Citings and Sightings

Courtesy of _PaulS_ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapkap/)

Find out how your income ranks in different parts of the U.S. with this interactive graphic from the New York Times. Needless to say, what earns 1% status in New York is not the same as in Flint, Mich. Data comes from demographic researchers at the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota.

A breakdown of the jobs of the 1%, featured over on Sociological Images, is part of the same Times package.

Since the 1960s, sociologists have shied away from explaining the persistence of poverty in terms of cultural factors, instead emphasizing the social structures that create and perpetuate poverty. Now, the New York Times reports, there seems to be a resurgence of analysis linking culture and persistent poverty.

The old debate has shaped the new. Last month Princeton and the Brookings Institution released a collection of papers on unmarried parents, a subject, it noted, that became off-limits after the Moynihan report. At the recent annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, attendees discussed the resurgence of scholarship on culture. And in Washington last spring, social scientists participated in a Congressional briefing on culture and poverty linked to a special issue of The Annals, the journal of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

This, however, is not a reproduction of ‘culture of poverty’ scholarship; current work is significantly different:

With these studies come many new and varied definitions of culture, but they all differ from the ’60s-era model in these crucial respects: Today, social scientists are rejecting the notion of a monolithic and unchanging culture of poverty. And they attribute destructive attitudes and behavior not to inherent moral character but to sustained racism and isolation.

Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson says that how people collectively view their community matters.

The shared perception of a neighborhood — is it on the rise or stagnant? — does a better job of predicting a community’s future than the actual level of poverty, he said.

Sociologists try to unpack what this means:

Seeking to recapture the topic from economists, sociologists have ventured into poor neighborhoods to delve deeper into the attitudes of residents. Their results have challenged some common assumptions, like the belief that poor mothers remain single because they don’t value marriage.

In Philadelphia, for example, low-income mothers told the sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas that they thought marriage was profoundly important, even sacred, but doubted that their partners were “marriage material.” Their results have prompted some lawmakers and poverty experts to conclude that programs that promote marriage without changing economic and social conditions are unlikely to work.

The article speculates about several reasons why a cultural approach to studying poverty is reemerging, including a new generation of scholars, advancements in data collection and analysis, and shifts in broader discourse and attitudes outside the university, as well.

Take a look at the full article.

Census data are revealing growing income levels and declining rates of marriage  in the black middle class, according to the Washington Post. One sociologist reflects on her own experience with these trends:

Kris Marsh’s household doesn’t have two incomes. But in Prince George’s County, she is increasingly becoming the face of the black middle class.

Marsh, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, moved to Bowie last year from Los Angeles, determined to live in a place she had always heard was the promised land for educated, successful African Americans. She bought a large, single-family house in a development where many of her neighbors are also single women.

“I found a community I’m in love with,” said Marsh, who has done research on the role that single women are playing in fueling the expansion of the black middle class. “Just because I didn’t have a partner or a husband, it wasn’t going to prevent me from living in the area.”

Marsh’s experience in Maryland typifies broader national trends:

New census statistics from data collected in 2007 and 2008 show that an increasing number of African Americans across the country are becoming more like those in Prince George’s, as well as closer to the national demographic norm. Many blacks made strides during the past decade, with education levels and incomes rising faster than those of the U.S. population as a whole.

In 2008, 20 percent of African Americans had a bachelor’s or advanced degree, a 19 percent jump from 2000. The percentage of black households making more than $75,000 has gone up 42 percent since 1999, from about 13 percent to 18 percent.

But what of the Great Recession? Demographers weigh in:

The statistics do not reflect the effects of the recession, which has caused high unemployment among black men in particular, but demographers say it is unlikely to alter the long-term trend.

A political scientist, along with Marsh, offer some possible explanations for these changes:

Michael Dawson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said black women are more likely to be single because of the high number of jailed African American men and because black women tend to obtain higher levels of education than black men, narrowing their options for a mate who is available and similarly educated.

Marsh said her research has shown that African American women are marrying later in life, if at all, and postponing having children.

