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Conducive Characteristics or Anti-Racist Context? Decomposing the Reasons for Veterans' High Likelihood of Interracial Marriage
Rachel Shattuck & Meredith Kleykamp
Population Research and Policy Review, April 2018, Pages 261-299
Abstract:
Over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, veterans have been more likely to enter into race/ethnic intermarriages than non-veterans. Theories of race/ethnic intermarriage variously point to how minority race/ethnicity, race/ethnically diverse social settings, progressive racial attitudes, and high socioeconomic status increase individuals' likelihood of intermarrying. Veterans' unique racial and socioeconomic characteristics may contribute to their greater likelihood of intermarrying relative to non-veterans: larger percentages of veterans than non-veterans are members of racial and ethnic minority groups, while military service increases individual service members' long-term economic and educational prospects. At the same time, veterans share in common their exposure to the unique military environment, which may increase their likelihood of intermarriage by diversifying their social circles, and subjecting their attitudes and behavior to group norms that are more explicitly egalitarian than those of society at large. The present study considers these two possible explanations for veterans' greater likelihood of intermarriage. We use data on seven cohorts of men over six decades in the Current Population Survey, representing a total of 1,456,742 observations, to decompose the difference in likelihood of racial intermarriage between veterans and non-veterans among married men aged 18-65. We find that across cohorts and decades, veterans' greater likelihood of intermarrying is not fully explained by their race/ethnic and socioeconomic composition. We argue that veterans' greater likelihood of intermarrying may therefore be driven by their exposure to the military environment.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Geography of Intergenerational Mobility
Jonathan Davis & Bhashkar Mazumder
University of Chicago Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
We use the NLSY79 to produce the first estimates of intergenerational mobility in the U.S. by both region and race/ethnicity. We show that gaps in intergenerational mobility by race are significantly larger than those by region. In particular, there is no region in the United States where it is better to be poor and black compared to being equally poor and white. We also show that the expected rank of Hispanics falls between that of whites and blacks. We find that the low mobility in the Southeast of the US documented by Chetty et al (2014) is actually driven by low mobility by whites and that blacks who grew up in the Southeast actually experience higher mobility than blacks growing up in the Northeast and Midwest. We also directly examine the role of migration and find that it plays little role in explaining the regional heterogeneity in intergenerational mobility. Finally, we use a rich set of individual covariates available in the NLSY - including test scores - and show that these can explain much of the gaps by race/ethnicity.
Minority Threat, Worker Power, and Discriminatory Complaints: State-level Effects on Racial Income Inequality among Men
David Maume, Ervin (Maliq) Matthew & George Wilson
Social Currents, forthcoming
Abstract:
Because U.S. states are meaningful polities with differing cultures and institutions, they are important locations for the struggles for resources. Yet there have been surprisingly few studies of how state-level cleavages and institutions shape the pattern of income inequality, especially by race. This article matches individual-level data on income and its determinants (from the Current Population Survey) to state-level measures (mostly from Census data) of varying demographic, power, and institutional configurations. A multilevel model of the racial pay gap is estimated showing that racial income inequality increases with the size of the minority population in the state but decreases with the rate of filing racial discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The index of labor market power (a scaled index of union density and the size of the public sector) increases pay across the board but does not reduce racial income inequality. The findings suggest that recent and current neoliberal efforts across states to shrink government, limit unions, and abandon enforcement of antidiscrimination will lower wages for all workers and exacerbate racial income inequality.
Electoral Institutions and Democratic Legitimacy
Jon Rogowski & Sophie Schuit
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was widely heralded as a solution to persistently high levels of Black political alienation and cynicism. But despite the importance of the Voting Rights Act for the political representation of historically marginalized groups, little is known about how citizens protected by key provisions of the Act viewed democratic institutions. Integrating insights from the policy feedback literature with studies on the relationship between electoral institutions and attitudes toward government, we predict that the voting protections embedded in the Voting Rights Act led to more favorable attitudes toward government among affected communities. Analyses of data from 1972 to 1998 show that Black citizens in jurisdictions covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, exhibited consistently higher levels of trust in government and more positive perceptions of governmental responsiveness. However, we find no evidence that preclearance was associated with similar patterns among whites. Our results may have especially important contemporary relevance given recent controversies over changes to state and local election laws.
