Article

Double Jeopardy?: The Interaction of Gender and Race on Earnings in the United States

March 2008
Social Forces 86(3):1217-1244

DOI:10.1353/sof.0.0008

Authors:

There are sizeable earnings differentials by gender and race in the U.S. labor market, with women earning less than men and most racial/ethnic minority groups earning less than whites. It has been proposed in the previous literature that the effects of gender and race on earnings are additive, so that minority women suffer the full disadvantage of each status. We test this proposition for a broad range of minority groups in the United States. We find that women of all minority groups suffer a smaller gender penalty than white women (relative to same-race men). Exploring the potential role of racial variation in gender role specialization in producing such differentials, we find some empirical evidence suggesting that white families specialize more than families of most other races.

Race, Gender, and Nativity in the Southwest Economy: An Intersectional Approach to Income Inequality

Article

Full-text available

May 2023
POPUL RES POLICY REV

Economic inequality in the U.S. is significantly influenced by the integration trajectory of diverse immigrant and racial/ethnic minority groups. It is also increasingly clear that these processes are uniquely gendered. Few studies, however, jointly and systematically consider the complex ways in which race/ethnicity, gender, and nativity intersect to shape minority men’s and women’s economic experiences, and an intersectional understanding of these processes remains underdeveloped. To address this gap, we blend insights from assimilation, stratification, and intersectionality literatures to analyze 2015–2019 American Community Survey data. Specifically, we examine income inequality and group-level mobility among full-time working whites, Blacks, Native Americans, and Asian and Latino subgroups representative of the Southwest—the first U.S. region to reach a majority-minority demographic profile. Sociodemographic and human capital attributes generally reduce group-level income deficits, and we observe a robust pattern of economic mobility among native-born generations. But most groups remain decisively disadvantaged. Persistent income gaps signal multitiered racial/ethnic-gender hierarchies in the Southwest and suggest exclusion of minority men and women. Additionally, race/ethnicity and gender have an uneven impact on the relative position and progress observed among both U.S.- and foreign-born generations. Such findings support an intersectional approach and demonstrate the complex interplay of multiple axes of inequality that together shape contemporary U.S.- and foreign-born men’s and women’s economic experiences and returns.

Patterns of Earnings and Employment by Worker Sex, Race, and Ethnicity Using State Administrative Data: Results from a Sample of Workers Connected to Public Assistance Programs

Article

Jul 2022

During the strong economic conditions that predated the COVID-19 pandemic, many US workers, especially females and individuals of color, suffered from economic vulnerability. Despite growing research attention, we lack an understanding of how the prevalence and patterns of earnings and job instability vary with worker characteristics, particularly at the intersections between sex and race/ethnicity. This study uses longitudinal administrative data from a large, diverse state from 2015 through 2018 to document changes in earnings and jobs. We then examine variation in the size, frequency, and direction of these changes by worker sex and race/ethnicity among a subsample of workers who are connected to the public welfare system. Results indicate that, as expected, workers who are connected to the public welfare system experienced higher levels of economic vulnerability, but with substantial racial/ethnic and sex differences. As a consequence, a large number of workers—disproportionately those of color—were experiencing high levels of economic instability during a period of strong economic growth. Our findings have implications for policy and practice strategies.

“Making it Work: Migration, Motherhood and Employment in Australia”

Article

Apr 2020

The transition into motherhood is often associated with a reduction in women’s labor force participation, reinforcing gender employment hierarchies. Our study compares women’s employment status and paid work time prior to and following birth among immigrants and native-borns in Australia. We also consider how these outcomes differ by generation status and racial and ethnic background. Australia provides a valuable context to understand these outcomes given its skilled-migrant policy, racial and ethnic diversity, limited childcare and family leave policies, and high rates of part-time work among mothers. We examine longitudinal data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) for 80,652 observations from 10,724 women from 2001- 2016. We find that migrant women show lower employment levels and commensurate work hours than native-borns prior to childbirth. After childbirth, migrant mothers maintain lower employment levels, but higher work hours than native-born mothers. Overall, we find that relative to native-borns, migrant women typically experience a smaller reduction in employment and work hours following childbirth, but some of this is likely due to their lower starting position prior to childbirth. Our findings have implications for skilled immigration policies and highlights the unique work-family pressures facing immigrant and native-born women.

Intersections and Commonalities: Using Matching to Decompose Wage Gaps by Gender and Nativity in Germany

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022
WORK OCCUPATION

We investigate intersecting wage gaps by gender and nativity by comparing the wages between immigrant women, immigrant men, native women, and native men based on Western German survey data. Adding to the analytical diversity of the field, we do a full comparison of group wages to emphasize the relationality of privilege and disadvantage, and we use a nonparametric matching decomposition that is well suited to address unique group-specific experiences. We find that wage (dis)advantages associated with the dimensions of gender and nativity are nonadditive and result in distinct decomposition patterns for each pairwise comparison. After accounting for substantial group differences in work attachment, individual resources, and occupational segregation, unexplained wage gaps are generally small for comparisons between immigrant women, immigrant men, and native women, but large when either group is compared to native men. This finding suggests that the often presumed “double disadvantage” of immigrant women is rather a “double advantage” of native men.

Beyond measurement of the motherhood penalty: How social locations shape mothers' work decisions and stratify outcomes

Article

Full-text available

May 2022

Sarah Deming

Despite the shrinking of the gender wage gap, women with children continue to experience earnings and career disadvantages that women without children do not experience. This review first summarizes how the severity of the “motherhood penalty” is influenced by a woman's marital status and class in ways that perpetuate existing inequalities. Next, it outlines how the same factors also play salient roles in determining women's workforce behaviors upon transitioning to motherhood, largely dictating the extent to which women's earnings and careers are negatively impacted by the arrival of children. After establishing the stratified lines upon which mothers' decisions are made, and the disparate financial ramifications of their decisions, the paper concludes with a call for future research into the mechanisms that propel mothers' labor market decisions.

Returns in the Labor Market: A Nuanced View of Penalties at the Intersection of Race and Gender in the US

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2022

There have been decades of research on wage gaps for groups based on their socially salient identities, such as race and gender, but little empirical investigation on the effects of holding multiple identities. Using the Current Population Survey, this study provides new evidence on intersectionality and the wage gap in the US. This article makes two important contributions. First, there is no single “gender” or “race” wage penalty. Second, the evidence suggests that holding multiple identities cannot readily be disaggregated in an additive fashion. Instead, in a comparison of Black and White workers across gender, this study documents that the penalties associated with the combination of two or more socially marginalized identities interact in multiplicative or quantitatively nuanced ways. Further, the findings demonstrate that the presence of an additional intersectional penalty for Black women persists across time. HIGHLIGHTS • When it comes to earnings, Black women face distinctive penalties for holding their race and gender identities simultaneously. • The intersectional wage gap persists across time and during both tight and slack labor markets. • The unexplained portion of the wage gap has contracted from 1980–2017; however, it remains large and significant. • Intersectional analysis provides a useful framework to disentangle nuances in the labor market.

State Work-Family Contexts and the Wage Gap by Gender and Parenthood

Article

Apr 2022
FAM RELAT

Eiko Strader

Objective: This article examines the association between state-level work-family resources and earnings disparity by gender and parenthood. Background: The wage gap between childless men and women in the United States has narrowed, but the gap between mothers and fathers remains robust. Gendered division of labor and reduced labor force participation of women around childbirth have been raised as underlying causes. In the absence of national support, some states and migrant domestic workers have been filling the care gap, but it is unclear whether these factors are associated with the wage gap. Method: Individual-level data from the 2012 American Community Survey were merged with state-level data collected for 2010. Multilevel linear regression models were used to explore variation in earnings across states, accounting for compositional differences and selection into the labor force. Results: Temporary Disability Insurance, which enables new birth mothers to take paid leave, was robustly associated with narrower gaps between mothers and fathers. Unpaid private-sector leave expansion and more intensive globalization of domestic work were associated with narrower gender wage gaps among parents with lower education. Provision of Head Start supplemental funding was associated with narrower wage gaps between mothers and fathers with higher education. Conclusions: Although mothers earned more in states with more work-family resources, the wage gap remained mostly unchanged because fathers similarly earned more in states with better work-family context. Implications: The results reflect the fragmented and incomplete nature of work-family support in the United States and calls for more comprehensive intervention strategies to reduce the wage gap.

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

Article

Jan 2022

The 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.

