Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Seeing Red: Immigration And Asymmetrical Partisan Polarization In The United States, Robert M. Worth

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Since the mid-1970s, partisan polarization has been increasing in Congress and the Presidency, and, although most voters lack a stable, consistent ideology, non-ideological forms of partisan polarization have emerged in the mass public in recent decades. Moreover, ideological polarization among elites is highly asymmetrical, with increased Republican conservatism accounting for most of the increased ideological distance between the parties. Here, I develop a racial-threat backlash theory and argue that increased rates of immigration are associated with increased asymmetrical ideological polarization among elites and in the mass public. Tests of this theory on voters, the mass public in the states, state …

Inequality, Rubber, And Thermodynamics In Indonesia, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Intersectionality has led the charge in ensuring that workplace justice is assured to all people, irrespective of their identities. While intersectionality is a useful theory for explaining inequality, what must not be understated is the contributions that postcolonialism and the blue-collar working identity can have on harsh working conditions. Particularly, miners in Indonesia have had to work in very hostile environments where they are at-risk for sulfur poisoning as they mine for materials to vulcanize rubber. This article serves two purposes. The first is to call attention to how place can help explain the differential experiences of miners in the …

Robin Hood Politics: An Analysis Of Wealth Redistributive Policies And The Impact Of Political Donations, Marley R. Dizney Swanson

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

Both Democrats and Republicans have taken strong positions on wealth redistribution. But is there variance within the parties? I hypothesize that while moderate non-donors and moderate donors will favor increases in federal spending for such policies at similar rates, both liberal and conservative donors will be less likely to favor spending due to attachment to their personal wealth. This paper analyzes the differences in support for increasing the budgets of five wealth redistributive policies while controlling for political donations: public schools, welfare, aid to the poor, childcare, and Social Security. The research finds that moderates and moderate donors support do …

Green Growth And The Right To Energy In India, Rohit Azad, Shouvik Chakraborty

PERI Working Papers

Can growth in India be simultaneously made equitable and environ- mentally sustainable? The recent pattern of high growth in India has been inequitable even as serious questions have been raised about its ecological sustainability. In contrast to the current growth trajectory, this paper argues that an alternative growth trajectory can be de- veloped which answers the question in the affirmative. We propose an Energy Policy with Equity (EPE), which fundamentally changes the energy mix of the Indian economy towards greener forms of en- ergy as well as guarantees universal access to energy thus generated to the entire population, a feat …

Breaking The Poverty Trap In Africa: A Comparative Perspective On Poverty Alleviation, Abu Girma Moges

International Journal of African Development

An increasing number of African countries have recently registered improved rates of economic growth. Translating economic growth into poverty reduction, however, requires putting into place policies and institutions that promote a sustainable and shared economic growth process. The degree of success in poverty reduction depends largely on balancing the process of economic growth and the judicious pattern of income distribution so that an increasing share of the population benefits from the growth process and engages in more productive endeavors. Building the necessary policy and institutional framework to promote sustainable and shared economic growth is central in breaking the poverty trap …

Foreign Capital Inflows And Economic Well-Being: A Statistical Analysis Of 46 Sub-Saharan African Countries From 1995-2015, Alexander M. Csanadi

Undergraduate Economic Review

Variation in the economic well-being among sub-Saharan African countries is among the highest of any region in the world. This paper attempts to address this disparity by exploring the role of foreign capital inflows. This project extends the concept of well-being beyond GDP growth, to include measures of poverty and inequality. A multivariate regression analysis finds that the observed capital inflows have significant effects on all three measurements of well-being. Findings suggest that the level of affluence of the domestic population has significant effects on the ability of those populations to translate diaspora remittances into improvements in well-being.

