"This volume shows how constructive intellectual dialogue among representatives of diverse perspectives yields scientific progress. Like tributaries feeding a river, the new economic sociology draws on multiple independent sources-the subfields of organizations, work and occupations, gender, social stratification, culture, networks, and more. Scholars from these areas are forging the new economic sociology as they listen to one another and take each other's work into account. The New Economic Sociology demonstrates that the future of the field depends on intensifying this dialogue, creating a multi-theoretical and multi-method approach to the sociological study of economic phenomena."
-WAYNE E. BAKER, professor of organizational behavior, professor of sociology, and director, Center for Society and Economy, University of Michigan Business School

"The editors are to be commended for assembling such a stimulating mixture of papers. They showcase the diverse topics and varied approaches taken in economic sociology, from thoughtful overviews, through detailed empirical studies, to passionate polemics. There is something here for everyone."
-BRUCE G. CARRUTHERS, professor and graduate director, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University

"A rich and wide-ranging collection of key lines of research in economic sociology by many of the field's top scholars. The New Economic Sociology is both an invaluable introduction for those new to the field and a survey of the future direction of several important research programs."
-WALTER W. POWELL, professor of education, Stanford University

As the American economy surged in the 1990s, economic sociology made great strides as well. Economists and sociologists worked across disciplinary boundaries to study the booming market as both a product and a producer of culture, tracing the correlations they saw between economic and social phenomena. In the process, they debated the methodological issues that arose from their interdisciplinary perspectives. The New Economic Sociology provides an overview of these debates and assesses the state of the burgeoning discipline. The contributors summarize economic sociology's accomplishments to date, identifying key theoretical problems and opportunities, and formulating strategies for future research in the field.

The book opens with an introduction to the main debates and conceptual approaches in economic sociology. Contributor Neil Fligstein suggests that the current resurgence of interest in economic sociology is due to the way it brings together many sociological subdisciplines including the study of markets, households, labor markets, stratification, networks, and culture. Other contributors examine the role of economic phenomena from a network perspective. Ron Burt, for example, demonstrates how social relationships affect competitive dynamics in the marketplace. A third set of chapters addresses the role of gender in economic sociology. In her chapter, Barbara Reskin rethinks conventional notions about discrimination and points out that the law only covers one type of discrimination, while in recent years social scientists have uncovered other forms of hidden discrimination, which must be addressed as well. The New Economic Sociology also addresses the problem of economic development and change from a sociological perspective. Alejandro Portes and Margarita Mooney elaborate on one of the key emerging concepts in economic sociology, arguing that social capital—as an attribute of communities and regions—can contribute to economic and social well-being by fostering collaboration and entrepreneurship.

The contributors concur that economic action must be interpreted through the cultural understandings that lend it stability and meaning. By rendering these often complex debates accessible, The New Economic Sociology makes a significant contribution to this still rapidly developing field, and provides a useful guide for future avenues of research.

MAURO F. GUILLÉN is associate professor of management at the Wharton School and associate professor of sociology, University of Pennsylvania.

RANDALL COLLINS is professor of sociology, University of Pennsylvania.

PAULA ENGLAND is professor of sociology, Northwestern University.

MARSHALL MEYER is professor of management and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTORS: James N. Baron, Denise D. Bielby, Wililam T. Bielby, Ronald S. Burt, Paul DiMaggio, Susan Eckstein, Neil Fligstein, Mark Granovetter, Michael T. Hannan, Greta Hsu, Ozgecan Kocan, Margarita Mooney, Alejandro Portes, Barbara F. Reskin, Harrison C. White, Viviana A. Zelizer.

"Above all others, Judy Gueron and her colleagues at MDRC did the research that led the Congress to pass the Family Support Act two years ago. As a result, we now have a historic opportunity to help welfare recipients become self-sufficient. But for that to happen, we must learn the lessons contained in From Welfare to Work, and make sure they are reflected in the reforms being implemented across the nation."
- SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN

"A truly exceptional achievement. This is the definitive book on welfare-to-work programs. It represents a triumph of reason and research in an arena swamped by anecdote and emotion. MDRC's studies have dominated the discussion about welfare reform because they are universally accepted as careful, thoughtful, and unbiased. Anyone who cares about welfare reform - academics and administrators, politicians and the press, policy analysts and the public - must read this book."
- DAVID T. ELLWOOD, Harvard University

