Tim Wadsworth

Hispanic Suicide in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Examining the Effects of Immigration, Assimilation, Affluence, and Disadvantage

This study examines the structural correlates of Hispanic suicide at the metropolitan level using Mortality Multiple Cause‐of‐Death Records and 2000 census data. The authors test competing hypotheses regarding the effects of immigration, assimilation, affluence, economic disadvantage, and ethnic inequality on suicide levels for Hispanics as a whole and disaggregated by immigrant status. The findings point to multiple forces and complex relationships among social structure, culture, and Hispanic suicide. The findings also suggest that these factors have unique effects on native‐born versus immigrant populations. This is the first study to determine the structural correlates of suicide among Hispanics and to assess the macrolevel influence of immigration and cultural assimilation on ethnic‐specific suicide.

Identifying the Structural Correlates of African American Killings: What Can We Learn from Data Disaggregation

The present study extends the understanding of the structural determinants of African American killings by analyzing the impact of key socioeconomic and demographic factors on disaggregated Black homicide rates in St. Louis neighborhoods. The findings reveal that (a) there is significant variation within Black homicides in terms of motive, victim and offender characteristics, victim-offender relationship, and type of death; (b) concentrated disadvantage is significantly associated with some but not all types of Black killings; and (c) residential instability is not significantly related to most Black killings but has a small negative effect on gang homicide. The findings reinforce the necessity of disaggregating homicide rates to understand the race-violence relationship. The theoretical, methodological, and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Obesity (Sometimes) Matters The Importance of Context in the Relationship between Obesity and Life Satisfaction

Previous research has established the negative influence of obesity on subjective well-being. In the present work, the authors use multilevel modeling and Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System data (N = 1,319,340) to examine how this relationship is influenced by the prevalence of obesity in the contexts in which individuals are living and how such relationships vary by gender. The results suggest that some of the influence of obesity on life satisfaction is the result of relative comparison. Implications for both our understanding of the growing “obesity epidemic” and the study of subjective well-being are discussed.

Happiness and longevity in the United States

This is the first study to our knowledge to examine the relationship between happiness and longevity among a nationally representative sample of adults. We use the recently-released General Social Survey-National Death Index dataset and Cox proportional hazards models to reveal that overall happiness is related to longer lives among U.S. adults. Indeed, compared to very happy people, the risk of death over the follow-up period is 6% (95% CI 1.01-1.11) higher among individuals who are pretty happy and 14% (95% CI 1.06-1.22) higher among those who are not happy, net of marital status, socioeconomic status, census division, and religious attendance. This study provides support for happiness as a stand-alone indicator of well-being that should be used more widely in social science and health research.

Industrial Composition, Labor Markets, and Crime

Abstract While employment and other proximate economic factors have long been a focus of criminological research, less empirical attention has been given to the structural forces that precede employment patterns and the economic well-being of communities. The current research uses 1980 county-level U.S. Census and 1981 Uniform Crime Report data to examine the influence of industrial composition on unemployment, poverty, part-time employment, community instability, and residential segregation. In turn, the influence of all of these variables on violent and property crime rates is measured. Special attention is given to the question of whether these relationships are conditioned by levels of urbanization. Collectively, the findings offer strong support to the argument that broadening our view of the employment and crime relationship to include the precursors to labor market opportunity and other community characteristics, as well as allowing for relationships between employment and crime to vary across urban and rural areas, can add to our understanding of the work / crime relationship.

Poverty and Violence

Poverty is widely believed to cause violence. The general public treats this notion as a truism, and most academics also accept it as such. Debates among the latter tend to be over which social mechanisms cause poverty to affect violence. But there are other positions to be sure. Poverty has been linked to violence in a number of ways. Most scholars as well as lay persons believe that those who live in poverty more frequently engage in acts of violence as a consequence of conditions that they are subjected to. There is, however, disagreement among scholars about which conditions are important and how and why they lead to violence. These conditions may include poor housing (Stark, 1987), distressed neighborhood (Krivo & Peterson, 1996), and disrupted families (Sampson & Groves, 1989). Living conditions of this sort are ordinarily defined as social structural consequences of poverty. While this structural approach has usually viewed poverty as the independent variable and violence as the dependent, some scholars have also argued that violence can cause poverty at the aggregate level by creating an unstable or dangerous environment which is not conducive to economic development or growth (Staley, 1992). It may also be that those who are financially better off will move out of areas with high rates of violence leaving only those who are economically unable to relocate (Wilson, 1996).

Armut und Gewalt

Nach einer weit verbreiteten Auffassung lost Armut Gewalt aus. Fur das allgemeine Publikum ist diese Auffassung ein Gemeinplatz, und die meisten Akademiker sehen dies nicht anders. Die Diskussionen bei letzteren kreisen meist nur um die Frage, uber welche gesellschaftlichen Mechanismen Armut Gewalt hervorruft. Aber selbstverstandlich gibt es auch andere Auffassungen. Die Verbindungen, die zwischen Armut und Gewalt hergestellt wurden, sind vielfaltiger Art. Die meisten Fachleute wie auch Laien glauben, dass in Armut lebende Menschen aufgrund der Bedingungen, denen sie unterworfen sind, haufiger zu Gewalt greifen. Allerdings besteht unter den Fachleuten Uneinigkeit daruber, welche Bedingungen masgeblich sind und wie und warum sie zu Gewalt fuhren. Zu diesen Bedingungen konnten etwa zahlen schlechte Unterkunft (Stark 1987), belastete Gebiete (Krivo/Peterson 1996) und auseinander gerissene Familien (Sampson/Groves 1989). Lebensbedingungen dieser Art werden ublicherweise als die soziostrukturellen Konsequenzen der Armut definiert. Wahrend dieser strukturelle Ansatz Armut ublicherweise als die unabhangige und Gewalt als die abhangige Variable betrachtet, vertreten manche Wissenschaftler auch die umgekehrte Auffassung, dass Gewalt Armut hervorrufen konne, indem sie eine instabile und gefahrliche Umgebung schafft, in der keine wirtschaftliche Entwicklung moglich ist (Staley 1992). Moglicherweise ziehen auch die finanziell Bessergestellten aus Gegenden mit einer hohen Gewaltrate weg, so dass nur diejenigen zuruckbleiben, die sich einen Umzug finanziell nicht leisten konnen (Wilson 1996).