Of course, disparities still exist between whites and blacks in the United States:

Despite the significant gains made by African Americans, there are still large and persistent disparities between blacks and whites in income, education and poverty rates, the national census numbers show. Whites are twice as likely as blacks to be in the upper-income brackets, and African Americans are three times more likely to be living in poverty.

Women who have kids tend to earn less than women who don’t, a phenomenon known as the “motherhood penalty.” But USA Today reports that  that when a woman has children makes a difference.

Researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park and the University of California at Los Angeles reviewed 35 years of data from some 2,200 women born between 1944 and 1954, and found that women who had kids in the early- to mid-20s or even younger didn’t fare as well economically as those who delayed.

Sociologist Joan Kahn, one of the study’s authors, comments:

“Women who delay childbearing end up as successful economically as women who didn’t have children, and we look at it basically throughout their adult years — well into their 50s,” she says.

The point, she says, is that women who are younger when they have kids and attempt to get back into the workforce later may not have that up-front investment in education and training, which those who have kids later benefit from. They earned equivalent wages and had higher status occupations just like women who were childless.

This week, the New York Times explores the increasing number of 20- and 30-somethings living with their parents:

In 1980, 11 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds were living in multi-generational households. By 2008, 20 percent were.These sons and daughters of baby boomers living with their parents again have been labeled boomerangers.

The biggest increases were registered in these categories: nonwhite, foreign-born young men who had never been married, and college graduates. …

Last year, 37 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds were unemployed or no longer looking for work. Ten percent of young adults, ages 18 to 34, said in the Pew survey they had moved back with their parents because of the recession. Two in 10 are full-time students, a quarter are unemployed, and about a third said they had lived on their own before returning home.

Commentary from CUNY sociologist:

“As the great recession has deepened and the job market has become tighter and tighter for young people, most especially those from minority backgrounds, more and more return or never leave the parental nest,” said Prof. Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “If such a trend continues or deepens, the economic crisis may be creating a true ‘Failure to Launch’ generation.”

Read more.

More stay-at-home moms in the U.S. are going into business for themselves, Reuters reports:

The Small Business Administration says the number of self-employed women around the country jumped by 10 percent from 2000 to 2006, to 5.3 million.

For Lewis, an online marketplace called Etsy provided a place to sell her estate-style and faux vintage pieces. The website, www.etsy.com, lets craft makers set up their own virtual shops. It currently has more than 4.2 million users.

“It’s wonderful to be able to call my own shots,” Lewis said. “I can work at night, so if I want to do something with my family, I can.”

Launched in 2005, the Brooklyn, New York-based Etsy now has more than 400,000 sellers, most of whom are women, and posted more than $180 million in sales last year. Nearly 70 percent of sellers are college-educated.

Moms cite balance and flexibility as reasons to start their own online craft shops. A sociologist comments on the trend:

“Women are looking to both work and take care of families, but the traditional workplace doesn’t provide that opportunity, so they are looking for their own ingenious ways (to do that),” said Pamela Stone, a sociology professor at New York City’s Hunter College.

“What women are seeking is flexibility and these companies are providing them with this option,” said Stone, who wrote “Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home.”

The New York Times reports that the number of foreign-born workers is on the rise in the U.S.

Nearly one in six American workers is foreign-born, the highest proportion since the 1920s, according to a census analysis released Monday.

Because of government barriers to immigration, the share of foreign-born workers dipped from a 20th-century high of 21 percent in 1910 to barely 5 percent in 1970, but has been rising since then, to the current 16 percent.

In 2007, immigrants accounted for more than one in four workers in California (35 percent), New York (27 percent), New Jersey (26 percent) and Nevada (25 percent).

But that’s not all the Census Bureau found:

For the first time, the Census Bureau also compared immigrants by generation. Generally, income and other measures of achievement rose from one generation to the next, although educational attainment peaked with the second generation.

