Race and class inequality are at the crux of many policy disputes in American cities. But are they the only factors driving political discord? In Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat, political scientist Jennifer L. Hochschild examines significant policies in four major American cities to determine when race and class shape city politics, when they do not, and what additional forces have the power to shape urban policy choices.
 
Hochschild investigates the root causes of disputes in the arenas of policing, development, schooling, and budgeting. She finds that race and class are central to the Stop-Question-Frisk policing policy in New York City and the development of Atlanta’s Beltline. New York’s Stop-Question-Frisk policy was intended to fight crime and keep all New Yorkers safe. In practice, however, young Black and Latino men in low-income neighborhoods were disproportionately stopped by a predominantly White police force. The goal of the Atlanta Beltline, a redevelopment project that includes public parks, new housing, commercial development, and a robust public transit system, is to expand access around the city and keep working-class residents in the city by constructing affordable housing. Instead, the construction completed thus far has encouraged gentrification and displacement of poor, disproportionately Black residents, and has increased the wealth and power of both Black and White city elites.
 
However, Hochschild finds that race and class inequality are not central to all urban policy disputes. When investigating the issues of charter schools in Los Angeles and Chicago’s pension system she identifies a third driver: financial threat that feels existential to the policy and political actors. In Los Angeles, there is a battle between traditional public schools and independent charter schools. Increasingly, families with sufficient resources are moving out of L.A. to areas with better school districts. Traditional public schools and charter schools must fight for the remaining students and the funding that comes with them. There are not enough students to teach and not enough money to teach them. The school district risks school closures, layoffs, and pension deficits; in this context, race/class conflict fades into the background.
 
Chicago’s public sector pension debt is at least three times as large as the city’s annual budget and continues to grow. Policy actors agree that the pension system needs to be stably funded. Yet city leaders, fearful of upsetting constituents and jeopardizing their political careers, fail to implement policies that would do so. Meaningful policy change to rectify the pension deficit continues to get kicked down the line for future policy actors to address. In this context also, race/class conflict fades into the background.
 
Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat is a compelling examination of the role that race, class, and political and fiscal threat play in shaping urban policy.
 
 

In the first two decades of the 21st century, more than two million Mexican migrants returned to Mexico from the United States. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people who returned to Mexico was so large that, for the first time in at least fifty years, more people entered Mexico from the United States than entered the United States from Mexico. Many of these migrants were destined for urban areas, and we know little about how they fare after they return to cities. In The Returned, sociologists Claudia Masferrer, Erin R. Hamilton, and Nicole Denier examine the experiences of returned migrants in Mexico City, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

Masferrer, Hamilton, and Denier draw on interviews with former U.S. migrants living in Mexico City to better understand the experience of return migration to urban areas. Each of the migrants they spoke with lived in the United States for long periods with noncitizen status during the last four decades. During this time, U.S. immigration policy became increasingly focused on restriction and enforcement, which made it difficult for migrants to safely move back and forth across the border for work or to visit family without documentation. The authors find that upon their return, migrants in Mexico City felt disoriented and lost and had difficulty adapting to a massive urban environment where there is little support for returnees. They struggled to translate their work experience from their time in the U.S. to find quality jobs. Additionally, many found their family lives upended as they reunited with or formed families in the U.S.. Some found themselves separated from family members still in the U.S. with no ability to legally visit them. Others brought their families back to Mexico, some of whom were U.S. citizens and had never been to Mexico before. They, too, struggled to adapt and integrate to life in Mexico City.

The authors use the experiences of return migrants to discuss policies and practices that would improve their lives and ease their reintegration. To help with the disorientation they experience, returnees proposed ongoing psychological support with mental health professionals who have knowledge and training in the social and legal issues that return migrants face. Return migrants also advocated for policies to enhance skill matching, job creation, and entrepreneurship, as many felt the occupational skills they developed in the U.S. were undervalued in Mexico. To address family separation, returnees argued for legal and policy reform to accommodate family reunification.
The Returned is an illuminating account of the difficulties faced by return migrants and their families in Mexico City.
 

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, an increasing number of children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala began arriving without parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. In many cases, the parents had left for the United States years earlier to earn money that they could send back home. In Reunited sociologists Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks explain the reasons for Central American youths’ migration, describe the journey, and document how the young migrants experience separation from and subsequent reunification with their families.
 
In interviews with Central American youth, their sponsors, and social services practitioners in and around Washington, D.C., Castañeda and Jenks find that Central American minors migrate on their own mainly for three reasons: gang violence, lack of educational and economic opportunity, and a longing for family reunification. The authors note that youth who feel comfortable leaving and have feelings of belonging upon arrival integrate quickly and easily while those who experience trauma in their home countries and on their way to the United States face more challenges.
 
Castañeda and Jenks recount these young migrants’ journey from Central America to the U.S. border, detailing the youths’ difficulties passing through Mexico, proving to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials that they have a legitimate fear of returning or are victims of trafficking, and staying in shelters while their sponsorship, placement, and departure are arranged. The authors also describe the tensions the youth face when they reunite with family members they may view as strangers. Despite their biological, emotional, and financial bonds to these relatives, the youth must learn how to relate to new authority figures and decide whether or how to follow their rules.
 
