Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Perception and Management of Family Economic Risk

SES:0623472PI: Christopher JencksCo PI: Elisabeth jacobsition: Harvard university本项目研究家庭经济安全，将其定义为经验经济波动与感知经济风险之间的相互作用。虽然经济流动性研究是社会学的核心，但现有的工作主要集中在代际流动性，或个人的社会经济地位与其父母地位之间的关系。代际流动，或个人一生中发生的经济波动，很少被研究。此外，现有的代际内流动性研究主要关注向上而非向下的流动性。迄今为止，还没有研究调查向下流动的感知风险。通过对具有全国代表性的数据集的统计分析和对三个理论定义样本的深入访谈，本研究解决了社会学文献中的这一空白，并为公共社会保险制度和私人经济安全网的发展提供了相关的数据和理论。该项目采用混合方法来解决以下问题：在过去的40年里，家庭经济波动是如何演变的？如何解释这些经济波动的变化？个人如何看待生活中的经济风险？家庭如何管理生活中的经济风险？个人认为机构（如政府、雇主、家庭）应该在家庭经济风险管理中扮演什么角色？是什么形成了这些态度？这个项目的广泛影响是双重的。首先，实证和理论的贡献将通过将美国经济和社会福利视为动态的、复杂的概念来扩展其背后过程的社会学知识。其次，关于政府和雇主提供的社会保险以及个人储蓄危机的公开辩论表明，需要数据和理论来为公共政策提供信息，从而最好地帮助美国人管理他们的经济福利。这个项目将为这些公共问题提供解决方案。

SES:0623472PI: Christopher JencksCo PI: Elisabeth JacobsInstitition: Harvard UniversityThis project studies family economic security, defined as the interaction between empirical economic volatility and perceived economic risk. While economic mobility research is at sociology's core, existing work focuses primarily on inter-generational mobility, or the relationship between an individual's socioeconomic status and the status of her parents. Intra-generational mobility, or the economic fluctuations that occur over the course of an individual's lifetime, is rarely examined. Moreover, existing intra-generational mobility research focuses primarily on upward, not downward, mobility. And no research to date investigates the perceived risk of downward mobility. Using statistical analysis of a nationally-representative dataset and in-depth interviews from three theoretically-defined samples, this research addresses this gap in the sociological literature and offers data and theory relevant to the development of both public social insurance systems and private economic safety nets. The project employs a mixed-methods approach to address the following questions:1. How has family economic volatility evolved over the last four decades?2. What explains these changes in economic volatility?3. How do individuals perceive economic risk in their lives?4. How do families manage economic risk in their lives?5. What role do individuals believe institutions (e.g. government, employers, family) should play in family economic risk management, and what shapes these attitudes?The broader impacts of this project are two-fold. First, the empirical and theoretical contributions will expand sociological knowledge of the processes behind Americans' economic and social well-being by treating them as dynamic, complex concepts. Second, the public debate over government- and employer-provided social insurance and the crises in personal savings suggests a need for both data and theory to inform public policies that will best help Americans manage their economic well-being. This project will inform solutions for these public problems.