Parents' Perceived Neighborhood Safety and Children's Internalizing Symptoms: Race and Socioeconomic Status Differences

Article

Mar 2021

Shervin Assari

Background: In the United States, due to residential segregation, racial minorities and families with low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to live in less safe neighborhoods than their White and high SES counterparts. As such, in the US, race and SES closely correlate with neighborhood safety. Due to the high chronicity of stress in unsafe neighborhoods, perceived neighborhood safety may be a mechanism through which race and SES are linked to children's mental health. Simultaneously, race and SES may alter the effects of perceived neighborhood safety on children's mental health. Aim: To explore racial and SES differences in the effects of neighborhood safety on children's internalizing symptoms, we compared racially and SES diverse groups of American children for the effects of parents' perceived neighborhood safety on children's internalizing symptoms. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 10484 children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Mixed-effects regression was used for data analysis. The predictor variable was parents' perceived neighborhood safety which was treated as a continuous measure. The primary outcome was children's internalizing symptoms reported by children. Race, parental education, household income, and family structure were moderators. Results: Overall, the parents' high neighborhood safety was associated with lower levels of internalizing symptoms in children. Race and household income showed statistically significant interactions with subjective neighborhood safety on children's internalizing symptoms. Parents' perceived neighborhood safety showed a stronger inverse association with children's internalizing symptoms for Black than White families. Parents' perceived neighborhood safety showed a stronger inverse association with children's internalizing symptoms for high income than low-income families. Parental education or family structure did not show any significant interaction with parents' perceived neighborhood safety on children's internalizing symptoms. Conclusion: The degree to which neighborhood safety may be associated with children's internalizing symptoms may depend on race and household income. Some of the effects of race and SES on children's mental health outcomes may be due to interactions with contextual factors such as neighborhood safety. More research is needed on why and how diverse racial and SES groups differ in the association between perceived neighborhood safety and children's well-being.

Social Identity and STEM Choice: Evidence from Higher Secondary Schooling in India

Article

Jan 2021

Intersectionality as a Regulative Ideal

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2020

INVESTIGATING THE DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVITY OF WORK TIME AND PUBLIC SCHOOLING FUNDS

Thesis

Full-text available

Apr 2019

Dariya Ainekova

The first essay of the dissertation investigates whether earnings inequality prevailing within a narrowly defined occupation helps predict how hard a person will work on a random day on his job. To the degree that inequality within occupation is found to influence work effort, I also investigate the possible asymmetry in the effects of earnings inequality on work effort. I document that more unequally paying occupations motivate workers to work harder on the job. I also find that, in line with predictions of tournament model, it is the inequality above, rather than below, the median of the earnings distribution that helps motivate the average salaried worker to expend greater work effort. The second essay documents that men and women respond differently to competitive-based incentives in the form of potential earnings prospects. I find that whereas a male worker’s effort is driven by potentially better earnings prospects in the form of greater upper-half inequality within his occupation, the average salaried female worker is motivated to work harder when she faces potentially inferior earnings prospects in the form of wider lower-tail inequality in her occupation. I also revisit the sources of unexplained racial gaps in work effort documented by Hamermesh et al. (2017) and find that a minority male worker underinvests in work effort because he does not respond to the labor market competitive incentives prevailing in his occupation at par with the average majority male worker. Had the average minority worker responded to better earnings prospects in the form of upper-tail inequality and greater expected earnings within his occupation similarly to majority male workers, there would be no such gap observed. The third essay evaluates the effectiveness of public schooling funds use over time and across states. I exploit variations in the state-level effectiveness scores and educational outcomes to document that statewide policies such as statewide requirements for public school teacher certification and greater opportunity of school choice are positively associated with the greater effectiveness of public school funds. I also find that states with more unequal distribution of public school funds are less efficient in achieving greater student outcomes.

Theorising immigrant integration: a critical examination

Chapter

Full-text available

Nov 2023

This chapter examines the main theories on immigrant integration and assimilation, and theories beyond integration and assimilation. Rather than favouring one theory over another a priori, we seek to understand each theory on its own terms in order to illuminate key assumptions and hypotheses. The main finding is that most leading theories on immigrant integration, assimilation and theories beyond integration and assimilation are built on questionable premises and postulates. All but two of the discussed theories are based on postulates of structural conflicts and all but two consider the abolishment of the capitalist production system as needed to achieve integration, assimilation, inclusion and coexistence. In liberal democracies with a capitalist production system such ideological constructs face difficulties to serve as beacons in policy making when addressing challenges related to integration, assimilation, inclusion and coexistence.

The economic disparity between Hispanic and non‐Hispanic White households: An analysis of middle‐class achievement

Article

May 2023

We utilize data from the 2010–2019 Consumer Expenditure Surveys to examine middle‐class achievement of English‐speaking and non‐English‐speaking Hispanic households compared to non‐Hispanic white households in the United States. Using an innovative expenditure‐based middle‐class measure, our findings show that non‐English‐speaking Hispanics lag English‐speaking Hispanics, and English‐speaking Hispanics lag whites, in middle‐class attainment. We also identify significant structural differences among the three groups, particularly in how education, marriage, and employment affect middle‐class achievement. Non‐English‐speaking Hispanics have a lower rate of return on education compared to both whites and English‐speaking Hispanics. Non‐English‐speaking Hispanics experience lower marriage and employment premiums compared to their English‐speaking Hispanic counterparts, and English‐speaking Hispanics experience lower marriage and employment premiums compared to whites. This study contributes to the literature by introducing the innovative expenditure‐based middle‐class measure and emphasizing the importance of considering within‐group differences among Hispanics to reduce the Hispanic‐white economic disparity.

Language Used at Home and Educational-Occupational Mismatch of Migrants by Gender

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2023
SOC INDIC RES

The ability of migrants to use the host country's language is crucial to their integration. Nonetheless, the association between migrant literacy and their labor market outcome is less explored compared to the association between their educational attainment and their economic integration. Moreover, this ability has another vital role in immigrant assimilation, serving as an indicator of cultural capital. The current study, therefore, examines the extent to which language as cultural capital shapes gender differences in migrant economic integration, as measured by educational-occupational mismatch (EOM). Using the PIAAC 2018 dataset, we employ a series of nested fixed-effect linear models in which our dependent variable is years of over-education and study the effect of language use at home, controlling for linguistic competence in the host country language. We find that once controlling for educational level, migrant men who use a different language than the host country's language at home are not more prone to EOM. However, migrant women, who are at higher risk of EOM, suffer even more when using a foreign language at home. We suggest that using a foreign language at home for women might indicate low host-country-specific cultural capital, which could directly affect migrant women's integration into the labor market.

Comparing the Effects of Class Origins versus Race in the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Building upon prior research on intergenerational income mobility, we assess class effects versus racial effects on the probability of becoming a poor adult, broken down by gender. We define the class effect (for each race-and-gender group) as the difference between the probability that a person who was born into the lowest income quintile becomes poor and the probability that a person who was born into the highest income quintile becomes poor. For each minority-by-gender group, using Whites as the baseline, the racial effect is defined as the average racial differential in the probability of becoming a poor adult, irrespective of class origins. The results indicate that, for all minority-by-gender groups, the class effect is larger than the racial effect. Our findings underscore the continuing significance of the comparatively large effects of class origins, which have not been adequately acknowledged in recent research.

Gender differences in the association between environment and psychosis

Article

Full-text available

May 2022
SCHIZOPHR RES

Various environmental exposures have been associated with psychosis spectrum disorder. However, the role of gender in this association has received little attention. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to evaluate gender-related differences and identified 47 research articles investigating the associations of psychosis with childhood adversity, substance use, urbanicity, migration, season of birth, and obstetric complication in the PubMed database. The findings suggest that childhood abuse may be more strongly associated with a risk to develop psychosis and an earlier age at onset of illness in women than in men. Furthermore, childhood adversity has been associated with the severity of different symptom dimensions in men and women. Growing up in an urban environment and immigration are more strongly associated with psychosis risk in men than in women. Despite a higher prevalence of substance abuse comorbidity in men diagnosed with psychotic disorders, it appears that the association between substance use and psychosis risk may be stronger in women. These findings should be evaluated with caution considering several methodological limitations, limited number of studies, and lack of consistency across results. Overall, although further investigation is needed, our review shows that gender-related differences in the associations of environmental exposures with psychosis expression may exist.

