Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System [Paperback]

Douglas S. Massey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0871545845 | ISBN-13: 978-0871545848

The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America's singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America's culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population.

Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation's history. African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women's advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility. At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells.

America's unrivalled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans. By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation Publications (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871545845
• ISBN-13: 978-0871545848
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Class

More About the Author

Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Formerly he was the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author of American Apartheid (Harvard University Press, 1993), which won the Distinguished Publication Award of the American Sociological Association, and more recently he co-authored The Source of the River, the first analysis of minority achievement in selective colleges and universities based on a representative, national sample.

Massey has also published extensively on Mexican immigration, including the books Return to Aztlan (University of California Press, 1987) and Miracles on the Border (University of Arizona Press, 1995). The latter book, co-authored with Jorge Durand, won a 1996 Southwest Book Award. His latest two books on immigration, coauthored with long-time collaborator Jorge Durand, are Crossing the Border (Russell Sage Press, 2004) and Beyond Smoke and Mirrors (Russell Sage Press 2002). The latter offers a critical analysis of U.S. immigration policy toward Mexico during a period of widespread economic integration under NAFTA and won the 2004 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for the best book in social demography,.

Massey has also served on the faculty of the University of Chicago where he directed its Latin American Studies Center and Population Research Center. He is also formerly a director of the University of Pennsylvania's Population Studies Center and chair of its Graduate Group in Demography. During 1979 and 1980 he undertook postdoctoral research at the University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1978. Massey is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is Past-President of the Population Association of America and the American Sociological Association and current President of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

His most recent book is Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in America's Selective Colleges and Universities (Princeton University Press 2009). He is currently revising a book entitled Brokered Boundaries: Constructing Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times (co-authored with Magaly Sanchez).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best introduction to the topic of social stratification in the U.S. August 1, 2011

By Martin Hughes

Format:Paperback

Although this is not a textbook (strictly speaking), it reads like one, which is what I think the author intended. It is a concise and inexpensive introduction to the history of social inequality in the United States. Massey is one of the premier sociologists of stratification, so much of the literature he reviews, summarizes, and describes here is his own, or that of the many people he has trained and/or collaborated with over the years. No one knows the research better than he does, and it shows. Not only that, but he writes in a style that is accessible to the uninitiated reader.

Massey is a sociologist, but he approaches the topic of stratification from the perspective of cognitive psychology. He discusses how humans tend to lump people into categorical groups based on social characteristics. In the U.S. the most salient characteristics have been race, gender, and social class. He describes how our response to people in the preferred categories ('in-group'), as well as those in other categories ('out-groups') is to some extent 'hard-wired' in our brains and thus operates at a subconscious level. These primal prejudices have resulted in institutional practices and individual behaviors that have disadvantaged the poor, women, and people of color. Even some of the more progressive social welfare policies of the 20th century were intentionally crafted to exclude these 'undesirable' groups.

This book is a real eye-opener, but it is bound to frustrate some readers because Massey debunks the popular myth that America is a land of equal opportunity, in which any individual can succeed by dint of hard work and talent, irrespective of social characteristics. He does concede that there has been some recent improvement for certain disadvantaged groups, but he also demonstrates how past inequality persists - and can even compound its effect - into the present. Although I found his lapses into conventional liberal rhetoric annoying, his arguments were persuasive because of the overwhelming evidence he presents. If you're looking for an entry point into the sociological research on stratification, you can't do any better than this.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid, Comprehensive and Comprehensible February 21, 2009

By Jimi L. Alexander

Format:Paperback

As a textbook I was required to purchase for an upper-division Sociology class, this was an eye-opening peek into the processes of social stratification and racial/gender inequality. The premise is that inequality in the United States is currently at its greatest level in the past 100 years, and how it got there. I thoroughly recommend.

4.0 out of 5 stars very informative book February 10, 2013

By A customer HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

hearing and seeing data that shows polls about numbers and the divide is one thing, however its another when a writer cuts to the chase and breaks it down in a language and manner that puts it into a full perspective and leaves nothing off the table. very direct and on point from start to finish. it puts so much into a modern context and truly shows where things are.