Disclosure, Discrimination, and Identity among Working Professionals with Bipolar Disorder or Major Depression

This chapter presents the results of an analysis of in-depth interviews with a snowball sample of 45 people who identified as working professionals diagnosed with bipolar disorder or major depression. It explores three dimensions of their experience: disclosure versus concealment of their diagnosis on the job, exposure to discrimination in the workplace based on their mental illness diagnosis, and identity strategies they used to manage the status inconsistency between being a professional and having a mental illness diagnosis. The findings reveal how people learn to calculate when it is safe to disclose their diagnosis on the job, especially after experiencing discriminatory treatment such as being fired or demoted. They also indicate that applying for workplace modifications to accommodate symptoms of mental illness may be met with unprofessional and unsupportive reactions on the part of managers, Human Resources professionals, and coworkers, which could explain in part why so few participants in this sample sought them. When it comes to balancing inconsistent statuses, the findings demonstrate how people distance themselves from their mental illness identity in favor of the more prized status of working professional as a means of self-preservation. The chapter concludes with a call for sweeping changes in workplace culture to minimize fear and shame and maximize inclusion of people diagnosed with mental illness, allowing them to flourish in careers in which they may realize their full potential.

Political and Social Consequences of Qualification Mismatches: A Bounding Approach to Status Inconsistency

Many employees work in jobs that do not match their level of formal education. Status inconsistency theory (SIT) argues that such mismatches result in stress, dissatisfaction, political alienation, and social withdrawal. Status inconsistency may, therefore, pose a threat to social cohesion. However, extant SIT scholarship does not fully appreciate the consequences of an identification problem due to the perfect collinearity among the effects of occupation, education, and their mismatch. I review the literature and show that prior findings depend on implicit theoretical assumptions that are often implausible once spelled out. To overcome this problem, I propose a new approach to the study of mismatches that builds on recent advances in the modeling of age, period, and cohort effects. I demonstrate how a set of relatively weak assumptions that are transparently grounded in sociological theory allows for (partial) identification of mismatch effects. The empirical analysis draws on comparable large-scale survey data from the United Kingdom (UKLHS) and Germany (GSOEP), two countries with a very different institutional organization of education to job matching. Compared with previous research, I use theoretically justified identifying assumptions and provide more rigorous evidence by addressing non-random selection into mismatch. Constrained regression models show mismatch effects on work-related identities, satisfaction, and organizational integration. Contra SIT, my results suggest that the effects of mismatches do not arise from cognitive dissonance but from an expectation formation mechanism. I find only weak evidence that mismatch effects spill over into the political domain. Despite large institutional differences, the results are similar across countries.

Strangers in our midst: Immigration, social capital and segmented conflict

Putnam famously stated in his ‘hunkering down’ thesis that residents of diverse communities experiencing immigration retreat into their homes inhibiting the production of ‘social capital’. Immigration is therefore often posited to disrupt communities and positive social interaction, ultimately increasing tension and conflict between groups. Moving beyond Putnam’s simplistic account that immigration inevitably disrupts social capital, this article aims to instead show the complex features of civility and conflict that can co-exist among migrant and local communities. The research was based in a small working-class town in the North West of England that experienced the migration of Polish workers. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, the key results show how new Polish migrants in particular demonstrate complex forms of social interaction displaying in-group hostility but out-group civility. Lenski’s notion of ‘status inconsistency’ is used to help explain why migrants with a high level of education but a low income are particularly mistrustful and intolerant of others.

Status Inconsistencies and Power in Intimate Relations: Domestic Exploitation and Violence Against Women in Homogenous and Mixed Couples Formed by Native and Migrant Partners

We test two theories explaining domestic exploitation and violent abuse against women in couples. Exchange theory predicts both to increase when men outpower women; status inconsistency, when women do. As violence and exploitation can affect a couple’s resources, making the model recursive, we focus on native status. Using data from a women’s victimization survey ( N = 8,000), we apply biprobit models to compare violent abuse and domestic exploitation in homogeneous and mixed couples in which one is a migrant. The results validate status inconsistency theory: native women with male migrant partners are less exploited but have the highest risks of being abused.

Cultural omnivorousness and status inconsistency in Chile: the role of objective and subjective social status

Sociological research has long shown that cultural participation is socially stratified. We build on this literature to discuss the role of the subjective and objective dimensions of stratification, and how they are linked to practices of social distinction through cultural consumption. The aim of this study is to understand (1) the effect of subjective and objective social status on patterns of cultural participation, and (2) the implications of the status inconsistency between objective and subjective social status. We use a probabilistic and representative sample of the Chilean urban population over the age of 18. Latent class analyses show that a significant proportion of Chileans can be considered cultural omnivores. Multinomial diagonal reference models suggest that omnivorousness is positively predicted by subjective and objective social status. Moreover, regarding inconsistency, objective social status is prominent in the explanation of omnivorousness for both status-underestimating (SSSOSS). These findings provide important insights for discussing the implications of status inconsistency on cultural consumption.

Political and Social Consequences of Qualification Mismatches. A bounding approach to status inconsistency

A significant number of employees work in jobs that do not match their level of formal education. Status inconsistency theory (SIT) argues that mismatches result in stress, political alienation, and social withdrawal. As the number of mismatched workers rises in many countries, status inconsistency may pose a threat to social cohesion and political mod-eration there. However, the existing evidence on the social and political consequences of mismatch is neither conclusive nor convincing. Previous SIT scholarship does not fully appreciate two identification problems: Selection bias and the perfect collinearity among the effects of occupation, education, and mismatch. These issues lead to contradictory conclusions, as different methodological fixes are proposed and employed. I review these methods for their theoretical content and show that they generally do not answer the purported research ques-tion. To address these problems, I build on recent advances in the mod-elling of age, period and cohort effects. My approach is based on rela-tively weak, transparent assumptions that are grounded in sociological theory to partially identify mismatch effects and estimate bounds on effect sizes. The empirical analysis draws on comparable large-scale survey data from the United Kingdom (UKLHS) and Germany (GSOEP). Cross-sectional and panel fixed-effects models show strong mismatch effects on work-related identities, satisfaction, and wages. Contra the SIT hypothesis, I find no evidence that mismatch effects spill over into the political domain. My results suggest that the effects of mismatches do not arise from cognitive dissonance, as theorized by SIT, but from an expectation formation mechanism. Despite large institutional differences, the results are very similar across countries.