The state of the unions: United States and Canada

This study demonstrates that the Canadian labor movement has outperformed its American counterpart in terms of union growth, union density, and certification outcomes. Labor and product market factors do not appear to be major contributing factors. Public policy and increased employer resistance have played a critical role, particularly in the decline of unionization in the United States. Union-related variables — militancy, structure, and the desire and ability to organize — are also important in explaining the divergent union trends in the two countries.     

The Politics of Migration,Church, and State: A Case Study of the Catholic Church in Ireland

This article investigates the ways in which a shift from post‐colonial nation building to neoliberal state restructuring has shaped church and Irish state relations regarding migrant welfare. It develops the extensive work of Bäckström and Davie (2010) and Bäckström et al. (2011) on how majority churches in European countries are reclaiming a social welfare role as the state relinquishes this responsibility: first, by examining the domain of migrant welfare which is not developed in their work; and second, by arguing that majority church pro‐migrant service provision, as it has evolved in recent decades, can be understood in relation to an emergent neoliberal mode of collective responsibility for migrant welfare. It suggests that in spite of other factors and forces that undermine Irish Catholic Church authority, the marketization of more domains of life in the first decades of the twenty‐first century has given new significance to Catholic Social Teaching and pro‐migrant church initiatives.     

Gender Equality as Institutional Work: The Case of the Church of Sweden

Institutional theory predicts that organizations respond to external changes in their environment to be able to safeguard their long‐term viability. One of the most significant institutional changes in the last century has been the entry of women into both labour markets and professions; however, an extensive literature reports that gender inequality and various forms of sexism still structure and influence the everyday work of organizations. Drawing on the recent literature on institutional work, the article reports on a study of how the Church of Sweden has managed to relatively successfully institutionalize female ministers as legitimate and widely respected members of the professional category of ministers ordained by the Church. Female ministers believe they are, by and large, respected in the Church, but suggest that gender remains an issue as women are at times expected to embody certain interests and have to answer some questions that their male colleagues may have been spared. The findings describe institutional work as an ongoing process with no fixed end‐point, stressing agency as the distributed and collective capacity to question established beliefs and norms.     

Power and Pantaloons: The Case of Lee Boo and the Normalizing of the Student in Micronesia

Standing at the entrance to Palau Community College is a statue of Lee Boo, the son of the chief of Koror who was sent to England in 1783 as part of an exchange between Palauans and English sailors who had shipwrecked earlier on a nearby island. Dressed as the ideal Enlightenment scholar, Lee Boo serves as both a figuration of the normalization of Western schooling in Palau and other parts of Micronesia, as well as a productive simulacrum. A “reading” of Lee Boo employing visual and discursive analytics allows us to consider more fundamental issues of how a Foucaultian power/knowledge circuit operates through technologies of school and, in this case, the construction of the subjectivity of the student in Micronesia, as well as the ways in which processes of colonization and contemporary “development” circulate through formal schooling in the region.     

The Narrowing Regional Gap in Church Attendance in the United States1

Abstract Students of the South have postulated that southern distinctiveness is eroding. Using General Social Survey data for 1972–1991, the convergence hypothesis is tested for regular church attendance. Regional convergence is found, but only for the rural South. Also, narrowing of regional differences in church attendance is especially pronounced among the young, indicating that the convergence is likely to continue. Despite these results, present church attendance levels remain significantly higher in the South than in the non South.     

Lessons for Multisite Nonprofits from the United Church of Christ

This article describes the restructuring process currently underway at the United Church of Christ (UCC)—a 1.4 million member Protestant denomination. Three main questions are addressed: What are the central goals of the UCC restructure? What factors might explain the particular strategic direction pursued in UCC restructuring? and How might the UCC case inform recent thinking about the structure and performance of multisite nonprofits?     

