Contrary to popular belief, no great migration in pandemic

by Mike Schneider

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Contrary to popular belief, there has been no great migration in the U.S. during the pandemic.

New figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the proportion of people who moved over the past year fell to its lowest level in the 73 years that it has been tracked, in contradiction to popular anecdotes that people left cities en masse to escape COVID-19 restrictions or in search of more bucolic lifestyles.

"Millennials living in New York City do not make up the world," joked Thomas Cooke, a demographic consultant in Connecticut. "My millennial daughter's friends living in Williamsburg, dozens of them came home. It felt like the world had suddenly moved, but in reality, this is not surprising at all."

In 2021, more than 27 million people, or 8.4% of U.S. residents, reported having moved in the past year, according to the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement.

By comparison, 9.3% of U.S. residents moved from 2019 to 2020. Three decades ago, that figure was 17%.

Besides giving rise to shelter-in-place restrictions, the COVID-19 pandemic may have forced people to postpone life-cycle events such as marriages or having babies that often lead to moves. But the decline is part of a decadeslong migration decline in the U.S., said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.

"These numbers show a lot of people didn't move or moved at a slower rate," Frey said. "But it's a longer-term trend."

That's not to say that nobody moved. The one uptick in mobility patterns last year took place in longer-distance moves, from state to state, compared to moves within a state or county. Those 4.3 million residents who moved to another state may have done so because of the pandemic, Frey said.

Demographic expert Andrew Beveridge used change-of-address data to show that while people moved out of New York, particularly in well-heeled neighborhoods, at the height of the pandemic, those neighborhoods recouped their numbers just months later. Regarding the nation as a whole, Beveridge said he's not surprised migration declined.

"The same thing happened during the financial crisis. Nobody moved. Nobody got married. Nobody had kids," said Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College and the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. "All demographic change sort of just screeches to a halt."

Other factors contributing to Americans staying put have been an aging population, since older people are less likely to move than younger ones; the ability to telecommute for work, which allowed some workers to change jobs without having to move; and rising home prices and rents that kept some would-be movers in place, demographers said.

"I think the boom in remote work because of COVID coupled with the economic shock is the big reason," said Mary Craigle, bureau chief for Montana's Research and Information Services.

Mobility in the U.S. has been on a downward slide since 1985 when 20% of U.S. residents moved. That was an era when Baby Boomers were young adults, beginning careers, getting married and starting families. In comparison, millennials, who today are in the same age range as their Baby Boomer cohorts were in the mid-1980s, are stuck in place due to high housing costs and underemployment, according to an analysis Frey did last year.

Advancements in telecommunications and transportation have contributed to the decadeslong decline in U.S. mobility. Nowadays, people can get an education, work and visit family and friends remotely. In the last half of the last century, the highway system allowed people to work 50 miles (80 kilometers) from their homes without having to move closer for work, said Cooke, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut.

Rising economic insecurity over the decades also has made U.S. residents less mobile since "when there's insecurity, people value what they already have," he said.

The slowdown in American mobility is part of a recent stagnation in population dynamics in the U.S. The 2020 census shows that the U.S. grew by only 7.4% over the previous decade, the slowest rate since between 1930 and 1940. Earlier this week, the Census Bureau revealed that the population center of the U.S. moved only 11.8 miles (19 kilometers), the smallest shift in 100 years.

US population growth smallest in at least 120 years

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Ireland's great recession had detrimental effect on junior certificate results

by Trinity College Dublin

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

New research from Trinity College Dublin has shown, for the first time, that the economic strain experience by families during Ireland's great recession between 2009 and 2014 had a detrimental impact on young people's performance in state exams at the age of 15. The research, conducted by Richard Layte, Professor of Sociology at Trinity, has recently been published in the journal European Sociological Review.

Social scientists have for some time examined the association between parental education and income and the educational achievement of their children. However, there is less evidence on exactly how social disadvantage and adverse environments shape educational outcomes.

Using Ireland's recession between 2009 and 2014 as a 'natural experiment' and drawing on data from the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study the research showed that a family's experience of economic strain can significantly reduce child attainment in state exams at the age 15.

