Russel Sage Foundation

Several new research projects in three of the Russell Sage Foundation’s core programs were funded at the Foundation’s November meeting of the Board of Trustees.

Future of Work:

Fast Food Franchises and Low-Wage Work
Rosemary Batt and Wilma B. Liebman (Cornell University)

Batt, Liebman, and a group of multi-disciplinary collaborators will extend a previous study on fast food franchises to investigate how the franchising business model affects job quality, pay, and labor law compliance, and how franchises are currently shaping low-wage work.

Social Inequality:

Estimating Intergenerational Mobility on Census Data
Nathaniel Hilger (Brown University)

Hilger will use Census data from 1860 to present day to examine long-term mobility trends in the U.S. across different demographic groups and geographic locations. He will also explore racial and ethnic differences in intergenerational mobility, and analyze the factors that underlie those differences.

Do Gaps in Test Scores, Behavioral Skills, and Health Grow Faster in School or Out?
Paul von Hippel (University of Texas) and Douglas Downey (Ohio State University)

Von Hippel and Downey will use new data and better methods to investigate how much school and non-school environments contribute to gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Specifically, they will use a seasonal research design embedded in a new national survey to compare how quickly gaps change when school is in session during the academic year versus when school is out for summer vacation.

Medicaid and the Evolution of the U.S. Transfer System After the Great Recession
Robert Moffitt (Johns Hopkins University)

Moffitt will extend his prior research on the responsiveness of the social safety net during the Great Recession to explore the impact of Medicaid expenditures for low-income families during the recession. He will also examine whether, in the wake of the recession, U.S. welfare delivers adequate aid to those at the very bottom of the income distribution.

How Accessible is the Top? The Changing Rigidity of High Incomes and Earnings
Fabian Pfeffer (University of Michigan) and Lloyd Grieger (Yale University)

Pfeffer and Grieger will examine the permeability of the top of the income distribution and explore whether many different people cycle in and out of affluence, or if these top positions are reserved for a few who occupy them consistently or frequently. They will also compare access to top positions by key demographic characteristics, such as race, gender, and education.

Improving the Educational Performance of Children in Low-Income Families
Barbara Wolfe (University of Wisconsin), Robert Haveman (University of Wisconsin), and Deven Carlson (University of Oklahoma)

Wolfe and colleagues will use a unique dataset to examine the association between the receipt of means-tested transfers (including food and housing subsidies) by the families of low-income youth and their subsequent college attainment.

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration:

Cultural Assimilation During the Age of Mass Migration
Ran Abramitzky (Stanford University), Leah Boustan (University of California, Los Angeles), and Katherine Eriksson (University of California, Davis)

Abramitzsky and colleagues will look at how the rate of cultural assimilation in the U.S. (measured by factors such as marrying outside one’s ethnic group, English language use, and choosing a less-foreign name for one’s children) affected the social and economic outcomes of the adult children of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, compared to the contemporary period.

The Generational Progress of Mexican Americans
Jeffrey Grogger (University of Chicago), Brian Duncan (University of Colorado, Denver), Ana Sofía de León (Diego Portales University, Chile), and Stephen Trejo (University of Texas, Austin)

Grogger and colleagues propose to analyze previously untapped survey data to estimate both intergenerational progress between second- and third-generation Mexican Americans and the extent of selective ethnic attrition, or when people stop identifying as Mexican.

Inequality, Diversity and Working-Class Attitudes
Monica McDermott (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Eric Knowles (New York University), and Jennifer Richeson (Northwestern University)

McDermott and colleagues will study the social and psychological factors that help explain white working class responses to increased racial and ethnic diversity in the population.