Congealing Pot
Testing for Racial Profiling With the Veil-of-Darkness Method
Robert Worden, Sarah McLean & Andrew Wheeler
Police Quarterly, March 2012, Pages 92-111
Abstract:
The "veil-of-darkness" method is an innovative and low-cost approach that circumvents many of the benchmarking issues that arise in testing for racial profiling. Changes in natural lighting are used to establish a presumptively more race-neutral benchmark on the assumption that after dark, police suffer an impaired ability to detect motorists' race. Applying the veil-of-darkness method to vehicle stops by the Syracuse (NY) police between 2006 and 2009 and examining differences among officers assigned to specialized traffic units and crime-suppression units, we found that African Americans were no more likely to be stopped during daylight than during darkness, indicating no racial bias.
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Interracial Workplace Cooperation: Evidence from the NBA
Joseph Price, Lars Lefgren & Henry Tappen
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA), we examine whether patterns of workplace cooperation occur disproportionately among workers of the same race. We find that, holding constant the composition of teammates on the floor, basketball players are no more likely to complete an assist to a player of the same race than a player of a different race. Our confidence interval allows us to reject even small amounts of same-race bias in passing patterns. We find some evidence of own-race bias in situations where the outcome of a particular play is less important. Our findings suggest that high levels of interracial cooperation can occur in a setting where workers are operating in a highly visible setting with strong incentives to behave efficiently.
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It's All in the Name: Employment Discrimination Against Arab Americans
Daniel Widner & Stephen Chicoine
Sociological Forum, December 2011, Pages 806-823
Abstract:
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Arab Americans faced increased discrimination that permeated almost every aspect of their lives. Previous research has documented the negative attention toward Arab Americans after 9/11 and the effect it has had on this community. However, less research has focused on discrimination against Arab Americans during the process of obtaining employment in the United States. To address this gap in the current literature, we conducted a correspondence study in which we randomly assigned a typical white-sounding name or a typical Arab-sounding name to two similar fictitious résumés. We sent résumés to 265 jobs over a 15-month period. We found that an Arab male applicant needed to send two résumés to every one résumé sent by a white male applicant to receive a callback for an interview by the hiring personnel. Our findings suggest that the difference in callbacks may be the result of discrimination against the perceived race/ethnicity of the applicant by the hiring personnel.
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Roommate's race and the racial composition of white college students' ego networks
Noah Mark & Daniel Harris
Social Science Research, March 2012, Pages 331-342
Abstract:
We develop and test a new hypothesis about how the race of a college freshman's roommate affects the racial composition of the student's ego network. Together, three principles of social structure - proximity, homophily, and transitivity - logically imply that college students assigned a roommate of a given race will have more friends (other than their roommate) of that race than will students assigned a roommate not of that race. A test with data collected from 195 white freshmen at Stanford University in the spring of 2002 supports this prediction. Our analysis advances earlier work by predicting and providing evidence of race-specific effects: While students assigned a different-race roommate of a given race have more friends (other than their roommate) of their roommate's race, they do not have more different-race friends not of their roommate's race.
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Race, Attorney Influence, and Bankruptcy Chapter Choice
Jean Braucher, Dov Cohen & Robert Lawless
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
We report on racially disparate uses of chapter 13 bankruptcy. Currently, approximately 1,500,000 bankruptcy petitions are filed each year, with about 30% of those petitions being chapter 13 cases. Although chapter 13 can offer some legal advantages for persons seeking to protect valuable assets such as a house or automobile, it generally offers less relief and costs more than the primary alternative available to consumers, chapter 7. The chief feature of a chapter 13 bankruptcy case is a plan under which the debtor must devote all of his or her disposable income to creditor repayment over a 3- to 5-year period. Chapter 7, in contrast, requires only that the debtor turn over all nonexempt assets, with over 90% of chapter 7 debtors having no assets to turn over. This paper reports on two studies, one using data from actual bankruptcy cases and the other involving an experiment with a national random sample of bankruptcy attorneys. Because the court system does not collect racial data on bankruptcy filers, the first study uses data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project. Even after controlling for financial, demographic, and legal factors that might favor a chapter 13 filing, African Americans are much more likely to file chapter 13, as compared to debtors of other races. The second study reports on an experimental vignette sent to a random sample of consumer bankruptcy attorneys who represented debtors. The attorneys were more likely to recommend chapter 13 when the hypothetical debtors were a couple named "Reggie & Latisha," who attended an African Methodist Episcopal Church, as compared to a couple named "Todd & Allison," who attended a United Methodist Church. Also, attorneys viewed "Reggie & Latisha" as having better values and being more competent when they expressed a preference for chapter 13 as compared to "Todd & Allison," who were seen as having better values and being more competent when they wanted to file chapter 7, giving them a "fresh start." Previous research and the results from the present experimental vignette study suggest consumer bankruptcy attorneys may be playing a very important, although likely unintentional, role in creating the racial disparity in chapter choice. Together, the two studies raise questions about the fairness of the bankruptcy system.
