Knowledge that Transforms

Most previous research on gender inequality and management has been concerned with the question of access to managerial jobs and the “glass ceiling.” We offer the first largescale analysis that turns this question around, asking whether the gender characteristics of managers-specifically, the gender composition and relative status of female managers-affect inequality for the nonmanagerial workers beneath them. Results from three-level hierarchical linear models, estimated on a unique nested data set drawn from the 2000 Census, suggest that greater representation of women in management does narrow the gender wage gap. Model predictions show, however, that the presence of high-status female managers has a much larger impact on gender wage inequality. We conclude that the promotion of women into management positions may benefit all women, but only if female managers reach relatively high-status positions.

The popular adage “publish or perish” has long defined individual career strategies as well as scholarly investigations of earnings inequality in academe, as researchers have relied heavily on research productivity to explain earnings inequality among faculty members. Academia, however, has changed dramatically in the last few decades: it has become larger and more demographically diverse, and fears of overspecialization prompt calls for interdisciplinary approaches. In this new environment, other factors, in addition to productivity, are likely relevant to our understanding of earnings differentials. In this article, I assess whether two additional factors—visibility and the extent of research specialization—contribute to men's earning advantage. Using probability samples of tenure-track academics in two disciplines, a variety of data sources, and innovative measures, I find that both factors are highly relevant to the process by which earnings are determined. Women earn less than men largely because they specialize less. Lower levels of specialization hinder productivity, productivity enhances visibility, and visibility has a direct, positive, and significant effect on salary. I discuss the practical implications of these findings and lay the foundation for a broader theory of the role of research specialization in work processes.

Children who experience multiple transitions in family structure may face worse developmental outcomes than children raised in stable, two-parent families, and perhaps even worse than children raised in stable, single-parent families—a point denoted in much prior research. Multiple transitions and negative child outcomes, however, may be associated through common causal factors such as parents' antecedent behaviors and attributes. Using a nationally-representative, two-generation longitudinal survey that includes detailed information on children's behavioral and cognitive development, family history, and mothers' attributes prior to children's births, we examine these alternative hypotheses. Our results suggest that, for white children, the association between the number of family structure transitions and cognitive outcomes is largely explained by mothers' prior characteristics but that the association between the number of transitions and behavioral outcomes may be causal in part. We find no robust effects for number of transitions for black children.

Interracial/interethnic marriage in America is a barometer of racial/ethnic relations and intergroup social distance. Using data from the 5-percent Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1990 and 2000 censuses, we interpret trends in intermarriage in light of new assimilation theory, recent changes in racial classification, and rapid demographic changes in American society. Our results indicate that changes in marital assimilation have taken on momentum of their own; that is, America's growing biracial population has fueled the growth of interracial marriages with whites. Analyses also shed new light on the effects of rapid immigration, rising cohabitation, and educational upgrading on intermarriage patterns, and yield both continuities and departures from the past. Historic patterns of racial/ethnic differences in intermarriage persist—Hispanics and American Indians are most likely to marry whites, followed closely by Asian Americans. African Americans are least likely to marry whites. Yet, the 1990s brought significant increases in intermarriage between blacks and whites; large increases in cohabitation did not offset the growth of racially-mixed marriages. The past decade also ushered in unprecedented declines in intermarriage with whites and large increases in marriage between native- and foreign-born co-ethnics among Hispanics and Asian Americans. The role of educational attainment in the out-marriage patterns of Hispanics and Asian Americans was also reinforced. Any evidence of differential growth in African American-white marriages among the highly educated African American population was weak. If intermarriage is our guide, any shifting, blurring, or crossing of racial/ethnic boundaries represent uncommonly weak mechanisms for breaking down existing racial barriers to black-white union formation.

Women have long reported worse self-rated health than men. This difference, however, may be changing. Rising educational attainment and labor force participation over the last two decades may have improved women's health, yet some have speculated that such benefits are increasingly threatened by a variety of other important changes, including growing difficulty balancing work and family. This article explores trends in women's health, employment, and family life between 1974 and 2004, using the cumulative General Social Survey and recent waves of the National Health Interview Survey, focusing specifically on the relationship between work hours, family responsibilities, and self-rated health. On the one hand, the results are consistent with research and speculation regarding health and women's changing roles. More women are employed and working longer hours, often combining work with parenting. Furthermore, the health benefits of employment decline somewhat when employment is combined with the care of a young child. Nevertheless, women reported much better health in the 1990s than they did in earlier periods and the gender gap has narrowed. The upward trend in women's absolute health reflects a progressive increase in women's education, while the closing of the gender gap reflects women's growing rates of labor force participation. These positive health trends will likely continue in the future. Indeed, judging from evidence among some select groups-including the college educated and those working fulltime- the well-known gender gap in self-rated health might soon reverse, mitigating patterns once thought rooted in more innate sex differences.

