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Research in Social Stratification and Mobility

Most Cited Research in Social Stratification and Mobility Articles

Most cited articles published since 2007, extracted from SciVerse Scopus.

Selections and social selectivity on the academic track: A life-course analysis of educational attainment in Germany

Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2010, Pages 59-76
Hillmert, S. | Jacob, M.

Graduating from university is just the final step of an extended educational career. Sociological transition research has revealed that final educational attainment must be understood as the result of a sequence of successive decisions. With regard to graduation from university, one has to take into account that upper secondary school qualifications are required for enrolling in the first place, and in Germany, the decision for this kind of schooling is at a much earlier age. So where on the long way to the university degree does Germany 'lose' its potential academics and in particular its lower class children? This paper presents a detailed picture of the life-course development of educational careers by analyzing the various steps of the collective educational history of a particular birth cohort. The paper takes account of both the country-specific institutional structures of the educational system and inter-individual variation in educational trajectories and combines both aspects in an analysis of the most relevant types of educational transitions associated with the 'academic track'. Altogether, the transitions aggregate to the final number of graduates as well as to the observed level of inequality in educational attainment. In our empirical analyses, we are interested in both the overall selection at particular transitions and social differences in these transition patterns. We use survey data on participation and social selectivity in education. The paper confirms the usefulness of transition research for understanding the process of educational attainment; an analysis based on transitions is clearly superior to an analysis which focuses purely on stock figures of educational attainment. However, the paper also shows that conventional forms of transition research are often too simple as they assume an ideal-typical sequence of transitions during education. Educational careers in reality often deviate from this model. The number of young people (and in particular lower class children) who try to join the 'academic track' at least once during their educational career is much higher than the number of those who graduate successfully in the end. Accounting for the most relevant events helps to understand the quantitative and qualitative selectivity of the German educational system and may serve as a model for research on other aspects of educational inequality as well as on other educational systems. © 2010 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Social class and workers' rent, 1983-2001

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 273-293
Morgan, S.L. | Tang, Z.

Sociologists and economists continue to seek explanations for the growth of earnings inequality since the late 1970s. In this article, we draw upon the structural tradition of labor market analysis in sociology in order evaluate the conjecture that selective rent destruction is a source of the recent increase in earnings inequality. In empirical analysis of the Outgoing Rotation Groups of the Current Population Surveys from 1983 to 2001, we demonstrate that (1) the earnings of workers at the bottom of the class distribution have declined relative to the earnings of those at the top and (2) the variance of wage premia associated with employment in alternative industries has declined relatively more for those at the bottom of the class distribution. Adopting the position from both the sociology and labor economics literatures that these industry wage premia are reasonable measures of industry rents, we conclude that the results support the rent destruction conjecture and, by implication, that structural models of labor markets can explain some of the increase in earnings inequality. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Race and track location in U.S. public schools

Volume 25, Issue 3, October 2007, Pages 169-187
Lucas, S.R. | Berends, M.

Scholars continue to debate whether persistent racial inequality flows primarily from differences in measured achievement [e.g., Cancio, A. S., Evans, T. D., & Maume, D. J., Jr. (1996). Reconsidering the declining significance of race: Racial differences in early career wages. American Sociological Review, 61, 541-556; Farkas, G., & Vicknair, K. (1996). Appropriate tests of racial wage discrimination require controls for cognitive skill: Comment on Cancio, Evans, and Maume. American Sociological Review, 61, 557-560], a debate pointing scholars toward the school. Yet, a look inside schools reveals conflicting evidence concerning students' opportunities. Notably, analyses of race and track location have found Whites and Asians advantaged when compared to Blacks and Latino/as [e.g., Mickelson, R. A. (2001). Subverting swann: First- and second-generation segregation in Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 215-252], Black-White-Latino/a equality [e.g., Lucas, S. R., & Gamoran, A. (2002). Tracking and the achievement gap, In J. E. Chubb, & T. Loveless (Eds.), Bridging the gap (pp. 171-198). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press], and Whites disadvantaged when compared to Blacks and Asians [e.g., Garet, M. S., & DeLany, B. (1988). Students, courses, and stratification. Sociology of Education, 61, 61-77]. Upon investigating whether schools actually vary in their racial/ethnic gaps in track location, we find important school-level differences. This variation is not random; the more racially diverse the school, the better Whites' chances and the worse Blacks' chances of college prep course-taking. Provocatively, predicted probabilities of college-prep course-taking are consistent with one-to-one substitution of Whites for Blacks as one moves from less to more diverse schools. The results suggest analysts must explore cross-school variation to discern when, where, and why comparable students have different placements. Further, the findings imply that pursuing diversity, the sole remaining acceptable justification for race-conscious desegregation efforts, may actually hinder Blacks' access to demanding curricula. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dealing with selection bias in educational transition models: The bivariate probit selection model

Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 311-322
Holm, A. | Jæger Mads Meier, M.M.

This paper proposes the bivariate probit selection model (BPSM) as an alternative to the traditional Mare model for analyzing educational transitions. The BPSM accounts for selection on unobserved variables by allowing for unobserved variables which affect the probability of making educational transitions to be correlated across transitions. We use simulated and real data to illustrate how the BPSM improves on the traditional Mare model in terms of correcting for selection bias and providing credible estimates of the effect of family background on educational success. We conclude that models which account for selection on unobserved variables and high-quality data are both required in order to estimate credible educational transition models. © 2011 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Segregated jobs or ethnic niches?. The impact of racialized employment on earnings inequality

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 245-257
Semyonov, M. | Herring, C.

Using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI), this study examines the extent to which the racial or ethnic composition of jobs affects racial and ethnic-linked earnings inequalities among whites, blacks and Hispanics. Four types of jobs are distinguished according to the racial/ethnic composition of jobs in work establishments: predominantly white, multi-racial or mixed, predominantly black, and predominantly Hispanic. We found considerable differences among the four types of jobs. Jobs composed predominantly of white workers are characterized by the highest earnings, the highest status occupations, and the highest levels of education. In contrast, jobs predominantly composed of Hispanic workers are characterized by the lowest salaries, the lowest status occupations, and the lowest levels of education. The data analysis supports the hypothesis that job segregation is responsible for earnings disparities in the case of blacks versus whites, but only partial support for this hypothesis is found in the case of Hispanics versus whites. The analysis also provides support for the "devaluation hypothesis" which suggests that all workers experience pay penalties in jobs in which minority workers are predominant. Further analysis reveals that had most workers been rewarded like whites employed in predominantly white jobs, their earnings would have increased considerably. The only groups of workers who "benefit" from job segregation are Hispanic workers employed in predominately Hispanic jobs. In the absence of competition with others, Hispanics employed in predominantly Hispanic jobs earn more than they would earn in other jobs. The differential effects of the ethnic composition of jobs on economic outcomes of minority populations are evaluated and discussed in light of the roles played by sheltered and protected ethnic economies. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Personal networks and the incomes of men and women in the United States: Do personal networks provide higher returns for men or women?

Volume 26, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 221-233
Aguilera, M.B.

Despite the many studies focusing on the relationship between social networks and labor market outcomes, few have examined differences in returns to personal networks by gender. Informed by the Social Resources Theory, this study tests whether various types of employment job search networks provide greater returns for males or females. Of the few studies examining gender differences, some find that the benefits of social networks are specific to males; others maintain that they also extend to females, and others argue that the benefits are greater for females than males. There are several limitations of the studies focusing on gender and social networks within the labor market. Such studies have not employed nationally representative datasets. They also neglect important distinctions between various types of personal networks. In this study, these limitations are rectified. A nationally representative dataset, the 2002 General Social Survey, is employed to address how personal networks operate for men and women within the US labor market. Additionally, various types of personal networks are employed to enable a more nuanced approach than previous research. The study provides evidence that social networks provide higher returns to women than men, as women receive returns from their networks while men do not. © 2008 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Otis Dudley Duncan's legacy: The demographic approach to quantitative reasoning in social science

Volume 25, Issue 2, July 2007, Pages 141-156
Xie, Y.

Otis Dudley Duncan, who died in November 2004, had enormous impact on the practice of quantitative reasoning in sociology and demography today. This paper traces the influence of Duncan as a quantitative sociologist within the context of the history of science. I locate Duncan's philosophy of social science within the tradition of "population thinking" that was begun by Charles Darwin and introduced to social science by Francis Galton. As part of this exploration, I distinguish two approaches to statistical analysis (emanating from the two main philosophical views of science): Gaussian or typological thinking, and Galtonian or population thinking. I examine in detail Duncan's views of quantitative reasoning in the social sciences, particularly his opinions on social measurement, path analysis, structural modeling, econometrics, and the Rasch model. An important theme of the paper is that Duncan quickly realized the difficulties and limitations of quantitative methodology in social science. In particular, he was bothered by inherent population heterogeneity that makes it futile to draw "law-like" inferences from statistical analyses in social science. Thus, Duncan was disdainful of the search for supposedly universal laws of society that would mimic those of the physical sciences, because he believed that such laws did not exist and would be meaningless. Instead, to Duncan, the main use of statistical tools was to summarize systematic patterns of population variability. The paper draws heavily on Duncan's previously unpublished personal communications. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stratification and the formation of expectations in highly differentiated educational systems

Volume 27, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 245-267
Buchmann, C. | Park, H.

Highly differentiated educational systems constitute a common organizational form of schooling in which youth are sorted into secondary schools that stress either vocational or academic training and between which movement is rare. With standardized data from five countries, we illuminate two important stratification processes in these systems: (1) social origins strongly influence students' placement into different types of schools with high SES students most likely to attend academically oriented schools that provide a direct pathway to the university. (2) The types of schools students attend largely determine their educational and occupational expectations and impart a strong dose of realism in these expectations. Thus, the institutional arrangements of highly differentiated educational systems perpetuate socioeconomic inequalities quite early in the life course, well before students complete their education and enter the labor force. © 2009 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

The effects of education and cognitive skill on earnings: How much do occupations and jobs matter?

Volume 25, Issue 1, February 2007, Pages 57-71
Carbonaro, W.

To what extent are occupations and jobs useful contexts for understanding why and how education and cognitive skill are related to earnings? Analyses of data from the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) revealed several important findings. First, less than half of the education and skill effects on earnings are due to occupational sorting into broad occupations with varying skill demands. Second, education and cognitive skills remain positively related to earnings among workers within narrowly defined occupations. Third, while occupational and job level skill demands are related to workers' earnings, neither accounts for education and skill effects on earnings within occupations. Finally, cognitive skills matter more for earnings for workers employed in more skill intensive occupations. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

College majors and social mobility

Volume 26, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 123-139
Wolniak, G.C. | Seifert, T.A. | Reed, E.J. | Pascarella, E.T.

To further our understanding of social mobility in the United States, this study examines the role of major field of study during college, and the relationships between origin characteristics and education attainment. Data, collected in 2001, consisted of information on the college and labor market experiences of 4435 alumni from 30 colleges, as well as matched ACT data on alumni background and pre-college characteristics from three cohorts of college graduates up to 25 years after college. Results indicate that both placement on and movement along the social ladder are affected by college major, and the extent to which status is awarded based on merit relative to inherited economic resources is partially dependent upon major. © 2008 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

"This Place Makes me Proud to be a Woman": Theoretical explanations for success in entrepreneurship education for low-income women

Volume 27, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 50-64
Godwyn, M.

Despite serving women who are socially and economically disadvantaged, and despite being chronically under-funded and short-staffed, Women's Business Centers (WBCs) in the United States have been extraordinarily successful in helping women start businesses [Langowitz, N., Sharpe, N., & Godwyn, M. (2006). Women's Business Centers in the United States: Effective entrepreneurship training and policy implementation. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 19(2)]. The purpose of this research is to determine the social mechanisms that explain the success of WBCs. Two theories are applied: the macro-theory of middleman minorities [Bonacich, E. (1980). The Economic basis of ethnic solidarity: Small businesses in the Japanese American community. Berkeley: University of California Press; Butler, J. S. (2005a). Entrepreneurship and self-help among Black Americans: A reconsideration of race and economics. NY: State University of New York Press; Butler, J. S. (2005b). Regional wealth creation and the 21st century: Women and "Minorities" in the tradition of economic strangers. Unpublished manuscript. IC@ Institute/Herb Kelleher Center. The University of Texas at Austin], and the microconcept of stereotype threat [Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape the intellectual identities and performance of women and African-Americans. American Psychologist, 52, 613-629]. Through survey, focus group and interview data analysis, this study extends the application of middleman minority theory to capture gender solidarity and demonstrates the conceptual applicability of stereotype threat to professional identity. Techniques used by WBCs to engender intra-group solidarity and neutralize the stereotype threat experienced by many female entrepreneurs may be applied to a variety of educational and workplace environments to create "identity safety" for groups whose performance is at risk. Additionally, the methodology used here provides both qualitative and quantitative measurements that are readily transferable to other settings. © 2008 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Multiple paths in educational transitions: A multinomial transition model with unobserved heterogeneity

Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 323-341
Karlson, K.B.