The experience of migrating can have a lasting effect on the mental health of young migrants, Castañeda and Jenks note. Although the authors find that Central American youths’ mental health improves after migrating to the United States, the young migrants remain at risk of further problems. They are likely to have lived through traumatizing experiences that inhibit their integration. Difficulty integrating, in turn, creates new stressors that exacerbate PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Consequently, schools and social service organizations are critical, the authors argue, for enhancing youth migrants’ sense of belonging and their integration into their new communities. Bilingual programs, Spanish-speaking PTA groups, message boards, mentoring of immigrant children, and after-school programs for members of reunited families are all integral in supporting immigrant youth as they learn English, finish high school, apply to college, and find jobs.
 
Offering a complex exploration of youth migration and family reunification, Reunited provides a moving account of how young Central American migrants make the journey north and ultimately reintegrate with their families in the United States.
 

Copy refers to RSF, Volume 9, issues 4 & 5

​Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
 
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
 
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
 
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.

Copy refers to RSF, Volume 9, issues 4 & 5

​Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
 
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
 
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
 
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.

Note: The catalog copy refers to both issues 2 and 3.
 
Over 40 million Americans live in poverty with limited opportunities for upward mobility. With an economy characterized by large numbers of unstable and low-wage jobs, a fraying social safety net, and stagnant wages, what public policy reforms might increase the number of low-income families and individuals escaping poverty? This special double issue of RSF, edited by poverty researchers Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, and Katherine A. Magnuson, includes many innovative, evidence-based anti-poverty policy proposals crafted by leading social science researchers and policy analysts.
 
The first issue highlights initiatives that restructure tax and transfer programs to extend greater support to low-income families, regardless of work status. H. Luke Shaefer and colleagues would replace the current child tax credit and child tax exemption in the federal income tax with an unconditional universal child allowance. They estimate that this would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent. Maria Cancian and Daniel Meyer propose a new child support initiative that institutes a guaranteed minimum monthly support payment for every child living with a single parent, using public funds to bridge the gap when that amount exceeds what the noncustodial parent can reasonably pay. Sara Kimberlin and colleagues propose a renter’s tax credit in the federal income tax for poor households facing increasing rental costs that would benefit 70 percent of renters struggling with high rents.
 
The second issue analyzes policies that would reduce the extent of low-wage work by boosting education, training, and access to better jobs. Teresa Eckrich Sommer and colleagues propose expanding the Head Start program to combine parental education, job training, and employment opportunities along with existing early childhood education programs to better serve the needs of both parents and children. Mark Paul and colleagues propose a federal jobs guarantee of full-time employment, at a living wage and with benefits, for all adults seeking work. Diana Strumbos and colleagues propose a national community college program, based on a successful model used by the City University of New York, to provide disadvantaged students who enroll full-time with advising, academic, career, and financial supports.
 
Together, the policies proposed in this double issue provide an evidence-based blueprint for anti-poverty reforms that would benefit millions of people in need.
 
 

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. and the only majority foreign-born group in the country. With immigration fueling most of the growth, Asians are projected to surpass Hispanics as the largest immigrant group by 2055. Yet, “Asian” is a catch-all category that masks tremendous diversity. In this issue of RSF, sociologist Jennifer Lee and political scientist Karthick Ramakrishnan and an interdisciplinary roster of experts present nuanced narratives of Asian American integration that correct biased assumptions and dispel dated stereotypes. The result is an issue that makes an original and vital contribution to social science research on this understudied population.
 
Rather than treating Asian Americans as a monolithic group, the contributors use the 2016 National Asian American Survey to pinpoint areas of convergence and divergence within the U.S. Asian population. Despite their diversity, Asian Americans share many attitudes, behavior, and experiences in ways that exceed expectations based on socioeconomic status alone— what Lee and Ramakrishnan refer to as the “diversity-convergence paradox.”  This paradox — of convergence despite divergence in national origins and socioeconomic status — is the animating question of this issue of RSF.
 
Contributors Janelle Wong and Sono Shah find strong political consensus within the Asian American population, particularly with regard to a robust government role in setting public policies ranging from environmental protection to gun control to higher taxation and social service provision, and even affirmative action. Wong and Shah posit that political differences within the Asian American community are between progressives and those who are even more progressive. Analyzing where policy opinions converge and diverge, Sunmin Kim finds that while many Asian Americans support government interventions in health care, education, and racial justice, some diverge sharply with regard to Muslim immigration. Lucas G. Drouhot and Filiz Garip construct a novel typology of five subgroups of Asian immigrants spanning class, gender, region, and immigrant generation to examine varied experiences of immigrant inclusion. They show how different subgroups contend with the effects of racialized othering and inclusion simultaneously at play. Van C. Tran and Natasha Warikoo analyze both interracial and intra-Asian attitudes toward immigration and find diversity among Asians’ views by national origin: As labor migrants, Filipinos support Congress increasing the number of annual work visas; as economic migrants, Chinese and Indians support an increase in annual family visas; and as refugees, Vietnamese are least supportive of pro-immigration policies.
 
Placing Asian Americans at the center of their analyses, the contributors illuminate how such a broadly diverse population shares similar attitudes and experiences in often surprising ways. By turning a lens on the richly diverse U.S. Asian population, this issue of RSF unveils comprehensive, compelling narratives about Asian Americans and advances our understanding of race and immigrant integration in the 21st century.
 