Superwoman Schema, Racial Identity, and Cellular Aging Among African American Women

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022
GERONTOLOGIST

Background and objectives: African American women experience faster telomere shortening (i.e., cellular aging) compared to other racial-gender groups. Prior research demonstrates that race and gender interact to influence culturally-specific norms for responding to socially-relevant stress and other stress-coping processes, which may impact healthy aging. Research design and methods: Data are from African American Women's Heart & Health Study participants who consented to DNA extraction (n = 140). Superwoman Schema (SWS) was measured using five validated subscales: presenting strength, emotion suppression, resisting vulnerability, motivation to succeed, and obligation to help others. Racial identity was measured using three subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity: racial centrality, private regard, and public regard. Relative telomere length (rTL) was measured using DNA extracted from blood samples. Path analysis tested associations and interactions between SWS and racial identity dimensions with rTL. Results: For SWS, higher resistance to being vulnerable predicted longer telomeres. For racial identity, high private regard predicted longer telomeres while high public regard predicted shorter telomeres. Interactions were found between public regard and two SWS dimensions: among women with high public regard, emotion suppression (ß = .20, p < .05) and motivation to succeed (ß = .18, p < .05) were associated with longer rTL. The interaction between high centrality and emotion suppression predicted shorter rTL (ß = .17, p <.05). Discussion and implications: Culturally-specific responses to gendered racism and racial identity, developed early in life and shaped over the lifecourse, are important psychosocial determinants of cellular aging among African American women.

Mind the Gap: An Analysis of Physical Therapist Earnings in the United States by Male/Female Sex

Article

Jan 2022

Objective Earnings discrepancies between male and female health and medical professionals are well documented. The purpose of this study was to examine the distribution of physical therapist earnings using a quartile regression approach to determine the nature of the gender-based differences in earnings between male and female physical therapists in the United States, with “gender” as defined by the dataset as being male or female. Methods This observational study used data from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year public use microdata file. The file contained 12,123 physical therapist cases weighted to an estimate of the physical therapist active workforce of 238,221 (95% CI = 232,587–243,855). To analyze the influence of gender on earnings, a multivariable quantile regression approach was used, in which physical therapist earnings were the dependent variable and the variables representing the geographic distribution, social characteristics, and employment characteristics were the independent variables. Results In 2018 dollars, the average annual earnings of a physical therapist were $73,444.98 (95% CI = $72,498.19–$74,391.11) with a median value of $71,735.09. Differences in male and female earnings were evident in both the unadjusted bivariable and in the adjusted values produced by the quartile regression. The ratios of female-to-male earnings at each quartile were 0.89, 0.90, and 0.89. When age of the earner is accounted for, male physical therapists earned more than female therapists in both the 30 to 54 year age group and the ≥55-year age group. In the youngest age group of earners under 30 years of age, the differences were substantially smaller. Conclusions Gender differences in income persist across the distribution of earnings resulting in female physical therapists earning approximately 10% less than their male counterparts. The differences are most distinct as physical therapists advance in their careers.

A data framework for assessing social inequality and equity in multi‐sector social, ecological, infrastructural urban systems: Focus on fine‐spatial scales

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022
J IND ECOL

Cities are increasingly advancing multiple societal goals related to environmental sustainability, health, well-being, and equity. However, there are few comprehensive data sets that address social inequality and equity across multiple infrastructure sectors, determinants, and outcomes, particularly at fine intra-urban spatial scales. This paper: (1) Offers an overarching conceptualization of inequality and equity in multi-sector urban systems; (2) Introduces a broad data framework to assess inequality and equity across social (S), ecological (E), infrastructural (I), and urban (U) form determinants (SEIU) and environment (E), health (H), well-being (W), and economy and security (E) outcomes (EHWE), identifying a universe of >110 SEIU–EHWE data layers (variables) of interest; (3) Provides an illustrative data case study of a US city that synthesizes publicly available sources of the associated SEIU–EHWE data attributes, noting their availability/gaps at fine spatial scales, important to inform social inequality; (4) Discusses analytic methods to quantify inequality and spatial correlates across SEIU determinants and EHWE outcomes; and, (5) Demonstrates several use-cases of the data framework and companion analytic methods through real-world applied case studies that inform equity planning in applications ranging from energy sector investments to air pollution and health. The US data case study reveals data availability (covering 41 of the 113 data layers) as well as major gaps associated with EHWE outcomes at fine spatial scales, while the application examples demonstrate practical use. Overall, the SEIU–EHWE data framework provides an anchor for systematically gathering, analyzing, and informing multiple dimensions of inequality and equity in sustainable urban systems.

Immigrants in skilled occupations in Brazil: Assessing the factors impacting wages

Chapter

Full-text available

Nov 2021

Renan Canaan

The gravity model of immigration advocates that immigrants rationally weigh up the attractiveness of host countries to make their destination choice, being earnings levels and wage discrimination the main positive and negative drivers respectively. Giving that Brazil faces a shortage of human capital, understanding these factors in the Brazilian context is essential to design more attractive migration policies. Therefore, this chapter aims to assess the factors impacting earnings of immigrants in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) occupations in Brazil. Findings demonstrate there is no evidence of wage discrimination between immigrants and native-born Brazilians. Moreover, the analysis points that immigrants, just like Brazilians, face a historical system of income discrimination based on gender and ethnoracial hierarchies. Therefore, to enhance the attraction of skilled foreign labour force and bring economic development to the country, Brazilian immigration policy should target active mechanisms that ensure equal paying.

The labor market integration of immigrant women in Europe: context, theory, and evidence

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2021

In this overview, we seek to provide a comprehensive resource for scholars of female immigrant labor market integration in Europe, to act both as a reference and a roadmap for future studies in this domain. We begin by presenting a contextual history of immigration to and within Europe since the Second World War, before outlining the major theoretical assumptions about immigrant women’s labor market disadvantage. We then synthesize the empirical findings from quantitative studies published between 2000 and 2020 and analyze how they line up with the theoretical predictions. We supplement the review with descriptive analyses using data from 2019, which expose any discrepancies between the current situation in European countries and the situation during the time periods considered in the reviewed studies. Our review has three main take-aways. First, the theoretically relevant determinants of immigrant women’s labor market integration are generally supported by empirical evidence, but the unexplained heterogeneity that remains in many cases between immigrant women and other groups on the labor market calls for more systematic and comprehensive investigations. Second, quantitative studies which take a holistic approach to studying the labor market disadvantages of immigrant women—and all the considerations related to their gender and nativity that this entails—are rare in this body of literature, and future studies should address this. Third, fruitful avenues for future contributions to this field include expanding on certain overlooked outcomes, like immigrant women’s self-employment, as well as geographic regions that until now have received little attention, especially by employing the most recent data.

Parental Education Differently Boosts Health and Happiness of American Men and Women

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2020

Background: Parental educational attainment is a strong social determinant of health. Parental educational attainment may, however, be differently important for the health and happiness of various demographic groups. Aim: To understand if parental educational attainment is similarly salient for men and women, we tested gender differences in the association between parental educational attainment and health and happiness of American adults. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data of the General Social Survey (1972-2018), a series of nationally representative surveys in the United States. Our analytical sample included 65,814 adults. The main independent variable was parental education attainment. Outcomes were self-rated health and happiness measured using single items. Age, gender, marital status, employment, and year of the study were the covariates. Gender was the moderator. Results: Overall, individuals with more educated parents reported better self-rated health and happiness. We, however, found significant interactions between gender and parental educational attainment on the outcomes, which suggested that the effect of high parental educational attainment on self-rated health and happiness is larger for women than men. Conclusion: In the United States, while parental educational attainment is an important social determinant of health and happiness, this effect may be more pronounced among women than men.

The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second-Generation Nigerian and Other Black Americans: Evidence from the Current Population Survey, 2009 to 2019

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Second-generation black Americans have been inadequately studied in prior quantitative research. The authors seek to ameliorate this research gap by using the Current Population Survey to investigate education and wages among second-generation black Americans with a focus on Nigerian Americans. The latter group has been identified in some qualitative studies as having particularly notable socioeconomic attainments. The results indicate that the educational attainment of second-generation Nigerian Americans exceeds other second-generation black Americans, third- and higher generation African Americans, third- and higher generation whites, second-generation whites, and second-generation Asian Americans. Controlling for age, education, and disability, the wages of second-generation Nigerian Americans have reached parity with those of third- and higher generation whites. The educational attainment of other second-generation black Americans exceeds that of third- and higher generation African Americans but has reached parity with that of third- and higher generation whites only among women. These results indicate significant socioeconomic variation within the African American/black category by gender, ethnicity, and generational status that merits further research.

