Pub Date : 2023-11-24DOI: 10.1177/00031224231210258
Wei-hsin Yu, Hope Xu Yan
Despite social scientists’ long-standing interest in the influences of siblings, previous research has not settled the debates on how relevant sibship size is to child development and whether growing up with more siblings could be beneficial. Using 30 years of longitudinal data and fixed-effects models, this study offers the most comprehensive evidence on how sibship size is tied to cognitive and sociobehavioral development. We also advance the literature by systematically comparing the consequences of gaining a sibling for children with varying ordinal positions. Contrary to prior studies using selective data from limited observation spans, we find that children experience net decreases in cognitive test scores as their family size grows. At the same time, our analysis shows that sibling additions are only important to first- and second-born children’s—not later-born children’s—cognitive development. Even for the first- and second-born, the marginal effect of adding a sibling lessens with each addition. Our results thus demonstrate the time-dependent nature of family resource-dilution processes. For sociobehavioral development, the evidence indicates that having an older sibling is beneficial, but gaining a younger sibling increases behavioral problems for some (e.g., first-born children). Because more children from large families have older siblings, children from larger families exhibit less problematic behavior, on average. By uncovering the complex relationship between siblings and noncognitive development, this study also generally contributes to the sociology of family and inequality.
{"title":"Effects of Siblings on Cognitive and Sociobehavioral Development: Ongoing Debates and New Theoretical Insights","authors":"Wei-hsin Yu, Hope Xu Yan","doi":"10.1177/00031224231210258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231210258","url":null,"abstract":"Despite social scientists’ long-standing interest in the influences of siblings, previous research has not settled the debates on how relevant sibship size is to child development and whether growing up with more siblings could be beneficial. Using 30 years of longitudinal data and fixed-effects models, this study offers the most comprehensive evidence on how sibship size is tied to cognitive and sociobehavioral development. We also advance the literature by systematically comparing the consequences of gaining a sibling for children with varying ordinal positions. Contrary to prior studies using selective data from limited observation spans, we find that children experience net decreases in cognitive test scores as their family size grows. At the same time, our analysis shows that sibling additions are only important to first- and second-born children’s—not later-born children’s—cognitive development. Even for the first- and second-born, the marginal effect of adding a sibling lessens with each addition. Our results thus demonstrate the time-dependent nature of family resource-dilution processes. For sociobehavioral development, the evidence indicates that having an older sibling is beneficial, but gaining a younger sibling increases behavioral problems for some (e.g., first-born children). Because more children from large families have older siblings, children from larger families exhibit less problematic behavior, on average. By uncovering the complex relationship between siblings and noncognitive development, this study also generally contributes to the sociology of family and inequality.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139240939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-23DOI: 10.1177/00031224231209445
Elizabeth Chiarello
In the throes of an intractable overdose crisis, U.S. pharmacists have begun to engage in an unexpected practice—policing patients. Contemporary sociological theory does not explain why. Theories of professions and frontline work suggest professions closely guard jurisdictions and make decisions based on the logics of their own fields. Theories of criminal-legal expansion show that non-enforcement fields have become reoriented around crime over the past several decades, but past work largely focuses on macro-level consequences. This article uses the case of pharmacists and opioids to develop a micro-level theory of professional field reorientation around crime, the Trojan Horse Framework. Drawing on 118 longitudinal and cross-sectional interviews with pharmacists in six states, I reveal how the use of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs)—surveillance technology designed for law enforcement but implemented in healthcare—in conjunction with a set of field conditions motivates pharmacists to police patients. PDMPs serve as Trojan horse technologies as their use shifts pharmacists’ routines, relationships with other professionals, and constructions of their professional roles. As a result, pharmacists route patients out of the healthcare system and leave them vulnerable to the criminal-legal system. The article concludes with policy recommendations and a discussion of future applications of the Trojan Horse Framework.
