A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2003 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

"Bean and Stevens's authoritative book provides an astute and carefully balanced analysis of the continuous interaction between migration and American society."
-ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES

America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity provides a well-researched, accessible, and policy-relevant investigation of the broader impact of recent immigration on American society. It is a must read for scholars of migration and race and ethnicity, and it will make an excellent textbook for use in upper division and graduate-level classes in the social sciences, history, and related disciplines."
-AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

"The singular accomplishment of this impressive volume is its simultaneous consideration of the two anxieties that continue to vex sound immigration policy-that newcomers undermine economic prosperity; that they increase ethnic tensions and fragmentation. Policy-making will find here a much needed empirically rich, nuanced treatment of economic and cultural issues."
-KENNETH PREWITT, Columbia University

A timely, insightful, and comprehensive book by some of the leading and most experienced scholars on American immigration. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity should be immediately placed in the 'must read' box of scholars and students alike."
-JAMES P. SMITH, RAND

"If I could recommend a curriculum for decisionmakers new to immigration issues, this volume would be my choice. By examining all the key issues, scholarship, and perceptions that surround immigration, and by applying clear-eyed, non-ideological analysis to them, the authors have provided important new insights for long-time students of the issues, as well as a practical policy handbook for real-world actors."
-DORIS MEISSNER, Migration Policy Institute

"Now in the midst of the largest immigration wave ever, the United States is, it seems, the only post industrial democracy in the world where immigration is both history and destiny. Over the last couple of decades this 'new immigration' has generated important new empirical, conceptual, and theoretical work. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity is a critical addition to this new corpus of scholarship. The authors raise important new questions and proceed to deploy carefully crafted empirical data to systematically enhance our understanding of the complex dynamics at hand. The senior author is one of sociology's maitre penseurs and it shows: America's Newcomers will become a standard reference to social scientists, policy makers, and the informed public at large about one of the most important and urgent social concerns of our times. It is an exquisite achievement."
-MARCELO M. SUÁREZ-OROZCO, Harvard University

The attacks of September 11, 2001, facilitated by easy entry and lax immigration controls, cast into bold relief the importance and contradictions of U.S. immigration policy. Will we have to restrict immigration for fear of future terrorist attacks? On a broader scale, can the country's sense of national identity be maintained in the face of the cultural diversity that today's immigrants bring? How will the resulting demographic, social, and economic changes affect U.S. residents? As the debate about immigration policy heats up, it has become more critical than ever to examine immigration's role in our society. With a comprehensive social scientific assessment of immigration over the past thirty years, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity provides the clearest picture to date of how immigration has actually affected the United States, while refuting common misconceptions and predicting how it might affect us in the future.

Frank Bean and Gillian Stevens show how, on the whole, immigration has been beneficial for the United States. Although about one million immigrants arrive each year, the job market has expanded sufficiently to absorb them without driving down wages significantly or preventing the native-born population from finding jobs. Immigration has not led to welfare dependency among immigrants, nor does evidence indicate that welfare is a magnet for immigrants. With the exception of unauthorized Mexican and Central American immigrants, studies show that most other immigrant groups have attained sufficient earnings and job mobility to move into the economic mainstream. Many Asian and Latino immigrants have established ethnic networks while maintaining their native cultural practices in the pursuit of that goal. While this phenomenon has led many people to believe that today's immigrants are slow to enter mainstream society, Bean and Stevens show that intermarriage and English language proficiency among these groups are just as high—if not higher—as among prior waves of European immigrants. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity concludes by showing that the increased racial and ethnic diversity caused by immigration may be helping to blur the racial divide in the United States, transforming the country from a biracial to multi-ethnic and multi-racial society. Replacing myth with fact, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity contains a wealth of information and belongs on the bookshelves of policymakers, pundits, scholars, students, and anyone who is concerned about the changing face of the United States.

FRANK D. BEAN is professor of sociology and director, Center for Research on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy, University of California, Irvine.

GILLIAN STEVENS is associate professor of sociology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a substantial number of U.S. companies announced major restructuring and downsizing. But we don't know exactly what changes in the U.S. and global economy triggered this phenomenon. Little research has been done on the underlying causes of downsizing. Did companies actually reduce the size of their workforces, or did they simply change the composition of their workforces by firing some kinds of workers and hiring others? Downsizing in America, one of the most comprehensive analyses of the subject to date, confronts all these questions, exploring three main issues: the extent to which firms actually downsized, the factors that triggered changes in firm size, and the consequences of downsizing.

The authors show that much of the conventional wisdom regarding the spate of downsizing in the 1980s and 1990s is inaccurate. Nearly half of the large firms that announced major layoffs subsequently increased their workforce by more than 10 percent within two or three years. The only arena in which downsizing predominated appears to be the manufacturing sector-less than 20 percent of the U.S. workforce.

Downsizing in America offers a range of compelling hypotheses to account for adoption of downsizing as an accepted business practice. In the short run, many companies experiencing difficulties due to decreased sales, cash flow problems, or declining securities prices reduced their workforces temporarily, expanding them again when business conditions improved. The most significant trigger leading to long-term downsizing was the rapid change in technology. Companies rid themselves of their least skilled workers and subsequently hired employees who were better prepared to work with new technology, which in some sectors reduced the size of firm at which production is most efficient.

Baumol, Blinder, and Wolff also reveal what they call the dirty little secret of downsizing: it is profitable in part because it holds down wages. Downsizing in America shows that reducing employee rolls increased profits, since downsizing firms spent less money on wages relative to output, but it did not increase productivity. Nor did unions impede downsizing. The authors show that unionized industries were actually more likely to downsize in order to eliminate expensive union labor. In sum, downsizing transferred income from labor to capital-from workers to owners.

Downsizing in America combines an investigation of the underlying realities and causes of workforce reduction with an insightful analysis of the consequent shift in the balance of power between management and labor, to provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the major economic shifts of recent times—one with far-reaching implications for all American workers.

WILLIAM J. BAUMOL is professor of economics, New York University.

ALAN S. BLINDER is Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics, Princeton University.

EDWARD N. WOLFF is professor of economics, New York University.

"In the United States and elsewhere, efforts to maintain the incomes of the low- skilled have turned away from welfare to work. Timothy Bartik takes apart both the demand and supply sides of the labor market in which people with low human capital operate, and reveals the relative potentials of policy measures that operate on each side of this market. By combining solid analytics, a judicious review of the evidence, and his own estimates, he concludes that past U. S. policy has overemphasized measures to increase work effort by the poor, while neglecting measures designed to increase employer demands for the services of the low-skilled. He leaves us with a convincing two-pronged policy proposal emphasizing demand side incentives, which avoid the drawbacks of past efforts. His analysis and program deserve airing among policymakers and scholars, and will be used as the analytic core of courses concerned with the economics of labor market and social policy."
-Robert Haveman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Why have so many less-skilled workers had such a hard time finding and keeping jobs during the economic booms of the 1980s and 1990s? Timothy Bartik documents that a key reason is our failure to adopt labor demand policies focused on the least-skilled workers who have been left behind in our rapidly- changing economy. Jobs for the Poor provides a comprehensive review about what we have learned from thirty years of employment and training programs. Academics, policymakers, and students can all learn much about what has worked and what has not in our struggle to achieve full employment. Bartik advocates subsidizing employers to hire the disadvantaged and convinces us that labor supply policies alone will not do the job."
-Sheldon Danziger, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Even as the United States enjoys a booming economy and historically low levels of unemployment, millions of Americans remain out of work or underemployed, and joblessness continues to plague many urban communities, racial minorities, and people with little education. In Jobs for the Poor, Timothy Bartik calls for a dramatic shift in the way the United States confronts this problem. Today, most efforts to address this problem focus on ways to make workers more employable, such as job training and welfare reform. But Bartik argues that the United States should put more emphasis on ways to increase the interest of employers in creating jobs for the poor—or the labor demand side of the labor market.

Bartik's bases his case for labor demand policies on a comprehensive review of the low-wage labor market. He examines the effectiveness of government interventions in the labor market, such as Welfare Reform, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Welfare-to-Work programs, and asks if having a job makes a person more employable. Bartik finds that public service employment and targeted employer wage subsidies can increase employment among the poor. In turn, job experience significantly increases the poor's long-run earnings by enhancing their skills and reputation with employers. And labor demand policies can avoid causing inflation or displacing other workers by targeting high-unemployment labor markets and persons who would otherwise be unemployed.

Bartik concludes by proposing a large-scale labor demand program. One component of the program would give a tax credit to employers in areas of high unemployment. To provide disadvantaged workers with more targeted help, Bartik also recommends offering short-term subsidies to employers—particularly small businesses and nonprofit organizations—that hire people who otherwise would be unlikely to find jobs. With experience from subsidized jobs, the new workers should find it easier to obtain future year-round employment.

Although these efforts would not catapult poor families into the middle class overnight, Bartik offers a powerful argument that having a full-time worker in every household would help improve the lives of millions. Jobs for the Poor makes a compelling case that full employment can be achieved if the country has the political will and adopts policies that address both sides of the labor market.

Copublished with the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Economic Research.

TIMOTHY J. BARTIK is senior economist at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States examines in comprehensive detail the most rapidly growing and quickly changing minority group in the United States. Once a small population, this group is now recognized by official census counts and by society as a diverse people, comprised of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Samoans, and many other heritages. However, the conception that Asians are a single and successful model minority still exists, though they are in fact a complex and multidimensional people still struggling in the pursuit of the American dream.

"...a major addition to the literature on recent immigration. The book is lucidly written by three demographers eager to convey their findings and analyses to general readers as well as to fellow professionals. It provides easily accessible information and useful commentary, making it an excellent resource for anyone interested in those groups now lumped together under a single Census Bureau rubric." —Choice

"This is a demographer's delight....The major question addressed in this book is: How well are the new Asian immigrants adapting to American society? Barringer, Gardner, and Levin cogently argue and convincingly demonstrate that the response to the question is much more complex than suggested by articles in the popular press....an important book and highly recommended." —Contemporary Sociology

"For the real scoop on the state of Asian America, turn to the Russell Sage Foundation's excellent Asians and Pacific Islanders of the United States. The best demographic overview, it makes a strong case for Asian-American success without overlooking genuine problems." —Reason

"...a comprehensive study of the size, diversity, and complexity of the Asian and Pacific Islander populations based on the 1980 census and subsequent mid-census assessments prior to the 1990 census....sheds a particularly interesting light on the shifting nature of recent Asian and Pacific Islander immigration and the related but often undocumented secondary movement of populations after arrival."—The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

HERBERT BARRINGER is professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii–Manoa.

ROBERT W. GARDNER was assistant director of the East-West Population Institute, Hawaii. He now teaches demography at the Harvard School of Public Health.

MICHAEL J. LEVIN is a member of the Population Division of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2009 Grawemeyer Award for the Best Book in Education

Winner of the 2009 Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association

The steady expansion of college enrollment rates over the last generation has been heralded as a major step toward reducing chronic economic disparities. But many of the policies that broadened access to higher education—including affirmative action, open admissions, and need-based financial aid—have come under attack in recent years by critics alleging that schools are admitting unqualified students who are unlikely to benefit from a college education. In Passing the Torch, Paul Attewell, David Lavin, Thurston Domina, and Tania Levey follow students admitted under the City University of New York’s “open admissions” policy, tracking its effects on them and their children, to find out whether widening college access can accelerate social mobility across generations.

Unlike previous research into the benefits of higher education, Passing the Torch follows the educational achievements of three generations over thirty years. The book focuses on a cohort of women who entered CUNY between 1970 and 1972, when the university began accepting all graduates of New York City high schools and increasing its representation of poor and minority students. The authors survey these women in order to identify how the opportunity to pursue higher education affected not only their long-term educational attainments and family well-being, but also how it affected their children’s educational achievements. Comparing the record of the CUNY alumnae to peers nationwide, the authors find that when women from underprivileged backgrounds go to college, their children are more likely to succeed in school and earn college degrees themselves. Mothers with a college degree are more likely to expect their children to go to college, to have extensive discussions with their children, and to be involved in their children’s schools. All of these parenting behaviors appear to foster higher test scores and college enrollment rates among their children. In addition, college-educated women are more likely to raise their children in stable two-parent households and to earn higher incomes; both factors have been demonstrated to increase children’s educational success.

The evidence marshaled in this important book reaffirms the American ideal of upward mobility through education. As the first study to indicate that increasing access to college among today’s disadvantaged students can reduce educational gaps in the next generation, Passing the Torch makes a powerful argument in favor of college for all.

PAUL ATTEWELL and DAVID LAVIN are professors of sociology in the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

"Low-Wage America brings a rich scholarly perspective [to] studies of a wide range of low-wage industries. The result of this effort is by far the best portrait available of the lower reaches of the job market."
-INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

"Anyone wanting to know what's happened to low-wage workers in America should read this thoughtful and insightful collection. It brilliantly illuminates a corner of the labor market that's too often in the darkness."
-ROBERT B. REICH, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Brandeis University

"The rules of the workplace have radically changed in recent decades with important consequences for employees up and down the income scale. Low-Wage America provides a wealth of information on how these developments have played out for people in the middle and lower reaches of the job market. The great strength of this book is the careful and detailed case studies. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the authors provide a remarkably rich and textured portrait of the American job market, which is made even more useful and vivid because it is anchored in the specifics of firms and industries. I highly rec ommend Low-Wage America to everyone concerned about the future of work in this country."
-PAUL OSTERMAN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management

"Low-Wage America is a wake up call to all who believe the term 'working poor' should be an oxymoron.
The authors provide the most thorough analysis available on the state of the working poor in America
and show what can be done about this disgraceful national problem. All who share the simple view that
people who work hard should earn a decent living need to read this book and take it as a call to action."
-THOMAS A. KOCHAN, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Work and Employment Relations,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of ManagementAbout 27.5 million Americans—nearly 24 percent of the labor force—earn less than $8.70 an hour, not enough to keep a family of four out of poverty, even working full-time year-round. Job ladders for these workers have been dismantled, limiting their ability to get ahead in today’s labor market. Low-Wage America is the most extensive study to date of how the choices employers make in response to economic globalization, industry deregulation, and advances in information technology affect the lives of tens of millions of workers at the bottom of the wage distribution.

Based on data from hundreds of establishments in twenty-five industries—including manufacturing, telecommunications, hospitality, and health care—the case studies document how firms’ responses to economic restructuring often results in harsh working conditions, reduced benefits, and fewer opportunities for advancement. For instance, increased pressure for profits in newly consolidated hotel chains has led to cost-cutting strategies such as requiring maids to increase the number of rooms they clean by 50 percent. Technological changes in the organization of call centers—the ultimate “disposable workplace”—have led to monitoring of operators’ work performance, and eroded job ladders. Other chapters show how the temporary staffing industry has provided paths to better work for some, but to dead end jobs for many others; how new technology has reorganized work in the back offices of banks, raising skill requirements for workers; and how increased competition from abroad has forced U.S. manufacturers to cut costs by reducing wages and speeding production.

Although employers’ responses to economic pressures have had a generally negative effect on frontline workers, some employers manage to resist this trend and still compete successfully. The benefits to workers of multi-employer training consortia and the continuing relevance of unions offer important clues about what public policy can do to support the job prospects of this vast, but largely overlooked segment of the American workforce. Low-Wage America challenges us to a national self-examination about the nature of low-wage work in this country and asks whether we are willing to tolerate the profound social and economic consequences entailed by these jobs.

EILEEN APPELBAUM is professor and director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

ANNETTE BERNHARDT is senior policy analyst at the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law.

RICHARD J. MURNANE is the Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

CONTRIBUTORS: David H. Autor, John W. Ballentine Jr., Ann P. Baretl, Rosemary Batt, Peter Berg, Rachel Connelly, Deborah S. DeGraff, Laura Dresser, George A. Erickcek, Ronald F. Ferguson, David Finegold, Ann Frost, Erin Hatton, Susan Helper, Susan N. Haouseman, Larry W. Hunter, Casey Ichniowski, Derek C. Jones, Arne L. Kalleberg, Takao Kato, Morris M. Kleiner, Julia Lane, Alec Levenson, Frank Levy, Philip Moss, Gil Pruess, Harold Salzman, Kathryn Shaw, Chris Tilly, Mark Van Buren, Adam Weinberg, Steffanie Wilk, Rachel A. Willis.

A Volume in the RSF Case Stud ies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies