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Author: Bloome, Deirdre
Resulting in 9 citations.
1. Bloome, Deirdre
Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Demography 54,2 (April 2017): 541-569.
Also: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-017-0564-4
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Childhood Adversity/Trauma; Family Structure; Income Distribution; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Economic; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The declining prevalence of two-parent families helped increase income inequality over recent decades. Does family structure also condition how economic (dis)advantages pass from parents to children? If so, shifts in the organization of family life may contribute to enduring inequality between groups defined by childhood family structure. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, I combine parametric and nonparametric methods to reveal how family structure moderates intergenerational income mobility in the United States. I find that individuals raised outside stable two-parent homes are much more mobile than individuals from stable two-parent families. Mobility increases with the number of family transitions but does not vary with children's time spent coresiding with both parents or stepparents conditional on a transition. However, this mobility indicates insecurity, not opportunity. Difficulties maintaining middle-class incomes create downward mobility among people raised outside stable two-parent homes. Regardless of parental income, these people are relatively likely to become low-income adults, reflecting a new form of perverse equality. People raised outside stable two-parent families are also less likely to become high-income adults than people from stable two-parent homes. Mobility differences account for about one-quarter of family-structure inequalities in income at the bottom of the income distribution and more than one-third of these inequalities at the top.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre. "Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States." Demography 54,2 (April 2017): 541-569.
2. Bloome, Deirdre
Family Structure, Race, and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Family Background and Culture; Family Structure; Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The declining prevalence of two-parent families helped raise income inequality over recent decades. What role does family structure play in reproducing income inequality across generations? If family structure shapes how parents transmit economic advantages to their children, then recent shifts in family life may perpetuate inequality between groups defined by childhood family structure. Moreover, because of large racial differences in single-parent families' prevalence, family-structure differences in mobility may also perpetuate economic inequalities between racial groups. Using NLSY data, I combine parametric and nonparametric methods to explore how family structure and race shape intergenerational mobility. I find that individuals from single-parent families are much more mobile than individuals from two-parent families. Their mobility indicates instability: difficulties maintaining middle-class incomes generate weak intergenerational ties. High downward mobility among people from single-parent homes suggests a new form of “perverse equality,” as historically-disadvantaged demographic groups are less “positively constrained” by family background.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre. "Family Structure, Race, and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States." Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014.
3. Bloome, Deirdre
Income Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Working Paper, Russell Sage Foundation, April 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Family Income; Income; Income Distribution; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Is there a relationship between family income inequality and income mobility across generations in the United States? As family income inequality rose in the U.S., parental resources available for improving children’s health, education, and care diverged. The amount and rate of divergence also varied across U.S. states. Researchers and policy analysts have expressed concern that relatively high inequality might be accompanied by relatively low mobility, tightening the connection between individuals’ incomes during childhood and adulthood. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and various government sources, this paper exploits state and cohort variation to estimate the relationship between inequality and mobility. Results provide very little support for the hypothesis that inequality shapes mobility in the U.S. The inequality to which children were exposed during youth has no robust association with the mobility they experienced as adults. Formal analysis reveals that offsetting effects could underlie this result. In theory, mobility-enhancing forces may counterbalance mobility-reducing effects. In practice, the results suggest that in the U.S. context, the intergenerational transmission of income may not be very responsive to changes in inequality of the size observed since 1970.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre. "Income Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States." Working Paper, Russell Sage Foundation, April 2013.
4. Bloome, Deirdre
Income Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Social Forces 93,3 (March 2015): 1047-1080.
Also: http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/3/1047.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Keyword(s): Family Income; Income Distribution; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Is there a relationship between family income inequality and income mobility across generations in the United States? As family income inequality rose in the United States, parental resources available for improving children's health, education, and care diverged. The amount and rate of divergence also varied across US states. Researchers and policy analysts have expressed concern that relatively high inequality might be accompanied by relatively low mobility, tightening the connection between individuals' incomes during childhood and adulthood. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and various government sources, this paper exploits state and cohort variation to estimate the relationship between inequality and mobility. Results provide very little support for the hypothesis that inequality shapes mobility in the United States. The inequality children experienced during youth had no robust association with their economic mobility as adults. Formal analysis reveals that offsetting effects could underlie this result. In theory, mobility-enhancing forces may counterbalance mobility-reducing effects. In practice, the results suggest that in the US context, the intergenerational transmission of income may not be very responsive to changes in inequality.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre. "Income Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States." Social Forces 93,3 (March 2015): 1047-1080.
5. Bloome, Deirdre
Rising Tides Lift Which Boats? Connecting Absolute and Relative Mobility Across Generations
Presented: Austin TX, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2019
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Childhood; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Mobility, Economic

