Social Forces

Abstract In our era of low fertility rates, much research has examined factors behind delayed childbearing and childlessness. While scholars emphasize the role of macro-level context in constraining reproductive decision-making, less attention has been paid to how context shapes what it means, subjectively, to remain childless today. For women, whose childlessness has long been theorized as a dev…

Abstract NIMBY—or “Not in my Back Yard”—opposition against renters has long defined segregation and housing markets in the United States. Recent years, however, have seen the rise of a new phenomenon: YIMBY or “Yes in my Back Yard” efforts, which have aimed to expand affordable housing supply for renters in lower-poverty places that have long restricted it. The clash between NIMBY and YIMBY poses…

Abstract We explore the empirical puzzle of how conflicting attitudes and desires evolve and exert competing behavioral influences, focusing on the socially contentious case of premarital sex among young women in the United States. Leveraging intensive panel data collected for up to 2.5 years among a large, population-based sample of unmarried women aged 18–22, we show that women’s sexual attitud…

Abstract Abortion remains a uniquely contentious issue, rooted not only in moral concerns but also in its broader implications for women’s reproductive autonomy and population dynamics. These tensions become particularly pronounced in migration contexts, where they intersect with debates on integration, cultural identity, and perceived demographic threats to the majority population. We investigat…

Abstract Amid novel infectious disease epidemics, societal norms regarding when or whether women should or should not have children are highly prone to change as social life is severely disrupted. We argue that, in periods of exacerbated uncertainty such as during the emerging months of a novel infectious disease pandemic, women use memory of another recent epidemic as an anchor to define how to …

Abstract When natural disasters (such as hurricanes or tornadoes) damage homes, migrant roofers known as rapid responders help tarp and rebuild affected communities. However, these workers labor under precarious conditions, live in crowded housing, and are separated from the social support of family. This mixed-methods study draws on surveys (n = 358) and in-depth interviews (n = 58) with a hidde…

Abstract This study investigates the role of class origin compositions of micro-occupations in creating economic inequalities using three decades of British longitudinal surveys. Drawing on social closure theory, we analyze how class origin contributes to between-occupation earnings disparities and class origin earnings inequality at the individual level. Using fine-grained data on the class orig…

Abstract Siblings do not always benefit equally from parental wealth transfers. This study examines how different asset types evoke distinct distributive principles, thereby contributing to our understanding of unequal intergenerational transfers within families. Based on a multifactorial survey experiment in Germany (N = 11,968 observations based on 2,992 respondents), we test whether the applic…

Abstract Climate governance has historically grappled with regulatory deadlock over corporate accountability for the climate crisis. Within this context of regulatory impasse, climate disclosure emerged as the central framework in financial regulatory approaches to climate change. Extending theories of legal endogeneity to advance socio-legal studies of climate governance, this article explains h…

Abstract This article examines how US asylum officers reclaim their sense of professional worth when their expectations of cognitively and emotionally meaningful engagement with applicants collide with the reality of routinized and emotionally detached decision-making. Drawing on forty-three in-depth interviews, I show that officers actively seek out elements of applicants’ claims that elicit int…

Abstract Legitimated authorities enjoy approval, support, and compliance from subordinates. Thus, legitimacy enhances authorities’ effectiveness across broad arenas, such as the judiciary, law enforcement, and the workplace. Understanding what shapes subordinates’ personal view of an authority as legitimate (propriety) elucidates how authorities can gain propriety. We investigate the relative imp…