Rapid technological advances since the 1980s have revolutionized data gathering and changed the nature of many day-to-day transactions. Today, nearly every economic and financial transaction is recorded and can be linked to the individuals involved. This proliferation of “big data” makes it possible for economists and political scientists to empirically analyze the spending behavior of far greater numbers of individuals and firms, over much longer periods of time, than ever before. In “Big Data in Political Economy,” edited by Atif Mian and Howard Rosenthal, a group of quantitative researchers explore the possibilities and challenges of this data boom for the social sciences, focusing on how big data can help us gain new insights into such issues as social inequality, political polarization, and the influence of money in politics.
 
Among other topics, the articles in this issue demonstrate how large-scale data sources can be used to analyze campaign contributions and political participation. Adam Bonica outlines the development of a comprehensive “map” of the American political system that collects, processes, and organizes data on politicians’ campaign finances, policy positions, and voting records, and makes such information available to voters. Drew Dimmery and Andrew Peterson show how web-based data-gathering techniques can augment such a map to include political contributions made by nonprofits, which are often overlooked or not fully transparent. Deniz Igan links campaign contribution data to both policymakers’ voting records and financial institutions’ lending behavior and shows that legislators who were heavily lobbied by institutions engaging in risky lending, such as subprime lenders, were more likely to vote for deregulation. Chris Tausanovitch connects big data on voters’ income and policy preferences to the voting records of their congressional representatives in order to study how effectively the political system represents voters of different income levels. And Sharyn O’Halloran and coauthors discuss how big data can augment traditional observational research by replacing tedious hand coding of volumes of text with automated procedures.
 
As research in political economy increasingly focuses on the role of money in shaping the outcomes of elections and policymaking, new methods of aggregating and examining financial data have become central. Together, the papers in this volume show how big data provides unprecedented opportunities for social scientists to better understand the links between politics and markets.

Poverty, discrimination, and other social and economic inequalities have serious consequences for individuals’ physical and mental well-being. Recently, social scientists have collaborated with biological scientists to better understand the mechanisms that reproduce social stratification within and across generations. In this issue of RSF, edited by anthropologist Thomas McDade and sociologist Kathleen Mullan Harris, and a multi-disciplinary group of scholars integrate theory, data, and methods from the social and biological sciences to advance our understanding of how social and biological processes interact to shape individuals’ health outcomes and life chances.
 
Several articles explore the effects of disadvantage and discrimination on individuals’ health. Douglas Massey and colleagues find that residential segregation and concentrated poverty—which disproportionately affects African Americans—contribute to more rapid cellular aging, a condition associated with a higher risk of disorders such as diabetes and heart disease. Bridget Goosby and colleagues track the sleep patterns of adolescents and find that compared to their white peers, African American and biracial youth who report experiencing frequent discrimination have worse sleep, which is associated with longer-term negative physical and mental health outcomes.
 
Other contributors explore the extent to which social and family environments influence biological processes. Yang Qu and colleagues study the cognitive development of Mexican American youth, focusing on the hippocampus, a region of the brain that produces improved memory and learning. They find that teens who were able to navigate between the cultural values of their parents and fitting in with their peers had different hippocampus volume and higher academic achievement. Other researchers explore the relationship between individuals’ genes and their environments.  Melinda Mills and colleagues examine the role of genes in reproductive behavior. They find that while social and behavioral factors are strongly associated with when mothers first give birth and how many children they have, genetic factors are related to other fertility traits, such as childlessness and menopause.
 
The findings in this issue demonstrate the value of integrating the social and biological sciences for understanding how biological mechanisms influence, and are influenced by, socioeconomic conditions and lay the foundation for further advances in biosocial scholarship.
 

Note the catalog copy pertains to both parts of this double issue:

Slavery in the United States was a brutal, racialized system of forced labor which helped provide the startup capital for the U.S. economy’s meteoric rise. Post-slavery legal race discrimination produced segregation not only the Jim Crow South but also in northern states, where Blacks were denied many benefits of the New Deal that helped lift whites into the middle class. The 60 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have witnessed mass incarceration, ongoing police killings of unarmed Blacks, continued discrimination in housing, employment, and credit markers, and a persistent devaluation of Black lives. This history of enslavement and discrimination has yielded disastrous intergenerational consequences for Black wealth and socioeconomic well-being, and calls for reparations have gained currency as a way to redress these historical wrongs. This special double issue of RSF brings together the most current social science research and policy options with regard to reparations for Black Americans.
 
While reparations have been issued to many peoples around the world, including in the U.S., reparations to Black Americans remain highly contested. Contributor Kathryn Anne Edwards and co-authors use case studies of previous reparations policies to offer important insights into the features that might shape reparations policy for Black Americans. Trina Shanks and colleagues argue that the structure of existing child development accounts provides a practical framework for delivering reparations payments to recipients of all ages through structured savings plans that promote asset growth and fiscal autonomy.
 
The political feasibility of reparations programs will largely depend on public opinion. Jesse Rhodes and colleagues draw on surveys administered between 2021 and 2023 to show that up to 28 percent of White Americans support cash reparations, up from a tiny 4 percent in 2000. Kamri Hudgins and co-authors suggest that public education on racial disparities may increase the feasibility of a reparations program. Thus, education on real-existing racial disparities in intergenerational wealth, income, health, homeownership, and education may prove to be crucial to affect a federal Black reparations program.
 
