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The claim that class rather than race has become the main determinant of segregation is discussed. Black residential segregation seems to remain high across all income levels, and the gap between Blacks and other minority groups to increase as income rises.

The modern US has been characterized as an 'hourglass economy' with a proliferation of jobs at the top and bottom of wage distribution, but very little in between. The distribution of occupational wages is examined between 1949 and 1989 using data from PUMS files. The experience of men was found to generally conform to the hourglass metaphor, although the metaphor fails for women.

An examination of the effect of spatially concentrated joblessness on the well-being of African Americans shows that joblessness has significant negative socioeconomic impacts. Observation of an individual's family and neighborhood characteristics reveals that African American men living in areas of concentrated male joblessness are more likely to be jobless and women living in such areas to be more likely to be unmarried and become teenage mothers.

A comparison of information on Mexican immigrants from the 1990 US census with that of alternative cross-sectional data reveals underenumeration, changing cohort quality, and selective emigration as problems that affect cross sectional regressions of language assimilation and wage attainment. Underenumeration of temporary and undocumented migrants biases the estimated effects of human capital variables downward. Selective emigration does not affect cross-sectional models significantly. The period of entry is a poor substitute for total migrant experience and when duration and cohort effects are eliminated there is the presence of shifts in cohort quality over time.

We outline a theoretical model that identifies residential segregation as a primary structural cause of the geographic concentration of poverty in U.S. urban areas. From this theory we specify and estimate a multilevel equation that links minority poverty and segregation within metropolitan areas to the concentration of socioeconomic deprivation within neighborhoods. We then estimate a second set of multilevel equations that connect neighborhood poverty rates to individual-level outcomes commonly associated with the underclass: male joblessness, teenage motherhood, and single parenthood. Our results link economic and social structures at the metropolitan level to individual outcomes that operate to perpetuate poverty and lead to the creation of the underclass.

This paper analyzes similarities and differences in structural forces generating urban poverty among whites, blacks, and Hispanics. We specify an integrated structural equation model based on current theories about the causes of urban poverty proposed by Murray (1984) and Wilson (1987). This model is estimated for each group using data on 59 U.S. standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs) in 1980. Neither theory provides a good explanation for patterns of white poverty, which are determined more by prevailing wage rates and levels of white education. Both theories, however, are verified when applied to the two minority groups; but neither theory identifies the single factor which most strongly determines minority poverty: prevailing wage rates. In general, Murray's hypothesis proves to be more powerful than Wilson's in accounting for urban poverty among blacks, whereas Wilson's theory provides a more powerful explanation in the case of Hispanics. Wilson's structural economic effects, however, are mediated less through the minority marriage market than through their direct effect on the income distribution.