Sociological Methods & Research最新文献

{"title":"Inequality of Opportunity, Income Mobility, and the Interpretation of Intergenerational Elasticities, Correlations, and Rank-Rank Slopes","authors":"Pablo A. Mitnik","doi":"10.1177/00491241251352102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251352102","url":null,"abstract":"Although there is an extensive methodological literature on the measurement of intergenerational income mobility, there has been limited research on the conceptual interpretation of mobility measures and the methodological implications of those interpretations. In this article, I focus on the three measures of mobility most frequently used in the literature—the intergenerational elasticity (IGE), the intergenerational correlation (IGC), and the rank-rank slope (RRS)—as well as a recently introduced measure, the intergenerational elasticity of expected income (IGEE). I make two main contributions, both related to the conceptual interpretation of mobility measures. First, I specify the formal relationships between those four mobility measures and the measures of inequality of opportunity developed in the luck egalitarian empirical literature on the topic, and determine the methodological implications of the analyses. I show that (a) the IGC is a measure of relative inequality of opportunity for monetary income, (b) the RRS is both a measure of relative inequality of opportunity for income rank and a rescaled measure of absolute inequality of opportunity for income rank, and (c) the products of parental income inequality by the IGEE and IGE are both measures of absolute inequality of opportunity for monetary income that differ in how they measure the value of opportunity sets. Second, relying on a conceptual distinction that has been influential in the field of public finance, the IGE and IGEE have been characterized as “person-weighted” and “dollar-weighted” elasticities, respectively, thus raising doubts about the desirability of a recent proposal to replace the IGE by the IGEE as the workhorse elasticity of the mobility field. I show that this contrasting characterization of the two intergenerational elasticities is the joint result of a category mistake—equating quantile-specific elasticities to person-specific elasticities—and of misconstruing the nature of the IGE and the epistemic goal it has been meant to serve. Based on this analysis, I conclude that the case for replacing the IGE with the IGEE remains well-founded.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144748247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Generalized Intergenerational Mobility Regressions","authors":"Esfandiar Maasoumi, Le Wang, Daiqiang Zhang","doi":"10.1177/00491241251357586","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251357586","url":null,"abstract":"Current research on intergenerational mobility (IGM) is informed by <jats:italic>statistical</jats:italic> approaches based on log-level regressions, whose <jats:italic>economic</jats:italic> interpretations remain largely unknown. We reveal the subjective value-judgments in them: they are represented by weighted-sums (or aggregators) over heterogeneous groups, with controversial <jats:italic>economic</jats:italic> properties. Log-level regressions tend to overrepresent the experiences of middle-class children while underrepresenting those from disadvantaged families. We propose a general construction of IGM measures that can incorporate any transparent <jats:italic>economic</jats:italic> preferences. They are interpreted as the marginal effect of parental normalized social welfare on children’s normalized welfare. Conventional regressions are special cases with implicit economic preferences that fail inequality-aversion and the Pigou–Dalton principle of transfers. Empirically, a variety of economic preferences, with varying inequality aversion, demonstrate a nuanced view of mobility, and perspectives on geographic-differences and dynamics of it.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144748168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Methods to Prevent and Detect Inattentive Respondents in Web Surveys","authors":"Lukas Olbrich, Joseph W. Sakshaug, Eric Lewandowski","doi":"10.1177/00491241251345457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251345457","url":null,"abstract":"Inattentive respondents pose a substantial threat to data quality in web surveys. We evaluate methods for preventing and detecting inattentive respondents. First, we test the effect of asking respondents to commit to providing high-quality responses at the beginning of the survey on various data quality measures. Second, we compare the proportion of flagged respondents for two versions of an attention check item instructing them to select a specific response versus leaving the item blank. Third, we propose a timestamp-based cluster analysis approach that identifies clusters of respondents who exhibit different speeding behaviors. Our findings show that the commitment pledge had no effect on the data quality measures. Instructing respondents to leave the item blank significantly increased the rate of flagged respondents (by 16.8 percentage points). The timestamp-based clustering approach efficiently identified clusters of likely inattentive respondents. Lastly, we show that inattentive respondents can have substantial impacts on substantive analyses.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144737175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Immobility as Memory: Some New Approaches to Characterizing Intergenerational Persistence via Markov Chains","authors":"Lawrence E. Blume, Neil A. Cholli, Steven N. Durlauf, Aleksandra Lukina","doi":"10.1177/00491241251349148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251349148","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes some new measures of intergenerational persistence based on the idea of characterizing the memory of origin in the stochastic process that links the socioeconomic classes of parents and children. We introduce “memory curves” for all future generations given any initial condition of class for a family dynasty, which reveal how initial conditions interact with the transition process between parents and children to create mobility and persistence. We also propose ways to aggregate information across different classes to produce overall characterizations of mobility in the population. To illustrate our measures, we estimate occupational “memory curves” using U.S. survey data. Our findings show that, on average, the memory of initial conditions dissipates largely within three generations, though there is meaningful heterogeneity in mobility rates across dynasties originating from different occupational classes.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144594475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Do Survey Respondents Decide Whether to Consent to Data Linkage?","authors":"Jonathan Burton, Mick P. Couper, Thomas F. Crossley, Annette Jäckle, Sandra Walzenbach","doi":"10.1177/00491241251344289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251344289","url":null,"abstract":"Linkages between surveys and administrative data provide an important opportunity for social and health research, but such linkages often require the informed consent of respondents. We use experimental data collection across five different samples to study how consent decisions are made. More reflective decision processes are associated with higher rates of consent, greater comprehension of the proposed data linkage, and greater confidence in the decision, but only about a third of respondents report using a reflective decision process. This suggests that the provision of additional information is unlikely to lead to significant improvements in informed consent.