Black Middle Class Parental Investment In Their Children's Higher Education, Michael George Flanigan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The persistent negative racial disparity in the higher educational achievement of Black students in the United States has societal implications for employment, income trajectory, home ownership, and wealth accumulation. It is widely accepted that parental investment is crucial across all races in enhancing the academic performance of students and, ultimately, facilitating intergenerational socioeconomic progress. Although numerous studies have looked at the ways in which parents invest, a paucity of research has examined how Black middle-class parents engage in preparing their children for higher education. This narrative study explores how Black middle-class parents perceive the value of college, their understanding of …

Achieving Development In Destinations: Effects Of Tourism On Poverty, Inequality, And Quality Of Life, Jessica R. Linder

Theses and Dissertations

For decades, political scientists and development practitioners have focused on poverty and inequality alleviation, as well as increased quality of life as key goals for the field of development. Research focused on key concepts such as social capital and tools like microfinance and trickle-down tax structures for achieving these goals. Tourism, however, remained largely unstudied as a development tool, with most prior research focusing on sustainability and the economics of the industry. This study seeks to determine the effectiveness of tourism as a tool for development by examining its effects on poverty, inequality, and quality of life, as it becomes …

Racial Differences In The Effect Of Marriageable Males On Female Family Headship, Terry Ann Craigie, Samuel L. Myers, William A. Darity

Economics: Faculty Publications

Female family headship has strong implications for endemic poverty in the United States. Consequently, it is imperative to explore the chief factors that contribute to this problem. Departing from prior literature that places significant weight on welfare-incentive effects, our study highlights the role of male marriageability in explaining the prevalence of never-married female family headship for blacks and whites. Specifically, we examine racial differences in the effect of male marriageability on never-married female headship from 1980 to 2010. By exploiting data from IPUMS-USA (N = 4,958,722) and exogenous variation from state-level sentencing reforms, the study finds that the decline in …

A Non-Parametric Approach To Testing The Axioms Of The Shapley Value With Limited Data, Victor H. Aguiar, Roland Pongou, Jean-Baptiste Tondji

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

The unique properties of the Shapley value–efficiency, equal treatment of identical input factors, and marginality–have made it an appealing solution concept in various classes of problems. It is however recognized that the pay schemes utilized in many real-life situations generally depart from this value. We propose a non-parametric approach to testing the empirical content of this concept with limited datasets. We introduce the Shapley distance, which, for a fixed monotone transferable-utility game, measures the distance of an arbitrary pay profile to the Shapley pay profile, and show that it is additively decomposable into the violations of the classical …

Young And Unafraid: Queer Criminology's Unbounded Potential, Vanessa R. Panfil

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Queer criminology, a fairly young subfield, deals with matters of import for sexual and gender minorities, particularly LGBTQ+ populations. Areas of interest include reducing invisibility and inequity, though these pursuits can sometimes be accompanied with potential pitfalls or unintended consequences. This article provides an overview of the goals and considerations of queer criminology, while focusing on how to cultivate queer criminology's unbounded potential to help address pressing social problems. Several global issues of immediate concern for LGBTQ+ people are identified, such as criminalization and devaluation of their lives, which has resulted in their detainment and torture, persecution when they organize …

A Modern Plague: U.S. Racial And Ethnic Vaccination Disparities During The 2009 H1n1 Influenza Pandemic, Andrew E. Burger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

On June 11, 2009 the World Health Organization announced that a novel strain of H1N1 influenza was being classified a Phase 6 pandemic, the highest level of alarm indicating that the disease was present worldwide and its spread was inevitable. While seasonal influenza epidemics occur annually, the 2009 H1N1 strain was the first novel pandemic influenza since the 1968 Hong Kong flu. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic provides a case study of how the U.S. population responded to an emergent and potentially lethal infectious disease. The richness and variety of public health data presents an opportunity to examine predictors of vaccination …

Has The Development Gap Between The Ethnic Minority And Majority Groups Narrowed In Vietnam?: Evidence From Household Surveys, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using household data for rural northern Vietnam between 1993 and 2014, we find that the ethnic minority group continued to lag behind the majority group in various development indicators despite the overall improvement in living standards. Our regression and decomposition analyses show that the structural differences between the two groups are an important cause of persistent development gap. However, the nature of structural differences changed over time and no single source of structural difference explains the persistent gap. We argue that more minority‐appropriate policies are needed to lift poor minority households out of poverty further and reduce the development gap.

