The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become

"The family is our haven, the place where we all start off on equal footing — or so we like to think. But if that’s the case, why do so many siblings often diverge widely in social status, wealth, and education? In this groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, acclaimed sociologist Dalton Conley shatters our notions of how our childhoods affect us, and why we become who we are. Economic and social inequality among adult siblings is not the exception, Conley asserts, but the norm: over half of all inequality is within families, not between them. And it is each family’s own “pecking order” that helps to foster such disparities. Moving beyond traditionally accepted theories such as birth order or genetics to explain family dynamics, Conley instead draws upon three major studies to explore the impact of larger social forces that shape each family and the individuals within it. From Bill and Roger Clinton to the stories of hundreds of average Americans, here we are introduced to an America where class identity is ever changing and where siblings cannot necessarily follow the same paths. This is a book that will forever alter our idea of family." " ''There's this enormous issue of sibling inequality that we sweep under the rug because we want to see the family as a haven in a harsh world, operating outside the dog-eat-dog world of American capitalism,'' Mr. Conley said over breakfast at a cafe in the West Village, not far from his apartment. ''But you can't think of the family in isolation from larger social forces.'' Continue reading the main story His statistics are startling, but he backs them up with a detailed (and occasionally opaque) analysis of three national data sets, including the 1990 United States Census, and 175 interviews with 75 families from around the country. And colleagues who have read his book -- or heard him present his findings -- are impressed. ''Before he started on this project, I was quite skeptical,'' said Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in social inequality. But he ended up giving the book a favorable review, which will appear in the spring issue of Contexts, a sociology journal. ''What's really innovative and interesting'' about Mr. Conley's work, said Judith Stacey, a sociologist at New York University, ''is his focus on the family as a source of inequality rather than a respite from it. What he is trying to show is the way in which larger forms of social inequality operate through families and wind up being reproduced.''"