Special Issue Defining and Measuring the Underclass This special made - PDF document

Special Issue Defining and Measuring the Underclass This special made possible ": Choices, confidence, is the Christopher Jencks A contextual poor.Z This much-publicized The underclass carries concept for which is no simple definition. one considers the persistently poor incomes remain to one-half this category. the underclass smaller group the persistently poor- widows, for example-neither live with high mainstream norms. Because Census data available on the spatial concentration whereas data on deviant behaviors available, researchers Census- the underclass. count as members the underclass poor persons who live areas where great proportion population is poor.8 poor and nonpoor, of men from high large proportion and in that receive welfare.9 all persons the articles that that neighborhood effects children, are surrounding economic very narrow the underclass various concepts-the able-bodied per- attached to the labor force areas characterized and welfare dependency. Such requirements small count. the other could define the underclass more broadly the poor needs cannot be addressed cash transfers This rather subjective exclude the elderly expected to work, It would include those who were on the their demographic characteristics, work, but responsibility for their families. The arguments the definition underclass are extent that influence popular thinking policy, they the socioeconomic ladder. Should the government provide the underclass? Or teen mother school dropout required to and/or training program to take job? The answers to such the current shapes future This issue organized as David Ellwood social science models that attempt to predict long-term welfare behavior inextricably generated widespread He examines three choice models, which focus the sense control one's cultural models, which seek individuals ration- the options select the one that gives them satisfaction. This single mothers choose to welfare makes sense. Full- at modest rates makes only slightly states. Those with high earn their long-term dependency only through finds only culture as explanations suggests that welfare becomes aggravating passivity it is can intimidate, isolate, and stigma- effects do The cultural model suggests that living stances welfare becomes option to ghettos, where presumed to these communities, must be on ghetto residents. expectancy and explaining such behavior as births to unmarried teenagers, action that little sense from an ample evidence support almost teenage behavior except fails to behaviors that increase the likelihood fare dependency, such as births the decline model is used, there evidence that the changes that politically feasible will structure or long-term welfare In concluding, makes the point that although cultural models are hard to test not mean that they be pursued. need for systematic modeling that integrates the insights Christopher Jencks important contribution whether or the underclass himself to the evaluation different underclasses and examines views "the term underclass and others Ricketts shows that 1950 black white marriage patterns were substantially the same. connection between in family formation and the location blacks were increasingly vulnerable to postindustrial economy that the inner Non- and female-headed households well be the high rates joblessness faced Ricketts speculates further upward mobility the civil revolution and affirmative action uncertainty inherent advancement makes plan for the men postpone marriage, confident that when ready for select a suggests that Indians living on many a part and that their experi- contribute to an understanding reservation system Indian population was largely in settling society. As a result, been living in poverty Residents of a number appear to frequently used which over graduate from men lack full-time jobs; and households receive public assistance and are residents manifest well high rates and/or Ironically, though free to despite wretched tions, because value their traditional the only place in world where native language is economic, social, and physical iso- lation from the majority society has an more than life-close kinship ties and a in this special issue take the reader to the nature and meaning the term "underclass." As is much additional be completed before a consensus reached on the processes that generate devised to reverse those processes. less vague and less imprecise than IGreg Acs, Paul Sandra Danziger, and Elizabeth Uhr provided valuable comments on a prior 2Sheldon Danziger, Peter Gottschalk, and Eugene Smolensky, "How the Rich Have Fared, 1973-1987:: American Economic Review, 1989). 310-314. Reprint no. 3The Tmly The Inner and Public (Chicago: University 1987), p. 8. 4Politics and the Professors: The Great Society in Perspective (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), p. 23. swashington, Policy Planning and Research, Labor. 1965. 6The p. 4 'See, for example, ficus, 10 (Sum- mer 1987), the special Political and Social Science ghetto underclass, Mead, "The Underclass and 1989), and Wilson, "The Underclass: Issues, Perspec- 1989), 182-192. asheldon Danziger and Gottschalk, "Earnings Inequality, the Spatial and the Underclass," American Economic 1987), (available as Reprint no. Bane and Jargowsky. Areas: Basic Questions Concerning Prevalence, Growth. and Dynamics," McGeary and Laurence Lynn, eds., Concentrated Urban Poverfy in America (Washing- ton, D.C.: National Academy Press, forthcoming). 9Erol Ricketts and Mincy, the Underclass: 1970-1980," Urban Institute, Washington,