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dispelled fallacious beliefs that all incestuous matings are deleterious.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim’s Incest: The Nature and Origin of the Taboo ([1898] 1963) is an infrequently cited magnum opus. Based on ethnographic research in Australia, this book emphasized and illustrated the social and moral origins of incest taboos. Durkheim noted the ways in which prohibitions against incest and penalties for rule violations organize social groups internally. Cooperation and alliances with other groups via exogamy are consequently prompted. Durkheim contended that the incest taboo has a religious origin. It is derived from the clan’s sentiments surrounding blood, specifically menstrual blood. While blood is taboo in a general way, contact with the blood of the clan is taboo in specific ways. Durkheim reasoned that menstrual blood represents a flowing away of the clan’s lifeblood. This renders women taboo for and inferior to men of the same clan. The taboo relates to intercourse in general and to marriage in particular. Blood and incest are presumed to be related such that a man violating the taboo is seen as a murderer. Thus, in a real sense, Durkheim posited women as having a dual nature, being at once both sacred and profane. That women bear children, thus rendering a clan immortal, made them sacred. However, since they spilt blood, which itself is sacred, they had a profane nature to them. To marry a clan’s women to another group kept the clan sacred, while at the same making it possible for other clans to perpetuate themselves.

Durkheim contended that the origin of the taboo is lost to the consciousness of clans over time but that the taboo itself is replaced by a generalized repugnance of incest. This repugnance prompts men to exchange women with other groups, thus facilitating political alliances between men of different groups. In addition, in his The Division of Labor in Society ([1893] 1963), Durkheim posited that when incest loses its religiously based criminal status, prohibitions against it are or will be codified into law.

While brother–sister marriages are negatively sanctioned in many parts of the world, the United States contrasts sharply with European and other nations in having civil laws that prohibit cousin marriage as well (Ottenheimer 1990). Roughly 60

percent of U.S. states prohibit cousin marriage. Many of the states have prohibitions placed on marriages other than brother–sister or cousin– cousin. For instance, Alaska prohibits marriage to persons more closely related than the fourth degree of consanguinity, regardless of whether this relationship is wholeor half-blood. Both Rhode Island and South Carolina forbid men to marry their stepmother, grandfather’s wife, wife’s daughter, and various other affinal or blood kin. Both states forbid women to marry their husband’s grandfather, son’s daughter’s husband, daughter’s husband, stepfather, or grandmother’s husband (Kessinger 1990). Many of these laws no doubt were influenced by persons such as Morgan, with his emphasis on social evolution and his contention that civilized people simply don’t engage in incestuous pairings. It is probably also the case that the eugenics movement, of the late 1800s through roughly the early 1900s, had some effect on maintaining such laws. The word ‘‘eugenics’’ was coined by biologist Francis Galton and meant improvement in the human race through selective breeding (Parrinder 1997). Galton and his followers were concerned with an array of social issues that they thought could be minimized if not eradicated through eugenics. These included overpopulation caused by high fertility rates of immigrants, poor people, and other classes of people deemed to be of inferior stock. Given a belief that criminals biologically inherited their antisocial tendencies, proponents of eugenics also believed that sterilization and birth control were necessary among some people so that they did not bring forth more generations of criminals (Rafter 1997). Fears of the negative effects of human inbreeding were also high at this time, resulting in several U.S. states passing laws that made cousin–cousin marriage a criminal offense (Gibbons 1993). The eugenics movement is also associated with social Darwinism and the Nazi regime. However, both of these topics are beyond the purview of this article.

Marriage laws and moral crusades aside, endogamous unions have continued to occur in the United States. An analysis of marriage patterns in Madison County, Virginia, 1850–1939, revealed a rather high rate of marriage between first cousins and first cousins once-removed (Frankenberg 1990). Possible reasons for these patterns may include restricted physical mobility and preference for

socially similar others. Relying on U.S. Census data, another study revealed a fairly high rate of endogamy among Louisiana Cajuns (Bankston and Henry 1999). Partial explanations for this endogamy include restricted residential mobility, ethnic identity emphases of the subculture, and a preference for social-class homogamy. The rate of biologically incestuous unions among this group, however, was not made clear in the report.

