Inequality Shape Research Articles

Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the "other 99 percent".

The singular focus of public debate on the "top 1 percent" of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that is arguably most consequential for the "other 99 percent" of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality, discusses why skill demands have persistently risen in industrialized countries, and considers the economic value of inequality alongside its potential social costs. I conclude by highlighting the constructive role for public policy in fostering skills formation and preserving economic mobility.

Educational Inheritance and the Distribution of Occupations: Evidence from South Africa

We analyze the role of educational opportunity in shaping inequality in the distribution of occupations in the long run. We use the timing of political events in the history of the struggle to end Apartheid to devise an identification strategy that permits a causal interpretation of the role of educational opportunity. We find evidence that educational opportunity has a strong conditioning effect on the distribution of occupations in steady state. In particular, African female children who inherit the same level of educational opportunity as their parents are 6 percentage points more likely to be in the bottom of the occupation distribution than if they were exposed to better educational opportunities. An alternative identification strategy based on matching on the probability of educational persistence suggests that this figure is approximately 10 percent for younger cohorts of African female children.

Language on the edge of the global: Communicative competence, agency, and the complexity of the local

Globalization has added complexity to the notion of communicative competence. Although globalization has now become a central focus in sociolinguistics, speech communities continue to be treated as homogeneous entities in which language shifts affect everyone in similar fashion, and smaller speech communities as particularly vulnerable to language shift. In Tonga (Pacific Islands), however, alternative uses of English and Tongan are the object of intersubjective negotiations, in which ideologies of entitlement figure centrally. Rethinking communicative competence in the global age demands an engagement with the way in which old and new forms of power and inequality shape it at the convergence of global and local dynamics.

Help bring back the celebration of life: a community-based participatory study of rural Aboriginal women's maternity experiences and outcomes.

BackgroundDespite clear evidence regarding how social determinants of health and structural inequities shape health, Aboriginal women’s birth outcomes are not adequately understood as arising from the historical, economic and social circumstances of their lives. The purpose of this study was to understand rural Aboriginal women’s experiences of maternity care and factors shaping those experiences.MethodsAboriginal women from the Nuxalk, Haida and 'Namgis First Nations and academics from the University of British Columbia in nursing, medicine and counselling psychology used ethnographic methods within a participatory action research framework. We interviewed over 100 women, and involved additional community members through interviews and community meetings. Data were analyzed within each community and across communities.ResultsMost participants described distressing experiences during pregnancy and birthing as they grappled with diminishing local maternity care choices, racism and challenging economic circumstances. Rural Aboriginal women’s birthing experiences are shaped by the intersections among rural circumstances, the effects of historical and ongoing colonization, and concurrent efforts toward self-determination and more vibrant cultures and communities.ConclusionWomen’s experiences and birth outcomes could be significantly improved if health care providers learned about and accounted for Aboriginal people’s varied encounters with historical and ongoing colonization that unequivocally shapes health and health care. Practitioners who better understand Aboriginal women’s birth outcomes in context can better care in every interaction, particularly by enhancing women’s power, choice, and control over their experiences. Efforts to improve maternity care that account for the social and historical production of health inequities are crucial.

Orphan Sunday: Narratives of Salvation in Transnational Adoption

Abstract: The article is a critical analysis of public narratives about transnational adoption that equate adoption with the salvation of “orphans.” The stories I weave together from in‐depth interviews, social science and humanities research, law and policy, and public dialogues make visible the scaffolding of power that shapes families’ lives. I tell a specific story about Korean American adoption that speaks to the power inequalities shaping the transnational transfer of children from developing countries all over the world. These stories reframe the circumstances of adoptees’ births and relinquishments as issues of social inequality rather than as individual choice.

Defying (Dis)Empowerment in a Battered Women's Shelter

Power has been fruitfully conceptualized as a relationship between two or more actors or groups (Janeway 1980; Lukes 2005). Much of this work has treated power relations in generic terms (e.g., Foucault 1978; Scott 1990), paying little attention to how actors' positions in structures of inequality shape the interactional resources available to them as they devise strategies of control and resistance in interaction with one another. Here, I argue that we can better understand processes of control and resistance by examining how actors leverage their positions in structures of inequality and employ strategies likely to most deeply resonate with their (raced, classed, and gendered) target audiences. I explore these issues by analyzing how power struggles unfolded at a battered women's shelter. Using ethnographic data gathered over a ten-month period, I show how staff developed a gendered structure of control designed to obliquely manage shelter residents, while residents developed strategies of resistance that drew on resources available to them as poor and working-class women, and were directly responsive to the particular actors and structures of control they encountered in this context. The locally valued moral rhetoric of women's “empowerment” functioned as a key resource in this struggle. I aim here to broaden current discussions of control and resistance by highlighting the locally dependent, audience-specific, and profoundly intersectional nature of these interactions.