Migration and intergenerational stability in female employment: The impact of differences between sending and receiving countries

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Objective: This article studies the intergenerational stability of employment in families of immigrants cross-nationally by investigating to what extent contextual differences between sending and receiving countries affect the transmission of labour force participation from mothers to daughters. Background: It is often argued that a low level of labour force participation among female immigrants reflects gender norms inherited from the sending country, or, alternatively, that it is indicative of obstacles to social mobility in the receiving country. We seek to add to the existing research on this topic by providing evidence of differences between sending and receiving countries that systematically affect the labour market behaviour of female immigrants. Method: We use individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 35 receiving countries for a 14-year period (2004-2018) in combination with contextual data for 172 sending countries from 1960 to 2018. First, we provide an overview of employment rates and intergenerational employment stability for different combinations of sending and receiving contexts with respect to the labour force participation rates of female immigrants. Second, we corroborate our descriptive findings with multilevel models. Results: Our paper shows that there are changes in the levels of intergenerational employment stability among immigrants depending on the differences in the female labour force participation rates between the sending and the receiving countries. We find that when women migrate from countries with low female labour force participation rates to countries with high female labour force participation rates, their probability of participating in the labour force increases. However, we also find that the levels of intergenerational employment stability in this group are high. Conclusion: Intergenerational employment stability seems to be responsive to contextual differences between sending and receiving countries. We observe the highest levels of intergenerational stability in employment between mothers and daughters in families who migrated from countries with low female labour force participation rates to countries with high female labour force participation rates.

Effect of Financial Literacy on Starting a New Business: Using Survival Analysis to Examine Differences between Older and Younger Entrepreneurs

Article

Dec 2020

Felichism W. Kabo

Objective: This paper focuses on financial literacy as an antecedent to entrepreneurial involvement in order to examine and better understand differences between older and younger entrepreneurs. Financial literacy is the ability to apply the knowledge and skills needed to effectively manage financial resources over the life-course and is related to a wide range of economic outcomes. Methodology: The antecedence of financial literacy with respect to entrepreneurial engagement is examined using novel entrepreneurship data the United States. The study uses three waves (2014, 2016, and 2019) of complex survey data the Understanding America Study (UAS), a nationally representative and probability-based internet panel of households representing roughly 8,500 respondents ages 18 and older, and active since 2014. The data are used to generate survival curves using the Kaplan-Meier method, and to run survey linear and Cox proportional hazards regression models outcomes are starting a new business with respect to two time frames: over one’s lifetime, and since 2014. Results: The results show that there are associations between financial literacy and the rate of starting a new business both over one’s lifetime and since 2014, but only among older adults. Limitations: The study data were collected using a sample of adults in the United States which may limit the generalizability of the study findings to countries and regions other than the United States. Practical implications: This paper presents evidence that indicates that financial literacy is correlated with business start-up activities among older adults. This implies that financial literacy programs targeted at older adults may have an appreciable and significant multiplier effect.

The Gender-Race Intersection and the ‘Sheltering-Effect’ of Public-Sector Employment

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2021

Seeking to understand the role played by labor market structure in affecting economic inequality, we examine the extent to which the public sector, as compared to the private sector, differentially employs and rewards women, Blacks and subgroups classified by race and gender (e.g., Black women, Black men). Analyzing data from the American Community Survey (2014-2015), we find that public-sector employment is more attractive for Blacks than for women; Blacks’ odds of becoming public-sector employees are much higher than those of Whites, regardless of gender. No evidence was found for the argument that gender interacts with race in affecting the tendency to work in the public sector. As for wages, despite recent trends pointing to a decline in the advantages of the public sector for Blacks, it is still found to be more protective of Blacks, men and women alike. The meaning of the findings and their implications are discussed in light of structural barriers of gender and race inequality.

Earnings Differences among Senior University Administrators: Evidence by Gender and Academic Field

Article

Dec 2019

Colin F. Mang

This study examines earnings inequality by gender and academic field among senior university administrators, including presidents, vice presidents, associate and assistant vice presidents, and deans, using data from the Canadian province of Ontario. While a 4.4 percent earnings gap between male and female administrators is initially identified, much of the gap is explained by earnings inequality across academic fields and by the career experience of the administrators. Administrators who specialize in professional fields such as engineering, health sciences, law, and social work earn between 12 percent and 33 percent more than administrators who specialize in liberal fields in the humanities and social sciences.

Perspectives on social inclusion and exclusion in Nepal

Book

Full-text available

Mar 2014

What Explains Racial/Ethnic Inequality in Job Quality in the Service Sector?

Article

Jun 2020

Precarious work in the United States is defined by economic and temporal dimensions. A large literature documents the extent of low wages and limited fringe benefits, but research has only recently examined the prevalence and consequences of unstable and unpredictable work schedules. Yet practices such as on-call shifts, last minute cancellations, and insufficient work hours are common in the retail and food-service sectors. Little research has examined racial/ethnic inequality in this temporal dimension of job quality, yet precarious scheduling practices may be a significant, if mostly hidden, site for racial/ethnic inequality, because scheduling practices differ significantly between firms and because front-line managers have substantial discretion in scheduling. We draw on innovative matched employer-employee data from The Shift Project to estimate racial/ethnic gaps in these temporal dimensions of job quality and to examine the contribution of firm-level sorting and intra-organizational dynamics to these gaps. We find significant racial/ethnic gaps in exposure to precarious scheduling that disadvantage non-white workers. We provide novel evidence that both firm segregation and racial discordance between workers and managers play significant roles in explaining racial/ethnic gaps in job quality. Notably, we find that racial/ethnic gaps are larger for women than for men.

Mechanisms for hiring discrimination of immigrant applicants in the United States

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020

Purpose Few studies examine how hiring discrimination can be an antecedent to the labor exploitation of immigrant workers. The main purpose of this paper is to advance the theoretical understanding of how the intersectionality of race and immigrant status affects differential hiring treatment, and how it affects job offers, job acceptance and hiring decision outcomes for immigrant job seekers. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws from theories on status and intersectionality, and literature on immigration labor and racial hierarchy, addressing the unequal power relations that underlie race and immigration status affecting the hiring process, to advance critical understandings of why immigrant job seekers accept positions where they may be exploited. Findings This paper provides a conceptual model to critically synthesize the complexity between race and immigrant status, and their effect on the experience of immigrant job seekers differently. Exploitation opportunism is introduced to better understand the mechanisms of hiring discrimination among immigrant job seekers to include the role of race, immigrant status, economic motivations and unequal power relations on the hiring process. Practical implications The framework for exploitation opportunism will help employers improve the quality and fairness of their hiring methods, and empower immigrant job seekers to not allow themselves to accept subpar job offers which can lead to exploitation. Originality/value The paper provides an original analysis of immigrant job seekers' experience of the hiring process that reveals the intragroup differences among immigrants based on race and status, and the decision-making mechanisms that hiring managers and immigrant job seekers use to evaluate job offers and job acceptance.

The Complexity of Gender Inequality in the Segmented Labor Market: Differences in Gender Disadvantages between Regular and Non-regular Sectors

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the distinctive patterns of gender inequality in the primary and secondary labor markets in Korea. Previous studies analyzing the multiple disadvantages in the labor market tend to focus on comparing the size of the gender wage gap between groups. However, equating the gender gap with discrimination often results in a misleading conclusion underestimating the severe discrimination that women in minority positions experience. Using the wage gap decomposition method, this study analyzes the gender wage gap among regular workers and non-regular workers separately. The results demonstrate that the size of the gender wage gap is greater in the regular sector, but a sizable amount of the gap can be explained by the compositional difference between male and female workers. Additionally, among non-regular workers, the gender wage gap is relatively small, but most of the gap is caused by the within-job wage discrimination against women. These divergent patterns of gender inequality between regular and non-regular workers demonstrate a variation by firm size, and the pattern of "larger gap-smaller discrimination" seems to be most prevalent among the regular workforce in large firms (>300 workers). This demonstrates that the segmented labor market provides a structural condition to create the complexity of gender inequality, in which women experience different forms of disadvantage depending on their location in the labor market.

The state of play of ethno-racial representation on boards: A comparative analysis

Article

Sep 2023
Eur Manag J

Dimitria Groutsis

A Rationale for the Study of Intersectional Wage Discrimination

Chapter

Feb 2023

Roger White

We begin with a brief discussion of the relationship between social justice and economic justice. This is followed by a presentation of persistent differences in U.S. labor market outcomes. Specifically, we identify significant differences in unemployment rates and hourly wages across race- and sex-based classifications, respectively. We then present unadjusted wage gaps (i.e., raw differences in average hourly wage rates) for several worker groups that correspond to the non-productive personal characteristics we consider in this study. These characteristics include Hispanic ethnicity, nativity, race, and sex. Having motivated our study, we introduce intersectionality and our primary research question: Is wage discrimination intersectional? This is followed by a discussion of why we use the term “discrimination” when referring to differences in wage rates that cannot be explained by differences in workers’ productive characteristics. We conclude the chapter with a roadmap for the remainder of the book.

Caste, gender, and intersectionality in stream choice: evidence from higher secondary education in India

Article

Feb 2023

We investigate how social identity, namely gender and caste, affects stream choice at the higher secondary level of schooling in India. The choice of science stream at this level is a crucial determinant of subsequent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and labor market outcomes. Using nationally representative data spanning a decade, we show that females and individuals from historically disadvantaged castes are significantly less likely to study science. We analyze the role of various socio-economic and schooling-related factors in explaining these gaps. We also highlight the interplay between caste and gender using an intersectionality framework.

