Working Papers from ISC
-
ISC Paper 2010-01:
The labour market situation of minority ethnic groups in Britain and the US -- an analysis of employment status and class position (1990/1 – 2000/1) - Prof Yaojun Li.
Both Britain and the US are committed to social and ethnic equality. But how much ethnic disadvantage is there in the two countries? Do minority ethnic groups fare better in one country than in the other? Is there any progress over time? This paper examines the employment status and the class position of minority ethnic groups in the two countries using micro-data from the two most recent Censuses of the Population. The analysis shows that most people from minority ethnic origins in the two countries were heavily disadvantaged both in employment and in access to professional-managerial (salariat) positions. For comparable minority ethnic groups, people in the US fared better than their British counterparts but the latter, especially the second-generation, were found as making more progress over time. There was greater ethnic polarisation in the US than in Britain, with some groups remaining persistently disadvantaged but others outperforming Whites. Overall, while some signs of improvement are visible, persistent ethnic disadvantages are the defining feature of the social structure in both countries. Much more needs to be done to ensure social-ethnic equality.
-
IPEG Paper 2010-02: An Internet Mediated Domain of Local Governance? - Paul Hepburn.
The UK government, with a view to redressing growing civic disenchantment with elected representatives and governmental institutions, continues to look to new technologies to provide a new ‘architecture of participation’. But what are the current prospects for the local governance process being re-invented at the interface of the social and the technological? This paper seeks to empirically address this question by exploring the use made of the internet by a variety of local civic, political and institutional actors during a 2008 UK local referendum on introducing the largest traffic congestion charging scheme in the world. This paper draws upon Social Network Analysis theory and utilises Lusher and Ackland’s innovative ‘Relational Hyperlink Analysis’ to quantitatively explore significance and meaning in a conceptually defined internet mediated domain of local governance.
This approach reveals a distinct homophily effect within the online ‘congestion charge’ network with local governance sites mainly hyperlinking to each other and websites hosting web 2.0 technologies also more likely to only reference each other. The paper concludes that, in this instance, where civic and local government actors failed to engage each other online, use of the web as a space for local deliberation on the policy making process is very much work in progress. As a consequence the potential of a new, civic, ‘architecture of participation’ has yet to be fully exploited by civic leaders and activists. (Full paper)
- ISC Paper 2010-03: Sport,
Capital and Consumption - Paul Widdop.
Paul Widdop examines the structuring of sport consumption in contemporary England and revises our understanding of the working of cultural capital. (Full Paper)
- IPEG Paper 2010-04: Tracking Unemployment in the North West
Through Recession and Forecasting Recovery - Michael Artis and Marianne Sensier.
This paper applies a business cycle dating algorithm to monthly North West county and local authority district claimant count data to assess turning points in the economic cycle of sub-regions. We date the transition of all districts of the North West into recession beginning in June 2007. By utilising manufacturing and service sector survey information in a logistic regression model we forecast the continuation of the recession for North West region’s employment cycle in the first quarter of 2010. A longer term forecast with the Land Registry’s house price index predicts a transition to an expansion phase in the fourth quarter of 2010. (Full Paper)
.
-
ISC Paper 2010-05: Social class, aspirations and cultural capital: A case study of working class children’s plans for the future and their parents’ involvement in life beyond the school gates - Sam Baars.
The research explores the relationship between social class, children’s occupational aspirations and parenting cultures associated with the realisation of these aspirations. Three claims are assessed within the context of a Year 4 class in a suburban primary school: firstly, whether working class children are less likely than their middle class peers to express an aspiration; secondly, whether children’s social class influences the content of their aspirations, and thirdly, whether working class parents are less likely than middle class parents to adopt patterns of behaviour associated with the transmission of cultural resources that help children to achieve these aspirations. Qualitative and quantitative data is gathered from pupils, parents and teachers and is analysed using mixed methods to build a holistic picture of children’s class backgrounds, home lives and hopes for the future, their parents’ views of school and approaches to child rearing, and the attitudes and opinions of school staff. The research finds no relation between children’s social class and their ability to express an aspiration, little relation between class and the content of children’s aspirations, and little relation between class and cultural logics of upbringing. Two main suggestions are made for future research: firstly, that age effects related to the collection of data on aspirations need careful treatment; secondly, that cultural accounts of working class life would benefit from further analysis of the suburban context. (Full Paper)
IPEG Paper 2010-06:The Civic Culture in Britain and America Fifty Years On - Peter John, Hanhua Liu and Ed FieldhouseThis paper seeks to understand how the drivers of civic participation in Britain and the United States have changed in the fifty years since the civic culture surveys were carried out (Almond & Verba, 1963). This paper reviews the intellectual background to The Civic Culture study, arguing that critics have tended to neglect the contribution the surveys made to understanding the civic culture, in particular they have overlooked the book’s
careful analysis of the social and demographic drivers. Using regression analysis, the paper tests whether the differences and similarities between Britain and the USA that were observed by Almond and Verba fifty years ago are still apparent today, using comparable survey items measuring trust, efficacy and political attitudes. The paper finds that the demographic underpinnings of these elements of civic culture have shifted in similar ways in both countries, such as to a more positive civic orientation for women. There is little evidence of increased stratification, especially with respect to income, though Britain remains more stratified than the US. Education has shifted in its effect, away from the absence of educational qualification to having higher education. In both countries, the older generations now have these civic orientations. (Full Paper)- IPEG Paper 2010-07: The Use of Feedback to Enhance Environmental Outcomes: a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Food Waste Scheme - Hisako Nomura, Sarah Cotterill and Peter John
Food waste makes up about twenty per cent of general waste that goes to landfill every year.
