights movement and the War on Poverty examines the relationship between social movements and policy implementation. A “movement infrastructure” model is developed that focuses on organizational structure, resources, and leadership to account for the impact of social movements on policy implementation. A two-tiered research design is employed that includes (I) a quantitative analysis of poverty programs in Mississippi counties from 1965 to 1971, and (2) case studies that show the complex interaction between the civil rights movement, resistance by whites, local powerholders, and federal agencies. The quantitative analysis shows that counties with strong movement infrastructures generated greater funding for Community Action Programs. The case studies show that movements were excluded from the initial formation of these programs as local whites attempted to preempt civil rights activists. However, in counties with strong movement infrastructures, activists were able to gain access to decision-making bodies and shape the content of poverty programs.
Parental Influences on the Gendered Division of Housework
Authors: Cunningham Mick
Published: August 2023

Despite a recent emphasis on contextual explanations for the gendered division of housework, early socialization may also be important. Data from a 31–year panel study of white mothers and children are used to examine parental predictors of the division of household labor among the adult children. Parental influences are assessed when the children were ages 1 and 15; characteristics of the adult children are measured at ages 23 and 31. The effects of the parents’ division of housework and parents’ education on children's division of housework are considered, as well as the effects of the mother's gender-role attitudes and employment. The parental division of labor measured when the sons were very young has a positive effect on the sons'later participation in routine housework, while the mother's employment during their daughters’ early years is a more important predictor of the allocation of housework among the daughters. Parental influences are transmitted partially through the children's gender-role attitudes, but there is also evidence of enduring direct effects of parental characteristics on children's housework allocation, especially for men.
Time-Dependent Effects of Wives’ Employment on Marital Dissolution
Authors: South Scott J.
Published: August 2023

The specialization and trading model—the dominant theoretical perspective on marital stability—posits a positive effect of wives’ economic independence on the risk of divorce. Prior evidence for this association is mixed, however. This analysis explores the possibility that the effect of wives’ labor force supply and educational attainment on marital dissolution varies across historical periods and across the marital life course. Event-history analyses of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 3,523 married couples observed between 1969 and 1993 reveal that the impact of wives’ employment on marital dissolution has become increasingly positive. Moreover, as marriages age, the positive effect of wives’ employment on divorce becomes stronger and the negative impact of wives’ education becomes weaker. Possible explanations for these varying effects include the development of institutional supports for unmarried working mothers, the increasing adoption of nontraditional gender-role ideologies, and trends in workplace sex segregation.
Losers and Winners: The Financial Consequences of Separation and Divorce for Men
Authors: McManus Patricia A. , DiPrete Thomas A.
Published: August 2023

Contrary to conventional thinking, the majority of partnered men in the United States lose economic status when their unions dissolve. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this analysis shows that for most men the primary source of economic decline after union dissolution is their inability to fully compensate for the loss of their partner's income. A secondary source of economic decline is an increase in compulsory and voluntary support payments. Welfare state tax and transfer mechanisms have a much smaller overall impact on changes in men's living standards following separation. Although most men experience a decline in living standards following union dissolution, men's outcomes are heterogeneous, and the minority of men who relied on their partners for less than one-fifth of pre-dissolution income typically gain from separation and divorce. The data show a clear trend toward greater economic interdependence in American partnerships, and this trend appears to increase the proportion of men who suffer a reduced standard of living following separation.
The Small World of Germany and the Durability of National Networks
Authors: Kogut Bruce , Walker Gordon
Published: August 2023

The globalization of financial markets and the concomitant restructuring decisions of firms challenge the historical legacy of national systems of governance. German corporate ownership patterns and restructuring events in the 1990's are examined here in this light. The results show that ownership links among German firms constitute a “small world” that has consequences for understanding mergers and acquisitions. Ownership links form closely-knit clusters affirms that are nonetheless highly connected across the network as a whole. Restructuring events fall squarely in the center of this structure. Despite increasing global competition, the German small world tends to replicate itself. To illustrate this robustness, potential disruptions to the observed German network are simulated. This simulation shows that the properties of the small world remain intact even when ownership ties are changed. These findings suggest that a more global economy in Germany need not lead to the dissolution of the ownership structure, but rather may be associated with a deepening of network ties.
Exchange Structures in Transition: Lending and Trade Relations in Chinese Business Groups
Authors: Keister Lisa A.
Published: August 2023