This important double issue of RSF employs rigorous social science research to shed new light on one of the most pressing and contentious policy proposals of our times. Engaging the debate over reparations from the past to the present and from the global to the local, this double issue of RSF provides a valuable roadmap to the issues at stake in the Black American reparations movement.
 

Note the catalog copy pertains to both parts of this double issue:

Slavery in the United States was a brutal, racialized system of forced labor which helped provide the startup capital for the U.S. economy’s meteoric rise. Post-slavery legal race discrimination produced segregation not only the Jim Crow South but also in northern states, where Blacks were denied many benefits of the New Deal that helped lift whites into the middle class. The 60 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have witnessed mass incarceration, ongoing police killings of unarmed Blacks, continued discrimination in housing, employment, and credit markers, and a persistent devaluation of Black lives. This history of enslavement and discrimination has yielded disastrous intergenerational consequences for Black wealth and socioeconomic well-being, and calls for reparations have gained currency as a way to redress these historical wrongs. This special double issue of RSF brings together the most current social science research and policy options with regard to reparations for Black Americans.
 
While reparations have been issued to many peoples around the world, including in the U.S., reparations to Black Americans remain highly contested. Contributor Kathryn Anne Edwards and co-authors use case studies of previous reparations policies to offer important insights into the features that might shape reparations policy for Black Americans. Trina Shanks and colleagues argue that the structure of existing child development accounts provides a practical framework for delivering reparations payments to recipients of all ages through structured savings plans that promote asset growth and fiscal autonomy.
 
The political feasibility of reparations programs will largely depend on public opinion. Jesse Rhodes and colleagues draw on surveys administered between 2021 and 2023 to show that up to 28 percent of White Americans support cash reparations, up from a tiny 4 percent in 2000. Kamri Hudgins and co-authors suggest that public education on racial disparities may increase the feasibility of a reparations program. Thus, education on real-existing racial disparities in intergenerational wealth, income, health, homeownership, and education may prove to be crucial to affect a federal Black reparations program.
 
This important double issue of RSF employs rigorous social science research to shed new light on one of the most pressing and contentious policy proposals of our times. Engaging the debate over reparations from the past to the present and from the global to the local, this double issue of RSF provides a valuable roadmap to the issues at stake in the Black American reparations movement.
 

Note the catalog copy refers to both issues of this double issue of the journal.

In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
 
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
 
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
 
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
 
 

Note catalog copy relates to both issues of this double issue of the journal.

In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
 
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
 
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
 
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
 

Disruptive events such as economic recessions, natural disasters, job loss, and divorce can have a long-lasting impact when experienced during childhood, potentially altering children’s academic achievement, health and development, and later socioeconomic attainment. While much research has considered the overall impact of disruptive events on children’s lives, the consequences of disruption vary across groups. The same disruptive event may have profound negative consequences for some groups, minor or no impact for others, and even present a positive turning point for other groups. In this special issue of RSF, an interdisciplinary group of experts examine the disparate consequences of disruptive events on children.
 
Drawing on accumulated insights of empirical work from several social science disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and economics, the editors provide a nuanced consideration of theoretical approaches and methodological challenges in identifying unequal impacts. They argue that variation in the effects of disruptive events depends on different, and sometimes offsetting, mechanisms. For example, Martha Bailey and colleagues find that more disadvantaged male youth were less negatively impacted by the macroeconomic shock of the Great Depression than more advantaged youth. Black youth, however, were more negatively impacted. Anna Baranowska-Rataj and colleagues find little evidence that parental job loss leads to worse birth outcomes or that effects vary across regions with different unemployment levels in Sweden, a nation with a relatively generous safety net and universal health care. Regarding the household disruption of parental incarceration, Kristin Turney and colleagues find that some children seamlessly step into new responsibilities, while others, especially older children who had witnessed their fathers’ frequent entanglements with the criminal legal system, consciously step away from these responsibilities. Stefanie DeLuca and colleagues argue that as youth grow accustomed to disruptive events, these exposures become less remarkable and impactful on their life outcomes. Looking at the disruption to education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Douglas Harris and colleagues find that \high school graduation has remained remarkably steady since the onset of the pandemic, but entry into two-year colleges was hard hit, especially for colleges serving more people of color and those from low-income families. Finally, considering environmental disruptions, Nazar Khalid and colleagues show that severe floods in India have a stronger impact on the educational outcomes of children from marginalized communities.
 
Through its systematic examination of the variation in the consequences of disruption, especially in early life, this volume of RSF provides an insightful and practical resource for both researchers and policymakers.
 
 

Note copy pertains to both volumes of this double issue:

Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
 
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
 
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
 
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
 
 

Note copy refers to both issues. This is a double issue.

 
Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
 
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
 
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
 
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
 

The twenty-first century has seen dramatic shifts in the nature of work, including a decrease in economic security and job opportunities for low-skilled workers. At the same time, the nature of families has also changed significantly, including a delay and decrease in marriage and the development of new types of complex family structures. These changes in work and family have contributed to a rise in inequality, with many lower-income families experiencing poverty and economic hardship as a result. Yet, public policy has not adapted to address these issues. In this issue of RSF, sociologists Marcia J. Carlson, and Christopher Wimer, developmental psychologist Ron Haskins, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine the growing needs of low-income families and explore both the extent to which public policy effectively serves them and how it can be improved.
 