Clarifying The Social Roots Of The Disproportionate Classification Of Racial Minorities And Males With Learning Disabilities, Dara Shifrer

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The disproportionate placement of racial minorities and males into special education for learning disabilities (LDs) raises concerns that classifications occur inaccurately or inequitably. This study uses data from the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 to investigate the social etiology of LD classifications that persist into adolescence. Findings suggest the overclassification of racial minorities is largely consistent with (clinically relevant) differences in educational performance. Classifications may occur inconsistently or subjectively, with clinically irrelevant qualities like school characteristics and linguistic-immigration history independently predictive of disability classification. Finally, classifications may be partially biased, with male overclassification largely unexplained by this study’s measures and …

Unequally Adrift: How Social Class And Institutional Context Shape College Academic Experiences, Mary Scherer

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on how class background and institutional context shape students’ experiences of faculty mentorship, academic success strategies, and the relationship of college values and academic decision-making. In this comparative study, I draw from 68 interviews with working- and upper-middle-class students at a regional and flagship university to identify how institutional variation matters across moderately-selective public universities, the kind where the majority of four-year college students matriculate. Mentorship, often informal, is a resource most easily accessed by students with preexisting cultural capital—specifically, the knowledge that mentoring relationships are available and advantageous, and the skills for cross-status interaction with professors. …

Three Essays On Growth, Housing Market And Inequality, Shahrzad Ghourchian

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three essays on growth, the housing market, and inequality. In the first essay, I analyze the effects of government consumption and government debt on long-run economic growth by considering the economic characteristics of the countries investigated. Linear regressions reveal that government consumption has a much bigger negative impact on long-run growth compared with the negative (and sometimes insignificant) effects of government debt. Nonlinear analyses further show that such effects are highly impacted by the economic characteristics of the countries investigated.

In the second essay, I study time-series fluctuations in the United States housing market from 2010 to …

On The Measurement Of “Grayness” Of Cities, Sripad Motiram, Vamsi Vakulabharanam

PERI Working Papers

We consider a situation where individuals belonging to multiple groups inhabit a space that can be divided into smaller distinguishable units, a feature characterizing many cities in the world. When data on an economic attribute (in our case, income) is available, we conceptualize a phenomenon that we refer to as “Grayness” - a combination of spatial integration based upon group-identity and income. Grayness is high when cities display a high degree of spatial co-existence in terms of both identity and income. We lay down some desirable properties of a measure of Grayness and develop a simple and intuitive index that …

The Sociology Of Social Class: Recovering The Contributions Of The Women Founders, Joyce E. Williams, Vicky M. Maclean

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

One Team: A Historical Analysis Of Inequalities Between Men's And Women's Professional Soccer, Allyson O. Braciska

Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Student Scholarship

The United States Soccer Federation (U.S.S.F.) governs the sport of soccer at the youth recreational, teen elite, and adult professional levels, and is one of the few organizations in the country that governs both the men’s and women’s sides of the respective sport. This paper examines differences between U.S. men's and women's soccer at the adult professional and identifies areas of discrimination based on gender. Inequalities experienced by women coaches and players include wage disparity, a lack of television broadcasting space, differences in sponsorships and media portrayal of players, unequal playing and living conditions, a shortage of women in positions …

Models Of Other-Regarding Preferences And Redistribution, Matthew Dimick, David Rueda, Daniel Stegmueller

Journal Articles

Despite the increasing popularity of comparative work on other-regarding preferences, the implications of different models of altruism are not always fully understood. This article analyzes different theoretical approaches to altruism and explores what empirical conclusions we should draw from them, paying particular attention to models of redistribution preferences where inequality explicitly triggers other-regarding motives for redistribution. While the main contribution of this article is to clarify the conclusions of these models, we also illustrate the importance of their distinct implications by analyzing Western European data to compare among them. We draw on individual-level data from the European Social Survey fielded …

Climate Change, Colonialism, And Second-Class Citizenry: A Case Study Of The Impacts Of Hurricane María In Puerto Rico, Aislyne Calianos

Senior Honors Projects

The hurricane season of 2017 was a historic one, with mammoth storms making landfall one after another, in what seemed like an unrelenting assault on our coastal cities and communities. Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston, Irma plowed through Florida, and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, but one of these storms was unlike the others. Why is it that the American citizens of our southern states were able to recover so much more quickly than our citizens in Puerto Rico? In the era of climate change, we will be forced to reckon with the modern legacy of colonialism, as vulnerable communities must face …

