The Post-Industrialism Era

Income inequality is increasingly becoming a significant concern for many countries around the world. The income difference between the highly-educated, skilled, wealthy class and the poor, low to mid-skilled workers is growing larger and larger. In fact, the incomes of the rich are increasing significantly, while the low skilled workers’ incomes have been declining (The Economist, “Wealth Without Workers”). According to The Economist, real median wages have been decreasing since 2000 in half of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, there was a 4% increase from 1980 to 2012 in the share of national income that was distributed to the top 0.01% (The Economist, “True Progressivism”). Canada is facing a similar problem of rising inequality.

Immigrants today now have the privilege of entering and residing in Canada but along with this privilege, there are also barriers that impede their integration and deprive them of equal opportunity in the society. The undervaluing of foreign education and credentials has emerged over the years as a huge obstacle faced by recent immigrants who seek employment in the areas that they have been trained, and worked in for decades in their respective home countries. For years, newcomers in Canada have been denied inclusion into the Canadian labour market simply because of policies that were

The beginning of the second industrialization era, sparked the migration of people from rural communities to the new for of urban society. In the United States people were attracted by the big cities due to new jobs created .For example Chicago “symbolized the growing urbanization: In 1860, the city 's population was barely 109,000; thirty years later, it swelled to 1.1 million”. (Text) With the construction of a vast railroad system moving goods,cattle and people was a lot easier than ever. After 1880 American cities boomed, power cable cars replaced the horse car, and after the invention of electricity they were replaced too with streetcars and trolleys. Subways were constructed in New York Boston and Philadelphia, in order to prevent traffic jams. People with similar racial or ethnic backgrounds clustered together in the center of the cities. Suburbs were incorporated and formed large metropolis. Railroads companies built terminals gas and electricity were a new source of power for the city dwellers. By the 1920’s “Electricity drove technology in 1920s America, and technology helped drive prosperity. By 1928, two-thirds of the families in towns and cities had electricity in their homes, stimulating a huge demand for new appliances such as irons, vacuum cleaners, and the era 's great economic engine: radio.” (Text) Immigration was another big challenge for the big cities. The one way ticket immigration began, immigrants were defined as males , in search of a good life in a

In the spectrum of OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, Canada has higher poverty rates and inequality of incomes than most. From 1994 until 2008 Canada has shown steady economic growth, yet the increase in wellbeing of Canadians was not strong enough in comparison. 1 After the 2008 recession, the gap between the Canadians at the top and the ones at the bottom of the pay scale continue to grow, resulting in the decreased wellbeing of those on both extremes of the socioeconomic ladder, often seen in unbalanced societies. With the living wage in Toronto being about $18.52 an hour between two working parents with two children in 20152 about 3.3 million workers earning less than $20,000 in Ontario as

In response to the article, some the information was new but a lot of it not surprising.  It was surprising, however, to read that although Mr. Naets is somewhat more educated and most likely in a higher tax bracket than his parents were, his standard of living is a lot lower than that of his parents.  That is alarming only because we have a lot more opportunities available to us through networking or technology and on a scale that was never available to our parents. Also in Mr. Naets case, he and his wife earn well above the national average which is also alarming because you would think that someone in such a position would not be as worried as someone of the opposite spectrum. It is discerning to think that no matter how hard we strive to for a better life, we will always feel that is not enough.

Poverty in Canada has been on the rise for many years and there have been various statistics surrounding poverty among the provinces in Canada. The driving forces regarding poverty such as the social assistance benefits, the level of minimum wage, and minimal employment all are key elements that encourage poverty. Those that are most susceptible to go through poverty include children, aboriginals, Canadians of colour, those that have disabilities or physically impaired, women, and those that recently immigrated to Canada. These visible minorities seem to face the most issues dealing with poverty as they incur discrimination in employment, and in income. Those that have physical impairments are less likely to even get hired. Immigrants are

Sociologists utilized the phrase "feminization of poverty" to recognize the universality of women’s wage discrimination.

(Krahn, Lowe & Hughes 2010). Due to such extreme increases to Canada’s educated population and workforce demographic it is no surprise we have continued to see issues of inequality and insecurity. University-educated immigrants are much more likely than native-born Canadians with university degrees to be working in jobs with low education requirements (e.g., taxi drivers, salespeople). In 2006, about 10 percent of native-born Canadians with university degrees were working in such low-skill jobs, compared to 44 percent of recently immigrated women with degrees and 28 percent of recently immigrated men with degrees (Galarneau and Morissette 2009: 15). (Krahn, Lowe & Hughes 2010).

There is a growing discrepancy of wealth in Canada. “The gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow. Seventy percent of wealth in Canada belongs to the most affluent section of Canada's population (Mojtehedzadeh, 2014)”. Many believe that Canada is not going through such a dramatic disparity between rich and poor in comparison to other countries. However, the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. The gap between the wealthy Canadians and the rest is constantly growing and the primary reasons are the rising unemployment rate in Canada, globalization, inequality in wages and salaries, and high education rates.

Another way that the Canadian government can address income inequality as a social determinant of health is to increase equity for education. Post-secondary education is critical in determining an individual’s career success; a higher level of education results in higher earnings, which in turn result in better health. In Canada, provincial governments play a decisive role in student enrolment and the government should invest in early childhood education as a long-term educational benefit. Not only does education impact income on an individual level, but people with low educational attainment also limit an economy’s capacity to produce and grow. Therefore, increasing equity in education will help to decrease the problem of income inequality.

The Ideology of Meritocracy in Canada Inequalities exist all around the world in terms of wealth, workforce and social class. Social inequality plays a vital role in socioeconomically dividing the community into ranks of wealth, income, race and gender. These disparities have become the reason as to why there are income and power issues between men and women. Canada has exceedingly proved itself to be a nation built on multiculturalism, but inequalities in workforce and racial differentiation has been a defining feature from the beginning. While Canada strides on being identified as a diverse nation, social stratification is expressed along the lines of race and inequalities in workforce and in this paper, I will address how the ideology of

What does “post-industrialism” mean and what are the main characteristics of “industrial” and “postindustrial” societies?

This suggests that the current system of multiculturalism is still creating economical inequalities for the immigrants, because how it fails to accommodate for the individual’s abilities (Man, 2004, p.139). For example, there are often aids provided by the government for women with children that mostly focuses on helping the child adapt to the Canadian environment. This makes it hard for the mother, whose culture demands her to stay home and take care of her children, to fully devote to her career (Man, 2004, p.143). As a result, most women are settled for low-paying jobs or even

This wave of protest led to the establishment of a new type of management, which was believed to help workers integrate into the capitalist system, known as Post-Fordism (Dicken, 2003). Beginning in the late 20th century, Post-Fordism is characterised by any different attributes, such as smaller batched production, specialized products and jobs, new-age technologies, the rise of service and feminization in the work force, and the emphasis on consumer niche markets, as opposed to simply considering social class (Allen, 1992). However, due to limited wording, three main characteristics of Post-Fordism will be exclusively discussed; consumer sovereignty, the fragmentation of careers, and globalization in terms of the interactivity and future opportunities it encompasses.

……The concept ‘zoned for slavery’ refers to the tax-free zones that major us based companies work in Central American countries. The zones are characterized by low wages for the poor laborers as multinational companies access cheap labour and ready market. The most affected of the laborers are children under the age of eighteen (18). The workers are underpaid despite working for long hours. For example in El-Salvador children may work up to twelve hours a day. The minors work to produce famous US brand names in textile and clothing industry (Volt, 2012, p.99).