Using the Canadian Elections Database, this thesis codes the gender of all candidates in western Canada’s provincial elections from 1917 to 2019. It then explores the trends and patterns apparent in women’s rate of participation (running for office), and representation (elected to office). A descriptive overview of the region of western Canada is undertaken first. This thesis then analyzes women’s electoral participation and success further into the effect of province, political party, and of ideology (left-right divide). It explores the percentages of female candidates running for office and elected over time, women’s success compared to men, and the effect of gender on difference in average votes.

Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation panel data, this study compares women’s and men’s pay increase trajectories and patterns of job mobility in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. As recent studies suggested that industry-specific rather than economy-wide analysis is more appropriate in nonprofit/for-profit comparison, this study only focuses on the human services field. The results indicate that: (1) there was a selection in workers’ choices regarding staying or changing sector of employment; (2) nonprofit workers who chose to move to the for-profit sector tended to be those worse off in the nonprofit sector, whereas for-profit workers who chose to move to the nonprofit sector tended to be those better off in the for-profit sector, and both of the mover groups gained by moving; (3) in both nonprofits and for-profits, men enjoyed a steeper pay increase curve by occupying more managerial positions, having higher levels of education, and working longer hours; (4) on average, there was no statistically significant difference in pay increase trajectories between workers who chose to stay in their sector of employment. Consistent with previous studies, the regression analyses further support the argument that, within human services, there is not necessarily a sectoral difference in the gender pay gap—in other words, nonprofits are not necessarily more equitable than for-profits.

The COVID-19 pandemic had various atypical effects on our society: specifically looking at labor markets, women’s unemployment was found to be higher than men’s during the 2020 recession (the opposite trend has occurred in the past). This result has been thought to be attributed to a couple of different reasons such as states mandating policies that restricted the operations of certain industries and businesses such as child care centers. This paper investigates the impact policies related to the closure and class size restrictions of child care centers have had on women’s labor market outcomes at the state level. Using data from January 2019 to December 2021, we utilize baseline regression, triple-difference, and dynamic models to quantify the effects these closures had on women’s labor supply outcomes, specifically employment, labor force participation, average number of hours worked per week, and weekly earnings. Overall, these models have uncovered that there was a negative effect for many labor supply outcomes for women of working age with children less than five years old— contributing to the age-old theory of “The Cult of Domesticity.”

More than one in five U.S. adults without access to a vehicle or public transportation missed or skipped a medical appointment last year, according to a report by the Urban Institute. Why it matters: While access to telehealth has reduced some transportation barriers, it's not available to all and can't replace in-person care for all medical needs. In the Portland area, 8% of all households — and nearly 24% of Black households — don't have a car. Despite Portland being known for its public transit and bikeability, one of the primary ways to traverse the city is by car. What they found: Nationwide, 21% of adults without access to a vehicle or public transit said they went without needed medical care in 2022. Though 91% of adults reported they had access to a vehicle, the figure was substantially lower for Black adults (81%), those with low family incomes (78%) or a disability (83%) and for people with public health insurance (79%) or no coverage (83%). Go deeper: Research suggests as much as 40% of a person's health can be attributed to socioeconomic factors like education, employment and the availability of transportation. The pandemic heightened awareness of racial inequalities, prompting some cities to ensure there's more equitable access.

Prevailing narratives about the early COVID-19 pandemic suggest that national policy asking firms to send their workers home was the cause of both the widespread transition to remote work and the severe, though short, “lockdown recession” of April 2020. In this paper, I develop Edelman’s theory (1991) of the role that organizations play in interpreting laws, arguing that because lockdowns were in enforceable at the state level, they were ambiguous and gave employers varying latitude to determine appropriate response. Using two novel datasets of state regulations and individual-level patterns of work, I show that lockdown strictures on their own had only a modest effect on how organizations adapted to the pandemic. Instead, employers instead largely relied on cultural cues to determine how they should adapt to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

Background: Menstruation is a normal biological process experienced by more than 300 million women globally daily. Women need clean menstrual absorbents that can be changed as often as needed in a private and safe place with proper hygiene and disposal facilities. All these needs must be met throughout the duration of the menstrual cycle. Access to menstrual needs of women is important for their health, well-being, and human dignity. This study assessed the prevalence and factors associated with unmet need for menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Niger. Methods: We used data from the performance monitoring for action (PMA) surveys. We defined the unmet need for MHM as “lack of resources, facilities, and supplies for MHM.” Sample characteristics were summarized using frequencies and percentages while prevalence was summarized using proportions and their respective confidence intervals (CI). Factors associated with unmet need for MHM were assessed using a multilevel logistic regression model. Results: In the six countries, the majority of women were aged 20-34 years, were married or cohabiting, and had never given birth. The prevalence of unmet need for MHM was high among the uneducated and multiparous women, those who reused MHM materials, practiced open defecation, and lived in rural areas in all six countries. The prevalence of unmet need for MHM was highest in Burkina Faso (74.8%) and lowest in Ghana (34.2%). Age, education level, wealth status, and marital status were significantly associated with unmet need for MHM. Reuse of MHM materials and open defecation increased the odds of unmet need for MHM. Conclusion: More than half of women in five of the six countries have an unmet need for MHM with odds of unmet need significantly higher among younger women, those with low wealth status, the unmarried, and those with poor access to sanitary facilities. This study highlights the state of period poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to end period poverty should approach MHM needs as a unit as each need is insufficient on its own.

An increasing number of Americans age 65 and older are working — and earning higher wages, per a study from the Pew Research Center out Thursday. Why it matters: This is good for the economy, especially as the U.S. population ages — but whether or not it's good for older Americans is a bit more subjective.

The urban environmental inequality literature holds that marginalized communities are generally concentrated in neighborhoods with greater levels of industrial pollution and lesser access to parks and playfields. Yet, “green” and “brown” land uses are also linked historically and through contemporary practices of green redevelopment. This article thus begins from the understanding that it is important to analyze both forms of urban land use at once, to avoid mistaking one historical process for another. Focusing on Providence, Rhode Island (1970–2010), we leverage original historical data on the location and operating years of public parks alongside comprehensive industrial site data to analyze the joint transformation of residential populations, parks, and industry over time. We find that park access generally increases for Latinx residents; however, after accounting for increases in park access associated with past industrial land use, we find that census tracts with growing proportions of African American residents are associated with relatively less access to parks than other census tracts. Results reveal additional dimensions to the role of industrial history in shaping the socioenvironmental trajectory of local neighborhoods and additionally emphasize the importance of a historical and relational view of urban land use in urban environmental research.

Social capital is crucial to health and wellbeing (Berkman et al., 2000; Kawachi & Berkman, 2001; Thoits, 2011). Social capital, defined as the resources that are derived from social networks and social relationships, can enable exchange of health information, spread knowledge, establish cultural norms, health beliefs and normative behaviors, and facilitate emotional or financial support (Berkman, 1986). These benefits can occur at the individual or institutional level, although negative (i.e. harmful) associations with health outcomes have also been documented (Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2017). Links to institutions are a type of linking capital, giving individuals and communities access to networks or groups with greater access to power or status. while interpersonal links can be either bonding (networks among friends, family, neighbors who are similar in the way they define themselves) or bridging (between those from different demographic and spatial groups) (Szreter & Woolcock, 2004). In other words, linking social capital is related to the vertical relations of authority whereas bridging and bonding social capital are derived from horizontal relations.

Decades of sociological research consistently find that women do more housework than men. However, existing research almost exclusively focuses on families and couples, thus overlooking non-familial households and the life stage of young adulthood. In this paper, I offer an alternative setting for studying gender inequality in housework - shared living households where people live together but do not share romantic or kinship relationships (i.e., "roommates"). Using a nationally representative sample from the American Time Use Survey (2003-2019), I describe young adults' housework investment by type of living arrangement, paying particular attention to the household's gender composition and type of housework task. Specifically, I ask whether living with men roommates is associated with more housework investment for young adult women in the US. The results suggest that gender organizes housework time for young adults, mainly cleaning – young adult women invest more time cleaning than young adult men across all living arrangements. However, women living with men roommates did not invest more in housework than young adult women in other living arrangements. The results suggest that the contractual roommate relationship does not promote equality or prevent "doing gender." However, it does hinder an intensified gender display. Meaning, housework in roommate households may not carry a meaning of caring and love, but it is still charged with gendered expectations, albeit being a non-familial context.

We use natality microdata covering the universe of US. births for 2015 to 2021 and California births from 2015 through February 2023 to examine childbearing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that 60% of the 2020 decline in US fertility rates was driven by sharp reductions in births to foreign-born mothers although births to this group comprised only 22% of all US births in 2019. This decline started in January 2020. In contrast, the COVID-19 recession resulted in an overall "baby bump" among US-born mothers, which marked the first reversal in declining fertility rates since the Great Recession. Births to US-born mothers fell by 31,000 in 2020 relative to a prepandemic trend but increased by 71,000 in 2021. The data for California suggest that US births remained elevated through February 2023. The baby bump was most pronounced for first births and women under age 25, suggesting that the pandemic led some women to start families earlier. Above age 25, the baby bump was most pronounced for women aged 30 to 34 and women with a college education. The 2021 to 2022 baby bump is especially remarkable given the large declines in fertility rates that would have been projected by standard statistical models.

I compile novel data measuring county-level travel distances to abortion facilities and resident abortion rates from 2009 through 2020. Using these data, I implement a difference-in-difference research design measuring the effects of driving distance to the nearest abortion facility on abortions and births. The results indicate large but diminishing effects: an increase from 0 to 100 miles is estimated to reduce abortion rates by 19.4% and increase birth rates by 2.2%, while the next 100 miles reduces abortions by an additional 12.8% and increases births by an additional 1.6%. Based on this evidence, I forecast the effects of post-Roe abortion bans on abortion rates by county, state, and region. In a scenario in which total abortion bans take effect in 24 states, about one-quarter of residents seeking abortions are predicted to become trapped by distance and about three-quarters of those who are trapped are predicted to give birth as a result.

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Carsharing programs—subscription-based car rentals—allow users to purchase only the automobility that they need. These programs may benefit low-income travelers by increasing access at lower prices than private auto ownership. Most carshare programs, however, disproportionately serve higher-income drivers. To assess carsharing’s potential to address the accessibility needs of disadvantaged households, we interviewed members of BlueLA, an electric carsharing program in central Los Angeles (CA) that offers both subsidized and regular memberships. We found few differences in how travelers with different membership types used BlueLA. They both used the service to complement travel by other modes like public transit and ridehail. In addition, members cited the benefits of gaining car access without the financial burden of car ownership or the unpredictability of ridehail fares. Neighborhood context, including residential density and the availability of non-automobile transportation options, also increased BlueLA’s appeal. However, due to limited and unreliable vehicle availability, most users did not rely on BlueLA for time-sensitive trips. BlueLA both eased and increased access to destinations outside of the commute and complemented public transit for subsidized and regular members. Takeaway for practice: Services like BlueLA cannot meet all transportation needs. However, subsidized electric carsharing—particularly targeted to central-city neighborhoods—may address some accessibility needs of low-income households without imposing the burdens of automobile ownership.

California movers are generally younger, earning a modest income, and have no higher education degrees. Many move to Texas and Arizona, although some appreciate the appeal of a small town in the East. Business Insider spoke to six newcomers who appreciate the slower pace of life and the lower cost of living.

Background: Racial-ethnic disparities are pervasive in health care. One mechanism that may underlie disparities is variation in shared decision-making (SDM), which encompasses high-quality clinician-patient communication, including deliberative discussions about treatment options. Objectives: To determine whether SDM has causal effects on outcomes and whether these effects are stronger within racial-ethnic concordant clinician-patient relationships. Research Design: We use instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect of SDM on outcomes. Subjects: A total of 60,584 patients from the 2003-2017 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Years 2018 and 2019 were excluded due to changes in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey that omitted essential parts of the SDM index. Measures: Our key variable of interest is the SDM index. Outcomes included total, outpatient, and drug expenditures; physical and mental health; and the utilization of inpatient and emergency services. Results: SDM lowers annual total health expenditures for all racial-ethnic groups, but this effect is only moderated among Black patients seen by Black clinicians, more than doubling in size relative to Whites. A similar SDM moderation effect also occurs for both Black patients seen by Black clinicians and Hispanic patients seen by Hispanic clinicians with regard to annual outpatient expenditures. There was no significant effect of SDM on self-reported physical or mental health. Conclusions: High-quality SDM can reduce health expenditures without negatively impacting overall physical or mental health, supporting a business case for health care organizations and systems to improve racial-ethnic clinician-patient concordance for Black and Hispanic patients.

Recent studies have identified increasing residential diversity as a near-universal trend across the United States. At the same time, a wide range of scholarship notes the persistence of White flight and other mechanisms that reproduce residential segregation. In this article, we attempt to reconcile these findings by arguing that current trends toward increased residential diversity may sometimes mask population changes that are more consistent with racial turnover and eventual resegregation. Specifically, we show that increases in diversity occur nearly identically across neighborhoods where White populations remain stable or decline in the face of non-White population growth. Our findings demonstrate that, particularly in its early stages, racial turnover decouples diversity and integration, leading to increases in diversity without corresponding increases in residential integration. These results suggest that in many neighborhoods, diversity increases may be transitory phenomena driven primarily by a neighborhood's location in the racial turnover process. In the future, stalled or decreasing levels of diversity may become more common in these areas as segregation persists and the process of racial turnover continues.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a local measure of walkability in San Francisco County and evaluate walkability by race, ethnicity, and educational attainment at the census block group level. We used data collected as part of the 2019-2020 Bay Area Young Adult Health Study, wherein we conducted audits of 1525 randomly selected census blocks to assess domains, such as aesthetics, access to amenities, street safety, and topography, which we then imputed to the remaining blocks in the city for overall coverage. We linked the walkability index to 2015-2019 American Community Survey Data aggregating walkability to the block group level. We performed a geographically weighted regression to measure associations between walkability, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment and found signicant negative associations between walkability and the percentage of non-Hispanic Black residents in specic neighborhoods and non-Hispanic Asian residents in all neighborhoods. We also found signicant positive associations between the percentage of residents with a bachelor's or higher degree and walkability. Inequities in walkability across neighborhoods in San Francisco County largely mirrored sociodemographic inequities. Our approach to constructing a walkability index points to a relatively ecient means of estimating ne-scale neighborhood characteristics in urban areas, and our ndings suggest that investments in neighborhood infrastructure may positively impact walkability and address broader inequity concerns.

Why it matters: The pandemic was supposed to spell doomsday for working women, mothers in particular. That's not what happened. The state of women in the workplace has in some ways emerged stronger than ever. "At the beginning of the pandemic, we were all asking ourselves if mother's labor force participation would ever recover," said Misty Heggeness, a former Census Bureau economist. "Definitely, the answer is a resounding yes. Not only did it recover, it is currently on fire." Zoom out: The ability to work remotely was a game-changer for parents but especially mothers. Many women around the country were able to keep their jobs and juggle increased demands from family life during the crisis. The vast majority of parents now find that working from home enables a level of work-life balance that was impossible to pull off before. "Three years ago, flexible work was novel. Two years ago, it was normal. Today, it’s necessary," writes Erin Grau in Fortune magazine. Grau argues that flexible work arrangements are feminist and mark a change in work norms that have roots in an early 20th-century conception of how work and home life should be constructed (i.e., with men in an office and women in the home.) Some of the most vocal proponents of returning to work have been the types of men who are less typically hindered by the demands of home life and thus protected from its costs, including JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. "[T]he demographic which benefited most from the old system has also expressed the most anxiety about changing it," writes Grau. Striking stat: Work-life balance was the top reason workers said they preferred remote work, according to an annual Fed survey of American households released Monday morning. In a separate survey of women who worked full-time hybrid roles, 63% said they considered hybrid work a caregiving benefit. 88% said hybrid work "serves as an equalizer in the workplace." The share of women with children under 18 in the workforce is now well above where it was in February 2020 at 71.6% In March 2023, mothers' labor force participation was at 75.2%, a high last touched in October 2019.

This study uses an epidemiological approach to consider how culturally-inherited beliefs about appropriate gender roles may affect women’s relative representation in STEM. Prior literature has generally documented an inverse relationship between gender equity and women’s relative representation in STEM, known as the gender-equity paradox. When limiting to the sample of home countries to those considered in prior literature, I obtain robust evidence of a gender-equity paradox on both first and second-generation immigrants living in the USA. However, when I consider the full sample of home countries available, women’s relative representation in STEM no longer appears to decrease as equity increases. These results cast doubt on the existence of a gender-equity paradox between culturally-inherited beliefs about gender equality and women’s representation in STEM and have important implications for policy design.

Current policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase adaptation and mitigation funding are insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. It is clear that further action is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and achieve a just climate future. Here, we offer a new perspective on emissions responsibility and climate finance by conducting an environmentally extended input output analysis that links 30 years (1990–2019) of United States (U.S.) household-level income data to the emissions generated in creating that income. To do this we draw on over 2.8 billion inter-sectoral transfers from the Eora MRIO database to calculate both supplier- and producer-based GHG emissions intensities and connect these with detailed income and demographic data for over 5 million U.S. individuals in the IPUMS Current Population Survey. We find significant and growing emissions inequality that cuts across economic and racial lines. In 2019, fully 40% of total U.S. emissions were associated with income flows to the highest earning 10% of households. Among the highest earning 1% of households (whose income is linked to 15–17% of national emissions) investment holdings account for 38–43% of their emissions. Even when allowing for a considerable range of investment strategies, passive income accruing to this group is a major factor shaping the U.S. emissions distribution. Results suggest an alternative income or shareholder-based carbon tax, focused on investments, may have equity advantages over traditional consumer-facing cap-and-trade or carbon tax options and be a useful policy tool to encourage decarbonization while raising revenue for climate finance.