Whose Weapons? Representations of Rape in the Print Media of Modern Vietnam

The intersection of assumptions, stereotypes and social notions embedded within cultural understandings of gender, class, age, and other signifiers of inequality both shapes and delimits how a particular incident of rape is portrayed in the Vietnamese print media. One-sided and insensitive ways of reporting unwittingly exacerbate the suffering of victims, turning them into objects of criticism in local opinion. The activism shown by some quarters of the media has had a positive effect in encouraging rape victims and their families to come forward and use newspapers to air their grievances and seek justice by working within and sometimes around institutional structures.

Socio-economic and Ethnic Inequalities in Social Capital from the Family among Labour Market Entrants

This study investigates how the socio-economic positions of the parents shape the access to social capital of their children. We examine the influence of three parental socio-economic positions on the access to three job-finding resources from the family among labour market entrants. In addition, we examine how ethnic differences in family social capital are rooted in the unequal socio-economic positions of different ethnic categories. For these purposes, we collected data from 2,176 labour market entrants in Belgium and designed an instrument to measure three types of job-finding resources: labour market information, job information, and encouragement to search for a job. Moreover, we used a multidimensional perspective on social stratification by examining the educational levels, the social class positions, and the employment statuses of the parents. Our results show substantial socio-economic inequalities in family social capital: labour market entrants whose parents are higher educated, employed and/or from the service class have more access to job-finding resources from the family. Moreover, ethnic minorities in Belgium, especially the Turks, Moroccans, and Balkans, have less access to job-finding resources from the family than natives. These findings demonstrate the powerful interplay of parental socio-ethnic influences in shaping inequalities in social capital. Moreover, it is the first crucial step to establish how socio-economic inequalities are reproduced over generations through the functioning of social capital.

Economic modeling of the relationship between insurance, inequality and health

In June 2011, the conference entitled ‘Insurance. Inequality. Health. Economic modeling of how health insurance systems shape inequalities’ took place in Darmstadt, Germany. The participants were researchers from all around the world. Presenters and distinguished invited speakers came together to discuss recent research results on various aspects of the health insurance system. The overarching aim was to clarify to what extent insurance markets, social insurance schemes, socioeconomic inequalities and health interact with each other.

Legacies, Change and Transformation in the Post-Apartheid City: Towards an Urban Sociological Cartography

Abstract The post-apartheid city represents an important test case for assessing how the spatial dimensions of social inequality shape the dynamics of urban transformation. Most analyses of urban segregation have focused on race or class as key drivers of mobility or maintenance, for instance in the classic spatial assimilation versus place stratification debate. Yet the mechanisms of segregation and mixing play themselves out differently according to urban spatial structure. We use the case of Durban, South Africa, to show that the spatial legacies of apartheid are powerful, and much of the city has undergone little change since apartheid. Through a spatial analysis at the neighbourhood level, we also find that even in the short time between 1996 and 2001 a significant number of neighbourhoods experienced measurable shifts in their racial and socio-economic composition. We develop what we call a sociological cartography of the city, which shows how race, class and space have combined to generate three distinct but interconnected types of stasis and transformation: the racialized city, the class-stratified city and the transformed city. The racialized city is the most direct legacy of apartheid spatial development, encompassing neighbourhoods composed of essentially a single race group. In the class-stratified city, multiple race groups of similar class status are represented. Finally, the transformed city represents new configurations that cut across both race and class divisions of the apartheid city. Résumé La ville post-apartheid constitue un cas-test important permettant d’évaluer la manière dont les dimensions spatiales de l’inégalité sociale façonnent les dynamiques de transformation urbaine. Les analyses de la ségrégation urbaine se sont intéressées, par la plupart, à la race ou à la classe comme facteurs fondamentaux de mobilité ou de stabilité, comme par exemple dans le débat classique opposant assimilation spatiale et stratification des lieux. Toutefois, les mécanismes de ségrégation et de mixité s’exercent différemment selon la structure spatiale urbaine. Il est montré, à partir du cas sud-africain de Durban, combien les héritages spatiaux de l’apartheid sont profonds et, en grande partie, la ville a peu changé depuis cette époque. En se basant sur une analyse spatiale au niveau des quartiers, il est également établi que, même dans la courte période entre 1996 et 2001, bon nombre d’entre eux ont subi des changements mesurables dans leur composition raciale et socio-économique. Une ‘cartographie sociologique’ de la ville a été mise au point, montrant comme race, classe et espace se sont combinés pour générer trois types distincts, mais interconnectés, de stase et de transformation: la ville racialisée, la ville stratifiée par classe, et la ville transformée. La ville racialisée est l’héritage le plus direct de l’aménagement spatial datant de l’apartheid, englobant des quartiers composés essentiellement d’un seul groupe racial. Dans la ville stratifiée par classe, plusieurs groupes raciaux relevant de la même position sociale sont représentés. Enfin, la ville transformée reflète les configurations nouvelles qui transcendent les divisions de race et de classe propres à la ville de l’apartheid.

