Global corporations play a role in transmitting culture from place to place.  Recently, American corporations in Japan have been trying to popularize and commercialize Easter.  Disney’s theme park in Tokyo, for example, has promoted Easter with the Disney Easter Wonderland since 2010:

Likewise, beginning last year, Baskin Robbins has been promoting the holiday.  This year they have a month-long Wonderful Easter Campaign:

It will be very interesting to see how Easter becomes part of Japanese culture.  When the Japanese adopted Valentine’s day, for example, they added their own twist.  Women are expected to give chocolate to men; men are supposed to return the favor by giving candy to women on March 14th, White Day.  I would not be surprised to find that Easter becomes popular in Japan, but celebrated with a twist – a Japanese flavor.

—————————

Sangyoub Park is an assistant professor of sociology at Washburn University, where he teaches Social Demography, Generations in the U.S. and Sociology of East Asia. His research interests include social capital, demographic trends, and post-Generation Y.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

It is Easter Sunday. How about other places on the globe such as Japan? Christians are less than 1% of the population of Japan.  Yet, because of globalization, geographic locations plays less and less of a role in defining culture.  Many people around the world now consume the same food, clothing, music, movies, and technology.

Global corporations play a role in transmitting culture from place to place.  Recently, American corporations in Japan have been trying to popularize and commercialize Easter.  Disney’s theme park in Tokyo, for example, has promoted Easter with the Disney Easter Wonderland since 2010:

Likewise, beginning last year, Baskin Robbins has been promoting the holiday.  This year they have a month-long Wonderful Easter Campaign:

It will be very interesting to see how Easter becomes part of Japanese culture.  When the Japanese adopted Valentine’s day, for example, they added their own twist.  Women are expected to give chocolate to men; men are supposed to return the favor by giving candy to women on March 14th, White Day.  I would not be surprised to find that Easter becomes popular in Japan, but celebrated with a twist – a Japanese flavor.

—————————

Sangyoub Park is an assistant professor of sociology at Washburn University, where he teaches Social Demography, Generations in the U.S. and Sociology of East Asia. His research interests include social capital, demographic trends, and post-Generation Y.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

The database allows you to select a country, a time period, and a variable (top 5% income share, etc.), and get a table showing the results for all years in which data were available. Here, for instance, is part of the table for the share of income earned by the top 1% in Singapore:

Of course, this includes only data on income. In many countries, including the U.S., wealth (value of all assets) is significantly more concentrated than income.

Looking at the dataset, you can see patterns over time. For instance, here’s part of the data from the U.S. (notice there are time gaps between the end of each column and the beginning of the next–I was just grabbing some illustrative screencaps), showing how the percent of income earned by the top 0.1% decreased significantly starting in the 1940s, but began creeping up again by the late 1980s and has grown since then:

The site also allows you to create graphs. They provide a comparison of the share of income earned by the top 1% in 2005 in the U.S., Japan, Australia, and France, but you can look at data for individual nations:

It’s worth playing around a bit, but keeping in mind the caveats about what these data do and don’t tell us. Thanks to Shamus Khan for the tip!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

The Paris School of Economics has posted a database, compiled by Facundo Alvaredo, Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez, of the distribution of top incomes in a number of nations, with more on the way. Using income tax records, they provide a quick glance at concentration of income among the wealthy over decades (and in some cases, data extends back over a century). As the authors point out, there are limitations to using tax info to measure inequality, so it’s important to be aware of the limitations of this data series. Most obviously, individuals may take steps to hide their income to evade taxes, and the very wealthy may be particularly able to do so through the use of tax havens, etc. Also, tax policies change, so what counts as “income” at one point might not at another. The authors also had to contend with differences in the taxation unit (households vs. individuals) in different countries to provide some level of comparability.

The database allows you to select a country, a time period, and a variable (top 5% income share, etc.), and get a table showing the results for all years in which data were available. Here, for instance, is part of the table for the share of income earned by the top 1% in Singapore:

Of course, this includes only data on income. In many countries, including the U.S., wealth (value of all assets) is significantly more concentrated than income.

