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Three explanations typically are offered for differences in earnings: (1) individuals have different levels of human capital and hold different jobs (endowments differ), (2) rewards to human capital and job characteristics differ (returns differ), and (3) some combination of differences in endowments and returns explain variations in earnings. We argue that the structure of labor markets in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas differs from that in metropolitan (metro) areas such that returns, as well as endowments, vary. These variations in returns favor metropolitan workers, explaining the predominant portion of the metro/nonmetro earnings gap. We examine the earnings differences for metro and nonmetro men and women in both 1977 and 1987, showing that returns outweigh endowments in explaining that gap for both men and women, although their importance decreases over the ten‐year period. Research to improve our understanding of how differences in labor market structure produce differential returns has begun and may yield yet another avenue for action for policymakers interested in reducing metro/nonmetro inequalities.

Fringe benefits have been neglected as a source of job-induced gender inequality. Among full-time, private sector workers in the United States in 1979, women's health insurance coverage rate was 12 percentage points lower than men's. This article considers three models to explain such gender differences in the receipt of fringe benefits: the direct discrimination model, the occupational segregation model, and the industrial segregation model. Using data from the May 1979 Current Population Survey Supplement, we found the magnitude of the gender gap in health insurance coverage in the United States to be related to industrial differences. We argue that industrial segregation of women workers may be more important than occupational segregation in determining gender differences in work rewards.

This paper reports the development and application of a method for evaluating the methodology of social science research. In this study, 11 social scientists rated the methodology of 126 federally sponsored, social science research projects. Written documentation from each research project was divided into three packets, representing three stages of the research process: proposal, interim report, and completed research. Each project was independently rated at each of the three stages by two different reviewers, using a comprehensive methodology review instrument created for this purpose. A series of factor analyses of the ratingsfor 75 evaluative methodological features reveals a multidimensional structure underlying the evaluations. This structure appears to become more elaborate as research progresses toward completion. The implications of the structuring of methodological assessments are discussed for research funding procedures, research monitoring, the conduct of research, and the training of social scientists. basic tenet of science holds that the procedures by which a conclusion is reached determine whether that conclusion should be treated as demonstrated and generalizable knowledge. ~ ~ -Assessment of research procedures is largely a normative matter, depending upon currently accepted standards and practice.

Both papers in this issue have as their greatest strength the detailed specification of barriers that black workers face in the course of the employment process. These descriptions of employment barriers are embedded in analyses of the employment process as a series of stages ranging from recruitment through selection, evaluation, and promotion. Although the two papers focus on different types of barriers (on social-psychological barriers arising from interpersonal interactions in Pettigrew-Martin, and on structural barriers arising in part from segregated housing and schooling patterns in Braddock-McPartland), the analyses are complementary rather than contradictory. Pettigrew and Martin make no claims about which barriers are most instrumental in preventing more black progress in employment, but Braddock and McPartland suggest that problems at the point of entry are more serious than problems at the promotion stage. This is consistent with Pettigrew and Martin's claim that the structural problem of too few blacks in work organizations sets the context for creating the serious interpersonal problems they identify. LAURI PERMAN is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University where she is conducting research on the value that workers place on the nonmonetary characteristics of their jobs. Her other research interests include the effect of fringe benefits on earnines inequality by gender.