{"title":"The U-turn in educational inequality. Why a multidimensional approach matters for measuring social inequalities in tertiary educational attainment","authors":"Elias H. Kruithof, Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100994","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100994","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the evolution in the association between social origins and tertiary educational attainment in Belgium, from post-World War II to the millennium’s onset. For this, we rely on a multidimensional measurement of social origins that accounts for interaction mechanisms between parental class and educational resources. We analyse 13,803 individuals over four birth cohorts. In contrast to previous studies, we find a decline in social inequalities for cohorts born before 1975, followed by a resurgence among those born afterwards. This U-turn in social inequalities of tertiary educational attainment is only observable when social origins are measured multidimensionally. Additionally, we investigate the interaction effects between parental resources, revealing divergent evolutions in accumulation and compensation mechanisms. Our findings underscore the renewed importance of combining parental education with parental social class for generations born after 1975.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 100994"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142652683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The distribution of privately held business assets in the United States","authors":"Kim Pernell , Geoffrey T. Wodtke","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100993","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100993","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although privately held businesses are central to the economy and society, little is known about how their assets are distributed among the population. To better understand rising and persistent wealth inequalities, this paper describes the household distribution of private business assets in the United States and examines how it has changed over time. Using data from the 1989–2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, we show that the relative number of business owners has remained stagnant at low levels and that assets in privately held firms have become increasingly concentrated. In 2019, the top 1 % of households controlled nearly 80 % of the equity in private businesses, up from about 70 % in the late 1980s. Moreover, we find that these trends appear to be quite general and do not merely reflect dynamics among elites or in specific sectors of the economy. We discuss implications for the organization of the US economy, wealth inequality, and public policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 100993"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142535985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The gender gap in earnings growth at the early stage of work careers in Korea","authors":"ChangHwan Kim , Heeyoun Shin","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100979","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100979","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research analyzing Western societies reported no gender gap in earnings growth after accounting for initial job allocation, attributing the widening gender gap in mid-career to the impact of family formation. This pattern is often referred to as the “last chapter” of gender inequality, but there is no consensus that this phenomenon is universal or place-specific. The applicability of these findings to non-Western contexts remains unclear. This study examines the gender gap in earnings growth in a non-Western advanced economy, South Korea, net of initial job assignment and factors related to family formation. The 2008–2010 Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey is used and the gender differences in job allocation and family formation are balanced with the application of the inverse probability of treatment weights. The results of individual-fixed effects models show that college-educated women in Korea face lower earnings growth and lower promotion prospects than their male counterparts. The magnitude and mechanisms of this female disadvantage vary across labor market sectors. The implications of these findings are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 100979"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"His and hers earnings trajectories: Economic homogamy and long-term earnings inequality within and between different-sex couples","authors":"Allison Dunatchik","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100995","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100995","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Economic homogamy has important implications for gender inequality and for economic inequalities between households. However, the long-term association between spouses’ earnings is not well understood. This study reconceptualizes economic homogamy as a life course process rather than a static state of being that can be adequately captured at a single point in time. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I examine the association between spouses’ earnings trajectories over the course of 30 years of marriage to identify three distinct gender egalitarian earnings patterns among couples. 50 % of couples follow a <em>Dual earner</em> pattern, in which spouses follow similar, stable earnings patterns over time, 6 % of couples are <em>Jointly mobile</em> in that spouses’ earnings vary similarly and 5 % follow an <em>Alternating earner</em> pattern. A large minority of couples follow patterns of long-term specialization, with 34 % of couples following <em>Male breadwinner</em> patterns and 5 % following <em>Female breadwinner</em> patterns. Multivariate analysis reveals that gender egalitarian earnings patterns are stratified by couples’ socio-economic status at marriage: while advantaged couples follow <em>Dual earner</em> patterns comprised of two stable earners, disadvantaged couples follow egalitarian earnings patterns characterized by joint earnings instability. By taking a long-term approach, this study provides insight into the varied ways gender equality in earnings manifests among married couples and reveals an important and understudied dimension of economic homogamy: the concentration of economic stability and instability within couples.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 100995"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142703134","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}
{"title":"Disentangling genetic and social pathways of the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability – A nuclear twin family study","authors":"Tobias Wolfram , Mirko Ruks , Frank M. Spinath","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100980","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100980","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As cognitive ability accounts for large parts of the intergenerational transmission of advantage, it is crucial to understand the mechanisms driving the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability itself. Social mobility research usually focuses on social mechanisms of intergenerational transmission. For the case of cognitive ability, this means that parental cognitive ability affects offspring ability via the family environment. However, parents do not only provide resources, but also pass their genes to their children. As social and genetic transmission are not mutually exclusive, it is crucial to disentangle the contribution of both to the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability. Using data from the German TwinLife survey, we apply a nuclear twin family design to address this question. Using data from all four twin birth cohorts, covering an age range of 5–25 years, we further explore whether the contribution of both mechanisms varies over the life course. For all four cohorts, in any of the estimated models, social transmission is very small and not significant. Genetic transmission, in turn, seems to be the primary mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability and becomes increasingly important with age. Our findings challenge conventional social mobility perspectives, stressing the need to incorporate genetic transmission into sociological research for a more comprehensive understanding of intergenerational transmission of advantage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 100980"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562424000933/pdfft?md5=d9b3452ad478123f218b83d46cc37755&pid=1-s2.0-S0276562424000933-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142310768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Variation in unemployment scarring across labor markets. A comparative factorial survey experiment using real vacancies","authors":"Stefan Sacchi , Robin Samuel","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100959","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100959","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Unemployment may severely impede access to (good) jobs. We focus on the effects of unemployment scarring on the chances of young workers to get hired and evaluate the extent to which they are affected in labor markets with different levels of unemployment. Drawing on Goffman’s work on stigmatization and on queuing theory, we derive two potentially complementary micro-level explanations with opposing macro-level implication. We address the variation in unemployment scarring across 20 labor markets in four European countries based on factorial survey experiments embedded in real hiring situations. The results suggest that in labor markets with persistently low levels of unemployment, stigmatization, as proposed by Goffman, is the main source of unemployment scarring. We find no evidence that unemployment scarring is weaker when unemployment and the number of job seekers are low, as we inferred from queuing approaches. Our study contributes to expanding knowledge of context variability in unemployment scarring.