Experiencing Everyday Discrimination: A Comparison Across Five Immigrant Populations

Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, this article explores and compares the subjective experiences of everyday discrimination articulated by immigrants across five different national origin populations. The comparison reveals that discrimination is perceived, encountered, and experienced differently by immigrants from various national origins backgrounds. Further, from the perspective of immigrants themselves, discrimination is not just about phenotypical racial characteristics, but also about language abilities, class position, immigration status, foreignness, and personhood. The article describes some of the contexts or settings within which discrimination is encountered, including a discussion of both mainstream and minority contexts. The latter is rarely addressed in the literature on discrimination. Finally, using some hypothetical scenarios, it examines how immigrants of different national origins say they might react to discriminatory behavior. This exercise not only illuminates some intriguing variations across the five populations but also addresses broader discussion of confrontation as opposed to forbearance in the literature on discrimination.     

Coping with climatic shocks: local perspectives from Haiti’s rural mountain regions

Population and Environment - Haiti’s agrarian society is highly sensitive to changes in weather and climate conditions. Little is known about Haitian farmers’ perceptions of...     

Firm’s protection against disasters: are investment and insurance substitutes or complements?

Theory and Decision - We use a controlled laboratory experiment to study firm’s protection against potential technological damages. The probability of a catastrophic event is known, and the...     

The Gap Between Lifetime Fertility Intentions and Completed Fertility in Europe and the United States: A Cohort Approach

Population Research and Policy Review - We study the aggregate gap between intended and actual fertility in 19 European countries and the US based on a cohort approach. This complements prior...     

Reflections on engaging with an advisory network in the context of a ‘sensitive’ research study

This article surfaces issues about the often-used but widely under-reported practice of working with advisory fora. We critically reflect on our experiences working with an advisory network when co-designing a research study about a ‘sensitive’ subject. We discuss the following: 1) How the network evolved as a matter of ethical and pragmatic choices; 2) Potential issues when discussing sensitive issues ‘outside’ of the participatory or participant context; and 3) Practical and epistemic issues involved in (not) ‘taking’ advice. We suggest that although sensitive research is more conventionally aligned with more ‘radical’ forms of participatory practice, advisory networks can present a useful and sometimes more appropriate form of inclusion and engagement for some advisors and for some types of research study. The article should, therefore, be of interest to a wide range of academic and practice-based health and social care staff and, in particular, those who plan to use advisory fora in their work.     

Earnings inequality and subnational political economy in the United States, 1970–2000

Previous studies of rising inequality in the United States have overlooked the potential role of subnational political economic variation as an institution that shapes earnings restructuring. This paper uses hierarchical linear models to examine how state right-to-work laws contribute to growth in inequality in 80 metropolitan labor markets from 1970 to 2000. Contrary to conventional expectations, labor markets in states with right-to-work laws experience relatively mild growth in earnings inequality, and are less unequal by 2000 than non-RTW labor markets. The trend cannot be fully explained by union density, job growth, uneven development or variation in racial inequality. The findings contribute to a distinctly sociological perspective on rising inequality that considers how social, institutional and economic factors interact at the local and state levels to shape earnings.     

The educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation in Europe

Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation.