"Extremely coherent and useful, this much needed volume is concerned with the current status of the poor in Western industrial states. Its closely linked essays allow comparisons between case studies and are often themselves cross-national comparisons....The essays also comment on the meaning of globalization for social policy." —Choice

"Excellent and tightly integrated articles by a group of prominent international scholars....A timely and important book, which will surely become the basic reference point for all future research on inequality and social policy." —Contemporary Sociology

The social safety net is under strain in all Western nations, as social and economic change has created problems that traditional welfare systems were not designed to handle. Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy provides a definitive analysis of the conditions that are fraying the social fabric and the reasons why some countries have been more successful than others in addressing these trends. In the United States, where the poverty rate in the 1980s was twice that of any advanced nation in Europe, the social protection system—and public support for it—has eroded alarmingly. In Europe, the welfare system more effectively buffered the disadvantaged, but social expenditures have been indicted by many as the principal cause of high unemployment.

Concluding chapters review the progress and goals of social welfare programs, assess their viability in the face of creeping economic, racial, and social fragmentation, and define the challenges that face those concerned with social cohesion and economic prosperity in the new global economy. This volume illuminates the disparate effects of government intervention on the incidence and duration of poverty in Western countries. Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy is full of lessons for anyone who would look beyond the limitations of the welfare debate in the United States.

KATHERINE McFATE is associate director for social policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

ROGER LAWSON is senior lecturer in social policy at the University of Southampton, England.

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON is Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Timothy Smeeding, Lee Rainwater, Greg J. Duncan, Bjorn Gustafsson, Richard Hauser, Gunter Schmaus, Stephen Jenkins, Hans Messinger, Ruud Muffels, Brian Nolan, Jean-Claude Ray, Wolfgang Voges, Susan Mayer, Guy Standing, Peter Gottschalk, Mary Joyce, Sheila B. Kamerman, Nadine Lefaucheur, Siv Gustafsson, Ruth Rose, Sara McLanahan, Irwin Garfinkel, aul Osterman, Bernard Casey, Enrico Pugliese, Troy Duster, Alejandro Portes, Min Zhou,Ian Gordon, Loic Wacquant, Sophie Body-Gendrot, Colin Brown, Justus Veenman, Hugh Heclo, Roger Lawson, William Julius Wilson. 

Winner of the 2004 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

Honorarble Mention 2004 Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association

Migration between Mexico and the United States is part of a historical process of increasing North American integration. This process acquired new momentum with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which lowered barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and information. But rather than include labor in this new regime, the United States continues to resist the integration of the labor markets of the two countries. Instead of easing restrictions on Mexican labor, the United States has militarized its border and adopted restrictive new policies of immigrant disenfranchisement. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors examines the devastating impact of these immigration policies on the social and economic fabric of the Mexico and the United States, and calls for a sweeping reform of the current system.

Beyond Smoke and Mirrors shows how U.S. immigration policies enacted between 1986–1996—largely for symbolic domestic political purposes—harm the interests of Mexico, the United States, and the people who migrate between them. The costs have been high. The book documents how the massive expansion of border enforcement has wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, yet has not deterred increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants from heading north. The authors also show how the new policies unleashed a host of unintended consequences: a shift away from seasonal, circular migration toward permanent settlement; the creation of a black market for Mexican labor; the transformation of Mexican immigration from a regional phenomenon into a broad social movement touching every region of the country; and even the lowering of wages for legal U.S. residents. What had been a relatively open and benign labor process before 1986 was transformed into an exploitative underground system of labor coercion, one that lowered wages and working conditions of undocumented migrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens alike.

Beyond Smoke and Mirrors offers specific proposals for repairing the damage. Rather than denying the reality of labor migration, the authors recommend regularizing it and working to manage it so as to promote economic development in Mexico, minimize costs and disruptions for the United States, and maximize benefits for all concerned. This book provides an essential "user's manual" for readers seeking a historical, theoretical, and substantive understanding of how U.S. policy on Mexican immigration evolved to its current dysfunctional state, as well as how it might be fixed.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

JORGE DURAND is professor and investigator in the Department for the Study of Social Movements at the Universidad de Guadalajara.

NOLAN J. MALONE is a doctoral candidate in demography at the University of Pennsylvania.

Beginning in the 1990s, immigrants to the United States increasingly bypassed traditional gateway cites such as Los Angeles and New York to settle in smaller towns and cities throughout the nation. With immigrant communities popping up in so many new places, questions about ethnic diversity and immigrant assimilation confront more and more Americans. New Faces in New Places, edited by distinguished sociologist Douglas Massey, explores today’s geography of immigration and examines the ways in which native-born Americans are dealing with their new neighbors.

