Additional Reading Notes

Shapiro and Oliver linked historical practices such as redlining and discrimination by the federal housing administration, insurance companies and financial institutions and today’s subprime lending crisis.  Shapiro and Oliver pointed out that today—in 2010—the average African American household owns 10% of the wealth of the average white American household—a chilling statistic which hasn’t changed since the 1980s.

This tale of two middle classes is part of an even bleaker tale of two unequal nations within America, a tale Oliver and Shapiro attribute to three historical processes: the racialization of state policy, the economic detour, and the sedimentation of racial inequal- ity. These three concepts reflect, respectively, how government policy has systematically reduced Black capacity to accumulate wealth by historically limiting access to land, hous- ing, and other wealth builders; how Blacks have been prevented from forming thriving businesses because of institutional barriers to their serving the entire domestic market, leaving Blacks in impoverished niche businesses; and how the cumulative effects of Black oppression have cemented Blacks to the bottom of society's economic hierarchy. 

findings are highlighted: (a) though Black income has consistently hovered at around 60% of White income, Black wealth is only one-twelfth of White wealth; and (b) Black financial assets are, at the median, zero! Oliver and Shapiro go on to note that a large share of each race has no financial assets, and even larger shares of both races could not sustain lives even at poverty level for more than a few months if they lost their current income. 

Most Black wealth is shown to consist of home equity and automobile ownership while a substantial share of White wealth is shown to include financial assets, the key to wealth accumulation. 

inequality permeates asset accumulation, regardless of achievement 

Black/White Wealth Gap

The decoupling of marriage from childbearing among lower-income Americans

Her 2005 paper “Why Don’t They Just Get Married?” cites a range of obstacles that prevent the poor from realizing their marital aspirations, including the low quality of many of their existing relationships; norms they hold about the standard of living necessary to support a marriage; the challenges of integrating kids from past relationships into new ones; and an aversion to divorce.

But even as low-income Americans view marriage as out of reach, Edin asserts, they continue to see bearing and raising children as the most meaningful activity in their lives. 

One theme of Doing The Best I Can is that poor men really want to be dads and they really value fatherhood

given their bleak economic prospects and minimal hope of upward mobility, being a parent is one of the few positive identities available to them

Children born to unmarried parents, Edin points out, are at higher risk of dropping out, getting pregnant as teenagers, struggling to find employment, and going to jail.

As Edin sees it, reestablishing the link between childbearing and marriage in low-income communities requires giving residents reasons to wait to have children—to better align their childbearing and marriage timetables. The only way disadvantaged Americans will delay childbearing, she argues, is if they see other, equally positive, paths available.

“non–zero-sum mobility,” which he defines as the social ascent of members of disadvantaged groups that can take place without affecting the life chances of those who are already members of the established majority.

Alba shows that non–zero-sum mobility could play out positively in the future as the baby-boom generation retires, opening up the higher rungs of the labor market. 

According to Alba, race relations and racial identity are not fixed; the way we perceive ethnic differences changes over time. Alba used the example of white ethnics—Jews, Italians, and the Irish—who were initially considered lower-class undesirables but who eventually entered the mainstream and gained access to higher-paying jobs.

For ethnic and racial "blurring" to take place, according to Alba, two other conditions besides non-zero-sum mobility must be met. Both residential segregation of the minorities and cultural prejudice against them have to decline.

contact-out group strongconflict-in group strongconstrict- both ungroup and out group weak

Thoug

Though economic forces have certainly played a role, the criteria that poor women have for marriage have changed far more than the economic circumstances of the men in their lives

Shifts in American family Past 30 Years- having sex, establishing a common household, and having children are all decoupled from marriage-now there are few differences in the poor and affluent in marriage values 

practical significance of marriage has diminished and symbolic significance has grown

tod

before, marriage was the starting point, today the poor insist on meeting the white picket fence and stability goals before marriage

fewer forgone opportunities and stronger absolute preferences lead to high social value poor place on children

amo

among poor, mother child relation is central, with father as supplement. 

Yet research shows that children grow up better in families with marital unions.

marriage - a luxury

the 

Policythe course to improve marriages- to improve quality of men-well crafted social programs to reduce pregnancy among at risk teens-access to high wage employment to men AND women

The old fashioned packaged deal where the women came first then the children is flipped. Fraagility of relationship bc children come first and mother is conduit

-biological tie, title- fatherhood is appealing bc it gives them something 'good' from the rest of their lives  and fathers can make a 'better image of themselves'-relating to children adds zest to their lives

for 

for men at the bottom the new father role has replaced and not complemented that traditional breadwinning role of the fathers(still middle class ideal)-mothers are the ones to set good examples

men couldn't flee from breadwinner role, but from the massive decline of propensity to live with children- becoming like 'favorite uncle'

long-term relationships with children may turn fathers lives around-fatherhood is a turning point in their lives

 Increasing minority suburbanization within the context of persisting segregation helps to explain the rising economic segregation among both blacks and Hispanics documented by Jargowsky (1996). Minority suburbs—although better off than poor minority neighborhoods—tend to be less affluent, have poorer quality public services and schools, and experience more crime and social disorganization compared to the suburbs that comparable whites reside in

 three competing explanations for persisting racial residential segregation that garner the most research attention: objective differences in socioeconomic status, prejudice, and housing-market discrimination Explanations emphasizing group differences in social class status are consistent with the spatial assimilation model, whereas the place stratification model includes explanations placing primacy on persisting prejudice and/or discrimination

 blacks pay a “higher constant penalty” for their race that is not explained by socioeconomic status disadvantage

 at the individual-level, blacks exhibit a positive association between socioeconomic status and residential outcomes, although their returns to education and income are significantly lower than for other groups

 black homeowners reside in neighborhoods that are more segregated and less affluent than their renting counterparts—they are the only group that is consistently penalized for owning a home

 Patterns for Asians and Hispanics, on the other hand, are more similar to those observed in the aggregate

 racial stereotyping is the race-related attitude or perception most correlated with preferences, irrespective of respondent or target-group race.

 Whites’ racial prejudice is a double whammy: influential not only for its effect on their own integration attitudes, but also for its implications for minority group preferences and residential search behavior

 Thus, as a consequence of residential segregation, the vast majority of blacks experience residential circumstances that are—to a greater or lesser degree— detrimental to their future social mobility because “any process that concentrates poverty within racially isolated neighborhoods will simultaneously increase the odds of socioeconomic failure within the segregated group

 In the dawn of the new millennium, a color line more complex than the one Du Bois described continues to separate our neighborhoods, maintaining our tendency “to see commonly the worst of each other” (Du Bois 1990, p. 121) and thwarting the upward social mobility of a substantial portion of our population.

 Although recent immigrants may be initially disadvantaged by lowsocioeconomic status and limited English proficiency, they can be assured of gradually making theirway into neighborhoods comparable to those of whites.

Oliver and Shapiro

Family

Alba

Charles