Today, roughly 70 percent of all visas for legal immigration are reserved for family members of permanent residents or American citizens. Family reunification—policies that seek to preserve family unity during or following migration—is a central pillar of current immigration law, but it has existed in some form in American statutes since at least the mid-nineteenth century. In her 2013 RSF book, Fictive Kinship: Family Reunification and the Meaning of Race and Nation in American Immigration, sociologist Catherine Lee delves into the fascinating history of family reunification to examine how and why our conceptions of family have shaped immigration, the meaning of race, and the way we see ourselves as a country.

In a new interview with the Foundation, Lee discusses some of the groundbreaking research from her book and offers recommendations for future immigration policies. To learn more about Fictive Kinship or to purchase a copy, click here.

Q. As you point out in your book, family reunification has long been a guiding theme of U.S. immigration policy and has significantly influenced the changing demographics of the country. Can you give some examples of how family reunification policies have shaped the way we think about race and ethnicity in the U.S. today?

Below is an early look at new and forthcoming books from the Foundation for Spring 2014. The list includes a major new study on the role of private equity firms in today’s economy, an in-depth analysis of how Obama’s 2008 campaign has changed racial attitudes in the U.S., and a volume examining what we know about policies to help low-wage workers. To request a hard copy of the full catalog, please contact Bruce Thongsack at bruce@rsage.org, or click here to visit our publications page.

On Monday, January 13, 2014, RSF Visiting Scholars Jane Waldfogel (Columbia University) and Miles Corak (University of Ottawa) will lead a working session at the Social Mobility Summit hosted by the Brookings Institution’s Center on Children and Families. With Bruce Bradbury (University of New South Wales) and Elizabeth Washbrook (University of Bristol), Waldfogel and Corak are currently part of an RSF working group investigating educational inequality in four countries.

Monday’s Social Mobility Summit will open with a public keynote address from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the morning and close with a public keynote address from Congressman Paul Ryan. Senator Gillibrand and Representative Ryan will each lay out their personal vision for how we can promote social mobility in the U.S. today. During the day, the Center on Children and Families will hold a series of private working sessions with leading scholars. Each session will address a critical life stage for the promotion of social mobility: family formation, the early years, K-12 education, college education, and transitions into work. Click here to register to attend this event, or sign up to join the live webcast.

In a move that could signal the end of the deadlock on immigration reform that stifled Congress for the better part of 2013, Speaker of the House John Boehner has indicated his willingness to address immigration laws. As the New York Times reports, though Boehner continues to voice reservations about a single, comprehensive bill to create additional pathways to U.S. citizenship, he also condemned the hardline stance of conservative Tea Party groups opposed to any immigration compromises.

Republicans have increasingly struggled to find a balance between appeasing their conservative constituents while also attempting to court Latino voters. According to the New York Times, Romney won only 27% of the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential election due to his views on immigration. But the Democratic Party has also suffered for its failure to implement significant immigration reform. A September 2013 Pew study showed that the Obama administration deported more immigrants annually than the George W. Bush administration, and that 59% of Latinos disapproved of Obama’s handling of deportations.

The 2013 RSF book Immigration, Poverty and Socioeconomic Inequality, co-edited by David Card and Steven Raphael, explores the rapid rise in immigration to the U.S. since the 1960s and analyzes the economic and political shifts that have occurred as a result of this increase—including changes in the national poverty rate, labor market fluctuations, and the evolution of immigration policies. In his chapter, “Immigration Enforcement as a Race-Making Institution,” sociologist Douglas Massey traces the surge in deportations, border patrol budgets, and border enforcement agents over the last several decades:

At the annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associates in Philadelphia, the University of Michigan’s Martha J. Bailey, co-editor of the 2013 Russell Sage Foundation book Legacies of the War on Poverty, received the 2013 IZA Young Labor Economist Award for her paper “The Opt In Revolution,” co-authored with Brad Hershbein (Upjohn Institute) and Amalia Miller (University of Virginia). The paper examines the role of the birth control pill in increasing women’s human capital investments and, ultimately, wages. It concludes the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender wage gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.

The IZA Young Labor Economist Award, awarded annually since 2002, recognizes one outstanding paper each year in labor economics by an author or authors younger than 40 years of age. The recipients are awarded €5,000 between them for their research.