Greedy Institutions Research Articles

Adult Children’s Marital Timing and Upward Intergenerational Financial Transfers: Variation across Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

Marriage is a key adult milestone yet is also considered a greedy institution that monopolizes resources, jeopardizing adult children’s financial transfers to aging parents. As the age at which marriage shifts later into adulthood, this study examines whether marriage still operates as a greedy institution, considering the role of marital timing on upward financial transfers to aging parents. Using data from Waves I–V of Add Health and Wave I of the Add Health Parent Questionnaire from 1994 to 2018, we examined whether timing of marriage (never, early, on time, and late) was associated with adult children’s upward financial transfers to their parents, accounting for variation across gender, race, and ethnicity. Adult children who never married were the largest group who gave upward financial transfers to their aging parents (33%). Results suggested that marriage or timing of marriage was a greedy institution among men, women, white, Hispanic, and Asian adults, but not Black adults, suggesting heterogeneity in the role of marriage on family support.

The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions: Then and Now

In response to a request for this 50th anniversary issue of Armed Forces & Society, I was one of the 10 fortunate authors (and their co-authors) whose work was chosen for a commentary about their original article. Mine was “The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions.” In this new paper, I describe aspects of my career and the research opportunities that enabled me to develop my ideas. I include the importance of mentors and colleagues and I stress that my work built on that of others. I learned much from my students and I cherish their achievements and continuing contributions to advancing our knowledge in this field.

Singlehood during later life: Theoretical considerations for health and social relationships

AbstractOlder adults are a growing segment of the population. The number of single older adults is increasing, making older adulthood a salient developmental period to examine singlehood. In this article, we focus on older adults' singlehood experiences based on marital status and delve into theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Specifically, we focus on theories related to the life course and social constructionist perspectives. We include the cumulative advantage/disadvantage model, convalescence model, marital biographies, and social convoy model under life course perspectives and the gender as relational approach, ambiguous loss, and marriage as a greedy institution under social constructionist perspectives. To conclude, we examine how to integrate these theories and methodological considerations to better understand singlehood during later life. The integration of theory and methodologies can help guide research, which, in turn, allows for a more complete understanding of singlehood, which can bolster the quality of life for single older adults.

Women of courage and the seedbed of autonomy in modernity: On the transnational influence of cultures on social structure in the work of Rose Laub Coser

This paper examines the contribution of Rose Laub Coser to sociological theory in the structural tradition. Laub Coser was one of the most successful women sociologists of her generation. She was born in Berlin in 1916 but left with her family in 1924 for Antwerp in Belgium, and went into exile in 1939 in New York. Thus, Laub Coser was familiar with many cultural worlds and languages. Although she primarily lived in the United States, the transnational influence of the metropolis of Berlin is manifest in her sociological work in several ways. Conceptually, this is relevant for Laub Coser’s reception of Georg Simmel’s Soziologie. In particular, her theory of the complexity of social roles as a seedbed of individual autonomy is founded on Simmel’s theory of the importance of conflict and ambivalence for individualization. Her multiple experiences of emigration and exile influenced Laub Coser’s work, including Women of Courage, an analysis of the social lives of Eastern European and Italian migrants in the metropolis of New York, and her internationally comparative studies on the family and women’s rise in the labor market. Laub Coser investigated the social consequences of having multiple group affiliations and the conditions for such individuals in the cultural and social structure of modernity. In her transnationally comparative work of migrant cultures, she demonstrated the scope of her theory of role complexity. Contrary to images of migration bare of gender and culture, Laub Coser interprets the individuals she studied in Women of Courage as active agents of migration and provides insights on the influence that cultural definitions of situations have had toward creating the social structure of modern society. Starting from Robert K. Merton’s role-set theory and integrating Simmel’s analysis of forms of social differentiation, Laub Coser analyzed the conditions and consequences of multiple group affiliations, their observability, and the ambivalences in “cross-cutting social circles” (Simmel), which create conditions for developing individuality and individualism. The cultural mandate for women to be socialized toward the “greedy institution” of the family offers only restricted role-sets and opportunities for articulating social roles, constraining their social competencies as autonomous individuals. Despite the alienating and anomic consequences of role complexity, Laub Coser valued its liberating potential. Possibly this theoretical orientation was also influenced by her own experience as an immigrant, sociologist, and political activist in the socialist women’s movement. The posthumously published study Women of Courage is based on a research project that began in the 1980s, comprising hundreds of qualitative interviews with women who had migrated to New York in the early 1920s, and who were at least 13 years old when they immigrated. The histories of these women demonstrate their role in enabling the social mobility of their families in the receiving society. They provided insights into how cultures change and how women migrants understood their lives in the New World.

