Transmitting inequality: An asset-based analysis of racial and ethnic inequality and its intergenerational transmission

This dissertation explores the determinants and socioeconomic consequences of inequality in material assets among middle-aged American households. Using survey data from the Health and Retirement study (HRS), and utilizing suitable quantitative techniques, this study establishes a conceptual ground which brings back the critical role private property and kinship relations play in contemporary stratification processes. This study shows that in the contemporary post-transitional, multi-asset society, two social mechanisms of closure and exclusion--marriage and inheritance--intervene in the connection between position in the labor market and position in the commodity market. Because the structure and the socioeconomic function of the family vary across racial/ethnic lines, I argue that the framework developed in this study is especially useful to the understanding of racial and ethnic inequality and its perpetuation across generations.