"A highly topical and uniquely strategic book [which] offers an early look at some likely effects of the so-called welfare reform .... Edin and Lein paint a moving portrait of hard-working mothers who, despite their never-ending hardships, still strive to enable their children to achieve the American Dream."
-HERBERT J. GANS, Columbia University

"Making Ends Meet tells how low income mothers really get by. I know of no research more important for current U.S. debates about poverty, welfare reform, and support for working parents."
-THEDA SKOCPOL, Harvard University

Welfare mothers are popularly viewed as passively dependent on their checks and averse to work. Reformers across the political spectrum advocate moving these women off the welfare rolls and into the labor force as the solution to their problems. Making Ends Meet offers dramatic evidence toward a different conclusion: In the present labor market, unskilled single mothers who hold jobs are frequently worse off than those on welfare, and neither welfare nor low-wage employment alone will support a family at subsistence levels.

Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein interviewed nearly four hundred welfare and low-income single mothers from cities in Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, and South Carolina over a six year period. They learned the reality of these mothers' struggles to provide for their families: where their money comes from, what they spend it on, how they cope with their children's needs, and what hardships they suffer. Edin and Lein's careful budgetary analyses reveal that even a full range of welfare benefits—AFDC payments, food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies—typically meet only three-fifths of a family's needs, and that funds for adequate food, clothing and other necessities are often lacking. Leaving welfare for work offers little hope for improvement, and in many cases threatens even greater hardship. Jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled women provide meager salaries, irregular or uncertain hours, frequent layoffs, and no promise of advancement. Mothers who work not only assume extra child care, medical, and transportation expenses but are also deprived of many of the housing and educational subsidies available to those on welfare. Regardless of whether they are on welfare or employed, virtually all these single mothers need to supplement their income with menial, off-the-books work and intermittent contributions from family, live-in boyfriends, their children's fathers, and local charities. In doing so, they pay a heavy price. Welfare mothers must work covertly to avoid losing benefits, while working mothers are forced to sacrifice even more time with their children.

Making Ends Meet demonstrates compellingly why the choice between welfare and work is more complex and risky than is commonly recognized by politicians, the media, or the public. Almost all the welfare-reliant women interviewed by Edin and Lein made repeated efforts to leave welfare for work, only to be forced to return when they lost their jobs, a child became ill, or they could not cover their bills with their wages. Mothers who managed more stable employment usually benefited from a variety of mitigating circumstances such as having a relative willing to watch their children for free, regular child support payments, or very low housing, medical, or commuting costs.

With first hand accounts and detailed financial data, Making Ends Meet tells the real story of the challenges, hardships, and survival strategies of America's poorest families. If this country's efforts to improve the self-sufficiency of female-headed families is to succeed, reformers will need to move beyond the myths of welfare dependency and deal with the hard realities of an unrewarding American labor market, the lack of affordable health insurance and child care for single mothers who work, and the true cost of subsistence living. Making Ends Meet is a realistic look at a world that so many would change and so few understand.

KATHRYN EDIN is assistant professor, department of sociology and Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University.

LAURA LEIN is senior lecturer, department of anthropology, and senior lecturer and research scientist, the School of Social Work, the University of Texas at Austin.

"Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey have done it again! Crossing the Border is an authoritative collection of rigorous empirical analyses that synthesize several substantive findings about the changing character and consequences of U.S .- bound Mexican migration during the 1990s. Its authority derives both from the theoretical and methodological foundations of the ambitious, multi-decade Mexican Migration Project that revolutionized the scientific study of population movement, from the technical sophistication of the empirical analyses, and from the broad scope of topics analyzed. These include the broadened geographic origins and destinations of migrants, the transformation of gender and family roles, and the role of U.S. policy in transforming rather than ebbing the flow of new migrants. This volume is an excellent classroom companion to Beyond Smoke and Mirrors."
-MARTA TIENDA, Princeton University

"The bi-national Mexican Migration Project (MMP) represents the most significant, sustained research effort on Mexican migration to the United States conducted over the past twenty-five years. Crossing the Border systematically exploits the MMP to understand what propels this migration, how it is changing, and how it affects peoples and communities on both sides of the U.S .- Mexico border. A companion volume to Massey, Durand, and Malone's path- breaking Beyond Smoke and Mirrors and an invaluable resource in and of itself."
-ROGER WALDINGER, U.C.L.A.