Looking at the dataset, you can see patterns over time. For instance, here’s part of the data from the U.S. (notice there are time gaps between the end of each column and the beginning of the next–I was just grabbing some illustrative screencaps), showing how the percent of income earned by the top 0.1% decreased significantly starting in the 1940s, but began creeping up again by the late 1980s and has grown since then:

The site also allows you to create graphs. They provide a comparison of the share of income earned by the top 1% in 2005 in the U.S., Japan, Australia, and France, but you can look at data for individual nations:

It’s worth playing around a bit, but keeping in mind the caveats about what these data do and don’t tell us. Thanks to Shamus Khan for the tip!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

We don’t doubt the chart’s underlying point that the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is high in the United States, and is likely higher in our free-wheeling economy than it is in the historically more egalitarian nations of Europe.

But in its claim that the U.S. ratio is 475 to 1, the chart conveys a sense of certitude and statistical precision that simply isn’t warranted — and which is contradicted by the facts. The latest number for the U.S. is 185 to 1 in one study and 325 to 1 in another [though in previous years, those ratios have reached as high as 525 to 1] — and those numbers were not generated by groups that might have an ideological interest in downplaying the gaps between rich and poor. We rate the claim on the U.S. ratio False.

I apologize for not vetting this more carefully.

H/T KeepYourHopesUpHigh via GlobalSociologyBlog.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

UPDATE:  Since posting this, I’ve discovered that the numbers do not accurately reflect the ratio of CEO vs. worker pay.  Writes PolitiFact:

We don’t doubt the chart’s underlying point that the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is high in the United States, and is likely higher in our free-wheeling economy than it is in the historically more egalitarian nations of Europe.

But in its claim that the U.S. ratio is 475 to 1, the chart conveys a sense of certitude and statistical precision that simply isn’t warranted — and which is contradicted by the facts. The latest number for the U.S. is 185 to 1 in one study and 325 to 1 in another [though in previous years, those ratios have reached as high as 525 to 1] — and those numbers were not generated by groups that might have an ideological interest in downplaying the gaps between rich and poor. We rate the claim on the U.S. ratio False.

I apologize for not vetting this more carefully.

H/T KeepYourHopesUpHigh via GlobalSociologyBlog.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

See also:

• Whiskey Toothpaste
• Ice Cucumber Pepsi
• Ham and Jelly, together at last
• 7-Up and Milk

And the list wouldn’t be complete without our Jell-O posts:

• Celery-, Tomato-, Mixed Vegetable-, and Italian-Flavored Jell-O
• Meat-Flavored Jell-O

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Here’s a fun one for our series on the social construction of flavor!

See also:

• Whiskey Toothpaste
• Ice Cucumber Pepsi
• Ham and Jelly, together at last
• 7-Up and Milk

And the list wouldn’t be complete without our Jell-O posts:

• Celery-, Tomato-, Mixed Vegetable-, and Italian-Flavored Jell-O
• Meat-Flavored Jell-O

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Via Feministing.  See also how the U.S. ranks on measures of equality and prosperity(33 out of 33, for what it’s worth). Thanks to Dolores R. for the link!

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

How does the U.S. compare to other developed countries on measures of social justice? According to the New York Times, not very well.  The visual below compares countries’ poverty rates, poverty prevention measures, income inequality, spending on pre-primary education, and citizen health.  The “overall” rating is on the far left and the U.S. ranks 27th out of 31.

Via Feministing.  See also how the U.S. ranks on measures of equality and prosperity(33 out of 33, for what it’s worth). Thanks to Dolores R. for the link!

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

————————

Here are two obentos created by a mother for her 4-year-old daughter; her blog is entirely in Japanese, but there’s a discussion of it in English on Watashi to Tokyo (for other examples, look at e-obento):

In her article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” Anne Allison discussed the meaning of obentos. The Japanese educational system is highly centralized, with the national Ministry of Education determining the curriculum and approving textbooks. Nursery school, though overseen by the Ministry, is generally private and isn’t compulsory, though attendance is high. According to Allison, it functions much like kindergarten in the U.S., focusing less on content than on how to be a student. Of particular importance are the ability to transition from home life to the public sphere of a bureaucratic state institution and socialization into norms of group life, including cooperation and emphasis on the collective rather than the individual.