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In assessing the extent to which individuals escape childhood disadvantages (or maintain childhood advantages), researchers often study relative mobility across generations (individuals' movements up or down the income rankings from their parents' position). Yet many people experience absolute income gains across generations without upward relative mobility. This paper explores the connection between absolute and relative mobility. I show how absolute mobility depends on relative mobility at the population level, in addition to economic growth and income inequality. I connect these population-level absolute and relative mobility patterns to individual-level mobility experiences. Finally, I propose measures to characterize the joint distribution of individual-level absolute and relative mobility experiences. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, I describe these joint mobility experiences, including the probability of experiencing upward absolute mobility without upward rank mobility. People from advantaged demographic groups appear particularly likely to enjoy this experience of floating with the rising tide. [Also presented at New York NY: American Sociological Association Meeting, August 2019]
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre. "Rising Tides Lift Which Boats? Connecting Absolute and Relative Mobility Across Generations." Presented: Austin TX, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2019.
6. Bloome, Deirdre
Dyer, Shauna
Zhou, Xiang
Educational Inequality, Educational Expansion, and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
Presented: Chicago IL, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2017
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Economic

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

How has intergenerational income mobility remained stable in the United States while educational inequalities have risen? Scholars predicted that mobility would decline as college graduates became increasingly likely to have higher-income parents and higher-income adult families than people without college degrees. We show that mobility remained stable because rising educational inequalities were offset by two factors. First, because mobility is highest among college graduates, educational expansion---more people completing college, whatever their parents' income---increased income mobility. Second, non-educational pathways linking parents' and children's incomes weakened. We introduce new methods to connect trends in intergenerational income mobility, educational inequality, and educational expansion. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, 1979 and 1997 cohorts, we reveal that massive educational expansion only partially offset rising educational inequality. Income mobility remained stable across cohorts because educational expansion and non-educational change---including delayed transitions to adulthood---put upward pressure on mobility.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre, Shauna Dyer and Xiang Zhou. "Educational Inequality, Educational Expansion, and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States." Presented: Chicago IL, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2017.
7. Bloome, Deirdre
Dyer, Shauna
Zhou, Xiang
Educational Inequality, Educational Expansion, and Intergenerational Income Persistence in the United States
American Sociological Review 83,6 (December 2018): 1215-1253.
Also: ttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122418809374
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Family Income; Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Economic

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The children of high-income parents often become high-income adults, while their low-income peers often become low-income adults. Education plays a central role in this intergenerational income persistence. Because education-based inequalities grew in recent decades, many scholars predicted that intergenerational income persistence would increase. However, previous research suggests that it remained stable across recent cohorts. We address this puzzle. Analyzing National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data, we find that growing educational inequality by parental income, along with rising economic returns to education, increased intergenerational persistence, as scholars expected. However, two countervailing trends offset this increase. The expansion of higher education reduced persistence, because completing college helps low-income children become high-income adults. Yet, this reduction in persistence was far from enough to offset the increase in persistence associated with growing educational inequality and rising educational returns. Intergenerational persistence would have increased if not for another change: within educational groups, parental income became less predictive of adult income. New methodological tools underlie these findings, tools that quantify, for the first time, education's full force in intergenerational income persistence. These findings suggest that to reduce intergenerational persistence, educational policies should focus less on how many people complete college and more on who completes college.
Bibliography Citation
Bloome, Deirdre, Shauna Dyer and Xiang Zhou. "Educational Inequality, Educational Expansion, and Intergenerational Income Persistence in the United States." American Sociological Review 83,6 (December 2018): 1215-1253.
8. Western, Bruce
Bloome, Deirdre
Cohort Change and Racial Differences in Intergenerational Education and Income Mobility
Presented: Dallas, TX, Population Association of America Meetings, April 2010
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Education; Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Male Sample; Mobility; Mobility, Economic; Parental Influences; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study examines trends in intergenerational education and income mobility across two recent cohorts in the U.S. Income inequality rose substantially between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s, in part due to rising returns to schooling, and yet few studies have examined changes in the mobility of young adults across these two periods. Perhaps more significantly, African Americans reaching maturity in these two periods faced very different opportunity structures while growing up. This paper studies whether changes in the social and economic organization of American society differentially affected the mobility of black and white men. Using nationally representative data from two cohorts of children and their parents from the National Longitudinal Surveys, this paper finds a significant liberalization of educational mobility for African Americans, while both white and black men's incomes became somewhat more dependent on their parents' incomes.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Deirdre Bloome. "Cohort Change and Racial Differences in Intergenerational Education and Income Mobility." Presented: Dallas, TX, Population Association of America Meetings, April 2010.
9. Western, Bruce
Bloome, Deirdre
Variance Function Regressions for Studying Inequality
Sociological Methodology 39,1 (August 2009): 293-326.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9531.2009.01222.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Earnings; Incarceration/Jail; Methods/Methodology; Modeling; Risk-Taking; Variables, Independent - Covariate; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Regression-based studies of inequality model only between-group differences, yet often these differences are far exceeded by residual inequality. Residual inequality is usually attributed to measurement error or the influence of unobserved characteristics. We present a model, called variance function regression, that includes covariates for both the mean and variance of a dependent variable. In this model, the residual variance is treated as a target for analysis. In analyses of inequality, the residual variance might be interpreted as measuring risk or insecurity. Variance function regressions are illustrated in an analysis of panel data on earnings among released prisoners in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We extend the model to a decomposition analysis, relating the change in inequality to compositional changes in the population and changes in coefficients for the mean and variance. The decomposition is applied to the trend in U.S. earnings inequality among male workers, 1970 to 2005.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Deirdre Bloome. "Variance Function Regressions for Studying Inequality." Sociological Methodology 39,1 (August 2009): 293-326.