Sociology Theses and Dissertations

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    Locational Attainment and Residential Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
    (2009) Scopilliti, Melissa N.; Iceland, John; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Immigration of Asians and Hispanics has fueled recent growth in the non-White population in the United States. Using individual-level data from Census 2000, this dissertation examines the relationship between race/ethnicity, nativity, and socioeconomic characteristics with levels of neighborhood economic advantage, a process often termed residential or locational attainment. It also examines the effectiveness of spatial assimilation, place stratification, and segmented assimilation theories for understanding racial and ethnic stratification across metropolitan neighborhoods. Two sets of analyses are presented in this dissertation. The first examines differences in neighborhood residential attainment by race, nativity, and period of entry, and considers the role of individual socioeconomic and demographic characteristics for understanding disparities in neighborhood advantage. Results show that Whites and Asians, both native and foreign-born, reside in the most advantaged neighborhoods, whereas being Hispanic or Black is associated with residence in neighborhoods with lower median incomes and higher rates of poverty, net of model controls. The second set of analyses studies racial differences in neighborhood attainment among individuals residing in metropolitan areas with different levels of racial residential segregation. While little difference was found in neighborhood income and poverty between Hispanics and native Whites residing in metropolitan areas with low Hispanic-native White segregation net of differences in individual socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, substantial Hispanic-native White and Black-native White disparities were found among those residing in moderately and highly segregated metropolitan areas. Hispanics in moderately and highly segregated metropolitan areas experienced a similar gap in neighborhood advantage, relative to native Whites, as was experienced by Blacks. Consistent with spatial assimilation theory, individual differences in socioeconomic and acculturation characteristics such as education and English language proficiency explained some of the between-race differences in neighborhood advantage, and most of the within-race differences among immigrants by period of entry. However, the large and persistent Black-White and Hispanic-White gaps in locational attainment suggest that processes aside from individual attainment explain the lower residential attainment of Blacks and Hispanics, providing some supporting evidence for the place stratification framework. In addition, the high level of locational attainment among Asians and the variation in neighborhood advantage across metropolitan areas by level of residential segregation for Hispanics and Blacks support the importance of both individual and contextual factors, consistent with the main tenets of segmented assimilation theory.
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    Residential Segregation: Hurting or Helping U.S. Hispanic Health?
    (2009) Nelson, Kyle Anne; Iceland, John; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    U.S. Hispanics experience health disparities that are in part socially determined. My dissertation explores the connections between health and residential segregation for Hispanics and key Hispanic subgroups in metropolitan America. I conduct a multivariate analysis combining individual-level health survey data on Hispanics from the 1997-2002 Urban Institute National Survey of America's Families with metropolitan area-level residential segregation scores from Census 2000. My primary research question is: What is the role of residential segregation in shaping the health disparities of U.S. Hispanics? I compare the link between segregation and health for U.S. Hispanics with African Americans, and evaluate differences among Hispanics by nativity and country of origin. My outcome measures are self-rated health, insurance status, and having a usual source of health care. I find a significant negative effect on health status of residential segregation from whites for U.S. Hispanics even after accounting for compositional factors such as poverty status and education. Consistent with spatial assimilation theory, however, much of the observed negative effects of segregation on health are overshadowed by individual-level socioeconomic characteristics. In support of place stratification theory which emphasizes the relative disadvantage of African Americans as racial minorities in the U.S., I find that African Americans experience modestly greater health disparities associated with segregation than Hispanics. Despite my prediction that health outcomes for foreign-born Hispanics may actually improve with higher segregation, nativity does not significantly alter the link between health and segregation among U.S. Hispanics. I do find a significant interaction between nativity and segregation for Mexicans in the prediction of being uninsured and for Cubans in the prediction of self-rated health. For foreign-born Mexicans, segregation is more of a disadvantage in the prediction of being uninsured. The only evidence I find of any positive or protective link between segregation and health is for Cuban-origin Hispanics whose odds of reporting good self-rated health increase with higher levels of segregation. While segregation has a positive association with health status for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Cubans, the effect is substantially stronger for the foreign born. This research highlights the importance of examining residential segregation as a social determinant of health, and reveals important nuances in the link between health and segregation for nativity and country-of-origin subgroups of U.S. Hispanics.