“My job is to keep my body healthy”: biopedagogies, beauty and institutional greed in professional ballet

Context The ballet institution is known for its aesthetic and performative standards. In professional dancers’ everyday lives, self-improvement and body awareness entwine with striving for artistic excellence. In this context, ‘health’ has primarily been explored in relation to eating disorders, pain, and injuries. Aim This paper explores dancers’ health practices, namely how they are shaped by the ballet institution and how they relate to broader health discourses. Methodology A reflexive thematic analysis was conducted upon interviews with nine dancers (each interviewed twice) using a theoretical framework based on the concepts of greedy institutions and biopedagogies. Analyses Two themes were developed: What it takes to be an ‘insider’ of the ballet institution and Learning to develop an acute embodied self-awareness. Dancers described ballet as a ‘lifestyle’ rather than a ‘job’; practices of self-care defined by continuous self and body work were framed as necessary to meet the demands of this lifestyle. Participants ‘played with’ institutional and societal norms, often resisting docile bodies promoted within the ballet institution. Conclusion Dancers’ constructions of health and the art of ballet as not fitting neatly into ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ make room to consider the tensions between adopting and resisting dominant health discourses in this institution.

Cohabiting Adult Children's Transfers to Parents in the United States.

This brief report presents national estimates of transfers of time and money from cohabiting adult children (ages 18 to 65) to their parents (own and in-laws) to test whether cohabiting adults give differently from their counterparts. Previous U.S. studies use data collected in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, when cohabitation was an emerging family form; they find mixed results. Rising rates of cohabitation and an aging population of parents who may rely on transfers from adult children necessitate updated estimates that can help develop the theory of institutionalization of cohabitation. This study used the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Rosters and Transfers Module, a sample of U.S. households (N=6,340), and logistic and negative binomial models to estimate the likelihood of giving any time or any money to parents by the respondent's union status, the amounts given, and parent type (own, in-laws). Cohabitors were less likely to give time to their own parents than their never married counterparts, and gave fewer hours, but were more likely to give time and gave more hours than married adults. For financial transfers to own parents, cohabitors and married respondents gave similarly, but both were less likely to give any money than are single respondents. Cohabitators gave more hours to their in-laws than married respondents. Cohabitors behave somewhere in-between marital "greedy institution" norms and broader norms of solidarity with parents. More work should be done to understand how union status affects transfers to parents.

Publish or Procreate: The Effect of Motherhood on Academic Performance (WITHDRAWN)

Women are underrepresented in science and representation deficits are even greater for more senior positions and in STEM fields. The dominant explanation is that male and female scientists, even within the same field, publish at unequal rates. Prior studies on select fields suggest that the gender gap in academic productivity reflects differential effects of childbearing on men and women, as women face tensions between the two greedy institutions of family and academia. We study the full population of STEM academics in Denmark and investigate parenthood penalties on scientific productivity of mothers and fathers, who are active in research after the birth of their first child. We employ an event-study approach on annual research publications, an outcome especially relevant in the science domain, and rely on a unique combination of Danish registers and granular bibliometric data on publications from the database Scopus. We find that, on average, the first childbirth results in an annual penalty of 24 percent on scientific productivity of mothers in STEM fields relative to fathers in the first 5 years after birth. This reflects a drop in annual research publications of mothers relative to their own pre-birth productivity. Hence, unequal impacts of parenthood may be an important driver of gender inequality in Science.

Contending with vulnerability and uncertainty: what coaches say about coaching

ABSTRACT In exploring how coaches contend with their professional vulnerability, the purpose of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, to describe the informal rules of coaching that demand the appearance and expression of a certain persona. Secondly, to examine how such rules are tied to a culture of ‘the individual”; and, thirdly, to demonstrate how coaches’ accounts of their work not only reflect, but also ensure such practices. The dataset emanated from 20 individual interviews with professional football coaches. Although taking full consideration of what the coaches actually said, the analysis sought to explore what the explanations were standing on behalf of; what Garfinkel described as an “official (professional) line”. The findings pointed to coaches’ necessity to ‘work hard’, to do things the ‘right way’, whilst limitedly acknowledging any vulnerability associated with the job. Positioned as a ‘greedy institution’, the narrative appeared as a means to contend with the difficulties coaches encountered.

Some Parents Survive and Some Don't: The Army and the Family as “Greedy Institutions”

AbstractThe military and the family are “greedy institutions” that require the full attention of their members. Being aware of the tension between work and family, the United States military has developed family support policies that are more generous than legally required to ensure personnel readiness. However, family formation remains a major obstacle for recruitment, retention, and integration of women. Using administrative data, this research shows that fathers were more likely to leave prematurely for family reasons than childless men, particularly among non‐Hispanic Black and American Indian/Alaska Native men. However, women who gave birth while in service were much less likely to leave for work–family reasons than childless women, while the same could not be said for women who joined as mothers and had no additional children. The results reflect the gendered logic of the organization and the narrow conceptualization of work–family conflict, both of which perpetuate gender‐role stereotypes.

REVIEW CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SLOVENIAN SOCIETY AND ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS SECURITY AND THE MILITARY

REVIEW CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SLOVENIAN SOCIETY AND ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS SECURITY AND THE MILITARY

Service, Self-Care, and Sacrifice: A Qualitative Exploration of the Pandemic University as a Greedy Institution

Scholars have argued that higher education is a “greedy institution” that monopolizes employees’ time and energy. Further, women and minoritized faculty bear the heaviest burdens of these demands with respect to teaching and service. In this auto-ethnographic paper, we explore the escalating demands of the greedy institution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“ONE SIZE DOESN'T FIT ALL”: CONNECTING VIEWS OF ACTIVISM WITH YOUTH ACTIVIST IDENTIFICATION*

Identity is crucial to social movement participation. Existing research examines why active people “avoid” activist identities but has less to say about how active people adopt such identities as if they automatically follow participation. We draw on interviews with high school and college students from a midsize southwestern city to examine how young people make sense of what it means to be an activist, who identifies as such, and why youth are willing—or unwilling—to adopt this label. We find that respondents' conceptualizations of “activists” are critical to (non)identification. Those who see activism as a broad category are more likely to identify, holding constant their level of activity. Those who see activism as a greedy institution, requiring significant substantive fluency, making the issue their primary focus, and willingness to sacrifice, do not, despite their level of engagement. Our findings have implications for identity formation and movement participation more broadly.

Nowe oblicza konfliktu ról wśród młodych Polek i Polaków w świetle łączenia rodzicielstwa ze studiami i pracą zawodową

Tematykę artykułu stanowi łączenie rodzicielstwa ze studiami i pracą zawodową, które jest wyjątkową egzemplifikacją współczesnego nakładania się ról i wyzwań wynikających z konfliktu doświadczanego przez młode osoby realizujące jednocześnie liczne, konkurencyjne względem siebie role społeczne. Jest to efekt wyłaniający się z szerszego kontekstu społecznego, w którym zdobywanie wykształcenia na poziomie wyższym jest coraz powszechniejsze wśród młodych Polek i Polaków, a w szeregach studentów nie brakuje rodziców i osób o ugruntowanej pozycji na rynku pracy. Bazą empiryczną artykułu jest materiał zebrany w badaniu jakościowym przeprowadzonym na przełomie 2017 i 2018 roku. Na potrzeby artykułu przeanalizowano 30 wywiadów z jednocześnie pracującymi i studiującymi rodzicami. Respondenci łączą lub łączyli pracę zawodową, zdobywanie dyplomu uczelni oraz wychowywanie dzieci w różnym wieku (od 0 do 15 lat). Zaprezentowane wyniki wskazują na występowanie konfliktu ról, jednocześnie pokazując zróżnicowanie i uzależnienie poczucia konfliktu od takich elementów jak płeć, wsparcie społeczne czy też instytucjonalne. Konflikt w tej analizie jest ściśle powiązany z koncepcją „chciwych instytucji”, jakimi są edukacja, rodzicielstwo i praca zawodowa. Widoczna jest również normalizacja łączenia tych trzech aspektów życia jednostki przy jednoczesnym poczuciu konieczności realizowania się na wszystkich polach.

‘You Can’t Just Stick with Those You Like’: Why Friendship Practices Threaten Fraternal Life in Cistercian Monasteries

Tensions between different relationship forms exist in every organisational setting. Catholic monasteries – as archetypical examples of voluntary total and greedy institutions – provide strategic cases of inquiry for understanding relational conflicts owing to the significance they assign to exclusively fraternal relations, resulting in explicit tensions regarding personal forms of relationships, such as friendship. Based on a multi-sited, qualitative case study of Cistercian monasteries in France, the present article pushes theorising on fraternal relations forward. Fraternal relations as a social form is membership-based and characterised by collectivism, egalitarianism and an imposed level of intimacy. In the monastic setting, it takes the form of prescribed impersonal love. The ideals of fraternal relations pose normative constraints for establishing friendship, but the ambition to minimise verbal interaction, perceived differences between members and the severe limits on joint, extra-organisational activities constitute additional constraints for friendship to form in monasteries.

