A key thesis of Oliver and Shapiro's paper and Conley's book is that wealth is important for explaining variations in inequality across races.

Conley builds upon Oliver and Shapiro's thesis. Conley argues that race is not chiefly associated
with wealth differences but the associations between race, class and wealth cause differences in other outcomes such as education and employment.

Conley highlights how inequality accumulates throughout the life course and cites a historic interaction between race and class: middle class African Americans may be playing catch-up while the urban poor fall behind.

property matters for determining position

uses PSID

historical dierences contribute to black white wealth disparity

how much related to inheritance and how much related to contemporary issues?

residential issues most dramatic barrier to black white wealth

black white segregation not explained by class


finds when controls are added wealth matters more than skin color

concludes policy can't be raced bases

finds net of class, african americans actually enjoy some wage advantage

finds that after controlling for wealth (and examining different types of wealth), the race gap in high school graduation disappears and African American students are actually slightly more likely to graduate from high school than their white counterparts.

blacks have positive school attitudes even though weaker performance explain this

1. black attitudes may be disingenuous, lack credibility, suggests not all attitudes are the same

2. black pro-school attitudes may be confined to areas which do not matter for schools.

3. relationship of expectations and achievement do not seem to vary across races

4. for disadvantaged groups tie between expectations and achievement is weak

5. other groups get more advantages of good attitudes than blacks, tho black attitudes

6. find results consistent with idea that black's social conditions contribute to why their attitudes don't measure up to success

Both Steele and Downey suggest that African American students as having positive attitudes towards school but as less likely to achieve their aspirations.

Downey describes this as a paradox in the literature whereby African Americans report having more positive attitudes towards school than white counterparts but being less likely to achieve their desired level of schooling.

In his analysis of NELS data, Downey decomposes school attitudes into a number of categories to try and determine if African American students had positive attitudes about aspects of school that were correlated with later educational attainment.

Downey finds indeed that many of these attitudes are indeed correlated with educational attainment and that the relationship between attitudes and attainment was partially explained by dierences in resources and social conditions which made it more difficult to African American students to achieve their aspirations.

This hypothesis might be consistent with Conley's findings that after controlling for wealth (and examining different types of wealth), the race gap in high school graduation disappears and African American students are actually slightly more
likely to graduate from high school than their white counterparts.

need to look at mechanisms through which minorities are excluded from productive networks

don't find much evidence of exclusion of minorities

find no evidence for a penalty of working in a black dominated job

use multilevel model of metropolitan areas

high proportion blacks in metropolitan areas has been linked to higher wage inequality

asks does concentration of race effect job segregtion, are black jobs more devalued in places with larger black concentration

blacks more segregated into black jobs in places where there are more black workers

black wage penality decreases as proportion of blacks increase

conclude increased job devaluation is not the mechanism through which black white wage differentials are driven, concludes segregation more pronounced where blacks are more visible

segregation into jobs where higher concentration of blacks is more important for producing wage inequaltiies

census denes tracts as an important policy territorial unit but not a necessarily natural one

segregation by tract can't capture big changes over small places of space

common segregation measures don't distinguish living distances within a census tract

creates distances in coencentric cirles

uses spatial information theory index, H

comparing the proximity-weighted racial composition with the racial composition of the metropolitan Systematic manipulation of the radius of the population as a whole.

segregation not named in 1970s and 1980s but extremely common

poverty overlaps with segregation causing worse neighborhood conditions for blacks

argue that segregation is instrumental in causing underclass

argues in absence of segregation transformaiton of urban economy wouldn't have been so disastrous

problems are not about black middle class flight but limited black residential options

welfare policies
segregation concentrates disadvantage creates norms

dismantling urban commitment will require moral commitment on the part of white america

race and class disadvantages are firmly connected in his simulation studies and also in the follow-up work exploring the association between percent minority in a neighborhood and sub-prime mortgages and foreclosure.

Massey's argument, as Heide understood it, is that American cities are often segregated by both race and
class, and the intersection of both race and the lowest class position creates a few neighborhoods characterized by simultaneously a high percentage of African American residents, unemployment, lack of social institutions, and welfare dependence.

Historical housing discrimination created these neighborhoods which are continually maintained by processes of white flight and the increased segregation of the black community where those who improve their socioeconomic status are likely to move to white neighborhoods

perceptions of neighborhood trajectories may dictate changes more than even any changes themselves

in beltway white neighborhood, residents exercised voice over exit or decision to stay in neighborhoods and protest change

when people believe neighborhood resources can't accomodate ethnic change they are more likely to exit

strong neighborhoods remain so through opposition to outsiders

continually created as demonstrated in Wilson's analysis of neighrhoods by processes of flight from neighborhoods by residence with the capacity to leave often choose to do so when the residents perceive that resources and the integrity of the neighborhood cannot withstand entering minority residents.

