Damaris Rose

GENDER AND THE SEPARATION OF EMPLOYMENT FROM HOME IN METROPOLITAN MONTREAL, 1971–1981

Journey-to-work studies have repeatedly found that women have shorter work trips than do men. We argue here that this finding can be interpreted in terms of the evolving relationship between (1) the gender division of labor in household production and (2) the position of women in the labor market. We analyze changes in home-to-employment distances in Montreal between 1971 and 1981 and find that, although gender differences in these distances vary over time across occupational categories and economic sectors, the overall gender differential is remarkably stable. We emplore variations in womens work-trip distances by occupational category and examine whether womens short work trips are more related to their household workload or to their positions in the Montreal labor market. The analysis suggests that maritual status, a surrogate for household responsibilities, may not be as strong a correlate of home-to-employment distances in 1981 as it was in 1971, whereas factors related to the labor market, such as...

Revisiting the Role of Neighbourhood Change in Social Exclusion and Inclusion of Older People

Objective. To explore how older people who are “aging in place” are affected when the urban neighbourhoods in which they are aging are themselves undergoing socioeconomic and demographic change. Methods. A qualitative case study was conducted in two contrasting neighbourhoods in Montréal (Québec, Canada), the analysis drawing on concepts of social exclusion and attachment. Results. Participants express variable levels of attachment to neighbourhood. Gentrification triggered processes of social exclusion among older adults: loss of social spaces dedicated to older people led to social disconnectedness, invisibility, and loss of political influence on neighbourhood planning. Conversely, certain changes in a disadvantaged neighbourhood fostered their social inclusion. Conclusion. This study thus highlights the importance of examining the impacts of neighbourhood change when exploring the dynamics of aging in place and when considering interventions to maintain quality of life of those concerned.

Shift Work, Childcare and Domestic Work: Divisions of labour in Canadian paper mill communities

The growing prevalence of shift work and non-standard working hours is challenging many taken-for-granted notions about family and household life. This article examines how rotating shift schedules shape household strategies with regard to childcare and unpaid domestic work. In 1993-94 in-depth interviews were conducted with 90 predominantly male newsprint mill-workers and their spouses living in three communities located in different regions of Canada. The analysis in this article is based on these interviews as well as data collected in a questionnaire survey administered to a much larger sample. The article focuses on the effects of rotating shifts and the extent to which household strategies differ between households with one or two wage-earners. The findings reveal that the onus for adjusting to shifts fell mainly on the spouses of mill-workers, who felt constrained in their own choices regarding employment and childcare by the demanding regimen of their partners shift schedules. In the vast majority of households a traditional division of labour predominated with regard to both childcare and domestic work. When women quit paid employment to accommodate the schedules of shift-workers and ensure time for the family to be together, traditional values reassert themselves. Surprisingly, a high level of satisfaction with current shift schedules was found, despite the significant adjustments to family life they had necessitated. By comparing families employed in the same industry but living in three very different communities, the analysis underscores the importance of local circumstances in mediating the strategies households deploy in coping with shift work, especially with regard to childcare.

ENGENDERING CLASS IN THE METROPOLITAN CITY: OCCUPATIONAL PAIRINGS AND INCOME DISPARITIES AMONG TWO-EARNER COUPLES

Little attention has been given to the implications of the dramatic growth of the dual-earner family form for urban social geography. This paper reviews the main themes of existing literature across various disciplines, drawing out their pertinence to urban-geographical questions. Notably, and through the mediation of gender dynamics, the two-earner phenomenon complicates the linkages between occupational class identification and “consumption classes” in the residential sphere. We then present findings of an empirical study of the occupational and income characteristics of dual-earner husband-wife couples in the census metropolitan area of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, using special census tabulations. We highlight the divergent implications of two-earner family growth for social inequalities at the micro-urban scale: (1) how it may have broadened accessibility to middle-class suburbs by increasing the affordability of home-ownership by families of modest occupational status, and (2) how it may have generated...

Country report: Glimpses of social and cultural geography in Canada and Québec at the turn of the millennium

This Article does not have an abstract.

The Gentrification Reader. Edited by Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. xxiii and 617 pp., maps, photos, text boxes, and index.

With this weighty edited collection of forty mostly unabridged scholarly articles and book chapters originally published from 1964 to 2007, the transatlantic team of Lees, Slater, and Wyly consolidate their welldeserved reputation for critical synthesis of the twists and turns of debates surrounding gentrification, and for their interpretation in terms that make sense to new generations of students and scholars of urban change. Because the volume is intended to serve as a companion to the authors’ previously published text (Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007; reviewed by Rose 2010), the readings are organized to follow the chapter structure of the textbook quite closely. It is also designed to allow for stand-alone use. To this end, the authors preface each of the ten parts and sections with short introductory essays that place the selected papers in the context of their intellectual history as well as proffering interesting selections of further readings. Concise and clear without eschewing important nuances, these well-crafted syntheses will be valuable to instructors preparing classes as well as the graduate student audiences who are likely to be the main consumers of this tome. The number and range of authors whose works are collected here (only four appear more than once, including coauthorship) give credence to the editors’ intention to illustrate how gentrification’s treatment in scholarship and policy has evolved from being an against-the-tide oddity to being a mainstream way of doing urban policy, imbued with a quintessentially neoliberal common sense. Their choices, justified in the Introduction in terms of “classic writings that moved debates on gentrification forward, controversial writings associated with the so-called ‘gentrification battleground,’ and writings that have forced many observers to think more deeply and indeed politically about this urban process” (p. xvii), reflect their desire to be relatively evenhanded while prioritizing works that take an explicit or implicit stand against, or occasionally favor gentrification, leaving aside texts that claim a neutral ground. (At this juncture of this review, disclosure is called for, in that one of this reviewer’s papers is included in the volume, the reason for this somewhat unusual circumstance being that I had previous reviewed in these pages the textbook to which this reader serves as companion.)