"If Americans often extol European immigration to the United States, they no less frequently denigrate migration from Mexico, often in distorting and disdainful terms. For over twenty years, Douglas S. Massey and Jorge Durand have collected pioneering data on Mexican migrants to the United States. At least as much anything else, analyses of their data help to dispel negative images and myths about U.S. Mexican immigrants. Crossing the Border, an enormously insightful and useful book, contains the best and most representative examples of these analyses, thus demonstrating why the Mexican Migration Project is one of the most significant and policy-relevant social science accomplishments of the latter part of the twentieth century."
-FRANK D. BEAN, University of California, Irvine

"For the past twenty years, Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey have continued to produce pioneering findings in the field of Mexico-U.S. immigration. Aside from their important intellectual findings, Durand and Massey have furnished a model for doing social science research. Combining surveys in scores of Mexican locales with intensive ethnographies, they have amassed an exemplary data set and in the process, they have also trained countless social scientists in data gathering and analysis. Much of that work appears in this book. Durand, Massey, and their collaborators have produced a rich and compelling volume about many dimensions of Mexican immigration."
-EDWARD TELLES, U.C.L.A.

Discussion of Mexican migration to the United States is often infused with ideological rhetoric, untested theories, and few facts. In Crossing the Border, editors Jorge Durand and Douglas Massey bring the clarity of scientific analysis to this hotly contested but under-researched topic. Leading immigration scholars use data from the Mexican Migration Project—the largest, most comprehensive, and reliable source of data on Mexican immigrants currently available—to answer such important questions as: Who are the people that migrate to the United States from Mexico? Why do they come? How effective is U.S. migration policy in meeting its objectives?

Crossing the Border dispels two primary myths about Mexican migration: First, that those who come to the United States are predominantly impoverished and intend to settle here permanently, and second, that the only way to keep them out is with stricter border enforcement. Nadia Flores, Rubén Hernández-León, and Douglas Massey show that Mexican migrants are generally not destitute but in fact cross the border because the higher comparative wages in the United States help them to finance homes back in Mexico, where limited credit opportunities makes it difficult for them to purchase housing. William Kandel’s chapter on immigrant agricultural workers debunks the myth that these laborers are part of a shadowy, underground population that sponges off of social services. In contrast, he finds that most Mexican agricultural workers in the United States are paid by check and not under the table. These workers pay their fair share in U.S. taxes and—despite high rates of eligibility—they rarely utilize welfare programs. Research from the project also indicates that heightened border surveillance is an ineffective strategy to reduce the immigrant population. Pia Orrenius demonstrates that strict barriers at popular border crossings have not kept migrants from entering the United States, but rather have prompted them to seek out other crossing points. Belinda Reyes uses statistical models and qualitative interviews to show that the militarization of the Mexican border has actually kept immigrants who want to return to Mexico from doing so by making them fear that if they leave they will not be able to get back into the United States.

By replacing anecdotal and speculative evidence with concrete data, Crossing the Border paints a picture of Mexican immigration to the United States that defies the common knowledge. It portrays a group of committed workers, doing what they can to realize the dream of home ownership in the absence of financing opportunities, and a broken immigration system that tries to keep migrants out of this country, but instead has kept them from leaving.

JORGE DURAND is professor in the Department for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Guadalajara and codirector of the Mexican Migration Project.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is professor of sociology and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and codirector of the Mexican Migration Project.

CONTRIBUTORS: Patricia Arias, Maria Aysa, Marcela Cerrutti, Enrique Martinez Curiel, Katharine M. Donato, Jorge Durand, Nadia Y. Flores, Elizabeth Fussell, Ruben Hernandez-Leon, William A. Kandel, Douglas S. Massey, Margarita Mooney, Pia M. Orrenius, Emilio A. Parrado, Evelyn Patterson, Belinda I. Reyes, Fernando Riosmena, and Estela Rivero-Fuentes. 

