University of Maryland

Systems of Gender, Race, and Class Inequality:
Multilevel Analyses

Cotter, David A., Joan M. Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. "Systems of Gender, Race, and Class Inequality: Multilevel Analyses" 1999. Social Forces 78 (December): 433-460.

Abstract

Research on gender stratification has sometimes neglected how gender inequalities may vary by race/ethnicity and class. This research investigates the chances that white, African American, Hispanic, and Asian women and men reach the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90thpercentiles of white male earnings. It evaluates how these chances have varied across time since 1965 and across U.S. metropolitan areas in 1990. In general, the results show a substantial uniformity of gender differences across all four racial/ethnic groups and at each earnings level. While there are important exceptions to these general patterns, the permeability of racial and earnings boundaries to gender dynamics is quite impressive. Similarly, gender boundaries are quite permeable to macro-level racial inequality.


Last updated May 10, 2000
comments to: Reeve Vanneman. reeve@umd.edu