"Required reading for anyone involved in efforts to boost employment among welfare recipients. A thorough review of what we know - and the large amount we have yet to learn- about what works effectively. And a good antidote for those who tend to overstate the impacts that welfare-to-work programs, by themselves, can have in reducing poverty."
- ROBERT GREENSTEIN, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

"Required reading for every administrator responsible for implementing JOBS, one of the most ambitious and complex social programs of the last few decades. Clearly and concisely, this book illuminates the critical choices administrators face about whom to serve, what the desired outcomes are, and how to allocate resources."
-JULIA I. LOPEZ, Department of Social Services, City and County of San Francisco

"From Welfare to Work is the 'Bible' on the MDRC studies of welfare employment programs, which comprise most of what we know about how to move welfare recipients toward work. This book is a 'must' for anyone interested in thes initiatives, which are at the cutting edge of social policy today."
- LAWRENCE M. MEAD, New York University

From Welfare to Work appears at a critical moment, when all fifty states are wrestling with tough budgetary and program choices as they implement the new federal welfare reforms. This book is a definitive analysis of the landmark social research that has directly informed those choices: the rigorous evaluation of programs designed to help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient. It discusses forty-five past and current studies, focusing on the series of seminal evaluations conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation over the last fifteen years.

Which of these welfare-to-work programs have worked? For whom and at what cost? In answering these key questions, the authors clearly delineate the trade-offs facing policymakers as they strive to achieve the multiple goals of alleviating poverty, helping the most disadvantaged, curtailing dependence, and effecting welfare savings. The authors present compelling evidence that the generally low-cost, primarily job search-oriented programs of the late 1980s achieved sustained earnings gains and welfare savings. However, getting people out of poverty and helping those who are most disadvantaged may require some intensive, higher-cost services such as education and training. The authors explore a range of studies now in progress that will address these and other urgent issues. They also point to encouraging results from programs that were operating in San Diego and Baltimore, which suggest the potential value of a mixed strategy: combining job search and other low-cost activities for a broad portion of the caseload with more specialized services for smaller groups.

Offering both an authoritative synthesis of work already done and recommendations for future innovation, From Welfare to Work will be the standard resource and required reading for practitioners and students in the social policy, social welfare, and academic communities.

JUDITH M. GUERON is president of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC).

EDWARD S. PAULY is senior research associate and coordinator of education research for MDRC.

"Grubb's powerful vision of a workforce development system connected by vertical ladders for upward mobility adds an important new dimension to our continued efforts at system reform. The unfortunate reality is that neither our first-chance education system nor our second-chance job training system have succeeded in creating clear pathways out of poverty for many of our citizens. Grubb's message deserves a serious hearing by policy makers and practitioners alike." —Evelyn Ganzglass, National Governors' Association

Over the past three decades, job training programs have proliferated in response to mounting problems of unemployment, poverty, and expanding welfare rolls. These programs and the institutions that administer them have grown to a number and complexity that make it increasingly difficult for policymakers to interpret their effectiveness. Learning to Work offers a comprehensive assessment of efforts to move individuals into the workforce, and explains why their success has been limited.

Learning to Work offers a complete history of job training in the United States, beginning with the Department of Labor's manpower development programs in the1960s and detailing the expansion of services through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act in the 1970s and the Job Training Partnership Act in the 1980s.Other programs have sprung from the welfare system or were designed to meet the needs of various state and corporate development initiatives. The result is a complex mosaic of welfare-to-work, second-chance training, and experimental programs, all with their own goals, methodology, institutional administration, and funding.

Learning to Work examines the findings of the most recent and sophisticated job training evaluations and what they reveal for each type of program. Which agendas prove most effective? Do their effects last over time? How well do programs benefit various populations, from welfare recipients to youths to displaced employees in need of retraining? The results are not encouraging. Many programs increase employment and reduce welfare dependence, but by meager increments, and the results are often temporary. On average most programs boosted earnings by only $200 to $500 per year, and even these small effects tended to decay after four or five years. Overall, job training programs moved very few individuals permanently off welfare, and provided no entry into a middle-class occupation or income.