"Markets, it seems, are being deconstructed and reconstructed on all sides. Seen no longer as autonomous spheres, nor even autonomous in the inner logic of how they work, markets are now located in a series of embeddings and interactional patterns. In this forefront volume, today's leading sociologists range across history from Renaissance banking to property in contemporary China, across businesses from organ transplants to global finances, across institutions from political and legal controls to the inner networks of market actors. Here the sociology of market economies is on display at its best."
-RANDALL COLLINS, professor of sociology, University of Pennsylvania

"The Sociology of the Economy contains studies that show the rich vibrancy and broad eclecticism of economic sociology. These papers illustrate clearly that economic action is always dependent on and shaped by social and political action."
-NEIL FLIGSTEIN, Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

"An important contribution to the 'new economic sociology' that brings together a diverse sampling of current research, thus providing the reader with a glimpse of what is going on at the cutting edge. This collection effectively shows work in economic sociology overlaps with work in other sociological subfields, including sociology of law, comparative and historical sociology, the sociology of organizations, and the sociology of culture. It will undoubtedly find a place on many bookshelves alongside the Handbook of Economic Sociology."
-SARAH BABB, assistant professor of sociology, Boston College

The new economic sociology is based on the theory that patterns of economic behavior are shaped by social factors. The Sociology of the Economy brings together a dozen path-breaking empirical studies that explore how social forces—such as shifts in political power, the influence of social networks, or the spread of new economic ideas—shape real-world economic behavior.

The contributors—all leading economic sociologists—show these social forces at work in a diverse range of international settings and historical circumstances. Examining why so many American banks followed industry leaders into foreign markets in the 1970s, only to pull back within a few years, Mark Mizruchi and Gerald Davis suggest that social emulation rather than rational calculation led banks to expand globally before there was any evidence that foreign offices paid off. William Schneper and Mauro Guillé show that despite the international diffusion of the hostile takeover during the last twenty years, the practice became widespread only in countries with political institutions conducive to buying and selling entire companies. Thus during the 1990s, the United States and United Kingdom saw hundreds of hostile takeover bids, while Germany had only a handful, and Japan just one. Deborah Davis explores resistance to the globalization of Western ideas about real-estate ownership—particularly in China where the government has had little success in instituting a market system in place of traditional, family-based real-estate inheritance. And Richard Scott examines the controversial rise of managed care in the American healthcare system, as the quest for market efficiency collided with the ideal of equity in access to health care.

Together, these studies provide compelling evidence that economic behavior is not ruled by immutable laws, and is but one realm of social behavior, with its own conventions, roles, and social structures. The Sociology of the Economy demonstrates the vitality of empirical research in the field of economic sociology and the power of sociological models in explaining how markets operate.

FRANK DOBBIN is professor of sociology at Harvard University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Urs Bruegger, Karin Knorr Cetina, Deborah S. Davis, Gerald F. Davis, Bai Gao, Mauro F. Guillen, Heather A. Haveman, Kieran Healy, Lisa A. Keister, Paul D. McLean, Mark S. Mizruchi, John F. Padgett, Charles Perrow, William D. Schneper, W. Richard Scott, Richard Swedberg. 

"For many American parents with young-adult children, The Price of Independence will be a source of consolation and insight. The consolation will come from the documentation that the path to stable work and marriage is not only longer for their children, but for most American young adults. The insights will include evidence that the longer path to adult roles is not driven by changing economic conditions, but rather by changing social norms, especially changes in young people's expectations about work, schooling, and families. The book will help public policy makers recognize that young adults in other industrialized countries are experiencing many of the same challenges that young Americans face. At the same time, the book documents that the large number of young Americans without health care and the extraordinarily high incarceration rates of young adult males of color are problems facing young people that this country has not solved, but many others have avoided."
-RICHARD J. MURNANE, professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"The Price of Independence brings together an interesting and diverse set of essays charting changes in the 'launch into adulthood' of today's youth. The changes in ages and levels of completed education, steady jobs, living independent of parents, marrying, having children are documented both for the United States and for several industrialized countries. The extent to which economic factors-changing labor markets, levels of debt, health insurance, costs of living-have influenced these changes are analyzed, often exploding common perceptions of the impact of such factors. But its not just economic factors that are considered; sociologist, political scientist, education specialists all get a turn 'at bat' and the result is a rich multidimen sional contribution to our understanding of these issues. I particularly like the international comparisons and the discussion of how differential social norms may affect both differences in the degree of change and the public perception of changes as positive or negative. Thanks to Sheldon Danziger and Cecilia Elena Rouse for putting this together."
-ROB HOLLISTER, professor of economics, Swarthmore College

More and more young men and women today are taking longer and having more difficulty making a successful transition to adulthood.  They are staying in school longer, having a harder time finding steady employment at jobs that provide health insurance, and are not marrying and having children until much later in life than their parents did. In The Price of Independence, a roster of distinguished experts diagnose the extent and causes of these trends.