Encouraging the public to engage in food waste recycling and diversifying more food waste from general waste could help councils save resources as well as promote a better environment. Theory suggests that appeals to collective norms, by giving people feedback on their street’s food waste recycling rate compared to others, could promote recycling behaviour. We carried out a randomised controlled trial to test how to involve the public into the newly introduced food waste recycling service in Oldham, Greater Manchester. The 318 streets were randomly assigned into a treatment and control group for the experiment. All households in the treatment group were sent two postcards providing feedback on how their street performed on food waste recycling compared to the average for their neighbourhood. Participation in the food waste scheme was measured for all households on three occasions: at baseline, and after the receipt of the first and second feedback cards. We estimated the effect of our treatment using cross-classified multilevel logistic regression models, controlling for baseline, street size, and interaction term of treatment and baseline, show that feedback had a positive effect on the food waste participation and the effect at individual level varied between streets. We find that the provision of feedback on street level performance had a positive impact on participation in a food waste scheme and the effect size was 2.8% compared to a control group that received no treatment. (Full Paper) - ISC Paper 2010-08: An Internet Mediated Domain of Local Governance? - Paul Hepburn
The UK government, with a view to redressing growing civic disenchantment with elected representatives and governmental institutions, continues to look to new technologies to provide a new ‘architecture of participation’. But what are the current prospects for the local governance process being re-invented at the interface of the social and the technological? This paper seeks to empirically address this question by exploring the use made of the internet by a variety of local civic, political and institutional actors during a 2008 UK local referendum on introducing the largest traffic congestion charging scheme in the world. This paper draws upon Social Network Analysis theory and utilises Lusher and Ackland’s innovative ‘Relational Hyperlink Analysis’ to quantitatively explore significance and meaning in a conceptually defined internet mediated domain of local governance. This approach reveals a distinct homophily effect within the online ‘congestion charge’ network with local governance sites mainly hyperlinking to each other and websites hosting web 2.0 technologies also more likely to only reference each other. The paper concludes that, in this instance, where civic and local government actors failed to engage each other online, use of the web as a space for local deliberation on the policy making process is very much work in progress. As a consequence the potential of a new, civic, ‘architecture of participation’ has yet to be fully exploited by civic leaders and activists. (Full Paper)
- ISC Paper 2010-09:Political decentralisation, accountability, and local public service performance: evidence from decentralised Indonesia - Sujarwoto
- ISC Paper 2010-10: Recall error and recall bias in life course epidemiology - Gindo Tampubolon
Tampubolon proposes a distinction between recall error and recall bias and examines the effect of childhood financial hardship on adult health, subject to such recall problems. Studying the effect of childhood hardship on adult health is a prototypical investigation in life course studies where both non-clinical factors and long-duration processes are at play in determining health outcome. These factors and processes are often elicited retrospectively. Unfortunately, retrospective information on childhood hardship is often subject to recall error and recall bias. There is surprisingly little methodological work on how to purge their effects in retrospective life course studies. Tampubolon recasts a variant of generalised latent variable models as covariate error measurement model to purge recall error in life course study. Additionally, the endogeneous treatment model is recast as a solution to the problem of recall bias. Both models are applied to examine the effect of childhood financial hardship on adult health status of more than 359,000 European respondents from 23 countries.Moreover, the solutions are validated using the National Child Development Study cohort where both prospective and restrospective information are available. (Full Paper)
- ISC Paper 2010-11: Digital citizenship and school for democracy in Britain 2006-2008
- Gindo Tampubolon
The verdict on the effect of the Internet on generalised trust has been equivocal at best and dominated by evidence from the U.S. Concerns about the unsocialising effect of the Internet on society and polity have been argued in the past. Recent evidence from the U.S. betrays an evolution in people's use of the Internet that raises new questions on its link with generalised trust, civic engagement and sociability. The evolution of Internet uses also suggests a form of varied engagement that presage a digital citizenship.
Previous assessments on the link between the Internet and trust have been hampered by endogeneity. Unobserved individual heterogeneity may drive people both to embrace the technology and to generally trust in others. Additionally, in my British data source, individuals reside within neighbourhoods so that unobserved neighbourhood heterogeneity may condition the effect of digital citizenship on trust or social capital. Addressing both kinds of heterogeneity requires a new model: a multilevel endogeneous treatment model.
