Continuity and Change in Howard S. Becker's work: An Interview with Howard S. Becker

Howard S. Becker is one of the foremost sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century. Although he is perhaps best known for research on deviance and his book Outsiders, this constitutes only a very small fraction of his earliest work. This interview looks at some of the continuities and cores of his work over ?fifty years. Becker highlights how his work maintains the same core concerns, although new interests have been added over time. At the core is a concern with 'work' and 'doing things together.' Becker provides many concrete stories from the past and also raises issues about the nature of doing theory and research, how he writes and produces his studies, and the problems attached to the professionalization of sociology. His writing on art and culture can be seen as assuming a major position in his later work, but he does not identify with either postmodernism or cultural studies

Male Earnings Inequality, Women’s Earnings, and Family Income Inequality in Australia, 1982–2007

In the quarter century after 1982, male earnings inequality increased substantially in most industrialized countries, as did women’s participation in paid work. Both trends impacted family income inequality. However, this paper’s analysis of Australian data shows that the impact of women’s earnings on family income inequality changed over the study period of 1982 to 1995–1996. During the same time frame, the growth in women’s earnings was concentrated in households with high male earnings, pushing family income inequality higher. However, after 1995–1996, the growth in women’s earnings had a moderating influence on family income inequality as it was concentrated in households with lower male earnings. These findings contribute new evidence on the importance of trends in family formation and the correlation of husbands’ and wives’ earnings to the evolution of family income inequality. The evidence is also suggestive of a dynamic relationship between rising family income inequality and women’s participation in paid work that echoes Thorstein Veblen’s ([1899] 2008) ideas regarding the importance of relative income and emulation