Is There "White Flight" into Private Schools? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey

Abstract:

Using a recently released confidential dataset from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we find some evidence of "white flight" from public schools into private schools partly in response to minority schoolchildren. We also examine whether "white flight" is from all minorities or only from certain minority groups, delineated by race or income. We find that white families are fleeing public schools with large concentrations of poor minority schoolchildren. In addition, the clearest flight appears to occur from poor black schoolchildren. The results for "white flight" from Asians and Hispanics are less clear.

Source: Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz [via eScholarship Repository]

Download full pdf publication | View eScholarship Repository posting

Black–White Earnings Gap among Restaurant Servers: A Replication, Extension, and Exploration of Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tippin

Abstract:
There is a rich history of social science research centering on racial inequalities that continue to be observed across various markets (e.g., labor, housing, and credit markets) and social milieus. Existing research on racial discrimination in consumer markets is, however, relatively scarce and that which has been done has disproportionately focused on consumers as the victims of race-based mistreatment. As such, we know relatively little about how consumers contribute to inequalities in their roles as perpetrators of racial discrimination. In response, in this article, we elaborate on a line of research that is only in its infancy stages of development and yet is ripe with opportunities to advance the literature on consumer racial discrimination and racial earnings inequities among tip-dependent employees in the United States. Specifically, we analyze data derived from an exit survey of restaurant consumers (N = 394) in an attempt to replicate, extend, and further explore the recently documented effect of service providers’ race on restaurant consumers’ tipping decisions. Our results indicate that both white and black restaurant customers discriminate against black servers by tipping them less than their white co-workers. Importantly, we find no evidence that this black tip penalty is the result of inter-racial differences in service skills possessed by black and white servers. We conclude by delineating directions for future research in this neglected but salient area of study.

Source: Sociological Inquiry

Download full pdf publication | Read abstract and other articles online

Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of Punitive Policies

Abstract:

During the past few decades, punitive crime policies have led to explosive growth in the United States prison population. Such policies have contributed to unprecedented incarceration rates for Blacks in particular. In this article, we consider an unexamined relationship between racial disparities and policy reform. Rather than treating racial disparities as an outcome to be measured, we exposed people to real and extreme racial disparities and observed how this drove their support for harsh criminal-justice policies. In two experiments, we manipulated the racial composition of prisons: When the penal institution was represented as “more Black,” people were more concerned about crime and expressed greater acceptance of punitive policies than when the penal institution was represented as “less Black.” Exposure to extreme racial disparities, then, can lead people to support the very policies that produce those disparities, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Authors: Jennifer L. Eberhardt (Resource Connection Subscriber), Rebecca C. Hetey
 Source: Psychological Science via APS
Download pdf publication | Learn more

Economic scarcity alters the perception of race

Abstract:

When the economy declines, racial minorities are hit the hardest. Although existing explanations for this effect focus on institutional causes, recent psychological findings suggest that scarcity may also alter perceptions of race in ways that exacerbate discrimination. We tested the hypothesis that economic resource scarcity causes decision makers to perceive African Americans as “Blacker” and that this visual distortion elicits disparities in the allocation of resources. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that scarcity altered perceptions of race, lowering subjects’ psychophysical threshold for seeing a mixed-race face as “Black” as opposed to “White.” In studies 3 and 4, scarcity led subjects to visualize African American faces as darker and more “stereotypically Black,” compared with a control condition. When presented to naïve subjects, face representations produced under scarcity elicited smaller allocations than control-condition representations. Together, these findings introduce a novel perceptual account for the proliferation of racial disparities under economic scarcity. 

 Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Download full pdf publication
Read abstract and article at PNAS

Inequality, the Great Recession, and Slow Recovery

Abstract: 
Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution beginning about 1980, but that group’s consumption growth did not fall proportionally. Instead, lower saving led to increasing balance sheet fragility for the bottom 95 percent, eventually triggering the Great Recession. We decompose consumption and saving across income groups. The consumption-income ratio of the bottom 95 percent fell sharply in the recession, consistent with tighter borrowing constraints. The top 5 percent ratio rose, consistent with consumption smoothing. The inability of the bottom 95 percent to generate adequate demand helps explain the slow recovery.

Source: Social Science Research Network

Download full pdf publication: Inequality, the Great Recession, and Slow Recovery

The Youngest Americans: A Statistical Portrait of Infants and Toddlers in the United States

Introduction:

America’s youngest children—12 million infants and toddlers—are the leading edge of a demographic transformation in the U.S. They herald a nation more diverse with respect to race/ethnicity, country of origin, language, and family type than at any time in our recent history. They are surrounded by, and engaged with, new technology. Most of our youngest Americans, according to their parents, have at least some of the important characteristics associated with optimal development.

At the same time, they are a generation characterized by marked inequities, with disturbing proportions facing severe disadvantage that imposes both immediate and lasting threats to well-being. Significant numbers are born into families without the human and financial resources to pro- mote their development; disparities by race and Hispanic origin persist; public policy responses have been slow to materialize and, where they exist, often serve only a fraction of the children in need.

 Source: Child Trends and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation

Download pdf of The Youngest Americans: A Statistical Portrait of Infants and Toddlers in the United States