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Books by IRP AffiliatesAbstracts of select recently published books. Note: Books may be ordered from the appropriate publisher, as listed below. The Colors of Poverty: Why Racial and Ethnic Disparities PersistHarris, David R., and Ann Chih Lin, eds. 2008. 280 pp. A multidisciplinary group of experts analyzes the complex mechanisms that connect poverty and race and reframes the debate over the causes of minority poverty by emphasizing the cumulative effects of disadvantage in perpetuating poverty across generations. Joe Soss and Sanford Schram argue that the increasingly decentralized and discretionary nature of state welfare programs allows for different treatment of racial groups, even when such policies are touted as “race-neutral.” Lincoln Quillian and Rozlyn Redd examine whether social capital can explain persistent poverty gaps among races. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($39.95 hardcover) Child Welfare Research: Advances for Practice and PolicyLindsey, Duncan, and Aron Shlonsky, eds. 2008. 416 pp. During the last decade there have been major advances in research in child welfare, the largest specialty within social work. The focus of this research has been on improving current child welfare practices and programs that protect children from abuse and neglect. The major policy and program changes in the child welfare system have been guided by these research studies, spurred by federal and state emphasis on monitoring child welfare outcomes and identifying best practices. This landmark collection gathers those research developments- and how they have been translated into policies, programs, and practice- in a single volume for the first time. The chapter by Kristen Shook Slack, Lawrence Berger, and L. R. Renner is titled “A Descriptive Study of Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment: Implications for Child Welfare Policy.” For information or to purchase: Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10016; phone: 800-451-7556; fax: 919-677-1303; e-mail: custserv.us@oup.com ($39.95 hardcover) Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices, and ImplicationsDiamond, John W., and George R. Zodrow, eds. 2008. 546 pp. In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the answers are known, unknown--or unknowable. The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. James P. Ziliak and Thomas J. Kniesner’s chapter is titled “Evidence of Tax-Induced Individual Behavioral Responses.” For information or to purchase: The MIT Press, c/o Triliteral, 100 Maple Ridge Drive, Cumberland, RI, 02864; phone: 800-405-1619; fax: 800-406-9145; email: mitpress-orders@mit.edu ($45.00 cloth) Envisioning the Survey Interview of the FutureConrad, Frederick G., and Michael F. Schober, eds. 2007. 298 pp. This book brings together leading researchers in survey methodology and communication technology in order to (1) develop theories of technology-meditated survey response, (2) contribute to a better understanding of the survey response task and how it differs from the tasks for which communication technologies have been developed, and (3) introduce survey methodologists to new communication technologies that might potentially be relevant for data collection. Many of the observations and much of the content is derived from a workshop that took place at the University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, involving more than two-dozen of the world's leaders in survey techniques. Nora Cate Schaeffer’s chapter is titled “The Contemporary Standardized Survey Interview for Social Research.” For information or to purchase: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Customer Care Center - Consumer Accounts, 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN, 46256; Phone: 877-762-2974; Fax: 800-597-3299 ($99.95 hardcover) Standards-Based Reform and the Poverty Gap: Lessons for "No Child Left Behind”Gamoran, Adam, ed. 2007. 340 pp. This book examines whether the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is enhancing educational opportunities for the most disadvantaged students. Leading scholars in sociology, economics, psychology, and education policy examine what lessons can be drawn from early efforts to help NCLB achieve its goals. The book presents papers from the February 2006 IRP cosponsored conference, “Will Standards-Based Reform in Education Help Close the Poverty Gap?” For information or to purchase: Brookings Institution Press, Order Form, Hopkins Fulfillment Service, P.O. Box 50370, Baltimore, MD, 21211-4370; phone: 800-537-5487; fax order form: 410-516-6998 ($64.95 cloth, $28.95 paper) Market Friendly or Family Friendly? The State and Gender Inequality in Old AgeMeyer, Madonna Harrington, and Pamela Herd. 2007. 248 pp. Poverty among the elderly is sharply gendered—women over 65 are twice as likely as men to live below the poverty line. Older women receive smaller Social Security payments and are less likely to have private pensions. They are twice as likely as men to need a caregiver and twice as likely as men to be a caregiver. Recent efforts of some in Washington to reduce and privatize social welfare programs threaten to exacerbate existing gender disparities among older Americans. Pamela Herd and Madonna Harrington Meyer explain these disparities and assess how proposed policy reforms would affect inequality among the aged. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($35.00 hardcover) Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of InequalitySoss, Joe, Jacob S. Hacker, and Suzanne Mettler, eds. 2007. 