Socialization Trajectories Of Civic Development: Examining Variation Among Children In Black Immigrant And African American Families, Juliana Karras-Jean Gilles

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Little is known about how developmental experiences spanning early childhood through adolescence prepare children and youth to engage with society (Astuto & Ruck, 2017), and even less so for ethnically diverse Black children and youth (Jagers, Lozada, Rivas-Drake, & Guillame, 2017). Building from work linking positive youth development (PYD) to civic engagement (Lerner et al., 2006), this study examined how socialization trajectories from early childhood through adolescence in concert with early childhood experiences and contexts related to adolescent civic development. Civic development was measured by the PYD outcomes of competence, confidence, connection to school and peers, caring, and character; these …

American Muslim Women: Feminism, Equality, And Difference, Amber Coniglio

Honors Theses

American Muslim women face constant surveillance, stress, and pressure to change and adapt to mainstream society. In the United States, Muslim women find ways to negotiate their identities, express their concerns, and learn through their faith by means of Islamic scholarship, Islamic feminism, and reinterpretations of the Quran. They are reconciling their multifaceted identities with better understanding of sacred text as well as solidifying their desired gender roles within their communities. They are challenging norms and creating new spaces for themselves within the ummah as well as the United States. American Muslim women find courage, strength, and autonomy through Islamic …

Inequity For Women In Psychology: How Much Have We Progressed And What Work Still Needs To Be Done?, Caitlin Martin-Wagar

Psychology from the Margins

Despite the higher rate of women in the field of psychology, there continue to be significant inequities that impact women’s career trajectories. This is especially prevalent in academia and leadership roles in psychological organizations. A historical review and analysis of past barriers and obstacles to women’s success in psychology will be provided, followed by current trends. While many have worked to understand the source of these disparities, significant institutional and systemic societal barriers continue to persist. It will be argued that the field of psychology needs to work more diligently to assuage the barriers that result in inequitable treatment and …

Books Or Baskets: Compromising The Education And Future Of Black Student-Athletes, Jessica L. Laemle

Student Publications

In this paper, I discuss the challenges and inequalities that Black male athletes face while playing college sports, particularly basketball and football at PWIs. I explore how this focus on sports pushes these individuals to focus on athletics rather than academics, as they are there on scholarships and are focused primarily on representing their schools and becoming professional athletes. I discuss multiple factors that play into these student-athletes' idea that athletics are more important than academics. Using multiple studies, I give information and statistics on the outcomes of these athletes. I also provide limitations of the studies I use so …

Healthcare Coverage In The United States And New York Metropolitan Area, 2009 - 2015, Andrew S. Alger

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines trends regarding health insurance coverage in the United States along lines of sex, race/ethnicity, place of birth, and poverty status between 2009 and 2015.

Methods: This study uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public User Microdata Series) for the years 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. These datasets were downloaded from the IPUMS USA website hosted by the University of Minnesota. The variables used in the study describe these populations in terms of sex, the four major race/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Latino, and Asian), being born either within the United States or abroad, and being …

Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein

Timothy J. Bartik

Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income backgrounds. For individuals whose family income in high school was above 1.85 times the poverty level, we estimate that career earnings for bachelor’s graduates are 136 percent higher than earnings for those whose education stopped at high school. However, for individuals whose family income during high school was below 1.85 times the poverty level, the career …

Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein

Brad J. Hershbein

Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income backgrounds. For individuals whose family income in high school was above 1.85 times the poverty level, we estimate that career earnings for bachelor’s graduates are 136 percent higher than earnings for those whose education stopped at high school. However, for individuals whose family income during high school was below 1.85 times the poverty level, the career …

Inequality, Boom, And Bust: From Billionaire Capitalism To Equality And Full Employment, Howard J. Sherman, Paul Sherman

HOWARD J SHERMAN

Inequality, Boom, And Bust: From Billionaire Capitalism To Equality And Full Employment, Howard J. Sherman, Paul Sherman

HOWARD J SHERMAN