{"title":"Trojan Horse Technologies: Smuggling Criminal-Legal Logics into Healthcare Practice","authors":"Elizabeth Chiarello","doi":"10.1177/00031224231209445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231209445","url":null,"abstract":"In the throes of an intractable overdose crisis, U.S. pharmacists have begun to engage in an unexpected practice—policing patients. Contemporary sociological theory does not explain why. Theories of professions and frontline work suggest professions closely guard jurisdictions and make decisions based on the logics of their own fields. Theories of criminal-legal expansion show that non-enforcement fields have become reoriented around crime over the past several decades, but past work largely focuses on macro-level consequences. This article uses the case of pharmacists and opioids to develop a micro-level theory of professional field reorientation around crime, the Trojan Horse Framework. Drawing on 118 longitudinal and cross-sectional interviews with pharmacists in six states, I reveal how the use of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs)—surveillance technology designed for law enforcement but implemented in healthcare—in conjunction with a set of field conditions motivates pharmacists to police patients. PDMPs serve as Trojan horse technologies as their use shifts pharmacists’ routines, relationships with other professionals, and constructions of their professional roles. As a result, pharmacists route patients out of the healthcare system and leave them vulnerable to the criminal-legal system. The article concludes with policy recommendations and a discussion of future applications of the Trojan Horse Framework.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139244299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-23DOI: 10.1177/00031224231212464
Youngjoo Cha, Kim A. Weeden, Landon Schnabel
Despite large literatures on gender and family wage gaps (e.g., the motherhood wage penalty, fatherhood wage premium, and the marriage premium) and widespread recognition that the two gaps are intertwined, the extent and pattern of their relationships are underexplored. Using data from the 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation, we show that family wage gaps are strongly associated with the gender wage gap, as long assumed in the literature, but with important caveats. The gender-differentiated wage returns to parenthood contribute 29 percent of the gender wage gap. One third of this is associated with occupation, but very little with other worker and job attributes. The gender-differentiated returns to marriage contribute another 33 percent, two thirds of which is associated with worker and job attributes but very little with occupation. However, 36 percent of the gender wage gap is unrelated to these family wage gaps, and the gender wage gap among childless workers remains substantial. Moreover, for Black and Hispanic workers, the pattern of association is more complex and generally weaker than for White workers. These results caution against focusing solely on the wage gap between “mothers and others” and suggest new directions for research.
{"title":"Is the Gender Wage Gap Really a Family Wage Gap in Disguise?","authors":"Youngjoo Cha, Kim A. Weeden, Landon Schnabel","doi":"10.1177/00031224231212464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231212464","url":null,"abstract":"Despite large literatures on gender and family wage gaps (e.g., the motherhood wage penalty, fatherhood wage premium, and the marriage premium) and widespread recognition that the two gaps are intertwined, the extent and pattern of their relationships are underexplored. Using data from the 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation, we show that family wage gaps are strongly associated with the gender wage gap, as long assumed in the literature, but with important caveats. The gender-differentiated wage returns to parenthood contribute 29 percent of the gender wage gap. One third of this is associated with occupation, but very little with other worker and job attributes. The gender-differentiated returns to marriage contribute another 33 percent, two thirds of which is associated with worker and job attributes but very little with occupation. However, 36 percent of the gender wage gap is unrelated to these family wage gaps, and the gender wage gap among childless workers remains substantial. Moreover, for Black and Hispanic workers, the pattern of association is more complex and generally weaker than for White workers. These results caution against focusing solely on the wage gap between “mothers and others” and suggest new directions for research.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139244405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-13DOI: 10.1177/00031224231207395
Andreas Haupt
Sociologists have debated intensively how and why occupations matter for economic inequality. I argue that occupational licensing alters wage-setting, depending on the characteristics of the licensing system. Licensing not only restricts market entry, as in the United States; some governments, like that of Germany, also regulate task prices and set occupation-specific wage floors for licensed occupations. I claim that the U.S. system leads to a growing licensing wage advantage across the distribution, and the German system leads to a falling one. Furthermore, I discuss how women may particularly benefit from licensing, as it reduces disadvantages women often face in wage-setting. I present unconditional and gender-specific quantile treatment effects based on CPS-MORG and BIBB/BAuA data from 2018. In the United States, wage premiums are highest for employees in the upper-middle part of the distribution and are small for those in the bottom and the top. In Germany, the wage premium is largest for licensed employees within the lower quarter and reduces significantly toward the top. In both countries, women profit significantly more from licensing. These results challenge claims about the role of licensing for inequality in the top, and suggest licensing reduces penalties faced by disadvantaged groups.
