Blight
Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective
Raj Chetty et al.
Stanford Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
We study the sources of racial and ethnic disparities in income using de-identified longitudinal data covering nearly the entire U.S. population from 1989-2015. We document three sets of results. First, the intergenerational persistence of disparities varies substantially across racial groups. For example, Hispanic Americans are moving up significantly in the income distribution across generations because they have relatively high rates of intergenerational income mobility. In contrast, black Americans have substantially lower rates of upward mobility and higher rates of downward mobility than whites, leading to large income disparities that persist across generations. Conditional on parent income, the black-white income gap is driven entirely by large differences in wages and employment rates between black and white men; there are no such differences between black and white women. Second, differences in family characteristics such as parental marital status, education, and wealth explain very little of the black-white income gap conditional on parent income. Differences in ability also do not explain the patterns of intergenerational mobility we document. Third, the black-white gap persists even among boys who grow up in the same neighborhood. Controlling for parental income, black boys have lower incomes in adulthood than white boys in 99% of Census tracts. Both black and white boys have better outcomes in low-poverty areas, but black-white gaps are larger on average for boys who grow up in such neighborhoods. The few areas in which black-white gaps are relatively small tend to be low-poverty neighborhoods with low levels of racial bias among whites and high rates of father presence among blacks. Black males who move to such neighborhoods earlier in childhood earn more and are less likely to be incarcerated. However, fewer than 5% of black children grow up in such environments. These findings suggest that reducing the black-white income gap will require efforts whose impacts cross neighborhood and class lines and increase upward mobility specifically for black men.
Long-Term Earnings Differentials Between African American and White Men by Educational Level
Arthur Sakamoto, Christopher Tamborini & ChangHwan Kim
Population Research and Policy Review, February 2018, Pages 91-116
Abstract:
This paper investigates long-term earnings differentials between African American and white men using data that match respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to 30 years of their longitudinal earnings as recorded by the Social Security Administration. Given changing labor market conditions over three decades, we focus on how racial differentials vary by educational level because the latter has important and persistent effects on labor market outcomes over the course of an entire work career. The results show that the long-term earnings of African American men are more disadvantaged at lower levels of educational attainment. Controlling for demographic characteristics, work disability, and various indicators of educational achievement does not explain the lower long-term earnings of less-educated black men in comparison to less-educated white men. The interaction arises because black men without a high school degree have a larger number of years of zero earnings during their work careers. Other results show that this racial interaction by educational level is not apparent in cross-sectional data which do not provide information on the accumulation of zero earnings over the course of 30 years. We interpret these findings as indicating that compared to either less-educated white men or highly educated black men, the long-term earnings of less-educated African American men are likely to be more negatively affected by the consequences of residential and economic segregation, unemployment, being out of the labor force, activities in the informal economy, incarceration, and poorer health.
Implicit and Explicit Racial Attitudes Changed During Black Lives Matter
Jeremy Sawyer & Anup Gampa
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Lab-based interventions have been ineffective in changing individuals' implicit racial attitudes for more than brief durations, and exposure to high-status Black exemplars like Obama has proven ineffective in shifting societal-level racial attitudes. Antiracist social movements, however, offer a potential societal-level alternative for reducing racial bias. Racial attitudes were examined before and during Black Lives Matter (BLM) and its high points of struggle with 1,369,204 participants from 2009 to 2016. After controlling for changes in participant demographics, overall implicit attitudes were less pro-White during BLM than pre-BLM, became increasingly less pro-White across BLM, and were less pro-White during most periods of high BLM struggle. Considering changes in implicit attitudes by participant race, Whites became less implicitly pro-White during BLM, whereas Blacks showed little change. Regarding explicit attitudes, Whites became less pro-White and Blacks became less pro-Black during BLM, each moving toward an egalitarian "no preference" position.
