Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada in 2005, and through provincial changes to adoption and parentage laws, gay men have gained formal recognition as parents. But my recent research suggests that access to fatherhood for this cohort remains deeply unequal in practice.

In 2021, six per cent of male same-gender couples in Canada were raising children, compared with 24 per cent of female same-gender couples. While we have no data comparing their desire to parent, the gap points to a deeper reality.

Drawing on interviews with 23 Canadian prospective gay fathers, I found that restrictive pathways to parenthood shape which gay men can become parents. Equal rights, it turns out, have not translated into equal access.

For gay men, becoming parents is a complex, expensive and uncertain project.

Why gay fatherhood is harder to access

Gay men typically build families through highly bureaucratized processes, including traditional and gestational surrogacy, donors, foster care and public and private adoption.

Each comes with its own legal, financial and emotional demands. As a consequence, pursuing parenthood typically requires gay men to spend years planning, researching and co-ordinating across multiple institutions — from fertility clinics and lawyers to social workers and government agencies — and sometimes even across countries and jurisdictions.

Many prospective gay fathers become “project managers” of their own journey to parenthood. They must compare pathways, calculate costs and assess risks with no guarantee of success.

In my research, for example, I came one couple who spent years preparing for an adoption. Although they worried about whether it would become a permanent situation, they bought baby items while waiting for the adoption to be finalized. Unfortunately, the placement fell through. Such uncertainty can fuel an emotionally turbulent cycle of hope, loss and cautious optimism.

Cost is the greatest barrier and varies depending on the pathway.

Public adoption and foster care are affordable but involve long waits and limited control. Private adoption can cost between $15,000 and $30,000. Surrogacy, especially gestational surrogacy — where intended parents reimburse pregnancy-related expenses such as medical costs rather than pay a fee for the pregnancy — can exceed the recommended budget of $100,000.

Yet even lower-cost options come with hidden financial barriers. For example, prospective adoptive parents must pass home studies that assess whether they can afford to raise a child.

Wealthier men are better able to pursue surrogacy, which can offer greater control and a biological connection between parent and child. Men with lower incomes may be more likely to pursue adoption or foster care, which involve fewer choices, longer waits and uncertainty.

Once parents, finances still shape gay fathers’ families, including their access to leave and benefits.

Gay fathers face risk, uncertainty and scrutiny

The journey to gay fatherhood is also emotionally demanding.

Foster placements are temporary. Adoptions can fall through at the last minute. Surrogacy arrangements can fail. Some face repeated setbacks.

Prospective adoptive fathers are subject to background checks, home inspections, interviews and even psychological evaluations. Many of these screening processes exist to protect children and ensure stable placements. But when oversight is excessively burdensome or inconsistently applied, it can also create barriers that some cannot overcome.

In addition, gay men must often educate institutions, correcting parental forms that assume there is a mother or explaining their families to hospitals, schools and insurers.

These men are not just building families. They are working to make their families properly acknowledged within systems that were not designed for them.

What policymakers could do differently

These challenges demand attention as 2SLGBTQI+ families grow and policymakers in B.C. and Ontario, as well as other Canadian jurisdictions, revisit fertility and adoption funding, as well as aspects of child welfare and adoption systems.

Although adoption is only one possible outcome, most youth in care are never adopted. About 2,000 children in child welfare care are adopted each years, while at least 61,104 children and youth were in out-of-home care in Canada in 2022. Reducing barriers to male same-gender parents could help connect more children with stable, supportive homes.

The gap between formal equality and unequal access raises an important question: What does it really take to make gay fatherhood truly accessible? If access depends on income, free time and the ability to navigate complex systems, equality in law is not equality in practice.

There are practical ways to reduce these barriers. Governments could expand tax credits and other financial supports for adoption and surrogacy, standardize fertility coverage across provinces and reduce administrative hurdles.

Insurance companies could cover prospective parents whose costly journey through IVF may produce no viable embryos or pregnancies. Governments and social services can improve information and support so prospective queer parents do not need to research how to navigate these pathways alone. Medical services, insurance companies and law firms can also update policies to better recognize diverse families.

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Read more: 7 tips for LGBTQ parents to help schools fight stigma and ignorance

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Legal recognition is only the beginning

Since 2005, Canada has made progress in recognizing the rights of 2SLGBTQI+ families. But recognition is not the same as access.

For many gay men, building a two-father family still requires navigating pathways that are complex, uncertain and costly. The significantly lower rates of gay fatherhood, compared with lesbian and heterosexual parenthood, suggest the cumulative effect of these barriers.

If policymakers are serious about supporting 2SLGBTQI+ families, this disparity should be treated as a policy problem. Until these barriers are addressed, Canada cannot claim that parenthood is accessible to all.

S. W. Underwood receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

When earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, more than 50,000 people were killed and thousands more were injured.

One month after the disaster, a bank employee named Efe Demir died by suicide in İstanbul. Before his death, he had sent an email to colleagues questioning the actions and motivations of his employer, saying he felt that the organisation prioritised profit over caring for clients who were victims of the tragedy.

The bank strongly denied the allegations, but Demir’s accusation highlights a broader, and often invisible, problem: how a corporate approach, especially in times of crisis, can cause employees to experience psychological harm.

Sometimes referred to as “moral injury” or “ethical suffering”, it often involves feelings of distress that arise when workers are compelled to act solely in the interest of profit.

The psychiatrist Christophe Dejours, who specialises in work and mental health, has argued that the complexities of work require employees to constantly expend emotional and cognitive energy navigating moral dilemmas.

Those dilemmas could be to do with a company’s environmental record for example, or how it relates to a country engaged in a military conflict. Moral injury does not arise only from what workers are required to do.

It can also take the form of intense feelings of isolation when an employee feels what a company is doing is wrong, but nobody is doing anything about it.

Eventually, moral injury can become a deep crisis, with workplace suicide as its most tragic manifestation.

Disasters amplify moral harm

Moral injury is commonly used to describe the experiences of workers in care-giving professions such as medicine or nursing, where decisions can carry life or death consequences. But moral injury can appear in many occupations, especially during disasters, when individuals suddenly feel a heightened responsibility for others.

For employees like Demir, the earthquake in Turkey was not only a national tragedy – it was a moment when the employer’s values were put to the test. For Demir, among other allegations was an accusation that the bank had not looked after customers who have been affected by the earthquake, in terms of their ability to repay loans or be given credit.

Such cases are rarely publicised. Employers often move quickly to protect their reputation, while colleagues fear retaliation and families hesitate to link suicide to work.

The connection can be difficult or even impossible to prove. There research which suggests that employee suicide can serve as a final attempt to expose injustice.