The research was based on interviews with the families and teachers of 4,955 young people aged 13 in 2007 and follow up interviews four years later. This period coincided with the onset of the recession in Ireland and deep cuts in public services, social protection and salaries. The recession impacted on the majority of families in Ireland including those with higher income and occupational circumstances. The study showed that increased economic strain experienced by young people during the great recession when they were aged between nine and 13 decreased performance in state examinations by approximately one point for every unit increase in economic strain.

This, according to Professor Layte, has the potential to have a long-term impact on the educational development of the young person if it causes a move to less academic tracks for the senior cycle examinations or changes the young person's perception of their own abilities, lessening their effort in school. The Irish educational system, the paper notes, does not easily facilitate those who wish to return and improve their exam results.

The study involved an assessment of performance at the age of 15 in the Junior Certificate exam along with a measurement of families' exposure to economic recession. It also took into account the experience of parental depression, the child's emotional and behavioral health and the level of parental investment in education.

The study, according to the author, also adds to mounting evidence that psycho-social factors are at least as important if not more important than effects of parental investments in their children in explaining the effects of recession and economic strain.

Richard Layte, Professor of Sociology, said: "We used the great recession in Ireland as a 'natural experiment' to help us understand why low income and economic strain are often associated with worse behavior and development in school and worse educational outcomes overall such as worse junior and leaving cert grades and fewer transitions to third level."

"Growing Up in Ireland, the Irish Longitudinal Study of Children, allows us to follow children from infancy so we can look at how their environment influences them. The great recession produced a situation where well educated, middle class families also experienced economic strain and we could see what effect this had on the parents and their children."

"By matching people in terms of their likelihood of experiencing recession but who nonetheless varied in terms of their actual experience of recession we were able to show that recession itself lowered their exam performance. Moreover, we could also show that it was not the withdrawal of access to books, grinds or educational experiences that did this, but instead the effect of economic strain on the mental health of parents and the spill over from this onto their child."

The paper, titled "Does Family Economic Strain Reduce Child Educational Achievement? A Longitudinal Assessment Using the Great Recession in Ireland," was published in the European Sociological Review.Recession damages mental health of families, says new study

More information: Richard Layte, Does Family Economic Strain Reduce Child Educational Achievement? A Longitudinal Assessment Using the Great Recession in Ireland, European Sociological Review (2021). DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcab049

Provided by Trinity College Dublin 

Deaths from landmines are on the rise, and clearing them all will take decades

by Sam Clarke, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Nearly quarter-century after most of the world signed a convention outlawing the use of antipersonnel landmines, the number of people being killed or maimed by these insidious and lethal weapons remains high—and rising. The Landmine Monitor for 2021, released on November 10, reported 7,073 casualties in 2020, including 2,492 people killed and 4,561 wounded.

This is a significant increase on the 5,554 people killed and wounded in 2019. Syria was the worst affected country, reporting 2,729 casualties. The report says that the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by insurgents, many of which were deliberately aimed against the civilian population. Other countries with more than 100 recorded casualties in 2020 were Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, Ukraine, and Yemen,

One of the worst things about this is that many of these people will have died or been maimed by a mine that was laid years, perhaps even decades, previously, but which have not yet been detected and neutralized.

Our research at the University of Sheffield has, for the past decade, been looking at quantifying how the soil around landmines changes how deadly they are. According to the Landmine Monitor report, about 5,000 square kilometers are known to need clearing of mines. By my calculation, at the current rate of clearance this will take about 34 years and cost around £14 billion.

Indiscriminate war crimes

Historically, military forces deployed anti-personnel mines (those designed to explode in the presence, proximity or contact of a person) to create defensive barriers or to deny access to specific regions or facilities. Military use requires regions to be marked as minefields—not marking out mine-infested regions is regarded as a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Once conflicts are over, these mines are left behind, which has a devastating effect on the local population for decades to come.

Landmines are indiscriminate in their destructive power, being triggered by soldiers and children alike (more than half the casualties in the 2021 report were children). This, combined with the fact that they can lie unexploded for decades before then killing or maiming innocent people, led to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Ottawa Convention.