Monica Boyd, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, said the second generation personified “the overachievement model, a tendency for very high achievement that seems to come as a result of immigrant parents’ instilling in these kids an enormous drive.” Professor Boyd added, “Many try to instill in their kids the phrase, ‘We did this all for you.’ ”

Among all immigrant families, median income rose from $50,867 in the first generation to $63,359 and $65,144 in the second and third, respectively. The only group to register any decrease was family households headed by single mothers; their income declined from the second generation to the third.

Similarly, the overall proportion of immigrant families living below the government’s official poverty level declined, from 16.5 percent to 14.5 to 11.5 among three generations. But among adult immigrants, the proportion who are poor grew again between the second and third generations.

However, while overall measures of income seem to be improving from one generation to the next (with some variation among sub-goups), those for overall educational achievement tell a different story:

While the proportion of high school graduates increased from one generation to the next, the share who had bachelor’s degrees or more higher education declined from the second to the third generations. The proportion with doctorates peaked with the first generation.

Elizabeth Grieco, chief of the Census Bureau’s immigration statistics staff, said the figures suggested substantial progress from the first generation to the second.

“This really shows that immigrants integrate over time the same way they always have,” Ms. Grieco said.

In terms of education, she said, “the third generation seems to be stopping at bachelor’s or master’s degrees.”

So, what do sociologists make of this decline in educational attainment between second and third generations?

Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, said, “If there is some evidence of third-generation decline, then this no doubt has a lot to do with persistent inequalities and disadvantages facing many of the second generation and their children.”

Professor Foner added that “the economic declines of the past few years no doubt play a role” and that “it could also be that second-generation parents, themselves born in the U.S., are less optimistic and push their children less hard than their own immigrant parents who came here and struggled so their children could succeed.”

This morning the Washington Post is running a story about a new study out of the Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project, offering a more nuanced understanding of the forces affecting the income outcomes they documented in a project completed several years ago — “that nearly half of African American children born to middle-class parents in the 1950s and ’60s had fallen to a lower economic status as adults, a rate of downward mobility far higher than that for whites.”

But why? The answer is at least in part due to geographic location. The Pew Center’s new research suggests that “being raised in poor neighborhoods plays a major role in explaining why African American children from middle-income families are far more likely than white children to slip down the income ladder as adults.”

The new study:

This week, Pew will release findings of a study that helps explain that economic fragility, pointing to the fact that middle-class blacks are far more likely than whites to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, which has a negative effect on even the better-off children raised there. The impact of neighborhoods is greater than other factors in children’s backgrounds, Pew concludes.

Even as African Americans have made gains in wealth and income, the report found, black children and white children are often raised in starkly different environments. Two out of three black children born from 1985 through 2000 were raised in neighborhoods with at least a 20 percent poverty rate, compared with just 6 percent of white children, a disparity virtually unchanged from three decades prior.

Even middle-class black children have been more likely to grow up in poor neighborhoods: Half of black children born between 1955 and 1970 in families with incomes of $62,000 or higher in today’s dollars grew up in high-poverty neighborhoods. But virtually no white middle-income children grew up in poor areas.

Using a study that has tracked more than 5,000 families since 1968, the Pew research found that no other factor, including parents’ education, employment or marital status, was as important as neighborhood poverty in explaining why black children were so much more likely than whites to lose income as adults.

A sociologist authored this new report…

Patrick Sharkey, the New York University sociologist who wrote the report, said researchers still need to pinpoint which factors in neighborhoods matter most, such as schools, crime or peer groups. But overall, he said, the impact of the contrasting surroundings for black and white children was indisputable.

“What surprises me is how dramatic the racial differences are in terms of the environments in which children are raised,” he said. “There’s this perception that after the civil rights period, families have been more able to seek out any neighborhood they choose, and that . . . the racial gap in neighborhoods would whittle away over time, and that hasn’t happened.”

And other scholars offered feedback…

Ideally, said several scholars who read the report, investments in struggling neighborhoods would improve them to the extent that the middle-income families would not feel the need to leave.

“These findings do suggest that those with the means or resources should try to escape these neighborhoods,” said Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson. “But . . . the exodus of middle-class families from poor black neighborhoods increases the adverse effects of concentrated poverty.”

Read more.