[Last updated 10/18/2007 12:09 PM]

 

Social Stratification and Inequality

Part 2: Survey of Selected Recent Research

 

 

Class dates.  The number refers to the date, the letter refers to the class material (see below, not the same as the “topic category”)

Oct

23, A

25, B

30**

 

 

 

 

 

Nov

1**

4, C

6, D

8, E

13, F

15, G

20^, H

27, I

Dec

4, J

6^, K

 

 

 

 

 

 

**No class, I will be out of the country.

^^Reading day, makeup class

 

Note

** indicates an article to read for class

% indicates an article that should be on the comp reading list

^ I will discuss this article in lecture

Articles on this list that we are not reading in class are for reference and/or lecture

Clicking on the topic heading will link to a larger topic bibliography (coming soon.  Notes are clipped from the article text)

 

This is not intended to be a comprehensive literature review, but a frequently updated list of recent relevant and interesting articles by topic.

The citation for articles without full bibliographic reference can be found easily on Google with the information provided.

For class, I do not expect you to read more than 120 pages per class period (i.e., the equivalent of reading a book a week for a weekly seminar.  If the assigned reading is more than 120 pages, skim appropriately, guided by the discussion questions and your own interests).  The literature listed as “reference” is optional.

 

[Class A]

A. Overview and trends in inequality

%**Neckerman and Torche 2007 (pages 1-4 for class)

%**Piketty T, Saez E. 2003. Income inequality in the United States: 1913–1998. Q. J. Econ. 118:1–39

%^Piketty T, Saez E. 2006. The evolution of top incomes: a historical and international perspective. Am. Econ. Rev. 96:200–5

**Reynolds, 1% of What?

**Reply to Reynolds by Piketty and Saez

%**DiPrete TA. 2007a. Is this a great country? Upward mobility and the chance for riches in contemporary America. Res. Stratif. Mobil. 25:89–95

 

 

Reference:

 

(A) Trends

^%Goldin and Margo 1992, The Great Compression: The Wage Structure of the United States at Mid-Century

Reynolds, “Income Distribution Heresies”

 

(A.1) Recent Overviews

%Morris M,Western B. 1999. Inequality in earnings at the close of the twentieth century. Annu.Rev. Sociol. 25:623–57

Myles, J. (2003). Where have all the sociologists gone? Explaining income inequality. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 28, 553-560

Ryscavage, P. (1999). Income inequality in America. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe

%Kenworthy L. 2007. Inequality and sociology. Am. Behav. Sci. 50:584–602

%DiPrete TA. 2007b. What has sociology to contribute to the study of inequality trends? A historical and comparative perspective. Am. Behav. Sci. 50:603–18

 

(A.2) Explanations of the rise in inequality

^Lemieux T. 2006. Increasing residual wage inequality: composition effects, noisy data, or rising demand for skill? Am. Econ. Rev. 96:461–98

^Lee D. 1999.Wage inequality in the U.S. during the 1980s: rising dispersion or falling minimum wage? Q. J. Econ. 114:977–1023

^Card D, DiNardo J. 2002. Skill-biased technological change and rising wage inequality: some problems and puzzles. J. Labor Econ. 20:733–83

^Card, D., Lemieux, T., & Riddell, W. C. (2003). Unionization and wage inequality: A comparative study of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada (Working Paper No. 9473). Cambridge, A: National Bureau of Economic Research. Available from http://www.nber.org

^Autor DH, Katz L, Kearney M. 2005. Trends in US wage inequality: re-assessing the revisionists. NBERWork. Pap. 11627, Natl. Bur. Econ. Res.

^Autor DH, Katz L, Kearney M. 2006. The polarization of the US labor market. NBER Work. Pap. 11986

^Fernandez R. 2001. Skill-biased technological change and wage inequality: evidence from a plant retooling. Am. J. Sociol. 107:273–320

Gottschalk P, Danziger S. 2005. Inequality of wage rates, earnings and family income in the United States, 1975–2000. Rev. Income Wealth 51:231–54

Katz LF, Autor DH. 1999. Changes in the wage structure and earnings inequality. In Handbook of Labor Economics, ed. O Ashenfelter, D Card, 3:1463–553. Amsterdam: Elsevier

Frank RH, Cook PJ. 1995. The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much  More Than the Rest of Us. New York: Free Press

 

 

[Class B]

