The Concept of Social Variables - Research Proposal Example

 Introduction The interplay of social variables in the land of diversity, Canada is worth noting. The beauty of the landscape is dear to the natives. The standard of living index has risen and hence it finds a comfortable ranking in the United Nations listing. Yet the issues of poverty, which can be connected with the other variables, like ethnicity and race is a major concern of the government currently. Despite the luxurious ranking, the social status of several immigrant men and women has revealed some shameful statistics. The interplay of ethnicity and poverty may be linked up with the aspect of immigration and the cultural diversity and requires immediate policy initiatives. Ethnicity and Poverty – interplay Thomas Highway, a native of Toronto, Canada, expresses a certain pride about his nation through this article, “Canada, My Canada”. He bases his pride on the fact learnt in the newspaper where Canada was ranked first by the United Nations according the standard of living of 174 countries. He praises Canada, which also reveals the writer’s unconditional and a slightly biased love for his nation. The author argues that despite loopholes, the nation of Canada deserved to be number 1 (as ranked). The argument put forward by the author to support his point mainly lies in the scenic beauty, the versatility of sight seeing as (subtle) compared to the dry and monotonous sands of Australia. The author praises the diversity of culture, race and language as well as that of the food dishes along with the changes in landscape – the white foam of Newfoundland coastal region, mountain ranges of the West oat, wheat fields of Alberta and sand beaches of Prince Edward Islands are some of the examples cited. However these cannot be enough reasons to rate a nation as first because the standard of living is also based on cost of living which might not be affordable by all, especially the poor immigrants and black people, shunned by the racist society. No account is taken of all those undocumented women and children who are exploited everyday. Being unable to afford the cost and find an employment, they struggle in poverty while the costs of living in luxury raises the living standards overall. The author’s judgment and argument is therefore one sided though he perhaps tries to cover his position saying that Canada has given a “safe haven” to many. However considering the statistics of unemployed immigrants and the gender bias sharply reflected, one needs to reflect how ‘safe’. Despite lightly mentioning the crime rate, medical crisis and hatred the author sums up to support his nation, saying, “In the global scheme of things we are well off” (Highway, 334). It should be the well being factor that needs to accounted for and this should encompass the status of immigrants, sex trafficking and shattering of dreams of many, exploitation of women and children, high rate of crime, smoking and drugs amongst youngsters. Though Canada’s crime statistics report a marginal fall of 1% than previous year, it also reports a rise of 12% in homicide instances. In total, about 300,000 violent crimes were reported to police in 2004, the majority of which were common assault. The violent crime rate fell 2%, continuing a general decline since 1992. (The Daily) This may be a decline but not a significant one and not at all praiseworthy achievement considering the tenure of comparison. Despite minor improvements in terms of welfare, one cannot overlook the gender bias, poverty and immigrant or ethnicity problem that might be revealed in the following statistical facts: “Six months after their arrival, only 32% of women in the family class are employed, compared with 54% of men. Men who are classified as economic class spouses or dependents are 8% more likely to be employed than women in the same class (of which more than two-thirds are unemployed) In 2001, immigrant women had an unemployment rate of 8.1%, compared 7% with Canadian-born women, and 6.8% for immigrant men. (Shows a gender bias even amongst immigrants) After their arrival in Canada, three out of five women work in an occupation different from their field prior to immigrating.” (ACTEW, 2007) These social parameters of gender bias, poverty and ethnicity are all interrelated. The cultural diversity is a result of the large records of immigrants coming into the land in search of jobs and opportunities. As soon as they step on the land, all they find is a tough competition and a rush that’s weeps them out of the market. In their struggle to maintain their foothold on the ground, they take the very first job that come their way and agree to work at cheap wage. The often face large-scale injustice and unequal distribution, which is the main source of poverty. The shortage of the resources as a whole may also be contributed to the unlisted or undocumented population who come into the land as immigrants. The unemployed and unsettled often find themselves engaging in criminal activities. Women who form a major part of sex trafficking business are the most exploited class. In the similar kind of jobs we may find the men getting higher pay than women. The ethnicity bias comes into play here. According to Balakrishnan (2005), “One of the striking features of the contemporary Canadian population is its remarkable ethnic diversity. There are more than 200 ethnic groups identified in the 2001 census and the proportion of foreign born is 18.4%, the highest in 70 years. This diversity has been achieved over a period of time by the changing ethnic composition of the immigrants. ..More than half of the immigrants since 1980 were the so-called “Visible Minorities”, among whom Blacks, South Asians and Chinese form about two-thirds. Further, the immigration of visible minorities in the recent decade 1991-2001 doubled compared to the previous decade” Globalization has brought about a new turn in the process – this includes uprooted ness and displacement of human beings on an extensive and uncalculated scale. However, this has increased the emphasis on inequalities between nations and hence migration can be looked upon as an economic necessity. The most dangerous consequence (which was very frequent) of migration is remaining undocumented as a citizen of the nation migrated and hence dwelling in misery and uncertainties. According to estimates, more than 1 billion people cross borders out of which around 72% are women. The work done by this category are usually low paid and of low status relevant mainly to domestic and farm labor. Though economic globalization encourages free trade, due to rising inequalities, borders became closer and this in turn gave rise to smugglers’ activities including a growing circle of sex traffickers. Women and children are the two categories of