The concern over genetic transmission of physical and mental defects through marriage to close relatives continues today. In an analysis of consanguineous marriage and health profiles of offspring from these unions, researchers in Dammam City, Eastern Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, found that of the 1,307 unions studied, 52 percent were consanguineous. The most common consanguineous union was among first cousins. These consanguineous unions are associated with culture values and efforts to keep property and resources in the family. The study revealed that babies born of a consanguineous union tended to be smaller than those born of a nonconsanguineous union (Al-Abdulkareem and Ballal 1998). A recent American study focused on the relationship between consanguinity and childhood mortality in an Old Order Amish settlement. It was found that the Amish in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area are at risk for genetically transmitted defects that result in increased mortality rates. In addition, consanguineous unions resulted in higher neonatal and postnatal death rates than did nonconsanguineous unions (Dorsten et al. 1999).

Sigmund Freud focused on the incest taboo ([1913] 1950) and infantile sexuality ([1905] 1962). Through his tale of the primal horde, Freud posited that in the original family there was a jealous and violent father who engaged his daughters in incest. The jealous brothers banded together, killed, and ate the father. Horrified by their deeds, the brothers made incest taboo. For Freud, this (the moment when humans created incest rules) was when humans became social. He assumed that very young (Oedipal) children sexually desire their oppositesex parent. Little boys then suffer from castration anxiety, fearing that the father will become aware of their desires and punish them. While little girls see their mothers as inferior to men, they also know them to be more powerful than they are.

Thus, little girls resignedly align themselves with their mothers, repress their incestuous impulses, and experience penis envy. Even though Freud’s theories were based on conjecture and focused on the bourgeois nuclear family of his day, they have nonetheless influenced many social scientists, including French anthropologist Jean Claude LeviStrauss ([1949] 1969) and American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1954).

Levi-Strauss agreed with Freud that humans became social with the creation of incest rules. Borrowing from the emphasis on the exchange of women, found in the works of Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, and Durkheim’s assumption that women of a clan become the symbol (totem) for the clan, Levi-Strauss posited that exogamy represents a special form of alliance-creating reciprocity. Since incest involves sexuality, incest rules and the exchange of women represent a unique social connection between the biological and the cultural. Although frequently lauded by social scientists, the work of Levi-Strauss adds little to previous theories about incest.

Parsons incorporated Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality into his structural-functionalist view of the American nuclear family. Like functionalists before him, he assumed that incest rules exist to prevent role confusion within the nuclear family and to encourage alliances with other families (see also Malinowski 1927, 1929). He contended that the mother was to exploit her son’s Oedipal desires as if she had him on a rope. At earlier ages she was to pull him toward her, encouraging heterosexuality. At later ages she was to push him away, encouraging him to establish relationships with nonrelated females. Tugging and pulling on the rope were also designed to assist the son in internalizing society’s incest rules and guide him in creating his own nuclear family. Parsons assumed that little girls also experience an erotic attachment to their mothers. He argued that as the mother severed this attachment, it was her responsibility to instill in the daughter an aversion to both father–daughter and brother–sister incest. Failure to do this would result in family disorganization and in the daughter’s inability to become a normatively functioning adult. Parsons contended that incest aversion would be realized if the mother kept the erotic bond with her husband intact.

Parsons’s analysis has thus assisted in perpetuating what child abuse researchers have sought to eradicate: placing blame on mothers when fathers incestuously abuse their daughters (see Finkelhor 1984; Russell 1986; Vander Mey and Neff 1986).

Psychologist Edward Westermarck ([1891] 1922) contended that family and clan members develop a sexual aversion to one another due to the dulling effects of daily interaction and the sharing of mundane tasks. This aversion prompts the development of laws and customs proscribing incest among persons with a shared ancestor and set of obligations based on clan membership. Westermarck noted that failure to develop this aversion and the propensity to violate incest laws were due to alcoholism, membership in the lower social classes, inability to control the sex drive, lack of alternative sexual outlets, social and geographic isolation, and failure to have developed normative, family-like feelings of duty. Variations on Westermarck’s thesis appear in writings today. Some focus on a learned aversion that Oedipal children develop because their fantasies cannot be realized, due to their lack of full sexual maturation. Westermarck’s thesis is weak because if there were a natural aversion to incest, then laws prohibiting it would be unnecessary. Furthermore, a growing body of literature suggests that persons who share mundane tasks and interact daily do not necessarily develop a sexual aversion to one another (see Vander Mey and Neff 1986).

Sociobiologists (e.g., Parker 1976; van den Berghe 1980) variously incorporate Freudian theses, Westermarck’s thesis, and the assumption that human social behavior follows a fitness maxim to argue that groups establish prescriptive or proscriptive incest rules to enhance a group’s survival by facilitating genetic advantages. Sociobiologists typically use the functionalist assumption that incest rules regulate the internal dynamics of the procreating group and encourage affiliation with other nuclear groups. Violations of incest rules are assumed to be caused by the factors identified by Westermarck. Many sociobiologists link intercourse directly to procreation. The assumption has no merit when one tries to explain why adult–child and child– child intercourse occurs. Equally problematic is the frequent reliance on the rules prescribing incest among royals. Dismissed is the role that

ethnocentrism plays in such rules. Finally, serious questions arise when research on primates, birds, or other nonhumans is extrapolated to human social behavior and organization. In sum, it is questionable whether the sociobiological arguments for, and data supporting the existence of, incestavoidance mechanisms in humans can be confidentially accepted (Leavitt 1990).

A new twist on sociobiological discourse on the incest taboo comes from the field of genetic psychology. It is proposed that the taboo exists to protect children’s ‘‘mating-strategy template.’’ It is assumed that humans have a mating-strategy template that effectively gears females toward attracting men who can provide for them and their children. The human biogram also orients males toward being able to garner valuable resources for themselves, which they can then share with mates and children. It is assumed that should adult–child incest occur, male and female children who experience it will have disruptions in their matingstrategy template. In effect, if incest occurs, then the developing girl child will suffer various psychopathologies and will be unable to adequately compete for suitable mates. This will make her less attractive as a potential mate. Boys who experience father–son incest will lose the ability to be instigators of mating since it already has been imposed on them. Boys then become targets. It is assumed that by lowering children’s attractiveness as mates, their reproductive success is also lowered. With this lowered reproductive success, future generations are negatively affected as well. Therefore, it is argued that incest taboos have been instituted as a way to avoid these long-term consequences for greater intergenerational success in mating outside one’s own group (Immerman and Mackey 1997).

Prefiguring more recent research on incest as child abuse, Durkheim wrote that incest violations are most likely to occur in families in which members do not feel morally obligated to be dutiful to one another and to practice moral restraint ([1898] 1963). In many parts of the world today, incest is seen as a serious and severe type of child abuse. As child abuse, incest is any form of sexual touching, talking, or attempted or actual intercourse between an adult and a child or between two children when the perpetrator is significantly older than the victim or forces the victim to engage in actions against his or her will. The perpetrator and victim

are related either by consanguinity or affinity. Incest is abuse because it harms the victim and violates the child’s basic human rights. Its negative effects linger throughout victims’ lives (Russell 1986). That the sexual victimization of children is nothing new, but rather ancient, is well documented (deMause 1982; Rush 1980). Public recognition of incest as child abuse, however, has its roots in research and public discourse dating from roughly the early 1970s.

Had Freud not abandoned his first psychoanalytical paper, ‘‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’’ ([1896] 1946), he could have been heralded as the savior of children. In this paper he described incest and other sexual abuse experienced by eighteen patients when they were children. He linked his adult patients’ problems to their experiences of childhood sexual trauma. However, when his paper was coldly received and then ignored by senior psychologists, and Freud faced professional ostracism, he dismissed these findings (see Jurjevich 1974; Masson 1984). He reasoned that his patients were incorrectly recalling masturbatory childhood fantasies of sexual encounters with adults (Freud [1905] 1962). Freud then associated adult neurosis and hysteria with unfulfilled childhood incest fantasies.

Freud’s revamped theories quickly became popular. Several writers then recounted case studies of children who had experienced sex with an adult. The children were described as seductive and provocative. They were not seen as victims; rather, they were seen as sexual initiators (see Vander Mey and Neff 1986). Although Swedish sociologist Svend Riemer (1940) and American sociologist S. Kirson Weinberg (1955) tried to bring attention to incest as a form of family deviance that sometimes resulted in harm to victims, Freudian theory held fast until the late 1960s. The ‘‘discovery’’ of child abuse, in conjunction with the civil rights movement, the anti–Vietnam War movement, and the resurgence of the women’s rights movement, refocused attention such that the physical abuse of children and rape of women became seen as serious wrongs inflicted on other humans and as special types of social problems (Vander Mey and Neff 1986). Since that time, theories and research have explored in great detail why and how incestuous abuse occurs and its lasting negative effects. Laws protecting children against such abuse have been enacted. These laws mandate that

