“At a time of fierce debate over America’s economic future, this fresh and deeply researched book provides a welcome antidote to the complacent conventional wisdom that good jobs are gone for good. One of the nation’s leading experts on the low-wage labor market, Paul Osterman, has teamed up with one of the nation’s leading champions of low-wage workers, the late Beth Shulman, to produce a powerful, informed case for making ‘bad’ jobs better. What Osterman and Shulman show is that doing so would benefit not just low-wage workers. It would also benefit our society and our economy more broadly.”
—JACOB S. HACKER, Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science and director, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University 

“There is no more pressing question than how we insure that American workers are able to lay claim to jobs that pay well and hold the promise of economic security. Good Jobs America is a powerful, no-holds-barred effort to answer that call. Paul Osterman and his late coauthor, Beth Shulman, do not shy away from the sobering realities: even employers dedicated to the ‘high road’ often abandon those commitments, pushing wages down, violating labor laws, and outsourcing in pursuit of the lowest wage bill. Yet the authors insist we can do better than this. They call for serious union reform, the mobilization of public opinion to pressure firms to do better, and insisting that citizens return the question of good jobs to the campaign trail. There are no easy solutions, but at last we have a book that puts the options on the table. We will be debating its conclusions for a long time to come.”
—KATHERINE NEWMAN, James B. Knapp Dean of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University 

“In this timely book, Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman address an important labor-market problem, the proliferation of low-wage jobs in the United States. Their thoughtful and accessible discussion provides an overview of the reasons for the spread of low-wage jobs in recent years and evaluates some of the major actions that are needed by diverse parties—firms, governments, local organizations, unions—to transform these bad jobs into good jobs.”
—ARNE L. KALLEBERG, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

America confronts a jobs crisis that has two faces. The first is obvious when we read the newspapers or talk with our friends and neighbors: there are simply not enough jobs to go around. The second jobs crisis is more subtle but no less serious: far too many jobs fall below the standard that most Americans would consider decent work. A quarter of working adults are trapped in jobs that do not provide living wages, health insurance, or much hope of upward mobility. The problem spans all races and ethnic groups and includes both native-born Americans and immigrants. But Good Jobs America provides examples from industries ranging from food services and retail to manufacturing and hospitals to demonstrate that bad jobs can be made into good ones. Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman make a rigorous argument that by enacting policies to help employers improve job quality we can create better jobs, and futures, for all workers.

Good Jobs America dispels several myths about low-wage work and job quality. The book demonstrates that mobility out of the low-wage market is a chimera—far too many adults remain trapped in poor-quality jobs. Osterman and Shulman show that while education and training are important, policies aimed at improving earnings equality are essential to lifting workers out of poverty. The book also demolishes the myth that such policies would slow economic growth. The experiences of countries such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands, show that it is possible to mandate higher job standards while remaining competitive in international markets. Good Jobs America shows that both government and the firms that hire low-wage workers have important roles to play in improving the quality of low-wage jobs. Enforcement agencies might bolster the effectiveness of existing regulations by exerting pressure on parent companies, enabling effects to trickle down to the subsidiaries and sub-contractors where low-wage jobs are located. States like New York have already demonstrated that involving community and advocacy groups—such as immigrant rights organizations, social services agencies, and unions—in the enforcement process helps decrease workplace violations. And since better jobs reduce turnover and improve performance, career ladder programs within firms help create positions employees can aspire to. But in order for ladder programs to work, firms must also provide higher rungs—the career advancement opportunities workers need to get ahead.

Low-wage employment occupies a significant share of the American labor market, but most of these jobs offer little and lead nowhere. Good Jobs America reappraises what we know about job quality and low-wage employment and makes a powerful argument for our obligation to help the most vulnerable workers. A core principle of U.S. society is that good jobs be made accessible to all. This book proposes that such a goal is possible if we are committed to realizing it.

PAUL OSTERMAN is NTU Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management as well as a member of the Department of Urban Planning at MIT.

BETH SHULMAN was senior fellow at Demos, chair of the Board of the National Employment Law Project, and co-chair of the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work.