The nine articles in this issue examine various aspects of contemporary work and family life for low-income families, the challenges they face, and whether current policies help to mitigate these challenges. Sigird Luhr and colleagues find that unpredictable work schedules were associated with increased difficulty arranging childcare, work-life conflict, and missed work for working mothers. Elizabeth O. Ananat and colleagues show that Emeryville, California's Fair Workweek Ordinance decreased working parents' schedule unpredictability, and improved their well-being without reducing worker hours. Pamela Joshi and colleagues find that less than a quarter of low-income, full-time working families earn enough to cover a basic family budget, compared to two-thirds of all full-time working families. Katherine M. Michelmore and Natasha V. Pilkauskas reveal that nearly 60% of children in lower-income families reside in households with a complex family structure that may result in difficulty filing for important tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that can help increase their incomes. Jennifer Randles shows that income and public aid are insufficient for many mothers to cover the cost of one of children’s basic needs - diapers - and suggests policies to help bridge this gap in the face of widespread economic insecurity.
 
This volume of RSF illuminates the many obstacles faced by lower-income families due to changes in the labor market and family patterns as well as the ways in which public policy can better respond to alleviate these obstacles.
 
 

Today there are over 40 million immigrants living in the United States, most of whom come seeking work to improve their earnings and living conditions. Depending on their education and skills, their social networks, government regulations, and other factors, immigrant groups tend to concentrate in specific sectors of the labor market. The articles in this issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Susan Eckstein and economist Giovanni Peri, explore how new immigrant groups navigate the opportunities and constraints presented by various niches in the labor market and how they influence the economic and social fabric of American society.
 
Several articles survey the history of immigrant labor market niches and how they have affected local economies. Siobhan O’Keefe and Sarah Quincy investigate a labor niche—farming—created by Russian Jews in rural New Jersey in the nineteenth century that revitalized local markets and reduced the outmigration of natives from the area. Zai Liang and Bo Zhou study the occupational niches held by Chinese immigrants from the turn of the century to present day. They show that restaurants have historically provided, and continue to provide, a major source of employment for low-skilled Chinese immigrants and that these immigrants tend to use new job-finding services such as employment agencies and internet advertising. These services have also allowed Chinese-owned restaurants to expand into new geographical locations.
 
Other contributors analyze the divisions between high and low-skill labor market niches. In his ethnographic study of restaurants in Los Angeles, Eli Wilson finds that Mexican immigrants primarily work “back of the house” jobs performing low-wage manual labor with few opportunities for advancement, while English-speaking whites hold higher-paid “front of the house” jobs interacting with customers. However, bilingual second-generation Latinos are often able to bridge these two roles, increasing their chances for promotions and greater job responsibilities. Yasmin Ortiga explores the effects of programs designed to recruit middle-skill nurses from the Philippines. She finds that because the United States only accepts a certain number of nurses, these programs have contributed to an oversupply of trained nurses in the Philippines and increased joblessness and underemployment there.
 
Together, the studies in this issue contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why new immigrants gravitate to specific lines of work. They also reveal how these labor niches influence markets both within the United States and abroad.
 

The notorious Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson made state-sanctioned racial segregation the law of the land in the United States in 1896. While the Civil Rights movement and subsequent Supreme Court decisions in the twentieth century did much to mitigate its effects, its consequences reverberate in ways large and small today. This special volume of RSF revisits the legacy of the decision on its 125th anniversary to consider the connection between constitutionally imposed segregation, institutionalized white supremacy, and enduring racial inequality. Edited by john a. powell, Samuel L. Myers, and Susan T. Gooden – eminent scholars in constitutional law, economics, and public administration respectively – the volume includes contributions from an interdisciplinary roster of experts, each offering fresh insights on the doctrine of “Separate but Equal” as it relates to citizenship, colorism, and civil rights in the United States.
 
The contributors grapple with a central overarching question: How is it that a court decision from 125 years ago still has such an enduring impact on racial disparities? john a. powell provides a nuanced overview of the legal context of the case to show that segregation was not only about separating people by race but was primarily about preserving White supremacy. The wide latitude for judicial interpretation granted to judges means that who decides matters, and today, just as much as in 1896, the justices sitting on the Supreme Court matter. If the views of Justice Harlan – the lone dissenter in Plessy – had prevailed, U.S. jurisprudence would look very different today. 
 
Thomas J. Davis discusses how control over personal identity lay at the heart of Plessy, and how its denial of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms reverberates today. From sex and marriage to adoption, gender recognition, employment, and voting, persistent discrimination turns in various degrees on state authority to define, categorize, and deny freedom of personal identity. To ensure personal autonomy in such domains requires the continual reevaluation of U.S. law to recognize the freedom of individuals to define and express their own identities.
 
Looking at enduring educational impact of “Separate but Equal,” which was not entirely rectified by the 1954 decision outlawing school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, Dania V. Francis and William A. Darity, Jr., link today’s ongoing within-school segregation to the legacy of racialized tracking born from White resistance to desegregation. They demonstrate how a short-term, concerted effort to increase the number of Black high school students taking advanced courses could lead to long-term benefits in closing the educational achievement gap and eliminating institutionalized segregation within our schools.
 