Wilson 1978

Wilson gives a review of historical patterns in racial inequality in the United
States. He highlights three phases in race dierences in US history: the rst is
the period of legalized slavery, the second the Jim Crow era through the mid-
20th century with continued institutional policies designed to maintain African
American disadvantage, the third is the present modern era which has done
away with institutional policies designed to maintain race based inequality but
in which a black underclass continues. For the rst two periods, Wilson argued
that two economic theories might explain the various institutional inequalities
designed: the rst, Marxist theory, suggests that maintaining racial prejudice
was a policy instituted by the bourgeiose designed to prevent proletariat solidarity,
the second segmented labor market theory suggests that when there is
a wage dierential between two groups the more advantaged labor group will
try to maintain the inequality by excluding the lower group from getting the
necessary skills needed to be competitive in the labor market.Wilson argues that
in the modern era neither economic explanation is sucient and in fact the role
of race should in fact be de-emphasized in favor of considering the role of class
in determining outcomes.

life chances of blacks now more equal barriers changed from race oppression to class subordination

three stages of black-white contact in the US
1. antebellum slaveryplantation economy
2. jim crow laws post slavery but legal racial subordination industrializing

3. change from race to class

policy interacted with economy
to explain economic origins of racism we can turn to marx who argues racism is used to isolate worker

in contrast split labor market says business wants same wage for all work and antagonism only arises when two groups expect different pay for the same
work  higher labor keeps out poor labor by preventing them from having skills to compete

argues neither theory has relevance to third period, modern policy in US from 1940s onward designed to mediate conflict argues now challenge is that government is not equipped to deal with under
clas

Oliver and Shapiro 1997

(Book?)

starts with top of spectrum, at top of income, many blacks, at top of wealth, not as much

most bad effects of race from past which over generations has prevented accumulation of disadvantage

argues state policy has discouraged black well accumulation

argues blacks form sediment of Amerian society

racial inheritance is a key part of how inequalities are transmitted

income supports black middle class, wealth supports white middle class

need to have policies to promote asset growth for blacks and address historical disadvantage

administered telephone survey to employers

found employers who said they were more willing to hire an ex-offender no more likely to do so in practice

no survey dierences in willingness to hire black vs. white offenders but in practice whites more likely to be hired

only 58 percent response

interpret likely or very likely in survey versus only a minority in practice

In another firm based study of a technology company, Petersen and colleagues (2000) find that there are small race effects which depress the likelihood of a minority individual becoming a new hire, but that these race effects disappear once referral method is controlled for in the model.

negative effects for minorities getting a job offer

for getting a second interview, no race effects

once referral method taken into account, no race effects

do whites move away from black neighborhoods to avoid blacks

or conditions correlated with African American neighbors?

An interesting empirical nding in this literature cited by
Quillian and Pager (2001) is that whites tend to admit these neighborhood preferences in surveys and their behaviors match these survey preferences. I find this
nding interesting both because I would have imagined that white respondents would not have so freely admitted segregation preferences, and because Pager
was the one of the researchers so skeptical of using surveys to measure race based discrimination. However, Quillian and Pager argue that neighborhoods
preferences may not be directly shaped by race aversion but by characteristics associated with black neighborhoods versus white neighborhoods, and they
nd evidence to suggest that neighborhoods with higher percentages of black men are perceived to have higher levels of crime even after the actual crime rate is controlled for.

minorities at special risk for sub-prime mortgage and foreclosure

in minority neighborhoods financial institutions are likely predatory

US residential labor market divided by race of  borrower and racial composition of neighborhood

segregation increases sub-prime lending

perception of stereotyping and inferiority might perpetuate it

to test stereotyping gave black and white students a test designed to be intentionally dicult

this is a good test because test is frustrating and challenging so as to perhaps make stereotypes not affordable when test presented as test black students did 1 sd worse,

when test presented as diagnostic, black students did equally well

following the test, found blacks more likely to make associations of race most advantaged students did worse, you have to care about a domain to fear stereotype

African American students only did well when they thought the test was race fair, the only way they were convinced of this was when they thought it
was developed by African Americans

Both Steele and Downey suggest that African American students as having positive attitudes towards school but as less likely to achieve their aspirations.

Downey describes this as a paradox in the literature whereby African Americans report having more positive attitudes towards school than white counterparts but being less likely to achieve their desired level of schooling. In his analysis of
NELS data, Downey decomposes school attitudes into a number of categories to try and determine if African American students had positive attitudes about aspects of school that were correlated with later educational attainment.