Learning to Work provides possible explanations for these poor results, citing the limited scope of individual programs, their lack of linkages to other programs or job-related opportunities, the absence of academic content or solid instructional methods, and their vulnerability to local political interference. Author Norton Grubb traces the root of these problems to the inherent separation of job training programs from the more successful educational system. He proposes consolidating the two domains into a clearly defined hierarchy of programs that combine school- and work-based instruction and employ proven methods of student-centered, project-based teaching. By linking programs tailored to every level of need and replacing short-term job training with long-term education, a system could be created to enable individuals to achieve increasing levels of economic success.

The problems that job training programs address are too serious to ignore. Learning to Work tells us what's wrong with job training today, and offers a practical vision for reform.

W. NORTON GRUBB is professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley.

Discusses the uses and abuses of intelligence testing in our educational systems. Dr. Goslin examines teachers' opinions and practices with regard to tests and finds considerable discrepancies between attitude and behavior. He points to the need for formulation of school policies that clearly specify what role teachers are to play in the measurement process. Dr. Goslin makes several policy recommendations, stressing the idea that the measuring process must take into account many aspects of a child's background and characteristics, and must guard against premature labeling or over-categorization.

DAVID A. GOSLIN was staff sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation and author of The School in Contemporary Society and The Search for Ability: Standardized Testing in Social Perspective.

A significant and eye-opening examination of the current state of the testing movement in the United States, where more than 150 million standardized intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests are administered annually by schools, colleges, business and industrial firms, government agencies, and the military services. Despite widespread acceptance of these ability tests, there is surprisingly little systematic information about their use or effect. This book examines, raises questions about, and points the way to needed research on ability testing. It considers the possible social, legal, and emotional impact on society, the groups and organizations that make use of the tests, and the individuals who are directly affected by the results.

DAVID A. GOSLIN is staff sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation and author of The School in Contemporary Society.

"[Families That Work] is most valuable for its extensive and up-to-date tabulations, by country, of family-related practices and policies .... A prodigious work of scholarship in a growing and important interdisciplinary field."
-MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW

"Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers have written a lively and accessible book, combining a high level of expertise on American social policy with an equally high level of knowledge of European and Canadian social policy. It is rare to find both in a single book. Moreover, they argue convincingly that, over the next several years, expansion of work-family policy in the United States is very likely. When American policymakers finally get serious about enacting paid family leave and universal pre- kindergarten programs, they should turn to this book for crucial lessons in policy design and for forecasts of policy impacts based on other nations' experiences. This will become a key resource in the field of family policy design for many years to come."
-TIMOTHY M. SMEEDING, Maxwell Professor of Public Policy, professor of economics and public administration,
and director, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University

"The best guide in the world to family policies the United States sorely needs. Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers argue persuasively that greater public support and reformed employment practices could benefit children and promote more equal sharing of care responsibilities. Their startling comparisons of European and U.S. programs reveal complex interactions between the labor market, the family, and the state. They also bring hopeful fantasies down to realistic earth."
-NANCY FOLBRE, professor of economics, University of Massachusetts

"Families That Work shows us how government policies could help parents combine paid work and caring for children. The harder question is whether we can do it in a way that reduces rather than exacerbates gender inequality. Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers say yes, and present the most compelling evidence ever assembled. Read this excellent book."
-PAULA ENGLAND, professor of sociology and faculty fellow, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

Parents around the world grapple with the common challenge of balancing work and child care. Despite common problems, the industrialized nations have developed dramatically different social and labor market policies—policies that vary widely in the level of support they provide for parents and the extent to which they encourage an equal division of labor between parents as they balance work and care. In Families That Work, Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers take a close look at the work-family policies in the United States and abroad and call for a new and expanded role for the U.S. government in order to bring this country up to the standards taken for granted in many other Western nations.

