"To study the life course is a life-long commitment. Where do the ideas that motivate longitudinal research come from? How do indefatigable investigators find the energy and resources to sustain longitudinal studies? The chapters in Looking at Lives reveal the genius, passion, and dedication that lie behind some of the most important longitudinal studies of human development ever conducted."
-Avshalom Caspi, Institute of Psychiatry, London, and University of Wisconsin, Madison

"This book is a watershed event in the scientific study of human development. It demonstrates in singularly compelling ways the precise methodological details that are required to conduct exemplary longitudinal research and that are involved in exploiting for new purposes existing longitudinal data archives."
-Richard M. Lerner, Tufts University

"Looking at Lives is a must-read for all of us involved in landmark longitudinal studies of the twentieth century. Some of the real pioneers in the long-term developmental study of humans are here as authors, describing the important details of their personal involvement in their work as well as the substance of their studies. Among other things, this volume could easily provide core reading for courses in research methods for longitudinal studies."
-Lewis Lipsitt, Brown University

The impact of long-term longitudinal studies on the landscape of 20th century social and behavioral science cannot be overstated. The field of life course studies has grown exponentially since its inception in the 1950s, and now influences methodologies as well as expectations for all academic research. Looking at Lives offers an unprecedented "insider's view" into the intentions, methods, and findings of researchers engaged in some of the twentieth century's landmark studies. In this volume, eminent American scholars—many of them pioneers in longitudinal studies—provide frank and illuminating insights into the difficulties and the unique scientific benefits of mounting studies that track people's lives over a long period of time.

Looking at Lives includes studies from a range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and education, which together cover a span of more than fifty years. The contributors pay particular attention to the changing historical, cultural, and scientific context of their work, as well as the theoretical and methodological changes that have occurred in their fields over decades. What emerges is a clear indication of the often unexpected effects these studies have had on public policies and public opinion—especially as they relate to such issues as the connection between poverty and criminal behavior, or the consequences of teen-age pregnancy and drug use for inner-city youth. For example, David Weikart reveals how his long-term research on preschool intervention projects, begun in 1959, permitted him to show how surprisingly effective preschool education can be in improving the lives of disadvantaged children. In another study, John Laub and Robert Sampson build on findings from a groundbreaking study begun by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck in the 1950s to reveal the myriad ways in which juvenile delinquency can predict criminal behavior in adults. And Arland Thornton, Ronald Freedman, and William Axinn employ an intergenerational study of women and their children begun in 1962 to examine the substantial relaxation of social mores for family and individual behavior in the latter decades of the 20th century.

Looking at Lives is full of striking testimony to the importance of long-term, longitudinal studies. As a unique chronicle of the origins and development of longitudinal studies in America, this collection will be an invaluable aid to 21st century investigators who seek to build on the successes and the experiences of the pioneers in life-course studies.

ERIN PHELPS is associate director, Murray Research Center, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.

FRANK F. FURSTENBERG, JR. is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania.

ANNE COLBY is senior scholar, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

CONTRIBUTORS: Karl L. Alexander, William G. Axinn, Ann F. Brunswick, Beverly D. Cairns, Robert B. Cairns, Greg J. Duncan, Glen H. Elder Jr., Doris Entwisle, Ronald Freedman, Janet Zollinger Giele, John H. Laub, John Modell, Frank L. Mott, Linda Steffel Olson, Robert J. Sampson, Arland Thornton, George E. Vaillant, David P. Weikart, Emmy E. Werner.

The Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality
 

"For the first time, Urban Inequality brings together solid evidence on the intersecting effects of skills, job availability, geographic segregation, and racism on the socioeconomic outcomes of American minority groups. This landmark study should quickly become a classic, and should inform discussions about public policy for years to come."
- DAVID O. SEARS, UCLA

"This important book investigates urban inequality by looking in detail at the barriers of race, gender, and class in the United States. The team of leading scholars clearly shows us how the search for decent housing, a living wage job, or simply walking down the street differs dramatically between the urban haves and have-nots. Urban Inequality belongs on the bookshelves of mayors, community organizers, and advocates."
- HUGH B. PRICE, National Urban League