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    SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY AMONG ELDERLY MEN AND WOMEN IN TAIWAN
    (2009) Sa, Zhihong; Kahn, Joan R.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Although an obesity epidemic has spread to people of all age groups, empirical knowledge about elderly obesity remains largely scant, particularly in non-Western societies. This dissertation addresses that gap by examining the social determinants of overweight and obesity and weight gain among men and women, using 1999 and 2003 waves of the longitudinal Survey of Health and Living Status of the Near Elderly and Elderly in Taiwan. Existing literature shows that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on body weight shifts from positive to negative as the level of development of a society progresses from low to high, and social gradients in obesity appear first among women. A gender-specific pattern of social disparities in overweight and obesity is expected to have emerged in Taiwan. The analysis captures a gendered pattern in the transition of the SES-obesity relationship in Taiwan. Similar to less-developed countries, men and women with more material resources (i.e. income and wealth) have an elevated risk of overweight and obesity, indicating the importance of material resources in getting access to food through most of the lifetime of this elderly population. However, household wealth is inversely associated with short-term weight gain among women, suggesting that wealth may become a protective factor against overweight and obesity. The education effect has shifted to the pattern of Western societies, particularly among women. While education has strong negative impacts on cumulative body weight among women, it is inversely associated with short-term weight gain for both men and women. The protective effect of education emerges earlier among women than among men, probably as a result of educated women adopting the Western ideal of thinness. Also, the negative effect of childhood SES on body weight among women is transmitted through education. Hence, social disparities in overweight and obesity among older women is mainly produced by differential weight gains in adulthood for individuals of different SES. Finally, the relationship between social participation and excess body weight is explored. Men and women with active social participation have a reduced risk for greater weight gain, suggesting that social participation may have some buffering effects on unhealthy weight outcomes of the disadvantaged groups, especially among women.
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    The Effect of Age Structure on US Income Inequality, 1976 to 2007
    (2008) Albrecht, Scott; Iceland, John; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This paper examines the relationship between age structure and income inequality. As a cohort ages, incomes become more unequally distributed within it. Consequently, as the age structure of a population evolves, it may have real effects on the aggregate distribution of incomes in that population. Using March CPS data from 1976 to 2007, I decompose inequality change by age and education. Changes in the age structure have had a net negative impact on inequality since 1976. The aging of the large baby boom cohort has been offset by the aging of the relatively small birth dearth cohort and by trends in mean income by age. I also find some evidence that inequality patterns by education are influenced by the age structure of education groups.
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    How University Athletic Program Success Associates With University Prestige Via the Halo Effect For Different Types of Universities
    (2008-12-05) Quattrone, Westleigh Alan; Lucas, Jeffrey; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Athletic program success may be a way for universities to achieve prestigious status. The halo effect may allow perceptions of athletic programs to be extended to other aspects of the university. This process was hypothesized not only to occur, but to occur to a differing extent across university types. I predicted that universities that are new, secular, public, outside of the Northeastern United States, and that do not have name designations would show the greatest gains in prestige upon achieving high athletic success. Regression analyses tested the relationship between expert ratings of universities and athletic success rates of major football and basketball sports programs. Results indicated a positive association between athletic success rates and university prestige. This process did not significantly vary by university types. Results also showed expert ratings of universities highly correlated with those of non-experts, indicating that expert assessment is a good proxy for typical prestige perceptions.
