Impact of Canadian Postsecondary Education on Occupational Prestige of Highly Educated Immigrants

Cet article utilise les données provenant de l'Enquête longitudinale auprès des immigrants du Canada (ELIC) couvrant la période 2000‐2004 afin d'évaluer l'emploi à durée déterminée et la réussite professionnelle des immigrants récents qui, bien qu'ayant obtenu un diplôme universitaire dans leur pays d'origine, ont choisi de s'inscrire dans un établissement d'enseignement postsecondaire canadien. La principale conclusion de l'article est que la réussite professionnelle des immigrants très instruits est affectée par le choix de l'enseignement post‐secondaire au Canada, toutes catégories socio‐démographiques et conditions d'avant ou après migration confondues. Quatre années après leur arrivée au Canada, les immigrants occupent des emplois nettement moins prestigieux que ceux qu'ils avaient avant la migration. Les immigrants qui ont poursuivi des études universitaires au Canada atteignent des meilleurs résultats professionnels que les non‐participants ou ceux qui ont choisi un collège communautaire. Néanmoins, la majorité des immigrants très instruits n'ont pas réussi à retrouver leur profession. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada covering the period 2000 to 2004 to assess short‐term employment and occupational attainment of recent immigrants who, despite having completed a university degree in their countries of origin, chose to obtain additional credentials at a Canadian postsecondary institution. The main finding of this paper is that occupational attainment of highly educated immigrants is affected by choice of postsecondary education in Canada regardless of differences in sociodemographic, premigration characteristics, and postmigration conditions. Four years after entry, immigrants worked in jobs with significantly lower occupational prestige than those held prior to migration. Immigrants who pursued a university education in Canada attained highest occupational outcomes when compared to nonparticipants and those who chose a community college pathway. Nevertheless, the majority of highly educated immigrants failed to gain entry to the professions.     

Supplemental Security Income recipients affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: an analysis of two years of administrative data

Approximately 350,000 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients—elderly and disabled individuals with low incomes and assets—lived in the areas directly affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August 2005. We show that recipients from affected areas were more likely to leave the program, have more volatile participation patterns, and leave the area in the 2 years following the hurricanes than were recipients from unaffected areas. Among recipients from more severely affected areas relative to those from unaffected states, the odds of dying were 40% greater and the odds of leaving SSI for other reasons were 23% greater. Additionally, 31% of recipients from more severely affected areas had experienced a non-payment month, with 46% subsequently returning to the rolls (compared with 23% and 41% of recipients from unaffected states). Nearly 60% of SSI recipients from more severely affected areas lived in a different county or parish 2 years after the hurricanes, compared with about 12% from unaffected areas. In all, our findings demonstrate that natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita can have large and persistent impacts on SSI recipients, including effects on program status, mortality, and geographic location.     

Home‐based Telework,Gender, and the Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co‐residents

This article explores the relationship between work–family roles and boundaries, and gender, among home‐based teleworkers and their families. Previous literature suggests two alternative models of the implications of home‐based work for gendered experiences of work and family: the new opportunities for flexibility model and the exploitation model. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study of home‐based workers and their co‐residents, we argue that these models are not mutually exclusive. We explore the gendered processes whereby teleworking can simultaneously enhance work–life balance while perpetuating traditional work and family roles.     

A Study of Suicide Risk Using a Cox Cure Model via a Retrospective Sampling and Multiple Imputation

The incidence of suicide is an example of rare event. A Cox cure model is adopted to examine the suicide risk of a cohort study of a sample of 65,000 Personal Emergency Link users over a 10-year observation period. Our objective is to investigate the effect of personal covariates on the failure time to suicide as well as the long-term survival from suicide. Based on the Cox cure model, a new and efficient estimation approach using retrospective sampling and multiple imputation was used. Compared with the standard Cox proportional hazards model, the Cox cure model provides a new perspective on analyzing the suicide data.     