Plessy rightfully stands as one of the continuing stains on the history of our country in its ambivalence and unwillingness to address White dominance. This issue of RSF both corrects and expands the narrative around the Plessy decision, and provides important lessons for addressing the nation’s continuing racial travails. It is ideal for use by scholars, community leaders, and policy makers alike.
 
 

Note the copy pertains to two issues of RSF:

Status – a form of inequality based on esteem, respect, and honor – affects how people are treated in all aspects of their lives, including in schools, workplaces, politics, and even the family. It shapes people’s access to valued outcomes in life, such as income, education, and health. However, status is poorly understood and its significance in the construction of inequality is often underestimated. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Cecilia L. Ridgeway, social psychologist Hazel Rose Markus, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how status functions in society and its role in inequality.
 
Issue 1 demonstrates that status is fundamental to inequality and shows that it is different from other forms of inequality. Tali Mendelberg presents a theory of how status functions in politics and differentiates the potent symbolic value of achieving greater esteem from status-seeking as a means to obtain resources, such as income, assets, or property. Biko Koeing finds that Trump voters were motivated not only by a perceived loss of status, but by the belief that this loss was unjust. Fabien Accominotti and colleagues assess the characteristics of status hierarchies and find that those with greater clarity, rigidity, and order have greater inequality between high and low status members.
 
Issue 2 examines how status is created and reinforced through cultural norms and in our relationships with one another. Hilary Holbrow finds that the gender pay gap is nearly three times greater in companies where low-status support roles are held primarily by females. Natasha Quadlin finds that college graduates who are perceived to be wealthy are also perceived to be more intelligent than they would be if they were perceived to be members of a lower socioeconomic group. Annette Lareau finds that married women often behave in ways – such as disengagement from financial matters or downplaying their own financial knowledge – that sustain their husband’s status as economic expert of the family. Bianca Manago and colleagues find that prior contact and group interaction between Whites, Blacks, and Mexican Americans decreases Whites’ anxiety about working with Blacks and Mexican Americans, but does not increase Whites’ perceptions of Blacks’ and Mexican Americans’ competence. Status interventions during interaction, however, do increase Whites’ perceptions of Mexican Americans’ competence and their influence in the group.  Lehn Benjamin finds that staff at nonprofit organizations who share control and establish common ground with their clients reduce status hierarchies between staff and clients.
 
This volume of RSF sheds light on status as a powerful social force which pervades our lives, and demonstrates its role in creating and preserving inequality.

Note the copy pertains to two issues of RSF:

Status – a form of inequality based on esteem, respect, and honor – affects how people are treated in all aspects of their lives, including in schools, workplaces, politics, and even the family. It shapes people’s access to valued outcomes in life, such as income, education, and health. However, status is poorly understood and its significance in the construction of inequality is often underestimated. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Cecilia L. Ridgeway, social psychologist Hazel Rose Markus, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how status functions in society and its role in inequality.
 
Issue 1 demonstrates that status is fundamental to inequality and shows that it is different from other forms of inequality. Tali Mendelberg presents a theory of how status functions in politics and differentiates the potent symbolic value of achieving greater esteem from status-seeking as a means to obtain resources, such as income, assets, or property. Biko Koeing finds that Trump voters were motivated not only by a perceived loss of status, but by the belief that this loss was unjust. Fabien Accominotti and colleagues assess the characteristics of status hierarchies and find that those with greater clarity, rigidity, and order have greater inequality between high and low status members.
 
Issue 2 examines how status is created and reinforced through cultural norms and in our relationships with one another. Hilary Holbrow finds that the gender pay gap is nearly three times greater in companies where low-status support roles are held primarily by females. Natasha Quadlin finds that college graduates who are perceived to be wealthy are also perceived to be more intelligent than they would be if they were perceived to be members of a lower socioeconomic group. Annette Lareau finds that married women often behave in ways – such as disengagement from financial matters or downplaying their own financial knowledge – that sustain their husband’s status as economic expert of the family. Bianca Manago and colleagues find that prior contact and group interaction between Whites, Blacks, and Mexican Americans decreases Whites’ anxiety about working with Blacks and Mexican Americans, but does not increase Whites’ perceptions of Blacks’ and Mexican Americans’ competence. Status interventions during interaction, however, do increase Whites’ perceptions of Mexican Americans’ competence and their influence in the group.  Lehn Benjamin finds that staff at nonprofit organizations who share control and establish common ground with their clients reduce status hierarchies between staff and clients.
 
This volume of RSF sheds light on status as a powerful social force which pervades our lives, and demonstrates its role in creating and preserving inequality.
 

Note this copy pertains to two issues. This is a double issue.

Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
 
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
 
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
 
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
 

Note this copy pertains to two issues. This is a double issue.

Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
 
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
 
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
 
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
 

Inmate labor fuels prisons. The incarcerated work in prison industries that collaborate with private corporations. Fair labor laws do not apply to prisons, where it is common for inmates to earn less than one dollar per hour. But involvement with the criminal justice system continues to shape and hinder the future employment and earnings of the formerly incarcerated long after they have been released. In this issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Sandra Susan Smith and legal scholar Jonathan Simon, an interdisciplinary group of scholars analyze how the criminal justice system acts as a de facto labor market institution by compelling or coercing labor from the justice-involved. 

