摘要:

This article assesses the impact of weapons, especially firearms, on three types of outcomes of threatening or hostile interactions: (1) whether a threatening situation escalates to an actual physical attack, (2) whether the attack is completed, i.e., results in an injury, and (3) whether the injury inflicted results in death. Data on violent incidents among strangers, taken from the 1979–1985 National Crime Surveys and the 1982 Supplementary Homicide Reports, were used to estimate bivariate probit equations with a correction for sample selection bias. Results indicate that deadly weapons, including firearms, appear to inhibit attack and, in the case of an attack, to reduce the probability of injury, whereas, once an injury occurs, they appear to increase the probability of death. The overall net effect of the availability of guns on the probability of the victim's death is very close to zero.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.669

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This research examines the anomalous “null effects” of the sex ratio on rates of violent crime in previous macrolevel research. We propose a model wherein the expected positive effects on criminal violence of relatively large numbers of males is suppressed by negative indirect effects via family disruption. Several hypotheses are derived from the model and tested with race-specific data on robbery and homicide offending rates for a sample of 153 American cities. The results largely support our expectations. The sex ratio exhibits negative relationships with our indicator of family disruption — percent female-headed households — which in turn is positively related to the violent crime rates. Moreover, positive effects of the sex ratio on violent crime emerge only with controls for family disruption. We conclude with some general comments on the difficulties of inferring macrolevel relationships involving social phenomena on the basis of individual-level correlations.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.693

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.714

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

For over a century, studies have consistently reported high rates of homicide in the Southern section of the United States. Some researchers argue that cultural differences tied to region are of primary importance in explaining this pattern, while others attribute high levels of homicide in the South to structural influences, particularly severe poverty. We examine the effects of structural poverty and regional influence, i.e., “Southernness,” on state lethal-violence rates (LVRs) and suicide-homicide ratios (SHRs) for blacks and whites. Supporting past research that explains the link between economic deprivation and violence by a modified frustration-aggression model, we find that severe poverty is positively associated with lethal-violence rates for both races. Percent born in the South, our measure of regional influence, has no significant impact on the LVR, but it affects the mix of violence by increasing the proportion that is expressed as homicide among both blacks and whites. On the other hand, poverty increases the level of suicide relative to homicide for whites, but it does not for blacks. Implications for future research designed to unravel the social forces affecting the volume and type of lethal violence in populations are discussed.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.715

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

We provide a theoretical exegesis and empirical assessment of the competitive factors that give communities an edge in expanding employment opportunities and protecting themselves against recessions. Four multiple-variable explanatory constructs are derived from human ecological theory and from neo-Marxian, neo-Weberian, and “new class” theories found in paradigms comprising “the new urban sociology.” Next, we apply shift-share techniques to employment change data for 3,101 American counties during recent national recession and recovery periods to decompose these changes into those accounted for by (1) national economic conditions, (2) county industrial mix, and (3) competitive effects specific to each county. The third component (competitive effects) then serves as the dependent variable for block model analysis that assesses the relative importance of the four theoretical constructs in creating local competitive dynamics. Ecological factors are the dominant predictors of local competitive effects throughout all phases of the business cycle.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.733

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This study tests contradictory hypotheses regarding the implications of service sector growth in post-industrial societies on gender stratification. Panel analyses of 1970 and 1980 U.S. census data from the largest 124 MSAs reveal that increasing employment in service industries reduces the gender gap in median earnings net of changes in human capital and community variables. Findings also support the “deindustrialization thesis” in that service sector growth is economically detrimental to both sexes. However, men's earnings deteriorate at a faster rate than women's earnings resulting in greater similarity between male and female earnings. The results imply that men in metropolitan labor markets experiencing greater employment in service industries suffer lower earnings because of dwindling high-wage blue-collar jobs. A larger male service sector component also reduces occupational sex segregation, thus helping to equalize the earnings of men and women.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.763

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Despite interest in the historically ambiguous position of small entrepreneurs in the occupational and class structure, there has been little investigation of the lives of small-scale self-employed workers during industrialization. Using data from the 1880 manuscript census, city directories, and R.G. Dun and Company credit reports for Detroit, Michigan, this study explores employment status ― self-employment versus wage employment ― as a basis of occupational stratification. Self-employed workers in industrial Detroit were more likely than wage earners to have possessed social and labor market advantages. While self-employed workers were diverse in the occupations they held, they were more homogeneous than wage earners in their social characteristics and economic circumstances. The majority of self-employed workers were middle-class. Small-scale entrepreneurs formed a lower middle-class stratum in spite of similarities between their occupational experiences and those of manual wage earners.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.785

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

The lives of writers are subject to a variety of myths. This article shows that such cultural perceptions of writers bear a close affinity to the social structure of literature in modern societies. Two structural properties seem to encourage the proliferation of myths about writers: (1) the existence of a group of prominent writers who occupy unique social positions and form an amorphous elite and (2) the relation between the elite and the large group of lesser-known, peripheral writers. Elite amorphousness and high relational density among the elite and peripheral “groupness” and sparseness of literary relations among the periphery emerge as two major properties of the social structure. These counterintuitive properties are useful in understanding myth generation in literature; they allow for competing “views” of the social structure, views that seem to develop into contradictory myths of the modern writer. Data on several types of ties among writers were collected and analyzed with block model techniques.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.811

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This article examines racial occupational inequality in southern metropolitan areas over the forty-year period beginning in 1940 and ending in 1980. Remarkable stability in inequality between blacks and whites is observed between 1940 and 1970, followed by a substantial decline in inequality between 1970 and 1980. Additionally, the relationship between the relative size of the minority population and racial occupational inequality was observed to be strongly positive and significant in separate analyses for each of the five decades, including 1980, after inequality had declined sharply. Similar results were obtained from a pooled, cross-sectional time-series analysis.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.831

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Organizational mortality among chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was studied following the initial data collection. Results show that performance in attaining program goals was not related to subsequent failure. However, the chapter officer's dependence on the central office for direction and the inability to engage successfully in cooperative action programs were related to failure. Chapters also demonstrated the need to attract a following of drunk-driving victims and others in the community to avoid failure. Results point to the importance of chapters developing their own independent activist agenda as part of the organizational adaptation that avoids failure. Two population characteristics of countries were controlled and failure was positively influenced by population size and negatively influenced by percentage college educated.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/69.3.851

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1991

数据来源: OUP