The networks of interfirm relations that developed in business groups during economic transition are central to China's reform and are becoming an important part of the country's emergent economic structure. Using a recent and original data set that includes direct observations of economic choices made by firms, the process by which these interfirm lending and trade ties emerged and evolved in the early stages of reform is explored. Initially, information from sources external to the network dominated the formation and direction of exchange relations. Firms turned to their prior connections, took advantage of market position, and drew on bureaucratic power to develop alliances. Over time, internal influences gained importance, and managers increasingly drew on internal nontrade relations and other indicators inside the business group to identify lending and trade partners. The results demonstrate the central but changing role that social relations and environmental cues played in the creation of economic structure during China's transition. This study also contributes to an understanding of the processes of organizational adaptation to a major economic transition and interfirm alliance formation more generally. The findings reveal that firms select exchange partners of known reputation and solicit relations that reduce uncertainty, even when there is a cost involved.
Standardization vs. Rapport: Respondent laughter and Interviewer Reaction during Telephone Surveys
Authors: Lavin Danielle , Maynard Douglas W.
Published: August 2023

Laughter emerges naturally in interaction. In the context of the telephone survey interview, however, laughter threatens standardization. Consequently, some survey research centers prohibit interviewers from laughing during the administration of surveys. The data for this study are recorded telephone interviews from one such survey research center. How interviewers handle the “laughter invitations” of respondents is analyzed. Because these interviewers are not taught what to do when laughter occurs, they rely on their tacit knowledge, either accepting the invitation, declining it, or engaging in “pseudo-laughter”: Interviewers most often decline or use a pseudo-laughing response. Laughter patterns in a survey research center that does not prohibit interviewer laughter are examined for comparison, and generally much more reciprocation and laughter are observed. Respondent laughter exhibits a central tension in the telephone survey interview: How can interviewers maintain both standardization and an appropriately affiliative social relationship with respondents? The differential management of this tension is explored in terms of survey methodology, the sociology of (social) scientific knowledge, and the organization of talk in institutional settings.
Sources of Racial Wage Inequality in metropolitan labor markets: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences
Authors: McCall Leslie
Published: August 2023

Research on racial inequality has become increasingly specialized, often focusing on a single explanation and subgroup of the population. In a diverse society, a broader comparative framework for interpreting the causes of wage inequality for different racial, ethnic, and gender groups is called for. The effects of a range of different factors on the wages of Latinos, Asians, and blacks, relative to whites and separately for women and men, are examined. New sources of racial wage inequality are also considered. Significant differences are found in the sources of wage inequality across race, ethnicity, and gender. Differences are generally greater between racial and ethnic groups than between men and women. Key findings include a large negative effect of immigration on the relative wages of Latinos and Asians and only a small effect on the relative wages of black women (and no effect on black men). In contrast, the relative wages of blacks remain most affected positively by the presence of manufacturing employment and unions. New economy indicators of high-skill services and flexible employment conditions play only a secondary role in explaining metropolitan racial wage inequality.
The Ecology of Tactical Overlap
Authors: Olzak Susan , Uhrig S. C. Noah
Published: August 2023

Does sharing protest tactics influence the trajectory of protest activities among social movements? Focusing on the New Social Movements (NSMs), the authors apply concepts that have proven useful in the study of organizations. These concepts suggest that legitimation and competition processes influence both the upward and downward trajectories of protest. The sharing of tactics is specified in terms of increased overlap in the tactical repertoire of social movements composing a given cohort. A tactical overlap index is calculated between women's protest activities and activities generated by all other New Social Movements in West Germany, from 1953 through 1990. Results suggest that tactical overlap has a nonmonotonic effect on levels of protest activity generated by the West German women's movement.
The Structural Contexts of Civic Engagement: Voluntary Association Membership in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Schofer Evan , Fourcade-Gourinchas Marion
Published: August 2023