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    Is Education associated with a Transition towards Autonomy in Partner Choice? A Case Study of India
    (2008-12-15) Banerji, Manjistha; Martin, Steven P.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This paper examines if self-arranged marriages (or love marriages) have replaced parent-arranged marriages as the dominant form of marriage in India. In particular, I examine if women of recent cohorts (born around 1980) are less likely to report arranged marriages than women of older cohorts (born around 1956). I also examine if educated women are less likely to report arranged marriages than their less educated counterparts. Results from multinomial regression analysis suggest that women of recent cohorts are more likely to report a parent arranged marriages with their consent. Education is associated with greater autonomy in partner choice decision but it is most strongly associated with parent arranged marriages with consent. I conclude that in a context where a dating culture is not normative, parent arranged marriages with consent may be the best way to accommodate individual choice while retaining some of the traditional parental control over spouse choice.
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    How Nuclear is the Nuclear Family? Extended Family Investments in Children
    (2008-08-29) Elliott, Diana Beth; Kahn, Joan R; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Although the American ideology of the family has a nuclear ideal, research suggests that American families rely upon extended family support to raise children. This study explores how transfers of money, time, and space (i.e. coresidence) from extended family members support children and their immediate families, given the needs and constraints of the family members (children, parents, grandparents) involved. Analyses in this study use nationally representative data about children and their families from the 1997 Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its accompanying Child Development Supplement. Consistent with ideas drawn from social exchange theory and the life course perspective, this study finds that the high needs of children and their immediate families are associated with the transfer of resources from extended family members. The needs of children's immediate families (low family incomes, young mothers, one or no parents present in the household, caregivers employed part-time, government program participation) are particularly important for such transfers, more so than the needs of the children themselves, or the constraints of coresidential grandparents. Considering the overall package of support children receive from extended family members, money, time, and coresidence all reflect different responses to need. Coresidence in a grandparent-headed household is the transfer of support most linked to the high needs of children and their immediate families. Grandparents who share their housing with their grandchildren also face considerable constraints themselves. Money transfers are likeliest when children and their families have high needs for such support, but, the greatest amounts of money are transferred to children and families who have relatively low needs for resources. Finally, time transfers reflect considerable variation in extended family and grandparent involvement. While children and families with employment demands and child care needs are more likely to have grandparents and other extended family members serving as caregivers, other children spend time with grandparents and other extended family members, regardless of need. Time transfers may reflect a desire of grandparents and other extended family members to invest in the social capital of a family, and suggest that non-need based factors may be important for transfers of time to non-coresidential children.
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    Are Leavers and Returners Different? Determinants of Coresidence After Adult Children Leave Home
    (2008-08-07) Chan, Chaowen; Iceland, John; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The paper examines the determinants of coresidence between parents and adult children. Using 34 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1968 to 2005 and event history models, I find that there is an unambiguous distinction between nest leavers and nest returners. Marital status and employment status of adult children are the most important time-dependent determinants of nest-returning, and older cohorts have a higher propensity to return home. Parents in good health support their children returning home when significant life events endanger the adult children's ability to live alone. Therefore I argue that coresidence is a rational support but not a competition between children's need and parent's need. Further cohort comparisons also show adult children's life events matter for older cohorts, but parents' marital disruption matters for younger cohorts.
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    Asians in the United States Labor Market: 'Winners' or 'Losers' ?
