Classroom and Advocacy: A Project on the Working Poor in St. Louis

A social work seminar on employment issues was devoted to a research-based advocacy project on the working poor. All class members participated in data gathering, interviewing, and report writing. The report included national, state, and local data describing the working poor population. Particular attention was given to single mothers, the homeless, and health care issues. The project resulted in a published report by a major social welfare ad     

High Stakes: Time Poverty,Testing, and the Children of the Working Poor

Sociological interest in the implementation of policy generally focuses on the ways a single stream of policy creates a set of measurable consequences either for parents or children. This article takes an ethnographic approach to the study of conflicting policy mandates that collide in the lives of families moving from welfare to work at the same time that schools are implementing high stakes tests and the end of social promotion. We show that these two policies make contradictory demands on parents, to the potential detriment of children. Ethnographic research reveals the ways in which multiple and incompatible forms of policy impact poor families, putting them in the unhappy position of choosing between economic stability or mobility and children's educational performance.     

In Search of a Better Life: The Experiences of Working Poor Immigrants in Vancouver,Canada

We utilized data from 72 in‐depth interviews with immigrant hotel and hospital support workers employed in the service sector of Vancouver, Canada to analyse migration decisions and subsequent experiences after arrival. We found that migrant social networks were centrally important, both as a stimulus for migration and in shaping post‐arrival experiences. At the same time, the working conditions faced by immigrants after arrival, such as low pay and long work hours, resulted in serious challenges. While some struggled with multiple jobs to make ends meet, others felt their economic circumstances prevented them from even bringing their children to Canada. In some cases, children were returned to their country of origin. Features of low‐wage service sector jobs also limited the time available for participation in community life. The findings both support and advance recent theoretical contributions about the incorporation of immigrants in the United States and Canada. As immigrants frequently face occupational downgrading and are channelled into low‐wage service sector jobs, the conditions of work and social policies are important for their post‐arrival experiences and incorporation. Going beyond traditional conceptions of citizenship in the immigration literature, some respondents acted through their union and community organizations to attempt to change society and improve their fortunes. While some sought social justice through political activism, others used their limited family and community life time to reterritorialize values from their countries of origin. Part of their activism was transnational, such as sending remittances to help loved ones back home, but other involvement included participation in organizations with the aim of promoting social justice or improving life in their new country. The experiences of immigrant service sector workers in Vancouver suggest a need for greater emphasis on the role of both immigrant and non‐immigrant specific social and labour policies for understanding immigrant incorporation in North America.     

Poor children1

This article explores trends in child poverty in the UK since 1979 and examines the extent to which the government is making progress in pursuit of its objective to abolish child poverty in 20 years. The spatial distribution of child poverty is examined by country, local authority and ward. The characteristics of households containing poor children are presented and research on the dynamics of child poverty reviewed. Child poverty in the UK trebled during the 1980s and has only just begun to fall slowly. Child poverty is heavily spatially concentrated and the risks of child poverty are concentrated in certain types of household. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Scamming the Poor

Abstract

Because of the difficulty in securing traditional forms of credit, the poor are often driven into the fringe economy for check cashing, bill paying and short-term loans. These services involve high user fees and exorbitant interest rates that rival or even exceed those for illegal loan sharking. Fringe lending businesses function as a legal and virtually unregulated form of predatory loan-sharking. They neither offer nor promote savings-based financial products that build assets and increase household wealth. The predictable outcome is the depletion of the income and assets of low-income families and communities. Because many poor clients are vulnerable to fringe market lenders, social workers need to understand this market to better assist the poor in finding and developing alternative forms of borrowing. This article will explore the rapidly growing fringe economy and examine strategies to help curb the drain of income and assets from low-income communities.     