Modern work often involves tasks that are legal but morally questionable, whether it’s carefully manipulating clients, competing unfairly or remaining silent about harm. Employees may become unwilling participants in practices that violate ethical standards – and this is precisely what makes these experiences difficult for the employee to talk about.

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Read more: Why OpenAI is a prime example of the ethical limits of capitalism

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Even though physical dangers in the workplace are recognised, psychological dangers such as ethical conflict and feelings of loss of integrity often remain unacknowledged. Long-term exposure to ethically ambiguous environments can reshape someone’s character, moral sensibilities and sense of self. Over time, Dejours argues, workers numb themselves to others’ suffering – and eventually, to their own.

In countries such as France and Japan, work-related suicides are part of public debate, thanks to labour activists. In France, unions such as the CFE-CGC actively fight workplace bullying and at a global level, the International Trade Union Confederation Ituc named work-related suicide as a priority issue in a campaign on psychosocial hazards.

To confront moral injury at work, especially in an era of overlapping crises, whether it’s environmental, geopolitical or natural, research suggests that many organisations need to pay more attention to the ethical integrity of their employees. Professional dignity is not just about the terms of work – the hours, the pay and conditions – but also what we produce at work.

This also means expanding occupational safety to include not just physical risks but moral and psychological hazards – and talking more openly about the ethically questionable tasks that people may be asked to commit at work.

If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support:

In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123.

In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433.

In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14.

In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.

Ebru Işıklı does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Following recent antisemitic violence and aggression, calls from some quarters for a temporary ban on pro-Palestine marches have gained traction. Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has firmly supported a ban, while Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has suggested that some protests may need to be stopped. The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has called for a moratorium on such marches.

Those who have made such calls do so on the grounds that pro-Palestine marches, whatever their intent, are contributing to a “tone of Jew hatred within our country”, in the words of Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis. Starmer has also expressed concern about the “cumulative” effect of the marches on Jewish communities.

This is an understandable position in some ways. There can be little denying that some participants in pro-Palestine events have articulated antisemitic positions. And in a period where more clearly needs to be done to address antisemitic violence and aggression, a ban appears to provide a way for authorities to send a clear message that there is no place for antisemitism in Britain today.

Yet there are also problems with such proposals. As policymakers consider their options, it is important that these problems are taken seriously.

Evidence on the relationship between protest activity and targeted violence outside of the protest arena is limited. The available evidence points to a complex and context-dependent relationship.

Some studies have found that when protests increase, extremism and extremist violence can also rise, especially when society is more divided. Such a pattern has been observed, for example, in the US, where the bipartisan thinktank the Center for Strategic and International Studies identified heightened protest activity and rising domestic terrorism during the early 2020s.

However, many studies of nonviolent protest show that it reduces political violence, by providing nonviolent means of pursuing social and political objectives.

Where heightened protest activity coincides with increased extremist violence, it is often unclear whether protests or marches themselves are the cause. Today, people participating in social movements are likely to access and share information through a range of (often unregulated) spaces both offline and online. It is difficult to assess how important protests themselves might be in influencing people to go on to engage in targeted violence.

This is not simply academic nitpicking. It means that it is possible that a ban on marches would have little to no effect on the use of targeted violence against Jewish communities.

In fact, there is a distinct possibility that banning pro-Palestine marches, even if only temporarily, might actually increase violence.

Studies show that violence is less likely to escalate when moderate groups within protest movements are present and have influence. This has been observed, for example, in research into the escalation or inhibition of violence during waves of far-right protest.

Expanded state repression – such as bans on certain forms of previously legal protest – can weaken the position of moderate factions. When this happens, calls for restraint and advocacy of non- or less-violent strategies can lose credibility within the movement, weakening the “internal brakes” on violence.

Practicalities of enforcement

A moratorium on pro-Palestine marches would also raise many questions about the practicalities of any restrictions. For one, calls on the police to ban other contentious demonstrations that risk hostility towards different groups would increase.

What particular types of action would be banned? Marches? Demonstrations? Would size be a factor? Would it cover a protest against the ban on the protest? What about other forms of action such as sit-ins, information stands or coordinated online action? And what sanctions would be imposed on those who did not comply?

Attempting to enforce such bans could become a significant drain on already stretched public resources, not least because activists would probably seek to increase pressure on authorities because of those costs. This is one of the most obvious lessons to draw from responses to the government’s attempts to ban the group Palestine Action.

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Read more: Labour wants to restrict repeat protests – but that’s what makes campaigns successful

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In addition to this, police have also recently been authorised to consider the “cumulative impact” of protests on local areas when policing. They have had to grapple with how and when to incorporate this in addition to their usual powers.

Before introducing a ban, it’s important to think about the example it would set and how it could influence future decisions about the right to protest. The UK would be less able to criticise authoritarian countries and illiberal democracies that misuse counterextremism and counter-terrorism powers that limit people’s freedom.

None of this is to deny the urgency of confronting antisemitic violence and aggression in the UK. This requires sustained political commitment, effective policing and community protection. But restricting the right to protest is a blunt and risky instrument.

The available evidence suggests it may do little to reduce harm and could, in some circumstances, make matters worse. Politicians should therefore be cautious before treating bans on marches as a solution to complex and deeply rooted problems.

Joel Busher has received funding from the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) for his work on the escalation and inhibition of political violence.

Tufyal Choudhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Since January 2025, the Donald Trump administration in the United States has signed bilateral agreements with 27 governments to deport migrants to countries where they have no ties.

This process is known as third-country deportation, and it’s created a system that operates as migration deterrence. These agreements also transfer responsibility for managing migrant lives to the Global South.

In February 2025, the Trump administration sent two chartered planes carrying 200 people from countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and China to San José, Costa Rica.

During our ongoing research that involved fieldwork in Costa Rica in 2025, we interviewed two families who were on board one of the planes. They had been shackled during the flight.

Alerted that the first deportation from the U.S. was to take place, Costa Rican journalists and human rights activists awaited the arrival at the airport. The Costa Rican agents closed the window blinds of the planes before removing the shackles.

Migrants given no information

As the migrants we interviewed told us — and as documented by Human Rights Watch — none of the people sent to Costa Rica spoke Spanish. They weren’t informed where the flights were headed or where they’d be taken upon arrival. No translators were present when the first plane landed, and only a few were available upon the arrival of the second flight.

U.S. authorities expelled the migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum. Although some third-country deportations had occurred prior to February 2025, they had typically been carried out on a much smaller scale.