Desigualdade de oportunidades no Brasil: considerações sobre classe, educação e raça

Este trabalho analisa os determinantes da mobilidade social de homens e mulheres no Brasil em 1982 e 1996, com base em regressoes de realizacao de status e em modelos logisticos multinomiais condicionais. Em particular, investigamos os efeitos da origem social, da raca e da educacao na desigualdade de oportunidades. A principal conclusao e de que a educacao e a variavel mais importante, mas cujos retornos vem declinando rapidamente, o que explica quase todo o aumento da fluidez social no periodo. Raca e origem social sao elementos que potencialmente determinam o sucesso educacional dos individuos, mas que desempenham diretamente um papel apenas secundario no mercado de trabalho. Nao foram detectadas interacoes relevantes, o que implica que os retornos para educacao sao semelhantes por cor ou raca. O padrao de mobilidade social das mulheres e basicamente o mesmo dos homens.

Female selective abortion – beyond ‘culture’: family making and gender inequality in a globalising India

There is an emerging global discourse on female selective abortion (FSA) as several Asian countries witness an increasing imbalance in their sex ratios in favour of boys. While there is an attendant increase in demographic and social surveys on the issue, little is understood about FSA as either a desired or contested practice of family making in the contexts in which it is practiced. Drawing on the accounts of feminists, doctors and lower, middle-class Hindu and Muslim women and their families in Rajasthan, Northern India, the paper explores differing perceptions and attitudes to FSA in the region. Focusing on the agency of pregnant women who resort to FSA, the paper suggests that gender inequality and marriage anxieties shape especially lower-middle-class women's engagement with reproductive technologies, including those of sex selection. The paper also concludes that the decisions of both Hindu and Muslim lower-middle-class women to abort female babies is informed by their shared, pragmatic understanding of the economic realities of gender discrimination and of their social obligation as wives to reproduce a particular quality of patriarchal family.

Simple stability conditions of linear discrete time systems with multiple delay

In this paper we have established a new Lyapunov-Krasovskii method for linear discrete time systems with multiple time delay. Based on this method, two sufficient conditions for delay-independent asymptotic stability of the linear discrete time systems with multiple delays are derived in the shape of Lyapunov inequality. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the present approach.

The ethics of everyday practice in primary medical care: responding to social health inequities

BackgroundSocial and structural inequities shape health and illness; they are an everyday presence within the doctor-patient encounter yet, there is limited ethical guidance on what individual physicians should do. This paper draws on a study that explored how doctors and their professional associations ought to respond to the issue of social health inequities.ResultsSome see doctors as bound by a notion of care that is blind to a patient's social position, while others respond to this issue through invoking notions of justice and human rights where access to care is a prime focus. Both care and justice orientations however conceal important tensions linked to the presence of bioethical principles underpinning these. Other normative ethical theories like deontology, virtue ethics and utilitarianism do not provide adequate guidance on the problem of social health inequities either.ConclusionThis paper explores if Bauman's notion of "forms of togetherness" provides the basis of a relational ethical theory that can help to develop a response to social health inequities of relevance to individual physicians. This theory goes beyond silence on the influence of social position of health and avoids amoral regulatory approaches to monitoring equity of care provision.

Making ‘good girls’: sexual agency in the sexuality education of low-income black girls

Critics argue that abstinence-only programmes reinforce gender inequality when they contain discourses that equate being a ‘good girl’ with sexual restraint. Yet they too often overlook how racial and class inequalities shape discourses about girls' sexual agency. This ethnography extends gender scholarship by analysing the racialised, classed and gendered dynamics of an abstinence-only programme for low-income black girls. It finds that black adults viewed the girls as sexually vulnerable because of racism and class inequality. They tried to mediate this vulnerability by transforming girls into sexual agents. They did so, though, by exaggerating the gendered discourses of the official sexuality education curricula that framed girls as victims and their sexual restraint as a matter of morality. Thus, the programme reinforced gender inequality while trying to disrupt race and class inequalities.