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Taste-based discrimination evidence from a shift in ethnic preferences after WWI
Petra Moser
Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper uses program notes from the Metropolitan opera to quantify changes in ethnic preferences as a result of news of German atrocities during World War I; these data indicate that the War created a persistent shift in ethnic preferences, which effectively switched the status of German Americans from a mainstream ethnicity to an ethnic minority until the late 1920s. Difference-in-difference analyses investigate whether this shift in preferences triggered taste-based discrimination in one of the world's most elite professional settings: applications to trade at the NYSE. This analysis indicates that changes in preferences more than doubled the probability that applicants with German-sounding names would be rejected. Placebo regressions for other non-German minorities yield no evidence of taste effects. Equivalent regressions that distinguish German Jewish from other Jewish applicants, however, indicate that German Jewish applicants were similarly affected as were other Germans.
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Fiona Kay & Elizabeth Gorman
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 2012, Pages 91-113
Abstract:
Explanations of minority underrepresentation among organizational managers have focused primarily on either employee deficits in human and social capital or employer discrimination. To date, research has paid little attention to the role of developmental practices and related cultural values within organizations. Using data on large U.S. law firms, the authors investigate the role of formal developmental practices and cultural values in the representation of three minority groups among firm partners: African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. The authors find that formal practices and cultural values intended to aid employee growth and development do not "level the playing field" for minorities. Formal training and mentoring programs do not increase minority presence, while a longer time period to promotion, a cultural commitment to professional development, and a cultural norm of early responsibility are all negatively associated with minority representation. Although the pattern is broadly similar across all three groups, some effects vary in interesting ways.
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Affirmative Action in Higher Education in India: Targeting, Catch Up, and Mismatch at IIT-Delhi
Verónica Frisancho Robles & Kala Krishna
NBER Working Paper, January 2012
Abstract:
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enroll in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than their same-caste counterparts in less selective majors. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection.
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Diversity in Political Institutions and Congressional Responsiveness to Minority Interests
Michael Minta & Valeria Sinclair-Chapman
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite claims that diversity benefits the democratic process, critics question whether increased diversity significantly improves government responsiveness and accountability beyond electoral competition and constituency influence. The authors advance a diversity infrastructure theory to explain why and how minority legislators have kept minority interests on the congressional agenda. Using data on congressional hearings held on civil rights and social welfare from 1951 to 2004, the authors find that despite the decline of national attention to civil rights and social welfare issues in general, increased diversity in the House and to a lesser extent in the Senate is responsible for keeping minority interests on the congressional agenda.