288 pp. This book, which is coedited by IRP affiliate Joe Soss, is based on the April 21-22, 2005, IRP conference, “Making the Politics of Poverty and Inequality: How Public Policies Are Reshaping American Democracy.” Remaking America explains how the broad restructuring of government policy has both reflected and propelled major shifts in the character of inequality and democracy in the United States. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($45.00 hardcover) Economic Inequality and Higher Education: Access, Persistence, and SuccessDickert-Conlin, Stacy, and Ross Rubenstein, eds. 2007. 272 pp. The vast disparities in college attendance and graduation rates between students from different class backgrounds are a growing social concern. Economic Inequality and Higher Education investigates the connection between income inequality and unequal access to higher education, and proposes solutions that the state and federal governments and schools themselves can undertake to make college accessible to students from all backgrounds. Robert H. Haveman and Kathryn Wilson’s chapter is titled “Economic Inequality in College Access, Matriculation, and Graduation.” For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($35.00 hardcover) The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate EducationClive Belfield and Henry M. Levin, eds. 2007. 273 pp. Leading scholars from a broad range of fields—including economics, education, demography, and public health—attach hard numbers to the relationship between educational attainment and income, health, crime, and dependence on public assistance. They also explore policy interventions that could boost the education system's performance and explain why demographic trends make the challenge of educating our youth so urgent today. The chapter by Jane Waldfogel, Irwin Garfinkel, and Brendan Kelly is titled “Public Assistance Programs: How Much Could Be Saved with Improved Education?” For information or to purchase: Brookings Institution Press, Order Form, Hopkins Fulfillment Service, P.O. Box 50370, Baltimore, MD, 21211-4370; phone: 800-537-5487; fax order form: 410-516-6998 ($62.95 cloth, $26.95 paper) Unmarried Couples with ChildrenEdin, Kathryn, and Paula England, eds. 2007. 312 pp. Today, one in three American children is born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Unmarried Couples with Children examines the family lives of nearly fifty American children born outside of a marital union in the early 2000s. Based on personal narratives gathered from both mothers and fathers over the first four years of their children’s lives, and told partly in the couples' own words, the story begins before the child is conceived, takes the reader through the pregnancy to the moment of birth, and on through the child's fourth birthday. Kathryn Magnuson and Greg Duncan’s chapter is titled“Explaining the Patterns of Child Support among Low-Income Noncustodial Fathers.” For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($42.50 hardcover) Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American DreamEdwards, John, M. Crain, A. L. Kalleberg, eds. 2007. 304 pp. Is poverty a fact of life? Can the wealthiest nation in the world do nothing to combat the steadily rising numbers of Americans living in poverty—or the 50 million Americans living in “near poverty”? Senator John Edwards and some of the country’s most prominent scholars, businesspeople, and community activists say otherwise. The contributors explain why poverty is growing and outline concrete steps that can be taken now to start turning the tide. Sara McLanahan contributed the chapter “Single Mothers, Fragile Families”; John Karl Scholz wrote the chapter “The Earned Income Tax Credit”; and Harry Holzer wrote “Education and Training for Less Affluent Americans in the New Economy.” For information or to purchase: The New Press, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10110; phone: 212-354-5500 ($29.95 hardcover) Redefining Retirement: How Will Boomers Fare?Madrian, Brigitte, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Beth J. Soldo, eds. 2007. 352 pp. As the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation attains age 60, members of this unusually large cohort born 1946–1966 are poised to redefine retirement—just as they have restructured educational, housing, and labor markets in prior days. Looking ahead, their numbers and their energy are sure to have a major impact on national pensions, healthcare, and social safety nets. Contributors to this volume note that Boomers will be better off than their predecessors in many ways, having benefited from the long run-up in housing prices, dramatic improvements in healthcare, and the expanding economy. On the other hand, the generation's sheer size will surely squeeze resources and require new approaches to retirement risk management. For information or to purchase: Wharton Pension Research Council/Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10016; phone: 800-451-7556; fax: 919-677-1303; e-mail: custserv.us@oup.com ($99.00 hardcover) Hispanics and the Future of AmericaTienda, Marta, and Faith Mitchell, eds. 2006. 502 pp. Hispanics and the Future of America presents details of the complex story of a population that varies in many dimensions, including national origin, immigration status, and generation. The papers in this volume draw on a wide variety of data sources to describe the contours of this population, from the perspectives of history, demography, geography, education, family, employment, economic well-being, health, and political engagement. They provide a rich source of information for researchers, policy makers, and others who want to better understand the fast-growing and diverse population that we call Hispanic. The current period is a critical one for getting a better understanding of how Hispanics are being shaped by the U.S. experience. This will, in turn, affect the United States and the contours of the Hispanic future remain uncertain. For information or to purchase: The National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street NW, Lockbox 285, Washington, DC, 20055; Order Form; phone: 888-624-8373; fax: 202-334-2451 ($44.10 paper) The Future of the FamilyMoynihan, D. P., T. M. Smeeding, and L. Rainwater, eds., 2004; paperback edition, 2006. 