The social and economic effects of criminal justice involvement are widespread, with almost seven million people under some form of direct supervision. The contributors to this issue examine how the criminal justice system affects the livelihood and families of both the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Cody Warner, Joshua Kaiser, and Jason Houle explore how “hidden sentences” --restricted access to voting rights, public housing, and professional licensing--negatively impact labor market outcomes for young adults with criminal records. Michele Cadigan and Garbriela Kirk look at the burden of court fees and fines, or legal financial obligations, that place a strain on the work commitments and resources of low-income people. Joe LaBriola sheds new light on how employment affects recidivism; he shows that parolees who find high-quality jobs, such as in the manufacturing industry, are less likely to return to prison than those employed in low-quality jobs. Noah Zatz and Michael Stoll demonstrate how the threat of imprisonment for nonpayment of child support coerces labor among noncustodial fathers, particularly African-American men. Allison Dwyer Emory and her coauthors show that previously incarcerated fathers are less likely to pay either formal or informal cash child support or offer in-kind assistance to their children’s mothers.

This issue of RSF is a timely contribution to the field of scholarly literature that illuminates the far and often destructive reach that the criminal justice system has on those whose lives it touches. It advances our understanding of how the system functions as a labor market institution and the price it extracts from those involved with it. 

 Immigration has long been viewed as both essential to American society and a polarizing political issue. Recent flashpoints around immigration include a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the legality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), enacted in 2012, to provide a pathway to citizenship for young, undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration has limited visas for foreign workers, banned travelers from predominantly Muslim countries, narrowed asylum-seeking procedures, and increased immigration enforcement. In this issue of RSF, edited by demographer Katharine M. Donato and economist Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, an interdisciplinary group of scholars traces the history and contemporary landscape of legal immigration to the United States.
Donato and Amuedo-Dorantes outline American immigration policies from 1880 to the present and consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigration. They underscore the fact that many recent immigration policies have been a result of presidential executive orders rather than legislative acts, making families and workers who enter the country without proper documentation especially vulnerable. They also examine how and why these orders are often racist and xenophobic, privileging some racial and ethnic groups and excluding others.
 Contributors to the issue investigate the various ways in which immigrants secure visas, working permits, and citizenship in the United States, including through employment and family ties, as well as special statuses for military veterans, refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors. Daniel Costa writes about how temporary migrant workers’ precarious immigration status makes them particularly likely to experience workplace abuse because they fear losing their jobs and being deported if they complain about unfair labor practices. Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny consider the substantial increase in employer demand for temporary work visas, demonstrating how improved economic conditions have led to this surge, creating a viable alternative to hiring unauthorized workers. Julia Gelatt uses employment and economic data analysis to compare multiple classes of legal immigrants. Her research demonstrates that employer-sponsored immigrants are better educated, exhibit higher English proficiency, and work in more highly skilled jobs than other types of immigrants (including family-sponsored, humanitarian, and diversity visa immigrants).
            Other contributors examine the experiences of immigrants with special statuses, including veterans. Cara Wong and Jonathan Bonaguro find that Americans are more likely to support a path to citizenship via military service for immigrants who entered the country with the appropriate documentation, and that many Americans believe that undocumented migrants should be barred from the military, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and firefighting. Van C. Tran and Francisco Lara-García find little variation in early socioeconomic outcomes between refugee groups from various countries. They show that schooling and employment, along with strategic financial, community building, and other support services, are critical factors in the successful integration and improved socioeconomic outcomes of refugees. Luis Edward Tenorio finds that the patchwork of legal systems, including family, immigration, and federal courts that adjudicate the laws for children with special immigrant juvenile status, make for the uneasy and uneven integration of unaccompanied minors into key social institutions.
            This issue of RSF is a timely contribution that will invigorate the field of scholarly work on the American legal immigration system.
 

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created large-scale disruptions in American society almost overnight. Yet the federal government provided little coordination or guidance in the face of the crisis. State and local governments found themselves primarily responsible for enacting policies and communicating information about the virus with the public,resulting in a wide variety of responses to the pandemic, including in public health recommendations and mandates. In this issue of RSF sociologist Beth Redbird, political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, communications expert Rachel Davis Mersey, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how social and political factors shaped the initial responses to the pandemic and how this impacted individuals and communities.
 
The 11 articles in this issue examine how information about the pandemic was disseminated, the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on different groups, and the government’s response to the pandemic. Courtney Page-Tan and colleagues find that people who relied on information from close social networks and trusted formal institutions, such as the CDC, were more likely to engage in behavior aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, such as staying home and avoiding crowded areas. Laura E. Evans and colleagues find that while Native Americans were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, states in which Native Americans had greater representation and political power in state politics saw fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands. They also find that there were fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands with strong networks of community-based and tribally controlled health facilities. Claire Kamp Dush and colleagues find that individuals who identify as non-White or non-heterosexual experienced higher levels of COVID-19 stress and racial trauma stress, both of which are associated with poorer mental health outcomes. Sarah James and colleagues find that state variation in the collection and publication of COVID-19 data reflected state capacity. Yet the main driver of variation in state policy response and implementation of mitigation measures was primarily partisanship. Elizabeth Suhay and colleagues find that trust in federal, state, and local government all fell during the first year of the pandemic. However, individuals with more trust in state government and local health officials were more likely to engage in protective health behaviors, while those with higher trust in the federal government were less likely to engage in such behaviors.
 