Voluntary association membership varies dramatically among nations, by both the number and the type of associations that people join. Two distinctions account for much of this variation: (1) the distinction between statist versus nonstatist (sometimes called “liberal”) societies, and (2) the distinction between corporate versus noncorporate societies. These two dimensions summarize historically evolved differences in state structure, political institutions, and culture of nations that channel, legitimate (or deligitimate), and encourage (or discourage) various types of associational activity. Membership in associations in 32 countries is examined using data from the 1991 World Values Survey; hierarchical models estimate the effects of individual-level and country-level factors on individual association membership. Results show that statism constrains individual associational activity of all types, particularly in “new “ social movement associations. Corporateness positively affects membership, particularly for “old” social movements. Finally, temporal trends indicate some convergence toward Anglo-American patterns of association.
Community as Gift-Giving: Collectivistic Roots of Volunteerism
Authors: Eckstein Susan
Published: August 2023

Who in America volunteers what and why? And what impact does volunteering have? It is widely believed that the typical volunteer is middle-aged and middle-class and that volunteerism is rooted in American cultural individualism. Undocumented and unexplored are collectivistic roots of giving, which may have a different social base than individualistc-grounded volunteerism. Characteristics of collectivistic-rooted volunteerism, conditions under which it transpires, and group and community effects of such giving are explored here. The analysis is based on ethnographic research in a predominantly “old immigrant” working-class inner-ring suburb. Collectivistic-rooted volunteerism is shown to be community-embedded and to have group, community, and class stratifying effects.
A Brief History of Human Society: The Origin and Role of Emotion in Social Life
Authors: Massey Douglas S.
Published: August 2023

Human society emerged over 6 million years of hominid evolution. During this time group size steadily increased, and to maintain group cohesion human beings gradually evolved a well-developed social intelligence based on the differentiation and refinement of emotions. The neurological structures for emotional expression are part of the primitive brain and developed long before the cognitive equipment for rational intelligence evolved. Indeed, full rationality came rather late in human evolution, and it has only been within the last 100 years that the social conditions emerged for a mass culture based on rationality. A review of the evolution of human society and human cognition illustrates the creation and workings of the human emotional brain and show how it operates independently of and strongly influences the rational brain. If sociology is to advance, research and theory must grapple with both rational and emotional intelligence and focus particularly on the interplay between them.
From Civil Relations to Racial Conflict: Merchant-Customer Interactions in Urban America
Authors: Lee Jennifer
Published: August 2023

The 1992 Los Angeles riot, the boycotts of Korean-owned businesses, and the 1995 firebombing of a Jewish-owned store in New York's Harlem brought concerns about race and ethnic relations in black neighborhoods to the fore. Images of conflict seared into the public consciousness that black communities are fraught with racial animosity, with immigrant merchants pitted against black customers. The merchant-customer relationship has been cited as a catalyst to such conflicts. This image of conflict, however, is inconsistent with most merchant-customer interactions and does not reflect the full range of commercial life in black communities. Most merchant-customer interactions are civil and ordinary. Civil relations prevail because merchants foster civility, abate tensions, and thwart conflict. However, under conditions of extreme inequality, small events can trigger racial anger, and the symbolic significance of nonblack-owned businesses can become a stimulus of motivations for protest that leads to boycotts and firebombings. This study is based on 75 in-depth interviews of African American, Jewish, and Korean merchants and on 75 in-depth interviews with black customers and both participant and nonparticipant observation at five research sites in New York City and Philadelphia.
Religious Pluralism and Participation: Why Previous Research is Wrong
Authors: Voas David , Olson Daniel V. A. , Crockett Alasdair
Published: August 2023