Observers of social trends have speculated on the economic changes that may be delaying the transition to adulthood—from worsening job opportunities to mounting student debt and higher housing costs—but few have offered empirical evidence to back up their claims. The Price of Independence represents the first significant analysis of these economic explanations, charting the evolving life circumstances of eighteen to thirty-five year-olds over the last few decades. Lisa Bell, Gary Burtless, Janet Gornick, and Timothy M. Smeeding show that the earnings of young workers in the United States and a number of industrialized countries have declined relative to the cost of supporting a family, which may explain their protracted dependence. In addition, Henry Farber finds that job stability for young male workers has dropped over the last generation. But while economic factors have some influence on young people’s transitions to adulthood, The Price of Independence shows that changes in the economic climate can not account for the magnitude of the societal shift in the timing of independent living, marriage, and childbearing. Aaron Yelowitz debunks the myth that steep housing prices are forcing the young to live at home—housing costs actually fell between 1980 and 2000 once lower interest rates and tax subsidies are taken into account. And Ngina Chiteji reveals that average student loan debt is only $3,500 per household. The trend toward starting careers and families later appears to have more to do with changing social norms, as well as policies that have broadened access to higher education, than with changes in the economy.

For better or worse, the current generation is redefining the nature and boundaries of  what it means to be a young adult. The Price of Independence documents just how dramatically the modern lifecycle has changed and offers evidence as an antidote to much of the conventional wisdom about these social changes.

SHELDON DANZIGER is Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of Public Policy and codirector of the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

CECILIA ELENA ROUSE is the Theodore A. Wells  Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Sofya Aptekar, Lisa Bell, Gary Burtless, Ngina S. Chiteji, Henry S. Farber,  Maria D. Fitzpatrick,  Janet Gornick, Melanie Guldi,  Carolyn J. Hill,  Harry Holzer, Helen Levy, Katherine Newman, Marianne E. Page,  Steven Raphael,  Timothy M. Smeeding,  Ann Huff Stevens,  Sarah E. Turner,  Aaron S. Yelowitz.

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

“A central problem in economics, psychology, and sociology is the problem of trust. Trust is also the central problem of e-commerce. eTrust brings together social psychologists and communications scholars to capitalize on this insight and address the problem of trust in online settings with a combination of experimental methods and analyses of data from actual online systems (in some cases combining the two in innovative ways). The results illuminate our understanding of trust as a general phenomenon at the same time they cast new light upon e-commerce and bring valuable theoretical tools to students of the Internet.”
—PAUL DIMAGGIO, professor of sociology, Princeton University 

“Karen Cook and her coeditors have brought together a distinguished, international group of scholars to address a crucial issue of contemporary times: how do individuals form trusting relationships when using the Internet? This is an important and readable set of studies that build and extend prior work on trust based on face-to-face relationships.”
—ELINOR OSTROM, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Indiana University

There is one thing that moves online consumers to click “add to cart,” that allows sellers to accept certain forms of online payment, and that makes online product reviews meaningful: trust. Without trust, online interactions can’t advance. But how is trust among strangers established on the Internet? What role does reputation play in the formation of online trust? In eTrust, editors Karen Cook, Chris Snijders, Vincent Buskens, and Coye Cheshire explore the unmapped territory where trust, reputation, and online relationships intersect, with major implications for online commerce and social networking.

eTrust uses experimental studies and field research to examine how trust in anonymous online exchanges can create or diminish cooperation between people. The first part of the volume looks at how feedback affects online auctions using trust experiments. Gary Bolton and Axel Ockenfels find that the availability of feedback leads to more trust among one-time buyers, while Davide Barrera and Vincent Buskens demonstrate that, in investment transactions, the buyer’s own experience guides decision making about future transactions with sellers. The field studies in Part II of the book examine the degree to which reputation facilitates trust in online exchanges. Andreas Diekmann, Ben Jann, and David Wyder identify a “reputation premium” in mobile phone auctions, which not only drives future transactions between buyers and sellers but also payment modes and starting bids. Chris Snijders and Jeroen Weesie shift focus to the market for online programmers, where tough competition among programmers allows buyers to shop around. The book’s third section reveals how the quality and quantity of available information influences actual marketplace participants. Sonja Utz finds that even when unforeseen accidents hinder transactions—lost packages, computer crashes—the seller is still less likely to overcome repercussions from the negative feedback of dissatisfied buyers.