328 pp. High rates of divorce, single-parenthood, and nonmarital cohabitation are forcing Americans to reexamine their definition of family. This evolving social reality requires public policy to evolve as well. The Future of the Family brings together the top scholars of family policy—headlined by editors Lee Rainwater, Tim Smeeding, and, in his last published work, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan—to take stock of the state of the family in the United States today and address the ways in which public policy affects the family and vice versa. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($19.95 paper) Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes Are Affecting Low-Wage WorkersRebecca Blank, Sheldon Danziger, and Robert Schoeni, eds. 2006. 448 pp. In Working and Poor, a distinguished group of economists and policy experts examine how economic and policy changes over the last twenty-five years have affected the well-being of low-wage workers and their families. In Chapter 12, Cancian and Meyer examine the role child support plays in the economic well-being of less-skilled workers. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000; fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($24.95 paper) Black Males Left BehindMincy, Ronald, ed. 2006. 344 pp. Despite the overall economic gains in the 1990s, many young black men continue to have the poorest life chances of anyone in our society. Joblessness and low earnings among these less-educated young adults are contributing to reductions in marriage, increases in nonmarital childbearing, and a host of other social problems. In Black Males Left Behind, Ronald Mincy has assembled a distinguished group of experts who examine how less-educated black men fared relative to other less-educated young people during the economic expansion of the 1990s and why. The chapter by Michael A. Stoll, Steven Raphael, and Harry J. Holzer is titled “How Do Crime and Incarceration Affect the Employment Prospects of Less-Educated Young Black Men?” For information or to purchase: The Urban Institute Press, c/o HFS, P.O. Box 50370, Baltimore, MD 21211-4370 ; phone: 800-537-5487; fax: 410-516-6998 ($29.50 paper) Immigration and the Transformation of EuropeParsons, C., and T. M. Smeeding, eds. 2006. 500 pp. A new kind of historic transformation is underway in 21st-century Europe. 20th-century Europeans were no strangers to social, economic, and political change, but their major challenges focused mainly on the intra-European construction of stable, prosperous, capitalist democracies. Today, by contrast, one of the major challenges is flows across borders—and particularly in-flows of non-European people. Immigration and minority integration consistently occupy the headlines. The issues which rival immigration—unemployment, crime, terrorism—are often presented by politicians as its negative secondary effects. Immigration is also intimately connected to the profound challenges of demographic change, economic growth, and welfare-state reform. For information or to purchase: Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10013-2473; phone: 800-872-7423; fax: 845-353-4141 ($110 hardcover) Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor MarketNewman, Katherine S., ed. 2006. 432 pp. Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labor market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labor markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighborhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas, and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay, and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger paychecks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor. A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labor market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends. For information or to purchase: Harvard University Press/Russell Sage Foundation, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138; phone: 800-405-1619; fax: 800-406-9145 ($19.95 paper) Poverty TrapsBowles, Samuel, Steven N. Durlauf, and Karla Hoff, eds. 2006. 256 pp. In Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven Durlauf, Karla Hoff, and the book's other contributors argue that there are many conditions that may trap individuals, groups, and whole economies in intractable poverty. For the first time the editors have brought together the perspectives of economics, economic history, and sociology to assess what we know—and don't know—about such traps. The book calls into question the popular belief (on which much public policy is based) that persons born into poverty have it in their power to escape. Steven N. Durlauf contributed the chapter titled “Groups, Social Influences, and Inequality: A Memberships Theory Perspective on Poverty Traps.” For information or to purchase: Princeton University Press, California/Princeton Fulfillment Services, Inc., 1445 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing, NJ 08618; phone: 800-777-4726; fax: 800-999-1958; e-mail: orders@cpfsinc.com ($37.50 cloth) Methods in Social EpidemiologyOakes, Kaufman, ed. 2006. 504 pp. This practical, comprehensive introduction to methods in social epidemiology is written by experts in the field. It is perfectly timed for the growth in interest among those in public health, community health, preventive medicine, sociology, political science, social work, and other areas of social research. The chapter by David Betson and Jennifer L. Warlick is titled “Measuring Poverty.” For information or to purchase: Jossey-Bass Press (Wiley imprint), Customer Care Center - Consumer Accounts, 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN, 46256; phone: 877-762-2974; fax: 800-597-3299; ($70.00 hardcover) Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and ManagementBoyne, George A., Kenneth J. Meier, Laurence J. O'Toole, and Richard M. Walker,
