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Despite the major cultural and political differences between the U.S. and China, in both countries access to jobs is supposed to be guided by fair and equitable procedures. In the U.S., there is a presumption of an open labor market in which potential employees compete on the basis of their qualifications, where the fairness of decisions are guided by anti-discrimination laws and normative organizational policies. In China, although there is a history of close relationships that guide the exchange of favors, following the 1949 revolution, Communist Party leaders were given the authority to allocate positions in ways that were supposed to eliminate special privileges of class and background. Yet in both the U.S. and China, social connections are an important part of everyday interaction. In the U.S. context, such connections are described as social capital. In the Chinese context, connections are defined as guanxi. A review of research on labor market processes in both the U.S. and China shows that despite the major differences between these countries on cultural values and political systems, the U.S. and China are similar to each other in terms of the extent of social network influence on access to jobs. The implications of the similarities in labor market processes in the context of such different countries are explored in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of race in the efforts of the Republican and Democratic Parties to create an electoral majority in the post-civil rights period. In the paper I address how black voting rights and attention to black interests have affected party coalitions, how the interplay of race and politics since World War II has contributed to the evolution of the "50-50 state," the transformation of racial politics into the religious politics of the Religious Right, the role of the New Right in the politicization of the Religious Right, the influence of racial politics in the South versus elsewhere and the important role of the South in party competition, the key role of the white working class especially in the Midwest in the efforts of both parties to mobilize a political majority, and the conflict within both parties between party activists and moderates over racial politics in the efforts to create a political majority. I end the paper with a discussion of the 2008 election in the ongoing struggle by each party to create a "permanent" majority in the post-civil rights period and discuss how the seeming contradiction between the political rhetoric of party elites versus the political attitudes of the electorate contributes to the ongoing controversy regarding reaction versus realignment that was sparked anew by the 2008 election. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of race, religion, class, and culture in post-civil rights politics in order to sort out the misunderstanding and confusion in the current analyses of politics in the contemporary U.S. In the paper, I address how black voting rights and attention to black interests have affected party coalitions, the assumption that racial politics became religious politics, the role of the New Right and the sources of their funding in the emergence of the Religious Right, the influence of the South in contemporary politics, the controversy over the political affiliations of the white working class, and the conflict within the Democratic Party between "New Democrats" and the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." I also discuss the confusion that is evident regarding political attitudes and the relationship to political behavior and the current close division between the two major parties that have created what some have called the "50/50 state." I end the paper with a discussion of the implications for both major parties in their efforts (i.e., struggle) to create a "permanent" majority out of the currently polarized electoral landscape in U.S. politics. The highly volatile political situation currently evident in the U.S., however, exists in the context of an electorate whose political attitudes have not changed much in the last several decades and whose political values appear to be trending toward liberal views. Finally, I discuss why these two seemingly incompatible circumstances appear together in post-civil rights politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using interview data with 246 U.S. born whites from three areas of the country, this paper explores the attitudes of white Americans toward inequality by looking at the explanations they give for how people get ahead in the world and how they view the circumstances of their own lives. In addition, using survey data from the interviewees, the paper examines how their political perspective and social position affects their views of egalitarianism and individualism, their view of the role of govement in mitigating inequality, and their views of whether people who are rich earn what they get out of life. The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of the pervasive assumption that life outcomes are the result of character and motivation rather than structural factors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates white Americans' attitudes about immigrants and immigration through a qualitative study using 240 face-to-face interviews with white Americans in Ohio, Tennessee and New Jersey. In contrast to previous studies based on closed ended questions from public opinion polls, we find that when not prompted by specific responses a significant fraction of white Americans hold no opinions, or are ambivalent, about immigration. In addition, those who do express opinions with respect to current immigration levels do so in "conditional" rather than absolute terms, shifting the question from "how many" to "what kind" of immigrants should come. "Good" immigrants who "deserve to be Americans" are those perceived by respondents as economically productive and self sufficient and those willing to culturally and linguistically assimilate. There was surprisingly little sentiment expressed in these interviews regarding immigrants as competitors for jobs held by whites. Economic concerns expressed by these white respondents were with regard to the economic self sufficiency of immigrants and their utilization of government resources. Threat was raised only with regard to the prospect that immigrants may want U.S. culture to change. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interviews with whites between the ages of 25-55 in three areas of the country (New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee) on their educational and job histories are used to explore the extent and consequence of the availability of social capital. Using three dimensions to define social capital (information that might not be available to others, the use of influence on the behalf of a job seeker, or opportunity provided from those who can make hiring decisions), we find that most of the interviewees throughout most of their lives had access to social capital. We find that men consistently had more social capital on average than women at different stages of their career histories, but a majority of both still used social capital throughout their lives. We do not find a difference by class or region. Although most of the interviewees used social capital, few were aware of the extent of help that they received, or if aware, often dismissed or discounted it as having had an effect on their life outcomes. We provide an explanation for why social capital is prevalent in use but not in consciousness through the following paradox: Nobody makes it on their own, but nobody makes it without their own effort. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational skills, along with technical competence, have been hailed as critical for the new economy. Because women are deemed to be more relationally skilled than men, a "female advantage" argument suggests that women with effective relational skills will be prefered over equally effective men. We examine the relative explanatory power of relational skills and of innovativeness on manager-rated promotability ratings. We also examine gender differences in the effects of relational skills and innovativeness on manager-rated promotability. Using survey data from scientists and engineers and independent evaluations from their managers in 24 major corporations, we find no support for a simple "female advantage" argument. However, we find that women whom managers deem to be innovative receive a larger boost to their promotability ratings when they are also perceived to be effective in their relational skills. Thus a "feminine" advantage appears to exist for women whom managers perceive to be innovative. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has found that access to social capital resources significantly affects career trajectories. However, insufficient attention has been given to how access to social capital resources may differ for groups defined by race/ethnicity, and how these differences affect the groups' use of social capital resources and the returns to their careers. We found that blacks had limited access to social capital resources to enhance their careers. In fact, most also received help from social programs that were specifically designed to provide opportunities to disadvantaged groups. This help, in many cases, contributed to their upward mobility. Thus, while social capital resources may offer some career assistance, our findings suggest that social programs are still needed for disadvantaged groups to get ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I use interviews with whites in three areas of the country about their life histories to examine the process of opportunity hoarding and the way social capital comes into play in the life outcomes for people in the U.S. I show that people hoard opportunities when they can and when the job would be a valuable resource for its recipient. I also put opportunity hoarding in the context of workers attempting to protect themselves from the way that market competition drives down wages and working conditions. Opportunities are hoarded because being subjected to "equal opportunity" often leads to low wages and poor working conditions. Given this, I show that how people think about opportunity hoarding is affected both by their racial attitudes and by how they perceive the Civil Rights Movement affected the ability of people like them to continue to hoard opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of workforce diversity on labor market outcomes. We argue that to understand the impact of workforce diversity, we must consider the effects of power, status, and numbers, or in other words, the distribution of valued and scarce resources, the relationships among people and groups, and the compositional effects of the unit (whether work group, job, occupation, firm, or society). We then discuss the mechanisms that generate and reproduce these dimensions of inequality and explain how they contribute to allocation decisions and evaluative processes that then lead to labor force outcomes, including attitudes, behaviors, and material and psychic rewards. [110] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has found that US born white men are advantaged in various ways in research environments, but research organizations differ in basic characteristics: the extent to which they are involved in basic research, funded by corporate sources, involved in external contracting, work under tight schedules, and use cross-functional teams. We assess whether US-born white men gain advantages in some kinds of organizations more than in others, using managers? reports to classify the organizations in this study. We find that in only a few organizational settings US-born white men?s advantage is attenuated, but that US-born white men are advantaged, both in terms of their access to favorable work environments and in their promotability, in most types of R&D organizations. Emerging forms of work organizations have received considerable attention over the last couple of decades, especially in the ways they affect workers (DiMaggio 2001; Heckscher 1995; Kanter 1997; Osterman 1994; Smith 1997). The introduction of high performance work practices (such as increased flexibility and teamwork) has been especially noticeable in firms that rely extensively on knowledge workers (Osterman 1995), perhaps because it is one way for managers to exercise tighter but less visible control on them (Barker 1993; Smith 1997). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks at the access to social capital resources of gender and class groups over the course of individuals? careers. The study finds that men, overall, have more access to social capital resources and greater career returns from them than women. The differences are somewhat less apparent by class, although social capital resources affect the education of middle/upper middle class individuals much more so than for working class individuals. We argue that cumulative disparities in access to social capital resources facilitate socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the extent to which scientists and engineers' family interference with work (FIW) and work interference with family (WIF) are associated directly and indirectly with three measures of their turnover intentions: moving to a non-research part of their company; moving to a different company in the U.S., and starting their own company. Consistent with current models of the work-family interface, we take into account support at work and support at home, FIW, work overload, work dissatisfaction, as well as WIF as direct and indirect predictors of turnover intentions. Taken together, our results suggest that for scientists and engineers employed in R&D, with dependents and whose spouse is employed, FIW had negative implications on their work overload, work dissatisfaction, and ultimately (but not directly) on their propensity to leave their research lab or their organization. High levels of WIF were associated with lesser intentions to leave R&D and appeared not to otherwise affect turnover intentions. Further, our study revealed that high levels of instrumental and appraisal support at work and of instrumental support at home were powerful in indirectly reducing turnover intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In depth interviews with 246 whites between the ages of 25-55 in three areas of the country regarding attitudes toward racial and economic inequality reveal a close link between religious identity and conservative political attitudes for both working and middle class interviewees. By comparing the attitudes of religious conservatives with nonreligious conservatives on those policy issues that were especially affected by the Civil Rights Movement (schools, welfare, the inner city), we show that religious conservatives use moral rhetoric and a framework of the strict father (i.e. tough love, self reliance) more so than nonreligious conservatives to attack public institutions that extended citizenship rights to blacks as part of the Civil Rights Movement, even though religious conservatives do not differ from nonreligious conservatives in the expression of support for the principles of the Civil Rights Movement itself (that blacks deserve the same rights and opportunities as everyone else). That is, while support for civil rights in the abstract has become normative in the country, racial politics are being played out instead through moral rhetoric that attacks public institutions and public policies that are intended to protect civil rights. Overall the analysis shows that the link between religion and politics in the post-Civil Rights period is not just an expression of values. Rather, racial politics shapes the particular interpretation of religious values as mandating political conservatism and anti-government rhetoric, then religious rhetoric further encourages and supports conservative politics, with the effect of challenging the outcomes of the Civil Rights Movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In almost all of the research that addresses categorical inequality, there has been an emphasis on discrimination or exclusion of some types of people from the benefits enjoyed by the normative in group. In much of the discussion of boundary work, there has been an implicit assumption about boundaries being created in order to keep some people out, but much less attention about how boundaries ensure that other types of people get in. I discuss in this paper the important distinctions between boundaries that ensure some people get in versus those that are intended to keep people out. Rather than being just different sides of the same coin (or same boundary), there are cognitive, political, legal, and economic implications about exclusion versus inclusion, about boundary work that is inclusive versus that which is exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of segments of the white electorate regarding their views of government and taxes. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 246 interviewees in three areas of the country, and including both middle and working class and male and female respondents. This paper specifically reports on questions about whether the interviewees believe that they get what they deserve from government and whether they feel that people like them would be better off if there were fewer demands from people with fewer economic resources on the government. The interviewee responses suggest that there is a very limited view of what constitutes government, with many of the interviewees thinking of government only in terms of transfer payments. For many government services at all levels, but especially at the federal level, are nearly invisible. Even so, most of the interviewees did not think that fewer demands by poor people would have much effect on them, and few seemed to be that concerned with the taxes that they paid. These findings suggest that there is a great deal that should be done to provide a clearer understanding of how taxes translate to government services and how services contribute to the everyday life of the electorate and to the building of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]