Doctoral Dissertation Research: Within-Group Inequality

博士论文研究：群体内不平等

• 批准号: 1519186
• 负责人: Arthur Alderson
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-04-15 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1519186&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Within; Group

The growth of income inequality has fast become one of the central concerns of American society. While this growth has renewed scholarly and popular interest in the causes and consequences of inequality, the nature of inequality growth presents a challenge to social scientists and policy makers. A central component of this contemporary upswing is within-group inequality, or inequality of wages and income occurring among individuals and households who are otherwise similar on those characteristics which social scientists typically study, such as sex, race, educational attainment, household composition, and job characteristics. This project examines the growth of within-group income inequality by incorporating structural and temporal characteristics of the individual life course and the social context into within-group inequality analysis. This dissertation will help identify mechanisms influencing the growth of within-group inequality as well as critically examine previous explanations of within-group inequality using three levels of analysis: the individual level by examining life course trajectories, the country level by comparing within-group inequality between the United States and other rich western countries, and the meso (middle) level by examining within-group inequality in relation to characteristics of local labor markets. Statistical analysis will be conducted using three high quality datasets: the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Luxembourg Income Study, and US Census microdata in conjunction with multiple secondary sources of contextual data. The project also will use state-of-the-art statistical methodological techniques to test hypotheses including heteroscedastic regression models, repeated measures multilevel models, and growth trajectory models. Results will provide a critical assessment of existing theories of within-group inequality. This dissertation will also extend the study of within-group inequality toward a longitudinal and multilevel framework, allowing for the incorporation of macrosociological theories into the study of within-group inequality. The project will not only provide theoretical and methodological contributions for social scientists, but also will provide broader high-quality information for policy makers as well.

收入不平等的加剧已迅速成为美国社会的核心问题之一。虽然这种增长重新引起了学术界和公众对不平等的原因和后果的兴趣，但不平等增长的性质对社会科学家和政策制定者提出了挑战。当代这种上升趋势的一个核心组成部分是群体内的不平等，或发生在个人和家庭之间的工资和收入不平等，这些个人和家庭在社会科学家通常研究的那些特征上是相似的，如性别，种族，教育程度，家庭组成和工作特征。本项目通过将个人生命历程的结构和时间特征以及社会背景纳入组内不平等分析，研究组内收入不平等的增长。本论文将帮助识别影响组内不平等增长的机制，并使用三个层次的分析来批判性地审视以前对组内不平等的解释：在个人层面上，通过研究生命历程轨迹，在国家层面上，通过比较美国和其他西方富裕国家之间的群体内不平等，中观层面，通过考察与当地劳动力市场特征相关的群体内不平等。统计分析将使用三个高质量的数据集进行：收入动态小组研究，卢森堡收入研究和美国人口普查微观数据，以及多个二级背景数据来源。该项目还将使用最先进的统计方法技术来测试假设，包括异方差回归模型，重复测量多级模型和增长轨迹模型。结果将提供一个批判性的评估现有的理论组内不平等。本论文也将扩展组内不平等的研究向纵向和多层次的框架，允许将宏观社会学理论纳入组内不平等的研究。该项目不仅将为社会科学家提供理论和方法上的贡献，而且还将为政策制定者提供更广泛的高质量信息。