Gender, power and postindustrialism

Dans cette communication, nous étudions le rôle du sexe dans l'organisation des rapports de production sur le marché du travail post-industriel au Canada. L'article s'appuie d'abord sur les données des recensements de la période de 1941 à 1986 pour décrire les spécificités liées au sexe de la transition au post-industrialisme telle que vécue par les hommes et les femmes. Le post-industrialisme a entraîné un départ d'un grand nombre d'hommes de l'agriculture et les industries du secteur primaire, mais le secteur manufacturier est resté jusqu'à récemment relativement stable. Pour les femmes, le post-industrialisme a surtout provoqué le passage du travail domestique non rémunéré au travail salarié dans les industries de services. Par conséquent, la répartition de l'emploi chez les hommes demeure essentiellement celle d'une économie industrielle traditionnelle; or, dans les industries de services ‘post-industrielles, ce sont les femmes qui prédominent. Done nous analysons les données de l'Enquête sur les structures de classe et démontrons que la prédominance numérique des femmes dans les services n'a strictement rien changéà l'écart entre les sexes en ce qui concerne l'accès aux postes de pouvoir et d'autorité. Dans les secteurs traditionnels, producteurs de marchandises, les hommes commandent généralement aux hommes, tandis que dans le secteur des services, les hommes commandent maintenant aux femmes. Nous terminons par une analyse des données de recensement qui montre en quoi les différences entre hommes et femmes en matière d'accès au pouvoir et à l'autorité ont évolué dans le temps. In this paper we examine the gendered nature of production relations in the context of Canada's postindustrial labour market. We begin by describing gender-specific features of the transition to postindustrialism with census data for the period from 1941–1986. For men, postindustrialism brought considerable movement out of agriculture and other extractive industries but, until recently, relative stability in the manufacturing sector. For women, postindustrialism has mainly meant a shift from unpaid domestic labour to paid employment in the service industries. As a consequence, male employment patterns continue to resemble those of a traditional industrial economy while women predominate in the ‘postindustrial’ service industries. We then use data from the 1982 Class Structure Survey to show that women's numerical dominance in services has in no way altered the gender gap in access to positions of power and authority. In the traditional goods-producing sectors, men mainly rule other men while the service economy is the site where men now rule over women. We end with an analysis of change over time in male-female differences in access to power and authority using census data.     

Global Agro-Food Corporations and the State: The Ferruzzi Case

The relationship between transnational corporations (TNCs) in the agro-food sector and the nation-state in the context of global post-Fordism is examined through a case study of recent events involving the Ferruzzi transnational corporation. TNCs have a complex and contradictory set of relations with the state that are affected by competition among TNCs, by TNCs' internal disagreements, and by the fragmented nature of the state. The state assists TNCs through formal and informal channels. In this specific case, the informality of the system is underscored by the openly illegal arrangement that was operated for years by Ferruzzi officials and members of the officialdom of the state. However, the state also has the capacity to counter the actions of TNCs and to enforce the interests of subordinate groups.     

Family and neighborhood welfare dependency and sons' labor supply

This article tests four models of how parental and childhood welfare use affects sons' labor supply: the correlated disadvantages model, Wilson's structural-environmental model, Mead's welfare culture model, and Murray's incentives model. Past research is extended by including measures of all seven factors that these models predict will shape sons' labor supply: parental welfare use, neighborhood welfare use, parental income, family noneconomic resources, neighborhood resources, labor market conditions, and state welfare benefits. There are four main findings. First, welfare use in the childhood neighborhood has no effects on sons' work hours. Second, only one group of sons is affected by parental welfare use: black sons' whose parents average $7,500 or more in welfare income per year. Third, black sons' adult work hours are strongly predicted by parental poverty and by labor market conditions; together these account for half the estimated relationships between heavy parental welfare use and black sons' labor supply. Fourth, parents' and neighbors' work hours strongly predict nonblack sons' labor supply. This research was supported by Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, by the Rockefeller Foundation, and by the Office of the Vice-President for Research at the University of Michigan. We are grateful to John Bound, Sheldon Danziger, Greg Duncan, Martha Hill, and an anoymous reviewer for helpful comments and advice, to Marguerite Grabarek and James Kunz for programming, and most of all to Wendy Niemi for her patient, accurate, and efficient typing. Her research interests include poverty, social stratification, and labor economics. His research interests include rural poverty, poverty neighborhoods, and intergenerational poverty.     

An application of a multi‐stage strategy involving confidence intervals to evaluate whether a response rate is favourable or not

In early clinical development of new medicines, a single‐arm study with a limited number of patients is often used to provide a preliminary assessment of a response rate. A multi‐stage design may be indicated, especially when the first stage should only include very few patients so as to enable rapid identification of an ineffective drug. We used decision rules based on several types of nominal confidence intervals to evaluate a three‐stage design for a study that includes at most 30 patients. For each decision rule, we used exact binomial calculations to determine the probability of continuing to further stages as well as to evaluate Type I and Type II error rates. Examples are provided to illustrate the methods for evaluating alternative decision rules and to provide guidance on how to extend the methods to situations with modifications to the number of stages or number of patients per stage in the study design. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trade Unions,Gender and Claims under Irish Employment Equality Legislation

This article examines trade union activity in representing claimants at Equality Officer investigations under the Republic of Ireland's Employment Equality Act, 1977 . This is set in the context of traditional trade union support for gender segregation in employment and the observation that trade union decision‐making bodies still tend to be heavily male dominated. Use of the Act by trade unions is shown to have been mainly reactive rather than strategic. Evidence is presented that, while some individual union officials actively supported claims, this was not necessarily typical. It is argued that this represented a lost opportunity by trade unions to push the equality agenda forward and is consistent with continuation of the patriarchal trade union tradition. The article concludes by arguing that significant change to this approach is unlikely, given current gendered patterns of trade union governance.     

Predictors of out-of-pocket medical expenditures in low-income households

From a sample of low-income households, out-of-pocket medical expenses are found to average about $25 per month. For each household, these expenses vary with annual income, type of insurance for medical care, priority of medical expenses, ethnicity, and number of ill family members. Expenses are reported for households with different socioeconomic characteristics and composition. Multiparticipation in insurance programs is shown. Fourteen percent of the survey participants say they have no insurance, public or private. Thirty-three percent participate in Medicaid.Flora L. Williams is an Associate Professor in Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University and includes family economic well-being, and financial problems and expenditures among her research interests.Amy Hagler received her M.S. from Purdue University in Consumer Sciences and Retailing.Mary Pritchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human and Family Resources at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854. Her Ph.D. was earned at Purdue and her areas of research focus on family economic well-being and economic socialization of adolescents.Marshall A. Martin is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. His research addresses agriculture and food policy, and economic assessment of emerging agricultural technology.William C. Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, 46227-3697. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University and focuses his research on economic psychology and health care cost.     

W.E.B. Du Bois and the women of hull-house, 1895–1899

An important aspect of W.E.B. Du Bois’s professional socialization is documented; specifically, Du Bois’s professional interactions with women sociologists who practiced in social settlements, notably Jane Addams, Katherine Bement Davis, Florence Kelley, and Isabel Eaton. These women, and their research in Hull-House Maps and Papers, were facilitators and role models for Du Bois’s The Philadelphia Negro, in which Isabel Eaton was a significant collaborator. Addams, Kelley, and their friends joined Du Bois to cofound the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an exemplar of applied sociology and Du Bois’s shared interests with the early Hull-House women. These early sociologists changed American thought and social policy and today provide a rich heritage for contemporary professionals in sociology.