Neighborhoods, Race, and the Twenty-first-century Housing Appraisal Industry
Junia Howell & Elizabeth Korver-Glenn
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The history of the U.S. housing market is bound up in systemic, explicit racism. However, little research has investigated whether racial inequality also persists in the contemporary appraisal industry and, if present, how it happens. The present article addresses this gap by centering the appraisal industry as a key housing market player in the reproduction of racial inequality. Using a census of all single-family tax-appraised homes in Harris County (Houston), Texas, the authors examine the influence of neighborhood racial composition on home values independent of home characteristics and quality; neighborhood housing stock, socioeconomic status, and amenities; and consumer housing demand. Noting that substantial neighborhood racial inequality in home values persists even when these variables are accounted for, the authors then use ethnographic and interview data to investigate the appraisal processes that enable this inequality to continue. The findings suggest that variation in appraisal methods coupled with appraisers' racialized perceptions of neighborhoods perpetuates neighborhood racial disparities in home value. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research and policy interventions aimed at standardizing the appraisal process.
Racial Differentials in the Components of Population Change and Neighborhood Transitions in New York City, 1980-2010: The Distinct Role of Asian Net Inflows in the Age of Net Outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics
Arun Peter Lobo, Ronald Flores & Joseph Salvo
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine New York's components of population change - net migration and natural increase - by race and space to explain increases in integrated and minority neighborhoods, in this era of greater ethnoracial diversity. The city has net outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, and net Asian inflows, a new dynamic that has reordered its neighborhoods. Asians, often joined by Hispanics, moved into White neighborhoods without triggering White flight, resulting in integrated neighborhoods without Blacks. These neighborhoods constitute a plurality, furthering Black exclusion. Minority neighborhoods saw net outflows, an overlooked phenomenon, but expanded thanks to natural increase, which maintains the existing racial structure. White inflows have helped transition some minority neighborhoods to integrated areas, though integrated neighborhoods with Blacks declined overall. As Asians and Hispanics occupy historically White spaces, this warrants a reconceptualization of race and the emerging racial hierarchy, and a focus on the gatekeeper role of Asians and Hispanics.
Reproducing whiteness and enacting kin in the Nordic context of transnational egg donation: Matching donors with cross-border traveller recipients in Finland
Riikka Homanen
Social Science & Medicine, April 2018, Pages 28-34
Abstract:
The multimillion-euro fertility industry increasingly tailors its treatments to infertile people who are willing to travel across national borders for treatments inaccessible at home, especially reproductive tissue donor treatments. Finland is the Nordic destination for access to donor eggs, particularly for Swedes and Norwegians hoping for a donor match that will achieve a child of phenotypically plausible biological descent. Finns are seen as Nordic kin, and the inheritability of "Nordicness" is reinforced at clinics. Drawing on ethnographic material from three fertility clinics in Finland during 2015-2017, this article discusses how Nordic relatedness and whiteness are enacted in the practices of matching of donors with recipient parents. The analysis shows a selective and exclusionary rationale to matching built around whiteness: matches between donors with dark skin tone and recipients with fair skin tone are rejected, but a match of a donor with fair skin and recipients with dark skin may be made. Within the context of transnational egg donation, the whiteness or Nordicness of Finns is not questioned as it has been in other historical circumstances. Even the establishment of a state donor register offers a guarantee of kin-ness, especially non-Russian kin-ness. It is concluded that the logics of matching protect the "purity" of whiteness but not browness or blackness, enacting Nordic(kin)ness in ways that are part of broader intra-European histories of racism and post-socialist Othering.
The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Enfranchisement: Evidence from North Carolina
Adriane Fresh
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act required covered jurisdictions - those deemed perniciously politically discriminatory to minorities - to preclear changes to their voting practices with the Department of Justice. By exploiting the use of a federally imposed threshold for how Section 5 coverage was applied in North Carolina, this article estimates the effect of coverage using a difference-in-differences design. This article finds that Section 5 coverage increased black voter registration by 14-19 percentage points, white registration by 10-13 percentage points, and overall voter turnout by 10-19 percentage points. Additional results for Democratic vote share suggest that some of this overall increase in turnout may have come from reactionary whites. This article finds that Section 5 coverage had a statistically and substantively meaningful effect on enfranchisement, although an effect consistent with the more modest of extant estimates in the literature.