The Community Engagement of Immigrants in Host Societies: The Case of Canada

Using the data from the General Social Survey (2003), the community engagement of immigrants in Canada has been examined along 15 different dimensions. The findings indicate that immigrants add to the overall level of community engagement in Canada in the areas of confidence in public institutions ‐‐ such as judiciary, government, police, welfare system, education, and health care ‐‐ and involvement in religious activities. The areas in which immigrants fall behind are those that involve social interactions with the host population (e.g., trust, neighbourliness, social networks, group activities, volunteering, etc.) or engagement with private sector (i.e., confidence in private institutions such as banks and major corporations). Some of these measures of community engagement improve over time, but there is also an alarming trend that some decline with longer stays in Canada. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Demographic Trends in the United States: A Review of Research in the 2000s

Demographic trends in the 2000s showed the continuing separation of family and household due to factors such as childbearing among single parents, the dissolution of cohabiting unions, divorce, repartnering, and remarriage. The transnational families of many immigrants also displayed this separation, as families extended across borders. In addition, demographers demonstrated during the decade that trends such as marriage and divorce were diverging according to education. Moreover, demographic trends in the age structure of the population showed that a large increase in the elderly population will occur in the 2010s. Overall, demographic trends produced an increased complexity of family life and a more ambiguous and fluid set of categories than demographers are accustomed to measuring.     

Financial Responsibility for the Family: The Case of Southeast Asian Refugees in Canada

Although respondents (n = 647) came from collectivist societies (Vietnam and Laos) where they were expected to provide for the family, they have been living in a setting (Canada) where individualism is emphasized and public sources of assistance are available. The effect of this transition on their beliefs and behaviors regarding financial responsibility for family was assessed. With the exception of new situations (government assistance for the elderly or poor, and money sent to relatives in the home country), respondents endorsed traditional beliefs. Lower English ability and favorable views toward multiculturalism were associated with traditional views. They relied on non-family as well as family for financial assistance. Ethnic differences, reflective of their resettlement experiences, were evident.     

Spatial Statistics for Dyadic Data: Analyzing the Relationship Landscape

Spatial statistics has a rich tradition in earth, economic, and epidemiological sciences and has potential to affect the study of couples as well. When applied to couple data, spatial statistics can model within‐ and between‐couple differences with results that are readily accessible for researchers and clinicians. This article offers a primer in using spatial statistics as a methodological tool for analyzing dyadic data. The article will introduce spatial approaches, review data structure required for spatial analysis, available software, and examples of data output.     

Family Change and Economic Well-being in Canada: The Case of Recent Immigrant Families with Children

This paper examines the relationship between family change and economic well‐being among recent immigrant families with children to Canada during the 1977 to 1997 period. Whereas the average income to needs ratio of all Canadian families with children is up modestly over this period, this study documents a substantial decline in the average level of economic well‐being of recent immigrants. In this context, this study draws attention to the relevance of not only structural explanations that emphasize the role of labour markets and/or government policy in shaping the economic conditions of immigrants, but also the potential impact of shifts in the living arrangements and family structure of immigrants. More specifically, an increased incidence of lone parenthood has had a net negative impact on the economic well‐being of immigrants, albeit not to the same extent as among non‐immigrants in Canada. Yet, other changes have had a slight positive impact, including an ongoing decline in the average number of children per family, an upward shift in the age distribution of parents, and a slight increase in the tendency of immigrants to co‐reside with family members beyond the immediate nuclear family.     

Venues and Filters in Managed Migration Policy: The Case of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, like many developed world economies, has witnessed unprecedented immigration since the early 1990s. Also in line with other developed world economies, the United Kingdom has adopted a “managed migration” policy paradigm. The paper argues that the operation of this paradigm is best understood with reference to two key concepts: migration policy “venues” and migration policy “filters.” In terms of the former, the paper argues that managed migration policy is associated with outward, upward, and downward rescaling and commensurate venue growth and diversification. In terms of the latter, the paper argues that six policy filters (legal, geographical, credential, transfer‐based, monetary, and humanitarian) are commonly used to determine legitimate forms of migration but that one (the geographical filter) has been particularly prominent within the United Kingdom's managed migration policy paradigm.     

