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- Volume 44, 2018
Annual Review of Sociology - Volume 44, 2018
Volume 44, 2018
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On Becoming a Mathematical Demographer—And the Career in Problem-Focused Inquiry that Followed
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 1–17More LessI greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on my career. Looking back over five decades of involvement in demographic and sociological scholarship, I have tried to say a bit about my personal life and my work—from developing mathematical models of fertility early on, to applying lessons from those models to empirical work in the United States, Bangladesh, and elsewhere in the developing world, to involvement in evaluations of health and population interventions. Equally important to me have been the building of research capacity and involvement in program and policy development. So much remains for new generations of scholars to do, but my hope is that, in choosing their own directions, they—and sociology as a whole—will take as their mission examining issues of societal importance around the world.
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Historical Census Record Linkage
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 19–37More LessFor the past 80 years, social scientists have been linking historical censuses across time to study economic and geographic mobility. In recent decades, the quantity of historical census record linkage has exploded, owing largely to the advent of new machine-readable data created by genealogical organizations. Investigators are examining economic and geographic mobility across multiple generations and also engaging many new topics. Several analysts are exploring the effects of early-life socioeconomic conditions, environmental exposures, or natural disasters on family, health, and economic outcomes in later life. Other studies exploit natural experiments to gauge the impact of policy interventions such as social welfare programs and educational reforms. The new data sources have led to a proliferation of record linkage methodologies, and some widespread approaches inadvertently introduce errors that can lead to false inferences. A new generation of large-scale shared data infrastructure now in preparation will ameliorate weaknesses of current linkage methods.
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Interpreting and Understanding Logits, Probits, and Other Nonlinear Probability Models
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 39–54More LessMethods textbooks in sociology and other social sciences routinely recommend the use of the logit or probit model when an outcome variable is binary, an ordered logit or ordered probit when it is ordinal, and a multinomial logit when it has more than two categories. But these methodological guidelines take little or no account of a body of work that, over the past 30 years, has pointed to problematic aspects of these nonlinear probability models and, particularly, to difficulties in interpreting their parameters. In this review, we draw on that literature to explain the problems, show how they manifest themselves in research, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives that have been suggested, and point to lines of further analysis.
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Consumer Credit in Comparative Perspective
Akos Rona-Tas, and Alya GusevaVol. 44 (2018), pp. 55–75More LessWe review the literature in sociology and related fields on the fast global growth of consumer credit and debt and the possible explanations for this expansion. We describe the ways people interact with the strongly segmented consumer credit system around the world—more specifically, the way they access credit and the way they are held accountable for their debt. We then report on research on two areas in which consumer credit is consequential: its effects on social relations and on physical and mental health. Throughout the article, we point out national variations and discuss explanations for these differences. We conclude with a brief discussion of the future tasks and challenges of comparative research on consumer credit.
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Control over Time: Employers, Workers, and Families Shaping Work Schedules
Naomi Gerstel, and Dan ClawsonVol. 44 (2018), pp. 77–97More LessAn extensive and long-standing literature examines the amount of time people spend on their jobs and families. A newer literature, including this review, takes that older literature as background and focuses on the social processes that shape our schedules: how we manage our time, accepting, negotiating, or contesting our shifting obligations and commitments. Research shows that time management is increasingly complex because unpredictable schedules are pervasive, and that gender, class, and race inequalities influence our ability to manage and control them. That lack of control and the unpredictability that accompanies it not only affect individual workers but also spread. A change in one person's schedule reverberates across a set of linked others in what we call a web of time. This review surveys and integrates research on hours and schedules of both jobs and families and concludes with attention to the policies that seek to address these issues.
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Silence, Power, and Inequality: An Intersectional Approach to Sexual Violence
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 99–122More LessSexual violence reproduces inequalities of gender, race/ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, ability status, citizenship status, and nationality. Yet its study has been relegated to the margins of our discipline, with consequences for knowledge about the reproduction of social inequality. We begin with an overview of key insights about sexual violence elaborated by feminists, critical race scholars, and activists. This research leads us to conceptualize sexual violence as a mechanism of inequality that is made more effective by the silencing of its usage. We trace legal and cultural contestations over the definition of sexual violence in the United States. We consider the challenges of narrating sexual violence and review how the narrow focus on gender by some anti–sexual violence activism fails women of color and other marginalized groups. We conclude by interrogating the sociological silence on sexual violence.
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Globalization and Business Regulation
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 123–143More LessIn the twenty-first century, global business regulation has come of age. In this article, we review the literature on globalization and business regulation from the angle of transnational governance, a recently evolving interdisciplinary field of research. Despite the multiplicity and plurality of regulatory platforms and products that have emerged over time, we identify common patterns of field structuration and parallel trajectories. We argue that a major trend, both in practice and in scholarly work, is a move away from an idealized convergence around a set of unified global rules; instead, our conceptualizations and our practices of transnational business regulation increasingly demonstrate a concern for the adaptability of transnational rules to resilient and resistant contextual specificities. Another important trend, both in practice and in scholarly fields, is a growing focus on the complex dynamics between rule making on the one hand and rule implementation and monitoring on the other.
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Transnational Corporations and Global Governance
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 145–165More LessScholars and critics often lament that corporations rule the world, but predominant accounts of global governance imply almost the opposite: With theories populated by national governments and intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, it might appear that nearly everyone except corporations writes the rules that govern across borders. This article compiles research on the varied ways in which multinational and transnational corporations have shaped global governance, drawing attention to the contours and limits of corporate power. Corporations can be seen variously as sponsors, inhibitors, and direct providers of global governance. They have, for example, been sponsors of neoliberal trade rules, inhibitors of some labor and environmental regimes, and providers of private standards for finance, safety, sustainability, and human rights. Scholars may be tempted to focus on just one of these roles or to presume unified corporate dominance, but it is important to grapple with all three and to investigate the conditions under which corporate actions are more or less unified and decisive.
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Boundary-Spanning in Social Movements: Antecedents and Outcomes
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 167–187More LessSocial movement scholarship has increasingly sought to understand the relational dynamics of internal movement activity, from investigating the factors that enable movement coalitions to analyzing the trade-offs of organizational hybridity. We bring these and other related phenomena together under the label of boundary-spanning processes. Specifically, we organize research on boundary-spanning in social movements by identifying three types of boundaries that have symbolic significance as categorical demarcations: (a) issue and identity boundaries, (b) organizational boundaries, and (c) tactical boundaries. We then elucidate the tension in work that has examined how each form of boundary-spanning either promotes or hinders the realization of three important movement outcomes: (a) mobilization, (b) internal movement solidarity and scope, and (c) external social and political change. We relate our three types of boundary-spanning to these three types of outcomes in an organizing framework to locate future opportunities for research on boundary-spanning in social movements.
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Globalization and Social Movements
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 189–211More LessA growing body of scholarship acknowledges the increasing influence of global forces on social institutions and societies on multiple scales. We focus here on the role of globalization processes in shaping collective action and social movements. Three areas of global change and movements are examined: first, long-term global trends and collective action; second, research on national and local challenges to economic globalization, including backlash movements and the types of economic liberalization measures most associated with inducing oppositional movements; and third, the emergence of contemporary transnational social movements. In each of these arenas we address debates on diffusion, intervening mechanisms, and the outcomes of collective mobilization in response to global pressures.
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Political (Mis)behavior: Attention and Lacunae in the Study of Latino Politics
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 213–235More LessThe field of Latino politics has developed rapidly over the past decade, but some areas within the field have received more attention than others, with some topics remaining relatively overlooked. This article begins by reviewing three primary strands of the recent literature on Latino civic engagement, identity politics, and institutions. It then pivots off the 2016 election to highlight three additional lines of inquiry that are either understudied or where the findings in the literature remain conflicted: the effects of threat on Latino mobilization, the entry of new Latino voters into American politics, and Latino conservatism. Assessing the field, the article concludes by arguing for greater attention to understudied questions and against facile assumptions about Latinos in American politics.
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Credit, Debt, and Inequality
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 237–261More LessIncreasing access to diverse types of credit and spreading indebtedness across many social groups were significant economic developments of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, with implications for social inequality and insecurity. This review evaluates the role of credit and debt in social inequality in the United States. Credit and debt shape inequalities along multiple pathways, in defining social inclusion and exclusion, directing life chances, and facilitating oppression. On the basis of this review, I conclude that building on the progress made in prior research calls for a relational approach to understanding credit, debt, and inequality that includes a focus on the powerful actors that benefit from a political economy increasingly dependent on credit and debt to distribute, regulate, and control social resources. I close by identifying outstanding questions that need to be answered in order to move forward our understanding of economic inequality and insecurity, as well as for social policy and the prospects for collective action.
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Environmental Inequality: The Social Causes and Consequences of Lead Exposure
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 263–282More LessIn this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences—consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future research. We conclude with a call for deeper exchange between urban sociology, environmental sociology, and public health, and for more collaboration between scholars and local communities in the pursuit of independent science for the common good.
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Occupations, Organizations, and Intragenerational Career Mobility
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 283–303More LessIntragenerational mobility—persistent or secular upward or downward changes in individuals’ economic positions or occupational standing over their working lives—is intimately related both to intergenerational mobility and inequality as well as to labor market theories and behaviors. Careers are job sequences or patterns of mobility/immobility within and between occupations and organizations, the two major work structures that shape the opportunities available in the labor market. This article reviews research that links occupations and organizations to careers and intragenerational mobility. We emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of contributions to this topic and focus on integrating research by sociologists and economists. We also highlight cross-national research and emphasize the literatures that address questions related to social stratification and labor markets. Finally, we suggest fruitful areas for future research.
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Poverty in America: New Directions and Debates
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 305–318More LessReviewing recent research on poverty in the United States, we derive a conceptual framework with three main characteristics. First, poverty is multidimensional, compounding material hardship with human frailty, generational trauma, family and neighborhood violence, and broken institutions. Second, poverty is relational, produced through connections between the truly advantaged and the truly disadvantaged. Third, a component of this conceptual framework is transparently normative, applying empirical research to analyze poverty as a matter of justice, not just economics. Throughout, we discuss conceptual, methodological, and policy-relevant implications of this perspective on the study of extreme disadvantage in America.
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Stress-Related Biosocial Mechanisms of Discrimination and African American Health Inequities
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 319–340More LessThis review describes stress-related biological mechanisms linking interpersonal racism to life course health trajectories among African Americans. Interpersonal racism, a form of social exclusion enacted via discrimination, remains a salient issue in the lives of African Americans, and it triggers a cascade of biological processes originating as perceived social exclusion and registering as social pain. Exposure to discrimination increases sympathetic nervous system activation and upregulates the HPA axis, increasing physiological wear and tear and elevating the risks of cardiometabolic conditions. Consequently, discrimination is associated with morbidities including low birth weight, hypertension, abdominal obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Biological measures can provide important analytic tools to study the interactions between social experiences such as racial discrimination and health outcomes over the life course. We make future recommendations for the study of discrimination and health outcomes, including the integration of neuroscience, genomics, and new health technologies; interdisciplinary engagement; and the diversification of scholars engaged in biosocial inequities research.
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The Reversal of the Gender Gap in Education and Its Consequences for Family Life
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 341–360More LessAlthough men tended to receive more education than women in the past, the gender gap in education has reversed in recent decades in most Western and many non-Western countries. We review the literature about the implications for union formation, assortative mating, the division of paid and unpaid work, and union stability in Western countries. The bulk of the evidence points to a narrowing of gender differences in mate preferences and declining aversion to female status-dominant relationships. Couples in which wives have more education than their husbands now outnumber those in which husbands have more. Although such marriages were more unstable in the past, existing studies indicate that this is no longer true. In addition, recent studies show less evidence of gender display in housework when wives have higher status than their husbands. Despite these shifts, other research documents the continuing influence of the breadwinner-homemaker model of marriage.
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Integrating Biomarkers in Social Stratification and Health Research
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 361–386More LessThis article provides an overview of the integration of biomarkers and biological mechanisms in social science models of stratification and health. The goal in reviewing this literature is to highlight research that identifies the social forces that drive inequalities over the life course and across generations. The article is structured in the following way. First, descriptive background information on biomarkers is presented, and second, the general theoretical paradigms that lend themselves to an integrative approach are reviewed. Third, the biomarkers used to capture several biological systems that are most responsive to social conditions are described. Fourth, research that explicates how social exposures “get under the skin” to affect physiological functioning and downstream health is discussed, using socioeconomic disadvantage as an illustrative social exposure. The review ends with emerging directions in the use of biomarkers in social science research. This article endeavors to encourage sociologists to embrace biosocial approaches in order to elevate the importance of social factors in biomedical processes and to intervene on the social conditions that create unjust and avoidable inequities.
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The Sociology of Refugee Migration
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 387–406More LessTheorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with economic and other factors shaping mobility offer lessons for both fields. Adapting existing theories that may not appear immediately applicable, such as household economy approaches, helps explain refugees’ decision-making processes. At a macro level, world systems theory sheds light on the interactive policies around refugees across states of origin, mass hosting, asylum, transit, and resettlement. Finally, focusing on the integration of refugees in the Global South reveals a pattern that poses major challenges to theories of assimilation and citizenship developed in settler states of the Global North.
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Modern Trafficking, Slavery, and Other Forms of Servitude
Vol. 44 (2018), pp. 407–439More LessThe claim that there has been a remarkable revival of slavery, other forms of forced labor, and human trafficking in our times has inspired widespread activism and a vast body of popular and academic works. Although the conflation of terms, exaggerated empirical claims, and a shortage of evidence-based work have prompted legitimate scholarly skepticism, modern trafficking and forms of servitude do present urgent problems for researchers, lawmakers and reformers. We first clarify the most basic terms in the field—servitude, forced labor, slavery, trafficking, and smuggling—then examine all forms of servitude and evaluate the degree to which they properly amount to slavery or result from trafficking. This is followed by an examination of methodological problems in the measurement of types of servitude and a brief analysis of the factors accounting for its contemporary revival. We aim to encourage more scholarly enquiries from sociologists who are uniquely qualified to explore this problem.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 50 (2024)
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Volume 49 (2023)
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Volume 48 (2022)
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Volume 47 (2021)
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Volume 46 (2020)
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Volume 45 (2019)
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Volume 44 (2018)
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Volume 43 (2017)
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Volume 42 (2016)
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Volume 41 (2015)
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Volume 40 (2014)
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Volume 39 (2013)
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Volume 38 (2012)
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Volume 37 (2011)
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Volume 36 (2010)
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Volume 35 (2009)
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Volume 34 (2008)
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Volume 33 (2007)
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Volume 32 (2006)
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Volume 31 (2005)
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Volume 30 (2004)
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Volume 29 (2003)
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Volume 28 (2002)
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Volume 27 (2001)
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Volume 26 (2000)
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Volume 25 (1999)
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Volume 24 (1998)
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Volume 23 (1997)
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Volume 22 (1996)
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Volume 21 (1995)
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Volume 20 (1994)
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Volume 19 (1993)
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Volume 18 (1992)
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Volume 17 (1991)
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Volume 16 (1990)
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Volume 15 (1989)
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Volume 14 (1988)
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Volume 13 (1987)
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Volume 12 (1986)
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Volume 11 (1985)
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Volume 10 (1984)
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Volume 9 (1983)
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Volume 8 (1982)
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Volume 7 (1981)
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Volume 6 (1980)
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Volume 5 (1979)
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Volume 4 (1978)
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Volume 3 (1977)
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Volume 2 (1976)
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Volume 1 (1975)
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Volume 0 (1932)