treatment services be available for victims, perpetrators, and families (Fraser 1987). They also stipulate penalties (fines, imprisonment) for convicted abusers. These operate on a sliding scale, with harsher penalties applied to cases in which the victim is very young or has suffered serious physical or psychological trauma because of the abuse. Some cases are handled in family courts. Others, especially those involving serious harm to the child, are heard in criminal courts. Although variable in scope, laws in European nations prohibit and punish incestuous child abuse (Doek 1987). As with statutes in the United States, applicable penalties often depend on the victim–perpetrator relationship, the age of the victim, and the seriousness of harm to the victim. Efforts to refine legal statutes and penalties continue. Laws are also needed that more specifically define and punish child–child incestuous abuse. While the bulk of research on incestuous abuse has focused on adult– child incest, there is accumulating evidence to the effect that sibling incest is more common than previously thought and also can be traumatizing (Adler and Schutz 1995; Vander Mey 1988).

Feminists usually focus on father–daughter incest. They refer to it as rape to emphasize the specific type of abuse that it is. The term ‘‘rape’’ also illustrates the point that if an adult male forced another person to engage in intercourse with him, he could be arrested. However, if he rapes his own child, it is called incest, which is often seen as a disgusting, private, family problem (Brownmiller 1975). Feminists see incest as commonplace, originating in and perpetuated by patriarchy (Rush 1980). A general feminist approach to father–daughter incest incorporates a discussion of the sex-role socialization of males and the male-as-superior patriarchal ideology as causal factors in incest. The contention is that females ultimately are rendered second-class citizens, the property of men, and sexual outlets for men (see Rush 1980). Problems with a general feminist perspective on incest include a focus limited to father– daughter incest, the monocausal linkage of patriarchy to incest, the portrayal of all incest perpetrators as male and all incest victims as female, and the oversimplified view of male sex-role socialization (Vander Mey 1992; see also Nelson and Oliver 1998). American feminist sociologist Diana Russell (1986) extends and refines the general feminist approach to incest. She argues that males are

socialized to sexualize the power given them by virtue of the fact that they are male. This includes sexualizing the power they have over their own children. Moreover, Russell recognizes that mothers and children can be incest perpetrators. She advocates androgynous socialization of children, more equality between men and women, and more public awareness of the harsh realities of incestuous abuse.

Welsh psychologist Neil Frude (1982) relied on existing empirical and clinical research to articulate a five-factor explanatory model of father– daughter incest. These five factors are sexual need (of the perpetrator), attractive partner, opportunity, disinhibition, and sexual behavior. A strength of Frude’s model is the attention paid to the interweaving of sex and power. Weaknesses include the fact that incest perpetrators are not usually sexually deprived, victim attractiveness is often irrelevant, and families are not usually closed systems today. American sociologist David Finkelhor (1984) offers a somewhat similar model, although it differs from Frude’s model in that Finkelhor pays keen attention to the myriad ways in which larger social forces and cultural ideology are related to child sexual abuse. Finkelhor’s model has the added strength of being applicable to several types of incest and other sexual abuse.

American sociologists Brenda Vander Mey and Ronald Neff (1986) constructed a researchbased ecological model of father–daughter incest. They begin with the assumption that there is no incest taboo. Rather, there are rules proscribing adult–child incest. They contend that characteristics of the society, the neighborhood, the family and the marital dyad, and the father–daughter dyad differentially affect the probability that a daughter will be sexually abused by her father. These levels of influence interact in complicated ways. Father–daughter incest is associated with dominance in society and in the family, residence in a violent neighborhood, social isolation of the family, family disorganization, and the father’s lack of empathy for his wife and children. Mitigating factors decreasing the likelihood of incest include a father’s conformity to rules against incest, sex education of the daughter, and media attention to adult–child incest as wrong and illegal. This model is strong in its reliance on research and theoretical principles. Although this model is limited to father–daughter incest, it does provide

information that can assist in identifying children at risk for incestuous abuse.

Incestuous abuse of children, male and female alike, is associated with an array of problems for victims. These problems include bulimia, self-mu- tilation, alcohol abuse, criminal behavior such as assault and shoplifting, psychological impairment, sexually aggressive behavior, and sexual hyperarousal (Araji 1997; Green 1993; Kinzl and Biebl 1992; Ryan et al. 1996; Wonderlich et al. 1996).

