Sociological Images

Deeb K. sent in a story from the New York Times about who does unpaid work — that is, the housework, carework, and volunteering that people do without financial compensation. Based on time-use surveys by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this chart shows how many more minutes per day women in various nations spend doing such activities compared to men:

Childcare stuck out as an area with a particularly large gap:

On child care in particular, mothers spend more than twice as much time per day as fathers do: 1 hour 40 minutes for mothers, on average, compared to 42 minutes for fathers…On average, working fathers spend only 10 minutes more per day on child care when they are not working, whereas working mothers spend nearly twice as much time (144 minutes vs. 74) when not working.

The full OECD report breaks down types of unpaid work (this is overall, including data for both men and women):

The study also found that non-working fathers spend less time on childcare than working mothers in almost every country in the study (p. 19). And mothers and fathers do different types of childcare, with dads doing more of what we might think of as the “fun stuff” (p. 20):

Source: Miranda, V. 2011. “Cooking, Caring and Volunteering: Unpaid Work around the World.” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 116. OECD Publishing.

An infographic accompanying an article at the New York Times reveals how “advanced economies” compare on various measures of equality, well-being, educational attainment, and more.  To illustrate this, for each measure countries that rank well are coded tan, countries that rank poorly and very poorly are coded orange and red respectively, and countries that are in the middle are grey.  The countries are then ranked from best to worst overall, with Australia coming in #1 and the United States coming in last.  You might be surprised how some of these countries measure up.

Thanks to Dmitriy T.M. for the link.

Kristyn G. sent us a link from ABC News (as in Australian Broadcasting Corporation) where they have lots of photos illustrating the flooding in Queensland, Australia, last month, in case you were following that story. As you move your mouse across the photo, it toggles from before to after photos.

Fairfield:

Rocklea:

Bundamba:

There are many more at the ABC News website, and they really highlight the devastation in many areas — which had been experiencing a drought for years before this. A second set focuses more on close-ups:

Those are cows on the roof.

Rosalie Village:

According to the New York Times, about 25,000 homes and 5,000 businesses are flooded, and 25 people died. They’re expecting cleanup to take years.

The flooding is apparently the result of La Niña, a period of cooler-than-average temperatures in parts of the Pacific. It isn’t the first time Brisbane has flooded; it did so most recently in 1974:

Since then, the city has doubled in size. As a result, despite more flood control efforts, including building a dam to control the river, the damage was more extensive this time, because there are more structures and people to be affected. It’s a pattern we often see: more technology is put into place to protect against natural disasters, but increases in population and economic development lead to higher costs when those disasters do occur.

Nicole sent in this Australian commercial for P&O Cruises. Nicole was struck by the obvious racial divide, in which the privileged customers are all White, while non-Whites serve them, either literally (and with a smile!) or as a form of cultural entertainment:

It’s another example of a common tourism marketing theme, in which supposedly “traditional” and/or “native” cultures are provided as cultural experiences to “modern” tourists. This commercial just stands out because of the particularly stark division of the world into those who are entertained and attended to, and those who do the attending.

Michaela sent in two Australian ads for Selleys sealants. Both target men and caution them about the consequences of neglecting home maintenance projects:

So men who fail to do the type of housework that is consistent with ideals of masculinity — fixing things — face threats to other areas of masculinity as well, since, of course, women (who cannot, themselves, caulk a shower, obviously) will be unable to resist a hot dude who can (and will) fix stuff, thus proving himself to be the ideal man. Who doesn’t love emasculation as a marketing tool?

The United States is a nation of immigrants… in that the majority of its citizens are not part of the native population of North America.  In other words, because it was and remains a colonized land.

That aside, is the United States unique in receiving an extremely large number of new immigrants relative to its size?  It turns out, No.

Lane Kenworthy, at Consider the Evidence, posted this figure, showing that the U.S. population does indeed include a substantial proportion of first generation immigrants (both legal and illegal), but it is not unique in that regard, nor does it carry the highest percentage:

It also fails to be true, as many anti-immigration people claim, that the U.S. accepts a uniquely large number of immigrants who need help once they arrive:

An anonymous frequent reader sent in this Calvin Klein jeans ad that has been removed from billboards in Australia after the Advertising Standards Bureau banned its display on the grounds that it implies sexual assault. I’m putting it after the jump because it might be triggering for some people.

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