Stephanie Moller

Determinants of relative poverty in advanced capitalist democracies

Using relative poverty measures based on micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study, in conjunction with pooled time-series data for 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997, the authors analyze separately the rate of pretax/transfer poverty and the reduction in poverty achieved by systems of taxes and transfers. Socioeconomic factors, including de-industrialization and unemployment, largely explain pre-tax/transfer poverty rates of the working-age population in these advanced capitalist democracies. The extent of redistribution (measured as poverty reduction via taxes and transfers) is explained directly by welfare state generosity and constitutional structure (number of veto points) and the strength of the political left, both in unions and in government.

Reconciliation Policies and the Effects of Motherhood on Employment, Earnings, and Poverty

Abstract We examine the consequences of welfare state strategies on womens economic outcomes in ten countries. These strategies are 1) the primary caregiver strategy, focused on valuing womens care work; 2) the primary earner strategy, focused on encouraging womens employment; 3) the choice strategy, which provides support for womens employment or caregiving for young children; and 4) the earner-carer strategy, focused on helping men and women balance both care and employment. We analyze the effects of motherhood and marital status on employment rates, annual earnings, and poverty rates. Our study suggests that the strategy taken by the earner-carer strategy may be most effective at increasing equality for both married and single mothers.

Work—Family Policies and Poverty for Partnered and Single Women in Europe and North America

Work—family policy strategies reflect gendered assumptions about the roles of men and women within families and therefore may lead to significantly different outcomes, particularly for families headed by single mothers. The authors argue that welfare states have adopted strategies based on different assumptions about womens and mens roles in society, which then affect womens chances of living in poverty cross-nationally. The authors examine how various strategies are associated with poverty rates across groups of women and also examine more directly the effects of specific work—family policies on poverty rates. They find that while family benefits and child care for young children unequivocally lower poverty rates, particularly for families headed by a single mother, long parental leaves have more ambivalent effects. The findings suggest that it is critical to examine the gendered assumptions underlying work—family policies rather than viewing all work—family policies as the same.

Staying Back and Dropping Out: The Relationship Between Grade Retention and School Dropout

Students who repeat a grade prior to high school have a higher risk of dropping out of high school than do students who are continuously promoted. This study tested whether standard theories of dropout—including the participation-identification model and the social capital model—explain this link. Although the presence of variables, including academic achievement and disciplinary problems, reduces the higher probability of retained students dropping out, existing models of dropping out do not adequately explain the markedly higher probability of dropping out for retained students. Regression decomposition reveals differences between promoted and retained students in the importance of resources and illustrates that various resources hold different levels of importance for white, black, and Latino students.

Changing patterns of income inequality in U.S. counties, 1970-2000.

The upswing in economic inequality that has affected a number of advanced industrial societies in the late 20th century has been particularly conspicuous in the United States. The authors explore its causes using data on the distribution of family income in 3,098 U.S. counties in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. The authors build a model of within‐county income inequality that assumes that distribution processes involving labor market and sociodemographic variables operate primarily at the county level and those involving the political and institutional context operate primarily at the state level. Multilevel methods are used to distinguish county cross‐sectional, state cross‐sectional, and longitudinal effects on inequality. The authors find that, when features of the state‐level institutional and political context are associated with inequality, these effects are larger longitudinally than cross‐sectionally. A range of other factors, including economic development, labor force changes, shifts in the racial/ethnic and gender composition of the labor force, educational expansion, and urbanization are found to have comparatively large effects, both longitudinally and cross‐sectionally.

Collective Pedagogical Teacher Culture and Mathematics Achievement Differences by Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status

Scholars have not adequately assessed how organizational cultures in schools differentially influence students’ mathematics achievement by race and socioeconomic status (SES). We focus on what we term collective pedagogical teacher culture, highlighting the role of professional communities and teacher collaboration in influencing mathematics achievement. Using cross-classified growth models, we analyze data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and illustrate that schools where teachers perceive the presence of professional communities and teacher collaboration foster greater mathematics achievement throughout elementary school. Furthermore, achievement gaps by race and socioeconomic status are lessened in schools with professional communities and teacher collaboration.

Supporting Poor Single Mothers Gender and Race in the U.S. Welfare State

This article examines the uneven welfare support accorded to Black and white women at the end of the twentieth century. The author analyzes the generosity of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits in the 48 contiguous U.S. states in 1970, 1980, and 1990 to determine if the state is less supportive of Black than white women. The author argues that the race-biased policies and procedures implemented with the inception and expansion of the welfare state remained throughout the program, resulting in uneven levels of support for Black and white families. More specifically, the author demonstrates that the generosity of AFDC is lower in states with a larger proportion of Black single mothers and higher in states with a larger proportion of white single mothers. These findings are relevant in the current period because such institutionalized race inequalities perpetuate white privilege and Black womens poverty.

Student Achievement and College Selectivity: How Changes in Achievement during High School Affect the Selectivity of College Attended.

Researchers who examine the link between high school achievement and educational outcomes include measures of achievement that conflate high school effects with achievement effects established prior to high school. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, this article disaggregates achievement into achievement prior to high school (in the eighth grade) and changes in achievement during high school. The authors find that the prestige of the colleges that students attend is largely solidified by the time students enter high school. They also find that among high socioeconomic status (SES) students, lower achievers can enhance the prestige of the colleges they will attend by moving up the achievement distribution during high school. However, even if their gains are well above average, the prestige of the colleges they are predicted to attend will not surpass students who enter high school at the top or middle of the eighth-grade achievement distribution. These findings are similar for low-SES students. In contrast, the effects of achievement for middle-SES students are largely solidified by high school.

Tracking Success: High School Curricula and Labor Market Outcomes by Race and Gender.

Education researchers have established that educational tracking reinforces inequalities, but they have not fully examined the affect of these tracks on labor market outcomes for men and women of different races/ethnicities. At the same time, labor market researchers have studied the association between education and income by race and gender, but they do not distinguish among types of education. The researchers integrate these literatures by examining the relationship between educational tracking in secondary school and income in young adulthood, using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study. This study finds that educational tracking is associated with income, independent of the quantity of education.

Changing course: the gender gap in college selectivity and opportunities to learn in the high school curriculum

Gender gaps in learning and education outcomes have changed dramatically over the last few years. However, researchers have not adequately assessed how the high school learning environment differentially affects boys and girls. An important component of the learning environment in US secondary school is the opportunity to learn in an Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum, which allows high school students to do college-level work. Using the US National Education Longitudinal Study 1988–2000, we explain how high school AP curriculum interacts with gender to predict the selectivity of colleges that students attend. The results show that girls and boys who attend high schools with a larger percentage of students in AP curriculum attend more selective colleges (that require higher standardised scores for admissions); yet the positive effect of the opportunity to learn in an AP curriculum is greater for girls than for boys. This research furthers the debate about the effects of school structure on gender stratification.