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Randolph Hohle
Sociological Forum, March 2012, Pages 142-162
Abstract:
Prior research on the origins and diffusion of the neoliberal project have emphasized the role of elite economists, yet no explanations have been provided as to why neoliberal reforms were attractive to the broader U.S. population. To fill this gap in the literature, this article focuses on the voluntary sector struggles against desegregation and corporate taxation in postwar Alabama. I examine the emergence of a language of privatization that degraded all things public as "black" and inferior and all things private as "white" and superior, which provided the pretext to attract national white support for the neoliberal turn. Empirically, the article focuses on the construction of the modern southern businessman that emerged from struggles to economically modernize the South, and the construction of a publicly financed private school system that emerged from the struggles to fight school desegregation. These two struggles fused under the George Wallace political umbrella, whose regional and national political career diffused the racial language from its origins in 1950s Alabama to the national level in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow & Jimi Adams
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, February 2012, Pages 43-59
Abstract:
The popular image of the African American National Basketball Association (NBA) player as rising from the ‘ghetto' to international fame and fortune misleads academics and publics alike. This false image is fueled, in part, by critical shortcomings in empirical research on the relationship between race, sport, and occupational mobility: these studies have not adequately examined differences in social class and family structure backgrounds across, and especially within, racial groups. To address this problem, we empirically investigate how the intersection of race, social class and family structure background influences entry into the NBA. Information on social class and family structure background for a subpopulation of NBA players (N = 155) comes from 245 articles published in local, regional and national newspapers between 1994 and 2004. We find that, after accounting for methodological problems common in newspaper data, most NBA players come from relatively advantaged social origins and African Americans from disadvantaged social origins have lower odds of being in the NBA than African American and white players from relatively advantaged origins. A discussion of the implications of these findings for academics and publics concludes the article.
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Robert Boyd
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, January 2012, Pages 126-150
Abstract:
Past studies have dismissed the claim that retail enterprise among blacks in the urban North during the early 20th century was suppressed by competition from white immigrant merchants. The present investigation reconsiders the suppression hypothesis, applying the concepts of "niche overlap" and "competitive exclusion" from the literature on ethnic competition. An analysis of Census data on large northern cities offers some support for the hypothesis. The level of retail entrepreneurship of black men was negatively associated with that of white immigrant men in 1910 and 1920, implying that black retail enterprise at these time-points was discouraged by the presence of white immigrant merchants. These negative associations, though, were only moderately significant in a substantive sense, and there was no evidence that a reduction of white immigrant merchants would have produced substantial gains for blacks in the retail trade, as many black entrepreneurs and activists at the time had claimed.
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"Call to Home?" Race, Region, and Migration to the U.S. South, 1970-2000
Matthew Hunt, Larry Hunt & William Falk
Sociological Forum, March 2012, Pages 117-141
Abstract:
This research examines recent migration patterns of native-born blacks and whites to the U.S. South. Our primary research questions concern race and regional migration dynamics, and whether new insights into such can be gleaned by comparing migrants to the South with persons moving within the non-South. Using samples of 1970-2000 census data, we focus on race differences in the tendency to choose the South as a migration destination, and whether whites and blacks differ in key selection mechanisms shaping movement to different regional destinations. We observe increasing rates of black (compared to white) migration to the South. Additionally, patterns of selectivity within this growing African-American migration stream are especially dramatic when southern migrants are compared to persons moving within the non-South. Our analyses also show that black migrants are targeting particular parts of the South (e.g., states where blacks are a larger share of the population), suggesting that future research should disaggregate the "Census South" region to provide a more comprehensive picture of contemporary interregional migration in the United States.
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Checking the Pulse of Diversity among Health Care Professionals: An Analysis of West Coast Hospitals
Sheryl Skaggs & Julie Kmec
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 2012, Pages 236-257
Abstract:
What factors are associated with variation in the racial/ethnic composition of hospital health care professionals? Institutional theories suggest that organizations react to external environmental and internal structural pressures for the racial/ethnic integration of workers. Using an institutional framework, we bring to bear new insight into how hospitals respond to such pressure for diversity. Models estimated with original data from 328 U.S. West Coast hospitals provide evidence that establishment size and a hospital's minority patient base promote diversity among health care professionals. The state legal environment is also associated with the racial/ethnic composition of professional hospital workers, indicating the importance of fair employment laws and court decisions in signaling expectations about workplace diversity. Last, the findings show that factors within hospitals' competitive and internal environments have positive consequences for diversity among health care professionals. We discuss implications for our findings, especially in the context of health care worker shortages and ongoing health care reform.