The obento was seen as an important element of this process. It was a token of home, and more specifically, of mom. The willingness to make elaborate, creative obentos was used as a measure of a woman’s commitment to the mothering role. The lunches, as you can imagine from the photos, could be very time- and labor-intensive to make. During her time in Japan, Allison says she and the mothers she talked to spent 20-45 minutes each morning on a single obento, in addition to the time spent planning and shopping for ingredients. Tips for making obentos were a frequent topic of conversation among moms, and whole magazines were devoted to the topic. Stores sell a range of obento items, including containers, decorations, molds and stamps to cut foods into various shapes, and, increasingly, pre-made food:

Nursery schools carefully oversaw lunch. The entire obento must be eaten, and everyone had to wait until every child had finished — an important lesson in the importance of the group over the individual. Thus, part of the mother’s job was to make the food appealing and easy to consume, in an effort to encourage her child to eat and avoid the embarrassment of holding up the rest of the class from after-lunch recess. Making food brightly-colored, in various shapes, and in small portions helped with this process. If a child failed to eat the entire lunch, or ate slowly, both the child and mother were held accountable. More than just a lunch, then, Allison argues that obentos served as a form of socialization into ideas of what it meant to be Japanese, particularly the emphasis on the collective and the importance of meeting expectations. Indeed, her son’s teacher viewed him as successfully assimilating to Japan not when he learned the language or made friends, but when he began routinely finishing his obento.

Talking to Japanese mothers — and making obentos for her own young son — Allison found that designing obentos was often viewed as a creative outlet, a way to express themselves and their love for their child. The small group she spoke with generally described it as a fulfilling part of motherhood. But the stakes were also high, since making a sub-par or merely utilitarian obento could stigmatize them as bad mothers. The quality of a mother’s obento became a symbol of the quality of her mothering and her commitment to her child’s educational success.

Of course, this served to institutionalize a form of intensive mothering that is difficult to balance with work life or outside interests. The women she spoke to generally could not hold even part-time jobs and fulfill the expectations placed upon them; those who did often tried to keep it secret to avoid negative judgment from their child’s teacher. In fact, a 2007 Japan Today article said that 70% of Japanese women leave the paid labor force when they have a child.

Allison’s article was published in 1991. I’d love to hear from readers with more recent experiences with expectations surrounding obentos in Japan.

UPDATE: As I had hoped, some of our readers have some great insights about obentos, including questioning whether the really elaborate obentos are most common among wealthier families while most make do with less intricate versions that don’t require as much commitment to intensive mothering. Be sure and check out the comments!

[Full cite: Anne Allison. 1991. "Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus." Anthropological Quarterly 64(4): 195-208.]

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011.

————————

Here are two obentos created by a mother for her 4-year-old daughter; her blog is entirely in Japanese, but there’s a discussion of it in English on Watashi to Tokyo (for other examples, look at e-obento):

In her article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” Anne Allison discussed the meaning of obentos. The Japanese educational system is highly centralized, with the national Ministry of Education determining the curriculum and approving textbooks. Nursery school, though overseen by the Ministry, is generally private and isn’t compulsory, though attendance is high. According to Allison, it functions much like kindergarten in the U.S., focusing less on content than on how to be a student. Of particular importance are the ability to transition from home life to the public sphere of a bureaucratic state institution and socialization into norms of group life, including cooperation and emphasis on the collective rather than the individual.