The double jeopardy of women with albinism in Ibadan, Nigeria: breaking the unemployment barrier

Article

Jan 2023

Albinism is an inherited genetic condition, which results in a decrease or absence of pigmentation in the hair, eyes, and skin. Studies on albinism in Africa have focused on a wide range of themes with little or no effort to capture the unique experiences of women with albinism, particularly in relation to their unemployment challenges. Here, we explore the unemployment challenges of women with albinism in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria. We found that rejection based on skin color, prejudicial notion that women with albinism have body odor, general notion of their incompetence because of impaired eyesight, and stereotypical adherence to myths that albinism is bad all contribute to their exclusion from the labor force. We conclude that women with albinism in Ibadan experience double jeopardy of economic marginalization and livelihood deprivation due to their condition of albinism on one hand, and their being women, on the other hand. • Points of interest • The article explores the lived experiences of women with albinism and barriers to their employment opportunities. • Although there is no written institutional policy to discriminate against women with albinism, there are unfounded assumptions driven by ignorance of the condition. • The article finds a two-fold challenge-being stigmatized for albinism and being a woman in a male centric society. While women with albinism in Nigeria are deprived access to white collar jobs, their entrepreneurial skills are also undermined in private business. • There is no genuine political will to implement existing international and national laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disability. • The research recommended the need to mainstream and monitor disability inclusion through education and advocacy across government ministries and human resource personnel in recruitment exercises.

The coping strategies of individuals in multiple jeopardy settings: the case of unemployed older women

Article

Nov 2022

This research investigates the harmful consequences of discrimination on self-esteem and examines the coping options of individuals belonging to several stigmatized groups (i.e., unemployed older women) within the multiple jeopardy perspective. Our sample comprised 420 individuals selected by age, gender and professional status. We tested whether the positive and negative links between discrimination and psychological distress induced by discrimination, would vary according to the number of disadvantaged categories individuals belong to. An analysis of the mediating role of some coping options was also conducted. Overall, the results support most of our hypotheses and suggest that the assumed impact of perceived discrimination on psychological outcome increase with the cumulation of discriminations. We also found that, among the various coping options used by individuals in our sample, commitment, but not age-group identification, mediated the links between the cumulated discrimination and self-esteem. The discussion addresses issues related to workplace discrimination in light of the multiple jeopardy perspective.

Privilege and hindrance on the USA earnings distribution by gender and race/ethnicity: an intersectional framework with 12 groups

Article

Nov 2022
INT J MANPOWER

Purpose This paper explores the wages of White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and “other race” women and men once differences in basic characteristics among these 12 groups are accounted for. The authors aim to extend comparisons beyond those of women and men of the same race or the various races within a given gender. Design/methodology/approach To undertake the conditional analysis, first, the authors propose a simple re-weighing scheme that allows to build a counterfactual economy in which workers' attributes for all gender–race/ethnicity groups are the same. Second, the authors use a well-known re-weighting scheme that involves logit estimations. Findings Only Hispanic men, Native American men and Asian women have conditional wages around average. Black men and, especially, White, Black, Hispanic, Native American and “other race” women have conditional wages clearly below average, whereas those of Asian and White men are well above average. The wage differential between a privileged and a deprived group is disentangled into the premium of the former and the penalty of the latter, which brings a new perspective to what has been done in the literature based on pairwise comparisons. In this intersectional framework, the authors document that gender penalizes more than race. Originality/value This paper examines intergroup earnings differentials using a methodology that allows to examine 12 gender–race/ethnicity groups jointly, which is this work's distinctive feature. The authors' intersectional framework allows to picture the effect of gender and race/ethnicity more broadly than what the literature has shown thus far.

APROXIMACIÓN A LA POBLACIÓN AFRICANA Y AFRODESCENDIENTE EN ESPAÑA Identidad y acceso a derechos

Book

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Worse than a double whammy: The intersectional causes of wage inequality between women of colour and White men over time

Article

May 2022

We evaluate the causes of the wage gap at the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender over time in the United States. We analyse the wage gaps for women of colour along three dimensions: relative to White women, relative to men of their respective race/ethnicity, and relative to White men. Using the American Community Survey, we replicate earlier findings based on the Current Population Survey data which show that, on average, Black women face an unexplained wage gap relative to White men that goes beyond the simple addition of the separate unexplained gender and racial wage gaps. This can be seen persistently between 1980 and 2019, and we find it is true across the entire wage distribution but especially notable at higher centiles. From 1990 through 2019, Black and Hispanic women saw stalled progress, while White women continued to make steady progress closing the wage gap relative to White men.

Multidimensional Discrimination in the Online Rental Housing Market: Implications for Families With Young Children

Article

Jan 2022

A half century after passage of the federal Fair Housing Act, studies continue to document racial discrimination in the housing market, which serves to reproduce racial inequality and residential segregation. Building on this work, we examine housing discrimination experienced by individuals belonging to multiple disadvantaged groups. Employing an online field experiment in 31 U.S. cities over 20 months, we investigate patterns of discrimination against female rental housing applicants at the intersections of race, ethnicity, family structure, and Section 8 housing voucher receipt. Consistent with prior work, we find discrimination against Black women and Section 8 recipients. We also find that only Black women and Latinas are penalized for being parents and for being single mothers to young children. Finally, examining the relevant policy landscape, we find evidence that state and local laws barring discrimination against Section 8 recipients may not be sufficient to protect voucher holders and their families and may instead prompt landlords to engage in subtler forms of discrimination (i.e., increased nonresponse). These findings reveal a dynamic pattern of multidimensional discrimination and support arguments for an intersectional approach to understanding and combatting inequality.

Beholding Inequality: Race, Gender, and Returns to Physical Attractiveness in the United States

Article

Jul 2021

Racial and gender pay disparities: The role of education

Article

May 2021
SOC SCI RES

We investigate whether white women, black women, and black men earn less than white men because of 1) lower educational attainment and/or 2) lower wage returns to the same levels and academic fields of attainment. Using the 1979–2012 waves of the American National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we examine how educational attainment and academic fields of study impact pay. Regression decompositions show that differences in attainment and in academic fields explain 13 to 23 percent of the racial pay gaps, but none of the gender pay gaps. Random effects models test for race and gender differences in the wage returns to education. Men of both races receive higher wage returns relative to women, while black women receive lower returns relative to all groups for master's degrees. Our intersectional approach reveals that equalizing educational attainment would reduce racial pay gaps, whereas equalizing wage returns to education would reduce gender pay disparities. Moreover, black women's earnings are multiply disadvantaged, both by their lower attainment relative to white women, and their lower returns to education relative to all groups studied.

How Do Religion and Sexual Orientation Affect Support for U.S. Presidential Candidates? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Article

Dec 2020

A growing body of research has examined how candidates’ religion or sexual orientation affect voting likelihood among the U.S. public. No systematic study, however, has focused on the combined effect of these traits. We draw on the intersectionality literature to develop and test hypotheses for this neglected, but important, combination. Results from an original survey experiment conducted in late June 2019 demonstrate that all respondents, as well as the Republican subgroup, tend to disapprove of a gay, religious candidate relative to other options (i.e., gay, nonreligious; straight, religious; and straight, nonreligious). Even Democrats expressed little support except when a straight, religious candidate was the alternative. Our findings underscore the need to study how overlapping—rather than discrete—traits influence political views and behaviors. They also raise important questions about the future of U.S. identity politics. Efforts to rally Republican and Democrat voters by mixing particular types of traits may not be a very effective strategy.

Upholding Success: Asian Americans, Egg Freezing, and the Fertility Paradox

Article

Oct 2020

Asian American women are turning to oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) at rates higher than would be expected, given that Asian Americans make up less than six percent of the total United States population. Based on ethnographic interviews with 23 women of East, Southeast, and South Asian ancestry, we examine the “fertility paradox” faced by highly educated Asian American professional women. Despite achieving multiple “pillars of success,” these women have difficulty finding educated partners with whom to pursue childbearing. Egg freezing offers feelings of empowerment and relief from pressure for Asian American women, holding open the possibility of future biogenetic motherhood.

Can Workers in Low-End Occupations Climb the Job Ladder?