Does religious pluralism undermine or promote religious involvement? Some secularization theories contend that diversity breeds loss of belief and lower participation. The religious economies model counters that involvement is boosted by the availability of alternative religious suppliers and the competition that results, with each group working harder to gain adherents. The issue is sufficiently important that a recent review found 193 tests of this question in 26 published articles. Almost all of these findings (both positive and negative) should be abandoned. The associations reported do not reflect the effects of pluralism but a previously overlooked mathematical relationship between measures of religious participation and the index of pluralism. Even when pluralism has no effect on participation, the correlation between these two variables is likely to be nonzero. The sign and magnitude of this expected correlation depend on the nature of the size distributions of the religious groups across the areas studied. Results from several frequently cited studies closely match what would be expected from chance alone. Various alternative methods for studying pluralism in future research are examined, but currently there is no compelling evidence that religious pluralism has any effect on religious participation.
Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation
Authors: Portes Alejandro , Haller William J. , Guarnizo Luis Eduardo
Published: August 2023

The recent literature on immigrant transnationalism points to an alternative form of economic adaptation of foreign minorities in advanced societies that is based on the mobilization of their cross-country social networks. Case studies have noted the phenomenon's potential significance for immigrant integration into receiving countries and for the economic development in countries of origin. Despite their suggestive character, these studies consistently sample on the dependent variable (trans-nationalism), failing to establish the empirical existence of these activities beyond a few descriptive examples and their possible determinants. These issues are addressed using a survey designed explicitly for this purpose and conducted among selected Latin immigrant groups in the United States. Although immigrant trans-nationalism has received little attention in the mainstream sociological literature so far, it has the potential of altering the character of the new ethnic communities spawned by contemporary immigration. The empirical existence of transnationalism is examined on the basis of discriminant functions of migrant characteristics, and the relative probabilities of engaging in these kinds of activities is established based on hypotheses drawn from the literature. Implications for the sociology of immigration as well as for broader sociological theories of the economy are discussed.
Immigrant Enclaves and Ethnic Communities in New York and Los Angeles
Authors: Logan John R. , Alba Richard D. , Zhang Wenquan
Published: August 2023

The predominant post–1965 immigrant groups have established distinctive settlement areas in many American cities and suburbs. These areas are generally understood in terms of an “immigrant enclave” model in which ethnic neighborhoods in central cities serve relatively impoverished new arrivals as a potential base for eventual spatial assimilation with the white majority. This model, and the “ethnic community “ model, are evaluated here. In the ethnic community model, segregated settlement can result from group preferences even when spatial assimilation is otherwise feasible. Analysis of the residential patterns of the largest immigrant groups in New York and Los Angeles shows that most ethnic neighborhoods can be interpreted as immigrant enclaves. In some cases, however, living in ethnic neighborhoods is unrelated to economic constraints, indicating a positive preference for such areas. Suburban residence does not necessarily imply living outside of ethnic neighborhoods. Indeed, for several groups the suburban enclave provides an alternative to assimilation—it is an ethnic community in a relatively high-status setting.
Interpretive Activism and the Political Uses of Verdi's Operas in the 1840s
Authors: Stamatov Peter
Published: August 2023

The concept of interpretive activism as a relational position and a practical accomplishment is a useful analytical tool for the study of audiences conceived not as a conglomerate of individuals but as loose networks in which the ability to construct and impose political meanings is unequally distributed. An analysis of the political uses of Verdi's operas in the 1840s demonstrates the power of interpretive activists to impose on audience co-members a political interpretation of cultural objects. There is significant variation in the ways in which these operas were used for the construction of expressive collective statements by contemporary audiences. Opera performances were interpreted as symbolic representations of different political idioms, and audiences expressed their political stance by both affiliating with, and disaffiliating from, these performances. The practices of interpretive activists, not the patriotic symbolism inherent in the operas, account for this variation in outcome. Symbolism, along with the formal properties of opera and the normative enforcement of behavior, is just one of the different contextually grounded resources that interpretive activists use for the construction and imposition of politicized interpretations of cultural objects.
Organizational Size and Pollution: The Case of the U.S. Chemical Industry
Authors: Grant Don Sherman , Jones Andrew W. , Bergesen Albert J.
Published: August 2023

