Conley’s Pecking Order:Inequality Starts at Home

• In explaining economic inequality in America, sibling differences represent about ¾ of all differences between individuals.

• Put another way, only one-quarter of all income inequality is between families. The remaining 75 % is within families.

Conley’s Pecking Order:The Central Question

• Why is there a pecking order among American families and how does it work?

• What explains intra-familial differences in income and attainment?

Conley’s Pecking Order:Possible Explanations

Genetics[Gender-specific] birth orderParenting

The Pecking Order:Conley’s Explanation

• Family size is what matters because parental time, attention, and money are fixed pies and each claim on a slice means less for someone else.

• Birth order matters, but not by shaping personalities which in turn shape socio-economic outcomes; rather it mediates family trauma.

The Pecking Order:Contribution

• Challenges the perceived split between individual, personality-based explanations of sibling differences and sociological ones.

• Pecking order or status hierarchy

emerges from the interaction between individual-level and structural factors.

The Pecking Order:Implications

• What do sibling disparities indicate? According to Conley, class identity is ever changing and not necessarily shared between siblings.

• Family is not a haven in a heartless

capitalist world or a shelter from its winds, but a part of them.

Conley’s Pecking Order:The Central Question

• Why is there a pecking order among American families and how does it work?

• What explains intra-familial differences in income and attainment?

The Pecking Order:Data

• U.S. Census

• Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

• General Social Survey (GSS)

• NYU In-depth Interviews