Race and Bankruptcy
Edward Morrison, Belisa Pang & Antoine Uettwiller
Columbia University Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
Among consumers who file for bankruptcy, African Americans file Chapter 13 petitions at substantially higher rates than other racial groups. Some have hypothesized that the difference is attributable to discrimination by attorneys. We show that the difference may be attributable, in substantial part, to a selection effect: Among distressed consumers, African Americans have longer commutes to work, rely more heavily on cars for the commute, and therefore have greater demand for a bankruptcy process (Chapter 13) that allows them to retain their cars. We begin by showing that African Americans tend to have longer commuting times than other consumers and, when they do have longer commuting times, they also have relatively high Chapter 13 filing rates. We show this using data from Atlanta, Chicago, and Memphis, each of which has been identified as a location with over-representation of African Americans in Chapter 13. We then test our hypothesis that African Americans' reliance on automobiles is a cause of their substantially higher use of Chapter 13. We do this using data from Chicago, where the city recently implemented an aggressive program to collect parking debts by seizing the cars and suspending the licenses of consumers with large debts. We show that this city-wide program disproportionately affected African Americans and, as a result, their share of Chapter 13 filings increased substantially. Although we do not disprove the possibility of discrimination by attorneys, our data show that selection effects are potentially as important in explaining patterns in Chapter 13 cases.
Gender and the Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Attainment of Black-White Couples
Ryan Gabriel
Demography, April 2018, Pages 459-484
Abstract:
Including black-white couples in the study of residential stratification accentuates gendered power disparities within couples that favor men over women, which allows for the analysis of whether the race of male partners in black-white couples is associated with the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhoods. I investigate this by combining longitudinal data between 1985 and 2015 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked to neighborhood- and metropolitan-level data compiled from four censuses. Using these data, I assess the mobility of black male-white female and white male-black female couples out of and into neighborhoods defined respectively by their levels of whites, blacks, and ethnoracial diversity. My results show that the race of the male partner in black-white couples tends to align with the racial and ethnic composition of the neighborhoods where these couples reside. This finding highlights that the racial hierarchy within the United States affects the residential mobility and attainment of black-white couples, but its influence is conditioned by the race and gender composition of these couples.
Testing for racial bias in business credit scores
Alicia Robb & David Robinson
Small Business Economics, March 2018, Pages 429-443
Abstract:
We develop a novel empirical test of racial bias based on comparisons between forward-looking, expectations-based credit scores and backward-looking, repayment-history-based credit scores. We then test for racial bias using confidential-access data from the Kauffman Firm Survey. Businesses founded by disadvantaged minorities have much lower average business credit scores, but these scores show no evidence of racial bias. If anything, forward-looking credit-score models under-predict the rate of payment delinquency among minority-owned businesses.
Are minority-owned businesses underserved by financial markets? Evidence from the private-equity industry
Timothy Bates, William Bradford & William Jackson
Small Business Economics, March 2018, Pages 445-461
Abstract:
Our study addresses a longstanding question - whether discrimination exists in financial markets. Although empirical evidence demonstrating disparate treatment of minorities is vast, studies have inadequately explained why minority customers seeking financing are targeted for discriminatory treatment. We develop a theoretical framework explaining why profit-maximizing capital suppliers may choose to offer minority clients worse terms than those provided to comparable white customers. Our framework stresses search costs and reservation prices. We then test this by comparing the relative profitability of investing private equity in minority- and white-owned small firms, an approach advocated by Gary Becker. Using three empirical tests, we consistently find the financial returns derived from investing in minority firms exceed those of white-firm investments. Conducting Becker's test, in this instance, indicates that disparate treatment of minority clients does not result in loss of profitable investing opportunities for private equity funds but, instead, higher profits.
Ethnicity, Democracy, Trust: A Majority-Minority Approach
Rima Wilkes & Cary Wu
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do ethnic and racialized minorities have lower trust? While previous research emphasizes individual factors such as the national and cultural origins of ethnic groups, this paper draws attention to the ethnic majority-minority relationship. We argue that ethnic differences in trust are a function of the power dynamics underlying this relationship and that these dynamics are particularly salient in democratic political systems. To test this argument, we develop new measures of ethnic majority-minority status, which for the first time allows for global cross-national comparison of heterogeneous ethnic groups at the micro level. Using the World Values Survey, we test the majority-minority argument, showing that, while democracy increases generalized trust across the board, it also leads to a gap in trust that favors the majority group. This gap remains even after the inclusion of controls for country differences in factors such as ethnic diversity and GDP.
The persistence of white flight in middle-class suburbia
Samuel Kye
Social Science Research, May 2018, Pages 38-52
Abstract:
Scholars have continued to debate the extent to which white flight remains racially motivated or, in contrast, the result of socioeconomic concerns that proxy locations of minority residence. Using 1990-2010 census data, this study contributes to this debate by re-examining white flight in a sample of both poor and middle-class suburban neighborhoods. Findings fail to provide evidence in support of the racial proxy hypothesis. To the contrary, for neighborhoods with a larger non-white presence, white flight is instead more likely in middle-class as opposed to poorer neighborhoods. These results not only confirm the continued salience of race for white flight, but also suggest that racial white flight may be motivated to an even greater extent in middle-class, suburban neighborhoods. Theoretically, these findings point to the decoupling of economic and racial residential integration, as white flight may persist for groups even despite higher levels of socioeconomic attainment.