In their recent efforts to uncover the social structural causes of pollution, sociologists have explored the environmental effects of such factors as urbanization, modernization, class hierarchies, long economic cycles, and the world-system. However, they have yet to study what some consider to be the most intensive and effective environmental destroyer of all—organizations—and the effects of their structures. This paper proposes a new line of research that focuses on whether variations in pollution rates are associated with variations in organizational characteristics. As a first step toward developing this new approach, the authors investigate the effects of the organizational size of chemical plants on the rate of toxic emissions. Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, results show that large chemical plants emit toxins at a significantly higher rate than do small plants, especially if they are embedded in a wider corporate structure (i.e., they are also branch plants or owned by a major firm). Implications for future research on the structural determinants of pollution are discussed.
The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality
Authors: Western Bruce
Published: August 2023

A life course perspective on crime indicates that incarceration can disrupt key life transitions. Life course analysis of occupations finds that earnings mobility depends on stable employment in career jobs. These two lines of research thus suggest that incarceration reduces ex-inmates’ access to the steady jobs that usually produce earnings growth among young men. Consistent with this argument, evidence for slow wage growth among ex-inmates is provided by analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Because incarceration is so prevalent—one-quarter of black non-college males in the survey were interviewed between 1979 and 1998 while in prison or jail—the effect of imprisonment on individual wages also increases aggregate race and ethnic wage inequality.
Assessing Alternative Perspectives on Race and Sex Employment Segregation
Authors: Kaufman Robert L.
Published: August 2023

Four major explanations for employment segregation—skill deficits, worker preferences, economic and organizational structure, and stereotyping/queuing—are assessed using a diverse and overlapping set of predictors: general skills and training, product market structure, race- and sex-typed tasks and conditions, desirable employment and growth rates, and links to other labor market actors. A two-stage measurement and analytic strategy controls for relevant worker-level factors. Data from the 1990 census PUMs are analyzed to measure the employment segregation of black women, black men, and white women in relation to white men across 1,917 labor market positions, net of human capital, family structure, geographic residence and labor supply. Archival data provide measures of variables characterizing labor market positions. Stereotyping and queuing explanations are broadly consistent with nearly all results, while a worker preference approach applies to somewhat fewer predictors and is largely but not wholly compatible with their effects. A skill deficits explanation applies to, and is supported by, a narrow set of findings, while the economic and organizational structure explanations are restricted in their relevance and receive limited support.
Equal but Separate? A Cross-National Study of Sex Segregation in Higher Education
Authors: Charles Maria , Bradley Karen
Published: August 2023

The contours and correlates of sex segregation in higher education are explored using data from twelve advanced industrialized countries. Tertiary sex segregation is examined across two dimensions: field of study (horizontal segregation) and tertiary level (vertical segregation). The authors argue that the different aspects of female status in higher education (e.g., overall enrollments, representation at the postgraduate level, and representation in traditionally male-dominated fields of study) do not covary because each variable is affected in distinct ways by structural and cultural features commonly associated with “modernity. “ In particular, (1) ideals of universalism do more to undermine vertical segregation than horizontal segregation, and (2) some modern structural features may actually exacerbate specific forms of sex segregation. Consistent with these arguments, results suggest strongly integrative effects of gender-egalitarian cultural attitudes on distributions across tertiary levels, and weaker, less uniform cultural effects on distributions across fields of study (one notable exception being a strong positive effect on women's representation in engineering programs). Two modern structural features—diversified tertiary systems and high rates of female employment—show segregative effects in some fields and institutional sectors. Overall, few across-the-board integrative or segregative effects can be discerned that would lend support to evolutionary conceptualizations of gender stratification. Modern cultural and structural pressures are manifested unevenly and in contextually contingent ways.
Who is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race
Authors: Harris David R. , Sim Jeremiah Joseph
Published: August 2023

Patterns of racial classification in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health are examined. The survey's large sample size and multiple indicators of race permit generalizable claims about patterns and processes of social construction in the racial categorization of adolescents. About 12 percent of youth provide inconsistent responses to nearly identical questions about race, context affects one's choice of a single-race identity, and nearly all patterns and processes of racial classification depend on which racial groups are involved. The implications of the findings are discussed for users of data on race in general, and for the new census data in particular.
Where Job Values Come From: Family and Schooling Background, Cognitive Ability, and Gender
Authors: Halaby Charles N.
Published: August 2023