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 100959"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562424000726/pdfft?md5=d17def70ec0d8191c0fb99376cc453a3&pid=1-s2.0-S0276562424000726-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141845679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Municipal police and the economic mobility gap between black and white males in the US","authors":"Manuel Schechtl , Rourke O’Brien","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100981","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100981","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Estimates of intergenerational economic mobility for a recent U.S. birth cohort published by Opportunity Insights reveal a striking empirical puzzle: while there is a substantial gap in the upward mobility outcomes achieved by low-income Black and White males there is no such racial mobility gap for females. This study examines municipal police force size as a potential driver of these disparate mobility patterns. Although a larger police force may enhance mobility outcomes for all low-income children through reducing exposure to crime, for Black males prior work suggests this will be offset by the disparate negative impact of increased contact with the criminal justice system. Analyzing a sample of 200 major U.S. cities, linear models find a positive association between the number of police officers per capita and the size of the racial mobility gap for males, but not for females. We go on to show more police personnel in the late 1990s is associated with an increased gap in the likelihood of incarceration for Black males relative to White males. Taken together, our findings point to the heterogeneous impacts of policing for different race-sex groups as one potential explanation for why we observe a racial mobility gap between Black and White males and why this gap is larger in some cities and smaller in others.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 100981"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562424000945/pdfft?md5=342f39f6ce383407e4779375932550ca&pid=1-s2.0-S0276562424000945-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142151161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gendered wage returns to changes in non-routine job tasks: Evidence from Germany","authors":"Alexandra Wicht , Nora Müller , Reinhard Pollak","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100963","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100963","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The labor market exhibits persistent occupational segregation by gender, with women and men performing distinct job tasks within their occupations. Prior research suggests that non-routine job tasks generally lead to higher wages, especially in digitally advancing contexts. However, these findings are largely based on cross-sectional data and neglect gender as a relevant dimension of inequality. We analyze three-wave panel data over nine years from the German National Educational Panel Study to explore the relationship between changes in non-routine job tasks and wages by gender. Given the constrained wage-setting opportunities within German firms, we further examine whether the association between task changes and wages differs for employees with and without job changes, both within and across occupational segments. Our fixed-effect regression analyses reveal gender-specific associations between changes in non-routine job tasks and wage increases. Men benefit from performing more complex and autonomous tasks, with additional gains when an inter-segmental job change accompanies the increase in complex job tasks. Conversely, women do not see wage benefits from enhancements in either complex or autonomous job tasks. These findings underscore the gendered patterns of wage increases associated with advancements in non-routine job tasks, with men profiting intra-individually from shifts towards more non-routine job tasks.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 100963"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562424000763/pdfft?md5=25eb0c9039f4edfcaba7d45474867434&pid=1-s2.0-S0276562424000763-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142012594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The gendered character of claims-making: A longitudinal analysis","authors":"Laura Lükemann, Anja-Kristin Abendroth","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100955","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100955","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this article, we examine the gendered outcomes of career negotiations, which involve employees discussing career advancements with their direct supervisors. We apply relational inequality theory, which conceptualizes career negotiations as instances of relational claims-making, to explain gender differences in returns in terms of hourly wages, occupational status, and subjective perceptions of job advancements. Our empirical approach employs individual fixed-effect models using three waves of unique German linked employer-employee panel data on 2090 employees across 131 workplaces (LEEP-B3; 2012–2019). We find that men discussing career advancements with supervisors, experience pay raises and occupational upward mobility, whereas women do not. Yet, we find only minor gender differences in perceived job advancements following career negotiations. In workplaces with a more balanced gender representation in management and supervisory positions, women’s wage returns from negotiations increase. Although individual negotiations seem to perpetuate gender inequalities, workplace structures can weaken inequality-generating mechanisms.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 100955"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141706011","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}
{"title":"Subjective inequality and attitudes to labor unions: Evidence from Latin America","authors":"Pablo Pérez-Ahumada , Juan Diego García-Castro","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100982","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100982","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Labor unions play a key role in the defense of workers’ rights and in the construction of more egalitarian societies. Despite this, few empirical investigations have analyzed how attitudes toward labor unions are shaped by subjective manifestations of inequality. Bringing together the sociological and social-psychological research on inequality, in this article we do so by studying how attitudes towards unions are shaped by class identification and by ideal inequality, understood as the level of inequality that people consider ideal or fair. Using data from the 2020 Latinobarómetro survey for 18 Latin American countries, we find that pro-union attitudes are significantly higher among those who identify with the lower-middle class but not among those who identify with the lower class. We also find a negative relationship between ideal inequality, measured by a pseudo-Gini index of ideal inequality, and pro-union attitudes: those who want less economic inequality have more positive attitudes towards unions. Finally, we find that the effect of class identification and ideal inequality is moderated by individual political orientations. At the end of this article, we explain these findings and show how they contribute to the recent research on subjective inequality and attitudes toward labor unions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 100982"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142151160","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}