"Asian American Political Participation provides a revealing and nuanced analysis of the political attitudes and voting preferences of the rapidly growing, highly diverse, and increasingly influential population of sixteen million Asian Americans. Based on the first-ever large-scale, multilingual national survey, this work is a 'must read' for all who study or participate in American electoral politics, the politics of race and ethnicity, and the political acculturation of immigrants. The team of Janelle Wong, S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Taeku Lee, and Jane Junn has made an exceptional contribution to public knowledge and research about the growing impact and visibility of Asian American voters, donors, activists, and politicians."
-DON T. NAKANISHI, University of California, Los Angeles

"In this theoretically nuanced and empirically sophisticated study, these brilliant young political scientists not only decipher the paradoxes of Asian American political engagement, they show why it requires us to redefine our understanding of political participation in America-and how to do so. Destined to be a classic."
-JOHN MOLLENKOPF, CUNY Graduate Center

"Path-breaking in its evidence and in the sophistication of interpretation, Asian American Political Participation is an indispensable study for anyone interested in Asian Americans in American politics. The four authors, all leading specialists, offer rich insights into why Asian Americans are voting as they are. With Asian Americans becoming an increasingly important constituency, this book is useful and most timely."
-GORDON H. CHANG, Stanford University

"This book is outstanding for explaining participation rates across Asian American individuals and groups. Using new national survey data, the authors of this breakthrough study identify commonalities among Asian Americans, but also differences by national origin that produce significant variation in civic engagement. Although much is known about the general causes of political activity, the valuable lesson of Asian American Political Participation is that theory depends critically on group contexts that are rooted in politics, geography, history, and race."
-DENNIS CHONG, Northwestern University

Asian Americans are a small percentage of the U.S. population, but their numbers are steadily rising—from less than a million in 1960 to more than 15 million today. They are also a remarkably diverse population—representing several ethnicities, religions, and languages—and they enjoy higher levels of education and income than any other U.S. racial group. Historically, socioeconomic status has been a reliable predictor of political behavior. So why has this fast-growing American population, which is doing so well economically, been so little engaged in the U.S. political system? Asian American Political Participation is the most comprehensive study to date of Asian American political behavior, including such key measures as voting, political donations, community organizing, and political protests. The book examines why some groups participate while others do not, why certain civic activities are deemed preferable to others, and why Asian socioeconomic advantage has so far not led to increased political clout.

Asian American Political Participation is based on data from the authors’ groundbreaking 2008 National Asian American Survey of more than 5,000 Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, and Japanese Americans. The book shows that the motivations for and impediments to political participation are as diverse as the Asian American population. For example, native-born Asians have higher rates of political participation than their immigrant counterparts, particularly recent adult arrivals who were socialized outside of the United States. Protest activity is the exception, which tends to be higher among immigrants who maintain connections abroad and who engaged in such activity in their country of origin. Surprisingly, factors such as living in a new immigrant destination or in a city with an Asian American elected official do not seem to motivate political behavior—neither does ethnic group solidarity. Instead, hate crimes and racial victimization are the factors that most motivate Asian Americans to participate politically. Involvement in non-political activities such as civic and religious groups also bolsters political participation. Even among Asian groups, socioeconomic advantage does not necessarily translate into high levels of political participation. Chinese Americans, for example, have significantly higher levels of educational attainment than Japanese Americans, but Japanese Americans are far more likely to vote and make political contributions. And Vietnamese Americans, with the lowest levels of education and income, vote and engage in protest politics more than any other group.

Lawmakers tend to favor the interests of groups who actively engage the political system, and groups who do not participate at high levels are likely to suffer political consequences in the future. Asian American Political Participation demonstrates that understanding Asian political behavior today can have significant repercussions for Asian American political influence tomorrow.

JANELLE WONG is associate professor of political science and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California and director of the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University.

S. KARTHICK RAMAKRISHNAN is associate professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside.

TAEKU LEE is professor of political science and law at the University of California, Berkeley.

JANE JUNN is professor of political science at the University of Southern California.

"In the last decade, the growing body of research by sociologists and economists showing that advantages in one generation are inherited by the next has clearly filtered through to policymakers who now consider economic mobility to be an important policy objective. Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting breaks new ground by probing deeper into the various factors over the life course that contribute to differences in intergenerational mobility across countries. The work in this volume advances our knowledge and will contribute to policy discussions going forward."
-BHASH MAZUMDER, senior economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

"This eye-opening collection of papers on cross-national research on social mobility is an invaluable contribution to the literature. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a must-read volume for students of stratification and the family."
-FRANK F. FURSTENBERG, Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