Incestuous abuse is seen as an international social problem today. At least four journals frequently carry the latest research on this topic:

Child Abuse and Neglect, Journal of Family Violence, The Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and The Journal of Child Sexual Abuse.

However, not everyone sees adult–child sexual contact as abusive. It has been argued that American and European cultures have long tended to deny that children have a sexuality. That is, experts on child development have for many decades focused on every other aspect of human development but have ignored child sexuality. In addition, audiences have been less than receptive to the idea that children might enjoy sexual contact with other children—or with adults—and that this contact might be conducive to their development in a constructive way. It has been argued that taking the cultural constraints away from children’s need to develop their sexuality is part of a child’s right (Martinson 1973, 1994; Yates 1978). Due to the very sensitive nature of the topic, few empirical studies on child sexuality have been conducted. Of the few available studies, one was a longitudinal study of sexual experiences in early childhood. It revealed that most of the children focused on in the study had engaged in some form of sex play by age six (Okami et al. 1997). However, another extensive study of college students revealed that among those who had experienced sexual contact while children, sexual contact with an adult was more often seen as unwanted, unwelcome, and/or abusive (Nelson and Oliver 1998).

Organizations such as the North American Man Boy Love Association contend that the child abuse laws constrain children’s liberty. Some parents, particularly in the United States and Europe, have resisted the child sexual abuse laws as infringing on their right to rear their children in ways they see as most appropriate (for elaboration, see Beckett

1996; Hechler 1988). Thus, just as marriage laws and cultural groups vary in their definitions of what constitutes incestuous marriage, we now are seeing public discourse on how best to define sexual contact with children.

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BRENDA J. VANDER MEY

INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the gap between rich and poor in the United States, and between the wealthy and impoverished nations of the world, continued to widen. This entry extends the analysis presented in the 1992 edition of the

Encyclopedia (largely based on 1988 data) to include information on income, wealth, and poverty gathered from studies conducted in the midand late 1990s by various government departments, academic economists, and private research institutions.

INCOME DISTRIBUTION

Data on money income for households, families, and persons in the United States are collected yearly by the Bureau of the Census, based on a national probability sample of approximately 50,000 households. The official definition of ‘‘income’’ is money income before taxes, including some government transfers (Social Security benefits, welfare payments, worker’s compensation), returns on investments, and pensions, but excluding capital gains or health insurance supplements paid by employers. In recent years, the Census Bureau has also published computations based on fourteen alternative definitions of income; for example, after deducting a range of taxes or after adding the earned income credit, the value of noncash government benefits such as food stamps, school lunches, and Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements to providers. Some of these alternative measures reduced the level of income inequality, while others increased it, but the general finding is that government transfers have a significantly stronger effect on reducing inequality than does the current tax system. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, this entry will primarily use data based on the official definition.

Household Income. In 1997, the median income for all 102 million U.S. households was $37,005, an increase of almost 2 percent over 1996, continuing an upward trend from a low of $34,700 in 1993. Adjusted for inflation, however, the 1997 median was slightly lower than the previous high of $37,303 in 1989. As Table 1 indicates, there are significant differences among subgroups in median income, and while all but male nonfamily householders and Asian/Pacific Islanders experienced an increase in real income over the previous year, data covering the entire period 1989–1997 present a mixed picture. Gains between 1989 and 1997 were highest for black households, for both married-couple family households and those headed by a female householder, and for persons aged

55–64. Losing ground over the eight years were male family householders without a wife, male nonfamily householders, Hispanic households, and households headed by young adults age 15–24 as well as by those 35–54 years old.

With respect to region and place of residence, households outside metropolitan areas and in the South and Midwest experienced income gains; metropolitan households and those in the Northeast and West suffered declines. In absolute numbers, however, the South continues to lag well behind the Northeast, while at the extremes of the distribution, median household income in Alaska is almost twice that in West Virginia.

Because a ‘‘household’’ can consist of one person, often a young adult at the onset of the work life or an elderly retiree, household medians are typically lower than those for families, officially defined as two or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The advantages of family households, especially those comprising a married couple, over nonfamily households is shown in Table 1. Clearly, some of the other differences seen in Table 1—by race, ethnicity, region, and residence—can be accounted for variations in the proportion of married-couple family households.

