PI: Christopher Jencks Co PI: Elisabeth Jacobs Institition: Harvard University
This project studies family economic security, defined as the interaction between empirical economic volatility and perceived economic risk. While economic mobility research is at sociology's core, existing work focuses primarily on inter-generational mobility, or the relationship between an individual's socioeconomic status and the status of her parents. Intra-generational mobility, or the economic fluctuations that occur over the course of an individual's lifetime, is rarely examined. Moreover, existing intra-generational mobility research focuses primarily on upward, not downward, mobility. And no research to date investigates the perceived risk of downward mobility. Using statistical analysis of a nationally-representative dataset and in-depth interviews from three theoretically-defined samples, this research addresses this gap in the sociological literature and offers data and theory relevant to the development of both public social insurance systems and private economic safety nets. The project employs a mixed-methods approach to address the following questions:
1. How has family economic volatility evolved over the last four decades? 2. What explains these changes in economic volatility? 3. How do individuals perceive economic risk in their lives? 4. How do families manage economic risk in their lives? 5. What role do individuals believe institutions (e.g. government, employers, family) should play in family economic risk management, and what shapes these attitudes?
The broader impacts of this project are two-fold. First, the empirical and theoretical contributions will expand sociological knowledge of the processes behind Americans' economic and social well-being by treating them as dynamic, complex concepts. Second, the public debate over government- and employer-provided social insurance and the crises in personal savings suggests a need for both data and theory to inform public policies that will best help Americans manage their economic well-being. This project will inform solutions for these public problems.
