Acceptance Talk
November 14, 2003
Abstract
The promise of upward mobility- the notion that everyone has the chance to get ahead- is one of the country's most cherished ideals, a hallmark of the American Dream. In today's volatile labor market, the tradition of upward mobility may be a thing of the past. In a competitive world of deregulating markets and demanding shareholders, many firms that once offered the opportunity for advancement to workers have remade themselves as leaner enterprises with more flexible work forces. Divergent Paths examines the prospects for upward mobility for workers in this changing economic landscape. Based on an innovative comparison of the fortunes of two generations of young, white men over the course of their careers, Divergent Paths documents the divide between the growing number of workers caught in the low wage trap.
Abstract
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty level wages. Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them, inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars and hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aid, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives it working poor.
Legalizing Gender Inequality: Courts, Markets, and Unequal Pay for Women in America
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Robert L. Nelson
Northwestern University
William P. Bridges
University of Illinois-Chicago
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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Acceptance Talk
Friday, May 11, 2001, "Legalizing Gender Inequality: Postscript and Future Plans"
Abstract
In a careful reexamination of four gender discrimination suits, Nelson and Bridges show that the evidence introduced in defense of simple market accounts of earnings inequality has been quite unconvincing, yet the courts have nonetheless accepted this evidence and legitimated gender inequality (in earnings) as a market outcome.
The authors advance an alternative argument that market forces, personnel practices, and organizational politics interact to produce the gender gap in pay.
Although sociologists have long claimed that gender inequality is generated at the organizational level, Nelson and Bridges provide the first convincing empirical study of the specific mechanisms by which organizations produce pay disparities.
1999-2000
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Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities
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Mary C. Waters
New York and Cambridge: Russell Sage Foundation and Harvard University Press, 1999
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Acceptance Talk
"Assimilation into What? The Second Generation in New York City" (Friday, April 6, 2001)
Abstract
In this landmark study, Mary Waters shows that West Indian immigrants fare well at the point of initial entry into the American economy, not only because of their superior job skills and contacts but also because they approach race relations in a characteristically upbeat and optimistic fashion.
As "positive" as their culture is, the realities of racial discrimination work gradually to undermine it, with West Indians becoming frustrated over time by racial discrimination in labor and housing markets, inferior public schools, and frequent personal sleights.
Among second-generation West Indians, Waters further finds that the path of assimilation and Americanization may in fact lead to downward mobility, as West Indians are often obliged, by virtue of skin color, to "assimilate" with a subordinate African American population rather than with middle-class white Americans.
This book is distinguished by its convincing ethnographic evidence, sensitive analysis, and engaging prose.