eds. 2006. 338 pp. The performance of governments around the globe is constantly in the spotlight, whether as a celebration or indictment of their activities. Providing evidence on strategies to improve the performance of public agencies is therefore essential to the practice of public management. This important contribution to the debate explores issues of measurement, research methodology, and management influences on performance. It focuses on three key questions: What approaches should be adopted to measure the performance of public agencies? What aspects of management influence the performance of public agencies? As the world globalizes, what are the key international issues in performance measurement and management? For information or to purchase: Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10013-2473; phone: 800-872-7423; fax: 845-353-4141 ($84.00 hardcover) On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public PolicySettersten, Richard A., Frank F. Furstenberg, and Ruben G. Rumbaut, eds. 2005
(paperback, Spring 2008). 504 pp. This volume considers the nature and consequences of changes in early adulthood by drawing upon a wide variety of historical and contemporary data from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Especially dramatic shifts have occurred in the conventional markers of adulthood—leaving home, finishing school, getting a job, getting married, and having children—and in how these experiences are configured as a set. These accounts reveal how the process of becoming an adult has changed over the past century, the challenges faced by young people today, and what societies can do to smooth the transition to adulthood. The chapter by Lawrence L. Wu and Jui-Chung Allen Li is titled “Historical Roots of Family Diversity: Marital and Childbearing Trajectories of American Women.” For information or to purchase: The University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637; phone: 773-702-7700; fax: 773-702-9756 ($29.00 paper) On Your Own Without a Net: The Transition to Adulthood for Vulnerable PopulationsOsgood, W., C. Flanagan, E. M. Foster, and G. Ruth, eds. 2005 (paperback,
2007). 432 pp. On Your Own Without a Net documents the special challenges facing seven vulnerable populations during the transition to adulthood: former foster care youth, youth formerly involved in the juvenile justice system, youth in the criminal justice system, runaway and homeless youth, former special education students, young people in the mental health system, and youth with physical disabilities. During adolescence, government programs have been a major part of their lives, yet eligibility for most programs typically ends between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. This critical volume shows the unfortunate repercussions of this termination of support and points out the issues that must be addressed to improve these young people's chances of becoming successful adults. The chapter by Mark E. Courtney and D. Hughes-Huering is titled “The Transition to Adulthood for Youth “Aging Out” of the Foster Care System.” For information or to purchase: The University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637; phone: 773-702-7700; fax: 773-702-9756 ($22.50 paper) Governing Children, Families and Education: Restructuring the Welfare StateMarianne Bloch, Thomas Popkewitz, Kerstin Holmlund, Ingeborg Moqvist, editors. 2003. 304 pp. Global reforms in welfare state provisions entail changes in family and school responsibilities, governmental responsibilities about who should care for and educate children, and the images and narratives of what the family and child are and should be. In Governing Children, Families and Education, an international, interdisciplinary group of social scientists and historians explore the politics of these changing patterns in this groundbreaking book at two levels: structural examinations of the (re)distribution of power as it relates to class, gender, and race; and the mentalities that govern the relation of the private or public responsibilities of families and the child in care of the state and schools. For information or to purchase: Palgrave
Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010; phone: 800-221-7945; fax:
212-777-6359 (cloth, $69.95; paper $24.95). Human Capital in the United States from 1975 to 2000: Patterns of Growth and UtilizationRobert H. Haveman, Andrew Bershadker, and Jonathan A. Schwabish. 2003. 229 pp. This study enhances the existing measures of the nation’s human capital and the extent to which that capital is utilized. Haveman, Bershadker, and Schwabish develop an indicator of the value of the human capital stock held by the nation’s working-age population called Earnings Capacity (EC), and use it to study the time trends in aggregate human capital in the United States and human capital per worker. They also use EC to evaluate utilization of the nation’s human capital stock, exploring these patterns for the entire working-age population as well as for at-risk subgroups distinguished by race, schooling, and age in order to highlight the social and public policy relevance of the EC indicator. Their empirical results provide insights into the performance of the U.S. economy over the past three decades, and supplement other analyses of this performance. For information or to purchase: W. E.
Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 300 S. Westnedge Avenue,
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49007-4686; phone: 269-343-5541; fax: 269/343-3308 ($40
cloth; $17 paper). Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America's Children in Comparative PerspectiveLee Rainwater and Timothy M Smeeding. 2003. 263 pages. Based on the data available from the transnational Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), Poor Kids in a Rich Country puts child poverty in the United States in an international context. Rainwater and Smeeding find that while the child poverty rate in most countries has been relatively stable over the past 30 years, child poverty has increased markedly in the United States and Britain. The book discusses the underlying reasons for this difference, examining the mix of earnings and government transfers, such as child allowances, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, and other social assistance programs that go into the income packages available to both single- and dual-parent families in each country. For information or to purchase: Russell
Sage Foundation,112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021; phone: 212-750-6000;
fax: 212-371-4761; e-mail: info@rsage.org ($35.00 cloth) Race and the Politics of Welfare ReformSanford S. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording, editors. 2003. 392 pages. Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform is about race in the United States and its distinctive effects on contemporary welfare politics. Over the last three decades, an impressive body of scholarship has brought the interplay of race and poverty politics into sharper focus. By bringing together diverse scholars with overlapping, substantive concerns, the book aims to present an integrated understanding of how race has shaped the past and present of U.S. social policy. Contributors consider the historical processes and the racial roots of contemporary welfare dilemmas; racial biases in the ways welfare is reported in the mass media and evaluated by the public at large; the racial dynamics of welfare policy discourse; racial bias in state welfare policy choices and implementation; and the intersection of race and social policy developments beyond "welfare reform." For information or to purchase: University
of Michigan Press, 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-3209; phone: 734-764-4388;
fax: 734-615-1540 ($65.00 cloth, $25.00 paper) Working Families and Growing Kids: Caring for Children and AdolescentsEugene Smolensky and Jennifer Appleton Gootman, editors. 2003. 368 pages This book presents conclusions and recommendations for policies that can respond to the new conditions shaping America's working families. Included in this comprehensive review of the research and data on family leave, child care, and income support issues are: the effects of early child care and school age child care on child development, the impacts of family work policies on child and adolescent well-being and family functioning, the changes to federal and state welfare policy, the emergence of a 24/7 economy, the utilization of paid family leave, and an examination of the ways parental employment affects children as they make their way through childhood and adolescence. The book also evaluates the support systems available to working families, including family and medical leave, child care options, and tax policies. For information or to purchase: National Academies
Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20055; phone: 888-624-8373;
fax: 202 334-2451; e-mail: zjones@nas.edu ($49 cloth). Visions of Poverty: Welfare Policy and Political ImaginationRobert Asen. 2002. 325 pages. Any future policy agenda that seeks to improve the lives of the poor must first come to terms with the images of poverty that shaped the debates over welfare culminating in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In Visions of Poverty, Robert Asen traces the rhetoric of the poverty debate from the War on Poverty through the 1996 reforms-the "era of retrenchment" in welfare policy, as he describes it. Robert Asen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For information or to purchase: Michigan State University Press, 1405 South
Harrison Road, Suite 25, Manly Miles Building, East Lansing, MI 48823-5245;
e-mail, msupress@msu.edu ( $49.95 cloth; $24.95 paper) Understanding PovertySheldon H. Danziger and Robert H. Haveman, editors. 2002. 576 pages. Looking back over the past four decades, the authors tell us how the poor have fared in the market economy and what government programs have accomplished and failed to accomplish. They assess the proggress we have made in understanding poverty, draw the policy implications, and present their judgments regarding issues for future research. This is the fourth volume reviewing poverty trends and policies that has been sponsored by IRP; earlier volumes appeared in 1975, 1977, 1986, and 1994 (see Confronting Poverty, below, and Older Titles List). The chapters in this volume were originally presented at a 2000 conference at the Institute for Research on Poverty in Madison, Wisconsin. Sheldon Danziger is Henry J. Meyer Collegiate Professor of Social Work and Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Robert H. Haveman is John Bascom Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin at Madison. For information or to purchase: Harvard University Press, 79 Garden St., Cambridge,
MA 02138, phone 800-405-1619 ( $55.00 cloth; $24.95 paper). Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital FertilityLawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe, editors. 2001. 436 pages. Out-of-wedlock childbirth was a major target of the welfare reforms of 1996. Convinced that the steady rise in the number of children born to unmarried mothers was a consequence of previous welfare policies, the framers of the act mandated that states act to reduce these numbers and provided for financial incentives to do so. But the trend in nonmarital birth contains a number of puzzles; by the time the act passed, for example, the rise in extramarital births had already leveled off, although one out of three births is still to an unmarried mother. These conflicting trends give rise to a host of vexing theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues that are explored in this volume. For example, how do trends in nonmarital childbearing vary by race, ethnicity, and age? Are these patterns peculiar to the United States, or rooted in more widespread social phenomena? How many nonmarital births are to cohabiting couples, and how stable are cohabiting relationships? What do we know about the fathers of children born outside marriage? The chapters in this volume were originally presented at a 1999 conference at the Institute for Research on Poverty in Madison, Wisconsin. Its goals were to provide a forum in which sociologists, demographers, and economists could jointly review the state of basic research on nonmarital fertility and to provide objective information and analysis relevant to public and policy discussions of the issue. Lawrence L. Wu is Professor of Sociology and Barbara Wolfe is Professor of Economics, Public Affairs, and Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th Street,
