Valerie Preston

Spatial mismatch and labor market segmentation for African-American and Latina women

AbstractThe economic well-being of African-Americans and Latinos in the United States depends critically on womens employment and earnings. Yet womens economic roles are ignored in recent literature about the effects of economic restructuring on well-being: the spatial mismatch/urban underclass debates. Gender differences in labor market segmentation are central to the spatial mismatch debate, both in their effects on wages, occupation, and transportation access and their links to place-based variation in commuting and spatial access to employment. Using 1980 PUMS data for northern New Jersey, we examine the spatial mismatch between jobs and residences for employed black and Hispanic women and the links between labor market segmentation and spatial mismatch. Minority women have poorer spatial access to jobs than white women, as indicated by their longer commuting times and less-localized labor markets, but they typically have better spatial access to employment than minority men. The mismatch is greates...

THE IMPACT OF FAMILY STATUS ON BLACK, WHITE, AND HISPANIC WOMEN'S COMMUTING

The relationship between womens domestic labor and employment in the paid labor force is central to current debates about gender inequities in occupations and incomes. Recent studies of gender differences in commuting argue that women reduce the journey to work to accommodate the demands of family responsibilities. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. Equal numbers of studies have reported significant andinsignificant relationships between average commuting times and various measures of domestic responsibilities. Few of these studies have examined the implications of parenthood and, particularly, single parenthood, for the commuting patterns of women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Women who are single parents may work closer to home than other women because of their substantial domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, as sole wage earners, single parents may travel long times to obtain better paid employment. Using information about a sample of women in the New York Consolidated M...

Geographical Barriers to Employment for American-born and Immigrant Workers

Residential segregation interacts with the changing geography of transport and employment in urban areas to restrict access to workplaces. A growing literature suggests that spatial barriers limit the job opportunities of minority women and men in American cities. This study examines the nature and extent of geographical barriers for minority immigrants by analysing their commuting behaviour. Information from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample is used to compare the commuting times of immigrant and native-born minority women in central parts of the New York Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area. The effects of occupation, wages, family responsibilities, transport mode, year of arrival in the US and English fluency on commuting time are assessed separately for immigrant men and women. The results suggest that race/ethnic group has a larger influence on commuting times than place of birth. However, white immigrant womens employment is less restricted by geographical barriers than that of minority immigrants. The findings confirm the diversity of immigrant womens experiences, reinforcing the need to consider the interrelations among gender, race and class when examining urban labour markets.

Transnationalism, Gender, and Civic Participation: Canadian Case Studies of Hong Kong Immigrants

It is widely claimed that recent migration trends show increasing levels of transnational activity, but there is a need for a more detailed understanding of the relationship between transnationalism and citizenship participation, particularly from a gendered perspective. A study of immigrants from Hong Kong to Vancouver and Toronto, the largest group of immigrants to Canada in the period 1989 to 1997, shows that, although migration occurred in a context of anticipated political instability around reunification with the Peoples Republic of China, the most significant justification for emigration was to further the interests of the family, particularly childrens education. Gender differences are subtle, but women tend to focus more strongly on family considerations, whereas men are somewhat more concerned with economic and political issues. Transnational activities focus around ties of family and friendship, rather than around political or economic ties. Women and men both seek formal rights of citizenship, and are beginning to express a desire for more participation in Canadian society. Contrary to theories of hypermobility among Hong Kong emigrants, transnationalism and citizenship participation are seen as a basis for settlement. Gendered approaches to transnationalism need to understand how the concept of citizenship, and citizenship participation, develops as a result of wider social relations that are structured differently for women and men.

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.

At the temporary–permanent divide: how Canada produces temporariness and makes citizens through its security, work, and settlement policies

This paper explores the production of temporariness in Canada, and its implications for the citizenship rights of migrants. It investigates the production of temporariness within three policy fields that are typically not examined together – security, work and settlement. Within these three fields, it considers public policies concerning: (1) security of presence; (2) access to paid employment for spouses of migrants; and (3) eligibility for settlement services. It argues that temporariness is being institutionalized in new ways, producing a hierarchy of categories of migrants ranging from the temporarily temporary to the permanently temporary and temporarily permanent, shaped by entry category, legal residency status and socially recognized skills. The paper advances a multidimensional conception of temporariness, and contends that the temporary-permanent divide is constructed through the enforcement of different entry categories and forms of legal residency status, which create ‘paper borders’ that are made up of the increasing number and range of restrictions, limits and containments regarding legal residency status, access to employment and settlement services.