{"title":"Who Profits from Occupational Licensing?","authors":"Andreas Haupt","doi":"10.1177/00031224231207395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231207395","url":null,"abstract":"Sociologists have debated intensively how and why occupations matter for economic inequality. I argue that occupational licensing alters wage-setting, depending on the characteristics of the licensing system. Licensing not only restricts market entry, as in the United States; some governments, like that of Germany, also regulate task prices and set occupation-specific wage floors for licensed occupations. I claim that the U.S. system leads to a growing licensing wage advantage across the distribution, and the German system leads to a falling one. Furthermore, I discuss how women may particularly benefit from licensing, as it reduces disadvantages women often face in wage-setting. I present unconditional and gender-specific quantile treatment effects based on CPS-MORG and BIBB/BAuA data from 2018. In the United States, wage premiums are highest for employees in the upper-middle part of the distribution and are small for those in the bottom and the top. In Germany, the wage premium is largest for licensed employees within the lower quarter and reduces significantly toward the top. In both countries, women profit significantly more from licensing. These results challenge claims about the role of licensing for inequality in the top, and suggest licensing reduces penalties faced by disadvantaged groups.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136351569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-05DOI: 10.1177/00031224231207392
Louise Caron, Haley McAvay, Mirna Safi
Citizenship is a fundamental boundary in contemporary societies that entails rights, a sense of belonging, and social status. Drawing on longitudinal census data, this article tracks individual changes in self-reported citizenship over 30 years in France. Respondents choose one of three categories: “French by birth,” “became French,” or “foreigner.” The first category should be stable over the life course: one is born, but cannot become, “French by birth.” Yet, our findings indicate that about 19 percent of foreign-origin respondents in a given census switch to “French by birth” declarations at the next census, in a process we call reclassification. Immigrant assimilation variables, such as nativity and length of stay, and events such as intermarriage, naturalization, and residential mobility, trigger reclassification. Yet reclassification is also higher among individuals with lower socioeconomic status and respondents of African and Southeast Asian origin, as well as those with origins in former French colonies. These findings suggest reclassification is a byproduct of immigrant assimilation, which triggers feelings of national identity, as well as status upgrading, whereby disadvantaged and discriminated groups change their citizenship declaration to compensate for low social status. Empirically novel, reclassification offers original theoretical insights into the meanings of citizenship, civic stratification, and boundary-crossing.
{"title":"Born Again French: Explaining Inconsistency in Citizenship Declarations in French Longitudinal Data","authors":"Louise Caron, Haley McAvay, Mirna Safi","doi":"10.1177/00031224231207392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231207392","url":null,"abstract":"Citizenship is a fundamental boundary in contemporary societies that entails rights, a sense of belonging, and social status. Drawing on longitudinal census data, this article tracks individual changes in self-reported citizenship over 30 years in France. Respondents choose one of three categories: “French by birth,” “became French,” or “foreigner.” The first category should be stable over the life course: one is born, but cannot become, “French by birth.” Yet, our findings indicate that about 19 percent of foreign-origin respondents in a given census switch to “French by birth” declarations at the next census, in a process we call reclassification. Immigrant assimilation variables, such as nativity and length of stay, and events such as intermarriage, naturalization, and residential mobility, trigger reclassification. Yet reclassification is also higher among individuals with lower socioeconomic status and respondents of African and Southeast Asian origin, as well as those with origins in former French colonies. These findings suggest reclassification is a byproduct of immigrant assimilation, which triggers feelings of national identity, as well as status upgrading, whereby disadvantaged and discriminated groups change their citizenship declaration to compensate for low social status. Empirically novel, reclassification offers original theoretical insights into the meanings of citizenship, civic stratification, and boundary-crossing.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135725975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-30DOI: 10.1177/00031224231199502
Aruna Ranganathan, Aayan Das
Women have traditionally been held back from performing to their full potential in creative project teams, where they typically constitute a minority. However, due to recent technological developments, the structure of teamwork is rapidly evolving. Specifically, teamwork is now often performed asynchronously: members of teams work at different times, by themselves, rather than simultaneously and together. How will this shift to asynchronous teamwork affect the performance of men and women on creative project teams? This article argues that women will perform better when teamwork is asynchronous rather than synchronous, because working alone will afford them greater freedom for creative expression. We argue that men will not experience the same boost in performance, and thus the spread of asynchronous teamwork has the potential to reduce gender disparities in performance. We explore this question in the context of folk-music ensembles in eastern India. After collecting ethnographic and interview data from folk musicians to develop our theory, we conducted a field experiment in which individual singers, men and women, recorded a song both synchronously and asynchronously with the same set of instrumentalists. This article contributes to the study of gender inequality, creativity, and the temporal restructuring of work.