While 164 states have signed up to the treaty—including the UK—many of the world's major military powers still have not, notably Russia, China, and, thanks to the Trump administration's U-turn, the U.S.. Other non-signatories include many of those countries with active mine fields, including Syria, Egypt and Myanmar.

The difficulties in rehabilitating mined areas are not to be underestimated, taking both time and money to complete—which is why many mine-strewn areas take such a long time to clear. A common misconception is that if the production of anti-personnel mines ceased and stockpiles destroyed that the problem would start to diminish.

IEDs—the next generation

Sadly, in areas such as Afghanistan, where the highest number of casualties have been recorded over the past 20 years, the threat is not from standard landmines but from homemade buried IEDs. Unmarked, with a range of different triggering techniques from pressure plates to triggers placed under innocuous objects such as rocks, it is easy to see why children are disproportionately injured and killed due to their inquisitive nature.

Improvised mines are used by anti-government elements as a "weapon of choice." The flexibility in deployment and triggering mechanisms of these improvised mines make the clearance of areas even more dangerous, especially in areas that are still in a state of political unrest—where the demining personnel can themselves become the target of attacks.

One often-overlooked aspect is the lasting effect on local communities. In areas such as Syria, occupying forces in retreat actively target both the local facilities and homes of those displaced. This has the effect of prolonging the trauma of the conflict for populations returning after the supposed end of a conflict.

The type of homemade device is also always evolving, making it more difficult—and dangerous—to train demining staff. While mines were once used purely as a military tactic to deny hostile military forces access to a strategically important area, now they are often used to impose the values of retreating forces. Islamic State is one terrorist group that uses mines to target community education facilities like schools and swimming pools, adding to the oppression of local people.

Making a difference

The United Nations Development Programme with the help of charities such as the Halo Trust work with local volunteers to clear these areas once the occupying forces have left. It's a process which requires specialist equipment, training and time. A key part of the process is learning to live around active minefields.

Governments and charities provide training to local children on how to keep themselves safe while the minefields are awaiting clearance. This can greatly reduce the casualties in post-conflict areas.

The Landmine Monitor report doesn't just focus on minefields and casualties, but also on the work of charities and governments in clearing afflicted areas. In 2020, 146km² of land was cleared of mines, with more than 135,000 antipersonnel mines destroyed. That's potentially 135,000 lives protected.

So while the timescales involved seem long, the impact for those living and working in mined areas cannot be underestimated. Hopefully, we will be able to see a mine-free world within our lifetimes.

220,000 children threatened by mines in Ukraine's east: UN

Provided by The Conversation 

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Why ten-year-old children should not be held criminally responsible

by Harriet Pierpoint, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock/Anna Berdnik

In a recent 12-month period, police in England and Wales made just under 60,000 arrests of children. Of these cases, which involved crimes including theft and antisocial behavior, nearly 27,000 ended up in court.

Some of these defendants were just 10 years old—the minimum age at which a child can be prosecuted and punished by law for an offense in these countries. In Ireland and Scotland it is 12, while in Sweden and Denmark it is 15.

The age age of criminal responsibility is hardly ever discussed by the mainstream media or politicians in the UK. When it is, the debate often goes hand in hand with reference to homicides by children. But the rarity of these shocking and sad events is seldom mentioned.

One such case, the killing by two 10-year-olds of the toddler James Bulger in 1993, is often cited by those in favor of a low age of criminal responsibility. The argument goes that if a child is old enough to act like an adult and commit a serious crime, then they are old enough to be treated like an adult and a criminal.

But this means society is willing to treat criminal children differently to other children. Whereas adults perceive childhood as a period of innocence, argues law professor Julia Fionda, as soon as individual children fail to live up to adult perceptions of what children should be like, they lose their "angelic" status and are seen instead as "devils."

The death of James Bulger also led to the abolition of something referred to in legal terms as "doli incapax" (incapable of evil). Doli incapax meant that children aged 10 to 14 were presumed to be incapable of crime unless the prosecution could prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that the child knew that what they were doing was seriously wrong, rather than naughty or mischievous.

In other words, it used to be assumed that children under 14 were not criminally responsible unless they understood the seriousness of their wrongdoing. Doli incapax protected some children involved in minor offending, where the difference between seriously wrong compared to naughty or mischievous may be less clear in some children's minds.