In many countries in Europe and in Canada, family leave policies grant parents paid time off to care for their young children, and labor market regulations go a long way toward ensuring that work does not overwhelm family obligations. In addition, early childhood education and care programs guarantee access to high-quality care for their children. In most of these countries, policies encourage gender equality by strengthening mothers’ ties to employment and encouraging fathers to spend more time caregiving at home. In sharp contrast, Gornick and Meyers show how in the United States—an economy with high labor force participation among both fathers and mothers—parents are left to craft private solutions to the society-wide dilemma of “who will care for the children?” Parents—overwhelmingly mothers—must loosen their ties to the workplace to care for their children; workers are forced to negotiate with their employers, often unsuccessfully, for family leave and reduced work schedules; and parents must purchase care of dubious quality, at high prices, from consumer markets. By leaving child care solutions up to hard-pressed working parents, these private solutions exact a high price in terms of gender inequality in the workplace and at home, family stress and economic insecurity, and—not least—child well-being. Gornick and Meyers show that it is possible–based on the experiences of other countries—to enhance child well-being and to increase gender equality by promoting more extensive and egalitarian family leave, work-time, and child care policies.

Families That Work demonstrates convincingly that the United States has much to learn from policies in Europe and in Canada, and that the often-repeated claim that the United States is simply “too different” to draw lessons from other countries is based largely on misperceptions about policies in other countries and about the possibility of policy expansion in the United States.

JANET GORNICK is associate professor of political science at Baruch College, and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

MARCIA K. MEYERS is associate professor of social work and public affairs, University of Washington.

Presents the results of the first national field survey of how lawyers use pretrial discovery in practice. Pretrial discovery is a complex set of rules and practices through which the adversaries in a civil dispute are literally allowed to "discover" the facts and legal arguments their opponents plan to use in the trial, with the purpose of improving the speed and quality of justice by reducing the element of trickery and surprise. Dr. Glaser examines the uses, problems, and advantages of discovery. He concludes that it is in wide use in federal civil cases, but that while the procedure has produced more information in some areas, it has failed to bring other improvements favored by its original authors.

WILLIAM A. GLASER is at the Bureau of Applied Social Research and The Project for Effective Social Research at Columbia University.

Provides the first major effort to test the rules and regulations that underlie current practices in union elections and, at the same time, explores the role played by the National Labor Relations Board in regulating these elections. The book reports the findings of an empirical field study of thirty-one union representation elections involving over 1,000 employees to determine their pre-campaign attitudes, voting intent, actual vote, and the effect of the campaign on voting. It focuses on campaign issues, unlawful campaigning, working conditions, demographic factors, job-related variables, and other topics.

JULIUS G. GETMAN is professor of law at Stanford and Indiana Universities.

STEPHEN B. GOLDBERG is professor of law at Northwestern University.

JEANNE B. HERMAN is associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is an exceptionally valuable book for scholars, policy makers, and general readers. An outstanding cross-country group of scholars use a powerful comparative methodology to examine the size, causes, and consequences of low-wage labor markets in the United States and five European countries. These analyses reveal the complexity of the subject, but make it very clear that the fact that the United States has a larger low-wage labor market than any of these countries is the result of policies and institutions, not, as many economists assume, an inevitable tradeoff between job quality and the number of jobs. After all, these analysts show, global competition affects all economies, but low-wage workers vary from 25 percent of the U.S. work force to 8.5 percent of Denmark’s.”
—Ray Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin 

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is poised to become the definitive study of low-paid employment in rich countries. This first-rate team of researchers, assembled by the Russell Sage Foundation, pairs an innovative research design—the systematic comparison of five low-paying industries across six high-income countries—with meticulous empirical work. The study incorporates multiple dimensions of low-paid work, blending qualitative and quantitative indicators, to produce an often-surprising portrait of variation across six democracies. yet these researchers’ larger contribution is their assessment of the institutional underpinnings of the prevalence, nature, and effects of low-paying work. They persuasively establish that several institutions ‘matter,’ including industrial relations systems, minimum wages, employment and product market regulations, and diverse social policies targeted on workers. Labor market scholars and policymakers everywhere will be challenged to consider the ways in which country-specific institutional reforms could reduce the incidence of low-paid work, raise its quality, and lessen its problematic consequences.”
—Janet Gornick, director, Luxembourg Income Study, and professor of political science and sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY

As global flows of goods, capital, information, and people accelerate competitive pressure on businesses throughout the industrialized world, firms have responded by reorganizing work in a variety of efforts to improve efficiency and cut costs. In the United States, where minimum wages are low, unions are weak, and immigrants are numerous, this has often lead to declining wages, increased job insecurity, and deteriorating working conditions for workers with little bargaining power in the lower tiers of the labor market. Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World builds on an earlier Russell Sage Foundation study (Low-Wage America) to compare the plight of low-wage workers in the United States to five European countries—Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom—where wage supports, worker protections, and social benefits have generally been stronger. By examining low-wage jobs in systematic case studies across five industries, this groundbreaking international study goes well beyond standard statistics to reveal national differences in the quality of low-wage work and the well being of low-wage workers.