I build and apply the multilevel endogeneous treatment model to estimate the effect of Internet use on social capital. British Taking Part surveys data 2006-2008 (N=10,196; neighbourhoods=3,175) demonstrate that, controlling for individual heterogeneity and neighbourhood heterogeneity, varied engagements with the Internet increase the amount of individual social capital. A move towards inclusive digital citizenship or varied Internet engagement thus may improve social capital. (Full Paper)
- ISC Paper 2010-12: Multi-level anchoring vignettes for comparative study of health inequalities in 48 countries of the WHO - Gindo Tampubolon
- ISC Paper 2010-13: E pluribus Duo: Contrasts in US and British Segregation Patterns - Ceri Peach
- ISC Paper 2010-14: Civic engagement and trust in Britain 2003-2004 - Gindo Tampubolon
- ISC Paper 2010-15: For richer and for poorer: well-being in Europe before and during crisis - Sujarwoto and Gindo Tampubolon
The 2007 European financial crisis causes detrimental effects on its citizens' well-being. We investigate these effects by comparing two well-being measures i.e. happiness and life satisfaction across European countries before and during the crisis. The European Value Study (EVS) 1999 and 2008 are used to examine these two different economic contexts and we apply multivariate multilevel model to study the effects of the crisis on happiness and life satisfaction simultaneously. The impacts of the crisis on well-being are far from uniform across countries in this area. The decline of well-being appears in several countries in Western Europe and Nordic countries, whereas in Eastern Europe the crisis has less effect on well-being. The larger impacts of the crisis affect more the vulnerable groups, including those with less income, unemployed, and older people. Companionships and social capital are important buffers to maintain well-being during the disruptive economic circumstances in Europe. (Full Paper)
Many developing countries are experimenting with decentralisation of public service delivery to elected local governments instead of bureaucrats appointed by a central government. In attempting to understand the working of this experiment, I propose a model to study the linkages between local government accountability, local government corruption, and citizens’ political participation to explain decentralisation performance. Using simple and multilevel regressions, the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support the hypotheses. Improved public service, both in term of quantity and quality, requires citizens’ political participation as well as accountable local governments. Both are required to allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the local community. (Full Paper)
Three elements of cross-country comparative study can help in the study of complex and heterogeneous concept such as health status inequality across the world. The elements include: substantive theory, anchoring vignettes and bespoke survey. I propose an extended health capital theory which includes the effect of community or country social capital in the improvement of individual health. I also extend the anchoring vignettes with random intercepts since cross-country comparative study increasingly investigate large numbers of countries and their residents. The data source for the application is the World Health Survey, a specially tailored survey with anchoring vignettes of various dimensions of individual health status. This study applies random effect anchoring vignettes modelling to test the claim that country level social capital improves individual health status, in particular it reduces the level of mobility-problems dimension of health. The results show that country level social capital as measured using average trust in other people reduces the number of individual mobility problems, after controlling for the country's level of development, individual age and gender. (Full Paper)
Recent attempts have been made to argue that Britain is sleepwalking into Americanstyle ghettoisation. The paper argues that such claims misunderstand both the US and British situations. In particular they fail to recognise the unique intensity of the African-American ghetto. Nothing like the concentration of the African American population exists in Britain and attempts to label Indian, Pakistani or Caribbean areas as ghettos misrepresents the British minority position and underestimates the African American situation.
The ghetto is a phenomenon, almost unique in western urban societies, to the African American population. Although Black segregation levels are now decreasing, the ghetto remains. British ethnic segregation is generally moderate and decreasing and seems to be following the American assimilation, Rather than the African American ghetto model. However, ghettos do exist in Northern Ireland albeit with different causation processes from those in the US. Ironically, the truly ghettoised groups in the US and UK are their oldest minorities, the African Americans and the Northern Irish Catholics. Space, however, doe not allow me to cover this latter important topic.The paper compares segregation levels for minority populations in the US and UK. It finds that the decreasing levels of segregation, over time, for foreign immigrants groups and their descendants, predicted by the assimilation model of the melting pot, has been an accurate predictor for the formation of the American nation. The exception has been the African Americans. The extreme rejection of Blacks has been the means by which newer arrivals have been able to ‘become’ White. Black segregation levels remain high, although slow signs of decrease have appeared since 1980. The paper argues that the failure to distinguish between the ghetto and the ethnic enclave has allowed a misinterpretation of the Black present, a falsification of its predicted future and the misrepresentation of the history of the European ethnics’ past. (Full Paper)
The effect of civic engagement on generalised trust or social capital is endogeneous due to unobserved heterogeneity driving both engament and trust. Nurture and values lie at the core of this heterogeneity. Nurturing environment with parental examples about trust and values of
control and optimism capture most determinants of trust so that, controlling for nurture and values, civic engagement should be independent of trust. I examine the contributions of nurture, values, civic engagement, and unobserved heterogenity in explaining trust. Endogeneous treatment model is applied with an overdispersed Poisson extension because civic engagement is a count (not binary) variable. British Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion survey data (N=1,829) demonstrate that the Tocquevellian claim still stands. Civic engagement leads to trust, over and above unobserved heterogeneity and observed nurture plus values. However, in British society, social class of upbringing trumps nearly all these causes. (Full Paper)This website will look much better in a web browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.