But that doctrine was abolished in England and Wales in 1998, leaving an age of criminal responsibility of ten, the lowest in Europe. This is too young.

To find out what others think, I recently launched an online survey of public opinion on the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales. So far, from more than 200 responses, a clear majority (88%) think the age limit should be raised—with the most frequently cited age being 16. The reason given by participants is usually a belief that this is an age by which most children can distinguish right from wrong and have an understanding of the law.

The evidence

Another reason to raise the age of criminal responsibility is the rarity of the most serious crimes being committed by children. The evidence shows that in the year ending March 2020, three of the 187 people (1.6%) convicted of murder in England and Wales were under 16.

Of around 49,100 proven offenses committed by children in that year, the main offense type (31%) was violence against a person.

For legal purposes, the seriousness of a violent offense is measured on a scale ranging from one (least serious) up to eight (most serious). Overall, just under 140 proven offenses committed by children had the highest gravity score of eight, which accounts for only 0.3%.

Overall then, recorded serious violence by children is infrequent and the vast majority of offenses committed by children are considered to be less serious.

As I have argued elsewhere, there is also a lack of consistency across the broader criminal and civil law in England and Wales. The effective age of most civil responsibilities (playing the lottery, claiming benefits, voting, buying a pet, sitting on a jury) is 16 or above.

There is also neuroscientific research which shows that adolescents' brains predispose them to risk taking behavior and responding emotionally, without the same abilities as adults to control their impulses and consider the long-term implications.

This reflects what has been widely observed—that there is an increase in criminal behavior in children that peaks in late adolescence, which then declines throughout adult life, when, some argue, they "grow out" of crime. Meanwhile, research shows that contact with the criminal justice system can extend the criminal careers of children, rather than curtail them.

There is an acknowledgement of this in the "child first" approach to justice, which emphasizes diversion and minimum intervention, and has been adopted as a strategic priority for England and Wales.

There is also some will to at least look again at the age of criminal responsibility, with a UK government review into the subject recommended last year. In view of the evidence, and to embrace the idea of minimum intervention more fully, it is clear that the age should be raised.Children likely to be pleading guilty when innocent, study argues

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Study: NFL failed to follow its own policy in punishing violent offenses

by University of Arkansas

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

From 2010 to 2019, the National Football League did not follow its own personal conduct policy in punishing players who committed violent acts, including violence against women, according to a new study.

Findings published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues show that players who committed "general violence"—that is, violence not specific to women—received, on average, less than a third of the minimum requirement for number of games suspended, according to league policy. Players who committed acts of violence against women received longer suspensions but, on average, still fewer games than the league minimum.

"We don't wish to draw attention away from violence specific to women, but our findings, we think, suggest that the league has less of a problem in this area and more of a problem addressing violent behavior in general," said Jacquelyn Wiersma-Mosley, professor of human development and family sciences at the U of A. "In fact, the league punished players who committed drug offenses twice as much those who committed general acts of violence."

Wiersma-Mosley and undergraduate student Krystyna Gotberg gathered data from a public list of 176 NFL players who violated league policies and received game suspensions between 2010 and 2019. The researchers created a database that housed player information, violation, number of games suspended and other pertinent information derived from public websites and news outlets, including ESPN News, Denver Post, Pro Football Talk, NFL.com, U.S. Today and the New York Times.

There were four types of violations:

• Violence against women, including sexual assault, rape and domestic violence.
• General violent behaviors, including assault and battery.
• Drug-related offenses, including substance abuse, alcohol, driving under the influence, illegal drugs and performance-enhancing drugs.
• Minor sports-related infractions, including missing a team meeting.

More than half of the violations were for violent offenses, the researchers found, though only 14 percent of the total violations were for violence against women. At 40 percent, general violent behaviors accounted for the highest number of cases. The average number of game suspensions for general violent offenses was 1.75. Average number of game suspensions for violence against women was 4.08. Players received suspensions of 4.05 games for drug-related offenses and 1.88 for minor infractions.