Geographies of Discrimination: Variations in Perceived Discomfort and Discrimination in Canada's Gateway Cities

Discomfort and discrimination experienced by racial minorities is of growing concern. Perceived racial discrimination and discomfort raise questions about social cohesion in pluralist democracies such as Canada and the United States, particularly in immigrant gateway cities that are increasingly heterogeneous. Little research has examined metropolitan variations in perceived discomfort or discrimination despite their distinct social, economic, and housing characteristics and varied histories of inter-group relations. Using the Ethnic Diversity Survey, a population survey that provides detailed information about individuals’ experiences of racial discrimination and discomfort, we describe the frequency of racial discomfort and discrimination reported by Canadian- and foreign-born ethnic and racial minority groups living in major gateway cities. Using logistic regression, we investigate how social and demographic characteristics such as ethnoracial identity and behaviours such as involvement in ethnic organisations influence experiences of discrimination and discomfort in Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The determinants of perceived discrimination and discomfort vary across metropolitan areas. Consequently, we suggest that an appreciation of geographies of discrimination should inform public policy responses.

Place, affect, and transnationalism through the voices of Hong Kong immigrants to Canada

The emergence of a significant transnational community of immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada, and their Canadian-born children, during the 1990s can be understood through the experience of the affect of place, which gives meaning to the emotional experiences of community members. In contrast to theories that treat affect as a preconscious attribute, we treat affect as an emergent, socially constructed, and contextual capacity for individual emotional experiences in place. Affect is a discursive product of, and is produced by, the experiences of people situated in place. The affects of suburban residential communities of concentrated Hong Kong immigrants and their children in Vancouver and Toronto are expressed through a narrative of a ‘natural’ and wholesome Canadian lifestyle that is situated in spacious suburban houses that contain close-knit family relations. For these participants, the wholesome suburban lifestyle contrasts with the unwholesome, and unnatural, urban lifestyle of Hong Kong.

Income Disparities and Employment and Occupational Changes in New York

PRESTON V. And MCLAFFERTY S. (1993) Income disparities and employment and occupational changes in New York, Reg. Studies 27, 223–235. To determine how deindustrialization and the growth of service employment have affected geographic disparities in income within urban areas, we examined empirically the spatial distribution of household income in the New York CMSA between 1960 and 1980 and the associations between income growth and employment and occupational change. Geographic disparities in median household income increased as wealth dispersed to the periphery and income grew slowly in counties adjacent to Manhattan. Despite the loss of 400,000 manufacturing jobs, total employment increased, albeit unevenly. On the periphery, employment in all sectors grew rapidly, while the inner counties lost manufacturing jobs. Loss of blue-collar workers did not alter occupational segregation substantially. Correlation analysis revealed that income growth was associated significantly with employment growth in all sect...

Revisiting Gender, Race, and Commuting in New York

In the 1990s, many women commuted shorter distances and less time than men, and research underscored the pernicious effects of racial and ethnic segregation and access to transportation on minority womens commuting. Since then, growing income inequality and the bifurcation of employment between well-paid and secure jobs and a growing number of insecure and poorly paid jobs have been accompanied by the concentration of jobs at central and suburban locations and the transformation of womens roles in the labor market. We investigate some of the geographical implications of these trends by analyzing commuting in the New York metropolitan region. In 2010, gender and race differences in commuting varied across the metropolitan area. Regression analysis demonstrates that the impacts of wages and household composition on commuting differ between the highly valued center that has benefited from private and public investment, the suburbs where traditional gender roles persist, and the deteriorating inner ring where minority women still commute long times on slow public transit. The findings highlight racial and gender disparities in geographical access to employment within the metropolitan region.