"W.E.B. DuBois said that the problem of the twentieth century would be the color line. How sad that we enter the twenty-first century with a racial hierarchy still intact, putting those of African descent at the bottom. But how encouraging that an interdisciplinary team has taken this comprehensive look at many of the factors holding the racial hierarchy in place. Urban Inequality and the larger Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality are major accomplishments."
- PAULA ENGLAND, University of Pennsylvania

"This is an important volume. Based on careful analyses of rich sources of original data, the authors of the various chapters in Urban Inequality provide fresh insights on the interlocking factors that generate and sustain inequality in our nation's metropolises. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of the urban social and economic divide."
- WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Harvard University

"The Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality is one of the most innovative and important survey research projects of the 1990s. It moves simultaneously across disciplinary, geographic, and racial boundaries; it extends the range of behavioral social science into structures and cultures. This collection shows off the breadth, flexibility, and substantive value of the Multi-City data when they are in the hands of people who are among our best analysts."
- JENNIFER HOCHSCHILD, Harvard University

Despite today's booming economy, secure work and upward mobility remain out of reach for many central-city residents. Urban Inequality presents an authoritative new look at the racial and economic divisions that continue to beset our nation's cities. Drawing upon a landmark survey of employers and households in four U.S. metropolises, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, the study links both sides of the labor market, inquiring into the job requirements and hiring procedures of employers, as well as the skills, housing situation, and job search strategies of workers. Using this wealth of evidence, the authors discuss the merits of rival explanations of urban inequality. Do racial minorities lack the skills and education demanded by employers in today's global economy? Have the jobs best matched to the skills of inner-city workers moved to outlying suburbs? Or is inequality the result of racial discrimination in hiring, pay, and housing? Each of these explanations may provide part of the story, and the authors shed new light on the links between labor market disadvantage, residential segregation, and exclusionary racial attitudes.

In each of the four cities, old industries have declined and new commercial centers have sprung up outside the traditional city limits, while new immigrant groups have entered all levels of the labor market. Despite these transformations, longstanding hostilities and lines of segregation between racial and ethnic communities are still apparent in each city. This book reveals how the disadvantaged position of many minority workers is compounded by racial antipathies and stereotypes that count against them in their search for housing and jobs.

Until now, there has been little agreement on the sources of urban disadvantage and no convincing way of adjudicating between rival theories. Urban Inequality aims to advance our understanding of the causes of urban inequality as a first step toward ensuring that the nation's cities can prosper in the future without leaving their minority residents further behind.

ALICE O'CONNOR is associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

CHRIS TILLY is University Professor of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

LAWRENCE D. BOBO is professor of sociology and Afro-American studies at Harvard Universit

CONTRIBUTORS:  Irene Browne, Camille Zubrinsky Charles.  Sheldon Danziger,  Luis M. Falcon,  Reynolds Farley,  Roger B. Hammer,  Tom Hertz,  Harry J. Holzer,  Ivy Kennelly,  Joleen Kirschenman, James R. Kluegel,  Michael P. Massagli,  Edwin Melendez,  Philip Moss,  Julie E. Press, Leann M. Tigges.  Franklin D. Wilson.

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

"For more than a hundred years, philanthropists have invested in social science because they thought the knowledge it produced would help solve social problems and improve the human condition. And indeed, social scientists sought to inform public debate and public action, pursuing agendas shaped by the famous 'social question" of labor and inequality. But, as Alice O'Connor shows in this splendid history, the relatienship between social science and philanthropy was not automatic. It could come unstuck when social scientists claimed their work was self-justifying as the pursuit of knowledge in itself, and also with political challenges to the idea of neutral (or liberal) expertise. O'Connor rightly reveals that this early history has shaped enduring orientations and oppositions, and she traces these into our era of think tanks and a new gospel of wealth. She also challenges us to ask again what social science is for in an era when inequality seems once again to be increasing, and to wonder whether its connection with philanthropy can be restored. Social Science for What? is important reading for twentieth-century history and it eloquently poses crucial questions for twenty-first century social science."
-CRAIG CALHOUN, Social Science Research Council

This discerning history celebrates an important legacy of the Progressive Era: the best advocates for social reform sought to maintain their objectivity. Then, as now, true idealists tried to steer clear of ideology. Everyone concerned about the relationship between the theory and the practice of social science should read Social Science for What?"
-NANCY FOLBRE, University of Massachusetts