"There was surprisingly little empirical research out there on violence against women in the NFL and whether the league holds players accountable for it," Wiersma-Mosley said. "Finding that it doesn't was less surprising than discovering how little the league punishes players for general violence. We think these findings naturally inspire many additional questions about implementation of league policy and labor relations between owners and player."Just a game? Study shows no evidence that violent video games lead to real-life violence

More information: Krystyna Gotberg et al, An Empirical Investigation of Violence Against Women in the NFL, Journal of Sport and Social Issues (2021). DOI: 10.1177/01937235211043645

Provided by University of Arkansas 

The Olympics shifts away from testosterone tests and toward human rights

by Ryan Storr, Madeleine Pape, Sheree Bekker, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) this week released a much anticipated policy document aimed at making the Olympics more inclusive for transgender athletes and athletes with sex variations.

The new framework builds on more than two years of consultation with diverse athletes, advocates, and stakeholders.

The devil will be in the detail and implementation, of course. But this fresh approach, which places human rights at the center, could herald a new era of gender-inclusive sports participation and governance.

Why this new framework—and why now?

One of the most prominent gender equity and human rights issues of recent years has been the inclusion of gender-minoritised people—those whose bodies and/or gender expression and identity do not neatly align with normative notions of the female/male binary.

This issue affects sport globally from grassroots to elite levels. Stakeholders have long called for change.

We work with sports organizations and athletes grappling with the question of inclusion in women's sport.

Our own research has highlighted that many sports organizations develop policies with little to no knowledge of the complexity of the issue—and often without engaging the athletes affected.

The new IOC framework follows a long and much-critiqued history of efforts to define the boundaries of the female athlete category, dating back to the "nude parades" of the 1960s.

In the past, the goal has been to find a "biological basis of womanhood" and relied on incomplete and controversial scientific evidence.

Today, however, there is wider recognition of the fact science alone cannot provide a straightforward answer to such as socially and biologically complex question.

An alternative approach, reflected in the IOC's new framework, is to build policy around the concept of human rights.

What do the new guidelines say?

The new framework recognize human rights as a fundamental responsibility of sports governing bodies.

It explicitly takes the approach athletes shouldn't be excluded solely on the basis of their transgender identity or sex variations. It aims to ensure everyone can practice sport safely and free from harassment, irrespective of their gender or sex-linked traits.

Importantly, the framework attempts to move sports governing bodies away from relying on testosterone as a one-size-fits-all measure of eligibility.

In its place, it emphasizes ten key principles to guide the policy development process:

• prevention of harm
• non-discrimination
• fairness
• no presumption of advantage
• evidence-based approaches to regulation
• the primacy of health and bodily autonomy
• a stakeholder-centered approach to rule development
• the right to privacy
• periodic review of eligibility regulations.

The relationship between testosterone and performance is so complex, sports governing bodies cannot realistically expect to rely on testosterone measures when defining eligibility.

There is just as much diversity among the bodies and performances of trans women and women with sex variations as we see among cisgender and normatively-bodied women athletes.

The IOC's spokespeople were pragmatic: let's take one step at a time, have faith in the ten principles, and see where they take us.

In this way, the new framework (and its underlying philosophy) moves us well beyond contentious testosterone thresholds introduced in 2015 and the 2003 Stockholm consensus, which required athletes to have affirmation surgeries and "anatomical changes."

In fact, the IOC now recognizes the "severe harm" and systemic discrimination caused by such eligibility criteria and policies.

This includes the disproportionate burdens and harms that have been wrought upon women of color from Global South nations in sports like track and field.

The question now is: how will other sports governing bodies, most notably the International Federations (IFs) that govern each Olympic sport, be brought on side?

The IOC now calls for IFs to take "a principled approach to develop their criteria that are applicable to their sport."

An important and welcome move

This framework represents a step forward for gender-inclusive sport but there's more work ahead. It doesn't mention non-binary athletes at all, meaning it still frames elite sports participation within a strict gender binary.

It's promising to see a shift away from a paradigm focused on particular scientific and medical approaches regulating exclusion of certain groups. The move toward a contemporary vision of gender-inclusive sport is promising.

This new approach is a positive move for gender equitable sport; both trans women and women with sex variations will be valuable allies in the fight to make sport safe and inclusive for all women.