This paper develops a framework for conceptualizing preferences for different job properties in terms of a tradeoff between risk and return in the pursuit of economic welfare. Following portfolio theory, job properties are viewed as having mean-variance properties with respect to the distribution of rates of growth in economic welfare. Actors may pursue a high-return, high-risk “entrepreneurial” strategy, or a low-return, low-risk “bureaucratic” strategy. An actor's choice is determined by “entrepreneurial ability” and risk preferences, which in turn are rooted in the major dimensions of family and schooling background, cognitive ability, and gender. This theory is tested by anchoring it in the Wisconsin status attainment model and then fitting rank-ordered logit models to data from the 1957 and 1992 Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey. The findings support the theory: Actors who are “advantaged” with respect to family background, schooling, cognitive ability, and gender express a preference for “entrepreneurial” as opposed to “bureaucratic” job properties. Findings also highlight the strong parallels between the process generating adult job values and the process of socioeconomic achievement itself.
Interracialism: The Ideological Transformation of Hawaii's Working Class
Authors: Jung Moon-Kie
Published: August 2023

A normative desire for interracialism undergirds and structures the sociology of race. However, focusing almost exclusively on racial divisions and conflicts, the sociology of race rarely subjects interracialism to explicit analysis. One consequence of this somewhat peculiar situation is that interracialism is understood negatively, as deracialization—the removal of racism. Even the few studies that appear to redress this negativity through explicit analysis reproduce it. Prototypically, there has long been a scholarly consensus that Hawaii's interracial working-class movement of the late 1930s and 1940s presupposed deracialization: that a “colorblind” class ideology, advanced by the left-led International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, effaced racial divisions. Refuting this interpretation, this paper demonstrates that a deracializing class ideology was not straightforwardly adopted by Hawaii's racially divided workers. Instead, a leftist ideology of class served as the initial pivot for an affirmative transformation of race, producing an interracial ideology that rearticulated, rather than disarticulated, race and class. The paper concludes with several implications of reconceptualizing interracialism affirmatively.
Inequality in the World Polity: The Structure of International Organization
Authors: Beckfield Jason
Published: August 2023

Recent research reveals strong effects of involvement in international organizations on state policies, but much of this research downplays inequality in world political Participation, and there is only a limited understanding of what explains world-Polity ties. Using data on memberships in intergovernmental and international nongovernmental organizations (IGOs and INGOs) for 1960 through 2000, this study analyzes inequality in the world polity. IGO ties are fairly evenly distributed, but the level of inequality in INGO ties is as high as the level of world income inequality. Since 1960, inequality in ties to IGOs decreased sharply, but inequality in ties to INGOs remained more stable. A conflict-centered model of the world polity is developed here that explains world political participation as a function of material and symbolic conflict. Rich, core, Western states and societies have significantly more ties to the world polity than do others. Powerful states dominate IGOs less now than they did in 1960, but rich, core, Western societies have grown more dominant in the INGO field.
Individuals, Jobs, and Labor Markets: The Devaluation of Women's Work
Authors: Cohen Philip N. , Huffman Matt L.
Published: August 2023

Although abundant evidence documents pay penalties for female-dominated jobs, there is also substantial variation in gender inequality across U.S. metropolitan areas. These lines of research are united by exploring whether occupational gender segregation at the labor market level exacerbates the wage penalty associated with female-dominated jobs, and investigating the association between gender composition and the size of within-job gender gaps. Results show that the penalty accruing to female-dominated jobs is weaker in more integrated labor markets, but only among men, and that labor market integration does not significantly influence the association between the gender composition of jobs and within-job inequality. Further, even women in completely segregated jobs benefit from a context of occupational integration. It is concluded that, although gender devaluation is widespread and systematic, variation in gender composition effects across local contexts is an important dimension of gender inequality.
War and Bureaucratization in Qin China: Exploring an Anomalous Case
Authors: Kiser Edgar , Cai Yong
Published: August 2023