Negotiating the greedy institution: a typology of the lived experiences of young, precarious academic workers

ABSTRACTCoser’s ‘greedy institution’ (GI) theory provides a conceptual lens to examine how institutional structures are negotiated and maintained by precarious workers in the contemporary university. Giddens’ theory of structuration assists the analysis of empirical multi-case data generated from the Australian context where young academic workers were interviewed multiple times. This sociological analysis uniquely highlights the reciprocal and recursive processes that contribute to an agentic view of precarious employees who strategically navigate their careers and positions within prescriptive institutional structures. Findings supported the construction of a typology, comprising three agentic ‘types’. The ‘giving’ and ‘resisting’ types presented depict how structures of greed encourage over-committed enactments from the participants. The ‘insulated’ type shows an antithetical portrayal of employment at the university, challenging often legitimated greedy norms in a way that highlights the role of supervisors in constructing workplace practices for precarious workers. The three ‘types’ reflect how participants complied with the demands of their work contexts in order to align their identities with institutional values. This article draws Coser into the precarious work literature and offers a socialised view of how the GI can be reproduced in differentiated ways through the agentic work of employees at the university.

The Problem of Ontological Insecurity. What Can We Learn from Sociology Today? Some Zen Buddhist Inspirations

Can we learn about the art of living from sociology? Sociology teaches us that we are the part of a broader group called society. We are taught that society should be first described in order to be understood and/or explained, and that the cognitive function is the most important part in understanding the role sociology should play in a democratic and modern society. Is this understanding (cognition) enough? What more can we get to better our quality of life and live a wholesome life from studying sociology or society using a sociological perspective? Is sociology a tool for the art of living or is it just a play of the “sophisticated”? In this paper, we analyze the sociology from the philosophy of Zen Buddhism to show the connection between the work of mind and the sociological concepts that are used to analyze “society.” Moreover, we analyze the approaches of George H. Mead, Robert Merton, and especially and separately Anthony Giddens that created, very important for our considerations, the concept of “ontological security.” We also reconstruct the structural conditions of the art of living and happiness, analyzing the concept of greedy institutions by Lewis Coser. We analytically connect the structural conditions of work in contemporary greedy institutions (working on projects) with the loss of ontological security. We analyze the displacement of the meaning of work, career, autonomy, time structure, identity, privacy and happiness, and finally the sociology. We try to use a Buddhist inspiration to analyze issues of suffering and, associated with it, so called ontological insecurity and the welfare of the individual and/or society.

Women in science: The persistence of traditional gender roles. A case study on work–life interface

The underrepresentation of women in academe has been the focus of both academic literature and European policy-makers. However, albeit the number of female scientists has increased, true gender equality has yet to be achieved. When examining the reasons for this, we have to consider the interconnection between the expectations surrounding gender and what it means to work in the scientific profession, operating at individual, interactional, and institutional levels. This paper presents the results (and methods) of a survey exploring work–life interfaces from a gender-sensitive perspective. Our survey focused on the researchers and professors working in the medicine and engineering departments of the University of Pisa, where the gradient of female exclusion is most pronounced. The results allow for an interpretation of the ‘leaky pipeline’ (macro level), through a gender-sensitive analysis of gender-based social obligations and those associated with the scientific profession (micro perspective), by integrating said reading through a description of the dynamics of continuous negotiation in private and public life (university) (meso level). Essentially, science is a greedy institution, as is family life, which is a problem for a woman’s career, unless she is willing to make considerable concessions at home.

The Library as a Greedy Institution

The Library as a Greedy Institution

Mechanisms of Organizational Commitment: Adding Frames to Greedy Institution Theory

How do organizations that make significant physical, emotional, and intellectual demands foster commitment and loyalty from voluntary participants? Greedy institution theory (Coser ) answers this question by identifying structural elements that foster participants' undivided commitment to “greedy” groups, those in which participants' involvement interferes with and takes precedence over their involvement in other social spheres. In this article, I argue for the expansion of greedy institution theory to include frames and framing processes as “greedy” organizational tools that work on the microinteractional level. Using data from an ethnographic study of an intensive program that prepares low‐income students of color to attend elite boarding high schools, I show how the organization's “family” frame mobilized participants and encouraged interpretations and interactions that helped students persist in the program and remain committed to the organization. I argue that turning our attention to frames and framing processes will increase our understanding of the tools organizations use on a microinteractional level to build and repair participants' loyalty and commitment.

Greedy Institutions, Overwork, and Work‐Life Balance

Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, offered her thoughts on “Greedy Institutions” and the work‐life balance in her AKD Distinguished Lecture at the August 2013 meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York City. We appreciate Dr. Sullivan's willingness to revise her address for publication in Sociological Inquiry. In the age of smart phones and 24/7 accountability, her thoughts on these issues—particularly at American universities—are timely and instructive.