B. Poverty

**%Block, 2006.  “The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy.”  Contexts.

**%Sommers and Block, 2005.  “From Poverty to Perversity”.  American Sociological Review.

**%Hicks, 2006.  “Comment on Sommers and Block”.  American Sociological Review

**%Esping-Anderson 2007.  “Equal Opportunities and the Welfare State.”  Contexts.

**%Hoynes, Page, and Stevens, 2005.  “Poverty in America”.  Journal of Economic Perspectives.

 

^%Smeeding,  2006 “Poor People in Rich Nations: The United States in Comparative Perspective”

^Kenworthy, Epstein, and Duerr, 2007.  “Rising Tides, Redistribution, and the Material Well-Being of the Poor”

^ Moffit, 2003, Negative Income Tax and the Evolution of U.S. Welfare Policy

 

Reference:

^O’Neill, 2003.  “Gaining Ground, Moving Up: The Change in the Economic Status of Single Mothers under Welfare Reform”

 

(C) Comparative evidence on trends/levels of inequality (also see (M) globalization and inequality (A))

Bradley, D., Huber, E., Moller, S., Nielsen, F., & Stephens, J. (2003). Distribution and redistribution in

postindustrial democracies. World Politics, 55, 193-228.

DiPrete, T. A. (2005). Labor markets, inequality, and change. Work and Occupations, 32, 119-139.

Gustafsson, B., & Johansson, M. (1999). In search of smoking guns: What makes income inequality vary over time in different countries? American Sociological Review, 64, 585-605.

Gangl M. 2005. Income inequality, permanent income and income dynamics: comparing Europe to the United States. Work Occup. 32:140–62

Goesling B. 2001. Changing income inequalities within and between nations: new evidence. Am. Sociol. Rev. 66:745–61

Jantti M, Bratsberg B, Roed K, Raaum O, Naylor R, et al. 2006. American exceptionalism in a new light: a comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the UK and the US. IZA Discuss. Pap. 1938, Inst. Study Labor, Bonn, Germany

Smeeding T. 2005. Public policy, economic inequality, and poverty: the United States in comparative perspective. Soc. Sci. Q. 86:955–83

 

Crime and inequality

Fajnzylber P, Lederman D, Loayza N. 2002. Inequality and violent crime. J. Law Econ. 45:1–40

 

 

[No class Oct 30 or Nov. 1]

 

[Class C]

(D) Working Poverty and (E) intragenerational mobility

Applebaum, Low Wage America, Chapter 1

Gottshalk, 1999 work as a stepping stone

Acs, on the bottom rung

Bernstein and Hartman, 2000.  The Low Wage Labor Market

Carrington and Fallick.  2001.  “Do Some Workers Have Minimum Wage Careers?”

 Reference:

Corcoran, M. (1995). Rags to rags: Poverty and mobility in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 21, 237-267.

 

E.2 Earnings instability

Moffit R, Gottschalk P. 2002.Trends in the transitory variance of earnings in the United States. Econ. J. 112:C68–73

 

[Class D]

(F) Inequality and Fairness

Osberg L, Smeeding T. 2006. Fair inequality? Attitudes toward pay differentials: the US in comparative perspective. Am. Sociol. Rev. 71:450–73

Kenworthy 2007, is equality feasible

Welch, in defense of inequality

Jencks C. 2002. Does inequality matter? Daedalus 131:49–65

Ref:

Kenworthy L. 2004. Egalitarian Capitalism. New York: Russell Sage Found.

 

[Class E]

(F.2) Egalitarianism and  Utopian Communities

Abramitzky, Kibbutz

Berliner

Leviatan, 2003

 

 

[Class F]

6.  (H) Happiness and relative position

Graham C, Felton A. 2005. Does inequality matter to individual welfare? An initial exploration based on happiness surveys from Latin America. Cent. Soc. Econ. Dyn. Work. Pap. No. 38. Washington, DC: Brookings Inst.

Hout M. 2003. Money and morale: what growing inequality is doing to Americans’ views of themselves and others.Work. Pap., Survey Res. Cent., Univ. Calif., Berkeley

Firebaugh

Reference:

Frank, Robert.  Choosing the Right Pond

 

 

[Class G]

7.  (I) Mobility

Corak M. 2006. Do poor children become poor adults? Lessons from a cross-country comparison of generational earnings mobility. Res. Econ. Inequal. 13:143–88

Hout, 2005, “What have we Learned”

Mazumder 2001, 2003

Hertz 2007, 2006

 

Levine and Mazumder 2006 The Growing Importance of Family

Ref: Breen 2007

Lee CI, Solon G. 2006. Trends in intergenerational income mobility. NBER Work. Pap. 12007. Natl. Bur. Econ. Res.