In many countries educational branching points consist of more than two qualitatively different alternatives, and only some alternatives provide the opportunity of continuing into higher education. I develop a multinomial transition model for modeling the effects of family background characteristics and individual characteristics on these complex educational careers. The model controls for unobserved heterogeneity that may, if ignored, result in biased estimates. Compared to previous research, I explicitly include instrumental variables that ensure identification of the unobserved component. I apply the model to the Danish case and analyze data which covers the educational careers of a cohort of Danes born around 1954. I find that the model brings forward non-trivial heterogeneity in the influence of family background and ability on qualitatively different choice alternatives both within and across transitions. I also find that not controlling for unobserved heterogeneity leads to marked underestimation of the family background effect on both early and late transitions in the educational career. © 2011 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

All in the family?. Family composition, resources, and sibling similarity in socioeconomic status

Volume 26, Issue 4, November 2008, Pages 297-306
Conley, D. | Glauber, R.

Numerous studies have analyzed the effects of family structure, composition, and resources on socioeconomic status attainment. Fewer studies have explored how these family-based factors affect the variation-or the correlation-between siblings in socioeconomic status. The current study draws on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and provides a descriptive account of the correlations between siblings along a number of family composition and resource dimensions. We report two main findings. First, correlations do not vary by siblings' sex mix. That is, brothers' correlations in education, earnings, and family income are similar to sisters' correlations. Second, siblings from relatively disadvantaged families-those with more siblings and lower educated, younger, and unmarried mothers-have lower correlations in socioeconomic status than siblings from more advantaged families. In general, family background has a weaker effect on adults who begin life from disadvantaged positions. These findings suggest that social reproduction and mobility processes are complex and shaped by family-level dynamics and resources. © 2008 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Accounting for dynamic selection bias in educational transitions: The Cameron-Heckman latent class estimator and its generalizations

Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 287-310
Tam, T.

The sequential logit model of educational transitions has long been the dominant modeling framework for the study of inequality of educational opportunity ever since the seminal works of Mare (1980, 1981). But conventional applications of the model are known to be biased by the ubiquitous presence of unobserved heterogeneity. Cameron and Heckman (1998) propose a logit model that allows for two or three latent classes if the selection bias is solely generated by a person-specific component of stable unobserved heterogeneity. To evaluate the latent class logit regression estimator, this study makes use of simulated data to eliminate the influences of other problems of transition modeling. The simulation is based on five independent pairs of large samples generated from standard distributional assumptions of transition modeling. The new estimator appears to be an effective way to adjust for dynamic selection bias when family background effects are transition-invariant and sample size is in the order of ten thousand or above. By contrast, the conventional sequential logit model produces results that are very different from the data generating models. This study also considers two alternative ways to improve statistical efficiency: (1) incorporate a crude indicator of stable unobserved heterogeneity; (2) pool the effect estimates across transitions, background variables, and alternative estimators to smooth out noise under the null hypothesis of transition invariance. In addition, this study examines the impact of indicator reliability and sample size on the performance of the latent class regression models and suggests practical guidelines. © 2011 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

The structure of teenage employment: Social background and the jobs held by high school seniors

Volume 25, Issue 3, October 2007, Pages 189-203
Hirschman, C. | Voloshin, I.

Although it is widely assumed that work careers begin after the completion of schooling, most enrolled high school students are also workers. Teenage workers are heavily concentrated in the low wage service sector, but they are also found as supplemental part-time workers in many occupations, including clerical, retail sales, and blue collar employment. Gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic origins are important determinants of the types of jobs that teenage students hold. Students from advantaged socioeconomic origins and students with above average grades are more likely to work in "good jobs," defined by lower hours of work per week and higher status. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Is this a Great Country? Upward mobility and the chance for riches in contemporary America

Volume 25, Issue 1, February 2007, Pages 89-95
DiPrete, T.A.