The deportation of non‑citizens to Costa Rica set the stage for 27 bilateral agreements later signed by the Trump administration with governments across Latin America, Africa and Central Asia. What initially appeared to be an exceptional measure had, within a year, become a preferred approach to migration management.

‘Border spectacle’

In 2025, the U.S. deported approximately 675,000 people. Among them, around 15,000, or two per cent of the total, were sent to third countries.

Given the relatively low numbers involved, the objective is not the removal of large populations of unwanted migrants. Instead, these deportations function as what American migration scholar Nicholas De Genova terms “the border spectacle of migrant victimization.”

Such spectacles are designed to generate fear. They encourage some asylum-seekers already in the country to leave and aim to deter others from attempting to cross into the U.S. altogether.

The principle rationale for this border regime was made explicit by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July 2025: “The further away, the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”

This statement wasn’t just rhetoric — it reflected U.S. policy.

Creating uncertainty about where migrants might be sent — whether Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda, Costa Rica or Cameroon — was central to the strategy. It served both to deter would-be migrants in their home countries and to pressure those already in the U.S. to pursue what the administration called “self-deportations.”

Why do Global South states sign on?

To push countries in the Global South to accept deportation agreements for non-nationals, the U.S. relies on four forms of pressure: direct payments, visa restrictions, tariff threats and conditions on foreign aid.

Ghana, for example, secured the lifting of consular restrictions in August 2025 after agreeing to co-operate on deportations.

When Costa Rica signed its third-country deportation agreement in March 2026, President Rodrigo Chaves stated that he was “helping the economically powerful brother of the North” in order to avoid American tariffs on Costa Rican free-trade zones.

Eswatini agreed to receive deportees in exchange for financial transfers and improvements in its bilateral relationship with the U.S. Rwanda, for its part, capitalized symbolically on the model by incorporating it into its regional diplomatic strategy.

Taking on costs

Yet these negotiations are deeply one-sided. While the countries in questions may achieve short‑term gains, they also take on additional, uncompensated costs.

As we learned through our interviews of migrants in Costa Rica, for example, 85 migrants of the approximated 200 received in February 2025 remained in the Central American country. That’s because they could not return to their countries of origin for fear of persecution, imprisonment or forced military recruitment.

Some later resumed their journey to the U.S. and successfully claimed asylum there. Others required access to medical care, work permits and other forms of assistance.

Beyond granting temporary residency permits with limited rights, Costa Rica lacks the resources to ensure the safety and security of these migrants and to adequately address their needs.

The Trump administration’s reduction in international humanitarian aid has further undermined Costa Rica’s refugee protection regime.

For migrants, this state of prolonged waiting marked by legal uncertainty has resulted in psychological distress. Several interviewees reported panic attacks, depression and insomnia.

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Read more: How international aid cuts are eroding refugee protections in the Global South

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Beyond the United States

This emerging border regime is not uniquely American. In March 2026, the European Parliament endorsed the so-called return hubs mechanism, which opens the door to offshoring asylum processing.

Italy, for example, has had migrant detention hubs in Albania for more than a year.

Canada has reconfirmed its own Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.

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Read more: Tragedies, not accidents: Tougher Canadian and U.S. border policies will cost more lives

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Canada also passed Bill C-2 and Bill C-12 in 2025, legislation that substantially restricts access to asylum. What’s more, it reduced its refugee resettlement targets by 30 per cent for the 2026–28 period.

This doesn’t constitute a replication of the U.S. model, but it does reflect a convergence. Different mechanisms are increasingly aligned in the same direction: the progressive erosion of the right to asylum.

Mobilization

It’s therefore important to ask whether some refugee claimants deported to the U.S. may subsequently face third‑country deportations to other states.

In March 2026, more than 30 human rights organizations issued a joint statement calling for an end to chain deportations to Costa Rica. It explicitly accused the Costa Rican state as being complicit in — and directly responsible for — American violations of its asylum law and its international obligations under the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, protests recently erupted against the anticipated deportation of 1,100 Afghans from the U.S. to the country.

UN human rights experts have also expressed alarm about the risk of torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life in some third countries.

Across the globe, migration scholars, human rights organizations and allies must do more than voice concern — they need to co-ordinate, organize and actively resist this emerging border regime before it becomes entrenched.

Guillermo Candiz receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Tanya Basok receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council

No single issue has dominated the agenda ahead of the Scottish parliament election in May. But immigration, despite being a matter not devolved to Holyrood, has been part of campaigns. This is because some parties use it to feed wider anxieties about housing, jobs, public services and identity.

Glasgow has been a particular flashpoint because of its role as a City of Sanctuary for asylum seekers. About 6% of the UK’s asylum seekers live in Scotland, with over half in Glasgow, though data suggests this proportion is falling.

Reform UK has sought to capitalise on this. Although no small boats have landed on Scottish coastlines, Reform’s leader in Scotland, Malcolm Offord, unveiled a billboard in Glasgow with an image of migrants crowded into a dinghy. Large red text reads: “Scotland is at a breaking point.”

Polling shows that cost of living, health and the economy rank above immigration as voter priorities in Scotland. Yet these issues can be closely connected in public debate throughout the UK. If people worry about GP appointments, housing waiting lists or jobs, some politicians will blame migration – even if the underlying causes lie elsewhere.

Reform’s Scotland manifesto mentions “strangers” being “prioritised ahead of Scots” by local councils in terms of access to social housing. Offord has claimed that asylum seekers arriving in Glasgow are “jumping the queue”, and his party has promised to “prioritise local people” for such housing.

Asylum seekers are not prioritised for housing because of their immigration status. But Scottish councils are obliged to prioritise homeless people seeking temporary housing – who may be asylum seekers.

What the parties are saying

All major parties recognise that Scotland faces population and economic challenges. An ageing population, low birthrates and labour shortages are affecting sectors such as health, housing, agriculture, social care and hospitality.

Many industries understand that without immigration, parts of the Scottish economy would struggle. That reality has, for years, sustained a relatively broad pro-migration consensus across the Scottish political spectrum.

The governing Scottish National Party argues that Scotland needs a more flexible migration system tailored to Scottish demographic and economic needs. Its 2026 manifesto presents migration as both a social good and an economic necessity. The manifesto is also strong on refugee protection, and argues for a Scottish-specific visa scheme.

Reform UK, polling consistently as the second or third leading party, has spotlighted immigration in its manifesto. One of the party’s five core pledges is to “prioritise local people in communities and restore law and order”.

Like the SNP, the Scottish Liberal Democrats champion relatively pro-migration policies for Scotland. The Lib Dem manifesto states that the party “believe[s] in fairness for everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from”. The manifesto mentions making immigration policy that is “sensitive to the skills needs” of certain sectors, as well as allowing asylum seekers to work if they have waited more than three months for a decision on their application.