{"title":"Marching to Her Own Beat: Asynchronous Teamwork and Gender Differences in Performance on Creative Projects","authors":"Aruna Ranganathan, Aayan Das","doi":"10.1177/00031224231199502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231199502","url":null,"abstract":"Women have traditionally been held back from performing to their full potential in creative project teams, where they typically constitute a minority. However, due to recent technological developments, the structure of teamwork is rapidly evolving. Specifically, teamwork is now often performed asynchronously: members of teams work at different times, by themselves, rather than simultaneously and together. How will this shift to asynchronous teamwork affect the performance of men and women on creative project teams? This article argues that women will perform better when teamwork is asynchronous rather than synchronous, because working alone will afford them greater freedom for creative expression. We argue that men will not experience the same boost in performance, and thus the spread of asynchronous teamwork has the potential to reduce gender disparities in performance. We explore this question in the context of folk-music ensembles in eastern India. After collecting ethnographic and interview data from folk musicians to develop our theory, we conducted a field experiment in which individual singers, men and women, recorded a song both synchronously and asynchronously with the same set of instrumentalists. This article contributes to the study of gender inequality, creativity, and the temporal restructuring of work.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136280187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-30DOI: 10.1177/00031224231197436
Rachel Kahn Best, Alina Arseniev-Koehler
Why are some diseases more stigmatized than others? And, has disease stigma declined over time? Answers to these questions have been hampered by a lack of comparable, longitudinal data. Using word embedding methods, we analyze 4.7 million news articles to create new measures of stigma for 106 health conditions from 1980 to 2018. Using mixed-effects regressions, we find that behavioral health conditions and preventable diseases attract the strongest connotations of immorality and negative personality traits, and infectious diseases are most marked by disgust. These results lend new empirical support to theories that norm enforcement and contagion avoidance drive disease stigma. Challenging existing theories, we find no evidence for a link between medicalization and stigma, and inconclusive evidence on the relationship between advocacy and stigma. Finally, we find that stigma has declined dramatically over time, but only for chronic physical illnesses. In the past four decades, disease stigma has transformed from a sea of negative connotations surrounding most diseases into two primary conduits of meaning: infectious diseases spark disgust, and behavioral health conditions cue negative stereotypes. These results show that cultural meanings are especially durable when they are anchored by interests, and that cultural changes intertwine in ways that only become visible through large-scale research.
{"title":"The Stigma of Diseases: Unequal Burden, Uneven Decline","authors":"Rachel Kahn Best, Alina Arseniev-Koehler","doi":"10.1177/00031224231197436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231197436","url":null,"abstract":"Why are some diseases more stigmatized than others? And, has disease stigma declined over time? Answers to these questions have been hampered by a lack of comparable, longitudinal data. Using word embedding methods, we analyze 4.7 million news articles to create new measures of stigma for 106 health conditions from 1980 to 2018. Using mixed-effects regressions, we find that behavioral health conditions and preventable diseases attract the strongest connotations of immorality and negative personality traits, and infectious diseases are most marked by disgust. These results lend new empirical support to theories that norm enforcement and contagion avoidance drive disease stigma. Challenging existing theories, we find no evidence for a link between medicalization and stigma, and inconclusive evidence on the relationship between advocacy and stigma. Finally, we find that stigma has declined dramatically over time, but only for chronic physical illnesses. In the past four decades, disease stigma has transformed from a sea of negative connotations surrounding most diseases into two primary conduits of meaning: infectious diseases spark disgust, and behavioral health conditions cue negative stereotypes. These results show that cultural meanings are especially durable when they are anchored by interests, and that cultural changes intertwine in ways that only become visible through large-scale research.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136248795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-30DOI: 10.1177/00031224231197630
Tom VanHeuvelen
Labor historians describe Right to Work (RTW) as among the most consequential pushbacks against the early twentieth-century ascent of labor unions. Yet research on the economic consequences of RTW remains mixed, with nearly all research centered empirically and theoretically on the time surrounding RTW passage. In the current study, I use 41 waves of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics between 1968 and 2019 to empirically and theoretically extend the mechanisms that link RTW and economic outcomes. First, following the vast majority of research on RTW, I show the demobilizing effects for labor following RTW passage: mean wages decline, wage inequality increases, and the union premium is halved in the middle and lower portion of the wage distribution. Second, I move theoretical focus beyond the time surrounding law enactment, arguing for a second-order effect whereby RTW institutionalizes a logic of polarized economic distributions and low labor power. To test this mechanism, I develop a novel strategy of comparison across respondents who are differentially mobile across state boundaries. I find individuals who cross RTW contexts experience a unique decline in mean wages and increase in wage variance, but this distinct trend can be explained by state-level institutional variation across RTW and non-RTW states. Thus, RTW is not only consequential in the periods around its passage, but also in establishing a long-standing, high-inequality regime. Results reveal multiple mechanisms by which RTW contributes to the long-run processes of union decline and broadly shared inequality growth.
