What Does Increased Economic Inequality Imply about the Future Level and Dispersion of Human Capital? (original) (raw)
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Income Inequality and Educational Attainment Rates: The New York Story
New York Economic Review, 2008
This paper examines the relationship between changes in income inequality and educational attainment rates in New York counties during the 1990s. The dependent variable is the change in the Gini coefficient over the decade. The independent variables include the Gini coefficient for 1990, educational attainment rates at the high school, bachelor's degree, and graduate/professional levels, the natural logarithm of population density in the county, real public educational expenditures in the county for several years preceding the 1990s, and an index of racial diversity in the county in 1990. Results of OLS regressions suggest that county population density, and educational attainment rates at the bachelor's and graduate degree levels are associated with increases in county income inequality over time. Alternatively, the initial level of income inequality and the high school attainment rate are associated with decreases in income inequality over time in New York counties.
American Journal of Sociology, 1973
This book is an example of a new activity among social scientists. The activity has two components. The first, less new than the second, but important in the development of social research, is its focus on what might be termed "macrosocial research.') What I mean by macrosocial research is that the parameters estimated characterize a well-defined population, such as the U.S. population of a particular age range. Such research can do more than examine intraindividual processes, as much survey research has been confined to. ("Persons who are higher in X tend also to be higher in Y.") I t can, in its analysis, examine the functioning of social institutions through which that population passes. Demographers and sociologists concerned with occupational mobility have been doing this for some time, but it is only very recently that research involving education has begun to participate in macrosocial research. As the research on representative samples of the U.S. population or on representative samples of U.S. institutions of a particular sort (e.g., schools or hospitals) increases, the scope of macrosocial research will become broad enough to allow extensive quantitative studies of the U.S. social structure. The second component of this new activity, made possible by the existence of macrosocial research, is the bringing together of research results and reanalysis of data from a number of sources, all characterizing the same population, to draw implications for social policy. An earlier, but much smaller attempt in the same genre was the "Moynihan Report," a paper that drew together statistics on unemployment and AFDC payments to argue that the primary problem among blacks was a problem of employment of black males, and the primary solution lay in increasing their employment levels (Moynihan 1965). This book is more ambitious but more confused in purpose. I t brings together (1) research on the effect of family background, school resources, and IQ on cognitive achievement in school and on years of school completed; (2) research on the effect of cognitive achievement, years of school completed, and family background on occupational prestige and income; and (3) a variety of other statistics, including the average years of school completed and the inequality in school completion, over a period of years, and the average level of income and the inequality of income, again over a period of years.
American Journal of Sociology, 1973
This book is an example of a new activity among social scientists. The activity has two components. The first, less new than the second, but important in the development of social research, is its focus on what might be termed "macrosocial research.') What I mean by macrosocial research is that the parameters estimated characterize a well-defined population, such as the U.S. population of a particular age range. Such research can do more than examine intraindividual processes, as much survey research has been confined to. ("Persons who are higher in X tend also to be higher in Y.") I t can, in its analysis, examine the functioning of social institutions through which that population passes. Demographers and sociologists concerned with occupational mobility have been doing this for some time, but it is only very recently that research involving education has begun to participate in macrosocial research. As the research on representative samples of the U.S. population or on representative samples of U.S. institutions of a particular sort (e.g., schools or hospitals) increases, the scope of macrosocial research will become broad enough to allow extensive quantitative studies of the U.S. social structure. The second component of this new activity, made possible by the existence of macrosocial research, is the bringing together of research results and reanalysis of data from a number of sources, all characterizing the same population, to draw implications for social policy. An earlier, but much smaller attempt in the same genre was the "Moynihan Report," a paper that drew together statistics on unemployment and AFDC payments to argue that the primary problem among blacks was a problem of employment of black males, and the primary solution lay in increasing their employment levels (Moynihan 1965). This book is more ambitious but more confused in purpose. I t brings together (1) research on the effect of family background, school resources, and IQ on cognitive achievement in school and on years of school completed; (2) research on the effect of cognitive achievement, years of school completed, and family background on occupational prestige and income; and (3) a variety of other statistics, including the average years of school completed and the inequality in school completion, over a period of years, and the average level of income and the inequality of income, again over a period of years.