"In this fine book, based on both insider knowledge and academic research, Alice O'Connor explains why the great liberal foundations have been bested by conservative 'think tanks.' And she argues, astutely, that there is only one way the liberal foundations can compete- by openly embracing the progressive values that animated early social science. Social Science for What? is a must for those interested in contemporary conservatism, philanthropy, and social science."
-LINDA GORDON, New York University

Much like today, the early twentieth century was a period of rising economic inequality and political polarization in America. But it was also an era of progressive reform—a time when the Russell Sage Foundation and other philanthropic organizations were established to promote social science as a way to solve the crises of industrial capitalism. In Social Science for What? Alice O’Connor relates the history of philanthropic social science, exploring its successes and challenges over the years, and asking how these foundations might continue to promote progressive social change in our own politically divided era.

The philanthropic foundations established in the early 1900s focused on research which, while intended to be objective, was also politically engaged. In addition to funding social science research, in its early years the Russell Sage Foundation also supported social work and advocated reforms on issues from child welfare to predatory lending. This reformist agenda shaped the foundation’s research priorities and methods. The Foundation’s landmark Pittsburgh Survey of wage labor, conducted in 1907-1908, involved not only social scientists but leaders of charities, social workers, and progressive activists, and was designed not simply to answer empirical questions, but to reframe the public discourse about industrial labor. After World War II, many philanthropic foundations disengaged from political struggles and shifted their funding toward more value-neutral, academic social inquiry, in the belief that disinterested research would yield more effective public policies. Consequently, these foundations were caught off guard in the 1970s and 1980s by the emergence of a network of right-wing foundations, which was successful in promoting an openly ideological agenda. In order to counter the political in-roads made by conservative organizations, O’Connor argues that progressive philanthropic research foundations should look to the example of their founders. While continuing to support the social science research that has contributed so much to American society over the past 100 years, they should be more direct about the values that motivate their research.  In this way, they will help foster a more democratic dialogue on important social issues by using empirical knowledge to engage fundamentally ethical concerns about rising inequality.

O’Connor’s message is timely: public-interest social science faces unprecedented challenges in this era of cultural warfare, as both liberalism and science itself have come under assault. Social Science for What? is a thought-provoking critique of the role of social science in improving society and an indispensable guide to how progressives can reassert their voice in the national political debate.

ALICE O’CONNOR is associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A Volume in the the Russell Sage Foundation's Centennial Series

Inequality in income, earnings, and wealth has risen dramatically in the United States over the past three decades. Most research into this issue has focused on the causes—global trade, new technology, and economic policy—rather than the consequences of inequality. In Social Inequality, a group of the nation’s leading social scientists opens a wide-ranging inquiry into the social implications of rising economic inequality. Beginning with a critical evaluation of the existing research, they assess whether the recent run-up in economic inequality has been accompanied by rising inequality in social domains such as the quality of family and neighborhood life, equal access to education and health care, job satisfaction, and political participation.

Marcia Meyers and colleagues find that many low-income mothers cannot afford market-based child care, which contributes to inequality both at the present time—by reducing maternal employment and family income—and through the long-term consequences of informal or low-quality care on children’s educational achievement. At the other end of the educational spectrum, Thomas Kane links the growing inequality in college attendance to rising tuition and cuts in financial aid. Neil Fligstein and Taek-Jin Shin show how both job security and job satisfaction have decreased for low-wage workers compared with their higher-paid counterparts. Those who fall behind economically may also suffer diminished access to essential social resources like health care. John Mullahy, Stephanie Robert, and Barbara Wolfe discuss why higher inequality may lead to poorer health: wider inequality might mean increased stress-related ailments for the poor, and it might also be associated with public health care policies that favor the privileged. On the political front, Richard Freeman concludes that political participation has become more stratified as incomes have become more unequal. Workers at the bottom of the income scale may simply be too hard-pressed or too demoralized to care about political participation. Social Inequality concludes with a comprehensive section on the methodological problems involved in disentangling the effects of inequality from other economic factors, which will be of great benefit to future investigators.

While today’s widening inequality may be a temporary episode, the danger is that the current economic divisions may set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of social disadvantage. The most comprehensive review of this quandary to date, Social Inequality maps out a new agenda for research on inequality in America with important implications for public policy.