Why did a partially bureaucratized administrative system develop in Qin China about two millennia before it did in European states? In this paper, comparative historical arguments about war and state-making are combined with agency theory to answer this question. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras that preceded the Qin unification of China created the necessary conditions for bureaucratization by weakening the aristocracy, creating a bureaucratic model, facilitating the development of roads, and providing trained and disciplined personnel. Comparative analysis shows that the main factor differentiating Qin China from other states and empires was the extreme weakness of the aristocracy produced by an unusually long period of severe warfare. Although Qin China was more bureaucratic than any other state or empire prior to the seventeenth century, it was far from completely bureaucratic. The persistence of monitoring problems prevented its full development, necessitating deviations such as the use of severe negative sanctions, the creation of redundant positions, and limiting bureaucratization to the top of the administrative system. The further development of the bureaucratic administrative system in the Han dynasty is also discussed.
Space Meets Time: Integrating Temporal and Contextual Influences on Mental Health in Early Adulthood
Authors: Wheaton Blair , Clarke Philippa
Published: August 2023

The integration of temporal life course perspectives and current social context perspectives is considered as a framework for the understanding of mental health differences in early adulthood, a formative stage in the development of long-term mental health differences. Using data from the National Survey of Children and a cross-nested random effects model to simultaneously assess the effects of current and past neighborhood, the authors find a lagged effect of childhood neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on early adult mental health, while accounting for initial mental health status. This lagged effect also explains the apparent (bivariate) effect of current neighborhood. Four hypotheses are assessed to explain the lagged effect of neighborhood: contextual continuity, mental health continuity, life course stress accumulation, and ambient chronic stress in the neighborhood. Support is found for a cumulative mediating effect of both life course stress and ambient neighborhood stress as children grow up; together, these variables entirely explain the lagged effect of early neighborhood. Findings suggest the need for a more temporal life course approach to the specification of social context effects in general, focusing on the history of social contexts that individuals live in and move through. Temporal-contextual perspectives also encourage a focus on theoretical models that can differentially locate formative contextual influences at different stages in the life course.
A Formalization and Test of the Religious Economies Model
Authors: Montgomery James D.
Published: August 2023

The religious economies argument maintains that religious pluralism promotes religious participation. Although this theory has been much debated by sociologists of religion, evaluation has been hindered by the lack of a formal model. This paper offers a formalization that builds on the product-differentiation framework from industrial-organization economics. The model suggests a new measure of religious competition and a new empirical test. One religious market may be regarded as more competitive than another religious market if the set of denominations present in the first contains the set of denominations present in the second. Given this partial order on the set of religious markets, the model predicts that more competitive markets will have higher religious participation. This prediction is examined for two data sets previously considered in the literature—New York towns in 1865 and U.S. counties in 1990. Although the analysis highlights an important theoretical ambiguity (regarding the strategic interdependence of denominational effort choices) and reports a negative empirical finding (that more competitive U.S. counties tend to have lower religious participation), the paper proceeds constructively, attempting to identify viable directions for future research within the religious economies paradigm.
Hate Crime Reporting as a Successful Social Movement Outcome
Authors: McVeigh Rory , Welch Michael R. , Bjarnason Thoroddur
Published: August 2023

Variation in compliance with public policies across local settings is examined through an analysis of the number of reported hate crime incidents in United States counties. Particular attention is given to the role that activist organizations play in promoting, or impeding, compliance with public policies. Each hate crime reported to the federal government is conceptualized as a successful outcome of social movement mobilization. Drawing upon political mediation theory and Fine's model of discursive rivalry, the analysis shows how social movement resources, framing processes, political incentives, and features of local contexts combine to promote successful social movement outcomes. The presence of resourceful civil rights organizations in a county can lead to higher numbers of reported hate crimes, but the influence of civil rights organizations is contingent upon the political context and upon objective conditions that lend credibility to civil rights framing.
Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding
Authors: Raymond Geoffrey
Published: August 2023

