Labor Market Experiences of Low-Income Black Women in Middle-Class Suburbs: Evidence from a Survey of Gautreaux Program Participants

1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan J. Popkin ◽  
James E. Rosenbaum ◽  
Patricia M. Meaden
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income

Living in Between: A Grounded Theory Study of Depression Among Middle-Class Black Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 009579842110365
Author(s):  
Quenette L. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
The Core ◽  
Monolithic Group ◽  
Treatment Of Depression ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Black World

Empirical evidence consistently has linked the identification and treatment of depression among low-income Black women. Research on depression and Black women also suggests Black women are a monolithic group who experience depression similarly. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain a deeper understanding of how the identity of middle-class Black women may shape their experiences with depression. Using grounded theory as the guiding method, I conducted 30 in-depth, semistructured interviews with Black women between 30 and 45 years old who self-identified as middle class. The core experience of depression among middle-class Black women was “living in between” because they straddled two worlds—one Black world and one White world—with competing sociocultural messages about depression. Two major categories emerged that informed the experiences of depression among the middle-class Black women in this study: (a) strategies to deal with depression and (b) minimizing depression. Each of these categories highlighted consequences for the women’s mental health. The women also described coping strategies for managing these experiences. Implications for research and practice are included.

Limits of the current implementation of incremental housing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Goran Ivo Marinovic
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Housing Policy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Specific Location ◽  
Current Implementation ◽  
Incremental Housing

In the case of conventional public housing, urban planners and policymakers design the layout of a housing project in a specific location and then estimate how many households can afford a home. This housing policy has been pursued as a legitimate solution for housing low- and middle-income households where the houses are individually financed by bank loans or mortgages raised by the occupants. John Turner criticised conventional housing solutions by affirming that ‘developing governments take the perspective of the elite and act as if the process of low-income houses were the same as in high-income countries and the same as for the small upper-middle class of their own countries’. Bruce Ferguson and Jesus Navarrete extend this argument with their critique of distributing finished houses to low-income populations and then requiring long-term payments, which are harmful to the beneficiaries. They note that ‘governments think of housing as complete units built by developers that households must purchase with a long-term loan rather than as a progressive process’.

scholarly journals Immigration and economic mobility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria F. Hoen ◽  
Simen Markussen ◽  
Knut Røed
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Labor Market Outcomes ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Class Background ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Relative Prime

AbstractWe examine how immigration affects natives’ relative prime-age labor market outcomes by economic class background, with class background established on the basis of parents’ earnings rank. Exploiting alternative sources of variation in immigration patterns across time and space, we find that immigration from low-income countries reduces intergenerational mobility and thus steepens the social gradient in natives’ labor market outcomes, whereas immigration from high-income countries levels it. These findings are robust with respect to a wide range of identifying assumptions. The analysis is based on high-quality population-wide administrative data from Norway, which is one of the rich-world countries with the most rapid rise in the immigrant population share over the past two decades. Our findings suggest that immigration can explain a considerable part of the observed relative decline in economic performance among natives with a lower-class background.

“Brenda’s Got a Baby”

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooklynn K. Hitchens ◽  
Yasser Arafat Payne
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Single Motherhood ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
Group Interviews

This secondary analysis examines low-income, street-identified single Black mothers aged 18 to 35 years in Wilmington, Delaware. This study is guided by the following question: To what extent do family composition and criminal record/street activity shape notions of Black single motherhood? “Sites of resilience” theory informs this study by providing a reconceptualization of street life and the phenomenological experiences of street-identified Black women. This analysis draws on 310 surveys, 6 individual interviews, 3 dual interviews, 2 group interviews, and extensive field observations. Findings reveal how these women experience single motherhood within the context of blocked opportunity and structural inequality. Results also indicate that most women socially reproduced childhood attitudes and conditions, including “fatherless” homes and single motherhood. Use and sales of narcotics and incarceration were primary factors for why their children’s father didn’t reside in the home. Findings also suggest that number of children, arrest and incarceration rates, and educational and employment statuses are predictive of marital status in the women.

scholarly journals A Field Experiment to Test the Labor Market Value of a Credential from a For-Profit Postsecondary School

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Carolyn Arcand
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
School Type ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Job Interview ◽  
For Profit

The attainment of postsecondary credentials holds particular promise in improving economic security for low-income single mothers. However, the type of school attended may matter when determining whether postsecondary credentials will foster positive labor market outcomes and financial stability for former students. This paper describes the pre-test of a field experiment to examine whether the school type listed on a job applicant’s resume has an impact on receiving a call for a job interview, in fields commonly pursued by low-income women. School types tested were for-profit schools and community colleges. Results revealed little difference in outcomes for job seekers with credentials from each school type. However, more reliable results could be obtained by repeating this study in a stronger economy, using job candidates with minimal applicable experience, applying to a greater number of positions, and selecting occupations for which an academic credential is widely seen as a prerequisite for entry.DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v5i1_arcand

scholarly journals Why Is There Learning Disabilities? A Critical Analysis of the Birth of the Field in Its Social Context

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Sleeter
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Low Achievers ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Minority Children ◽  
Degree Of Protection ◽  
White Middle Class

This chapter presents an interpretation of why the category of learning disabilities emerged, that differs from interpretations that currently prevail. It argues that the category was created in response to social conditions during the late 1950s and early 1960s which brought about changes in schools that were detrimental to children whose achievement was relatively low. The category was created by white middle class parents in an effort to differentiate their children from low-achieving low-income and minority children. The category offered their children a degree of protection from probable consequences of low achievement because it upheld their intellectual normalcy and the normalcy of their home backgrounds, and it suggested hope for a cure and for their ability eventually to attain higher status occupations than other low achievers.

Theorizing Gentrification as a Process of Racial Capitalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 153568412110547
Author(s):  
Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Composition ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Prior Literature

Academics largely define gentrification based on changes in the class demographics of neighborhood residents from predominately low-income to middle-class. This ignores that gentrification always occurs in spaces defined by both class and race. In this article, I use the lens of racial capitalism to theorize gentrification as a racialized, profit-accumulating process, integrating the perspective that spaces are always racialized to class-centered theories. Using the prior literature on gentrification in the United States, I demonstrate how the concepts of value, valuation, and devaluation from racial capitalism explain where and how gentrification unfolds. Exposure to gentrification varies depending on a neighborhood’s racial composition and the gentrification stakeholders involved, which contributes to racial differences in the scale and pace of change and the implications of those changes for the processes of displacement. Revising our understanding of gentrification to address the racialization of space helps resolve seemingly contradictory findings across qualitative and quantitative studies.

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