For Scottish Labour, the emphasis has been less on immigration and more on housing, jobs and public service reform. Its campaign focus on affordable homes, more support for teachers, improving childcare and better economic competency suggests an awareness that many Scottish voters are more concerned with delivery of key services than anti-migrant rhetoric.

The Scottish Greens approach migration through a lens of refugee protection, anti-racism and social justice, with a manifesto prioritising public services for everyone, regardless of immigration status. In addition to calling for the UK government to devolve immigration to the Scottish parliament, the party would also pilot giving asylum seekers the right to work.

The Scottish Conservative party, while aligned with UK-wide calls for firmer border control, has focused on taxation, public services, crime and policing, SNP competence and the state of the union in its manifesto. Issues of immigration and asylum are contained mainly to attacking the SNP. The Scottish Conservatives have accused the SNP of a “reckless” open-door policy on immigration that has led to “an influx of immigrants” and made Glasgow a “magnet for asylum seekers”.

Scotland’s immigration story

Scotland often tells itself a comforting political story: that it is a progressive society, more welcoming of newcomers, and less susceptible to anti-immigrant politics than other parts of Britain.

There is some truth in this. The Scottish government’s “New Scots” strategy is generally regarded as a positive statement for welcoming and integrating migrants to Scotland.

Survey data has generally shown attitudes in Scotland to be slightly more positive towards migrants and migration, while openly hostile rhetoric has been less common in mainstream politics. Yet national myths can conceal uncomfortable realities. Scotland is not immune to xenophobia, racism or populism, nor, as Reform’s rhetoric around social housing suggests, is it protected from the politics of scapegoating.

Public services are under pressure, housing shortages do exist, and trust in politics has weakened. But migrants did not create decades of underinvestment, stagnant wages or failures in social housing supply. Migrants are often caught within those same crises, even if headlines rarely acknowledge this.

Most of Scotland’s political parties are comfortable supporting the “good migrant” – NHS nurses, engineers, scientists, international students or seasonal workers. Far fewer defend asylum seekers, undocumented migrants or family reunion rights. A hierarchy of deservingness can emerge: migrants are welcomed when economically useful, yet become politically expendable when portrayed as costly or controversial.

Scotland cannot be complacent in its self-image. Years of anti-Irish prejudice, racism towards minority ethnic communities, and longstanding discrimination against Gypsy and Traveller communities tell their own story. Matters of economic insecurity and contested identities can be converted into anti-migrant rhetoric.

Immigration matters in Scotland because the country is vulnerable to the same pressures seen elsewhere. But ultimately, migrants should not be used as political cover for deeper failures of policy and governance.

Colin Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

As social media becomes a central part of young people’s lives, concerns are growing about its impact on their mental health. Yet public debates and measures tend to treat adolescents as one homogeneous group. We frequently ignore the fact that social media use does not affect all young people in the same way – nor does it have the same impacts on their wellbeing.

In a recent chapter of the World Happiness Report 2026, published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network in partnership with the University of Oxford, we have examined how problematic social media use relates to the wellbeing of adolescents from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

We looked at 43 countries spanning six broad regions – Anglo-Celtic, Caucasus-Black Sea, Central-Eastern Europe, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Western Europe – covering mainly European countries and their immediate neighbouring areas.

Using data from over 330,000 young people, we found a clear and consistent pattern: higher levels of problematic social media use – that is, compulsive or uncontrolled engagement with social media – are associated with poorer wellbeing.

Teenagers who report more problematic use tend to experience more psychological complaints, such as feeling low, nervous, irritable, or having difficulty sleeping. They also have lower life satisfaction, a measure of how positively they evaluate their lives as a whole.

This pattern appears across all countries in our study, but its strength varies from one country to another. It is particularly pronounced in Anglo-Celtic countries such as the UK and Ireland, while it is comparatively weaker in the Caucasus-Black Sea region.

Socioeconomic background matters

The story does not end with geography. Globally, teenagers from less advantaged backgrounds tend to be more vulnerable to the negative consequences of problematic social media use than their more advantaged peers.

This means socioeconomic status – the material and social resources available to a household, such as income and living conditions – actively shapes the risks and opportunities that young people experience as a result of online environments.

Interestingly, these inequalities are especially visible when we look at life satisfaction. Differences between socioeconomic groups are smaller when it comes to psychological complaints, but much clearer and more consistent for how adolescents evaluate their lives overall.

One likely reason is that life satisfaction is more sensitive to social comparisons. Social media exposes young people to constant benchmarks – what others have, do, and achieve – which can amplify differences in perceived opportunities and resources.

At the same time, these patterns are not identical everywhere. For instance, socioeconomic differences in psychological complaints tend to be modest in most regions including continental European countries such as France, Austria or Belgium, but are more clearly observed in Anglo-Celtic countries such as Scotland and Wales.

In contrast, socioeconomic gaps in life satisfaction appear across most regions, although they tend to be weaker in Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Cyprus and Greece.

A growing problem

We also examined how these patterns have evolved over time. Between 2018 and 2022, the link between problematic social media use and poor adolescent wellbeing became stronger.

This suggests that the risks linked to problematic use may have intensified in recent years, possibly reflecting the growing role of digital technologies in young people’s daily lives, particularly during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Importantly, this intensification has affected teenagers across socioeconomic groups in broadly similar ways in most regions. In other words, while inequalities remain they have not widened over this period.

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Leer más: Social media addiction disrupts the sleep, moods and social activities of teens and young adults

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No one-size-fits-all solution

While public debates about social media and mental health often treat adolescents as a single demographic group, our results show a more complex reality. Problematic social media use is linked to poorer wellbeing across countries, but its effects are shaped by social realities. They vary depending on where young people live and what resources are available to them.

Not all teenagers experience the digital world in the same way, and not all are equally equipped to cope with its pressures. Recognising this is essential for designing policies that are not only effective, but also equitable, ensuring that interventions reach those adolescents who are most vulnerable to digital risks.

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A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

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Roger Fernandez-Urbano receives funding from the Spanish Government’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Research Agency through Ramón y Cajal (RYC) grant. Roger is a member of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS).

Maria Rubio-Cabañez's involvement in this research was supported by the DIGINEQ (Digital Time Use, Adolescent Well-Being and Social Inequalities) project (Grant agreement ID: 101089233), funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant.

Pablo Gracia's involvement in this research was supported by the DIGINEQ (Digital Time Use, Adolescent Well-Being and Social Inequalities) project (Grant agreement ID: 101089233), funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant.