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144586487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methodological Frontiers in Intergenerational Mobility Research","authors":"Yoosoon Chang, Steven N. Durlauf, Fabian T. Pfeffer, Xi Song","doi":"10.1177/00491241251355640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251355640","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Sociological Methods &amp; Research presents a collection of papers that develop a range of new statistical approaches and empirical insights on intergenerational mobility. The papers in the special issue involve four broad themes: the development of new statistics to characterize mobility, the exploration of methods to establish causal explanations, the enrichment of statistical models to better characterize heterogeneity in mobility across families, and the development and application of ways to employ machine learning tools to enrich mobility analysis. These papers demonstrate the excitement of the methodological frontier in mobility research.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144534089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Codebooks to Promptbooks: Extracting Information from Text with Generative Large Language Models","authors":"Oscar Stuhler, Cat Dang Ton, Etienne Ollion","doi":"10.1177/00491241251336794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251336794","url":null,"abstract":"Generative AI (GenAI) is quickly becoming a valuable tool for sociological research. Already, sociologists employ GenAI for tasks like classifying text and simulating human agents. We point to another major use case: the extraction of structured information from unstructured text. Information Extraction (IE) is an established branch of Natural Language Processing, but leveraging the affordances of this paradigm has thus far required familiarity with specialized models. GenAI changes this by allowing researchers to define their own IE tasks and execute them via targeted prompts. This article explores the potential of open-source large language models for IE by extracting and encoding biographical information (e.g., age, occupation, origin) from a corpus of newspaper obituaries. As we proceed, we discuss how sociologists can develop and evaluate prompt architectures for such tasks, turning codebooks into “promptbooks.” We also evaluate models of different sizes and prompting techniques. Our analysis showcases the potential of GenAI as a flexible and accessible tool for IE while also underscoring risks like non-random error patterns that can bias downstream analyses.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144479192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Geographic Variation in Multigenerational Mobility","authors":"Martin Nybom, Jan Stuhler","doi":"10.1177/00491241251341196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251341196","url":null,"abstract":"Using complete-count register data spanning three generations, we document spatial patterns in inter- and multi-generational mobility in Sweden. Across municipalities, grandfather–child correlations in education or earnings tend to be larger than the square of the parent–child correlations, suggesting that the latter understate status transmission in the long run. Yet, conventional parent–child correlations capture regional <jats:italic>differences</jats:italic> in long-run transmission and therefore remain useful for comparative purposes. We further find that the within-country association between mobility and income inequality (the “Great Gatsby Curve”) is at least as strong in the multi- as in the inter-generational case. Interpreting those patterns through the lens of a latent factor model, we find that regional differences in mobility primarily reflect variation in the transmission of latent advantages, rather than in how those advantages translate into observed outcomes.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"175 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Absolute and Relative Mobility: Two Frameworks for Connecting Intergenerational Mobility in Absolute and Relative Terms","authors":"Deirdre Bloome","doi":"10.1177/00491241251347982","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251347982","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers concerned about intergenerational inequalities study <jats:italic>absolute</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>relative</jats:italic> mobility (e.g., whether people’s adult incomes exceed their parents’ incomes in <jats:italic>dollars</jats:italic> or <jats:italic>ranks</jats:italic> ). Absolute and relative mobility are connected, by definition. Yet, they are not equivalent. Indeed, they often diverge. To illuminate why, when, and for whom such divergence occurs—and why, when, and for whom convergence is possible—this article provides two frameworks for connecting absolute and relative mobility. One framework is formal and one is typological. Both frameworks center micro-level socioeconomic experiences across generations. Illustrative analyses employ these frameworks using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data. Results suggest that divergent experiences, like upward absolute mobility despite downward relative mobility, may be more common among more advantaged social groups. Future researchers could use the two frameworks introduced here to further advance our understanding of how intergenerational inequalities evolve <jats:italic>differently</jats:italic> in absolute and relative terms.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is There a Mobility Effect? On Methodological Issues in the Mobility Contrast Model","authors":"Xi Song, Xiang Zhou","doi":"10.1177/00491241251347983","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241251347983","url":null,"abstract":"Social mobility scholars have long been interested in estimating the effect of intergenerational mobility, typically measured by differences in the socioeconomic status between parents and offspring, on later-life outcomes of offspring. In a 2022 article “Heterogeneous Effects of Intergenerational Social Mobility: An Improved Method and New Evidence,” Luo proposes a new approach called the mobility contrast model (MCM) to define and estimate mobility effects. We argue that the MCM is inherently flawed due to its reliance on the coding scheme used for the categorical variables of social origin and destination. Specifically, when different coding schemes are applied, the estimands defined in the MCM bear distinct meanings, involve different but equally arbitrary constraints, and sometimes yield contradictory results. Moreover, regardless of the coding scheme, these estimands do not adequately capture the sociological concept of a mobility effect. To illustrate this, we reanalyze the Occupational Changes in a Generation Study data used in Luo’s study, highlighting the inconsistency of results when dummy coding versus effect coding schemes are used.","PeriodicalId":21849,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Methods & Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}