Poor People in Poor Places: Local Opportunity Structures and Household Poverty*

Abstract Accounts of poverty generally fall into either “individualist” or “structuralist” camps. Often these are seen as irreconcilable and incompatible competing perspectives. This paper integrates individualist and structuralist accounts of poverty by examining the relationship between “person poverty” and “place poverty” in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan labor markets, using a multilevel framework. I fashion a general model of poverty production and allocation, drawing on the labor market ecology perspective. After a discussion of this perspective, I develop a multilevel framework for analyzing data from the 1990 Census PUMS‐L sample, STF‐3c, and other sources to show how compositional and contextual factors affect households' likelihoods of being in poverty. These multilevel models also allow us to estimate the degree to which labor market conditions influence the magnitude of household labor supply characteristics. Results suggest that both compositional and contextual factors contribute to the metro‐nonmetro difference in poverty rates, and that the effects of employment vary in accordance with labor market characteristics.     

Norwegian Working Fathers in Global Working Life

This article examines the impact that global working life has on working fathers’ practices and family life. The internationalization of working life implies that different traditions and practices encounter and challenge each other. The focus is on mothers’ and children's experiences with work–family life and their perceptions of fathers working in global companies. Using a case study approach, we explore how working conditions in global knowledge work organizations affect fathers’ work practices and family life. The findings indicate that working conditions in global working life are gendered and not conducive to the development of the Norwegian fatherhood ideal of the working father. This is due to global and flexible working conditions, which imply long working hours, extensive travel and jetlag‐related problems. Global working conditions produce a traditional masculinity practice, what Connell terms ‘transnational masculinity’, which infringes upon fathers’ practice of being present.     

Globalisation and the Rural Poor

This article surveys how globalisation is affecting rural poverty. The forces of change may affect the welfare of the rural poor through their influence on productivity, growth, income distribution, technologies, the security of livelihoods, and policies. There are both credit and debit entries: large potential benefits, for example from accelerated growth, but also real dangers that the rural poor will be left behind, for example that they will not have access to the knowledge and other assets necessary for success in a commercialised world. The article also discusses some of the influences on the ways the forces of change work themselves out, stressing the importance of market access, positive government policy stances and the assets of the rural poor.     

Working relationships

This paper describes a workshop intended to promote greater understanding and future cooperation between health visitors, general practitioners and social workers. The workshop has been run for students on qualifying courses but its content and procedures are relevant for programmes for qualified workers. The paper outlines the aims and practice of the workshop and some of the issues arising from it.     

Strengthening Financial Markets for the Poor

Books reviewed in this article: Martin Brownbridge and Charles Harvey, Banking in Africa: the Impact of Financial Sector Reform since Independence Machiko Nissanke and Ernest Aryeetey, Financial Integration and Development: Liberalisation and Reform in sub-Saharan Africa Geoffrey D. Wood and Iffath A. Sharif (eds.), Who Needs Credit? Poverty and Finance in Bangladesh     

Working on Hair

This article examines the complex interactions that occur in some contemporary beauty salons and barbershops, focusing on barbers, cosmetologists and clients in a white, working- to middle-class area of rural Northwestern Pennsylvania and in two middle- to upper-class urban areas in Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study finds that salons and barbershops are gender and class-marked environments where barbers, cosmetologists and their clients come to manage gender and class identities. Most importantly this research reveals two interesting, somewhat inverse trends in this workforce. On the one hand, there is increasing class stratification in different types of hair salons from upscale to mass franchise operations. On the other hand, there is a declining level of gender segregation among both hair workers and their clients.     

Working with Stepfamilies

Stepfamilies are complex family systems that warrant a specific model to guide therapy practice. Once a stepfamily has formed it's easy to overlook the lack of an attachment history that is commonly embedded in a biologically connected nuclear family. This can result in stepparents picking up parental responsibility for their stepchildren, which often may not go well. This paper highlights the need for clarity concerning the different levels of connection within a stepfamily, and the importance of avoiding ‘nuclear family‐style’ solutions and assumed attachments. This is especially important in the early stages of the relationship when everyone is adjusting to changing circumstances, which is often a time when issues of loyalty and betrayal fuel many of the actions taken. A range of family therapy techniques can be helpfully adapted to working with stepfamilies, especially as relationships with children often bring them to therapy. In particular, therapists can utilise ideas from structural family therapy to help guide the stepfamily to navigate the complexities of everyday life.