The obento was seen as an important element of this process. It was a token of home, and more specifically, of mom. The willingness to make elaborate, creative obentos was used as a measure of a woman’s commitment to the mothering role. The lunches, as you can imagine from the photos, could be very time- and labor-intensive to make. During her time in Japan, Allison says she and the mothers she talked to spent 20-45 minutes each morning on a single obento, in addition to the time spent planning and shopping for ingredients. Tips for making obentos were a frequent topic of conversation among moms, and whole magazines were devoted to the topic. Stores sell a range of obento items, including containers, decorations, molds and stamps to cut foods into various shapes, and, increasingly, pre-made food:

Nursery schools carefully oversaw lunch. The entire obento must be eaten, and everyone had to wait until every child had finished — an important lesson in the importance of the group over the individual. Thus, part of the mother’s job was to make the food appealing and easy to consume, in an effort to encourage her child to eat and avoid the embarrassment of holding up the rest of the class from after-lunch recess. Making food brightly-colored, in various shapes, and in small portions helped with this process. If a child failed to eat the entire lunch, or ate slowly, both the child and mother were held accountable. More than just a lunch, then, Allison argues that obentos served as a form of socialization into ideas of what it meant to be Japanese, particularly the emphasis on the collective and the importance of meeting expectations. Indeed, her son’s teacher viewed him as successfully assimilating to Japan not when he learned the language or made friends, but when he began routinely finishing his obento.

Talking to Japanese mothers — and making obentos for her own young son — Allison found that designing obentos was often viewed as a creative outlet, a way to express themselves and their love for their child. The small group she spoke with generally described it as a fulfilling part of motherhood. But the stakes were also high, since making a sub-par or merely utilitarian obento could stigmatize them as bad mothers. The quality of a mother’s obento became a symbol of the quality of her mothering and her commitment to her child’s educational success.

Of course, this served to institutionalize a form of intensive mothering that is difficult to balance with work life or outside interests. The women she spoke to generally could not hold even part-time jobs and fulfill the expectations placed upon them; those who did often tried to keep it secret to avoid negative judgment from their child’s teacher. In fact, a 2007 Japan Today article said that 70% of Japanese women leave the paid labor force when they have a child.

Allison’s article was published in 1991. I’d love to hear from readers with more recent experiences with expectations surrounding obentos in Japan.

UPDATE: As I had hoped, some of our readers have some great insights about obentos, including questioning whether the really elaborate obentos are most common among wealthier families while most make do with less intricate versions that don’t require as much commitment to intensive mothering. Be sure and check out the comments!

[Full cite: Anne Allison. 1991. "Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus." Anthropological Quarterly 64(4): 195-208.]

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Benjamin B. alerted us to a New York Times story about a new trend in Japan: yaeba.  Some young Japanese women are now having dentists artificially enlarge their incisors canines so as to achieve a look associated with a small mouth crowded with teeth:

Here’s some dental work to that effect, borrowed from the “after” pictures on a dentist’s website:

Michelle Phan, who blogged about the trend, explained:

It’s not like here, where perfect, straight, picket-fence teeth are considered beautiful. In Japan, in fact, crooked teeth are actually endearing, and it shows that a girl is not perfect. And, in a way, men find that more approachable than someone who is too overly perfect.

Communication Studies professor Dr. Emilie Zaslow had something different to say.  She argued that the trend represented a fixation with youth, the sexualization of girls, and pressure on women to infantilize themselves:

…the naturally occurring yaeba is because of delayed baby teeth, or a mouth that’s too small.

In other words, having a crowded mouth makes you look younger, like a girl instead of a woman.  Now, it’s easy to judge Japan as being weird and sexually-suspect, but we have very practices with exactly the same effect here in the U.S.  Consider the preponderance of bleach blonde hair in America. It’s a natural hair color in some children, very rare in adulthood, and adopted mostly by adult women, not men.  Let’s add baby doll dresses and shaving our pubes to the list.

This is a disturbing transnational phenomenon, then, and what I like about the Yaeba example is that it’s unfamiliar enough to Americans that we can see it for what it is.  And, if we can see it for what it is, we can turn our lens onto our own culture and see the things we do in a whole new light.

—————————

UPDATE: In the comments thread, Lori says:

This “trend” is definitely not “new”. If anything it’s old. I actually have (female Japanese) friends who, when asked, told me that that would be a “dead” trend from 10 years ago. Whether they are right or not, during my years in Japan I have noticed that there are fewer Yaeba and generally what I would consider “ugly” teeth, and more “straight, picket fence” teeth as more Japanese get their teeth corrected with braces.

Lori also found some Google Images pictures of men showing off the same look.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Cross-posted at Ms. and Jezebel.

