Description

During the 1990s, a new surge of poverty struck the western industrial nations, including Canada. Slower economic growth both at national and international levels, globalization and the erosion of the welfare state contributed to this poverty surge. Moreover, there is a widespread perception that this poverty has become increasingly concentrated in certain neighborhoods, known as "ghetto," "inner city," "poverty zone," etc., and that such neighborhoods have become mostly the habitats of minority groups/racial minorities in some societies, immigrant groups in others.

The authors provide a comprehensive picture of Canadian cities with regard to the concentration of poverty and, in particular, examine whether there is an ethnic dimension associated with it. They find a disturbing trend towards rising poverty levels during the 1990s, with poverty tending to be concentrated in certain neighborhoods.

Also, certain ethnic groups, especially visible minorities and those consisting mostly of recent immigrants, seem to be doubly disadvantaged, suffering not only from a general poverty due to economic factors but also factors related to their immigration status, such as limited knowledge of the official languages and the mismatch of their skills and the demands of the labour market.

The authors compare the Canadian experience with that of the US and European countries, examine various explanations, and make suggestions for policy-makers as to how to combat these disturbing trends.

Table of Contents

1. THE PROBLEM

• Poverty Strike
• Hardening of Racial and Ethnic Cleavages
• Community: The Modern Elixir
• Ethnic Minorities in Poor Neighbourhoods

2. NEIGHBOURHOOD AND POVERTY

• A Review of Poverty Literature
• The Definition of Poverty
• The Cause(s) of Poverty
• Vulnerable Groups
• Poverty and Public Policy
• Spatial Concentration of Poverty (SCOP): The Neglected Dimension
• Why Spatial Concentration of Poverty?
• Social Isolation
• Culture of Poverty
• Objective vs. Subjective Poverty
• Measurement of the Spatial Concentration of Poverty
• Census Tracts and SCOP
• People and SCOP
• Summary

3. NEIGHBOURHOOD AND ETHNICITY

• Why an Ethnic Resurgence?
• Proposed Explanations
• Some Missing Links
• Evolution of the Welfare System
• Postmodern Culture
• Ethnicity in Action: Spatial Analysis in the United States
• Spatial Analysis in Canada
• How to Measure Residential Segregation
• Indices of Segregation
• Evenness
• Exposure
• Concentration
• Centralization
• Clustering
• The Choice of Index
• Unit of Analysis
• Sources of Data
• Residential Segregation of Ethnic Groups in Canada
• Descriptive Remarks
• Explanatory Remarks

4. POVERTY AND ETHNICITY

• The Poverty of Ethnic Groups in Canada
• Poverty of Immigrants
• Poverty: Towards an Explanation
• Assimilation/Integration Approach
• Human Capital Factors
• Structural Factors
• Logistic Regression Model
• Human Capital Factors
• Structural Factors
• Assimilation/Integration Factors
• Summary of Findings

5. NEIGHBOURHOOD, POVERTY, AND ETHNICITY

• Why an Interest in "Neighbourhood Poverty"?
• The Ethnic Composition of Ghetto Neighbourhoods
• A Conceptual Framework to Explain SCOP of Ethnic Groups
• Mismatch Hypothesis
• Segregation Hypothesis
• The Expansion of the Conceptual Model
• What is Culture of Poverty?
• Inter-generational Mobility and the Culture of Poverty: Two Sides of a Coin
• The Causal Model
• Ethnic Groups - SCOP: A Multiple Regression Model
• Predictors of Neighborhood Poverty
• Neighbourhood Poverty and Inter-generational Mobility
• Why A Contrast?
• Towards an Explanation

6. IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

• Policy Implications
• Research Implications