Hopefully, it will help make grassroots a more welcome space for trans and gender diverse people. These groups report alarming levels of poor mental health and suicidal ideation and have a right to opportunities to improve wellbeing through sport.

Sport has a unique opportunity to advance progress and health outcomes for marginalized communities.

This move may offer hope to young people of diverse genders and sex that they too can strive to achieve greatness in a sport they loveThe debate over transgender athletes' rights is testing the current limits of science and the la

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Staff wellbeing programmes help social relationships and reduce bullying

by University of East Anglia

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Programmes aimed at supporting employees' health and wellbeing can also benefit their social relationships and reduce bullying, according to a new study published today.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA), working in collaboration with insurance and investments company Vitality, found that the more employees engage with health and wellbeing programmes (HWPs) the better the quality of co-worker relationships, the less they experience bullying over time, and the better their longer-term wellbeing and job satisfaction.

Unexpectedly, the results suggest that even when senior managers are not committed to these initiatives, employee engagement with HWPs is associated with better relationships at work and the same subsequent positive benefits.

The researchers say the findings are particularly relevant given the new patterns of working which have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organisations are increasingly adopting HWPs, yet further understanding is required of the underlying processes or conditions that may influence their effectiveness on employee outcomes, such as wellbeing and job satisfaction.

Programmes vary in scope and comprehensiveness but can include a broad range of information, health screening and activities which attempt to reduce health risks, prevent chronic disease, support healthy behaviours or attempt to identify and change potential health-related problems.

This three-year study used data from 7,785 UK employees at 64 organisations. Its findings are published in the British Journal of Management.

Lead authors Dr. Roberta Fida and Dr. Annilee Game, from UEA's Norwich Business School, said the evidence showed that promoting wellbeing interventions in the organisations has "unintended" positive consequences.

"While organisations may adopt these programmes primarily to target employee health and wellbeing directly, we found that employees' social relationships also benefit," said Dr. Fida.

"When organisations invest in wellbeing they communicate care for their employees and this is reciprocated with more respectful interpersonal interactions. This in turn significantly reduces the onset of workplace bullying and improves longer term mental and physical health as well as job satisfaction."

Dr. Game said: "These findings are especially relevant for managers to consider as organisations develop new patterns of working in the post-COVID era. People's wellbeing has been significantly affected by the pandemic. Investing in HWPs brings both relationship and health benefits that can help support employees adjusting to the new normal."

The research used 2015-2017 data from 'Vitality's Britain's Healthiest Workplace', an annual study that provides one of the largest and most comprehensive datasets on organisational performance and wellbeing of UK organisations and their employees. The study looks at personal, social, lifestyle, job and workplace information from the employee and organisational perspective using self-report questionnaires. Any UK-based organisation employing at least 20 people, in any sector, can participate.

Dr. Martin Stepanek, Lead Researcher at Vitality and co-author of the new study said: "This study confirms just how wide-reaching the benefits of implementing employee health and wellbeing programmes can be. There are numerous positive consequences of wellbeing interventions—beyond the obvious intended benefits—for the organisation and its employees, and wider society.

"By offering such programmes, organisations not only directly affect employees' wellbeing, they help to create a culture of positive change in which employees are more likely to thrive."

'Longitudinal Effects of Engagement with Workplace Health Programmes on Employee Outcomes: A Relational Perspective' is published in the British Journal of Management on Friday November 19.Stress management classes and wellbeing coaching no help at improving workers' mental health, study says

More information: Longitudinal Effects of Engagement with Workplace Health Programmes on Employee Outcomes: A Relational Perspective, British Journal of Management, DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12565

Provided by University of East Anglia 

What Americans hear about social justice at church, and what they do about it

by R. Khari Brown, Ronald Brown, The Conversation

Credit: Chart: R. Khari Brown, Ronald E. Brown, and James S. Jackson 

Source: "Race and the Power of Sermons on American Politics

On June 5, 2020, it had been just over a week since a white Minnesota police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed George Floyd, an unarmed, African American man. Protests were underway outside Central United Methodist Church, an interracial church in downtown Detroit with a long history of activism on civil rights, peace, immigrant rights and poverty issues.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the church was no longer holding in-person worship services. But anyone walking into its sanctuary that day would have seen long red flags behind the pastor's lectern, displaying the words "peace" and "love." A banner reading "Michigan Says No! To War" hung alongside pictures of civil rights icons Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as labor-rights activist Cesar Chavez. In line with her church's activist tradition, senior pastor Jill Hardt Zundell stood outside the building and preached about her church's commitment to eradicating anti-Black racism to her congregants and all that passed by.