Racial Stratification, Immigration, and Health Inequality: A Life Course-Intersectional Approach
Tyson Brown
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
While health inequalities related to race/ethnicity, nativity, and age are well documented, it remains unclear how these axes of stratification combine to shape health trajectories, especially in middle and late life. This study addresses gaps in the literature by drawing on both life course and intersectionality perspectives to understand inequalities in morbidity trajectories. Using growth curve models applied to data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examine the life course patterning of health inequalities among US- and foreign-born non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican Americans between the ages of 51 and 80 (N = 16,265). Findings are consistent with premature aging and cumulative disadvantage processes: US- and foreign-born blacks and Mexican Americans experience earlier health deterioration than US-born whites, and they also tend to exhibit steeper health declines with age. Moreover, contrary to the common assumption of monolithic healthy immigrant and erosion processes, results show that these processes are contingent on both race/ethnicity and age: compared with US-born whites, white immigrants have a persistent health advantage, while black and Mexican American immigrants experience a health disadvantage that increases with age. These results suggest that among nonwhite immigrants, the immigrant health advantage may be offset by cumulative exposure to racialized immigrant incorporation processes. A wide array of health-related factors including socioeconomic resources, health behaviors, and medical care account for some, but not all, group differences in morbidity trajectories. Findings highlight the utility of life course and intersectionality perspectives for understanding health inequalities.
Racial Segregation in the United States since the Great Depression: A Dynamic Segregation Approach
Trevor Kollmann, Simone Marsiglio & Sandy Suardi
Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Racial segregation is a salient feature of cities in the United States. Models like Schelling (1971) show that segregation can arise through white preferences for residing near minorities. Once the threshold or "tipping point" is passed, the models predict that all whites will leave. Our paper uses census-tract data for six cities in the United States from the 1930s and 1970-2010 to measure decadal, city-specific tipping points. We use a structural break procedure to estimate the tipping points and incorporate these in a regression-discontinuity design to estimate the impact on population trends for neighborhoods that exceed that threshold while controlling for city-specific trends in migration. We find that the magnitude of white flight for neighborhoods that have tipped in 2000 has fallen to between 23 and 36 percent of the level seen in 1970. There was no discontinuity in white flight after accounting for migration trends during the Great Depression. Finally, we show that in-migration of minorities in tipped neighborhoods do not fill in the gap left by white flight.
Race, Representation and Local Governments in the US South: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act
Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini & Cecilia Testa
University of Oxford Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened elective offices to blacks in the US South, but systematic evidence on its immediate effects remains scant. Using a novel data-set on black elected officials between 1964-1980, we assess the causal impact of the VRA on the racial make-up of local governments. Since the VRA mandated federal scrutiny (coverage) over a group of Southern counties, we deploy a differences-in-differences estimation strategy using non-covered counties as a comparison group. Our results show that coverage doubled the extent to which black enfranchisement led to gains in black office-holding, particularly among bodies controlling local public finances.
Mortality, Incarceration, and African American Disenfranchisement in the Contemporary United States
David Cottrell et al.
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
On account of poor living conditions, African Americans in the United States experience disproportionately high rates of mortality and incarceration compared with Whites. This has profoundly diminished the number of voting-eligible African Americans in the country, costing, as of 2010, approximately 3.9 million African American men and women the right to vote and amounting to a national African American disenfranchisement rate of 13.2%. Although many disenfranchised African Americans have been stripped of voting rights by laws targeting felons and ex-felons, the majority are literally "missing" from their communities due to premature death and incarceration. Leveraging variation in gender ratios across the United States, we show that missing African Americans are concentrated in the country's Southeast and that African American disenfranchisement rates in some legislative districts lie between 20% and 40%. Despite the many successes of the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights movement, high levels of African American disenfranchisement remain a continuing feature of the American polity.
Migration and protest in the Jim Crow South
Stewart Tolnay, E.M. Beck & Victoria Sass
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement were two pivotal events experienced by the southern African American population during the 20th Century. Each has received considerable attention by social scientists and historians, and a possible connection between the two phenomena has been speculated. However, no systematic investigation of the effect of migration on protest during the Jim Crow era has been conducted. In this study we use data for 333 southern communities to examine the relationship between youthful black migration between 1950 and 1960 and the occurrence of sit-ins early in 1960. We find a strong positive, non-linear, relationship between net-migration and the likelihood of a sit-in which can be explained by two sets of mediating influences: local demographic conditions and local organizational presence. Our findings offer strong empirical support for an association between southern black migration and protest during Jim Crow and suggest the value of considering the influence of demographic forces on collective action.