Article

May 2019

There is growing concern over rising economic inequality, the decline of the middle class, and a polarization of the U.S. workforce. This study examines the extent to which workers in the United States transition from low-end to higher-quality occupations, and explores the factors associated with such a move up the job ladder. Using data covering the expansion following the Great Recession (2011-2017) and focusing on short-term (i.e., less than 1 year) labor market transitions, the authors find that just slightly more than 5% of workers in low-end occupations moved into a higher-quality occupation. Instead, around 70% of workers in low-end occupations stayed in the same occupation, 11% exited the labor force, 7% became unemployed, and 6% switched to a different low-end occupation. Study results point to the importance of educational attainment in helping workers successfully climb the job ladder.

Continuities in Transition: Ethnicity, Language and Labour Market Inequalities in Kyrgyzstan

Article

Jul 2020

Ethno‐racial and linguistic boundaries have major implications for socio‐economic well‐being throughout the world, yet their specific effects vary greatly across contexts. The countries that were once part of the Soviet Union have seen dramatic transformations yet also exhibited remarkable continuities from the socialist era. This article contributes to cross‐national evidence on the roots and expressions of ethno‐racial socio‐economic inequalities and on nation building and nationalism in the post‐Soviet context. It uses data from two identically designed nationally representative surveys conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2011 and 2017 to investigate patterns and trends in ethnic and linguistic disparities in employment by occupational type and economic sector and in earnings among men and women. The authors find that despite government policies to promote the advancement of the nation's titular majority, Kyrgyz, and to encourage the use of its language, the ethno‐linguistic economic inequalities inherited from the Soviet era — privileged positions of the European‐origin minority and of Russian‐speaking Kyrgyz — were still potently present in the earlier survey. While variations in types of occupation and employment sectors tended to diminish between the two surveys, the ethno‐linguistic differences in earnings remained very pronounced, even after controlling for other factors. The authors relate these findings to the extant scholarship and reflect on their implications for our understanding of post‐socialist transitions.

Partnership and Insomnia Status Among Mothers

Article

Jun 2020

Alexandra Kissling

Objective Mothers are particularly vulnerable to sleep disorders, such as insomnia (i.e., poor sleep quality more than three times per week). Background Partnership status (i.e., being married, formerly partnered, cohabiting, or lone) is predictive of other health outcomes via marital selection, protection, and crisis theories. However, research has yet to address whether mothers' risk of insomnia varies by their partnership status. Method Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a nationally representative and longitudinal cohort study (n = 1721), the primary aim of the present study is to test the association between partnership status and sleep. Further, given the association between race–ethnicity and partnership status, as well as race–ethnicity and sleep, this study also considers whether the association between mothers' partnership status and risk of insomnia varies by race and ethnicity. Results Logistic regression results suggest that married mothers are less likely than cohabiting and formerly partnered mothers to experience insomnia. No sleep differences were found when comparing among the unmarried groups. Conclusion When considering race and ethnicity, marriage is protective against insomnia among White and Hispanic mothers but not Black mothers. Implications This study illustrates one way in which partnership status contributes sleep problems in different ways for White, Black, and Hispanic women.

Family Migration and the Path to an Occupation: The (Early) Experiences of Skilled Taiwanese and Chinese ‘Wives’

Book

Full-text available

Jun 2020

Chieh Hsu

This book sheds light on the invisible early post-arrival period of female family migrants, traditionally considered to be low skilled or professionally quiescent. With attention to the experiences of Chinese and Taiwanese women married to German men, it examines the ways in which the private sphere—marked by intermarriage couple dynamics and native–foreigner relations—constitutes the main locus of women’s socialization in the host country, as interactions with their intimate partners in the family realm shape both their self-conceptions and their employment intentions. Based on interviews with migrant women and their spouses, the author outlines the subject positions that characterize female migrants’ attitudes to external constructs and entering the labor market, showing that female family migrants frequently take on family migrant and wife roles that permeate intimate relationships and impede employment intentions, but also often strive to realign with their pre-departure independent selves and thus regain agency. A study of gender dynamics and labor market entry among newly arrived female migrants, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in gender, migration, and work.

Widowhood and Mortality: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and the Role of Economic Resources

Article

Apr 2020
ANN EPIDEMIOL

Purpose We examine widowhood effects on mortality across gender and race-ethnicity, with attention to variation in the mediating role of economic resources. Methods Data were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2016). The analytic sample included 34,777 respondents aged 51 and older who contributed 208,470 person-period records. Discrete-time hazard models were estimated to predict the odds of death among white men, black men, Hispanic men, white women, black women, and Hispanic women separately. Karlson–Holm–Breen analysis was conducted to examine the mediating role of economic resources across groups. Results Across all gender and racial-ethnic subgroups, widowhood effects on mortality were largest for Hispanic men. Black women and Hispanic women also suffered stronger effects of widowhood on mortality than white women. For both men and women, economic resources were an important pathway through which widowhood increased mortality risk for whites and blacks but not for Hispanics. Conclusions Findings highlight that gender and race-ethnicity intersect with widowhood status to disadvantage some groups more than others. It is important to explore the complex pathways that contribute to the higher mortality risk of racial-ethnic minorities, especially Hispanic men, following widowhood so that effective interventions can be implemented to reduce those risks.

Race, Sex and Feminist Outlooks

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1983

From a national NORC sample, two hypotheses are tested that link combinations of race and gender with sex-role outlooks: 1) black males will be more sex-role traditional in outlook than white males and 2) black females will be more sex-role feminist than white females. These hypotheses are developed from a multiple hierarchy approach to stratification: intersections of race and gender create unique social aggregates, the life chances and experiences of which assume patterns that cannot be anticipated by simply adding the effects of race to those of gender. It is found that black males are more traditional in sex-role outlook than white males, especially so among those identifying themselves as middle class. However, black females are not consistently more feminist in sex-role outlook than white females. Interpretations for these findings are discussed.

The Wage Penalty for Motherhood

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2001

Motherhood is associated with lower hourly pay, but the causes of this are not well understood. Mothers may earn less than other women because having children causes them to (1) lose job experience, (2) be less productive at work, (3) trade off higher wages for motherfriendly jobs, or (4) be discriminated against by employers. Or the relationship may be spurious rather than causal; women with lower earning potential may have children at higher rates. Using 1982-1993 NLSY data, we examine the motherhood penalty with fixed-effects models chosen to avoid spuriousness. We find penalties of 7 percent per child. Penalties are larger for married women. We show that women with (more) children have less job experience; after controlling for this, a penalty of 5 percent per child remains. We examine whether potentially "mother-friendly" characteristics of the jobs held by mothers explain any of the penalty, but find little evidence of this beyond the tendency of more mothers to work part-time. The portion of the motherhood penalty we cannot explain probably results from effects of motherhood on productivity and/or from employers' discrimination against mothers. While the benefits of mothering diffuse widely, to the employers, neighbors, friends, spouses, and children of the adult who previously received the mothering, the costs are borne disproportionately by mothers.

The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2003

This review investigates scholarship on the intersection of race and gender, with a particular focus on the U.S. labor market. We ask the following questions: What assumptions underlie intersectional perspectives in sociology? Is there any evidence to demonstrate that race and gender intersect in the labor market? We begin by discussing the core assumptions within Black and multiracial feminist theories, which represent the most fully articulated treatments of "intersectionality." We then broaden our theoretical overview by identifying fundamental differences in the way that sociologists conceptualize intersectionality. We look for evidence of intersectionality in three central domains of research on labor market inequality: (a) wage inequality, (b) discrimination and stereotyping, and (c) immigration and domestic labor. We and that race and gender do intersect in the labor market under certain conditions. Finally, we consider how an intersectional approach enriches labor market research and theorizing about economic inequality.

Explaining Differences in Economic Performance Among Racial and Ethnic Groups in the USA.: The Data Examined

Article

Full-text available

Oct 1996
AM J ECON SOCIOL

By utilizing self-reported race and ancestry in the 1980 and 1990 USA censuses and the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, the extent of wage discrimination experienced by women and by men is examined across 50 ethnic/racial groups. Systematic evidence of negative discrimination is revealed in both census years for Asian, Indian, black (African-American), Vietnamese, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Native American males. To assess the charge that the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition indicates cultural rather than discriminatory differentials, two additional data experiments are performed—one that controls for color and varies culture, and one that controls for culture and varies color. Race appears to matter.

The Impact of Domestic Work on Men's and Women's Wages

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2001
J MARRIAGE FAM

Mary Noonan

Past research has consistently found that the negative relationship between housework and wages is stronger for women than for men. This article tests a potential explanation for this difference by focusing on the fact that men and women typically perform different types of household chores. Traditionally “feminine” and “masculine” task types are likely to interfere with work differently, because they vary as to when and how often they must be performed. Based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, fixed-effects regression results show that only time spent in female housework chores has a negative effect on wages. Furthermore, gender differences in the effect of housework disappear upon disaggregating housework into task types. This research suggests that a more equitable distribution of not only the amount, but also the type, of housework performed by men and women in the home may lead to a narrowing of the gender gap in wages.