Slavery and Just Compensation in American Constitutionalism
Stephan Stohler
Law & Social Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
The existence of compensation clauses, guaranteeing compensation when governments took private property, in antebellum state constitutions varied considerably across states and over time. Existing explanations struggle to account for such variation. I argue that slavery had an important, though varied, influence, depending on the changing strategic behavior of proslavery constitutional drafters. Proslavery delegates opposed compensation when they expected to control political decision making, but supported compensation when uncertain. This argument identifies another way that slavery impacted US constitutional development, and further suggests that American rights development resembles the experiences of other countries where elite interests were threatened.
The effects of school desegregation on mixed-race births
Nora Gordon & Sarah Reber
Journal of Population Economics, April 2018, Pages 561-596
Abstract:
We find a strong positive raw correlation between black exposure to whites in their school district and the prevalence of later mixed-race (black-white) births, consistent with the literature on residential segregation and endogamy. However, that relationship is significantly attenuated by the addition of a few control variables, suggesting that individuals with higher propensities to have mixed-race births are more likely to live in desegregated school districts. We exploit quasi-random variation from court-ordered school desegregation to estimate causal effects of school desegregation on mixed-race childbearing, finding small to moderate effects that are largely statistically insignificant. Because the upward trend across cohorts in mixed-race childbearing was substantial, separating the effects of desegregation plans from secular cohort trends is difficult; results are sensitive to how we specify the cohort trends and to the inclusion of Chicago/Cook County in the sample. The fact that the addition of a few control variables substantially weakens the cross-sectional relationship between lower levels of school segregation and higher rates of mixed-race childbearing suggests that a substantial portion of the observed correlation is likely due to who chooses to live in places with desegregated schools. Researchers should be cautious about interpreting raw correlations between segregation-whether residential or school-and other outcomes as causal. Our results also point to the need to carefully explore specification of cohort effects in quasi-experimental designs for treatments where cumulative exposure is important.
How I met your mother: The effect of school desegregation on birth outcomes
Menghan Shen
Economics of Education Review, April 2018, Pages 31-50
Abstract:
This paper assesses the effects of court-ordered school desegregation on biracial births, a measure of racial integration. Using birth certificate data, I present a multiple difference-in-differences approach that exploits variation in the timing of school desegregation in different counties. Among black mothers in non-Southern counties, I find that school desegregation increases biracial births. The results are robust to county fixed effects, cohort fixed effects, and county-specific cohort trends. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of interracial relationships and the importance of school desegregation on demographic outcomes.
The conditional spatial correlations between racial prejudice and racial disparities in the market for home loans
Nolan Kopkin
Urban Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many studies have shown the existence of disparities in loan denial rates between blacks and whites that cannot be accounted for by observable applicant characteristics. Examining the link between racial gaps in home loan denial rates and prejudicial attitudes toward blacks measured by questions in the General Social Survey, this article shows not only that blacks are more likely to be denied conventional home mortgages but that denial rates among blacks for these loans are also geographically correlated with racial prejudice, particularly among first-lien home purchase loans and loans from depository lenders. However, among Federal Housing Administration-insured loans guaranteed by the government in the event of borrower default, this study finds no evidence of a statistical relationship between racial prejudice and loan denials among black applicants. Results are consistent with taste-based discrimination by discriminatory lenders; however, one cannot rule out that statistical discrimination is at least partially driving the results.
Ignoring History, Denying Racism: Mounting Evidence for the Marley Hypothesis and Epistemologies of Ignorance
Courtney Bonam et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In demonstration of the Marley hypothesis, Nelson, Adams, and Salter showed that differences in critical historical knowledge (i.e., knowledge of past racism) and motivation to protect group esteem predicted present-day racism perceptions among Whites and Blacks attending different, racially homogenous universities. The present Study 1 conceptually replicates these findings among Whites and Blacks attending the same racially diverse university. Consistent with previous findings, Whites (vs. Blacks) displayed less critical historical knowledge, explaining their greater denial of systemic racism. Moreover, stronger racial identity among Whites predicted greater systemic racism denial. A brief Study 2 intervention boosts Whites' racism perceptions. People who learned the critical history of U.S. housing policy (vs. a control group) acknowledged more systemic racism. The present work interrupts seemingly normal and neutral dominant perspectives, provides mounting evidence for an epistemologies of ignorance framework, and suggests that learning critical history can help propel anti-racist understandings of the present.
