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.

Sociology, Individual and Family Studies (0628)

5005

ISBN 0-493-50617-9