Mapping global inequalities: Beyond income inequality to multi‐dimensional inequalities

AbstractCurrent discussions of global inequality are trapped by their core reliance on measures of income. While our field has become ever‐knowledgeable on poverty's multi‐faceted nature (e.g. the Human Development Index, based on Sen and other's work on the capabilities approach), discussions and debates over global inequalities give short shrift to measurements and understandings of inequality beyond income. The papers in this issue all lend insight to how we may start the long‐term process of moving beyond income inequality to re‐think common understandings of inequality and to present new questions and opportunities in order to work towards a fuller understanding of the shape and pathways of global inequalities. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Magnitude and shape of income inequalities in hospitalization for all causes in Italy

Background: Few of the studies that have evaluated the impact of income on health and health services utilisation have been conducted in southern Europe and have focused on the shape of the relationship. This study aimed at evaluating the hospitalisation gradient by small area income and to analyse its shape, with data from four large Italian cities. Methods: Census tract (median 260 residents) median per capita income was computed through record linkage between 1998 national tax and local population registries in the cities of Rome, Turin, Milan and Bologna (total population of approximately 5.5 million). Census tract median income was assigned to general acute hospital discharges in the period 1997-2000 among residents in the cities, on the basis of the patient’s residence. Within each stratum defined by gender and age group (0-64, 65+), standardised hospital discharge rates were computed for quantiles of census tract median income. A segmented non-linear model was fitted to discharge rates across percentiles, as function of median value of census tract median income in each percentile. Results: This study showed an inverse gradient in hospitalizations with increasing small area income. A less marked decrease in the standardised discharge rates was shown above approximately €12,000 census tract median per capita income, for both males and females and for the two age-groups considered. Conclusions: Small area income seems to have a strong association with hospitalisation, acting through a differential occurrence of diseases and/or access to health services. Among the wealthiest persons, the results suggest the diminishing return of health and/or appropriateness of health care with increasing income.

RACE/ETHNICITY, PERCEIVED DISCRIMINATION, AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE MEANING OF AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY

AbstractThis paper explores how race/ethnicity and perceptions of racial discrimination and inequality shape beliefs about the implications of an Obama presidency for U.S. race relations. Specifically, using data from a June/July 2008 Gallup/USA Todaysurvey, we examine how African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites differ in their perceptions of the importance of an Obama victory and in beliefs about the implications of such for race relations, racial progress, and opportunities for Blacks in their careers and in national politics. We also examine how perceptions of the extent and nature of racial discrimination and inequality shape these outcomes (overall and by race/ethnicity). Results show that African Americans, relative to Whites and Hispanics, are especially likely to see an Obama victory as important and meaningful in terms of relatively abstract notions of racial change. In contrast, Hispanics are more likely than African Americans and Whites to believe that an Obama win will translate into concrete societal changes, such as expanded opportunities for Blacks in work and politics. In addition, perceived discrimination and inequality positively shape all of the outcomes under study (more perceived discrimination equals more importance and optimism attached to an Obama win), though this association is especially strong amongWhites—a pattern possibly rooted in divergentmeaningsattached to perceived discrimination and inequality by race/ethnicity. Overall, our findings suggest that African Americans view an Obama victory as meaningful primarily because of its symbolic significance, rather than because they believe it will result in substantive racial progress. We conclude by offering some speculation and selected questions for future research on race and U.S. politics.

Processes of Knowledge Production in Social Movements as Multi‐level Power Dynamics

AbstractMost literature related to the study of processes of knowledge production within social movements neglects how power relations between participants rooted on structural inequalities shape such processes. It also underestimates how such inequalities and the very dynamics of movements intersect in the setting up of the ‘boundaries’ of ‘insidership’ and ‘outsidership’, as well as of the terms implicit in different forms of participation. This article makes a review of theoretical and methodological literature that is relevant to the study of processes of knowledge production within social movements. Based on that review, it proposes the concept of ‘multi‐level power dynamics’ as a tool for future research on the way in which such processes are shaped by power relations between movement members endowed with, or experiencing a differentiated access to different forms of knowledge, as well as with actors within the state and networks promoting the diffusion of ideas and strategies.

The shape of inequality: Racial disparities in age‐specific mortality

There are significant mortality disparities across racial and socioeconomic (SES) groups. Although the mechanisms behind these disparities remain vague, there is a clear connection between the mortality disparities across racial and SES groups. It is less clear, though, if the relationship between SES and racial mortality disparities varies across the life course. Prior research indicates that both racial and SES mortality disparities decline over the life course. These results suggest that if we standardize mortality rates for age‐variation in the SES‐mortality relationship, then the age‐pattern of racial mortality disparities will be attenuated. Using data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, I analyze the relationship between SES and racial disparities in age‐specific mortality among adults aged 25 and over. The results suggest that racial differences in SES are most important early in the adult life, and are minimally related to the convergence in racial mortality disparities at the oldest ages.