Using the latest census data and other population surveys, New Faces in New Places examines the causes and consequences of the shift toward new immigrant destinations. Contributors Mark Leach and Frank Bean examine the growing demand for low-wage labor and lower housing costs that have attracted many immigrants to move beyond the larger cities. Katharine Donato, Charles Tolbert, Alfred Nucci, and Yukio Kawano report that the majority of Mexican immigrants are no longer single male workers but entire families, who are settling in small towns and creating a surge among some rural populations long in decline. Katherine Fennelly shows how opinions about the growing immigrant population in a small Minnesota town are divided along socioeconomic lines among the local inhabitants. The town’s leadership and professional elites focus on immigrant contributions to the economic development and the diversification of the community, while working class residents fear new immigrants will bring crime and an increased tax burden to their communities. Helen Marrow reports that many African Americans in the rural south object to Hispanic immigrants benefiting from affirmative action even though they have just arrived in the United States and never experienced historical discrimination. As Douglas Massey argues in his conclusion, many of the towns profiled in this volume are not equipped with the social and economic institutions to help assimilate new immigrants that are available in the traditional immigrant gateways of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. And the continual replenishment of the flow of immigrants may adversely affect the nation’s perception of how today’s newcomers are assimilating relative to previous waves of immigrants.

New Faces in New Places illustrates the many ways that communities across the nation are reacting to the arrival of immigrant newcomers, and suggests that patterns and processes of assimilation in the twenty-first century may be quite different from those of the past. Enriched by perspectives from sociology, anthropology, and geography New Faces in New Places is essential reading for scholars of immigration and all those interested in learning the facts about new faces in new places in America.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School.

CONTRIBUTORS: Carl L. Bankston III, Frank D. Bean, Chiara Capoferro, Katharine M. Donato, Katherine Fennelly, David Griffith, Charles Hirschman, Michael Jones-Correa, William Kandel, Yukio Kawano, Mark A. Leach, Helen B. Marrow, Alfred Nucci, Emilio A. Parrado, Debra Lattanzi Shutika, Charles Tolbert, Jamie Winders. 

The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America’s singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America’s culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population.

Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation’s history. African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women’s advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility. At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells.

America’s unrivaled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans. By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.

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

This comprehensive work—relevant to the major issue of the relation of social knowledge to political power—argues for strengthening the role of the social sciences in the federal government. It calls for a central organization for the social sciences and for better integration of research within the federal agencies. It underscores the various factors that might help to bring about this goal.

GENE M. LYONS is professor of government at Dartmouth College.
 

The reach of the social and behavioral sciences is currently so broad and interdisciplinary that staying abreast of developments has become a daunting task. The thirty papers that constitute Leading Edges in Social and Behavioral Science provide a unique composite picture of recent findings and promising new research opportunities within most areas of social and behavioral research. Prepared by expert scholars under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, these timely and well-documented reports define research priorities for an impressive range of topics:

Part I: Mind and Brain

Part II: Behavior in Social Context

Part III: Choice and Allocation

Part IV: Evolving Institutions

Part V: Societies and International Orders

Part VI: Data and Analysis

R. DUNCAN LUCE is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and director of the Irvine Research Center in Mathematic Behavioral Science at the University of California, Irvine.

NEIL J. SMELSER is University Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

DEAN R. GERSTEIN is study director at the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences.