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Caste and Entrepreneurship in India
Lakshmi Iyer, Tarun Khanna & Ashutosh Varshney
Harvard Working Paper, October 2011
Abstract:
It is now widely accepted that the lower castes have risen in Indian politics. Has there been a corresponding change in the economy? Using comprehensive data on enterprise ownership from the Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998 and 2005, we document substantial caste differences in entrepreneurship across India. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are significantly under-represented in the ownership of enterprises and the share of the workforce employed by them. These differences are widespread across all states, have decreased very modestly between 1990 and 2005, and cannot be attributed to broad differences in access to physical or human capital.
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David Maume
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 2012, Pages 198-216
Abstract:
Scholars differ on whether the increase in minority managers represents real or vacuous progress toward the elimination of racial bias in the labor market. This study uses the National Study of the Changing Workforce to examine racial differences in work outcomes across the authority divide. On balance, this study finds more support for the pessimistic view of the minority presence in management, in that racial wage inequality is as large among supervisors as among nonsupervisors, and minority supervisors get less challenging job assignments and are more vulnerable to layoffs than white supervisors. Among subordinates, this study finds support for "bottom-up ascription" processes, in that minority workers who report to a minority boss earn less despite being more committed workers. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings and the need for further research on minorities in management.
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The Provision of Local Public Goods in Diverse Communities: Analyzing Municipal Bond Elections
Jacob Rugh & Jessica Trounstine
Journal of Politics, October 2011, Pages 1038-1050
Abstract:
Scholars have shown that diversity depresses public goods provision. In U.S. cities, racial and ethnic divisions could seriously undermine investment. However, diverse cities spend significant amounts on public goods. We ask how these communities overcome their potential collective action problem. Using a new data set on more than 3,000 municipal bond elections, we show that strategic politicians encourage cooperation. Diversity leads officials to be more selective about requesting approval for investment and more attentive to coalition building. We show that diverse communities see fewer bond elections, but that the bonds proposed are larger and pass at higher rates. Diverse cities tend to offer voters bonds with more spending categories and are more likely to hold referenda during general elections. As a result, diverse cities do just as well as homogenous cities in issuing voter-authorized debt. Thus, political elites perform an important mediating function in the generation of public goods.
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Rachel Butts & Stephen Gasteyer
Environmental Practice, December 2011, Pages 386-395
Abstract:
While much of the environmental justice literature has focused on exposure to environmental contaminants, this article argues that access to environmental goods should be explored, as well. We do this by looking at the rates paid for drinking and wastewater infrastructure in the United States (US). Although US residents, in aggregate, pay very little for water and sewer (around 1% of household income), the rate varies significantly by place (with Chicago residents paying roughly one fourth of the rates of residents in Atlanta, for instance). We ask whether particular groups may disproportionately pay higher rates. Using census data, we compare the cost of water and sewer across counties in Michigan and find tremendous disparity in reported expenditure. We then use multivariate regression analysis to investigate the relationship among income, urbanicity, race, and cost of water and sewer. Our findings indicate that a higher reported cost of water and sewer is associated most strongly with minority racial status. This results from postindustrial divestment and subsequent depopulation of particular urban areas. As a result, decreased demand (fewer households remaining in the city) actually increases prices (per remaining household), since water infrastructure costs are fixed, and this phenomenon disproportionately disadvantages people of color - who make up the majority of the great industrial cities.
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Racial Disparities in Credit Constraints in the Great Recession: Evidence from the UK
John Gathergood
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, September 2011
Abstract:
This paper investigates racial disparities in household credit constraints using UK survey data. We find a widening disparity in the proportion of racial minority households reporting they face credit constraints compared with non-minority households over the period 2006-2009. By 2009 three times as many racial minority households faced credit constraints compared with non-minority households. The difference in credit constraints across racial minority and non-minority households is not explained by a broad set of covariates. While cross-section variation in reported credit constraints might most likely reflect unobservables, we argue this time series variation is very unlikely to arise due to unobservables and is evidence of growing perceived disparity in credit access between racial groups over the period.