Connections between grammar and social organization are examined via one of the most pervasive practices of speaking used in talk-in-interaction: yes/no type interrogatives and the turns speakers build in response to them. This investigation is composed of two parts. The first analyzes a basic organization set in motion by yes/no type interrogatives, describing a preference for “type-conforming” responses and its consequences. The second considers how this basic organization is shaped and simplified to accomplish institutionally specific goals in survey research, medical encounters, and courtroom cross-examinations, and what such manipulations reveal about these institutions. Together these findings deepen our understanding of how language is adapted to—and for—interaction, while providing analytic resources for a broad range of sociologists, whether they are engaged in the direct observation of human behavior, developing sociological theories of language, analyzing institutions and social organizations, or interested in the practical consequences of questioning in the myriad institutions that make use of this form.
The State, Courts, and Maternity Policies in U.S. Organizations: Specifying Institutional Mechanisms
Authors: Guthrie Doug , Roth Louise Marie
Published: August 2023

We analyze the dynamic interaction of state institutions and organizational policies through an analysis of leave benefits in U.S. organizations. Following the Pregnancy Leave Act of 1978 and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, organizations have been required by law to allow workers to take time off from work for childbearing and childrearing. Yet organizations vary on whether they offer full-time employees benefits that actually facilitate leave for family responsibilities. We analyze the determinants of the organizational decision to offer paid maternity leave to full-time employees. We compare these findings to the determinants of the organizational decision to offer paid sick leave to full-time employees. Our analysis suggests that organizations have taken an activist approach to their institutional environments: In the face of federal definitions of the law that mandated gender-neutral policies in the workplace and linked pregnancy to disability, those organizations that most often deal with maternity issues (e.g., those located in female-dominated industries) have institutionalized sick leave policies (often instead of maternity leave) to accommodate pregnant employees. The analysis examines specific aspects of the institutional environment at the state and federal levels to illuminate these trends.
Organizational Mediation of Project-Based Labor Markets: Talent Agencies and the Careers of Screenwriters
Authors: Bielby William T. , Bielby Denise D.
Published: August 2023

We examine how organizations that mediate “life-of-project” employment segment the labor market in a culture industry. Using longitudinal data on writers for television and feature films, we examine trends in the extent to which type of agency representation affects writers’ employment and earnings. Elite or “core “ agencies are those that transcend their role as market brokers between the suppliers and purchasers of writing services by participating actively in the production process. Writers who are represented by such agencies are substantially more likely to find employment, and they earn considerably more than equally accomplished writers with noncore agency representation. We discuss the implications of these findings for contingent employment of professionalized employees in other highly institutionalized industrial sectors.
Revolving Doors Reexamined: Occupational Sex Segregation over the Life Course
Authors: Chan Tak Wing
Published: August 2023

Scholars have argued that although occupational sex segregation is high in aggregate terms, women frequently move between sex-typical and sex-atypical occupations over the life course—hence the “revolving doors.” I reexamine the revolving doors thesis using career history data from Great Britain. I argue that the conventional boundaries for occupational sex types need revision, at least for Britain. Specifically, female-dominated occupations should be distinguished from heavily female-dominated occupations. I show that although the strong version of the revolving doors thesis (which rules out path dependence) does not apply to both “female” and “heavily female” occupations, a weak version describes the former better than it does the latter. This result points to a ghetto effect.
Regional Origin and Family Stability in Northern Cities: The Role of Context
Authors: Tolnay Stewart E. , Crowder Kyle D.
Published: August 2023

Contradicting earlier studies, some research suggests that families of black southern migrants to northern cities experienced more stability (e.g., children living with two parents) than did the families of their northern-born neighbors. Adequate explanations for this “migrant advantage “ in family stability have remained elusive. We examine the effects of metropolitan-level distress on urban black family patterns and explore whether group differences in exposure to these contextual conditions can explain the greater stability of migrant families. A multilevel analysis of the living arrangements of 0– to 14–year-old children is conducted using 1970 data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and the 1970 Summary Statistic File Fourth Count. Several metropolitan-level characteristics, including poverty, male underemployment, female headship, and welfare prevalence, have significant effects on whether a child lives with two parents. Interestingly, the migrant advantage is not attenuated when these variables are controlled. Supplemental analyses show that migrants are not positively selected for family stability from the southern population, and that their family structures grow more similar to those of the northern-born as their length of residence outside of the South increases. We conclude that context does play a role in the migrant advantage in family stability, but that the advantage is likely to be the result of a northern “disadvantage” resulting from prolonged exposure to a social environment that destabilizes families.