KATHRYN NECKERMAN is associate director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Suzanne Bianchi,  Henry E. Brady,  Coral Celeste,  Tiffani Chin,  Philip N. Cohen,  Sean Corcoran,  Janet Currie,  Paul DiMaggio,  Christine E. Eibner,  David T. Ellwood,  William N. Evans,  Neil Fligstein, Richard B. Freeman,  Jennifer Godwin,  Eszter Hargittai, Robert M. Hauser,  Robert Haveman, V. Joseph Hotz,  Michael Hout,  Christopher Jencks, Thomas J. Kane,  Meredith Kleykamp,  Gabriel S. Lenz,  Kara Levine,  Steven P. Martin,  Susan E. Mayer,  Marcia K. Meyers,  John Mullahy, Sheila E. Murray, Kei Nomaguchi, Lars Osberg, Anne R. Pebley, Meredith Phillips,  Sara Raley, Stephanie Robert,  Dan Rosenbaum,  Jake Rosenfeld, Howard Rosenthal,  Christopher Ruhm,  Gary Sandefur,  Narayan Sastry, Kay Lehman Schlozman,  John Karl Scholz,  Robert M. Schwab, Jonathan Schwabish, Steven Shafer.  Taek-Jin Shin,  Theda Skocpol, Timothy M. Smeeding,  Sidney Verba,  Andrea Voyer,  Jane Waldfogel,  Bruce Western,  Barbara Wolfe.

"The thoughtful contributors to this useful volume have provided a unique and comprehensive vision for the study of poverty. Laboring Below the Line is one of the most important publications on poverty and low-wage work in the last several decades. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in confronting the problems and challenges of inequality."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"This excellent volume is a welcome addition to the renewed stream of ethnographic examinations of the lives of America's poor. Laboring Below the Line concentrates on perennial issues of making a living by people in highly constrained circumstances, a subject not so central to many earlier ethnographies. It should be read by all those concerned with poverty policies as a corrective for the abstract and reductive models that dominate that field."
-LEE RAINWATER, professor of sociology emeritus, Harvard University

"Laboring Below The Line offers a much needed view of what people do to get by, raise families, get ahead, and grapple with issues of identity, esteem, and efficacy while laboring in a world that simultaneously demands and undervalues the work that they do. In establishing a dialogue between ethnographic and structural analysis, the authors remind us that the personal and the global can-indeed must-inform one another in research as well as in political action. They penetrate facile assumptions about the 'low-skill' nature of low-wage workers and work. They show how life chances are constrained by the growing inequities of global political economy, while recognizing the agency individuals do exercise in the workplace, the community, and in their own lives."
-ALICE O'CONNOR, associate professor of history, University of California, Santa Barbara

"For anyone hoping to move beyond the misleading stereotypes that dominate our culture, Laboring Below the Line offers rich portraits and analysis that take us deep into the everyday realities of labor and poverty in America. This indispensable book challenges conventional myths with accessible frontline research from the nation's leading scholars and shows new ways to confront and respond to America's enduring crisis."
-JOHN GILLIOM, associate professor of political science, Ohio University

As the distribution of wealth between rich and poor in the United States grew more and more unequal over the past twenty years, this economic gap assumed a life of its own in the popular culture. The news and entertainment media increasingly portrayed the lives of the poor with such stereotypes as the lazy welfare mother and the thuggish teen, offering Americans few ways to learn how the "other half" really lives. Laboring Below the Line works to bridge this gap by synthesizing a wide range of qualitative scholarship on the working poor. The result is a coherent, nuanced portrait of how life is lived below the poverty line, and a compelling analysis of the systemic forces in which poverty is embedded, and through which it is perpetuated.

Laboring Below the Line explores the role of interpretive research in understanding the causes and effects of poverty. Drawing on perspectives of the working poor, welfare recipients, and marginally employed men and women, the contributors—an interdisciplinary roster of ethnographers, oral historians, qualitative sociologists, and narrative analysts—dissect the life circumstances that affect the personal outlook, ability to work, and expectations for the future of these people. For example, Carol Stack views the work aspirations of an Oakland teenager for whom a job is important, even though it strains her academic performance. And Ruth Buchanan looks at low-wage telemarketing workers who are attempting to move up the economic ladder while balancing family, education, and other important commitments. What emerges is a compelling picture of low-wage workers—one that illustrates the precarious circumstances of individuals struggling with the economic conditions and institutions that surround them Each chapter also explores the capacity for economic survival from a different angle, with ancillary commentary complementing the ethnographies with perspectives from other fields of study, such as economics.

At this moment of governmental retrenchment, ethnography's complex, nonstereotypical portraits of individual people fighting against poverty are especially important. Laboring Below the Line reveals the ambiguities of real lives, the potential for individuals to change in unexpected ways, and the even greater intricacy of the collective life of a community.

FRANK MUNGER is professor of law and adjunct professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

CONTRIBUTORS: Frances Ansley, Ruth Buchanan, Aixa N. Cintron-Velez, Kathryn Edin, Michael Frisch, Joel F. Handler, Philip Harvey, Julia R. Henly, Sanders Korenman, Laura Lein, Timothy Nelson, Carl H. Nightingale, Saskia Sassen, Carol Stack, Lucie White.
 

Focuses on the 133 largest foundations endowed by individuals or families, each of which in 1960 held assets of more than $10 million. While representing less than one percent of the total number, they account for the majority of income, endowment, and spending of all foundations. The author describes the economic dimensions of foundation activities in the context of the general economy and private philanthropy. He examines the process by which the foundations were established, when and how they received initial endowments, their investment patterns over a period of years, and the policies governing investment of their endowed funds.

RALPH L. NELSON is associate professor of economics at Queens College of the City University of New York.

"The Future of the Family is a singular contribution to our understanding of one of the most important social issues of the twenty-first century. The editors have brought together scholars who collectively represent the world's foremost experts on family systems. The net result is a volume replete with important comparative findings and insights on the changing family and family policies in the United States and other countries."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"This book provides an excellent review of what we do and do not know about changes in marriage and childbearing in the United States. It's readable and it's thorough. The policy implications of these changes are discussed by persons from a variety of political and policy viewpoints. If you want to understand what the current debate on marriage and families is all about, The Future of the Family is the book to read."
-REBECCA M. BLANK, Henry Carter Adams Professor of Policy and dean, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

"This book is a fitting final legacy of Senator Patrick Moynihan, who did so much as a scholar and politician to call attention to the plight of the family in America. Like Senator Moynihan, The Future of the Family is difficult to characterize ideologically, which is its great strength. It presents the facts as we know them clearly and dispassionately. It assesses the effects of family change with clarity and balance, giving in neither to pessimism or to Pollyanna-like optimism. And most remarkably, it presents the policy recommendations of both conservatives and liberals in sensible dialogue. If policymakers and scholars have enough sense to use it in their work, our national dialogue will be greatly enriched."
-MARY JO BANE, Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

High rates of divorce, single-parenthood, and nonmarital cohabitation are forcing Americans to reexamine their definition of family. This evolving social reality requires public policy to evolve as well. The Future of the Family brings together the top scholars of family policy—headlined by editors Lee Rainwater, Tim Smeeding, and, in his last published work, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan—to take stock of the state of the family in the United States today and address the ways in which public policy affects the family and vice versa.

The volume opens with an assessment of new forms of family, discussing how reduced family income and lower parental involvement can disadvantage children who grow up outside of two-parent households. The book then presents three vastly dissimilar recommendations—each representing a different segment of the political spectrum—for how family policy should adapt to these changes. Child psychologist Wade Horn argues the case of political conservatives that healthy two-parent families are the best way to raise children and therefore should be actively promoted by government initiatives. Conversely, economist Nancy Folbre argues that government’s role lies not in prescribing family arrangements but rather in recognizing and fostering the importance of caregivers within all families, conventional or otherwise. Will Marshall and Isabel Sawhill borrow policy prescriptions from the left and the right, arguing for more initiatives that demand personal responsibility from parents, as well as for an increase in workplace flexibility and the establishment of universal preschool programs. The book follows with commentary by leading policy analysts Samuel Preston, Frank Furstenberg Jr., and Irwin Garfinkel on the merits of the conservative and liberal arguments. Each suggests that marriage promotion alone is not enough to ensure a happy, healthy, and prosperous future for American children who are caught up in the vortex of family change. They agree that government investments in children, however, can promote superior developmental outcomes and even potentially encourage traditional families by enlarging the pool of “marriageable” individuals for the next generation.

No government action can reverse trends in family formation or return America to the historic nuclear family model. But understanding social change is an essential step in fashioning effective policy for today’s families. With authoritative insight, The Future of the Family broadens and updates our knowledge of how public policy and demography shape one another.

DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN was university professor at Syracuse University until his untimely death in March 2003, as well as a former United States senator and ambassador to India and the United Nations.

TIMOTHY M. SMEEDING is the Maxwell Professor of Public Policy at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and overall director of the Luxembourg Income Study.

LEE RAINWATER is professor of sociology emeritus at Harvard University and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study.

CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel P. Moynihan, Lee Rainwater, Timothy M. Smeeding, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, David T. Ellwood, Nancy Folbre, Frank F. Furstenberg, Irwin Garfinkel, Janet C. Gornick, Wade F. Horn, Christopher Jencks, Kathnleen Kiernan, Will Marshall, Sara McLanahan, Samuel H. Preston, Isabel V. Sawhill, Wendy Sigle-Rushton, and Douglas A. Wolf.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

The image of the "underclass," framed by persistent poverty, long-term joblessness, school dropout, teenage pregnancy, and drug use, has become synonymous with urban poverty. But does this image tell us enough about how the diverse minorities among the urban poor actually experience and cope with poverty? No, say the contributors to In the Barrios. Their portraits of eight Latino communities—in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Albuquerque, Laredo, and Tucson—reveal a far more complex reality.

In the Barrios responds directly to current debates on the origins of the "underclass" and depicts the cultural, demographic, and historical forces that have shaped poor Latino communities. These neighborhoods share many hardships, yet they manifest no "typical" form of poverty. Instead, each group adapts its own cultural and social resources to the difficult economic circumstances of American urban life. The editors point to continued immigration as an issue of overriding importance in understanding urban Latino poverty. Newcomers to concentrated Latino areas build a local economy that provides affordable amenities and promotes ethnic institutional development. In many of these neighborhoods, a network of emotional as well as economic support extends across families and borders.

The first major assessment of inner-city Latino communities in the United States, In the Barrios will change the way we approach the current debate on urban poverty, immigration, and the underclass.

JOAN MOORE is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

RAQUEL PINDERHUGHES is assistant professor of urban studies at San Francisco State University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Phillip Gonzales, Guillermo J. Grenier, Nora Hamilton, James Loucky, Joan Moore, Felix M. Padilla, Raquel Pinderhughes, Nestor P. Rodriquez, Alex Stepick, Mercer Sullivan, Avelardo Valdez, Carlos G. Velez-Ibanez, James Diego Vigil.

"Michael and his colleagues make significant contributions to the field of youth development and to our understanding of the background for the complex transition from youth to adulthood. The authors take a rich data source and bring sophisticated statistical techniques to bear on it. The refinement of family structure measures and the multiplicity of youth outcomes examined add tremendously to a field where many studies treat family simplistically and speak only to a single issue. The volume will serve as the necessary starting point for further analyses of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth as the cohort ages. It will also contribute to current policy discussions on how families and society help -- and sometimes hinder -- the transition to adulthood."
-MATTHEW W. STAGNER, The Urban Institute

"This fascinating volume examines the determinants of such adolescent behaviors as. discretionary time use, sexual activity, expectations regarding future fertility outcomes, dating, use of alcohol and marijuana, and criminal activity from the perspectives of economics, sociology, and other social sciences. It contains a rich set of extremely valuable analyses and insights for practitioners of these disciplines, policy makers, and the population at large. Robert T. Michael is to be congratulated for assembling this collection of papers based on the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and for his penetrating introduction to the key issues addressed."
-MICHAEL GROSSMAN, City University of New York

While headlines about violent crimes committed by adolescents often capture the public's attention, many more young people excel in the classroom, on the athletic field, and in the community. Why do some youngsters strive to achieve while others court disaster? Using new data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a survey of more than nine thousand young people between the ages of twelve and sixteen, Social Awakening explores the choices adolescents make about their lives and their futures. The book focuses on the key role the family plays as teenagers navigate the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood.

Social Awakening analyzes a wide range of adolescent behavior and issues that affect teenagers' lives—from their dating and sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use, and physical and mental well-being, to their career goals and expectations for the future. The findings strengthen our understanding of how an array of family characteristics—single parenthood, income, educational level, race, and geographical location—influences teens' lives. One contributor explores why children from single-parent families are more likely to perform poorly in school and to indulge in risky behavior, such as drug abuse or promiscuous sexual activity. Another chapter examines why children of parents with a college degree are less likely to engage in early sexual activity. And another looks at different levels of criminal behavior among urban and rural youths.

