Economic development and labor market inequality in Puerto Rico

This dissertation examines two key questions in the sociological literature on economic globalization and social stratification in the developing world. First, how does economic integration affect social inequality and stratification in developing countries? Second, what intra-country mechanisms affect the attainment of workers most exposed to international development?;Classical work in the field found that integration led to mediocre economic development or outright involution. But recent empirical research suggests that there may be a positive relationship between growth and inequality. This research is nevertheless problematic not only because of data limitations but also because it focuses too broadly on aggregate global patterns and fails to examine the stratification patterns that emerge as specific countries develop.;My dissertation contributes to the field by examining globalization and stratification in one particular case-that of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a key case since it implies the most disparate predictions from theory. Modernization theories suggest a country like Puerto Rico should have stratification patterns and inequality magnitudes similar to those of the United States. Conversely, Dependency and World-System theories suggest an inverse relation between inequality and integration and imply extreme involution.;To examine the empirical adequacy of these views, I analyze pooled, micro-data for Puerto Rico from four U.S. Census years (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000). I use of labor cohorts as a proxy for changes in the economic development stages of the island. If the process of development under extreme integration follows the path of modernization theories, then there should few distinctive cohort effects across various economic outcomes. However, if cohort is found to shape stratification, then Dependency and World-System theories would have empirical validity.;Estimating a series of OLS models and using a differences-in-differences approach, I examine three outcomes: earnings attainment, occupational status, and labor force participation. I find evidence that labor cohorts shape earnings attainment, and condition the odds of labor force participation. However, it appears that labor cohorts do not affect status attainment. These findings provide qualified support for the view that full economic incorporation will induce stratification and inequality patterns distinctive to developing countries. However, Modernization and World-Systems theories remain limited as accounts of how economic development shapes social inequality.