Black-White Earnings Over the 1970s and 1980s: Gender Differences in Trends

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1992
REV ECON STAT

Using CPS data to analyze black-white earnings trends, the authors find that black women fared better than men in some respects but in other important respects their experience was similar. On the one hand, over the period as a whole, black women experienced increases in both annual earnings and estimated.wages compared to white women, while black men gained only in terms of wages compared to white men. Black women also made faster progress relative to white males than did black males. On the other hand, both groups experienced stagnating or declining earnings and wages relative to whites of the same sex during the 1980s, with younger blacks faring particularly poorly. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.

The Complexities and Potential of Theorizing Gender, Caste, Race, and Class

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2002
FEM ECON

Most economists have not yet grappled with the demands of intersectional scholarship, which recognizes the intertwined nature of gender, race, class, caste and other influences on the economic situation of individuals and groups. Among economists, feminist economists may have made the most progress and be best positioned to break further ground, though we can do better and much remains to be done. This article synthesizes the case for intersectional work, reviews the state of the economic literature, describes the contributions of the articles in this special issue of Feminist Economics on "gender, color, caste and class," and sketches directions for the future.

The Earnings of Women and Ethnic Minorities, 1959-1979

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1988

Using 1980 Census data, the authors present estimates of annual earnings equations for twelve ethnic and racial groups, by gender, for 1979, and compare their results with an earlier study's estimates for 1959 and 1969. All minority men and women except Asian Indian and Japanese men earned less than white men in the years for which data were available. The earnings gap for most groups of men and women, however, declined over those years, and the portion of that gap that might be assignable to discrimination (the unexplained "residual") also declined. A notable exception was white women, whose mean earnings relative to white men's changed little between 1969 and 1979, even when corrected for differences in productive characteristics. (Abstract courtesy JSTOR.)

Division of Household Work Between Partners: A Comparison of Black and White Couples

Article

Mar 1998

Using data from National Survey of Families and Households, division of household work by married/cohabiting partners is analyzed for White and Black couples. Black couples are found to be more egalitarian than their White counterparts in their performance of household work. When work hours for pay and household work hours are combined, however, Black women are found to be most disadvantaged. The explanatory power of the theoretical model utilizing each partner's resource contribution, time availability, and gender-role attitude is found limited for White couples and even more so for Black couples. Reasons for limited explanatory power of the model are discussed, emphasizing a symbolic meaning of performing household work for women and a possible inadequacy of individualistic assumptions made in this study as well as in many other studies of family research.

Effects of Individual, Occupational, and Industrial Characteristics on Earnings: Intersections of Race and Gender

Article

Jun 1994

Critics of the “women's agenda” in both research and policy have complained of its exclusive focus on the experiences of white women. They maintain that as a result of this focus, we know relatively little about the experiences of black women in the labor market compared to those of white women. This article concentrates on generalizations regarding the effects of experience, education, marital status, occupational characteristics, and industrial sector on earnings. To investigate how these variables interact with gender and race to affect pay, we use fixed effects on panel data (1966–81) from the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS). We use regression decomposition to ascertain (1) what factors explain the gender gap in earnings and whether these factors explain the same portion of this gap among blacks and whites, and (2) what factors explain the race gap in earnings and whether these factors explain the same portion of this gap among women and men.

Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race: Racial Differences in Early Career Wages

Article

Aug 1996

Over a decade ago, Wilson (1980) argued that race was declining in significance as a determinant of economic rewards. In response to his critics, he asserted that young Blacks in the 1970s were closing the earnings gap with their White counterparts; he gave no indication that he thought the trend toward racial parity in earnings would reverse. We tested Wilson's assertion by comparing the net effect of race on hourly wages for two cohorts of young workers. We also decomposed the racial gap in hourly wages into a discrimination component and a nondiscrimination component. Our samples were taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in 1976 and 1985. Contrary to Wilson's proposition, we show that: (1) The effect of race, net of controls, increased during this time, and (2) the proportion of the racial gap in hourly wages due to discrimination (i.e., not explained by racial differences in measured qualifications) increased between 1976 and 1985. We contend that the government's retreat from anti-discrimination initiatives in the 1980s resulted in organizational discrimination against Blacks and contributed to a reversal in the postwar trend toward racial parity in earnings.

Racial Differences in Men’s Attitudes About Women’s Gender Roles

Article

Feb 1995

This article investigates three aspects of male gender role development, using linked mother-son files from the young men and mature women cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys from the mid-1960s to 1981. The three aspects are: (a) race differences between African American and White men's attitudes about women's gender roles, (b) changes in gender role attitudes across time, and (c) maternal and life course influences on gender role attitudes. Our findings indicate that African American and White men differ in their attitudes about women's gender roles, that men's beliefs change across time, and that individual status and life course processes influence these attitudes of men. However, we do not find maternal influence on adult sons' attitudes.

Authority Hierarchies at Work: The Impacts of Race and Sex

Article

Dec 1993

This study investigates whether and how sex and race affect access to and rewards for job authority, using 1980 survey data for 1,216 employed workers. The authors examine whether, net of human-capital characteristics, sex and race affect access to and compensation for job authority. In addition, the authors examine whether the translation of credentials into authority and earnings varies depending on workers' sex or race.

Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology

Article

Oct 1988

Deborah K. King

The Effect of Marriage and Divorce on Women''s Economic Well-Being

Article

Dec 1999

Some social commentators and social scientists have called for the strengthening of divorce laws, a call based, in part, on the apparently strong economic advantage marriage holds for women and their children. We focus on the question of whether divorced women would-experience the same absolute levels of economic well-being by staying married as women who remain married experience. We also examine the argument that all women are economically vulnerable once marriage ends by examining whether the average married woman would, if she were to divorce, experience the same low levels of economic well-being as divorced women do. Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we estimate endogenous switching regression models that simultaneously predict the odds of divorce and subsequent economic well-being for women who divorce and for those who remain married Our calculations show that if divorced women were to remain married their economic well-being would improve substantially but would not attain the level of women who remain married: We also find that if married women were to divorce, their average level of economic well-being would be about the same as that of divorced women, supporting the view that women's economic vulnerability outside of marriage is ubiquitous.

Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home

Article

Nov 1994

Julie Brines

Why does housework remain ''women's work''? Some scholars argue that economic dependency compels wives to exchange unpaid labor for a share of the husband's income. Others claim that wives perform housework-and husbands avoid it-to enact symbolically their femininity or masculinity. This article examines both perspectives and finds that among wives the link between housework and the transfer of earnings in marriage complies with rules of economic exchange. However, the more a husband relies on his wife for economic support, the less housework he does. It appears that by doing less housework, economically dependent husbands also ''do gender.''

The Effect of Children on Women=s Wages

Article

Apr 1997

Jane Waldfogel

I use data from the 1968-1988 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to investigate the lower wages of mothers. In pooled cross-sectional models, difference models, and fixed-effects models, the negative effect of children on women's wages is not entirely explained by differences in labor market experience. I consider two alternative explanations for the residual penalties associated with having children: unobserved pay-relevant differences between mothers and non-mothers, which fixed-effects models show do not account for the child penalty; and part-time employment, which does account for some of the child penalty. However, even after controlling for part-time employment, a negative effect of children on women's pay remains.

Asian-Americans' Earnings Disadvantage Reexamined: The Role of Place of

Article

Mar 2004

Past research has reported that Asian-Americans, and Asian immigrants in particular, have lower earnings than do whites within the same levels of education. However, few studies have explored why this earnings disadvantage exists. This article investigates whether and to what extent this disadvantage can be attributed to the lower value of foreign education in the U. S. job market. By comparing earnings of four groups of workers - U. S.-born whites, U.S.-born Asian-Americans, U. S.-educated Asian immigrants, and Asian immigrants who completed education prior to immigration, we examine earnings gaps between whites and Asian-Americans that are attributable to race, nativity, and place of education. Our results show that ( 1) there is no earnings difference across U. S.-born whites, U. S.-born Asian-Americans, and U.S.-educated Asian immigrants, and that ( 2) foreign-educated Asian immigrants earn approximately 16% less than the other three groups of workers. We conclude that place of education plays a crucial role in the stratification of Asian-Americans, whereas race and nativity per se are inconsequential once place of education is taken into account.