So much of our lives are becoming enmeshed with the Internet, where ordinary social cues and reputational networks that support trust in the real world simply don’t apply. eTrust breaks new ground by articulating the conditions under which trust can evolve and grow online, providing both theoretical and practical insights for anyone interested in how online relationships influence our decisions.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology and the current chair of the sociology department at Stanford University.

CHRIS SNIJDERS is professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

VINCENT BUSKENS is associate professor in the Department of Sociology/ICS at Utrecht University.

COYE CHESHIRE is assistant professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

CONTRIBUTORS: Vincent Buskens, Coye Cheshire, Karen S. Cook, Chris Snijders, Judd Antin, Brandy Aven, Davide Barrera, Gary E. Bolton, Andreas Diekmann, Alexandra Gerbasi, Ben Jann, Tapan Khopkar, Azi Lev-On, Masafumi Matsuda, Uwe Matzat, Axel Ockenfels, Paul Resnick, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Yukihiro Usui, Sonja Utz, Jeroen Weesie, David Wyder, Toshio Yamagishi, and Noriaki Yoshikai.


A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

"This is an important and timely volume. Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III assembled an outstanding group of social scientist to examine the impact of the economic boom on African Americans. The careful and detailed analyses of the employment and earnings of African Americans in a tight labor market will be widely cited and discussed. Indeed, Prosperity for All? will undoubtedly become a standard reference for those who seek authoritative works on the economic prospects of black Americans."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Harvard University

"To what extent do the tight labor markets of the late 1990s improve the employment and earnings of African Americans and other disadvantaged groups? How much of the deterioration in their employment prospects that occurred during the previous two decades is being reversed, and will these gains persist over time? Do discriminatory attitudes and behaviors among employers also persist, and to what extent do they diminish in tight markets? These are among the questions addressed in the set of papers edited by Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III. The editors should be commended for bringing together a distinguished group of researchers, and for generating a volume that addresses such important and timely questions in a convincing fashion."
-HARRY J. HOLZER, Michigan State University

"As Prosperity For All? goes to press, the rules of the new economy are being rewritten. This book offers powerful new evidence that at least one important rule from the old economy still applies: Sustained economic growth conveys substantial benefits for society's most vulnerable workers."
-ALAN KRUEGER, Princeton University

With the nation enjoying a remarkable long and robust economic expansion, AfricanAmerican employment has risen to an all-time high. Does this good news refute the notion of a permanently disadvantaged black underclass, or has one type of disadvantage been replaced by another? Some economists fear that many newly employed minority workers will remain stuck in low-wage jobs, barred from better-paying, high skill jobs by their lack of educational opportunities and entrenched racial discrimination. Prosperity for All? draws upon the research and insights of respected economists to address these important issues.

Prosperity for All? reveals that while African Americans benefit in many ways from a strong job market, serious problems remain. Research presented in this book shows that the ratio of black to white unemployment has actually increased over recent expansions. Even though African American men are currently less likely to leave the workforce, the number of those who do not find work at all has grown substantially, indicating that joblessness is now concentrated among the most alienated members of the population. Other chapters offer striking evidence that racial inequality is still pervasive. Among men, black high school dropouts have more difficulty finding work than their Latino or white counterparts. Likewise, the glass ceiling that limits minority access to higher paying promotions persists even in a strong economy. Prosperity for All? ascribes black disadvantage in the labor force to employer discrimination, particularly when there is strong competition for jobs. As one study illustrates, economic upswings do not appear to change racial preferences among employers, who remain less willing to hire African Americans for more skilled low-wage jobs.

Prosperity for All? offers a timely investigation into the impact of strong labor markets on low-skill African-American workers, with important insights into the issues engendered by the weakening of federal assistance, job training, and affirmative action programs.

ROBERT CHERRY is professor of economics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

WILLIAM M. RODGERS III is chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor. He is on leave from the College of William and Mary where he is the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Associate Professor of Economics.

