 |
|
Social Inequality
Program Description
Income inequality rose dramatically from 1979 to 1994, a trend that was stemmed, though not reversed, by the economic boom of the 1990s. But the income distribution does not tell us all we need to know about inequality in this country. Inequality has social, as well as economic, dimensions. Those who have fallen behind in the labor market may have lost ground on other fronts, such as housing, health care, education, access to credit, and access to the law. These social dimensions of inequality may be the consequences of economic inequality, or the causes -- unequal access to housing may be one consequence of economic inequality, while educational inequality may be a cause. Some of the social dimensions of inequality may be relatively independent of the income gap, and there may be other areas in which American society has become more equal, offsetting the widening inequality in incomes and assets over the past 30 years.
In partnership with the Carnegie Corporation, the Russell Sage Foundation launched a research initiative to examine social inequality on a number of dimensions, including family well-being, educational quality and opportunity, health care and coverage, legal services and criminal justice, political participation and representation, banking and credit, neighborhoods and housing, pension provision, environmental quality, and even access to computers and the Internet. The project consists of a cluster of working groups, each based at an individual university or research center, pursuing their own portfolio of investigations into one or more of the social dimensions of inequality. They have been developing indicators of inequality in the social domains under scrutiny, tracking trends in each domain, and illuminating how different types of inequality are interlinked.
In order to determine what is already known about social inequality, each working group was first asked to synthesize existing research on inequality in one social dimension, noting gaps in previous studies and fashioning a research agenda for the future. This effort led to the publication in 2004 of Social Inequality, edited by Kathryn Neckerman, a comprehensive survey of the state of research in the social dimensions of economic inequality. The book points out the many ways in which economic inequality may perpetuate itself through social avenues. For example, Thomas Kane, an economist at UCLA, notes that rates of college-going have become more unequal over the last three decades of rising inequality, just as higher education has become more necessary for obtaining a good job. And Harvard economist Richard Freeman documents a growing schism in political participation based on social class, with high school dropouts becoming increasingly less likely to vote than their college-educated peers.
In the next phase of the project, the Foundation commissioned original research on inequality in myriad spheres of American social life. This research, covering topics such as disparities in child care, the uneven spread of single-parent families and differences in working conditions, is now available as a series of working papers archived on the Russell Sage Foundation's website and available for download. The papers are broken down into 11 different research areas: political participation and civic engagement, education, families and children, health, marriage, media, research methods and measurement, neighborhoods, public policy, wealth, and work.
Current Activities
The Foundation is now compiling and synthesizing the research results of this project in order to make them more readily accessible to researchers, journalists, and the general public. Economist Eugene Smolensky of the University of California at Berkeley is leading the effort to put the results of the Foundation's social inequality research in simple graphical form. The Foundation plans to produce a chart book that will show the extent to which people with differing incomes or educational attainment have experienced different outcomes in a variety of social domains over the last 30 years.
In addition, the Foundation will publish several books that will provide broader, more comprehensive treatment of the possible causes and consequences of rising inequality. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels is working on a book about the ways in which economic and political inequality may be mutually reinforcing. Sociologist Bruce Western, also of Princeton University, is writing a book on the possibility that inequality perpetuates itself by undermining the institutions that are designed to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor. Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks is writing about the relationship between inequality and macroeconomic health, asking, for example, whether high levels of inequality are necessary for national economic growth. Finally, Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens has received funding to write a book on democratic responsiveness in an age of rising economic inequality. Gilens has found that legislators respond almost exclusively to the policy preferences of the wealthy, acting according to the wishes of the poor only to the extent that their views agree with those of the rich. Gilens will now build on this research and explore the implications of this finding.
The recent bout of income inequality, brought about by a restructuring economy, may dissipate as the economy resettles. But it may also become entrenched through the social changes that come in its wake. Those who lose out economically may also suffer cumulative social disadvantages that are difficult to reverse. The fear is that economic divisions may harden into social divisions, hampering economic mobility and passing on today's inequities to the next generation. The Foundation's special project on the social dimensions of economic inequality helps to shed light on the complex effects of inequality in American life.
All information on applying for a research award in the Social Inequality program can be found on our How to Apply website.
Recent Visiting Scholars
2008 - 2009
Thomas A. DiPrete, Columbia University
Robert A. Margo, Boston University
Albert H. Yoon, University of Toronto
2007 - 2008
John Ermisch , University of Essex, U.K.
Markus Jäntti, Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University
Timothy M. Smeeding, University of Wisconsin--Madison
2006 - 2007
Raquel Fernandez, New York University
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz, University of Maryland, College Park
Timothy Patrick Moran, State University of New York-Stony Brook
2005 - 2006
Sean Corcoran, New York University
Thomas Romer, Princeton University
Howard Rosenthal, New York University
2004 - 2005
Jonas Pontusson, Cornell University
Kenneth Sokoloff, University of California, Los Angeles