Bonds of The Past
Enfranchisement and Incarceration after the 1965 Voting Rights Act
Nicholas Eubank & Adriane Fresh
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) fundamentally changed the distribution of electoral power in the US South. We examine the consequences of this mass enfranchisement of Black people for the use of the carceral state -- police, the courts, and the prison system. We study the extent to which white communities in the US South responded to the end of Jim Crow by increasing the incarceration of Black people. We test this with new historical data on state and county prison intake data by race (~1940-1985) in a series of difference-in-differences designs. We find that states covered by Section 5 of the VRA experienced a differential increase in Black prison admissions relative to those that were not covered and that incarceration varied systematically in proportion to the electoral threat posed by Black voters. Our findings indicate the potentially perverse consequences of enfranchisement when establishment power seeks -- and finds -- other outlets of social and political control.
Wealth, Race, and Place: How Neighborhood (Dis)advantage From Emerging to Middle Adulthood Affects Wealth Inequality and the Racial Wealth Gap
Brian Levy
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do neighborhood conditions affect wealth accumulation? This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort and a counterfactual estimation strategy to analyze the effect of prolonged exposure to neighborhood (dis)advantage from emerging adulthood through middle adulthood. Neighborhoods have sizable, plausibly causal effects on wealth, but these effects vary significantly by race/ethnicity and homeownership. White homeowners receive the largest payoff to reductions in neighborhood disadvantage. Black adults, regardless of homeownership, are doubly disadvantaged in the neighborhood-wealth relationship. They live in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods and receive little return to reductions in neighborhood disadvantage. Findings indicate that disparities in neighborhood (dis)advantage figure prominently in wealth inequality and the racial wealth gap.
Does it Payoff to be Blond in a Non-Blond Neighborhood? Eye Color, Hair Color, Ethnic Composition and Starting Wages
Elif Filiz
Eastern Economic Journal, January 2022, Pages 122-146
Abstract:
In this paper, I examine the impact of eye and hair color on wages at one's first-job after completing schooling. Evidence suggests that having blond/red hair has a positive impact on wages, particularly for white people and females. Using detailed ethnic origin information collected by the Census and using tipping point analysis, I find that individuals with blond/red hair who reside in a county where ethnicities with brown/black hair/eyes constitute the majority, earn around nine percent more compared to individuals with brown/black hair residing in the same county.
Examining the Association between Racialized Economic Threat and White Suicide in the United States, 2000-2016
Simone Rambotti
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Suicide is steadily rising. Many blamed worsening economic conditions for this trend. Sociological theory established clear pathways between joblessness and suicide focused on status threat, shame, and consequent disruption of social relationships. However, recent empirical research provides little support for a link between unemployment and suicide. I attempt to reconcile this contradiction by focusing on white suicide and white employment-to-population ratio. Whiteness is not just a default category but a pervasive ideology that amplifies the effects of status loss. The white employment-to-population ratio represents a form of racialized economic threat and accounts for discouraged workers who have exited the labor force. I use longitudinal hybrid models with U.S. state-level data, 2000 to 2016, and find that decreasing employment is associated with increasing suicide among the white population and white men. I discuss this study's contributions to the literature on suicide and joblessness and the emerging scholarship on whiteness and health.
Contextualizing Educational Disparities in Health: Variations by Race/Ethnicity, Nativity, and County-Level Characteristics
Taylor Hargrove, Lauren Gaydosh & Alexis Dennis
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
Educational disparities in health are well documented, yet the education-health relationship is inconsistent across racial/ethnic and nativity groups. These inconsistencies may arise from characteristics of the early life environments in which individuals attain their education. We evaluate this possibility by investigating (1) whether educational disparities in cardiometabolic risk vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among Black, Hispanic, and White young adults; (2) the extent to which racial/ethnic-nativity differences in the education-health relationship are contingent on economic, policy, and social characteristics of counties of early life residence; and (3) the county characteristics associated with the best health at higher levels of education for each racial/ethnic-nativity group. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that Black young adults who achieve high levels of education exhibit worse health across a majority of contexts relative to their White and Hispanic counterparts. Additionally, we observe more favorable health at higher levels of education across almost all contexts for White individuals. For all other racial/ethnic-nativity groups, the relationship between education and health depends on the characteristics of the early life counties of residence. Findings highlight place-based factors that may contribute to the development of racial/ethnic and nativity differences in the education-health relationship among U.S. young adults.