Marketing Strategies and Market Prospects for Environmentally-Friendly Consumer Products1

Recent evidence suggests that the extent of consumer adoption of ‘green’ products is much less than would be indicated by the enthusiastic opinion poll evidence concerning public attitudes towards environmentally-friendly consumption. This paper reports on an empirical analysis of firms' marketing strategies and their influence on consumer demand for green products. In twenty 2–3 hour interviews with senior managers, four representative groups of markets were analysed household detergents, paper (recycled), petrol (unleaded) and automobile technology (focusing on catalytic converters). According to managers, firms' marketing strategies influenced consumer demand by making green technologies available in the fwst instance. However, barriers to supplying green products that show panty with, or better performance than, conventional technologies constrain pricing and communication efforts Managers stressed that, in the absence of clarity of green products' environmental benefits, product performance and other attributes, not green benefits, remain the main determinants of product preference and choice. Promotions focused much more on consumers than distribution channels, yet channel acceptance and support of green innovations are paramount in facilitating sales. Firms see the costs of generating and promoting desirable green technologies as barriers to diffusion in the immediate future. Legislation and/or economic incentives may help, but manufacturers are not optimistic that future green consumption rates will accelerate. The results also highlight several propositions concerning the discrepancy between consumer environmental concerns and purchasing actions which warrant further testing: there is mis-specification of green products in relation to consumers'needs; there are barriers to perceptions of green products' environmental impact and consumers' free ride due to individual self-interest.     

The Problems of Effecting Change Within the British Civil Service: A Cultural Perspective

This paper examines the relatively unexplored area of underachievement in organization change programmes, where the original ambitions of the authors of change fail to be realized at the level of implementation. A case in point is the British Civil Service which after several years of government endeavour has not seen the large-scale, ‘second order’ change that had been expected. The paper offers a cultural perspective on this issue. Using the findings from an in-depth, ethnographic study of one of the newly formed agencies within the civil service, it argues that attempts at change can be frustrated by a ‘cultural infrastructure’ at the local level which acts to neutralize any attempt to change from above - in relative power terms a case of David defeating Goliath. This structure is a social defence against the anxieties and ambiguities brought about by the threat of impending change, and is manifested not as resistance, or even avoidance, but disregard and unstudied indifference. These local cultural orientations are the cause of ‘schematic myopia’ (Harris, 1989) or collective blindness, which prevent those affected from recognizing the significance of a major change initiative. An examination of these cultural processes reveals the inherent weaknesses and limitations of one of the most ubiquitous of change models to be found in organizations today: the top-down, ‘invasionary’ approach to change.     

Agency Communication, Community Outrage, and Perception of Risk: Three Simulation Experiments

Three experimental studies were conducted employing hypothetical news stories to compare the effects on reader risk perceptions of two situations: when agency communication behavior was reported to be responsive to citizens' risk concerns, vs. when the agency was reported to be unresponsive. In the first two experiments, news stories of public meetings filled with distrust and controversy led to ratings indicating greater perceived risk than news stories reporting no distrust or controversy, even though the risk information was held constant. This effect appeared clearly when the differences in meeting tone were extreme and subjects made their ratings from their recall of the stories, but it was much weaker when the differences were moderate and subjects were allowed to go back over the news stories to help separate risk information from conflict information. In the third experiment, news stories about a spill cleanup systematically varied the seriousness of the spill, the amount of technical information provided in the story, and the agency behavior and resulting community outrage. The outrage manipulation significantly affected affective and cognitive components of perceived risk, but not hypothetical behavioral intentions. Seriousness and technical detail had very little effect on perceived risk.     

Perceived Risk, Trust, and Democracy

Risk management has become increasingly politicized and contentious. Polarized views, controversy, and overt conflict have become pervasive. Risk-perception research has recently begun to provide a new perspective on this problem. Distrust in risk analysis and risk management plays a central role in this perspective. According to this view, the conflicts and controversies surrounding risk management are not due to public ignorance or irrationality but, instead, are seen as a side effect of our remarkable form of participatory democracy, amplified by powerful technological and social changes that systematically destroy trust. Recognizing the importance of trust and understanding the "dynamics of the system" that destroys trust has vast implications for how we approach risk management in the future.     

Calculating the cost of capital

One of the most important recent advances in corporate finance is the use of risk measures in setting discount rates or required rates of return for capital projects. An understanding of this area is of crucial importance to senior managers and corporate planners. This article explains how to calculate required rates of return using the modern approach to the cost of capital.