Department of Social Policy seminars

23 March 2021

Which integration policies work? The heterogeneous impact of policies and institutions on immigrants’ labor market success in Europe

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Lucinda Platt (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Dr Berkay Ozcan (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: 
Can specific policies support the economic integration of immigrants? Despite the crucial importance of this question, existing evidence is inconclusive. Using pooled data from the European Social Survey, we estimate the effects of integration and antidiscrimination policies, alongside social expenditure and labor market regulation on the labor market performance of 6,176 non-EU immigrants across 23 European countries. By contrast with previous studies, we investigate the distinct role of discrete policy areas, we allow for heterogeneous effects and we focus on occupational success while accounting for selection into employment. Our results provide little support for the role of policies facilitating the realization of immigrants’ human capital. However, we find that antidiscrimination policies are associated with greater occupational success. This is the case for women immigrants overall, but only for skilled and non-Muslim immigrant men. 

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16 March 2021

Unidentical Twins? Comparing Social Policy Responses to COVID-19 in North America

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Daniel Béland (McGill University)
Chair: Dr Timo Fleckenstein

Abstract: 
In the social policy and health care literature, it is common to compare Canada and the United States, these North American “unidentical twins” that have so much in common and yet that are so different from each another in areas like health care and political institutions. How have these two “unidentical twins” responded to COVID-19 and how have political and institutional factors shaped their distinct policy responses to the crisis? Focusing on social protection, this talk compares the policy responses to COVID-19 in the United States and in Canada.   

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9 March 2021

Demographic Change and Perceptions of Racism

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Christopher Maggio (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt

Abstract:
Various research has demonstrated that rapid racial demographic change may aid in triggering various forms of backlash under certain conditions. This has led scholars to speak of Whites “defending” their local environment in the face of eroding racial dominance. However, little research has addressed how perceptions of racism among minorities may be triggered under conditions of demographic change. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between racial demographic change for Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians and perceptions of racial problems among these groups. I find that Blacks and Hispanics living in counties undergoing rapid growth of Black and Hispanic populations, respectively, have higher perceptions of racial problems.

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2 March 2021

Poverty Among the Working Age Population in Post-Industrial Democracies (with some comments on inequality)

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Evelyne Huber (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Chair: Dr Timo Fleckenstein

Abstract: 
Both pre- and post-tax and transfer poverty among the working age population have increased over the past three decades in post-industrial democracies. Economic and demographic changes, along with changes in labor market institutions are responsible for rising market income poverty. However, welfare states have also exhibited declining effectiveness in reducing poverty. We measure welfare state effort with social rights rather than expenditures, which allows us to separate the effect of policy from need, which jointly shape expenditure. We pool data from LIS, the OECD, and SILC (Eurostat Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) for 22 post-industrial democracies. 

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23 February 2021

Tense times for young migrants: Temporality, life-course, and immigration status

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Vanessa Hughes (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: 
This paper examines the intersection between immigration status, life-course, and the experience of time. Based on ethnographic research, it looks at how time and life-course transitions are experienced by young people who are in constant encounter with the immigration regime in the UK. The encounters at this intersection produce a complex landscape that young people must navigate during their transitions to adulthood, producing a messy and complex temporal matrix. This temporal matrix distinctly shapes young people’s lives and migration experience: a sense of waiting and feeling stuck before getting status; paradoxical adulthood transitions for young people throughout the application process; and long-term uncertainty that is produced as a result of the immigration regime. 

Presentation slides

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16 February 2021

Poverty, Not the Poor

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor David Brady (University of California, Riverside)

Abstract: 
Scholars, commentators, politicians and the public tend to think about American poverty as a 'problem of persons.' The poor are in poverty because of individuals' bad behavior, risks, pathological cultures, or innate traits. This leads us to concentrate on the poor as individuals and distracts us from the systemic problem of high poverty in the U.S. On one hand, many aim to "fix the poor" by focusing on behavior and culture, mistakenly arguing that fixing behavior, eliminating risks, and improving culture would substantially reduce poverty. On the other hand, many "dramatize the poor" by focusing on emotive selections of poor people, exotifying and mischaracterizing the population in poverty. Several examples from recent research will be presented to show how both approaches concentrate on the poor and misunderstand poverty. Political and structural theories of poverty will be advanced as a better way to understand poverty and not just the poor.

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9 February 2021

Does Incarceration Shape Trust in the State, Community Engagement, and Civic Participation?

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Chris Wildeman (Duke University)

Abstract: 
In this article, we provide the most complete assessment to date of how incarceration is associated with trust in the state, community engagement, and civic participation in the contemporary United States using data from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The results support three conclusions. First, own incarceration is associated with a deep distrust of state institutions even after adjusting for a host of possible confounders and matching on observed characteristics. Second, family member incarceration is also associated with distrust of state institutions, but these differences are roughly half the magnitude of the associations tied to own incarceration. These first two conclusions strongly mirror findings from existing research, suggesting that the FamHIS data can provide reliable estimates of how incarceration shapes community engagement and civic participation. Finally, and in a significant break from most existing research in this area, neither own incarceration nor family member incarceration is significantly associated with any of the 14 indicators of community and political participation we consider in any of the total of 84 models we run on participation (14 outcomes, 3 models per outcome, models including both own incarceration and family member incarceration). Although the cross-sectional nature of our data precludes strong causal claims, we see this third finding as providing important evidence that while there may well be heterogenous effects of incarceration on community engagement and civic participation, it appears that these heterogenous effects largely cancel each other out.

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2 February 2021

The normativity of marriage and the marriage premium for children’s outcomes

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Florencia Torche (Stanford University)

Abstract: 
Children born to married parents have better health, behavioral, educational, and economic outcomes than children of unmarried mothers. This association, known as the “marriage premium” has been interpreted as emerging from the selectivity of parents who marry and from a positive effect of marriage. We suggest that the positive effect of marriage could be contextual, emerging from the normativity of marriage in society. We test this hypothesis using the case of Chile, where marital fertility dropped sharply from 66 percent of all births in 1990 to 27 percent in 2016. We find that the benefit of marriage for infant health was large in the early 1990s but declined as marital fertility became less normative in society, to fully disappear in 2016. Multivariate analysis of temporal variation, multilevel models of variation across place, sibling fixed-effects models, and a falsification test consistently indicate that marriage has a beneficial effect when marital fertility is normative and a weak or null effect when is not. Generalizing from this case, we discuss contextual effects of diverse practices and statuses.

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26 January 2021

Inequalities in Breastfeeding in the U.S. across the 20th Century

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Vida Maralani (Cornell University)

Abstract: 
Using data from nationally representative surveys fielded between 1965 and 2011, we assemble cohort data for mothers born from 1910 to 1990 and their breastfeeding practices. We use these data to investigate how and when breastfeeding became a practice differentiated by socioeconomic status. We answer the following research questions: (1) When did socioeconomic inequalities in breastfeeding emerge, and how do these differ by social category (education, race, marital status) across the century? (2) What role do the dramatic changes in family formation that emerged in the 1970s, including non-marital childbearing and the massive divergence of fertility timing by race and education play in explaining persistent SES differences in breastfeeding practices? (3) Are the observed patterns consistent with cultural explanations that argue that breastfeeding is a predominantly class-based practice that is closely related to a commitment to intensive parenting and the accompanying resources to realize this commitment child investment?

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19 Jaunary 2021

Family structure and gender ideologies of youth in Britain

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Pia Schober (University of Tübingen)

Abstract:
Despite growing diversity of family forms, gender socialisation research has focused on biological two-parent families. This study extends existing research by describing parental influences on British adolescents’ gender ideologies across various family forms and examining alternative explanations including possible causal effects of parental separation.

Based on the UK Millennium Cohort Study, we follow about 8,000 families from childbirth to child age 14. We apply OLS regression models and fixed-effect panel models. Except for fathers’ gender ideologies, most parental influences on adolescents’ gender ideologies vary little across family forms. Parental separation does not consistently lead to more egalitarian ideologies of adolescents.  

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8 December 2020

The Company We Keep
Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships from Adolescence to Adulthood

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Grace Kao (Yale University)

Abstract: With hate crimes on the rise and social movements like Black Lives Matter bringing increased attention to the issue of police brutality, the American public continues to be divided by issues of race. How do adolescents and young adults form friendships and romantic relationships that bridge the racial divide? In The Company We Keep, sociologists Grace Kao, Kara Joyner, and Kelly Stamper Balistreri examine how race, gender, socioeconomic status, and other factors affect the formation of interracial friendships and romantic relationships among youth. They highlight two factors that increase the likelihood of interracial romantic relationships in young adulthood: attending a diverse school and having an interracial friendship or romance in adolescence.

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1 December 2020

They Can’t All Be Stars: The Matthew Effect, Status Bias, and Status Persistence in NBA All-Star Elections

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Thomas Biegert (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: What is the role of Matthew effects and status bias in status persistence? A large literature demonstrates biased evaluations of performance due to status signals, which results in cumulative (dis-)advantage. Characteristics signaling higher status lead individuals to assess comparable performances more positively, which results in an accumulation of advantages and higher inequality that is not grounded in actual performance differences. We use data on player performance in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and yearly elections to the NBA All-Star game to investigate whether becoming an All-Star increases the likelihood of being re-elected to become an All-Star in the following year. 

Presentation slides

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24 November 2020

How combination and sequence of weather events shape Mexico-U.S. migration flows

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Professor Filiz Garip (Cornell University)

Abstract:  Existing work presents mixed findings on the impact of weather events on international mobility. Relying on fine-grained data over a long time span (1980-2019) in the Mexico-U.S. setting, we turn to machine learning (ML) tools to first determine if weather events can predict migration choices of 150,000+ individuals. We use random-forest models which allow us to include a comprehensive list of weather indicators measured at various lags, and to consider complex interactions among the inputs. These models rely on data-driven model selection, optimize predictive performance, but often produce ‘black-box’ results. In our case, the results show that weather indicators offer at best a modest improvement in migration predictions. We then attempt to open the black box, and model the linkages between select weather indicators and migration choices. We find the combination of precipitation and temperature extremes and their particular sequencing to be crucial to predicting weather-driven migration responses out of Mexico. We also show heterogeneity in these responses by household wealth status. Specifically, we find that wealthier households in rural communities migrate in the immediate aftermath of a negative weather shock (relative to the ‘normal’ weather in their community), while poorer households need to experience a positive weather event following a negative one in order to migrate to the United States. This pattern suggests that migration as an adaptation strategy might be available to select households in the developing world, and the most vulnerable might be excluded from resorting on an international trip unless they experience particular sequences of weather events that allow them to raise the necessary funds first.

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17 November 2020

Policy Capacity Matters for Capacity Development: Comparing Teacher In-service Training and Career Advancement in Basic Education Systems of India and China

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract:  It is widely accepted that capacity development (CD) is central to development administration, but many of these initiatives have failed to improve government effectiveness. This paper argues that CD should be built upon possessing the policy capacity to perform the analytical, operational and political functions necessary to make it effective. Drawing on the case of CD in the basic education sector, not only does the study reveal the extensive CD practices in India (Delhi) and China (Beijing), it also shows that variations on different dimensions of policy capacity jointly account for the observed differences in the effectiveness of such arrangements, especially as perceived by teachers. Therefore, without understanding and catering to the needs of the targets whose capacity is supposedly being developed, CD initiatives meant to be supportive are likely to be dissatisfying and disappointing instead.

Presentation slides

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10 November 2020

Social class inequalities in school GCSE attainment – Mis-reading cultural capital 

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speakers: Professor Vernon Gayle (University of Edinburgh), Dr Sarah Stopforth (University of Sussex)

Abstract: The qualifications that British children gain at school are strong determinants of their futures in both education and the labour market. General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) are the main qualifications undertaken by the majority of pupils in England. There are persistent social class inequalities in school GCSE outcomes, and empirical studies report the general finding that pupils from families in less advantaged social classes on average have poorer outcomes.

The Bourdieusian conception of cultural capital is advanced as a theoretical explanation of children’s unequal scholastic outcomes. The importance of cultural capital has recently been recognised and incorporated into the school inspection framework. In this presentation we investigate the role of cultural capital in school GCSE outcomes.

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3 November 2020

From the Local to the Global: Care Chains, Ageing and Futurity through the Indian Ayah

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Shalini Grover (International Inequalities Institute, LSE)

Abstract: The seminar will trace the dynamic formation of Global Care Chains (GCCs) from local settings in urban India, demonstrating how ayahs/caregivers’ movements stretch across different geopolitical locales. Their movements obfuscate the South-North, South-South and North-North migration divide. My seminar will demarcate the localization of globalization; how do female domestic workers in India’s Capital become highly transnational and mobile? I offer a substantial ethnography of GCCs through the eyes off an all-rounder ayah Mary, with her work trajectory having spanned three decades of intimate service with diplomats and global elites. 

Presentation slides

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28 October 2020

Mechanisms of Matthew effects in social investment

Seminar series on International Social and Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Amelia Peterson

Abstract: Social investment is an approach to public policy which aims to enhance social welfare through the formation of skills and human capital. The social investment paradigm has been troubled by the discovery of Matthew effects, often described as the monopolisation of new investments by already advantaged groups. Integrating theory from economics, sociology and psychology, tested in four cases of the expansion of upper secondary education, this paper explains how Matthew effects in skill formation have developed not only through the monopolisation of resources, but from changes in the conditions for affiliation (the ability of students to sort themselves between schools) and signalling (the ability to accurately communicate skills to higher education or employers). While inequities in resources are increasingly monitored as part of social policy provision, those in affiliation and signalling are not. Making visible the gap between what is monitored and what is valued in skill formation is a vital step towards more equitable social investment.

Presentation slides

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