{"title":"The Right to Work and American Inequality","authors":"Tom VanHeuvelen","doi":"10.1177/00031224231197630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231197630","url":null,"abstract":"Labor historians describe Right to Work (RTW) as among the most consequential pushbacks against the early twentieth-century ascent of labor unions. Yet research on the economic consequences of RTW remains mixed, with nearly all research centered empirically and theoretically on the time surrounding RTW passage. In the current study, I use 41 waves of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics between 1968 and 2019 to empirically and theoretically extend the mechanisms that link RTW and economic outcomes. First, following the vast majority of research on RTW, I show the demobilizing effects for labor following RTW passage: mean wages decline, wage inequality increases, and the union premium is halved in the middle and lower portion of the wage distribution. Second, I move theoretical focus beyond the time surrounding law enactment, arguing for a second-order effect whereby RTW institutionalizes a logic of polarized economic distributions and low labor power. To test this mechanism, I develop a novel strategy of comparison across respondents who are differentially mobile across state boundaries. I find individuals who cross RTW contexts experience a unique decline in mean wages and increase in wage variance, but this distinct trend can be explained by state-level institutional variation across RTW and non-RTW states. Thus, RTW is not only consequential in the periods around its passage, but also in establishing a long-standing, high-inequality regime. Results reveal multiple mechanisms by which RTW contributes to the long-run processes of union decline and broadly shared inequality growth.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136337210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.1177/00031224231194019
Zachary Parolin, Matthew Desmond, Christopher Wimer
Since the War on Poverty in the 1960s, the U.S. social safety net has shifted away from direct cash assistance for the lowest-income households and toward tax-based transfers targeted at working families with children. Previous research has assessed this shift by evaluating its effect on the national poverty rate. Doing so, however, overlooks how it may also have led to increased inequality among low-income households. We apply a decomposition framework to measure how changes in taxes/transfers and composition have affected trends in inequality below the poverty line from 1967 to 2019. Income inequality among the poorest households has been volatile since the 1960s, and changes to the American welfare state played a decisive role in expanding or reducing inequality below the poverty line. Unlike in previous decades, after the mid-1990s, the policies that most reduced poverty were also those that most increased inequality among the poor. These findings challenge standard theories regarding the effectiveness of income transfers in reducing poverty by revealing that recent state-led antipoverty efforts have placed the near poor and the deeply poor on divergent paths.
{"title":"Inequality Below the Poverty Line since 1967: The Role of the U.S. Welfare State","authors":"Zachary Parolin, Matthew Desmond, Christopher Wimer","doi":"10.1177/00031224231194019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231194019","url":null,"abstract":"Since the War on Poverty in the 1960s, the U.S. social safety net has shifted away from direct cash assistance for the lowest-income households and toward tax-based transfers targeted at working families with children. Previous research has assessed this shift by evaluating its effect on the national poverty rate. Doing so, however, overlooks how it may also have led to increased inequality among low-income households. We apply a decomposition framework to measure how changes in taxes/transfers and composition have affected trends in inequality below the poverty line from 1967 to 2019. Income inequality among the poorest households has been volatile since the 1960s, and changes to the American welfare state played a decisive role in expanding or reducing inequality below the poverty line. Unlike in previous decades, after the mid-1990s, the policies that most reduced poverty were also those that most increased inequality among the poor. These findings challenge standard theories regarding the effectiveness of income transfers in reducing poverty by revealing that recent state-led antipoverty efforts have placed the near poor and the deeply poor on divergent paths.","PeriodicalId":48461,"journal":{"name":"American Sociological Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135435057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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