CONTRIBUTORS: Heather Boushey, Cecilia Conrad, Mary Corcoran, Sandra Danziger, Sheldon Danziger, William Darity Jr., Gregory E. DeFreitas,  Richard B. Freeman,  Colleen Heflin,  Joyce P. Jacobsen,  Chinhui Juhn,  Ariel Kalil,  Sanders Korenman, Laurence M. Levin,  Judith Levine, Philip Moss, Samuell L. Meyers Jr., Cordelia W. Reimers,  Daniel Rosen,  Kristin Seefeldt,  Kristine Siefert,  William E. Spriggs,  Chris Tilly,  Richard Tolman,  Rhonda M. Williams.  

"For those who think that low-wage workers are just 'unskilled' workers who somehow deserve their fates, Low-Wage Work in France is a must read, in that it shows how their fates vary across sectors within a given country (France) and across countries, within Europe or across the Atlantic."
-DANIEL COHEN, professor, École Normale Supérieure and Paris School of Economics, and director, CEPREMAP

"France has replaced Sweden as the quintessential example of the over-regulated, bloated welfare state that strangles the market economy, producing inefficient workplaces, and undermines incentives to work. As in the case of Sweden, the reality is much more complicated. With a comprehensive overview chapter and five case studies of narrowly framed jobs in different sectors, Eve Caroli and the contributors to this volume show that a high minimum wage has successfully limited the incidence of low wages, but that there has been a growing intensification of work, a development that challenges this orthodox view. Anyone who cares about understanding the real nature of low wage work in France must read this excellent book."
-DAVID R. HOWELL, professor of economics, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy

"Low-Wage Work in France will surely take its place among the Russell Sage Foundation's landmark studies of low paid work in the United States and Europe. A team of distinguished labor economists and sociologists highlights the harsh nature of low-wage work in France, the intensity of its work rhythms and its insecurity. The causes, they argue, often lie in a mix of intense competition in the product markets of these sectors, combined with monopsony power in their labor markets. The institutional structure of French labor markets in conjunction with the employment systems operated by private and public sector organizations shape the incidence of low-wage work, and help explain the specificity of the French case compared with other countries. This work will prove invaluable to all who wish to understand the causes of low-wage employment, and to develop policies to alleviate its consequences for the workers concerned."
-DAVID MARSDEN, professor of industrial relations, London School of Economics

In France, low wages have historically inspired tremendous political controversy. The social and political issues at stake center on integrating the working class into society and maintaining the stability of the republican regime. A variety of federal policies—including high minimum wages and strong employee protection—serve to ensure that the low-wage workforce stays relatively small. Low-Wage Work in France examines both the benefits and drawbacks of this politically inspired system of worker protection. France’s high minimum wage, which is indexed not only to inflation but also to the average increase in employee wages, plays a critical role in limiting the development of low-paid work. Social welfare benefits and a mandatory thirty-five hour work week also make life easier for low-wage workers. Strong employee protection is a central characteristic of the French model, but high levels of protection for employees may also be one of the causes of France’s chronically high rate of unemployment. The threat of long-term unemployment may, in turn, contribute to a persistent sense of insecurity among French workers. Low-Wage Work in France provides a lucid analysis of how a highly regulated labor market shapes the experiences of workers—for better and for worse.

ÈVE CAROLI is professor of economics at University Paris X.

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

CONTRIBUTORS: Anne Marie Arborio, Philippe Askenazy, Mathieu Beraud, Jean-Baptiste Berry, Jacques Bouteiller, Lise Causse, Thierry Colin, Emilie Feriel, Benoit Grasser, Christine Guegnard, Annie Lamenthe, Philippe Mehaut, Sylvie-Anne Meriot, Philippe Mosse, Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire, Robert Solow.

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

Considers how Americans define the quality of their life experiences, as expressed in their perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. Based on research conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the book uses data which are representative of the national population eighteen years of age and older, and employs the major social characteristics of class, age, education, and income. The authors cover such topics as the residential environment, the experience of work, marriage, and family life, and personal resources and competence. They also report on the situation of women and the quality of the life experience of black people.

ANGUS CAMPBELL is professor of psychology and sociology and director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

PHILIP E. CONVERSE is Robert C. Angell Professor of Political Science and Sociology and program director of the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

WILLARD L. RODGERS is senior study director of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan.