individuals who are easily affected during the migration, and whose experiences may be distinguishable from those of males and adults. A large number of poverty-afflicted females, led by a promise of good earnings and decent groom, find themselves disillusioned and tricked into prostitution, which becomes a business for the traffickers and an obligation for the victims till they pay off their travel debts by toiling18 hours daily for seven days a week. In Canada foreign trafficking gives an annual business worth around $400million. Canada became a deposit ground for the victims of the trafficking process from Eastern Europe, China, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Women seek resort as visitors, temporary work migrants, as dancers or strippers and refugees. Non-status women refer to those with no legal immigrant status residing in Canada. Thus the ethnic variation results from this main issue of immigration. As the immigrants began to flow in, the growth prospects of Canada began to fall and so did the privileges. Thus the new people from different nationalities hardly found the similar kind of opportunities on this land. The competition over the scarce resources made their conditions worse and the connection of ethnicity to poverty can be established right from here. Again the condition of poverty may be linked with the features and characteristics of the immigrants, which may be related to ethnicity. This ethnicity compounded with the cultural diversity and inflow from other nations raise a complicated issue. Ghetto neighborhood was another reason behind this backwardness among some of the ethnic groups, especially the American blacks. The blacks gradually began to move out towards the richer strata of the society and thus came out from their role of acting as a social buffer. This had the possibility to lead to social isolation and hence the development of a new subculture. In this context Kazemipur and Halli (1997) quoted Massey and Denton in the following excerpt: “Ghetto blacks … face very different neighborhood conditions. A large share live in a geographically isolated and racially homogeneous neighborhoods where poverty is endemic, joblessness is rife, schools are poor, and even high school graduates are unlikely to speak standard English with any facility. Employment opportunities are limited, and given the social isolation enforced by segregation, black men are not well connected to employers in the larger economy. As a result, young men coming of age in ghetto areas are relatively unlikely to find jobs capable of supporting a wife and children, and black women, facing a dearth of potential husbands and an absence of educational institutions capable of preparing them for gainful employment, cannot realistically hope to conform to societal ideals and childbearing” (Kazemipur and Halli, 16). The above authors also carried out a study of spatial concentration of poverty’ (SCOP) and from the results obtained, they showed the following statistical observations. Ethnic group %Age of population in poverty Ethnic group %Age of population in poverty Latin/ South/ Central Americans 41.1 French 16.6 West Asian Origins 41 Other Asians 16.4 Arabs 39.4 Ukrainian 15.2 Aboriginal 39.1 Portuguese 15.1 Spanish 38.5 Other Europeans 14.6 Other Single-origins 35.8 Balkan Origin 14.1 Vietnamese 35.1 Jewish 13.9 Blacks/ Caribbeans 32.7 British 13.8 Other East/South-East Asians 26.1 Other European 12.7 Chinese 23.5 German 12.5 Greek 21.1 Italians 11.9 Filipino 20.8 Canadian-born 11.6 Polish 20.5 Other Western Europeans 10.8 Hungarian 18.7 Dutch (Netherlands) 10.4 South Asian Origin 18.6 National Poverty Rate 15.6 (Kazemipur and Halli, 25-26) As the poverty increases in Canada, it seems that only a few ethnic segments are absorbing the ill effects. Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese, Black, Filipino fall in the minority group of immigrants and accordingly to the study they are found mostly in the locality which fall amongst the high SCOP region. Poverty for such groups are likely to continue for future generations as well and hence every attempts to segregate themselves from their original places might result in more hardships and hindrances tot heir status of poverty. Thus this spatial concentration is risky for Canada as it generally results in “social partitions” and the groups are trapped in the “vicious circle of poverty” (Kazemipur and Halli, 27) Therefore one might wonder whether the ethnic group’s concentration may lead to poverty in the neighborhood. Presence of aboriginals, for instance the group known as First Nations community might lead to reduction in certain prices such as real estate sector. Also demand for the locality might get reduced. Such concentration might also affect the settlement of the blacks, Chinese and south Asian people. Conclusion A policy concern may arise from the fact that the concentration of residents might result from occupational concentration. The new people who come into the mainland tend to be in chosen profession of manufacturing, garment making etc. a large extent of immigration was taking place from 1991-2001 but despite most of them being educated and skilled, they found themselves in the old neighborhood. Safety and prejudice may be the reason. Besides the job market is always in favor of the Canadians and in general cases, the people were asking about you. Spatial dimension has an important role in the issue of ethnic diversity in Canada. Thus when we chose two social parameters of ethnicity and poverty, we find them interlinked with many other parameters like gender, crime and immigration. The study of our analysis of ethnicity and poverty and their association necessitates some immediate policy measures besides social programs for improvement. The root of the cause needs to be dealt with and hence a stricter policy of immigration and monitoring is important. References: 1. Balakrishnan, TR. “Ethnic Diversity And Concentration In The Three Gateway Cities Of Canada”, 2005, retrieved on March 19, 2008 from: http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/pubs/diversity2003/balakrishnan_e.cfm 2. “Employment facts, Immigrant Women”, March 2007, A Commitment to Training and Employment of Women, retrieved on March 19, 2008 from: http://www.actew.org/projects/pwpsite/snapshots/immigrant.html 3. Highway, Tomson, “Canada, My Canada” The Canadian Writer's Workplace, ed. Gary Lipschutz, John Roberts, John Scarry, Sandra Scarry, Harcourt Brace Canada, 333-335 4. Kazemipur, Abdolmohammad and Halli, Shiva S. “Plight of Immigrants: The Spatial Concentration of Poverty in Canada”, CanadianJournalofRegionalScience, Canada, 1997 5. The Daily, “Crime Statistics”, 2005, retrieved on March 19, 2008 from: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050721/d050721a.htm Read More