New York, NY 10021 Tel., 212.750.6000; Fax, 212.371.4761; e-mail, info@rsage.org
($39.95 cloth). Child Support: The Next FrontierJ. Thomas Oldham and Marygold S. Melli, editors. 2000. 248 pages. There has been a revolution in child support law in the last half-century, fueled by escalating numbers of divorces and children born to unmarried parents. Reforms have moved the child support system from one of minimal effort, based on the assumption that children in single-arent households would be supported by their custodial parents or by government welfare, to a formula-based system for calculating child support and an aggressive enforcement program to collect that support from the noncustodial parent. This collection of essays examines the state of child support policy.The essays range from a review of child support history, with a focus on the changing mores of parental responsibility, to empirical studies of whether increased establishment of paternity and child support enforcement results in more father-child contacts, to how child support affects fathers and whether the support obligation impoverishes noncustodial fathers. For information or to purchase: The University of Michigan Press, PO Box 1104
Ann Arbor MI 48106-1104 ($44.50 cloth) Meritocracy and Economic InequalityKenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, and Steven Durlauf, editors. 2000. 370 pp. This volume of original essays by distinguished economists, sociologists, and biologists confirms mounting evidence that the connection between intelligence and inequality is surprisingly weak and demonstrates that targeted educational and economic reforms can reduce the income gap and improve aggregate U.S. productivity and economic well-being. Kenneth Arrow is Joan Kenney Professor Emeritus of Economics at Stanford University; Samuel Bowles is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, and Steven Durlauf is Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an IRP affiliate. For information or to purchase: Princeton University Press, 41 William St.,
Princeton, NJ 08540 (cloth $59.50, paper $19.95). SidewalkMitchell Duneier, with photographs by Ovie Carter. 1999. 384 pp. In Sidewalk, Mitchell Duneier explores the lives of poor black men who make their living on the sidewalks of Greenwich Village, New York, selling secondhand goods, panhandling, and scavenging books and magazines left out for recycling. In recent years these men have become targets of "quality of life" campaigns in cities nationwide, seen as proof of the influential "broken windows" theory, which holds that the appearance of social disorder leads to crime. Duneier contends that the men are, instead, necessary and beneficial to city life today. For five years, he spent time on the blocks with them, working at their vending tables, hearing their stories, and observing the roles they play in the life of the city. He shows us not only their common human values but the many practical and moral choices they must make every day, conveying the character of urban life in all its complexity, its class and race conflicts, and the surprising opportunities it offers for empathy among strangers. Mitchell Duneier is Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate, Institute for Research on Poverty, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For information or to purchase: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 19 Union
Square West, New York 10003 ($27.00 cloth). Economic Conditions and Welfare ReformSheldon H. Danziger, editor. 1999. 345 pp. This new book addresses three critical questions arising from the federal and state welfare reforms of the past five years: (1) Why are welfare caseloads falling? (2) How are welfare recipients faring? (3) How are the states responding? The first four chapters, analyzing trends in welfare caseloads, explore how much of the caseload changes -- increases in the late 1980s and early 1990s, followed by decreases -- can be attributed to macroeconomic conditions, and how much to welfare policy changes. Two chapters focus on the labor market, first on work and earnings outcomes for recipients and then on employers' willingness to hire welfare recipients. The last three chapters focus upon what states are doing and how they are likely to respond when a recession comes. Contributors include Timothy J. Bartik, Rebecca M. Blank, Maria Cancian, Howard A. Chernick, Sheldon H. Danziger, Randall W. Eberts, David N. Figlio, Robert H. Haveman, Harry J. Holzer, Thomas Kaplan, Philip B. Levine, Therese J. McGuire, Daniel R. Meyer, Robert A. Moffitt, LaDonna A. Pavetti, Geoffrey L. Wallace, Barbara L. Wolfe, and James P. Ziliak. For information or to purchase: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research,
300 S. Westnedge Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49007-4686. Tel., 616-343-5541;
Fax, 616-343-3308 (paper $40). High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and GraduationJay P. Heubert and Robert M. Hauser, editors. 1999. 350 pp. As more and more tests are introduced into U.S. schools, it becomes increasingly important to know how those tests are used in assessing children's performance and achievements. High Stakes examines common misuses of tests, their political and social context, what happens when test issues are taken to court, special student populations, social promotion, and more. High Stakes is a report of the Committee on Appropriate Test Use of the Board on Testing and Assessment, National Research Council. Jay Heubert is an Associate Professor of Education at Teacher's College, Columbia University, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Robert M. Hauser is Vilas Research and Samuel A. Stouffer Professor Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an IRP affiliate. For information or to purchase: National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20418. Tel., 800-624-6242; Fax, 202-334-2451 ($39.95).
Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support EnforcementIrwin Garfinkel, Sara S. McLanahan, Daniel R. Meyer, and Judith A. Seltzer, editors. 1998. 369 pp. Much of the uncertainty surrounding child support policies has stemmed from a lack of hard data on nonresident fathers. Fathers under Fire presents a full body of information on the financial and social circumstances of these men. Social scientists and legal scholars explore the underlying issues of child support and the potential risks and benefits of stronger enforcement policies. Irwin Garfinkel is M. I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems in the School of Social Work at Columbia University; Sara S. McLanahan is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Daniel R. Meyer is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Judith A. Seltzer is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. All are IRP affiliates. For information or to purchase: Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th Street,
New York, NY 10021 Tel., 212.750.6000; Fax, 212.371.4761; e-mail, info@rsage.org.
($49.95 cloth). Toward an End to Hunger in AmericaPeter K. Eisinger. 1998. 192 pp. In these prosperous times, national data show that almost 12 percent of American households either suffer from hunger or worry about going hungry, despite the existence of large public and private food assistance programs. In this book, Eisinger seeks to unravel the puzzle. He searches for a meaningful definition of hunger and examines the structure and funding of government food assistance programs, the roles of Congress and community interest groups, and the contributions of volunteer organizations. Believing that hunger is one social problem that can be solved, he offers ideas to reduce its incidence, based on creating stronger partnerships between public and private food programs. Peter K. Eisinger is Professor of Urban and Labor Studies and Political Science, College of Urban, Labor, and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University, and an IRP affiliate. For information or to purchase: The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts
Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel., 202-797-6000; Fax, 202-797-6004
(cloth $39.95, paper $16.95). Indicators of Children's Well-BeingRobert M. Hauser, Brett V. Brown, and William Prosser, editors. 1997. 640 pp. Indicators of Children's Well-Being is an inquiry into current efforts to monitor children from the prenatal period through adolescence. Experts from multiple disciplines assess how data on physical development, education, economic security, family and neighborhood conditions, and social behavior are collected and analyzed, what findings they reveal, and what improvements are needed to create a more comprehensive and policy-relevant system of measurement. Essays on children's material well-being show why income data must be supplemented with assessments of housing, medical care, household expenditure, food consumption, and education. Other contributors urge refinements to existing survey instruments such as the Census and the Current Population Survey. The usefulness of records from human service agencies, child welfare records, and juvenile court statistics is also evaluated. Robert M. Hauser is Vilas Research Professor of Sociology and Affiliate, Institute for Research on Poverty, the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Brett V. Brown is Research Associate at Child Trends, Inc. William R. Prosser is adjunct professor, Georgetown University Public Policy Program. Indicators of Children's Well-Being may be purchased from the Russell Sage Foundation. Their toll-free number for ordering is (800) 524-6401. Mail orders should be sent to:
Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for ChangeEdited by Sheldon H. Danziger, Gary D. Sandefur, and Daniel H. Weinberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. 529 pp. Confronting Poverty reviews three decades of research on the nature, causes, and consequences of poverty, and proposes an antipoverty agenda for the next decade. The authors document trends in poverty and income inequality, review government programs and policies, and analyze the public's complicated attitudes concerning these policies. They discuss the persistence and intergenerational transmission of poverty, the extent of welfare dependence, and the emergence of an urban underclass. They suggest thoughtful reforms in employment and training, child support, health care, education, welfare, immigration, and urban policies, all crafted from the successes, as well as the failures, of the last thirty years. "Confronting Poverty includes some of the most thoughtful essays ever written on poverty and public policy." --William Julius Wilson, University of Chicago Succeeding Generations: On the Effects of Investment in ChildrenRobert H. Haveman and Barbara L. Wolfe. 1994. 