As more children are exposed to climate disasters, the effects of repeated hazards on education are increasingly important but also unclear: some theories predict compounding negative effects from each consecutive hazard, whereas others suggest attenuating disadvantages. Combining North Carolina’s longitudinal student records with fine-grained hurricane flooding data, I estimate the influences of two consecutive hurricanes on K–12 student attendance and learning. Results show that singular and repeated prolonged school closures resulted in similar declines in attendance and learning, and within school districts, singular and repeated exposure to residential flooding led to little or no additional declines. Together, these results suggest that prior exposure neither heightens nor dulls the educational impacts of a second event. Because district-wide closures accounted for most of the academic impacts, efforts to reduce prolonged school closure days in future storms would likely benefit students.
In Mexico, the context of indigeneity—the share of the local population with precolonial origins—patterns multiple forms of inequality, including disproportionate exposure to weather extremes. We examine whether it also shapes undocumented migration to and return from the United States following weather extremes. Analyzing data on over 90,000 individuals from 147 Mexican communities in the Mexican Migration Project, linked to municipal measures of indigeneity from the Mexican Census and high-resolution daily precipitation and temperature data from Daymet, we estimate linear probability models. Results show that very dry years are associated with a higher probability of undocumented migration from low-indigenous municipalities, while extreme weather is associated with a lower probability of return to Mexico across all contexts of indigeneity. These findings suggest that weather deviations reinforce inequalities in international migration while broadly constraining return. We conclude that migration is a process shaped by overlapping social and environmental inequalities.
We examine the relationship between climate-related disasters and subsequent county-level aggregate employment and earnings. We combine earnings and employment data from 2000 to 2023 with data on disasters to estimate local projection impulse response functions relating extreme disaster events to cumulative percent changes in employment and earnings. On average, disasters appear to reduce employment growth three to five years post disaster. There are small positive impacts on earnings. These results are largely driven by responses to hurricanes and tropical storms. Key rebuilding industries such as construction see short-term gains in employment that turn to losses in the longer-term that are similar to those in other industries. Hispanic and Latino workers see short-term gains in employment in part due to their representation in construction, which again turn to longer-term losses similar to those experienced by other racial and ethnic groups. An analysis of FEMA-supported disasters suggests that FEMA aid may be driving these results.
As climate change intensifies, understanding the effects of climate hazards such as wildfires, hurricanes, coastal and riverine flooding, tornadoes, heat waves, and extreme snowstorms is key to understanding patterns of inequality. In this introduction, we review a multidisciplinary literature on the social, political, and economic consequences of climate hazards for individuals and communities in the US. We explore how the risk of exposure to climate hazards is unequal across places and demographic groups and examine how inequalities emerge in the process of recovery after climate disasters. We describe how different political actors shape climate policy as well as the role that government policies and programs play in mitigation and recovery efforts. The articles in this issue push novel research avenues for understanding the intersection of disasters and inequality. We conclude our introduction by discussing the challenges and key directions for future research.
Natural disasters have been increasing in intensity while rental affordability has been declining in many cities. This article presents a new dataset at this intersection, merging rental outcomes with disaster incidence and government assistance. We construct two new panel models that estimate the effects of the natural disasters from 2000 to 2020 on zip codes across California and Florida. Results indicate that rents per unit increase by 0.2 to 1.3 percent immediately after a disaster and 6.5 to 12.5 percent in the long run. These findings are driven primarily by hurricanes and wildfires—and to a lesser extent, winter storms. The effects accumulate after multiple disasters. They are persistent and not mean-reverting. We further demonstrate that these impacts are moderated somewhat in communities receiving federal Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds, whose rental restrictions and rebuilding incentives temper post-disaster rent escalation. By centering this analysis, we highlight how disaster-recovery design influences long-term housing affordability and equity.
Property insurance is essential for hurricane recovery, yet timely and fair claims payouts are not guaranteed. Post-disaster litigation over denied or delayed claims is common but understudied in who sues and how this varies sociodemographically. Southwest Louisiana is well situated for such an analysis, where within two years after Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta hit the region in 2020, one in five federal civil litigation cases were filed, most regarding insurance. We collate 5,476 court records to geocode implicated properties and assess litigation patterns using property and sociodemographic data. We find litigation is 43 percent more likely in higher percent Black residential areas, with property value amplifying this disparity. Additionally, case duration is longer for residents in these areas, suggesting systemic procedural inequities. Our findings reveal how race, class, and geography relate to insurance litigation, a critical yet overlooked facet of procedural vulnerability that may contribute to inequitable disaster recovery outcomes in the United States.
Partisan divides in the legislature threaten efforts to combat climate change in the United States. Natural disasters, such as droughts, hurricanes, floods, and forest fires, may open a “window of opportunity” for elected representatives to take action on environmental legislation (Kingdon 1995). This article applies theories of the policy process to explore the effect of natural disasters on legislative behavior. I employ a panel event study to estimate the causal effect of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared disaster on voting behavior in the House of Representatives. Major natural disasters change the legislative behavior of Democrats, increasing votes in favor of environmental policy. In contrast, major natural disasters push Republican legislators further to the right on environmental policy. Content analysis of congressional testimony illustrates how policymakers seize policy windows to champion policy and distribute blame. Polarization may lead to policy inaction, which harms vulnerable communities who suffer disproportionately from climate hazards.