While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for years to come, this volume of RSF begins the investigation into how the pandemic has altered social, cultural, and political dynamics in American society.
 

Each year, gun homicides kill over ten thousand people in the United States. While most guns are initially purchased legally, many enter the underground market and end up in the hands of dangerous offenders, such as gang members and convicted felons. This issue of RSF, edited by public policy scholars Philip J. Cook and Harold A. Pollack, brings together eight articles exploring the markets for guns, both legal and illegal. The contributors draw from new datasets and interviews with inmates to examine how offenders obtain guns. By turning a spotlight on these little-understood supply chains, these chapters provide guidance for stemming the flow of guns to the underground market.
 
Cook and Pollack initiate the discussion with a comprehensive introduction that includes an original framework for understanding the legality of transactions that arm dangerous offenders.  Several contributors review trends in gun ownership across the nation and investigate how guns enter the underground market. Deborah Azrael and coauthors conduct a comprehensive survey of gun owners and find 270 million guns in private circulation. They estimate that 70 million firearms changed hands during a recent five-year period.  Most of those transactions were sales by licensed dealers; Garen Wintemute  reports on a survey of dealers that assesses the wide disparities among them as sources of guns to offenders.  Charles Wellford and coauthors use trace data and prison interviews to study how criminals obtain their guns in three jurisdictions that differ widely with respect to gun regulations and culture. 
 
Other contributors explore the effects of gun regulations and legislation on illegal supply chains. Daniel Webster and coauthors study the effects of Maryland’s 2013 Firearm Safety Act, which required all handgun purchasers to obtain a license. They find that 41 percent of surveyed parolees reported that it was more difficult to obtain a handgun after the law passed due to increased cost, lack of trusted sources, or people being less willing to buy handguns on their behalf. Analyzing over three decades of data on handguns recovered in Boston, Anthony Braga shows that fewer guns are illegally obtained from states that adopt legislation restricting buyers to one gun per month.  George Tita and coauthors  report the results of an inmate survey in Los Angeles in which they explored respondents’ knowledge of gun laws.  These findings suggest that laws aimed at legal gun transactions may also decrease the entry of guns into the underground market. 
 
The rate of gun violence in the U.S. surpasses that of any other advanced nation. This issue of RSF offers new empirical research on the underground market that arms dangerous criminals and provides a rich foundation for policies designed to curb gun violence.

Catalog copy pertains to both volumes 11.1 and 11.2

The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
 
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
 
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
 
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
 

Catalog copy pertains to both volumes 11.1 and 11.2

The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
 
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
 
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
 
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
 

Wealth – a household’s assets minus its debts – is an important indicator of child well-being. Higher household wealth related to better academic achievement, behavior, and health among children. Yet a sizeable share of American children, including a majority of Black and Hispanic children, grow up in households with very low levels of wealth, and wealth inequality among households with children is rising even faster than among the general population. This volume of RSF, edited by social policy experts Christina Gibson-Davis and Heather Hill, provides the first comprehensive examination of the contours and consequences of wealth inequality for children under the age of 18. An interdisciplinary roster of contributors consider the vast racial and ethnic disparities in wealth and how those disparities affect child well-being. 
 
Contributors Fabian Pfeffer and Nora Waitkus find that child wealth inequality is far worse in the U.S. than in other industrialized countries. Editors Gibson-Davis and Hill show that a relatively small group of American parents—mostly White—control the lion’s share of wealth, with Black and Hispanic parents having only pennies on the dollar for every dollar of White parental wealth. Nina Bandelj and Angelina Grigoryeva show how White parents with above median wealth are more likely than other parents to practice “financially intensive parenting,” saving and borrowing in ways that promote child achievement. After controlling for other measures of family resources and socioeconomic status, Portia Miller and colleagues demonstrate that family wealth is uniquely related to both academic and behavioral development throughout childhood and adolescence and that wealth helps buffer the negative effects of low family income. Jordan Conwell and Leafia Zi Ye find equalizing wealth is not sufficient to eliminate race- and ethnic-based gaps in academic achievement: even among families with the same levels of wealth Black and Hispanic children often have significantly worse scores than Whites.   
 
High levels of childhood wealth inequality are not inevitable; they are the consequence of laws and practices that favor wealth accumulation among few, primarily White, families. Jin Huang and coauthors look at one of the few policy models for increasing savings in low-income child households, Child Development Accounts, which have been shown to increase educational savings and improve maternal mental health, but they have yet to be adopted nationwide. Two studies in this issue, by Margot Jackson and colleagues and by Katherine Michelmore and Leonard Lopoo, find that large-scale income-support programs, the EITC and Medicaid, have positive spillovers onto asset accumulation, but policies designed to fundamentally alter the distribution of wealth among families with children will require more expansive changes to the tax code and program asset caps.
 
This issue of RSF expands our understanding of wealth inequality and its effects on children, and provides important insights into policies and practices that either directly or indirectly boost wealth acquisition among child households.