You are more empowered because you get to be seen for who you are.

These are the words of Link*, an online gamer with disability – one of a group of 15 gamers with disability we interviewed as part of our new study, published in the Journal of Disability and Social Justice.

Our study aimed to better understand what online gaming offers people with a disability. And Link’s experience highlights one of its key findings: online gaming acts as a powerful space of empowerment, largely due to participants having control over how they identify within online spaces.

A diversity of gaming experiences

Online gaming does have its problems. These include extremist gaming cultures, exploitative monetisation practices (including gambling-like features), and concerns about addiction.

But the prominence of these narratives can overshadow the diversity of gaming experiences, including the potential of online gaming to cultivate spaces for personal growth and development.

It can also allow people – especially those from marginalised groups – to creatively express their identity in a way they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Taking a closer look

We wanted to take a closer look at this in our study by focusing on the empowering impact of online gaming for people with disability – and exploring whether such empowerment extends beyond the online space into other parts of everyday life.

To do this we interviewed 15 people (14 male, 1 female) online. The study focused on young adults aged between 18 and 35 who live with a disability.

The positive impacts of online gaming come from the opportunity online gaming provides to connect to a diversity of people online through shared interests. One of our interviewees, Cloud*, emphasises this point:

There is a lot of disabled-focused communities that have gaming channels and I think it’s great because it brings the community together.

Our research found that the positive influence of online gaming on people’s lives wasn’t just confined to the online space. As Link told us:

I think there can be that confidence boost, especially if you’re good at doing something particular in that game, I think it can give you that sort of translation to the real world.

So, people with disability can take that confidence from online gaming into their daily lives, which is impactful.

The anonymity offered in online spaces allowed participants to construct and express an identity with great control – where a space was created that highlighted other unique parts of their identity, rather than just their disability. As Mario* said:

You can create your own character and just be who you want to be.

This was echoed by Cloud:

Freedom to express yourself and do things that you wouldn’t be able to do in the real world […] You can do whatever you want, you can feel powerful.

These comments speak to the limitations people with disability experience in society while also demonstrating how powerful online gaming can be. They reiterate the importance of having agency around how you identify made possible through the anonymity that online gaming provides. As Cloud puts it:

[Online gaming] has allowed me to feel like I’m just a normal human being who can interact with anyone and be a part of a community.

A sense of expressing identity freely and confidently without feeling isolated and judged. Ultimately, that is empowering.

Playing without limitation

Notwithstanding the narratives of harm, it’s important that people with disability have full inclusion in the online gaming world in terms of access and adaptability, which includes accessible interfaces and devices.

However, it is important to note that accessible options can be quite costly, especially adaptive controllers.

Gaming is a permanent fixture in our lives. It can have profound benefits for people with disability by helping them construct their full identity. We should ensure people with disability can play without limitation and showcase their empowered selves.

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*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Chuck Palahniuk’s first novel, Fight Club, is as relevant and controversial today as when it first hit shelves 30 years ago.

The story follows a depressed, insomniac unnamed narrator, who unknowingly creates an alter ego – the charismatic and anarchic Tyler Durden. In between having an on-off relationship with punkish Marla, the narrator and Durden create underground fight clubs, which form into “Project Mayhem”, a secret campaign of destruction and violence targeted at corporate America.

The book, written while Palahniuk was working as a truck mechanic, had humble beginnings: its first printing reportedly sold just under 5,000 copies. The 1999 film, directed by David Fincher and starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter, was a box-office disappointment but became a cult classic on DVD – leading viewers back to the book. More than 600,000 copies have now been sold.

The book and film received mixed reviews, both criticised as a fascistic celebration of violence, and heralded as a clever satire of modern capitalism. In the past decade, Fight Club has been adopted by key figures of the manosphere: an online ecosystem of misogynists and anti-feminists who are gaining influence, particularly among young men.

Three decades on, should we condemn Fight Club for the misogyny it has inspired – or is it more complex?

Satire, not manifesto

At only just over 200 pages, Fight Club is a breeze to read. Palahniuk’s prose is stripped down and punchy. Much of its time is spent with characters spouting aphorisms and pseudo-philosophy, rather than focusing on descriptions of scenery or specific details of events.

It’s very quotable:

It’s only after you’ve lost everything … that you’re free to do anything.

And:

You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

This is reflected in the fast-paced, almost manic film, which repeats many of the book’s aphorisms (including these ones). Yet Fight Club is not a manifesto but a cynical satire of late 20th-century capitalism and globalisation, and the impacts it can have – particularly on men.

Critics have criticised Fight Club as promoting a toxic masculinity that would lead others to violence. Film critic Roger Ebert, for example, argued Fight Club is a “cheerfully fascist big-star movie” and “a celebration of violence in which the heroes write themselves a license to drink, smoke, screw and beat one another up”.

There are sadly many examples of people taking this message from the film. Students in my high school notoriously established their own fight club, followed by a swift crackdown. I’ll never forget the school assembly at which the principal declared anyone starting up a new club would be immediately suspended.

More concerning, however, has been the adoption of Fight Club and Durden by figures in the manosphere.

Fight Club and the manosphere

Manosphere communities see the narrator’s alter ego, Durden, as a shift from “beta” to “alpha” male. They believe the narrator abandons the feminised, “cucked” version of himself to become a better man: masculine, brash and everything all men should want to be.

Talking to Vice reporter Paulle Doyle in 2017, manosphere member Kris Cantu argued Fight Club is a film about men’s rights.

He identifies with the narrator’s obsession with “consumerism and purchasing clothes and furniture for his high-rise apartment”, which reflects his own lifestyle in his 20s. “It’s up to us to peel back those ways where we’re programmed to be a certain way, and acknowledge it, and deprogram ourselves,” he says, blaming “political correctness” for stopping “a lot of guys” who think like Durden from speaking out.

Naturally, these communities also read levels of misogyny that just isn’t there, in the book or film. These groups adopt many quasi-philosophical aphorisms from Durden, particularly the one or two that relate to women.

“We’re a generation of men raised by women,” Durden states at one point. “I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” This speaks to Palahniuk’s stated concerns that men often grow up without proper role models.

But it has been taken out of context in manosphere circles, to relay a belief women have taken too much power – and in doing so, are raising a generation of “feminised” men who need to reclaim their masculinity.

An opportunity to feel

Yes, Fight Club is a story about men discovering and reclaiming a sense of themselves in a changing world. But it’s far more complex than aggrieved men seeking to own their toxic masculinity.

In her review of the film, famed feminist Susan Faludi argued the story was about men realising they were trapped by the pressures of unending, impossible consumerism, as women had been for decades.