331 pp. By any historical or comparative standard, children in the United States today face a high probability of being born to an unwed mother and of living with a single parent. Do such childhood experiences matter? IRP affiliates Haveman and Wolfe present convincing evidence that the nurture that children receive plays a significant role in how they fare as young adults. Exploring the economic, family, and neighborhood determinants of success, they view children as human capital, whose ultimate accomplishments (or lack thereof) depend upon investment choices made by society, by the families in which the children live, and by the children themselves as they mature. Order from: Russell Sage Foundation Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What HelpsSara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur. 1994. 196 pp. What are the chances that the child of a single parent will graduate from high school, go on to college, find and keep a job? These are the questions the authors pursue across the spectrum of race, gender, and class. Children whose parents live apart, the authors find, are twice as likely to drop out of high school as those in two-parent families, one and a half times as likely to be idle in young adulthood, twice as likely to become single parents themselves. Yet living with a single parent does not doom a child to failure; many children from one-parent families grow up to become productive adults. What do we know about the sources of these different outcomes? How can we rethink current policies to improve the odds for children in single-parent families? Growing Up with a Single Parent was named a finalist in the Current Interest Section of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes for 1995 and is the winner of the American Sociological Association's William J. Goode Award for the best publication on families. "A must read for concerned parents and policymakers. . . . In addition to presenting compelling evidence about the challenges single parents and their children face, the authors include solid recommendations on ways to truly help children" --Sen. Jay Rockefeller Order from: Harvard University Press List of Older TitlesNote: Books must be ordered from the appropriate publisher, as listed below. Some books may be out of print. Please consult the publisher for information. Evaluating welfare and training programs Divided opportunities: Minorities, poverty, and social policy Fighting poverty: What works and what doesn't Private benefits: Material assistance in the private sector Hispanics in the U.S. economy Social welfare spending: Accounting for changes from 1950 to 1978 Last resorts: Emergency assistance and special needs programs in public welfare A challenge to Social Security: The changing roles of women and men in American society Income-tested transfer programs: The case for and against The politics of displacement: Racial and ethnic transition in three American cities Microeconomic simulation models for public policy analysis:
Vol. 1, Distributional impacts; Vol. 2, Sectoral, regional, and general
equilibrium models American inequality: A macroeconomic history Financing black economic development Protecting the social service client: Legal and structural controls on official discretion Social movements and the legal system: A theory of law reform and social change Class structure and income determination Lawyers and the pursuit of legal rights An analysis of the determinants of occupational upgrading Political language: Words that succeed and policies that fail Earnings capacity, poverty, and inequality The economic impacts of tax-transfer policy: Regional and distributional effects A decade of federal antipoverty programs: Achievements, failures, and lessons Food, stamps, and income maintenance Estimating the labor supply effects of income-maintenance alternatives The measurement of economic welfare: Its application to the aged poor Improving measures of economic well-being Public expenditures, taxes, and the distribution of income: The United States, 1950, 1961, 1970 The New Jersey Income-Maintenance Experiment, Vol. III: Expenditures,
health, and social behavior, and the quality of the evidence The New Jersey Income-Maintenance Experiment, Vol. II: Labor-supply responses Patterns of interracial politics: Conflict and cooperation
in the city The New Jersey Income-Maintenance Experiment, Vol. I: Operations,
surveys, and administration Integrating income maintenance programs Black-white income differentials: Empirical studies and policy implications Income, employment, and urban residential location Progress against poverty: A review of the 1964-1974 decade The coercive social worker: British lessons for American social services Income maintenance and labor supply: Econometric studies An econometric model of income distribution Politics as symbolic action: Mass arousal and quiescence "The deserving poor": A study of welfare administration Ends and means of reducing income poverty Income maintenance: Interdisciplinary approaches to research Psychological factors in poverty Language and poverty: Perspectives on a theme |
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| Questions and comments email irpweb@ssc.wisc.edu Posted: 6 December, 2004 Last Updated: 23 September, 2008 |