This research explores the conditions and contexts that make undocumented communities uniquely vulnerable to climate-induced disasters, as well as the role of migrant-serving organizations (MSOs) in supporting them throughout these events. We apply the framework of adaptive governance to examine how climate change has forced MSOs, including those without previous disaster-related experience, to become disaster experts, advocates, and direct aid providers. Using participant observation at two California-wide disaster policy workshops and interviews with MSO practitioners, we identify five factors that explain how these organizations cope and why they have had to adapt their operations to develop innovative disaster aid practices. We also discuss the organizational challenges that arise, including the mental health implications of these added responsibilities on staff. Policy recommendations follow, to help inform more equitable disaster policies for undocumented migrant communities and to support MSO practitioners working with limited organizational capacities and experiencing secondary trauma.
Nationwide, flood risks are encouraging local authorities to implement a federal policy known as managed retreat. The program offers homeowners a fair market price to voluntarily relinquish their properties for demolition and move elsewhere, thereby subsidizing residential relocation as a means of climate adaptation. Despite widespread implementation, we know little about how people move or how many move from places where the program intervenes. To illuminate these dynamics, we review sociological theories of residential mobility. We then analyze novel address-level data on residential relocation and home flood risk in majority-White areas where managed retreat has predominated. Results indicate that most moves in these zones of retreat occur through the market, not through the program; they are also disproportionately undertaken by households able to relocate to safer housing in more affluent neighborhoods nearby. The result is a revolving door of risk that has major implications for local resilience.
As local governments face the burden of responding to climate-related hazards, their actions layer on top of existing class inequalities. This article reports on a survey experiment examining the responses of elected city and county officials to a proposed voluntary buyout of properties at risk from climate impacts. An experiment embedded in the survey tests whether politicians’ responses to a buyout proposal depend on identification of recipients as wealthy or low-income. Results show a significant difference in support across the targeted recipients: even with an identical cost recovery period, elected officials were more likely to support buyouts for low-income homeowners. The effect of social class targeting became larger after respondents considered wide-ranging benefits and drawbacks of buyouts: they favored buyouts to a greater degree for low-income recipients, and to a lesser degree for wealthy recipients, than for homeowners not identified with a class marker. If these responses translate into differential provision of buyout opportunities across income groups, it could help mitigate large class-based disparities in capacity to recover from disasters, while at the same time contributing to class-based disparities in climate migration.
We use the case of Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Harvey to test how extreme climate events drive neighborhood racial change and how impacts vary in settings with different socioeconomic characteristics and exposures to past flooding risk. Using data on neighborhood characteristics, mortgage applications, and inundation after the storms, we show that in both New York City and Harris County, Texas, population and housing units actually increased more in the neighborhoods with more severe flooding. In addition, the share of residents who are White declined more in hard-hit neighborhoods, especially those outside the flood zone where residents would have had less information about flood risk prior to the storm. In New York, we also see a relative decline in income among mortgage applicants in flooded areas outside the flood zone, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Effects are generally more muted in Harris County, perhaps because flooding had been historically more common.
Economic and policy changes since Making Ends Meet was first published have fundamentally restructured the social safety net available to single mothers, while simultaneously eroding the economic position of the men with whom they share children. This study examines the degree of socioeconomic precarity among nonresident fathers and its implications for the economic well- being of mothers in the post- welfare reform era, using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Nearly all nonresident fathers reported some type of precarity related to their employment, exposure to punitive systems, or financial and material resources; and the support they received from public or private sources was limited. Multiple aspects of fathers' socioeconomic precarity were also associated with mothers' experiences of material hardship and poverty. These findings suggest that nonresident fathers' own precarity precludes them from compensating for the loss of cash support following welfare reform.
This study examines how maternal education shapes nonmarital childbearing and family structure among Asian Americans compared with non-Hispanic Whites. We also assess within-group variation by Asian ethnicity, generational status, and interracial marriage. Drawing on 2015-2019 natality data from the National Vital Statistics System and the 2013-2024 Current Population Survey Annual Socioeconomic Supplement, we find that Asian mothers, particularly South Asians, are significantly less likely than Whites to give birth outside of marriage and more likely to raise children in married, two-parent households. Also, educational gradients in these outcomes are weaker among Asians, especially among foreign-born and racially endogamous individuals, suggesting that immigrant selectivity and cultural norms moderate how socioeconomic status shapes family formation. In contrast, stronger educational differences emerge among nativeborn and interracially partnered Asians. These findings highlight the importance of subgroup diversity for understanding family inequality in an increasingly diverse US population.