Benjamin B. alerted us to a New York Times story about a new trend in Japan: yaeba.  Some young Japanese women are now having dentists artificially enlarge their incisors canines so as to achieve a look associated with a small mouth crowded with teeth:

Here’s some dental work to that effect, borrowed from the “after” pictures on a dentist’s website:

Michelle Phan, who blogged about the trend, explained:

It’s not like here, where perfect, straight, picket-fence teeth are considered beautiful. In Japan, in fact, crooked teeth are actually endearing, and it shows that a girl is not perfect. And, in a way, men find that more approachable than someone who is too overly perfect.

Communication Studies professor Dr. Emilie Zaslow had something different to say.  She argued that the trend represented a fixation with youth, the sexualization of girls, and pressure on women to infantilize themselves:

…the naturally occurring yaeba is because of delayed baby teeth, or a mouth that’s too small.

In other words, having a crowded mouth makes you look younger, like a girl instead of a woman.  Now, it’s easy to judge Japan as being weird and sexually-suspect, but we have very practices with exactly the same effect here in the U.S.  Consider the preponderance of bleach blonde hair in America. It’s a natural hair color in some children, very rare in adulthood, and adopted mostly by adult women, not men.  Let’s add baby doll dresses and shaving our pubes to the list.

This is a disturbing transnational phenomenon, then, and what I like about the Yaeba example is that it’s unfamiliar enough to Americans that we can see it for what it is.  And, if we can see it for what it is, we can turn our lens onto our own culture and see the things we do in a whole new light.

—————————

UPDATE: In the comments thread, Lori says:

This “trend” is definitely not “new”. If anything it’s old. I actually have (female Japanese) friends who, when asked, told me that that would be a “dead” trend from 10 years ago. Whether they are right or not, during my years in Japan I have noticed that there are fewer Yaeba and generally what I would consider “ugly” teeth, and more “straight, picket fence” teeth as more Japanese get their teeth corrected with braces.

Lori also found some Google Images pictures of men showing off the same look.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Photographer James Mollison has embarked on a similar project, Where Children Sleep, sent in by Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University, Yvette M., Amanda B., Dmitriy T.M., and my sister, Keely.  Mollison has documented children and their bedrooms around the world.  It’s heartbreaking to see how much some children have, and how little others do.

Jasmine, four-years-old, Kentucky:

Indira, seven-years-old, Nepal:

Roathy, eight-years-old, Cambodia:

Justin, eight-years-old, New Jersey:

Alyssa, Appalachia:

Jamie, nine-years-old, New York City:

Ryuta, ten-years-old, Tokyo:

Ahkohxet, eight-years-old, Brazil:

Lots more pictures, and more details about these children, at the New York Times.  Or, buy the book.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Photography projects can draw our attention, poignantly, to class inequality.  Consider Vivian Mayer’s vintage photographs of New York and Chicago, for example, or Peter Menzel’s What We Own series.  We need these projects because most of us are in class-segregated occupations and neighborhoods, not to mention a profoundly unequal world.

Photographer James Mollison has embarked on a similar project, Where Children Sleep, sent in by Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University, Yvette M., Amanda B., Dmitriy T.M., and my sister, Keely.  Mollison has documented children and their bedrooms around the world.  It’s heartbreaking to see how much some children have, and how little others do.

Jasmine, four-years-old, Kentucky:

Indira, seven-years-old, Nepal:

Roathy, eight-years-old, Cambodia:

Justin, eight-years-old, New Jersey:

Alyssa, Appalachia:

Jamie, nine-years-old, New York City:

Ryuta, ten-years-old, Tokyo:

Ahkohxet, eight-years-old, Brazil:

Lots more pictures, and more details about these children, at the New York Times.  Or, buy the book.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Interestingly, in addition to the now familiar racism and jingoism, some of the updates suggest that the gods were smiling on Japan in the aftermath of the tsunami, allowing them to win because they’ve had such a rough time of it lately. Of course, this nicely erases the athletic ability of the Japanese team and the possibility that they were actually just better than the U.S. team.

Trigger warning:

Thanks to Who, Harmony for the heads up on Twitter, a new distraction that I’m enjoying super much!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

After the tsunami in March, we featured a series of hateful Facebook updates suggesting that the Japanese deserved the devastation. Yesterday Japan won the women’s World Cup against the U.S. and we’re seeing the same rhetoric.  The collection below, and more, was up on Buzzfeed as of yesterday night.

Interestingly, in addition to the now familiar racism and jingoism, some of the updates suggest that the gods were smiling on Japan in the aftermath of the tsunami, allowing them to win because they’ve had such a rough time of it lately. Of course, this nicely erases the athletic ability of the Japanese team and the possibility that they were actually just better than the U.S. team.

Trigger warning:

Thanks to Who, Harmony for the heads up on Twitter, a new distraction that I’m enjoying super much!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

What strikes me as both a student and a professor of language and culture is that the visual world differs so greatly across cultures and even minor differences are telling in how we organize and perceive our world. Color is one of the easiest ways to find differences in cultures. I have previously discussed the linguistic and cognitive differences of color, but now I want to show some simple examples of color in culture through analysis of various postal systems.

In China, the postal system uses a deep hunter green:

(source)

In Japan, it is a bright red, much like England.

England:

(source)

Japan:

(source)

In Germany, it is a bright yellow (think DHL):

(source)

In Russia, it is a lighter but similar shade of the deep postal blue in the U.S.

Russia:

(source)

The U.S.:

(source)

This example of postal systems is an easy way to illustrate how color becomes one of the central ways to communicate and, although the same message is shared across cultures, the path to that message varies through color.

—————————–

Michael Shaughnessy is an Associate Professor of German and Chair of Modern Languages at Washington & Jefferson College.  In addition to German language, literature, and culture, he has a professional interest in educational technology, especially the authenticity of multimedia imagery.  His book German Pittsburgh (Arcadia Publishing) highlights the contributions of German speaking immigrants to our area.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

I’ve argued that the visual aids used in computer programs designed to help us learn new languages are ethnocentric, generic, and uninformative.  Since then, I have been working on an alternative to these images, compiling a database of culturally organized images called the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon (CAPL).

What strikes me as both a student and a professor of language and culture is that the visual world differs so greatly across cultures and even minor differences are telling in how we organize and perceive our world. Color is one of the easiest ways to find differences in cultures. I have previously discussed the linguistic and cognitive differences of color, but now I want to show some simple examples of color in culture through analysis of various postal systems.

In China, the postal system uses a deep hunter green:

(source)

In Japan, it is a bright red, much like England.

England:

(source)

Japan:

(source)

In Germany, it is a bright yellow (think DHL):

(source)

In Russia, it is a lighter but similar shade of the deep postal blue in the U.S.

Russia:

(source)

The U.S.:

(source)

This example of postal systems is an easy way to illustrate how color becomes one of the central ways to communicate and, although the same message is shared across cultures, the path to that message varies through color.

—————————–

Michael Shaughnessy is an Associate Professor of German and Chair of Modern Languages at Washington & Jefferson College.  In addition to German language, literature, and culture, he has a professional interest in educational technology, especially the authenticity of multimedia imagery.  His book German Pittsburgh (Arcadia Publishing) highlights the contributions of German speaking immigrants to our area.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Largely because of life expectancy, women enjoy more years than men in all states except Turkey, but the number of years varies quite tremendously, from an average of zero years for men in Mexico, to an average of 26 years for women in Austria and Italy.  The United States is way down on this list, not doing so well relatively after all.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Does American prosperity translate into long retirements?  Not compared to other developed countries in the world.  Flowing Data borrowed OECD numbers on life expectancy and age of retirement to calculate the average number of years in retirement for men and women across many different countries.  The portion of each bar with the line is the average number of years working, while the non-lined portion represents years in retirement.

Largely because of life expectancy, women enjoy more years than men in all states except Turkey, but the number of years varies quite tremendously, from an average of zero years for men in Mexico, to an average of 26 years for women in Austria and Italy.  The United States is way down on this list, not doing so well relatively after all.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

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.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

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.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)