Collective actors typically attempt to bring about a change in law or policy by employing discursive tactics designed to convince key political decision-makers to alter policy, yet few systematic studies of the effects of social movement framing on political outcomes exist. We theorize that the cultural context in which framing takes place moderates the success of movement framing in winning changes in policy. We examine the efforts of organized women, during roughly the first half of the twentieth century, to convince lawmakers to broaden jury laws to give women the opportunity to sit on juries. To examine the combined effect of framing and the discursive opportunities provided by hegemonic legal principles, traditional gender beliefs, gendered political opportunities, opposition framing, and wartime, we use logistic regression. The findings provide substantial evidence that framing's influence is moderated by discursive elements in the broader context. Our results suggest that investigations of how citizen groups influence law and policy must take into account framing's important role and the ways in which the cultural context conditions framing's influence.

This article examines the extent to which participation in high school interscholastic sports contributes to male violence. Deriving competing hypotheses from social control, social learning, and masculinity theories, I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to test if (1) type of sport and (2) peer athletic participation, contribute to the risks of male serious fighting. Contrary to social control expectations, analyses suggest that athletic involvement fails to inhibit male violence. Moreover, there is a strong relationship between contact sports and violence. Football players and wrestlers, as opposed to baseball, basketball, tennis, and other athletes, are significantly more likely than nonathletic males to be involved in a serious fight. Additionally, the direct effect of football is explained by the football participation of individuals' peers. Males whose friends play football are more likely to fight than other males, supporting perspectives that emphasize peer contexts as important mediators. Overall, findings are consistent with the expectations of social learning and masculinity arguments. The theoretical and policy implications of these results are discussed.

This article accounts for two puzzling paradoxes. The first paradox is the simultaneous absence and presence of attitude polarization—the fact that global attitude polarization is relatively rare, even though pundits describe it as common. The second paradox is the simultaneous presence and absence of social polarization—the fact that while individuals experience attitude homogeneity in their interpersonal networks, their networks are characterized by attitude heterogeneity. These paradoxes give rise to numerous scholarly arguments. By developing a formal model of interpersonal influence over attitudes in a context where individuals hold simultaneous positions on multiple issues, we show why these arguments are not mutually exclusive and how they meaningfully refer to the same social setting. The results from this model provide a single parsimonious account for both paradoxes. The framework we develop may be generalized to a wider array of problems, including classic problems in collective action.

Few words in the current American lexicon are as ubiquitous and ostensibly uplifting as diversity. The actual meanings and functions of the term, however, are difficult to pinpoint. In this article we use in-depth interviews conducted in four major metropolitan areas to explore popular conceptions of diversity. Although most Americans respond positively at first, our interviews reveal that their actual understandings are undeveloped and often contradictory. We highlight tensions between idealized conceptions and complicated realities of difference in social life, as well as the challenge of balancing group-based commitments against traditional individualist values. Respondents, we find, define diversity in abstract, universal terms even though most of their concrete references and experiences involve interactions with racial others. Even the most articulate and politically engaged respondents find it difficult to talk about inequality in the context of a conversation focused on diversity. Informed by critical theory, we situate these findings in the context of unseen privileges and normative presumptions of whiteness in mainstream U.S. culture. We use these findings and interpretations to elaborate on theories of the intersection of racism and colorblindness in the new millennium.

This article considers how local firm histories influence individual turnover rates in organizations. We argue that position imprints—the legacies left by the first incumbents of particular functional positions—constrain subsequent position holders. We show that the functional experience of the person who creates a position influences the turnover rate of successors who later occupy that position. When the first position holder has an atypical background, all successors experience high turnover rates. Individuals who are both typical with respect to the normative environment and similar to the position imprint have the lowest turnover rates. Surprisingly, we find lower turnover rates among individuals who match the position imprint even if they violate normative expectations. Thus, contrary to institutional theory predictions, we find that local firm histories dominate. In revealing how social structures emerge within firms and affect individual outcomes, our research revisits core topics of bureaucratization and organizational stratification including idiosyncratic jobs, occupational segregation, and differential mobility. In addition, we integrate structuralist and interactionist perspectives on role theory by considering how roles are created. Finally, in demonstrating the effects of position imprints on successor mobility we add a temporal dimension to theories of turnover.