Public opinion data suggests that a strikingly large proportion of Americans, and particularly young Americans, believe they have a reasonably good chance of becoming rich in their lifetime. An analysis of these surveys reveals considerable variance in what being "rich" means to the survey respondents. Analysis of PSID data demonstrates the actual level of opportunity for upward income mobility over the life course and shows that Americans overestimate their chances of being rich. The overestimate is considerable even when subjective definitions are used, and is very large if conventional definitions such as top 3%, top 1%, or top 0.1% are used for the threshold. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structuring access to higher education: The role of differentiation and privatization

Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 57-75
Roksa, J.

Building on cross-national stratification research that examines how institutional arrangements affect stratification processes, I explore how two characteristics of higher education systems, differentiation and privatization, shape access to postsecondary opportunities. Using hierarchical linear models and relying on variation in educational systems across states in the U.S., I demonstrate that differentiation and privatization structure access to higher education, albeit at times in previously unanticipated ways. Differentiation, which denotes the presence of community colleges, has a democratizing effect: it increases overall enrollment in postsecondary institutions as well as decreases the gap in enrollment between students from different social strata. Moreover, contrary to the diversion hypothesis, differentiation does not disproportionately divert students from less privileged family backgrounds from 4-year institutions. Differentiation does, nevertheless, divert another group of students: those with lower test scores. The results also indicate that privatization has little effect on overall access to higher education, although it influences migration of students, facilitating out-of-state enrollment. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

The consequences of unobserved heterogeneity in a sequential logit model

Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 247-262
Buis, M.L.

Cameron and Heckman (1998) established that a sequential logit model is more sensitive than many other models to the possible biasing influence of unobserved heterogeneity. This article proposes a method which allows researchers to find out how large this potential problem is for their data, their model, and their hypothesis of interest. This is done by proposing a set of scenarios for this unobserved heterogeneity, and showing how to estimate the effects of interest given these scenarios. The set of results from these scenarios give an indication of how sensitive the results are to assumptions regarding unobserved heterogeneity. This sensitivity analysis has been applied to a study of educational attainment in the Netherlands, and it showed that that the finding that the effect of father's education declined over transitions is quite sensitive to the assumptions made about unobserved heterogeneity, but that the finding that the effect of father's education declined over birth cohorts is more robust than is often feared. © 2010 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Kindergarten oral language skill: A key variable in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 294-305
Durham, R.E. | Farkas, G. | Hammer, C.S. | Bruce Tomblin, J. | Catts, H.W.

In this paper we test whether oral language development during the preschool years helps explain the positive relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's elementary school performance. In particular, we test for the portion of the SES effect on 2nd to 4th grade reading, 3rd to 4th grade mathematics, and overall teacher-rated performance that is explained by oral language ability measured when kindergarten begins. We analyze a unique data set containing unusually comprehensive measures of kindergarten oral language ability. The data are for white Midwestern children and their families. Estimation via structural equation modeling shows that oral language skill at kindergarten entry explains most of the effect of SES on elementary school performance. Since other studies have shown that elementary school performance strongly determines later educational attainment, much of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status occurs when the child is very young. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

The transmission of social inequality: Examination of the linkages between family socioeconomic status in childhood and educational achievement in young adulthood

Volume 26, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 277-295
Fergusson, D.M. | Horwood, L.J. | Boden, J.M.

The present study examines the linkages between family socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood and educational achievement in young adulthood using data from a 25-year longitudinal study of a birth cohort of over 1000 New Zealand children. Structural equation modeling of the association between latent SES at birth and educational achievement by age 25 years showed evidence of a strong association between latent SES and later educational achievement. Much of this association was mediated via two pathways relating to child cognitive ability and family educational aspirations; family economic resources and school factors did not mediate the association. However, even when the major theoretical pathways were taken into account, a substantial component of the latent SES/educational achievement correlation remained unexplained. © 2008 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Allocation and distribution. A discussion of the educational transition model, with reference to the Italian case

Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2010, Pages 45-58
Ballarino, G. | Schadee, H.

The main characteristic of education in the past century has been its expansion: a major stratification research question associated with this is whether the inequalities of educational opportunities among classes have persisted or changed (diminished) over time. The educational transition model (Mare, 1980, 1981), adopted by the majority of scholars in the field, separates the study of allocation, that is class inequality in education, from that of distribution, the amount of schooling and its expansion, using conditional logits. A consequence of the way this distinction has influenced subsequent research has been the emergence of a sharp gap between macro-level research on the expansion of education and stratification studies. This paper proposes to re-integrate research on allocation and distribution using cumulative logits (McCullagh, 1980) to analyse the relation between class of origin and educational attainment. Such analyses provide explicit parameters for educational expansion, as well as a measure of class inequality in educational opportunities. A model for educational expansion leading to the logistic curve is sketched, and the relation between a cumulative logit analysis and the conditional logits of the educational transition model is analysed. Empirically, the Italian case is considered, where the cumulative logit analyses show diminishing class inequality of educational opportunities (IEO), contrary to most of the previous literature. These results are systematically compared with those from the educational transition model and linear regression analyses. The difference, as it turns out, lies more in the interpretation than in the actual empirical results. © 2010 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Gender (in)equity in the academy: Subtle mechanisms and the production of inequality

Volume 27, Issue 3, September 2009, Pages 177-200
Roos, P.A. | Gatta, M.L.

Researchers have shifted in recent years from explanations that posit overt discrimination as the causal mechanism producing gender inequity, to more subtle forms of favoritism and/or barriers to advancement. Working in the latter tradition, we focus on how subtle sex biases help to produce inequality anew in the academy, through nonconscious beliefs and attitudes that operate through workplace interactions, and through the use of subjective policies and procedures institutionalized in the academic workplace. We examine these issues with qualitative and quantitative data from an Arts & Sciences (A&S) unit of a public research university. We use descriptive, quantitative data to assess the extent to which unequal gender outcomes persist in aggregate, and qualitative interview and survey data to gain insight into how specific mechanisms of inequity produce and maintain those outcomes. © 2009 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations

Volume 28, Issue 2, June 2010, Pages 171-197
Evans, M.D.R. | Kelley, J. | Sikora, J. | Treiman, D.J.

Children growing up in homes with many books get 3 years more schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents' education, occupation, and class. This is as great an advantage as having university educated rather than unschooled parents, and twice the advantage of having a professional rather than an unskilled father. It holds equally in rich nations and in poor; in the past and in the present; under Communism, capitalism, and Apartheid; and most strongly in China. Data are from representative national samples in 27 nations, with over 70,000 cases, analyzed using multi-level linear and probit models with multiple imputation of missing data. © 2010.

Coming of age in changing times: Occupational aspirations of American youth, 1966-1980

Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 29-55
Shu, X. | Marini, M.M.

Young people in the United States are driven by an ideology of high achievement and hold ambitious occupational aspirations, yet little is known about the process by which they negotiate social conditions to come to terms with life's limitations. We use a life-course perspective to examine change in prestige, education, earning potential, and sex type dimensions in occupational aspirations in the U.S., using longitudinal data on cohorts of young people ages 14-29 during the period between 1966 and 1980. After their initial formation in childhood and adolescence, occupational aspirations are regulated by experiences in the educational system, the labor market, and for women, the adult family. The Civil Rights and the Women's Movements contributed to age-, cohort-, and period-related increases in women and black men's occupational aspirations. The economic downturn after 1973 also played a role, reducing young men's occupational aspirations and reverting black men's aspirations to the same level as that prior to the 1970s, negating the positive influences of the Civil Rights Movement. There is no evidence that the Vietnam War produced a net change in young people's aspirations. These findings show that after their initial formation under ascriptive influences, occupational aspirations continue to evolve as new life experiences associated with changed societal values and opportunity structure provide impetus for change. Despite these perturbations, socioeconomic background, race, and gender retain a pervasive impact on the regulation of young people's aspirations in adolescent and young adulthood in the United States. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

Educational expansion and changes in occupational returns to education in Korea

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 306-322
Sandefur, G.D. | Park, H.

We use data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) conducted in 1998 by the Korean Labor Institute to examine the school-to-work transition across three labor market entry cohorts of Korean men and women. Taking into account the dramatic expansion of educational system and economic changes Korean society has experienced during the last few decades, we develop hypotheses about possible changes in the effects of educational qualifications on first occupational attainment. We first conduct an OLS regression of first occupational prestige scores on education. We then look at the effects of education on the odds of entering an occupational class using multinomial logit models. The results of the two analyses indicate that educational qualifications strongly affect occupational attainment for both men and women. The effects of education, particularly junior college and university, on first occupation have declined across three labor market cohorts for women but not for men. © 2007 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility.

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