 

Bernhardt A, Morris M, Handcock MS, Scott MA. 2001. Divergent Paths: Economic Mobility in the New American Labor Market. New York: Russell Sage Found.

Aaronson D, Mazumder B. 2005. Intergenerational economic mobility in the US, 1940–2000.Work.

Pap. 2005–12. Fed. Reserve Bank Chicago

Bjorklund A, Jantti M. 2000. Intergenerational mobility of socio-economic status in comparative perspective. Nordic J. Polit. Econ. 26:3–32

Bowles S, Gintis H, Osborne Groves M, eds. 2005. Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press

DiPrete TA, Eirich GM. 2006. Cumulative advantage as a mechanism for inequality: a review of theoretical and empirical developments. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 32:271–97

Erikson R, Goldthorpe J. 1992. The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon

Jencks C, Tach L. 2006. Would equal opportunity mean more mobility? In Mobility and Inequality, ed. SL Morgan, DB Grusky, GS Fields, pp. 23–58. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press

Levine D, Mazumder B. 2002. Choosing the right parents: changes in the intergenerational transmission of inequality between 1980 and the early 1990s.Work. Pap. 02–08. Fed. Reserve Bank Chicago

Solon G. 2002. Cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings mobility. J. Econ. Perspect 16:59–66

Sorensen A. 2006. Welfare states, family inequality, and equality of opportunity. Res. Stratif. Mobil. 24:367–75

 

(I.2) Meritocracy and the nature-nurture debate

Breen, 2001

Jackson

Bell Curve

Inequality by Design

 

 

(J) Social Classes, Class Culture etc.

Weeden, 2005.  “The case for a new class map”

Wright, 2004.  “Neo-Marxist Class Analysis”

 

[Class H]

8. (K) Gender Inequality

Mandel

Hammermesh, Beauty and the Labor Market

Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2000). Gender differences in pay. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(4), 75-99.

Cohen and Huffman, Occupational Segregation and the Devaluation of Women’s Work across U.S. Labor Markets.  Social Forces, March 2003, 81(3):881-907

Conley and Glauber, 200x, “Gender, Body Mass, and Socioeconomic Status”

 

[Class I]

[Class J]

9.  (L) Race-Ethnic Inequality

Tyson

Gans, race as class

Hertz T. 2005. Rags, riches and race: the intergenerational economic mobility of black and

white families in the US. See Bowles et al. 2005, pp. 165–91

O’Neill

Conley and Glauber (to read)

 

L.2 Immigration and Hispanic Inequality (see demography 2 syllabus)

L.3 The Effect of Immigration on Wages (see demography 2 syllabus)

 

Reference:

Quillian, 2006, “New approaches to studying racial prejudice”

 

[Class K]

10.  (M) Globalization and inequality

Harrison and Mcmillan 2007 “On the Links between Globalization and Poverty”

Alderson, A. S., & Nielsen, F. (2002). Globalization and the Great U-Turn: Income inequality trends in

16 OECD countries. American Journal of Sociology, 107, 1244-1299.

Milanovic B. 2005. Worlds Apart. Measuring Global and International Inequality. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton Univ. Press

 

 

Ref:

Bourguignon F, Morrisson C. 2002. Inequality among world citizens: 1820–1992. Am. Econ.Rev. 92:727–44

Dollar D, Kraay A. 2002. Growth is good for the poor. J. Econ. Growth 7:195–25

Firebaugh G. 1999. Empirics of world inequality. Am. J. Sociol. 104:1597–630

Firebaugh G. 2003. The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press

Firebaugh G. 2004. Does industrialization no longer benefit poor countries? A comment on Arrighi, Silver and Brewer, 2003. Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 39:99–105

Firebaugh G, Goesling B. 2004. Accounting for the recent decline in global income inequality. Am. J. Sociol. 110:283–312

Lindert P, Williamson J. 2001. Does globalization make the world more unequal? NBER Work. Pap. 8228, Natl. Bur. Econ. Res.

Sutcliffe R. 2003. A more or less equal world? World income distribution in the twentieth century. Work. Pap. 54. Polit. Econ. Res. Inst. Univ. Mass.-Amherst

Wade R. 2004. Is globalization reducing poverty and inequality? World Dev. 32:567–89

Sala-i-Martin X. 2002. The disturbing ‘rise’ of global inequality. NBER Work. Pap. 8904, Natl. Bur. Econ. Res.