"In the last few years, there has emerged an animated national conversation about problems faced by-and posed by-people who have been to prison. Regardless of one's politics, we can all agree that we share an interest in discovering and enacting policies that will help the formerly incarcerated `make it.' But good policies require good data, and to date there has been a dearth of information to help us think realistically and critically about the circumstances facing people who leave prison. This important book fills a gap in our knowledge about the labor market prospects people returning from prison face, and it provides an invaluable foundation for the much-needed policy work in that area. The contributors are some of the most skilled social scientists working in the area, and the methods and data they use to shed light on this policy problem are uniquely suited to help advance our knowledge. Anyone who is interested in reentry will find Barriers to Reentry? a treasure trove of findings to spur their creative thinking."
-Todd R. Clear, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York

"Hundreds of thousands of ex-offenders are released from prison every year. Most fare poorly. Employers hire them as a last resort, their employment and wage experience is poor, rehabilitation programs do too little, too late. Three quarters recividate. The compelling statistic analysis in Barriers to Reentry? shows that the United States should seek alternatives to the mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders."
-Richard B. Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics, Harvard University

"The chapters in this volume cut below the surface of the obvious correlation between incarceration and poor labor market outcomes to identify potential policy options and the groups in the population who will be most likely to benefit. As a whole, the book offers a thorough analysis of institutions driving labor markets for those with prison experience and criminal records. The evidence assembled is not generally optimistic about the prospects for improving labor market outcomes for those recently released from prison. For anyone working to improve the economic status of former inmates, Barriers to Reentry? is an invaluable analysis of the realities they must confront."
-Anne Piehl, associate professor of economics, Rutgers University

With the introduction of more aggressive policing, prosecution, and sentencing since the late 1970s, the number of Americans in prison has increased dramatically. While many have credited these “get tough” policies with lowering violent crime rates, we are only just beginning to understand the broader costs of mass incarceration. In Barriers to Reentry? experts on labor markets and the criminal justice system investigate how imprisonment affects ex-offenders’ employment prospects, and how the challenge of finding work after prison affects the likelihood that they will break the law again and return to prison.

The authors examine the intersection of imprisonment and employment from many vantage points, including employer surveys, interviews with former prisoners, and state data on prison employment programs and post-incarceration employment rates. Ex-prisoners face many obstacles to re-entering the job market—from employers’ fears of negligent hiring lawsuits to the lost opportunities for acquiring work experience while incarcerated. In a study of former prisoners, Becky Pettit and Christopher Lyons find that employment among this group was actually higher immediately after their release than before they were incarcerated, but that over time their employment rate dropped to their pre-imprisonment levels. Exploring the demand side of the equation, Harry Holzer, Steven Raphael, and Michael Stoll report on their survey of employers in Los Angeles about the hiring of former criminals, in which they find strong evidence of pervasive hiring discrimination against ex-prisoners. Devah Pager finds similar evidence of employer discrimination in an experiment in which Milwaukee employers were presented with applications for otherwise comparable jobseekers, some of whom had criminal records and some of whom did not. Such findings are particularly troubling in light of research by Steven Raphael and David Weiman which shows that ex-criminals are more likely to violate parole if they are unemployed. In a concluding chapter, Bruce Western warns that prison is becoming the norm for too many inner-city minority males; by preventing access to the labor market, mass incarceration is exacerbating inequality. Western argues that, ultimately, the most successful policies are those that keep young men out of prison in the first place.

Promoting social justice and reducing recidivism both demand greater efforts to reintegrate former prisoners into the workforce. Barriers to Reentry? cogently underscores one of the major social costs of incarceration, and builds a compelling case for rethinking the way our country rehabilitates criminals.

SHAWN BUSHWAY is professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany.

MICHAEL A. STOLL is professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

DAVID F. WEIMAN is professor of economics at Barnard College, Columbia University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Shauna Briggs, Shawn Bushway, Harry J. Holzer, Vera Kachnowski, Jeffrey R. Kling, Christopher J. Lyons, Devah Pager, Becky Pettit, Steven Raphael, William J. Sabol, Michael A. Stoll, Faye Taxman, Meridith Thanner, John H. Tyler, Mischelle Van Brakle, Christy A. Visher, David F. Weiman, and Bruce Western