Journal of Children and Poverty, 2019
Both the prevalence and the repercussions of economic inequality have grown, heightening the need to delineate processes through which inequality is passed to the next generation. Assessing a nationally representative sample followed from adolescence through early adulthood (Add Health; N = 18,230), we tested a conceptual model hypothesizing that neighborhood and school resources, social norms, and stress would serve as mediating processes linking family socioeconomic resources with young adult education, employment, and earnings. Multilevel structural equation models suggest that family socioeconomic resources promote young adult educational and employment success in large part through adolescents' access to socioeconomically advantaged classmates and school social norms supportive of educational success. Neighborhood socioeconomic resources were a less consistent mediator between family resources and early adult socioeconomic success, whereas neighborhood norms and school and neighborhood stress did not serve as significant mediating processes. Results highlight the role of school (and to a lesser extent, neighborhood) contexts in the intergenerational transmission of inequality.
Chapter prepared for 2010 Russell Sage volume on Social Inequality and Educational
2010
Johnson Health Policy Seminar for helpful comments on previous versions of this paper. The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as those of the Congressional Budget OfficeSummary Most existing social science research on neighborhoods conceptualizes neighborhood effects at the macro level, hypothesizing how general neighborhood characteristics such as the poverty rate affect a variety of individual and family outcomes. Contemporary research on this topic has largely failed to recognize the diverse types of families living in poor neighborhoods or the potentially wide variety of ways that they may respond to a given set of neighborhood conditions. Our core argument is that future neighborhood research must seriously consider this diversity both conceptually and methodologically. Our hypothesis is that there is considerable heterogeneity in the experiences of youth in the same neighborhood that might vary by their personal or family resources, the...
2007
Drawing on analyses of the 1973 and 1962 Occupational Changes in a Generation Surveys, this paper reports and attempts to explain empirically the apparent anomaly that between 1961 and 1972 the pecuniary effects of completing high school among men aged 25 to 34 years old rose appreciably. Our finding is new because sociologists studying the relationship between educational attainment and income have generally heretofore omitted measures of a twelfth-grade "diploma" effect. Our finding is theoretically significant because, under conventional assumptions of human capital theory, we would have expected the effects of high school graduation to have fallen between 1961 and 1972 as the proportion of men who were high school graduates rose. We are unable to explain the increase in the effects of high school completion in terms of widening human capital differences between dropouts and graduates, in terms of queuing processes, or in terms of demand factors associated with occupati...
The Changing Role of Family Income and Ability in Determining Educational Achievement
2007
This paper uses data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth cohorts (NLSY79 and NLSY97) to estimate changes in the effects of ability and family income on educational attainment for youth in their late teens during the early 1980s and early 2000s. Cognitive ability plays an important role in determining educational outcomes for both NLSY cohorts, while family income plays little role in determining high school completion in either cohort. Most interestingly, we document a dramatic increase in the effects of family income on college attendance (particularly among the least able) from the NLSY79 to the NLSY97. Family income has also become a much more important determinant of college 'quality' and hours/weeks worked during the academic year (the latter among the most able) in the NLSY97. Family income has little effect on college delay in either sample. To interpret our empirical findings on college attendance, we develop an educational choice model that incorporates both borrowing constraints and a 'consumption' value of schooling-two of the most commonly invoked explanations for a positive family income-schooling relationship. Without borrowing constraints, the model cannot explain the rising effects of family income on college attendance in response to the sharply rising costs and returns to college experienced from the early 1980s to early 2000s: the incentives created by a 'consumption' value of schooling imply that income should have become less important over time (or even negatively related to attendance). Instead, the data are more broadly consistent with the hypothesis that more youth are borrowing constrained today than were in the early 1980s.
2008-1 The Changing Role of Family Income and Ability in Determining Educational Achievement
2008
This paper uses data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth cohorts (NLSY79 and NLSY97) to estimate changes in the effects of ability and family income on educational attainment for youth in their late teens during the early 1980s and early 2000s. Cognitive ability plays an important role in determining educational outcomes for both NLSY cohorts, while family income plays little role in determining high school completion in either cohort. Most interestingly, we document a dramatic increase in the effects of family income on college attendance (particularly among the least able) from the NLSY79 to the NLSY97. Family income has also become a much more important determinant of college 'quality' and hours/weeks worked during the academic year (the latter among the most able) in the NLSY97. Family income has little effect on college delay in either sample. To interpret our empirical findings on college attendance, we develop an educational choice model that incorporates both borrowing constraints and a 'consumption' value of schooling-two of the most commonly invoked explanations for a positive family income-schooling relationship. Without borrowing constraints, the model cannot explain the rising effects of family income on college attendance in response to the sharply rising costs and returns to college experienced from the early 1980s to early 2000s: the incentives created by a 'consumption' value of schooling imply that income should have become less important over time (or even negatively related to attendance). Instead, the data are more broadly consistent with the hypothesis that more youth are borrowing constrained today than were in the early 1980s.