The United States has a high percentage of low-wage workers—nearly three times more than Denmark and twice more than France. Since the early 1990s, however, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany have all seen substantial increases in low-wage jobs. While these jobs often entail much the same drudgery in Europe and the United States, quality of life for low-wage workers varies substantially across countries. The authors focus their analysis on the “inclusiveness” of each country’s industrial relations system, including national collective bargaining agreements and minimum-wage laws, and the generosity of social benefits such as health insurance, pensions, family leave, and paid vacation time—which together sustain a significantly higher quality of life for low-wage workers in some countries.

Investigating conditions in retail sales, hospitals, food processing, hotels, and call centers, the book’s industry case studies shed new light on how national institutions influence the way employers organize work and shape the quality of low-wage jobs. A telling example: in the United States and several European nations, wages and working conditions of front-line workers in meat processing plants are deteriorating as large retailers put severe pressure on prices, and firms respond by employing low-wage immigrant labor. But in Denmark, where unions are strong, and, to a lesser extent, in France, where the statutory minimum wage is high, the low-wage path is blocked, and firms have opted instead to invest more heavily in automation to raise productivity, improve product quality, and sustain higher wages. However, as Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World also shows, the European nations’ higher level of inclusiveness is increasingly at risk. “Exit options,” both formal and informal, have emerged to give employers ways around national wage supports and collectively bargained agreements. For some jobs, such as room cleaners in hotels, stronger labor relations systems in Europe have not had much impact on the quality of work.

Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World offers an analysis of low-wage work in Europe and the United States based on concrete, detailed, and systematic contrasts. Its revealing case studies not only provide a human context but also vividly remind us that the quality and incidence of low-wage work is more a matter of national choice than economic necessity and that government policies and business practices have inevitable consequences for the quality of workers’ lives.

JÉRÔME GAUTIÉ is professor of economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

JOHN SCHMITT is senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

CONTRIBUTORS: Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt, Peter Berg, Annette Bernhardt, Gerhard Bosch, Francoise Carre, Laura Dresser, Jacob Eskildsen, Damian Grimshaw, Klaus G. Grunert, Karen Jaehrling, Susan James, Caroline Lloyd, Geoff Mason, Ken Mayhew, Philippe Mehaut, Philip Moss,  Wiemer Salverda, Chris Tillly, Marc Van Der Meer, Maarten Van Klaveren, Achim Vanselow, Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Chris Warhurst, Claudia Weinkopf, Niels Westergaard-Nielsen.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

Age discrimination and its corollary, mandatory retirement, are modern legal issues, barely a generation old. In this concise and readable report, Lawrence Friedman explores the apparently sudden emergence of a field of law that pertains mainly to the elderly and middle-aged.

Friedman traces the brief but fascinating social, legislative, and judicial history of age discrimination law and of the laws addressing mandatory retirement. Both histories contain paradoxes and contradictions; both seem simultaneously to make an issue of "age" and to demand a kind of age neutrality, reflecting broad recent changes in American culture. Both histories are intricately bound up with other legal issues—age discrimination with race and sex discrimination; mandatory retirement with the development of pension plans and other social insurance systems. Friedman speculates on the impact of these new laws, illuminating through his analysis the complex phenomenon of "legalization," or the penetration of legal norms into ever more areas of life.

Finally, Friedman offers a provocative conclusion in which he suggests that laws on age discrimination and retirement—laws that appear to have a less extensive social background than one would expect—may in fact be "stand-in" laws for vague but powerful social norms not yet recognized in the legal system.

Your Time Will Come is the first new volume in a special paperback series entitled Social Research Perspectives: Occasional Reports on Current Topics. These Perspectives represent a revival of the Social Science Frontiers series published by the Foundation from 1969 to 1977 and will again offer short, timely, and accessible reports on various aspects of social science research.

LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN is Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law at Stanford University.

A Volume in the the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Science Perspectives Series