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Rashawn Ray & Jason Rosow
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, February 2012, Pages 66-94
Abstract:
There has been limited empirical research on how individuals "do privilege." As a result, our understandings are incomplete about how high-status groups continue reaping the benefits of privilege. Using data from fifty-two men in three white and four black fraternities at a predominately white institution, this paper demonstrates that visibility and accountability function as mechanisms of privilege. Because of a large community size, central fraternity house, and influential alumni, white fraternity men are afforded a hyper level of invisibility and unaccountability. Because of the small black community and the obligation black fraternity men perceive having to be the ideal black student, they reap a hyper level of visibility and accountability based on expectations from and interactions with a host of others (e.g., university officials, white students, black community, women). By showing how high-status whites epitomize an ideal white racial identity and preserve inter- and intraracial boundaries, we advance theoretical discussions on hegemonic whiteness.
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Women's Mobility into Upper-Tier Occupations: Do Determinants and Timing Differ by Race?
George Wilson
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 2012, Pages 131-148
Abstract:
Data from the 1998 to 2005 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to assess the particularistic mobility thesis, which maintains that among women there is a racialized continuum in the determinants of and timing to mobility into two "upper-tier" occupational categories. Findings support this theory, though racial gaps along the continuum are greater for professional/technical than for managerial/administrative positions. Specifically, the route to mobility for African Americans is relatively narrow and structured by traditional stratification causal factors, including human capital, background status, and job/labor market characteristics. In contrast, the route to mobility for whites is relatively broad and unstructured by the stratification-based causal factors, and they experience mobility the quickest. Along both dimensions, Latinas occupy an intermediate position between African Americans and whites. Implications of the findings for understanding racial inequality among managers, executives, and professionals are discussed.
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Promoting minority success in the sciences: The minority opportunities in research programs at CSULA
Simeon Slovacek et al.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, February 2012, Pages 199-217
Abstract:
Given the large continued investment by the federal government in programs that promote academic success and the pursuit of advanced degrees in the sciences among members groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences, there is a strong need for research which provides rigorous investigations of these programs and their impact on the target population. The current study examines programs funded by the National Institutes of Health Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) Division Office intended to address this underrepresentation at a minority serving comprehensive university. Academic outcomes, including college graduation and acceptance into graduate programs, among undergraduate program participants are compared against a propensity score matched comparison group. Results indicate that students supported by the MORE programs had higher GPAs at graduation, took less time to graduate, and were more likely to both graduate with a science degree and enter Master's and doctoral programs in the sciences.
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Race, Gender, and Tokenism in Policing: An Empirical Elaboration
Meghan Stroshine & Steven Brandl
Police Quarterly, December 2011, Pages 344-365
Abstract:
According to tokenism theory, "tokens" (those who comprise less than 15% of a group's total) are expected to experience a variety of hardships in the workplace, such as feelings of heightened visibility, isolation, and limited opportunities for advancement. In the policing literature, most previous studies have defined tokenism narrowly in terms of gender. The current research extends prior research by examining tokenism as a function of gender and race, with an examination of racial/ethnic subgroups. Particular attention is paid to Latino officers as this study represents the first known study of tokenism and Latino police officers. Quantitative analyses reveal that, for the most part, token police officers do experience the effects of tokenism as predicted by tokenism theory. Although all minorities experienced some level of tokenism, Black males and Black females experienced greater levels of tokenism than Latino officers, suggesting that race is a stronger predictor of tokenism than gender.
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Segregation by Design: Mechanisms of Selection of Latinos and Whites into Gated Communities
Elena Vesselinov
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Gated communities have been thought to contribute to urban inequality, but empirical evidence is limited. This study utilizes the American Housing Survey for 2001 to examine the differential access of Latinos and Whites to gated communities in metropolitan United States. The results show that education is the most important sorting mechanism: as education increases, so does the probability to gate. On one hand, education trumps the effects of social class for owners, leading to segmentation within each class category, regardless of race/ethnicity; on the other hand, Latinos with higher education tend to select gated residences more often than comparable Whites.