
Leslie McCall
Associate Professor of Sociology
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995
l-mccall@northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Additional
biographical information
Downloadable Research Papers
Leslie McCall’s areas of interest include social inequality,
economic and political sociology, methods, and social theory. Her
work on class inequality among women in the United States, and more
generally, on how racial, educational, and gender inequality variously
overlap and conflict with one other, has been published in a wide
range of journals as well as in her book, Complex Inequality:
Gender, Class, and Race in the New Economy (Routledge, 2001),
which was the first runner-up for the C. Wright Mills Book Award.
Her current research includes: an ongoing study of rising economic
inequality among women; an analysis of the impact of corporate restructuring
(e.g., downsizing, subcontracting) on rising earnings inequality;
and an investigation of the political consequences of rising inequality,
in terms of awareness of and opposition to inequality, preferences
for redistributive policies, and political participation. McCall
also maintains an interest in feminist social theory and methodology,
in particular the conceptualization and empirical analysis of multiple
dimensions of social relations from a social science perspective.
Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation,
the Russell Sage Foundation, and Demos: A Network of Ideas and Action,
where she is a senior fellow.
Current Research
Class and Gender. Although levels of and increases
in earnings inequality are comparable among women and men, much
less attention is being paid to inequality among women than to inequality
among men or inequality between men and women. In this project,
growing earnings inequality among women serves as the primary analytic
lens through which to examine overlapping and conflicting shifts
in class and gender inequality over the past several decades. McCall
looks at both gender differences in class inequality and class differences
in gender inequality. She also considers how a joint gender and
class analysis illuminates important social policy issues, such
as the crisis in the provision of “care” labor in education,
healthcare, and child care.
Corporate Restructuring and Rising Inequality.
Many suspect that corporate restructuring has led to rising earnings
inequality. Yet it is very difficult to measure this effect empirically
because of the lack of large-scale data on both organizations and
earnings within those organizations. This project explores several
different ways to address this issue. McCall is currently examining
the impact of two familiar aspects of corporate restructuring on
levels and changes in earnings inequality: downsizing (i.e., establishment
size and establishment size changes) and domestic subcontracting
and outsourcing (i.e., temp work, producer services, etc.). This
analysis focuses on changes in urban U.S. labor markets from 1970
to 2000.
The Politics of the New Inequality. Despite considerable
interest in the issue of rising inequality among scholars and advocates,
there is little evidence that the issue holds much interest among
the general public or the media, or has had any impact on preferences
for policies that reduce inequality. Are these perceptions accurate?
In this project, she examines questions from a wide range of surveys
to determine the extent of awareness of inequality; whether such
awareness, if it exists, translates into a particular set of policy
preferences; and whether attitudes towards inequality and policy
preferences vary across countries, with Lane Kenworthy of the University
of Arizona. She also examines media coverage of the issue and its
role in shaping attitudes towards inequality.
Selected Publications
Books
Complex Inequality: Gender, Class, and Race in the New Economy.
2001. New York: Routledge.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
McCall, L. 2005. “The complexity of intersectionality.”
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30(3): 1771-800.
To be translated and reprinted in The Swedish Journal of Gender
Studies.
McCall, L. 2001. “Sources of racial wage inequality in metropolitan
labor markets: Racial, ethnic, and gender differences.” American
Sociological Review 66(4): 520-542.
McCall, L. 2001. “Explaining levels of within-group wage
inequality in U.S. labor markets.” Demography 37(4):
415-430.
McCall, L. 2000. “Gender and the new inequality: Explaining
the college/non-college wage gap in U.S. labor markets.” American
Sociological Review 65(2): 234-255.
McCall, L. 1998. “Spatial routes to gender wage (in)equality:
Regional restructuring and wage differentials by gender and education.”
Economic Geography 74(4): 379-404.
Book Chapters, Edited Volumes
McCall, L. 2008. "What does class inequality among women look like? A comparison with men and families, 1970-2000." In Social Class: How Does it Work?, ed. Annette Lareau and Dalton Conley. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
McCall, L. 2007. “Increasing class disparities among women and
the politics of gender equity.” In The
Sex of Class: Women and America’s Labor Movement, ed.
D. S. Cobble. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
McCall, L., and A. S. Orloff. 2005. “Gender, class, and capitalism.”
Special Issue of Social Politics 12(3).
McCall, L. 2005. “Gender, race, and the restructuring of
work: Organizational and institutional perspectives.” In The
Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization, ed. P. Tolbert, R.
Batt, S. Ackroyd, and P. Thompson, 74-94. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Reports and Short Articles
McCall, L. “What do Americans think about inequality?”
Demos working paper.
McCall, L. “The inequality economy: How new corporate practices
redistribute income to the top.” Demos working paper.
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