Are inclusionary housing programs color-blind? The case of Montgomery County MPDU program
Adji Fatou Diagne, Haydar Kurban & Benoit Schmutz
Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Relying on exhaustive administrative data spanned over four decades, this paper studies the treatment of African American applicants by the Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) program in Montgomery County, MD. We show that this program was equally accessible to African-American applicants, except between 1995 and 2000, when African Americans' conditional probability of purchasing a home through the program was lowered by 10% compared to that of other applicants, maybe as a temporary response to the sudden surge in African American applicants that occurred at that time, even though we cannot rule out that this may also have reflected changes in applicant behavior. Turning to the outcome of the allocation process, we show that African American MPDU beneficiaries purchase homes located in cheaper neighborhoods and that the spatial allocation of beneficiaries does reflect preference-based sorting patterns observed on the private housing market at the neighborhood level. However, we also show that the program seems to induce some scattering of different ethnic groups at the most local level: when comparing beneficiaries living in the same housing development, but at different addresses, we find that African American beneficiaries have fewer African-American neighbors.
Black Women Social Workers in the Great Depression: A Test of Sheltered Labor Market Theory
Robert Boyd
Race and Social Problems, March 2018, Pages 67-78
Abstract:
Sheltered labor market theory proposes that, under favorable public-sector policies, members of an outcast minority group can find relief from discrimination by performing an occupation that delivers social welfare services to a co-ethnic clientele that the majority group seeks to avoid. The present study tests this proposition, examining black women's employment in social work during the Great Depression. Regression analyses of census data support the theory, suggesting that black women had a sheltered labor market in the social work profession in the North, where official non-discrimination policies in New Deal job creation programs were more scrupulously enforced than in the South. In northern cities, black women's employment in social work is positively associated with black-white residential segregation as well as with blacks' employment in public emergency work projects (e.g., the WPA). Thus, consistent with sheltered labor market theory, a minority group's representation in a social welfare delivery occupation is enhanced by both public-sector economic intervention and the minority's social and spatial distance from the majority.
Sharing the Burden of the Transition to Adulthood: African American Young Adults' Transition Challenges and Their Mothers' Health Risk
Ashley Barr et al.
American Sociological Review, February 2018, Pages 143-172
Abstract:
For many African American youth, the joint influences of economic and racial marginalization render the transition to stable adult roles challenging. We have gained much insight into how these challenges affect future life chances, yet we lack an understanding of what these challenges mean in the context of linked lives. Drawing on a life course framework, this study examines how young African Americans' experiences across a variety of salient domains during the transition to adulthood affect their mothers' health. Results suggest that stressors experienced by African Americans during the transition to adulthood (e.g., unemployment, troubled romantic relationships, arrest) heighten their mothers' cumulative biological risk for chronic diseases, or allostatic load, and reduce subjective health. These results suggest that the toll of an increasingly tenuous and uncertain transition to adulthood extends beyond young people to their parents. Hence, increased public investments during this transition may not only reduce inequality and improve life chances for young people themselves, but may also enhance healthy aging by relieving the heavy burden on parents to help their children navigate this transition.
Race Differences in Linking Family Formation Transitions to Women's Mortality
Adriana Reyes, Melissa Hardy & Eliza Pavalko
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine how the timing and sequencing of first marriage and childbirth are related to mortality for a cohort of 4,988 white and black women born between 1922 and 1937 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women. We use Cox proportional hazard models to estimate race differences in the association between family formation transitions and mortality. Although we find no relationships between marital histories and longevity, we do find that having children, the timing of first birth, and the sequencing of childbirth and marriage are associated with mortality. White women who had children lived longer than those who had none, but the opposite was found for black women. The effects of birth timing also differed by race; delaying first birth to older ages was protective for white women but not black women. These results underscore the importance of social context in the study of life course transitions.