Entrepreneurship is a mobility mechanism for the immigrant generation, but second-generation Asian Americans are often assumed to shun business ownership in favor of entering the professional labor market. However, there is reason to believe that entrepreneurship is a common and important mobility pathway for the second generation. We explore this possibility by investigating second-generation Chinese Americans who bet on business. Using fieldwork and in-depth structured interviews conducted with second-generation Chinese American entrepreneurs, we ask: Why do highly educated Chinese Americans choose business over the professional labor force? How do family wealth, transnational connections, gender, ethnicity, and education shape their entrepreneurial pathways and experiences? We explore the choices and constraints that result in three ideal types of entrepreneurial experiences represented in our data: family business inheritors, family-funded entrepreneurs, and self-made business owners. Our examination of Chinese American business owners reveals a complex interplay between individual agency, intergenerational dynamics, structural advantages or disadvantages, and strategic adaptation. Ultimately, we find that second-generation Chinese Americans chart a range of business pathways and outcomes shaped by their class, ethnicity, and gender.
Financialization of the US economy has brought about major historical change in compensation practices. In addition to traditional cash wages, American employers increasingly provide workers with compensation based in part on company stock, and 23 percent of US private-sector employees now receive stock-based compensation. This study is among the first to examine the implications of this shift for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment. Analysis of the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) shows that Asian Americans, on average, are more likely to receive stock-based compensation than Whites, in part because they are more likely to work in jobs where it is provided. However, the two groups are equally likely to receive stock-based compensation and similar amounts in these jobs.
Although Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial minority groups in law schools and the American legal profession, they are underrepresented in leadership positions compared with their overall numbers within the profession. What explains this disparity? The existing literature on the “bamboo ceiling” highlights how social stereotypes, cultural biases, and workplace dynamics have hindered the occupational advancement of Asian Americans. But there is a dearth of such research on the legal profession. Using survey data and focus group interviews, we examine Asian American perceptions of inequality in the legal workplace. Our data show that while Asian American lawyers perceive some leadership barriers that are similar to those faced by other racial minorities, they also report that pervasive social stereotypes perpetuate beliefs that Asian Americans lack the traits typically associated with leadership. By identifying and analyzing these workplace challenges, this article contributes to research on the bamboo ceiling and informs efforts to promote greater workplace equality.
Prior research suggests that extended family living arrangements may contribute to Asian women's labormarket advantage over White women. However, our understanding of the role that extended family plays in Asian women's employment across ethnicity, immigrant generation, and time periods remain limited. Using the Census (1990, 2000) and the American Community Survey (2001-2022), we compare employment patterns of the five largest Asian groups-Asian Indian, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese-with those of US- born, non- Hispanic White women. Across groups and generations, Asian women are more likely than White women to live in extended households. Logistic regression analyses show that extended family structure is positively associated with Asian women's employment, particularly among first- generation immigrants, with patterns that persist across various family circumstances, including the presence of young children and household economic conditions. These findings offer valuable insights into processes and differentials in the socioeconomic assimilation and mobility of Asian Americans.
Most estimates of Asian-White inequality are calculated at the national level. We show that measures of Asian-White inequality are sensitive to the geographic scale at which they are calculated. Nationally, Asian Americans earn 107 percent of the median income of non-Hispanic White people, consistent with previous research documenting high average levels of socioeconomic attainment among Asians. However, compared to the non-Hispanic White residents of their own metropolitan areas, Asian Americans on average earn only 88 percent as much. The discrepancy between inequality estimated nationally and locally holds across most education, nativity, and national origin groups and is not accounted for by regional variation in cost of living. Examining inequality patterns at both national and local levels helps reconcile the apparent contradictions-socioeconomic achievement alongwith racialized exclusion and marginalization-that have emerged in previous research on Asian-White inequality. Although Asian Americans have achieved a great deal of socioeconomic success, they continue to face substantial inequality when compared to the White residents of the metropolitan areas where they live.
Asian Americans are considered a model minority due to their high socioeconomic attainments. On average, they earn more than native- born Whites, but their tendency to live in relatively high- cost areas raises the question of how geographic distribution relates to Asian American earnings advantages. Given that lesseducated Asian Americans lack market negotiating power, are vulnerable to local coethnic competition and exploitation, and thus do not fit the model minority stereotype, particular attention is paid to their labor market performances. The analyses using the 2010-2019 American Community Survey uncover that, except for those with advanced degrees, Asian Americans experience a relative earnings disadvantage compared to Whites after controlling for detailed residential areas. The disadvantage for less- educated Asian Americans is exacerbated in local labor markets with higher coethnic concentration.
Studies of Asian Americans in the labor market point to significant variations in experiences by educational attainment, gender, and ethnicity, but few studies attend to the intersections of these characteristics in yielding disparate patterns of earnings. Using data from the American Community Survey 2019 five-year file, we compare the earnings of 1.5 generation and native-born prime working-age Asian Americans from the five largest ethnic groups (Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Koreans, and Vietnamese) with the earnings of White Americans, focusing on the role of labor supply and occupations in explaining differences in earnings. At baseline, we find no consistent earnings advantage for Asian Americans. Asian American men across levels of education typically work less and in different types of occupations compared to White men. These patterns contribute substantively to differences in earnings among men. In contrast, Asian American women do not differ markedly from White women in labor supply, though college-educated Asian American women do tend to work in different occupations, which contributes to a modest earnings advantage. Findings have implications for understanding the racialized, classed, and gendered experiences of Asian Americans in the labor market.
