Economic inequality and family insecurity have risen in the United States over the past several decades. The interaction between the two phenomena is a matter of debate, as many researchers and policymakers have pointed to family structure, particularly non-marital childbirth, as a key source of rising economic inequality. But what if the relationship went the other way, and rising inequality and economic insecurity were themselves causes of family insecurity? The researchers tackle this question by looking at individual families and their evolution over time. Family instability has major implications for the development of human capital, which in turn feeds directly into long-term economic growth prospects.

This project examines the effect of incarceration on various outcomes, including recidivism, human capital accumulation, employment, and earnings. The authors will do so using a natural experiment leveraging variation in sentencing outcomes due to differences between randomly assigned judges. Taking advantage of the considerable administrative data capacities of University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall, the authors aim to make novel contributions extending well beyond the current literature, which largely relies on survey data. This research will address critical questions such as the flat lining of male labor force participation, and the importance of the prison boom in driving the black/white wage gap.

Has rising income inequality affected income mobility over the course of a working lifetime? This research project will uncover what has happened to earnings mobility during the era of rising earnings inequality, and will explore the underlying causes driving those shifts. The researchers will use an underexploited dataset from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to estimate long-run intragenerational earnings mobility trends, with particular attention to differences in trends by race, gender, and education. They will estimate how much various key changes in the labor force—shifts in demographics, human capital, and returns to skills—have contributed to the mobility trends. This research will help researchers understand the relative importance of different factors to higher earnings mobility over a lifetime.

Researchers increasingly point out the importance of a child’s early years for the development of skills that will help them succeed later in life. Much of this scholarship focuses on the importance of cognitive skills, such as reading, but the development of non-cognitive skills, such as motivation and interpersonal skills, is also critical. These five researchers will look at how inequality across home environments affects the development of these non-cognitive skills. This channel could have major consequences for the life prospects of children, as economic inequality across families may be magnified for the next generation. Understanding these differences is vital to improving the prospects for disadvantaged children and the growth prospects for our economy.

Low-income students disproportionately attend for-profit colleges and universities where low graduation rates and high levels of student debt are common. This research will utilize administrative data to test whether new rules that require graduation and debt standards change matriculation at for-profit schools.

Women’s participation in the formal economy increased for decades after the 1960s but stalled in the late 1990s. Researchers aren’t sure why this happened, but professors Cohen and Kleykamp propose one possible answer: rising inequality. As income inequality has increased, the pay-off to investing in children has increased as well, making it more attractive to have one parent stay at home—usually the mother. Rising work hours among women has had a large effect on economic growth. U.S. gross domestic product in 2012 would have been 11 percent lower if not for the rising working hours of women. If Cohen and Kleykamp’s hypothesis is right, then rising inequality has held back women’s entrance into the labor market and significantly slowed down American economic growth.