Per Capita Income. Table 1 also reports on per person income, which has risen by close to 7 percent since 1989 in constant dollars, with black gains outstripping those for whites, although white per capita income remains roughly 40 percent higher that that of blacks. In addition, that part of per capita income which is accounted for by earnings continues to show a gender gap in wages, but one that has narrowed from a 31 percent advantage for male workers in 1989 to 25.8 percent in 1997. In part, this narrowing is due to a 3 percent increase in real earnings for women over the eight years, but also an even more significant decline of more than 4 percent for men during the same period. The loss in real earnings for men reflects the general decline in employment in high-paying unionized jobs in the blue-collar sector as well as corporate downsizing at the managerial level.

Although not shown in Table 1, per capita income also varies directly with years of schooling. Since 1980, the adjusted median wage for workers with only a high school education fell by 6 percent, while the median for college graduates rose by 12

percent. This differential signifies the growing wage gap between unskilled and skilled workers in an economy increasingly geared to processing information rather than to manual labor. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1982 workers in the top decile earned roughly four times the wages of workers in the lowest decile; by 1996, this difference had spread to almost five times (Pierce 1998).

Income Dispersion by Households. In 1997, 11 percent of households had income below $9,000, while 9.4 percent reported income of $100,000 or more. Adjusted for inflation, these numbers indicate a decline of 9 percent in households at the lowest level and an increase of 21 percent in the proportion at the top over the decade since 1987. Also showing a slight increase were households with incomes in both the $75,000–$99,999 and $10,000–$14,999 brackets. In contrast, the proportion of households with incomes between $15,000 and $50,000 declined from 45.2 percent of the total to 44.5 percent. It would appear, then, that the ‘‘middle’’ continues to ‘‘disappear,’’ but that the overall distribution of household income moved upward, with the greatest gains among those in the highest income categories (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998d, Table B-2).

Income Dispersion by Families. A similar pattern characterizes the distribution of income by families rather than households: a modest decline in the proportion with incomes below $10,000, from 7.3 percent in 1987 to 6.8 percent in 1997, a 20 percent increase, from 9.3 to 11.8 percent, at the $100,000+ level, and declines in the proportion in the $25,000–74,999 range (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998d, Table B-4). For both families and households at the lower end of the distribution, much of the gain in income over the decade can be attributed to the longer hours worked by both wives and husbands, as well as the tight labor market that allowed workers to bargain for higher wages (Mishel et al. 1998). Nonetheless, the major gains in family income accrued to the top 10 percent, who realized 85 percent of the increase in the value of stocks.

Income Inequality. Although the Census Bureau’s press releases in the late 1990s focused almost entirely on the overall gain in median household income since 1994, especially for black

and female-headed households, the data also showed a marked increase in inequality on the two measures tabulated by the Bureau.

1.Shares of aggregate income received by households. When income groups are divided into quintiles, the share of aggregate income received by the lowest one-fifth of households fell from a high of 4.4 percent in 1977 to a low of 3.6 percent in 1997, while the share going to the highest fifth rose from 43.6 to 49.4 percent. Declines over the past two decades also characterized the three middle quintiles. In other words, the top 20 percent of households accounted for an ever-higher share of the nation’s aggregate income, with that of the top 5 percent increasing from 16.1 to 21.7 percent.

2.Index of income concentration. Another way of measuring inequality is through an index of income concentration called the Gini coefficient or ratio. A Gini score of 0 would indicate complete equality, where there are no differences among units; a score of 1 indicates complete inequality, whereby one unit has all of whatever is being measured and the other units have none. Figure 1 tracks the percentage change in Gini ratios for household income since 1967. As you can see, the period from 1967 to 1980 was one in which income differences among households rose slowly, held in check largely by increases in government transfers to the poor and a relatively progressive tax structure. Inequality rose more sharply between 1978 and 1989, stabilized briefly during the recession of 1990–1992, and then shot upward in the midand late 1990s. Some of this increase can be accounted for by a change in Census methodology, but most is very real, and there was no indication that the trend had abated in 1998.

As striking as are the data on household income inequality shown in Figure 1, the story for family income is even more dramatic. After declining during the 1960s, the percent change in Gini coefficients for family income has risen sharply higher than for households, reaching the 20–25