Ethnic Variations in Perceptions of Men’s Provider Role

Article

Dec 1999

Relatively little research has examined current perceptions of men's provider role in light of widespread support for women's employment. This study examined attitudes toward provider role enactment and provider role responsibility and how such views varied by ethnicity, gender, demographic characteristics, immigration status, acculturation, and community economic conditions. Telephone interviews were conducted with 3,213 residents across 21 cities. The sample was 40% African American, 7% Mexican American, and 53% White. Though there was strong support for dual provider role enactment by female and male respondents, beliefs about men's responsibility for family provision displayed greater variability. Ethnic minorities, particularly less acculturated Mexican immigrants, were more likely than Whites to believe that men were responsible for making economic provisions. Favorable economic conditions for men were associated with a greater emphasis on male provider responsibilities among Mexican Americans and Whites, whereas the opposite was true for Blacks. Overall, the findings suggest that one's position in the socioeconomic structure and the economic potential for men in one's environment help shape these attitudes.

Feminist Attitudes and Support for Gender Equality: Opinion Change in Women and Men, 1974-1998

Article

Dec 2004
SOC FORCES

This article examines attitudes related to feminism and gender equality by evaluating the trends in, and determinants of, women and men's attitudes from 1974 to 1998. Past accounts suggest two clusters of explanations based on interests and exposure. Using these, we examine opinions on abortion, sexual behavior, public sphere gender roles, and family responsibilities. We find that attitudes have continued to liberalize and converge with the exception of abortion attitudes. The determinants of feminist opinion vary across domains, but have been largely stable. While not identical, the predictors of men and women's opinions are similar. The results suggest the need for more attention to the mechanisms underlying the production of feminist opinions and theoretical integration of both interests and exposure in a dynamic process.

Racial and Ethnic Variation in Gender-Related Attitudes

Article

Nov 2003

EMILY W. KANE

Research on how gender-related attitudes vary across racial/ethnic groups has produced contradictory results, depending upon the type of attitudes addressed. In this chapter, I review the literature on racial and ethnic variations in three broadly defined types of gender attitudes: attitudes toward gender roles; beliefs about the origins and extent of gender inequality; and preferences for social action to reduce gender inequalities. I address three racial/ethnic groups in the United States: African Americans, whites, and Hispanic Americans. While research on attitudes toward gender roles has yielded mixed results, research addressing attitudes within the other two domains clearly indicates greater criticism of genderinequality among African Americans relative to whites; research on the various groups often combined under the label Hispanic is too limited to draw any clear conclusions. Along with addressing variations across these three types of gender-related attitudes, I also summarize several other pat...

Sex Differences in Earnings in The United States

Article

Nov 2003

Margaret Mooney Marini

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge on sex differences in earnings in the United States. The paper has three sections. The first describes the phenomenon under consideration, reviewing what is known about the size of the wage gap, historical and life course variations in the wage gap, and race differences in the wage gap. The second section, which constitutes most of the paper, reviews explanatory theories advanced to account for the wage gap and the empirical evidence relevant to their evaluation. This section is divided into two principle parts. The first considers “supply-side” explanations that focus on the characteristics and decisions of individual workers. These include the human capital theory of economics and alternative views offered by sociologists and social psychologists that focus on processes of socialization and allocation and the operation of social networks. All of these explanations attribute the sex gap in earnings to differences in the qualifications, intentions, and att...

How Dual Are Dual‐Income Couples? Documenting Change From 1970 to 2001

Article

Jan 2006
J MARRIAGE FAM

Using Current Population Survey data for 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2001 (N =73,001), we document change in the prevalence of couples where (a) the wife contributes less than 40% of the family income, (b) income contributions are relatively equal, and (c) the wife's income contribution surpasses her husband's contribution. In 1970, close to 90% of couples had conventional earning arrangements: The husband was the sole provider in 56% of couples and contributed 60% or more of the income in an additional 31% of couples. By 2001, husbands were still the sole (25%) or major provider (39%) in a majority (64%) of couples but wives shared equally in providing income in 24% of couples, more than double the 9% in 1970. Additionally, wives as primary (or sole) earners increased from 4% to 12%. We investigate the associations between income provisioning within dual-income families and ongoing cohort replacement by younger couples, women's increased human capital, life course processes, couple's labor supply, and race. Our findings suggest that wives’ increased human capital and couple's labor supply were strongly associated with increased female breadwinning patterns, but age cohort replacement processes and life stage factors also played a role in explaining change over time.

More on the Cost of Being Other Than White and Male:

Article

Jan 1998
AM J ECON SOCIOL

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the estimated yearly earnings of white, black, and Hispanic males and white, black, and Hispanic females in order to determine two things: Whether white male earnings continue to exceed those of reference groups, and how the cost of being female (the gender effect) compares with the cost of being nonwhite (black or Hispanic). We find that white males earnings are still greater than those of other groups, but when earnings are adjusted for market related differences, most of the differentials for black and Hispanic (Mexican-American, Puerto-Rican) males disappear. Even after adjustment, however, a considerable portion of females earnings differentials remain unexplained. Gender effects are considerably larger than race or ethnic effects.

Marital Processes and Parental Socialization in Families of Color: A Decade Review of Research

Article

Nov 2000
J MARRIAGE FAM

Research published during the past decade on African American, Latino, and Asian American families is reviewed. Emphasis is given to selected issues within the broad domains of marriage and parenting. The first section highlights demographic trends in family formation and family structure and factors that contributed to secular changes in family structure among African Americans. In the second section, new conceptualizations of marital relations within Latino families are discussed, along with research documenting the complexities in African American men's conceptions of manhood. Studies examining within-group variation in marital conflict and racial and ethnic differences in division of household labor, marital relations, and children's adjustment to marital and family conflict also are reviewed. The third section gives attention to research on (a) paternal involvement among fathers of color; (b) the relation of parenting behavior to race and ethnicity, grandmother involvement, neighborhood and peer characteristics, and immigration; and (c) racial and ethnic socialization. The article concludes with an overview of recent advances in the study of families of color and important challenges and issues that represent research opportunities for the new decade.

The production of gender among Black and White women and men: The case of household labor

Article

Feb 1997

Using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 13,017; 11.09% Black, 79.99% White), we compare the household labor time of Black and White women and men, and assess the extent to which the time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for racial and gender differences in housework time. We find that although time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for some of the variation in housework time, they do not account for all of the gender and racial differences. We also find that paid work and housework trade off differently for Black men than for White men and also for women and men. Finally, a variety of relative resource, time constraint, and ideology factors are associated differently with women’s and men’s housework time. We argue that our findings lend support to the production of gender approach to understanding the division of household labor and that this approach can be used to help us understand racial differences in housework time as well.

Family Investment in Human Capital: Earnings of Women.

Article

Feb 1974

A Theory of Marriage

Article

Feb 1974

Gary S. Becker

A theory of marriage: part I. J Polit Econ

Article

Feb 1973

Gary S. Becker

I present in this paper the skeleton of a theory of marriage. The two basic assumptions are that each person tries to do as well as possible and that the "marriage market" is in equilibrium. With the aid of several additional simplifying assumptions, I derive a number of significant implications about behavior in this market. For example, the gain to a man and woman from marrying compared to remaining single is shown to depend positively on their incomes, human capital, and relative difference in wage rates. The theory also implies that men differing in physical capital, education or intelligence (aside from their effects on wage rates), height, race, or many other traits will tend to marry women with like values of these traits, whereas the correlation between mates for wage rates or for traits of men and women that are close substitutes in household production will tend to be negative. The theory does not take the division of output between mates as given, but rather derives it from the nature of the ma...

Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market

Article

Feb 1993

This paper introduces the 'separate spheres' bargaining model, a new model of distribution within marriage. It differs from divorce threat bargaining models in that the threat point is not divorce but a noncooperative equilibrium within marriage; this noncooperative equilibrium reflects traditional gender roles. The predictions of the authors' model thus differ from those of divorce threat bargaining models; in the separate spheres model, cash transfer payments to the mother and payments to the father can--but need not--imply different equilibrium distributions in existing marriages. In the long run, the distributional effects of transfer policies may be substantially altered by changes in the marriage market equilibrium. Copyright 1993 by University of Chicago Press.

Trends in Earnings Differentials by Gender, 1971-1981

Article

Feb 1988

Using data from the Current Population Surveys, the authors examine earnings differentials by gender for 1971 and 1981. Most observers, focusing on the median annual earnings of year-round, full-time workers, have concluded that the earnings differential did not change over that decade. Using a different method to adjust for gender differences in hours and weeks worked, the authors find, on the contrary, that the female-male earnings ratio significantly increased during the 1970s. The results suggest that declining gender role specialization and declining discrimination (as conventionally measured) contributed to the observed trend. Two factors that worked in the opposite direction, though to smaller effect, were declines in women's relative returns to education and to employment in male jobs and integrated jobs. (Abstract courtesy JSTOR.)

Trends in earnings differentials by gender, 1971-1981

Article

Feb 1988

Double Jeopardy?: The Interaction of Gender and Race on Earnings in the United States

Abstract

No full-text available

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