CONTRIBUTORS: Norma Graham, Linda Bartosik, Albert S. Bregman, Julian Hichberg, Azriel Rosenfeld, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, R. Duncan Luce, Richard Thompson, Carol Barnes, Thomas Carew, Lon Cooper, Michela Gallagher, Michael Posner, Robert Rescola, Daniel Schachter, Larry Squire, Alan Wagner, Saul Steinebers, Fergus I.M. Clark, John Jonedes, Walter Kinsch, Stephen M. Kosslyn, James L. McClelland, Raymond S. Nickerson, James Greeno, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Antonio R. Damasio, Merrill Garrett, Mark Lieberman, David Lightfoot, Howard Poizner, Thomas Roeper, Eleanor Saffran, Ivan Sag, Victoria Fromkin, Herbert Pick, Ann L. Brown, Carol Dweck, Robert Emde, Frank Keil, David Klahr, Ross S. Parke, Steven Pinker, Rochel Gelman, David S. Krantz, Leonard Epstein, Norman Garmezy, Marcha Ory, Leonard Perlin, Judith Rodin, Marvin Stein, John F. Kihlstrom, Ellen Berscheid, John Darley, Reid Hastie, Harold Kelley, Sheldon Stryker, Edward E. Jones, Nancy M,. Henley, Rose Laub Cosner, Jane Flax, Naomi Quinn, Kathryn Rish Sklar, Sherry B. Ortner, Alfred Blumstein, Richard Berk, Philip Cook, David Farrington, Samuel Krislov, Albert J. Reiss Jr., Franklin Zimring, William Riker, James S. Coleman, Bernard Grofman, Michael Hechter, John Ledyard, Charles Plott, Kenneth Shepsle, John Ferejohn,  Mark Machina, Robin Hogarth, Kenneth MacCrimmon, John Roberts, Alvin Roth, Paul Slovic, Rihard Thaler, Oliver Williamson, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Roger Noll, Vernon Smith, David Wise, Stanley Reiter, Kenneth Arrow, Lance Davis, Paul Dimaggio, Mark Granovetter, Jerry Green, Theodore Groves, Michael Hannan, Andrew Postlewaite, Roy Radner, Karl Shell, Leonid Hurwicz, Frank Stafford, Jamoes Baron, Danier Hamermesh, Christopher Jencks, Ross Stolzenberg, Donald J. Treiman, Stanley Fischer, William Beeman, Rudiger Dornbusch, Thomas Sargent, Robert Schiller, Lawrence Summers, Glynn Isaac, Robert Blumenschine, Margaret Conkey, Terry Deacon, Irven Devore, Peter Ellison, Richard Milton, David Pilbeam, Richard Potts, Kathy Schick, Margaret Schoeninger, Andrew Sillen, John Speth, Nicholas Toth, Sherwood Washburn, Douglas C. North, Robert Bates, Robert Brenner, Elizabeth Colson, Kent Flannery, Vernon Smith, Neil Smelser, Samuel Preson, Ansley Coale, Kingsley Davis, Geoffrey McNicoll, Jane Menken, T. Paul Schultz, Daniel Vining, John Modell, Margaret Clark, William Goode, William Kessen, Robert Willis, John Quigley, Alex Anas, Geoffrey Hewings, Risa Palm, James Fernandez, Keith Basso, Karen Blu, Kenneth Boulding, Stepher Gudeman, Michael Kearney, Goerge Marcus, Dennis McGilvary, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, William Sewell, Daniel H. Levine, Leonard Binder, Thomas Bruneau, Jean Comaroff, Susan Harding, Charles Keyes, Robert Wuthnow, Dorothy Nelkin, Charles Rosenberg, Theda Skocpol, Martin Bulmer, Thomas Joster, Donald McCloskey, Arnold Thackeray, Carol Weiss, Peter Evans, Bruce Cumings, Albert Fishlow, Peter Gourevitch, John Meyer, Alejandro Portes, Barbara Stallings, Robert Jervis, Josh Lederberg, Robert North, Steven Rosen, Dina Zinnes, Warren Miller, Martin David, James Davis, Bruce Russett, Kimball Romney, Norman Bradburn, J. Douglas Carol. Roy D'Andrade, Jean Claude Falmagne, Paul Holland, Lawrence Hubert, Edward E. Leamer, John W. Pratt, Cliffors C. Clogg, Bert F. Green, Michael Hannan, Jerry A. Hausman, William H. Kruskal, Donald B. Rubin, I. Richard Savaga, John W. Turkey, Kenneth W. Wachter, Leo A. Goodman.

"How to inform the judicial mind," Justice Frankfurter remarked during the school desegregation cases, "is one of the most complicated problems." Social research is a potential source of such information. Indeed, in the 1960s and 1970s, with activist courts at the forefront of social reform, the field of law and social science came of age. But for all the recent activity and scholarship in this area, few books have attempted to create an intellectual framework, a systematic introduction to applied social-legal research.

Social Research in the Judicial Process addresses this need for a broader picture. Designed for use by both law students and social science students, it constructs a conceptual bridge between social research (the realm of social facts) and judicial decision making (the realm of social values). Its unique casebook format weaves together judicial opinions, empirical studies, and original text. It is a process-oriented book that teaches skills and perspectives, cultivating an informed sensitivity to the use and misuse of psychology, social psychology, and sociology in apellate and trial adjudication. Among the social-legal topics explored are school desegregation, capital punishment, jury impartiality, and eyewitness identification.

This casebook is remarkable for its scope, its accessibility, and the intelligence of its conceptual integration. It provides the kind of interdisciplinary teaching framework that should eventually help lawyers to make knowledgeable use of social research, and social scientists to conduct useful research within a legally sophisticated context.

WALLACE D. LOH is professor of law and adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Washington.

A penetrating analysis of the Selective Service System: its recruiting services, the makeup and attitude of those who serve on local draft boards, the criteria for deferment or rejection from service, and the application of the principle of universality in the present draft laws. Using data from several sources, the study also explores the position of blacks with respect to military service. Comprehensive recommendations are set forth.

