Firm-level earning differences (i.e., the sorting of women and men between firms with different earnings premiums, due to prestige, market share, or other factors) is an understudied factor of the gender pay gap. Sociologist Thomas DiPrete will examine the extent to which firm-level earnings differences contribute to the gender wage gap. He will analyze restricted-access Census data, data from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program, the Census Household Composition Key, and the American Community Survey for his study.
The polarization of the two major political parties in the U.S. has made voting harder for voters who are ideologically cross-pressured – those with liberal positions on some issues and conservative positions on others. Sociologists Delia Baldassarri and Stuart Perrett will examine how cross-pressured voters navigate the 2024 election. They will conduct survey experiments for their study.
Contact with the criminal justice system has implications for post-release outcomes, including unemployment, earnings, and health. Two nationally-representative longitudinal studies—the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) – have been essential to researchers. However, they currently do not differentiate between prison and jail incarceration.
Immigrants and children of immigrants comprise 13-percent of veterans. Yet very little has been written on their experiences in the military. Sociologist Amy Lutz will explore the experiences of immigrants and children of immigrants in the military and their motivations for joining the military. She will analyze in-depth interviews with immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigration who have served or are currently serving in the military.
While racial disparities in crime have been a central issue in criminological research, there has been a notable lack of attention given to the changing landscape of racial inequality in experiencing crime over time and its impact on different generations. Sociologist Yunmei (Iris) Lu will investigate the shifting Black-White gap in experiencing crime across generations. She will analyze data from the Monitoring the Future survey, the American Community Survey, the National Institute of Corrections, and the FBI for her study.
Today, about one-third of college students in the U.S. are of recent immigrant origins (students who are immigrants themselves or who have immigrant parents) and about one-quarter are first-generation collegegoers. These are not mutually exclusive populations, yet little research focuses on the intersections of these important characteristics. Sociologist Phoebe Ho will examine the experiences of first-generation immigrant origin students and how these experiences impact educational and employment outcomes.
Crimmigration is a penal system that combines immigration enforcement with the criminal legal system. While some studies investigate how crimmigration affects Latinx immigrants, less is known about the experiences of Black immigrants. Sociologist Akiv Dawson, criminology and criminal justice scholar Miltonette Craig, and sociologist and criminal justice scholar Marie Jipguep-Akhtar will examine the experiences of Black immigrants and how crimmigration impacts their integration into the U.S.
In gentrifying places, people of color are often portrayed as displaced and evicted with little agency. However, while some people of color may be forced to leave their gentrifying neighborhood, others may choose to stay. Sociologist Miguel Montalva Barba will explore how people of color make sense of their gentrifying neighborhood. He will conduct interviews with African American and Latine residents of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as analyze archival data and data from the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Corporation for his study.
Approximately 7.7 million Venezuelans have been forced to migrate to escape widespread human rights violations, crime, hyperinflation, scarcity of food and essential goods, and a deteriorated healthcare system. In response, governments in the Americas have passed various legalization programs to legally integrate Venezuelan migrants. However, these policies vary in their inclusivity and provide uneven access to lawful permanent residency and citizenship.