That body of knowledge grows with theory and research-because theory guides research. (Leslie, 1996). .
I will now describe specific theories given in each of the three articles being examined in this text, beginning with the article, "The Uneven Geography of Racial and Ethnic Wage Inequality: Specifying Local Labor Market Effects." The main or central position in Park's article is the institutional theory. The author applied the institutional theory through the analysis of racial and ethnic discrimination being a cause and consequence of inequality in the local labor market settings. "The article examines wage inequality through the investigation of the uneven geography of racial and ethnic wage inequality across metropolitan labor markets. Prior geographic studies largely restricted analysis of the source of inter-metropolitan wage disparities to differences in industrial structure. The study goes on further to expand the analysis of labor market effects by conceptually describing and empirically analyzing the effects three significant racial labor market institutions: public employment, unionization, and the penal system." (Parks, 2012, p.700). Research shows that, "inequality among American workers increased dramatically during the last decades of the twentieth century. .
Accelerating most rapidly during the 1980s, wage differences by education, age, occupation, and race all widened substantially. Most American workers, especially minorities and the less educated, fared no better during the boom years of the 1990s: Wage inequality continued to rise, although less steeply. Current and past studies demonstrate, the geographic variability of wage inequality reflects fundamental geographic processes-uneven development, agglomeration economies, regional restructuring, migration and demographic change, local institutional norms and practices-That aggravate or worsen wage inequality among workers.
