Durable Inequality and Life-Course Change: Trajectories of Contextual Mobility in a 17-year Study of Chicago Children

Moderated by Ruud Koopmans

The lecture presents the fruits of over a decade’s research among Chicago children – ranging in age from birth to age 15 – who were followed wherever they moved in the United States from the mid-1990s until 2013. The project identifies the major transitions, both positive and negative, that characterize pathways to school and work. The longitudinal survey covers the spectrum of major social changes such as a large decline in violence, rapid immigration, increasing income inequality, and the Great Recession. The focus lies on the legacies of growing up in disadvantage for the transition to young adulthood.  The interplay of individual and community-level socioeconomic status over time is of particular interest, including how race, ethnicity, and immigrant generation govern patterns of stability and change.

Robert J. Sampson is Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Director of the Boston Area Research Initiative. For his most recent book Great American City. Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, Robert J. Sampson was awarded the Distinguished Scholarly Book Award by the American Sociological Association (2014).

Ruud Koopmans is Director of the WZB research unit ‘Migration, Integration, Transnationalization’ and Professor of Sociology and Migration Research at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Discussants

Susanne Veit is research fellow in the research unit ‘Migration, Integration, Transnationalization’ at WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

Tobias König is post-doctoral research fellow in the research unit ‘Market Behavior’ at WZB Berlin Social Science Center and at Humboldt University of Berlin.