ROGER W. LITTLE is associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Harry A. Marimon, James W. Davis Jr., Gary Wamsley, Merrill Roff,  Charles C. Moskos Jr., Irvin G. Katenbrink Jr. 

Many social scientists lament the increasing fragmentation of their discipline, the trend toward specialization and away from engagement with overarching issues. Opportunities to transcend established subdisciplinary boundaries are rare, but the extraordinary conference that gave rise to this volume was one such occasion.

The W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki Memorial Conference on Social Theory, held at the University of Chicago, brought together an outstanding array of scholars representing a variety of contending approaches to social theory. In panels, presentations, and general discussions, these scholars confronted one another in the context of an entire range of approaches. But as readers of this deftly edited collection will discover, the conference was more than a forum for abstract theoretical debate. These papers and discussions represent original scholarly contributions that exemplify orientations to social theory by examining real problems in the functioning of society—from large-scale economic growth and decline to the dynamics of interpersonal interaction.

By exploring a few central issues in different ways, this unique conference worked through some lively theoretical incompatibilities and established genuine potential for communication, for complementary and collaborative effort at the core of sociology. The excitement of that dialogue, and the intellectual vitality it generated, are captured for the reader in Approaches to Social Theory.

"Meaty presentations and confrontations of ideas by people whose views we respect...Recommended to anyone interested in the current state of social theory." —Contemporary Sociology

SIEGWART LINDENBERG is at the University of Groningen.

JAMES S. COLEMAN is at the University of Chicago.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert McCormick Adams, Howard Aldrich, Gary S. Becker, Joseph Ben-David, Peter M. Blau, Ronald S. Burt, James S. Coleman, Randall Collins, Robert G. Eccles, David L. Featherman, John Freeman, Allen Grimshaw, Joseph R. Gusfield, Michael T. Hannan, Russell Hardin, Michael Hechter, David R. Heise, Morris Janowitz, John Kitsuse, David Knoke, William Labov, Edward O. Laumann, Siegwart Lindenberg, Arthur Mann, Anthony Oberschall, Mancur Olson, Ann Shola Orloff, John Padgett, Edward Shils, Theda Skocpol, Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Fred L. Strodtbeck, Nigel Tomes, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Harrison C. White

Given the increasing diversity of the nation—particularly with respect to its growing Hispanic and Asian populations—why does racial and ethnic difference so often lead to disadvantage? In The Colors of Poverty, a multidisciplinary group of experts provides a breakthrough analysis of the complex mechanisms that connect poverty and race.

The Colors of Poverty reframes the debate over the causes of minority poverty by emphasizing the cumulative effects of disadvantage in perpetuating poverty across generations. The contributors consider a kaleidoscope of factors that contribute to widening racial gaps, including education, racial discrimination, social capital, immigration, and incarceration. Michèle Lamont and Mario Small grapple with the theoretical ambiguities of existing cultural explanations for poverty disparities.  They argue that culture and structure are not competing explanations for poverty, but rather collaborate to produce disparities. Looking at how attitudes and beliefs exacerbate racial stratification, social psychologist Heather Bullock links the rise of inequality in the United States to an increase in public tolerance for disparity. She suggests that the American ethos of rugged individualism and meritocracy erodes support for antipoverty programs and reinforces the belief that people are responsible for their own poverty. Sociologists Darren Wheelock and Christopher Uggen focus on the collateral consequences of incarceration in exacerbating racial disparities and are the first to propose a link between legislation that blocks former drug felons from obtaining federal aid for higher education and the black/white educational attainment gap. Joe Soss and Sanford Schram argue that the increasingly decentralized and discretionary nature of state welfare programs allows for different treatment of racial groups, even when such policies are touted as “race-neutral.” They find that states with more blacks and Hispanics on welfare rolls are consistently more likely to impose lifetime limits, caps on benefits for mothers with children, and stricter sanctions.

The Colors of Poverty is a comprehensive and evocative introduction to the dynamics of race and inequality. The research in this landmark volume moves scholarship on inequality beyond a simple black-white paradigm, beyond the search for a single cause of poverty, and beyond the promise of one “magic bullet” solution.

ANN CHIH LIN is associate professor in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

DAVID R. HARRIS is professor of sociology and deputy provost at Cornell University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Scott W. Allard, Heather E. Bullock, George Farkas, David R. Harris, Michèle Lamont, Ann Chih Lin, Selina A. Mohammed, Devah Pager, Lincoln Quillian, Rozlyn Reed, Sanford F. Schram, Mario Luis Small, Joe Soss, Michael A. Stoll, Christopher Uggen, Darren Wheelock, and David R. Williams

A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy