International Journal of Comparative Sociology

Comparative sociologists have long considered occupations to be a key source of inequality. However, data constraints make comparative research on two of the more important contemporary drivers of occupational stratification – globalization and technological change – relatively scarce. This article introduces a new dataset on occupational ‘routine task intensity’ (RTI) and ‘offshorability’ (OFFS) for use with the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). To produce these data, we recoded 23 country-specific occupational schemes (74 LIS country-years) to the two-digit ISCO-88 scheme. When combined with the handful of LIS countries already reporting their occupations in ISCO-88, we produce individual level RTI and OFFS scores for 38 LIS countries and 160 LIS country-years. To assess the validity of these recodes, we compare average labor-income ratios predicted by recoded ISCO-88 occupational categories to those predicted by reported ISCO-88 occupational categories within countries that transitioned from country-specific to ISCO-88 codes over time. To assess the utility of these RTI and OFFS scores and advance the literature on income polarization, we analyze their association with work hours and labor incomes in the global North and South. Both covariates correlate with work hours in ways that are consistent with previous research and additional theoretical considerations. Moreover, we show that both RTI and OFFS contribute to income polarization directly in the North, but not in the South. This article generates a public good data infrastructure that will be of use to a wide variety of social scientists, and brings new evidence to bear on the question of income polarization in rich democracies.

How can declining political trust in Western democracies be explained, especially, when it remains stable and high in authoritarian societies? Underlying this question is a debate about whether political trust represents a diffuse orientation toward the political system as a whole or a specific assessment of incumbent performance. This article argues that the solution requires a move away from existing approaches that focus on question content and instead thinking about the pattern of responses. While previous work assumes that individuals display both specific and diffuse trust, we argue that the individual patterning of responses indicates either diffuse or specific trust but not both. We develop a response pattern model and use it to identify three types of individuals – critical trusters (specific trust), compliants (diffuse trust), and cynics (diffuse distrust). Tests of the model with the World Values Survey (WVS) and the US General Social Survey (GSS) show that democracies have a higher proportion of critical trusters than other systems of government and that the proportion of critical trusters has increased over time in the United States. The response pattern model directly connects cross-national and longitudinal empirical evidence to theory about the relationship between democracy and different types of trust.

The United States and Canada represent two of the largest immigrant-receiving countries. Although both countries have long histories of receiving immigrants, they are viewed differently in their abilities to integrate immigrants and their children. A popular and reoccurring narrative is Canada’s greater ability to integrate immigrants and their children compared with the United States. One possible explanation is that coethnic communities in Canada are more visible and supported by government funding than coethnic communities in the United States, which may differentially affect the outcomes of immigrants’ children in the two countries. Using nationally representative data from the Sensitive General Social Survey and Ethnic Diversity Survey, this study examines the effects of coethnic community, national origin group, and individual characteristics on educational attainment in the United States and Canada. This study utilizes differences in coethnic community and national origin group effects to understand institutional differences between the two countries. In particular, it finds that coethnic community education has a positive effect in both countries, but the effects for coethnic community income and educational selectivity differ. This study suggests that differences in coethnic community income and educational selectivity may be due to differences in immigration policy, which shape the types of settlement challenges and sources of support that immigrants and their children encounter upon arrival.