Jailed While Presumed Innocent: The Demobilizing Effects of Pretrial Incarceration
Anne McDonough, Ted Enamorado & Tali Mendelberg
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Attention to the American carceral state has focused largely on its bookends: policing and sentencing. Between these bookends lies an under-researched but far-reaching "shadow" carceral state, a hybrid of criminal and commercial systems that often contravenes the principles of liberty, due process, and equal protection. Pretrial detention is an iconic example. It accounts for the majority of people in local jails on a given day. Up to half of detainees will not be convicted, yet detention often lasts months and triggers significant losses. Most are detained because they are too poor to pay bail, and they are disproportionately Black. How does this widespread punitive, arbitrary, and unequal experience affect political behavior? Using administrative records and as-if random assignment of bail magistrates, we find that pretrial incarceration substantially decreases voting among Black Americans. These results point to the neglected but important "shadow" carceral state.
Old South, New Deal: How the Legacy of Slavery Undermined the New Deal
Soumyajit Mazumder
Journal of Historical Political Economy, November 2021, Pages 447-475
Abstract:
How and to what degree did slavery shape the reach of the American state? Building on existing literatures, I develop and test the hypothesis that slavery shaped the development of the American welfare state by creating highly labor coercive societies. To test the argument, I focus on the New Deal period of the United States -- one of the largest expansions of the American state in American history -- as a window into understanding the link between labor coercion and redistribution. I assemble a dataset using historical census data combined with detailed, program-by-county level New Deal spending data across the U.S. South and use an instrumental variables identification strategy to establish causality. Results show strong evidence for the argument and hypothesized mechanism. These results indicate the importance of interaction between history, local politics, and national state expansion.
The Impact of State Drug Laws on High School Completion and College Enrollment for Latino Young Men
Tolani Britton & Arlyn Moreno Luna
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although college enrollment and completion rates have increased over the past 30 years, access to higher education has not been uniform across racial groups. In addition to racial gaps, differences in tertiary education outcomes exist by gender. Gender gaps in college enrollment are larger in the Latinx community than in other racial or ethnic groups. In this paper, we use the October Current Population Survey (CPS) supplements for the years 1984-1992 and state and federal drug laws to measure the impact of the passage of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act on the likelihood of college enrollment for young Latino men. Following the passage of the federal law, some states changed their drug laws around marijuana and cocaine possession and distribution. We use this variation in state law in order to explore whether states that have more lenient marijuana and cocaine laws also have a higher likelihood of college enrollment. We find that there was a four percentage point decline in both the likelihood of high school completion and that of college enrollment for Latinx men after the passage of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Findings have implications for modifications to state drug laws and addressing the ways in which these laws impact educational attainment for students underrepresented in higher education
The good ol' days: White identity, racial nostalgia, and the perpetuation of racial extremism
Christine Reyna et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
A prevailing theme in White nationalist rhetoric is nostalgia for a time when Whites dominated American culture and had unchallenged status. The present research examines a form of collective nostalgia called racial nostalgia and its association with negative intergroup attitudes and extreme ideologies (White nationalism). In Studies 1 and 2, racial nostalgia was associated with higher racial identity, anti-immigrant attitudes, and White nationalism. Study 2 revealed that racial nostalgia was related to extreme ideologies, in part, through perceptions that immigrants and racial minorities posed realistic/symbolic threats. Study 3 manipulated nostalgia using a writing prompt ("America's racial past" vs. "games of America's past") and an identity prime (prime vs. no prime). Racial nostalgia was higher in the racial prompt versus the games prompt condition, regardless of identity prime. Furthermore, there were significant indirect effects of the nostalgia manipulation on support for anti-immigrant policies and endorsement of White nationalism through increased racial nostalgia and its association with perceived threats. These findings show that racial nostalgia can be a maladaptive form of collective nostalgia linked to a sense of loss and threat, and can make people sympathetic to extreme racial ideologies.