One of the advantages of an in-depth interview such as the NLSY is the wide array of behavior and experiences by the same youths that can be mutually investigated. The analysis in Social Awakening helps confirm or refute what we think we know—to explore what we could not explore with older or less complex surveys. The NLSY, which forms the foundation of Social Awakening, will be updated annually over the coming decades to enable experts to learn how those who were adolescents at the dawn of the twenty-first century handled the move to adulthood. Social Awakening provides a compelling first look at these young peoples' lives.

ROBERT T. MICHAEL is Elkiam Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor and dean of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.

CONTRIBUTORS: Yasuo Abe,  Laura M. Argys,  Courtney Bickert,  John Cawley,  Pinka Chatterji,  Jeff Dominitz,  Baruch Fischoff,  Diane Gibson,  Charles F. Manski,  Mignon R. Moore,  H. Elizabeth Peters, Charles R. Pierret,  Robin L. Tepper,  James R. Walker,  L. Susan Williams. 
 

"The Earned Income Tax Credit has emerged as one of the most important and most innovative aspects of the U.S. safety net. It is one of the few components of our safety net that Western European nations are beginning to adopt themselves. Making Work Pay presents much of the latest and most important research on this credit and its effects."
-ROBERT GREENSTEIN, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES

"Over the past twenty-five years, the earned income tax credit (EITC) has become the federal government's largest cash transfer program for low-income households, and has received support from both the right and left. In this book, a highly-qualified group of authors provides wide-ranging and detailed analyses of the history, politics, economic effects, uses, optimal design, and other aspects of the EITC. Making Work Pay is both an excellent introduction to the EITC as well as a compendium of state-of-the-art research on the topic. The book is not just 'must reading' for anyone interested in the EITC; it will be the standard against which other contributions are measured."
-WILLIAM G. GALE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

"The earned income tax credit is a cornerstone of the nation's antipoverty efforts, delivering more than $30 billion annually to low-income working families. This authoritative history and analysis of the credit discusses its effects on labor markets, family structure, and economic well being, and its administration and policy implications. It is a fine example of high-quality academic research informing important policy issues."
-JOHN KARL SCHOLZ, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Since its inception under President Ford in 1975, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has become the largest antipoverty program for the non-elderly in the United States. In 1998, more than nineteen million families received EITC payments, and the program lifted over four million Americans above the poverty line. Despite the rapid growth of the EITC throughout the 1990s, little has been written about how the program works or how it affects low-income families. Making Work Pay provides the first full-scale examination of the EITC, exploring its effects on income distribution, poverty, work, and marriage.

Making Work Pay opens with a history of the EITC -- its emergence in the 1970s as a pro-work, low-cost antipoverty program and its expansion through the 1980s and 1990s. The central chapters in the volume look at the substantial impact of the EITC on work incentives in recent years and show that the program, in combination with welfare reform and a strong economy, has led to an unprecedented increase in the employment of single mothers. In one study, researchers conclude that the EITC—with its stipulation that one family member be a wage earner—was the most important change in work incentives for single mothers between 1984 and 1996, a period when the employment rate of single mothers rose sharply. Several chapters outline proposals for reforming the program, addressing the concerns by policymakers about the work disincentives that rise as benefits fall with increasing income. Finally, Making Work Pay examines how EITC recipients view the credit and what they do with it once they get it. The contributors find that not only does EITC's lump-sum payment increase consumption but it also allows recipients to make changes in economic status. Many families use the end-of-the-year payment as a form of forced savings, enabling them to save for home improvement, a new car, or other purchases to improve their lives, and providing the extra economic cushion needed to move beyond mere day-to-day survival.

Comprehensive in scope, Making Work Pay is an indispensable resource for policymakers, administrators, and researchers seeking to understand the ramifications of the country's largest programs for aiding the working poor.

BRUCE D. MEYER is professor of economics at Northwestern University.

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN is at the Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Lisa Barrow, David T. Ellwood, Janet Holtzblatt, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Janet McCubbin, Leslie McGranahan, Michael O'Connor, Katherin Ross Phillips, Robert Rebelein, Jennifer L. Romich, Dan T. Rosenbaum, Timothy M. Smeeding, Dennis J. Ventry Jr., Thomas S. Weisner.