Demographic change, macroeconomic conditions, and the murder rate: The case of the United States, 1934–2006

Fluctuations in aggregate crime rates contrary to recent shifts in the age distribution of the U.S. population have cast doubt on the predictive power of the age–crime hypothesis. By examining a longer time horizon, back to the early 1930s, we show that the percentage of the young population is a robust predictor of the observed large swings in the U.S. murder rate over time. However, changes in the misery index—the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates—significantly contribute to explaining changes in the murder rate. This applies, in particular, to those changes that are at odds with the long-run trend of the U.S. age distribution, such as the decline in the murder rate in the latter part of the 1970s or its increase starting around the middle of the 1980s.     

Crime in Canada and in the United States: A Comparative Analysis*

Au cours des trois dernières décennies, plusieurs chercheurs se sont penchés sur l'étude comparative de la criminalité aux États-Unis et au Canada. En particulier, Lipset (1990) et Hagan (1991) ont montré que la violence était plus fréquente au sud de la frontière Canado-américaine qu'au nord de celle-ci. À partir de l'étude des différences régionales intra-nationales de la criminalité, cet article montre que les deux pays ne se distinguent pas l'un de l'autre de manière univoque. D'abord, la prévalence des cambriolages et des vols de véhicules automobiles est comparable d'un pays à l'autre. Ensuite, les différences en ce qui concerne les vols qualifiés et les homicides s'estompent lorsque l'on procède à des comparaisons régionales contrôlant pour l'impact des métropoles. Les différences des taux agrégés de la criminalité entre les États-Unis et le Canada sont attribuables à la présence de quelques États et villes américaines où la violence et le vol sont particulièrement fréquents. Deux avenues d'explication sont explorées: la ségrégation résidentielle dés pauvres dans les villes et la disponibilité des armes à feu. In the past three decades, a number of researchers have undertaken the comparison of American and Canadian crime rates. Among them, Lipset (1990) and Hagan (1991) have shown that violence was more frequent south of the border than in Canada. Using infra-national disaggregated crime rates, this article shows that differences in the two countries' crime rates are not univocal. First, there is no significant difference in the prevalence in burglaries and in car thefts between both nations. Second, differences in the robbery rate and the homicide rate shrink dramatically when controlling for the region and removing the effect of metropolises. What makes U.S. crime rates appear much higher than Canadian ones can be attributable to a small number of states and cities that have extraordinarily high crime rates. Two factors are proposed to account for this situation: residential segregation of the poor within cities and the availability of firearms.     

Trade unionism in Canada and the United States: a reply to Bowden

Gary Bowden's (1989) comprehensive report on opinion poll questions bearing on Canadian trade unionism is presented in the context of a criticism of my earlier comparative discussion of the reasons why union density in Canada is much higher than in the United States. He contends that my emphasis on value differences in trying to account for the greater strength of unionism (and socialism) in Canada is wrong since, countering my expectations, survey findings do not demonstrate that Canadians are more sympathetic to unions than Americans. These results, however, do not surprise me or serve as a basic challenge to my analysis (Lipset, 1986). In my recent effort to evaluate the many differences in institutions and values in the two countries, I, too, indicate:
Curiously, given the large difference in union strength across the border, questions inquiring about attitudes toward unions, their power, and the outcomes of strikes that have been posed by the Gallup polls, Decima and CRI, Harris, NORC, and the Wright-Myles studies do not show Canadians as more pro-union than Americans. Some even find the population in the north less approving of unions and more concerned about union power, which in fact is much greater there than in the northern [sic] nation. (Lipset, 1989; 1990a: 69). [I must apologize here for an obvious error, northern clearly should have read southern].     

Migration between the United States and Canada: a study of labour market adjustment

"... The main purpose of this study is to examine population flows between Canada and the United States [from mid-1947 to mid-1972] in order to investigate the degree to which labour market adjustment is aided by such movements. [The author considers] several functional forms of the migration relationship in an attempt to empirically determine how the decision to migrate is formed. [He also compares the] results with those obtained by Courchene...for Canadian interprovincial migration in an effort to compare the effects of international and internal migration on labour market adjustment." It is found that "migration between the United States and Canada over the post-war period is an economic variable. In fact, [a] simple model employing differences in income levels and unemployment rates has been able to explain nearly ninety-five per cent of the variation in the migration rate." The author also notes that "although migration between Canada and the United States does occur in such a way as to aid labour market adjustment, it is not as efficient as internal migration." (summary in FRE, SPA)