Pathways Magazine - Fall 2012

Table of Contents (Fall 2012 Issue)

Editors' Note by David Grusky, Michelle Poulin, and Christopher Wimer

Trends

• The Social Contract in an Era of Precarious Work
  Arne L. Kalleberg
  Where have all the good jobs gone? Even before the Great Recession, secure employment was becoming difficult to find.
  

Research in Brief

• A Report on New Poverty and Inequality Research
  Christopher Wimer
  Eviction and its role as a poverty trigger; "intense schools" and their effects on disadvantaged youth; racial disparities in receipt of Unemployment Insurance; and other cutting-edge research.

A Social Fallout to the Great Recession?

• The Great Decline in American Immigration?
  Douglas S. Massey
  Immigrants accounted for over a third of U.S. population growth in recent decades. But the Great Recession is bringing about a real turnaround in immigration dynamics.
• The Crime Wave That Wasn't
  Christopher Uggen
  An economic downturn is supposed to raise crime rates by reducing opportunities for licit employment and earnings. Why, then, have most types of crime continued to decline throughout the Great Recession?
• Is the Recession Making Us Sick?
  Sarah Burgard
  So far, at least, there's no evidence of a recession-induced health epidemic. But there are troubling developments in children's health and in depression among young adults that could lead to problems down the road.
• Sheltering the Storm: American Families in the Great Recession
  S. Philip Morgan, Erin Cumberworth, and Christopher Wimer
  The decision to have a baby, to form or end a union, and to return to the nest are all family behaviors that might be sensitive to economic downturns. Is the recession indeed changing the family? And are "red" and "blue" families reacting differently?

Intervention

• Can the Newly-Reelected Obama Save the American Public School?
  A conversation between William Julius Wilson and Sylvie Laurent
  Under the Obama administration, education policy has shifted in fundamental ways, yet the changes have remained largely under the radar. We've invited two preeminent scholars to a mini-debate on how these changes will play out.