"That growing up poor does not mean one's children will be poor is a source of pride in America, 'the land of opportunity.' But how does intergenerational mobility in education and income in the United States stack up against mobility in other advanced industrialized countries? What are the sources of differences across countries in rates of intergenerational mobility? What roles do public policies and social institutions play in leveling the playing field in particular countries? Making use of rich recent data from a variety of countries, Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting addresses these questions and provides striking and compelling evidence with important implications for debates about public tax and expenditures policies."
-RICHARD J. MURNANE, Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Americans like to believe that theirs is the land of opportunity, but the hard facts are that children born into poor families in the United States tend to stay poor and children born into wealthy families generally stay rich. Other countries have shown more success at lessening the effects of inequality on mobility—possibly by making public investments in education, health, and family well-being that offset the private advantages of the wealthy. What can the United States learn from these other countries about how to provide children from disadvantaged backgrounds an equal chance in life? Making comparisons across ten countries, Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting brings together a team of eminent international scholars to examine why advantage and disadvantage persist across generations. The book sheds light on how the social and economic mobility of children differs within and across countries and the impact private family resources, public policies, and social institutions may have on mobility.

In what ways do parents pass advantage or disadvantage on to their children? Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting is an expansive exploration of the relationship between parental socioeconomic status and background and the outcomes of their grown children. The authors also address the impact of education and parental financial assistance on mobility. Contributors Miles Corak, Lori Curtis, and Shelley Phipps look at how family economic background influences the outcomes of adult children in the United States and Canada. They find that, despite many cultural similarities between the two countries, Canada has three times the rate of intergenerational mobility as the United States—possibly because Canada makes more public investments in its labor market, health care, and family programs. Jo Blanden and her colleagues explore a number of factors affecting how advantage is transmitted between parents and children in the United States and the United Kingdom, including education, occupation, marriage, and health. They find that despite the two nations having similar rates of intergenerational mobility and social inequality, lack of educational opportunity plays a greater role in limiting U.S. mobility, while the United Kingdom’s deeply rooted social class structure makes it difficult for the disadvantaged to transcend their circumstances. Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook examine cognitive and behavioral school readiness across income groups and find that pre-school age children in both the United States and Britain show substantial income-related gaps in school readiness—driven in part by poorly developed parenting skills among overburdened, low-income families. The authors suggest that the most encouraging policies focus on both school and home interventions, including such measures as increases in federal funding for Head Start programs in the United States, raising pre-school staff qualifications in Britain, and parenting programs in both countries.

A significant step forward in the study of intergenerational mobility, Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting demonstrates that the transmission of advantage or disadvantage from one generation to the next varies widely from country to country. This striking finding is a particular cause for concern in the United States, where the persistence of disadvantage remains stubbornly high. But, it provides a reason to hope that by better understanding mobility across the generations abroad, we can find ways to do better at home.

TIMOTHY M. SMEEDING is director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

ROBERT ERIKSON is professor of sociology at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University.

MARKUS JANTTI is professor of economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jo Blanden, Miles Corak, Lori J. Curtis, Matthew Di Carlo, Greg J. Duncan, Robert Erikson, John Ermisch, Gøsta Epsing-Andersen, David B. Grusky, Robert Haveman, Markus Jäntti, John Jerrim, Jan O. Jonsson, Ariel Kalil, Bertrand Maître, John Micklewright, Carina Mood, Brian Nolan, Fabian T. Pfeffer, Shelley Phipps, Reinhard Pollak, Chiara Pronzato, Timothy M. Smeeding, James P. Smith, Kjetil Telle, Sander Wagner, Jane Waldfogel, Elizabeth Washbrook, Christopher T. Whelan, Kathryn Wilson, Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, Julie M. Zissimopoulos

"Just Neighbors? is a needed and welcome assessment of African American and Latino relations. As more of the nation's major cities become majority minority a key question becomes how people and communities of color interact with, understand, and affect one another. Edward Telles and colleagues have pulled together an excellent set of articles that in a rich and mutually informing manner, span the fields of anthropology, political science, and sociology. The work highlights the dynamics of group identity and stereotyping processes, of local context and characteristics particularly within the labor market, and especially of community leadership in molding the tenor of group relations. Just Neighbors? provides an important and broad-gauge baseline for serious scholarship on black-Latino relations."
-LAWRENCE D. BOBO, W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University

"Studies of intergroup relations traditionally have been framed in terms of minority-majority interactions. In the United States, this meant black-white relations or, more recently, Hispanic-white relations. As the United States becomes a minority-majority society with no single dominant group, however, this framing increasingly does not apply. Equally important now and in the future are minority-minority relations, and perhaps no relationship is as critical as to the future of America as that between blacks and Hispanics. Interactions between these groups will determine much about the future demography, politics, and socioeconomic structure of the nation. Just Neighbors? is a timely and very welcome contribution to the scholarly literature, bringing together the nation's top researchers on blacks and Hispanics and the relations between them to synthesize what is known-and not known-about this critical issue."
-DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"Just Neighbors? is a much-needed and brilliant contribution to the increasingly important fields of critical race theory and empirical racial studies. Edward Telles, Mark Sawyer, and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado and the authors they have brought to this project accomplish two extremely difficult but critical tasks. First, the authors in this volume are able to knit together and expand upon theoretical and empirical studies of racial dynamics in the United States, especially the Southwest. While many have argued that racial studies in the United States must move beyond the black-white paradigm, these authors, using the finest social science research methods, move our theoretically informed empirical understanding of these phenomena qualitatively forward. Second, as the editors explain, there is relatively little research that studies the dynamics between populations of color that also is sensitive to intra-group as well as inter-group differences. Thus, their probing of black-Latino cooperation and conflict in a number of domains is a valuable contribution to our understanding of what will be increasingly a foundation of American politics and civil society in the decades to come. Bravo!"
-MICHAEL DAWSON, John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science and director, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, The University of Chicago

Blacks and Latinos have transformed the American city—together these groups now constitute the majority in seven of the ten largest cities. Large-scale immigration from Latin America has been changing U.S. racial dynamics for decades, and Latino migration to new destinations is changing the face of the American south. Yet most of what social science has helped us to understand about these groups has been observed primarily in relation to whites—not each other. Just Neighbors? challenges the traditional black/white paradigm of American race relations by examining African Americans and Latinos as they relate to each other in the labor market, the public sphere, neighborhoods, and schools. The book shows the influence of race, class, and received stereotypes on black-Latino social interactions and offers insight on how finding common ground may benefit both groups.

From the labor market and political coalitions to community organizing, street culture, and interpersonal encounters, Just Neighbors? analyzes a spectrum of Latino-African American social relations to understand when and how these groups cooperate or compete. Contributor Frank Bean and his co-authors show how the widely held belief that Mexican immigration weakens job prospects for native-born black workers is largely unfounded—especially as these groups are rarely in direct competition for jobs. Michael Jones-Correa finds that Latino integration beyond the traditional gateway cities promotes seemingly contradictory feelings: a sense of connectedness between the native minority and the newcomers but also perceptions of competition. Mark Sawyer explores the possibilities for social and political cooperation between the two groups in Los Angeles and finds that lingering stereotypes among both groups, as well as negative attitudes among blacks about immigration, remain powerful but potentially surmountable forces in group relations. Regina Freer and Claudia Sandoval examine how racial and ethnic identity impacts coalition building between Latino and black youth and find that racial pride and a sense of linked fate encourages openness to working across racial lines.

Black and Latino populations have become a majority in the largest U.S. cities, yet their combined demographic dominance has not abated both groups’ social and economic disadvantage in comparison to whites. Just Neighbors? lays a much-needed foundation for studying social relations between minority groups. This trailblazing book shows that, neither natural allies nor natural adversaries, Latinos and African Americans have a profound potential for coalition-building and mutual cooperation. They may well be stronger together rather than apart.

EDWARD TELLES is professor of sociology at Princeton University and vice president of the American Sociological Association.

MARK Q. SAWYER is associate professor of African American studies and political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is also director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics.

GASPAR RIVERA-SALGADO is project director at the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.

CONTRIBUTORS: James D. Bachmeier, Matt A. Barreto, Frand D. Bean, Susan K. Brown, Jessica Johnson Carew, Niambi Carter, Regina M. Freer, Michael Jones-Correa, Gerald F. Lackey, Claudia Sandoval Lopez, Monique L. Lyle, Cid Martinez, Paula D. McClain, Monica McDermott, Tatcho Mindiola Jr., Jason L. Morin, Tatishe M. Nteta, Shayla C. Nunnally, Efren O. Perez, Victor M. Rios, Nestor Rodriquez, Gabriel R. Sanchez, Candis Watts, Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada, James Diego Vgil, Kevin Wallsten, Eugene Walton Jr., Sylvia Zamora.