The Shape of Social Inequality, Volume 22: Stratification and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective (Research in Social Stratification & Mobility) Review

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The Shape of Social Inequality, Volume 22: Stratification and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective (Research in Social Stratification & Mobility) ReviewIn my not unbiased opinion (I am co-author of one of the chapters), this is a superb book with rigorous, scientific analyses of many aspects of social inequality and stratification in the USA and other nations. It is not always easy reading, but it is insightful and authoritative.
The book is part of an annual series, which is now the official journal of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC-28), the most important academic society in the field of social stratification. This volume, the 22nd, is also a Festschrift for the distinguished sociologist, A. O. Haller.
The chapters fall in three groups:
CONCEPTS:
Are There Any Big Classes at All? (K.A. Weeden, D.B. Grusky).
Spaces and Networks: Concepts for Social Stratification. (J. Woelfel, M. Murero).
Some Demographic Aspects of Rurality. (G.V. Fuguitt).

STRATIFICATION IN THE USA:
Assimilation in American Society: Occupational Achievement and Earnings for Ethnic Minorities in the United States, 1970 to 1990. (C.M. Snipp, C. Hirschman).
Changes in the Structure of Status Systems: Employment Shifts in the Wake of Deindustrialization. (W.J. Haller).
Physical and Mental Health Status of Adolescent Girls: A Comparative Ethnic Perspective. (M. Kleykamp, M. Tienda).
The Black-White Achievement Gap in the First College Year: Evidence from a New Longitudinal Case Study. (K.I. Spenner, C. Buchmann, L.R. Landerman).
A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE:
Status Allocation in Village India. (B.D. Sharda).
The Future of Gender in Mexico and the United states: Economic Transformation and Changing Definitions. (P. Fenandez-Kelly).
Do Ethnic Enclaves Benefit or Harm Linguistically Isolated Employees? (M.D.R. Evans).
Economic Change and the Legitimation of Inequality: The Transition from Socialism to the Free Market in Central-East Europe. (J. Kelley, K. Zagorski).
Race, Socioeconomic Development and the Educational Stratification Process in Brazil. (D. Cireno Fernandes).
Labor Force Classes and the Earnings Determination of the Farm Population in Brazil: 1973, 1982, and 1988. (J.A Neves).
The chapter by Zagorski and myself takes advantage of a unique historical opportunity, the transformation of Central-East Europe with the collapse of Communism, to address a fundamental question in the social justice-equity-legitimation research tradition: how strong is the link between a nation's economy and its citizens' normative judgments concerning income inequality? We argue (1) that the transition from a socialist economy to a free market economy should increase normative support for income inequality; (2) that to the extent that people perceive differences in pay actually to be large, they will believe more inequality to be morally legitimate; and (3) that normative support for income inequality will be higher among better educated people and among those in higher status jobs.
We find that normative support for inequality increased dramatically. In Communist times the Polish and Hungarian publics favored less inequality than citizens of Western nations thought right; but within a decade after the fall of Communism they favored much more inequality than Westerners think right. These normative changes did not arise from socioeconomic or demographic change in population structure but in large part from perceived changes in actual income inequality. Our data are from the World Inequality Study, which pools data from the International Social Survey Programme and other projects; there are 18 representative national samples in six Central-East Europe nations (N=23,260) and, for comparison, 32 in Western nations (N=39,956).
Many of the chapters look at racial and ethnic differences. Sociologists often take for granted that segregation and social closure automatically entail disadvantage, so the hypothesis that partially separated ethnic sub-economies, or "ethnic enclaves," might thrive and benefit their workers and employers was a radical departure from past thinking. Since then, controversy has raged over why entrepreneurs set up businesses in immigrant enclaves, and over the consequences enclave-based business has for employers and employees. The bulk of the evidence suggests that most immigrant entrepreneurs are "pulled" by the opportunities presented by ethnic resources to open enclave businesses, although some are also "pushed" by mainstream employers' discrimination.
The consequences of enclave employment are less clearly established. The chapter by M.D.R. Evans seeks to clarify the issue by using Census data to assess the impact of availability of co-ethnic employment on job quality for immigrant employees from all the wide variety of non-Anglophone countries represented in Australia. She controls for the effects of human capital characteristics by using a detailed specification of location and quantity of education and work force experience. The results show a strong interaction between availability of co-ethnic employment and individual English-language skill such that immigrants not fluent in English get substantially better jobs if they belong to a group containing a large proportion of entrepreneurs. The effect of availability of ethnic employment is much weaker among immigrants with middling levels of English fluency, and the quality of job opportunities of immigrants fully fluent in English are unrelated to the availability of co-ethnic employment. These results are fully consistent with the "communications costs" hypothesis, but inconsistent with either the co-ethnic predation hypothesis or the discrimination hypothesis.
These are only a sample of the many valuable analyses in this splendid volume.
Professor Jonathan Kelley
University of Melbourne
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