In our sociology and political science research, we have both studied how race, religion and politics are intimately connected in the United States. Our recent book, "Race and the Power of Sermons on American Politics"—written with psychologist James S. Jackson—uses 44 national and regional surveys conducted between 1941 and 2019 to examine racial differences in who hears messages about social justice at church. We also examined how hearing those types of sermons correlates with support for policies aimed at reducing social inequality and with political activism.

For centuries, many Americans have envisioned that their country has a special relationship with God—that their nation is "a city on a hill" with special blessings and responsibilities. Beliefs that America is exceptional have inspired views across the political spectrum.

Many congregations that emphasize social justice embrace this idea of a "covenant" between the United States and the creator. They interpret it to mean Americans must create opportunity and inclusion for all—based in the belief that all people are equally valued by God.

Politics in the pews

In our book, we find that, depending upon the issue, between half and two-thirds of Americans support religious leaders taking public positions on racism, poverty, war and immigration. Roughly a third report attending worship settings where their clergy or friends discuss these issues and the importance of politically acting on one's beliefs.

African Americans and Hispanic Americans tend to be more supportive of religious leaders speaking out against racism and attempting to influence poverty and immigration policy. On the whole, African Americans are the most likely to support religious leaders expressing political views on specific issues, from poverty and homelessness to peace, as we examine in our book.

Black Americans are also more likely to attend worship settings where clergy and other members encourage them to connect their faith to social justice work. For example, according to a July 2020 Pew Research Center poll, 67% of African American worshippers reported hearing sermons in support of Black Lives Matter, relative to 47% of Hispanics and 36% of whites.

Race also affects the relationship between hearing such sermons and supporting related policies. When statistically accounting for religious affiliation, political party and demographic characteristics, attending these types of congregations more strongly associates with white Americans supporting progressive policy positions than it does for Black Americans and Hispanics.

White worshippers who hear sermons about race and poverty, for example, are more likely to oppose spending cuts to welfare programs than those who hear no such messages at their place of worship.

This is not the case for African Americans and Hispanics, however, who are as likely to oppose social welfare spending cuts regardless of where they worship. In other words, while hearing sermons about social justice issues informs or at least aligns with white progressive policy attitudes, this alignment is not as strong for Blacks and Hispanics.

Clergy of predominantly white worship spaces are often more politically liberal than their congregants. Historically, this has translated into members pushing back when clergy take public positions that are more progressive than their congregation's.

This may explain why white parishioners who chose to attend congregations where they hear social justice-themed sermons tend to be more politically progressive, or more open to sermons challenging previous views, than are other white parishioners.

From words to action

However, when it comes to the connection between hearing sermons and taking political action, race doesn't matter as much. That is, when taking into account religious affiliation, party affiliation and social demographics, people who hear social justice-themed sermons in their places of worship are more likely than other Americans to engage in political activism, regardless of their race.

For example, during the months following Floyd's murder, Black, white and Hispanic congregants who heard sermons about race and policing were more likely than others to have protested for any purpose in the past 12 months, according to data from the 2020 National Politics Study. More specifically, white Americans who attended houses of worship where they heard those types of sermons were more than twice as likely to participate in a protest as other white worshippers. Black and Hispanic attendees were almost twice as likely to protest, compared to those attending houses of worship where they did not hear sermons about race and policing.

The difference between people who attend houses of worship with a social-justice focus and people who did not attend religious services at all is even more striking. White Americans who heard such messages at religious services were almost four times more likely to protest than white Americans who did not attend services; Black and Hispanic Americans were almost three times as likely.

Today, many Americans are pessimistic about inequality, political divisions and ethnic conflict. Yet, as these surveys show, social justice-minded congregations inspire members to work for policies that support their vision of the public good.Huge congregations view racial inequality differently than others do, study shows

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.