    (2008-08-05) Kulkarni, Veena S.; Bianchi, Suzanne M.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines employment, earnings, and income of the six major foreign and native born Asian groups, namely, Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, and the Vietnamese for the year 2000. The dissertation makes three contributions. First, it provides an updated analysis of employment and earning attainments of Asian individuals disaggregated by countries of origin, gender, and nativity status using the latest available and most suitable data. Second, it explores the use of a non-parametric technique, namely reweighting, to assess the Asian -white earning gaps. Third, it analyzes intergroup variations in household income, inclination to pool resources, and factors associated with the likelihood of forming nuclear living arrangements. Descriptive statistics document high average levels of employment, earnings, and human capital attainments for Asians relative to whites with notable subgroup differences. The multivariate and reweighting analyses show that foreign born Asians experience greater disadvantage relative to whites than the native born Asians. The gender comparisons indicate that being native relative to being foreign born is more beneficial for Asian women than men, with native born Asian women experiencing higher earnings than white women. Additionally, there is evidence of a 'glass ceiling' among Asian men. At the household level, the descriptive associations show the relative economic position of Asian households depends on the specific measure of household income employed. Asian households experience similar or higher levels of total household income and income per labor hour employed but lower levels of per capita income than white households. Also, a higher inclination to pool resources among the foreign compared to the native born Asian and white households is seen. Intergroup comparisons indicate foreign born Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese households having a greater tendency to pool resources than the foreign born Indians and the Japanese. Multivariate analyses show a positive relationship between the householder's earnings, education, and length of stay and the likelihood of forming nuclear relative to nonnuclear households. The overall findings from this dissertation suggest that - at both the individual and household levels, the differences between the foreign and the native born Asians are more significant than the intergroup variations among Asians.
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    THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR: HOW DO PARENTS MATTER?
    (2008-07-30) Wight, Vanessa Rachel; Bianchi, Suzanne M; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study examines the dynamic relationship between a parent's gender-role attitudes and behavior and their children's subsequent gender-role attitudes and housework behavior as adults. It uses a national sample of 1,864 young adults aged 18-32 in 2001-2002 (Wave 3), whose parents were previously interviewed in 1987-1988 (Wave 1) and 1992-1994 (Wave 2) as part of the National Surveys of Families and Households (NSFH). Overall, the findings suggest that attitudes remain stable across generations--particularly from mothers to children. Consistent with earlier research, mothers who express egalitarian attitudes about women's and men's gender roles have children who are more egalitarian on average than those with mothers who express more conventional views of women and men. Furthermore, when measures of mother's gendered ideology and housework are considered simultaneously, a mother's gender ideology is a strong predictor of both her daughter's and son's gender ideology, and this relationship holds whether or not a mother's housework behavior is consistent with her ideas. Early maternal attitudes observed when focal children were aged 2-11 (Wave 1) are significant predictors of both daughters' and sons' gender attitudes in adulthood. Results from analyses of change over time in a mother's gendered attitudes and behaviors indicate that what is modeled early in a child's life, more than its consistency, is an important predictor of a child's subsequent gender-role attitudes as an adult. When fathers are added to the analysis and the role of mother-father agreement in gender ideology is considered, the results indicate that daughters with a mother and father who both hold egalitarian views of women's and men's roles are themselves more egalitarian than daughters with parents who are both traditional. On the other hand, a son's gender ideology shows less association with mother-father gender ideology agreement. As long as one parent holds more egalitarian attitudes, a son's gender ideology is more egalitarian than sons with parents who are both traditional. The transmission of gendered behaviors from parents to children, however, appears to be less stable and more complex than the transmission of attitudes. For example, the amount of time daughters spend on housework is primarily associated with their own adult characteristics. Most notably, taking on adult family roles (such as a spouse, partner, or parent) is associated with more time women spend in housework. Yet there is some evidence that later maternal housework time (observed at Wave 2 when children were aged 10-17) is positively associated with a daughter's adult housework time, regardless of whether Wave 1 housework time was high or low. Among sons, the results suggest that the more housework a mother does in Waves 1 and 2, the more a son does in adulthood, and this relationship does not appear to be sensitive to the mother's housework time and consistency in Waves 1 and 2. Finally, the timing of exposure to a mother's attitudes seems to be more salient to a partnered daughter's share of the couple's combined housework than whether the mother's attitudes remain consistent over time. Overall, this dissertation finds that our understanding of gendered outcomes in adulthood is best understood by applying a life course perspective that acknowledges the contributions of both parental effects and children's own current circumstances-- recognizing that adult lives evolve over time, are intertwined within an ever changing society, and cannot be understood from a single survey or snapshot in time.