Faludi argued the narrator faced what she described as the “modern male predicament”:

he’s fatherless, trapped in a cubicle in an anonymous corporate job, trying to glean an identity from Ikea brochures, entertainment magazines and self-help gatherings.

In turn, he lives in a “world stripped of socially useful male roles and saturated with commercial images of masculinity”. In this context, the actions of the characters make a lot more sense. The idea of a “fight club” is not just an expression of extreme masculinity, but an opportunity for these men to feel something, in a culture that tries to remove all feeling.

As the narrator says, “you aren’t alive anywhere like you’re alive at fight club”. Even Project Mayhem itself has its redeeming qualities. While violent to an extent, Durden and his team only attack property. They go out of their way to avoid harming anyone.

Their major attack, in which they blow up corporate offices, is done at night – in a building where they have “guys on the inside”, ensuring no one dies. While obviously an extremely destructive act that would create chaos and real harm, this is an attack on corporate greed, not on innocent lives.

These men even fight in ways that subvert the most toxic elements of masculine norms. While old-school ideas of masculinity are based on the idea of the “self-made man”, the characters in fight club reject this. Palahniuk has stated, for example, that Durden’s ideas don’t really matter: what’s important is the sense of belonging they foster.

Community is seen throughout the book. The participants lose their names, the narrator himself has no name, and no one ever actually sees Durden apart from the narrator. These men are stronger together, not as individuals: a core message rejecting the individualising nature of modern society.

The film, in turn, is less an extremist manifesto than a diagnosis of how we got here.

Uniting against the hollowness

Palahniuk clearly criticises the forms of masculinity Durden embodies and the manosphere celebrates. While the text is most remembered for the clubs and their rules (“The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club”), it’s often forgotten that it ends with the narrator rejecting Durden, Project Mayhem and the violence he started.

It is not about the narrator becoming an “alpha”, but rather what Fincher called “a coming-of-age story about choosing a path to maturity”.

While the violence of the fight clubs gives the narrator the opportunity to feel something, it also only gets him so far. To properly mature, he needs to seek meaning and connection elsewhere – in the arms of Marla.

Notably, some manosphere men complain about this ending, as it doesn’t fit their ideology. Cantu, for example, calls it a “Hollywood ending”, saying “in a true Red Pill fashion it would have ended with Edward Norton throwing Marla to the side […] She’s what we call a ‘pump and dump’.”

This is a great example of manosphere men missing the point. Marla was not a “pump and dump” but a central character – the woman who allows the narrator to move on. As Faludi argues, when the narrator “sends the boys away” and “throws his lot in with the defiant, if deviant, woman he’s been afraid to court, he seems poised finally to begin life as an adult man”.

In “an increasingly hollow, consumerized world, that path lies not in conquering women but in uniting with them against the hollowness”, she says. The text is, as she claims, somewhat feminist in its conclusion.

Cultural malaise for men

In a world where “gender wars” are possibly stronger than ever, it has been easy to gloss over the complexity of Fight Club.

The book has also become a victim of a culture with a real dearth of texts that explore these issues with real nuance. Palahniuk himself has noted this, when asked about how he feels about the book being taken up by manosphere groups.

“I feel a little frustrated that our culture hasn’t given these men a wider selection of narratives to choose from,” he said in 2017. “Really, the only narratives they go to are The Matrix and Fight Club.”

Palahniuk went on to write many more novels, selling millions of copies. His latest, Shock Induction, was published in 2024. His 1999 satire Survivor, which follows the last hours of the survivor of a puritan cult, is set to be filmed in Auckland this year.

If we push through the muck, think pieces and misreadings from manosphere figures, Fight Club has a lot to offer.

It was prescient, predicting a violence and mayhem we are now, sadly, watching play out in real time. But it may also, in the end, give us a way forward. With an ending in which peace for the narrator is found in the arms of Marla, this way forward could be one based in connection between people of all genders, rather than the further fights between the “two sexes”.

That is the real legacy we should take from it.

Simon Copland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Climate change has become entangled in partisan politics. In Canada, as in other countries, climate concern and support for climate policy are often coded as left-leaning positions. Meanwhile, climate change skepticism or denial is more likely to be espoused by those on the political right.

This pattern helps explain why those on the political left are consistently more likely than those on the right to accept climate science and support action to address climate change. But how big a gap is there between the left and the right in Canada? And what explains differences in levels of support for climate policy?

Our recent representative survey of Canadians, conducted in the summer of 2024, set out to answer these questions. Using a telephone survey, we gathered responses from 2,503 Canadians across the country.

We asked about their support for climate policies, their feelings about ordinary people on the left and the right, as well as their political ideology, where they live, and whether they had economic ties to the oil and gas industry.

We also examined how people feel about political groups. Political scientists refer to this feeling as affective polarization — the extent to which people feel warmth toward their own political side and hostility toward the other.

We focused our analysis on the political right. Respondents identifying as politically left-leaning showed consistently high support for climate policy, leaving little variation to explain. Those on the right expressed a wider range of views. Contrary to common assumptions, we found that more people on the right supported climate policy than opposed it. The next question is what explains the differences within the right.

Affective polarization

A commonly cited explanation for different levels of support for climate policy is economic self-interest. This factor is particularly relevant for provinces like Alberta, where the oil and gas sector plays a major role in employment and government revenue. Qualitative researchers have argued that people with ties to this industry are less likely to support climate policy.

However, we found that having ties to the oil and gas sector did not significantly predict their support for climate policy. Likewise, the degree of conservatism — whether someone identified as centre-right or far-right — didn’t make conservatives less likely to support climate policy either.

There were modest regional differences. Respondents in the Prairie provinces expressed somewhat lower levels of support compared with those in Atlantic Canada and Québec. However, region explained only a small portion of the variation within the political right.

What mattered most was affective polarization.

Negative feelings toward the left and positive feelings toward the right were by far the strongest predictors of climate policy attitudes, and explained the most variation in support.

In simple terms, people on the right who felt the most hostility toward the left, and the most warmth toward the right, were more likely to oppose climate policy.

Implications for climate change politics

These findings have important implications for how climate conversations unfold in Canada.

Avoiding political discussion with people on the opposing side of the issue may be counterproductive. Many people steer clear of contentious topics in everyday conversation, especially with those they disagree with.

At the same time, social media environments often reinforce existing views by connecting people with like-minded others. The result is fewer opportunities for meaningful exchange across political divides.

Such exchanges can help reduce polarization, but only under certain conditions.

When discussions are framed as attempts to persuade or “win,” they often entrench existing positions. When they are approached as opportunities to understand another person’s perspective, they can reduce hostility and open space for dialogue.

People rarely change their views in response to arguments alone. Instead, attitudes are shaped over time through relationships, experiences and social context. Conversations that build trust and mutual understanding are more likely to shift perspectives than those focused on delivering facts.

If opposition to climate policy is rooted in social and political identity, then strategies for building support need to reflect that reality. This doesn’t mean abandoning efforts to implement climate policies. It suggests that building broader support for climate action will require engaging people across political lines in ways that reduce, rather than heighten, partisan divisions.

In real terms, this will mean finding core needs that Canadians have in common and seeking policies that can have climate benefits while meeting those core needs.

Climate change is a complex and urgent challenge. Addressing it will require not only technological and policy solutions, but also social ones. Creating space for constructive, respectful conversations across political differences may be one of the most important and overlooked parts of that effort.

Emily Huddart receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct this research.

Tony Silva received funding (as co-applicant) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct this research.

High school students will soon take part in a more than 160-year-old tradition in American education: receiving yearbooks at the end of the school year.

In an era of high-speed ephemeral images and social media, some may see high school yearbooks as outdated. But high school and college students have told me that they found it meaningful to look through their yearbooks and inscribe their classmates’ books with personal messages, poems, jokes or simply their signatures.

Many graduates will tuck away their yearbooks – some to be lost forever, but others to be revisited or rediscovered years or decades later.

As a sociologist, I have studied high school yearbooks as time capsules and as a way to understand how youth culture, sports, gender and race relations have changed, or have not changed, over time. Despite their ubiquity, school yearbooks are a largely untapped source for scholarly inquiry.

But as media historian Kate Eichhorn notes, people may probe an old high school yearbook to learn more about a mass murderer or to scrutinize whether someone is fit for public office. Some reporters, for example, dug into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s 1983 high school yearbook while he was going through the confirmation process in 2018. His yearbook included a reference to a female student that some boys, including a young Kavanaugh, might have dated or had a sexual relationship with.

But as Eichhorn notes, some scholars seem to dismiss yearbooks as “cringy” documents created by teenagers, or as documents focused on personal nostalgia, unworthy of examination.

An incomplete picture

Yearbooks are a limited source for accurately understanding history.

In my 2025 study of 120 years of high school yearbooks from Salinas High School in California, where I graduated from in 1970, I found nary a mention of the Great Depression or the Salinas Valley’s violent agricultural labor strikes, which Salinas High alum John Steinbeck wrote about in the 1930s.

Nor did the Salinas High School yearbooks mention the war in Vietnam, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the mass social movements that opposed them.

Some yearbooks from the 2000s showed student clubs that addressed violence, substance abuse and LGBTQ+ issues. But over the years, yearbooks have mostly skipped the pain of high school and focused instead on the pleasure.

They shine a spotlight on sports, cheering and public rituals like all-school rallies and homecoming week. Photos and text blurbs celebrate the accomplishments and humorous antics of the “popular” kids and, at times, the most academically successful students.

A nostalgic rear window

It can be reassuring to dive into nostalgic remembering. It’s common for most people to idealize the past and remember it as better than today.

A Gallup poll from 1939 found that 62% of Americans agreed that people were happier and more content a generation earlier. Since then, national polls consistently show that most people think fondly about the good old days, and usually think 30 or 40 years ago was a better time than the one they are living today.

We can see this penchant for nostalgia in the Salinas High yearbooks of the late 1970s and 1980s. Students in these yearbooks are seen enjoying 1950s-themed dances echoing popular television shows like “Happy Days” that idealized 50s culture.

In analyzing high school yearbooks of the past, I tried to not sidestep nostalgia – probably impossible to do anyway – but to consciously deploy an idea called critical nostalgia. This means acknowledging the pleasures of looking back in time, while remaining attentive to the ways that schools too often worsen, rather than challenge, inequalities among students.

A double focus

Taking on a critical nostalgia lens requires a double focus – first, looking at what high school yearbooks routinely illuminate, like football rallies and cheerleaders. It also means identifying what American writer and activist Tillie Olsen once called “unnatural silences,” like the voices, imagery and activities of marginalized students who have been left outside the frame.

Two examples from the Salinas High School yearbooks illustrate this approach.

Someone looking at Salinas editions from the early 1900s might be surprised to see girls baseball, track and field, volleyball and basketball teams engaged in interscholastic competition.

Yearbook photos show girls wearing school sports uniforms and being treated with respect.

By the early 1930s, girls sports teams disappeared from the yearbooks, absorbed into the Girls’ Athletic Association, a recently formed organization that was based on the idea that competition and vigorous exercise was unhealthy for girls.

For nearly half a century after the creation of the Girls’ Athletic Association, photos of girls playing sports were accompanied by captions that disparaged their athletic abilities.

In the mid-1970s, when competitive girls sports teams were reinstated at Salinas, the yearbooks started to give them more equitable and respectful treatment.

This history shows an uneven picture of social change, as changes in girls sports were driven by the waxing and waning of 20th-century women’s rights movements.

The spring 1941 and 1942 Salinas High School yearbooks, meanwhile, showed scores of Japanese American students – about 14% of the student body at the time – fully integrated into nearly all aspects of student life.

But by the time the yearbook was distributed in the spring of 1942, the Japanese American students had been sent with their families to the Salinas Rodeo Grounds, where they were temporarily housed in converted horse stalls.

They were later transferred for the duration of World War II to an internment camp in Poston, Arizona.

The 1943 yearbook showed zero Japanese American students, nor did the editors of the book mention how or why their classmates had disappeared from campus.

For today’s Salinas students, reading their school’s old yearbooks against the backdrop of this history can help them to explore questions about how the legacy of racial and ethnic removal and detention is echoing in their community and country today.

A starting point for understanding history

It’s not just Salinas High students who might benefit from reading their school’s past yearbooks. I have spoken with a handful of professors who are guiding their students into their university’s archive of yearbooks to explore race and gender relations in their own community.

Students discover that the size, content and organization of school yearbooks have shifted over time. But the books are a rich starting point for a group exploration of how schools create a pleasurable collective identity – for some, at least – while simultaneously shaping and celebrating students’ division and inequalities.

I am a 1970 alum of Salinas High School.

Most U.S. adults who attend religious services attend multiple congregations, at least occasionally, according to our new research.

As sociologists who research congregational life in the United States, we fielded a nationally representative survey in 2023. We asked over 2,000 adults across many religious affiliations, and those with no religion, a variety of questions about their religious beliefs and activities.

Our analysis, which was published in the Review of Religious Research, found that roughly 12% of all adults who attend services go to multiple congregations “regularly” and 45% attend multiple congregations “occasionally.” Of those who attend multiple congregations, 73% attend two congregations and 27% attend three or more, at least occasionally.

Adults who attend multiple congregations are more likely to be politically liberal, whereas political conservatives are more likely to always attend one congregation. We also found that evangelical Protestants are less likely to attend multiple places of worship than Catholics. About 17% of those attending a single place of worship identified as evangelical Protestant, versus only 10% of people who attended more than one.

Catholics, on the other hand, are more likely to attend multiple congregations. Unsurprisingly, so are people who identify with multiple religious traditions.

Why attend multiple places of worship? Of those who do, 24% said it’s to experience a “different style of service,” and another 24% said “I have friends that attend.” Another common reason was to attend special events at another congregation.

Americans who attend multiple congregations generally give less time and money to each congregation they attend. Cumulatively, however – across all the congregations they attend – they donate and volunteer at similar levels to people who always attend the same house of worship.

Why it matters

Historians and social scientists sometimes refer to religion in the U.S. as a “marketplace” in which different places of worship compete for members. That theory assumes that when people begin attending a new place of worship, they stop attending their old one – that their loyalties are exclusive.

Instead, our research shows that many individuals across regions and religions take a more flexible approach. They might attend one place because they appreciate its worship style, but they also attend another to hang out with a particular friend group.

For researchers, this complicates how we measure and track changes in American religion. Many surveys, for example, ask people only a single question about how often they attend religious services. How do people who attend multiple congregations respond? Do they only report how often they attend their most frequent place of worship, try to add up across the different congregations they attend, or something else?

If surveys are not asking about multiple attendance, then they are likely missing pieces of the puzzle.

What’s next

Our survey results suggest that researchers need to move away from thinking about congregational attendance as exclusive.

While our survey focused on the characteristics and behaviors of individuals, we would like to see future surveys examine what types of congregations are more likely to have exclusive versus nonexclusive attenders. Similarly, our research did not distinguish between in-person versus virtual service attendance, which could provide additional insights into why people attend multiple congregations.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Katie E. Corcoran receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. This article was made possible through the support of Grant 62630 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

Christopher P. Scheitle receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. This article was made possible through the support of Grant 62630 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

Oakland County, home to nearly 1.3 million residents, ranks among Michigan’s wealthiest counties.

But that description does not tell the whole story.

Since 2020, Oakland County’s population and income have grown steadily. Over the same period, Wayne County’s population declined, and Macomb County experienced slower growth.

Oakland County also has higher incomes overall. Median household income is about US$97,760 in Oakland County, compared with $77,837 in Macomb County and $60,539 in Wayne County.

Some of Oakland’s communities, such as Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, rank among the most affluent in the tri-county Detroit metro region, with rapidly increasing home prices. Homes in these communities can sell for well over $1 million. Residents here have generally better health outcomes and have remained at the top of the socioeconomic ladder over time. The median household income is $153,510 in Birmingham and $189,942 in Bloomfield Hills.

However, median household incomes can be misleading and mask important differences within the county. Prosperity is not evenly shared, a sign of long-standing economic inequality.

My sociology research focuses on neighborhood and socioeconomic change in American cities. To see where and how divides are emerging, it is necessary to look beyond overall averages and focus on communities within individual counties. Let’s see what we find when we look deeper into the communities in Oakland County.

Measuring inequality

To do that analysis, I used an index of neighborhood socioeconomic status, developed by geographer Joe Darden and political scientist Sameh Kamel. Darden is known for his research on residential segregation and neighborhood inequality in the Detroit region.

Urban researchers and public health scholars use this index to compare neighborhood conditions within and across metropolitan regions and to examine how inequality is distributed.

The index uses census data to combine measures of income, education, housing and employment into a single score ranging from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate higher socioeconomic position. Like any composite index, it summarizes complex social conditions into a single measure and cannot capture every difference between communities.

Oakland County’s wealth isn’t evenly shared

On this index, Oakland County’s communities are spread across the full socioeconomic range rather than clustering entirely at the top.

In 2023 about 61% fell into the highest socioeconomic tier. The rest were divided between the middle and lowest tiers.

Communities such as Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Troy and Rochester Hills remain relatively well-off, with some of the highest scores on the county’s socioeconomic index.

Cities such as Pontiac, along with suburbs such as Oak Park, Hazel Park and Madison Heights, fall in the county’s lowest socioeconomic tier with some of the lowest scores on the index.

Pockets of socioeconomic change

About 80% of communities in Oakland county remained in the same tier between 2010 and 2023.

Socioeconomic stability was strongest at the top: 9 in 10 high-tier communities stayed there.

But the rest of the county tells a different story.

Several communities outside the top tier changed position over time. Wixom and Keego Harbor moved up from the lowest tier into the middle, while Oxford and Rose townships rose from the middle tier into the highest.

Addison, Brandon and White Lake townships shifted from the highest tier into the middle, while Holly township moved from the middle tier into the lowest.

Wealth gaps point to growing disadvantage

These differences point to a growing socioeconomic divide within one of Michigan’s wealthiest counties, similar to trends in other parts of the U.S.

Understanding these divides is key to making sense of the region’s broader challenges, from rising housing costs to differences in job opportunities across metropolitan Detroit.

Communities with a low socioeconomic score have higher poverty and unemployment rates, lower median household income and fewer residents with a college degree or higher. Higher-tier communities show the opposite pattern, with lower poverty and unemployment, higher incomes, higher educational attainment and much higher home values.

The middle tier includes communities such as Ferndale, Auburn Hills, Waterford Township, South Lyon and Wixom. As a group, middle-tier communities resemble the county’s wealthiest areas on some indicators – such as unemployment and homeownership. On others, especially poverty, they remain closer to lower-income places.

A key distinction, however, is the continuing gap between the middle and the top. Middle-tier communities have lower incomes, fewer college graduates and far lower home values than higher-tier communities. The typical home in a middle-tier place is worth about $259,000, compared with more than $405,000 in the highest tier. The gap in median home values leads to significant differences in family wealth, which in turn affects retirement savings, the ability to pay for college and the financial cushion available during economic downturns.

These differences suggest that Oakland County’s stratification is not limited to a divide between struggling areas and wealthy ones. Instead, even its middle-tier communities lag behind the county’s most affluent places, especially when it comes to education and wealth. The divide, therefore, runs not only between the bottom and the top but also between the middle and the most advantaged communities.

How does Oakland compare with nearby counties?

In Oakland County, movement was evenly split, with 10% of communities moving up and 10% moving down, suggesting that gains and losses occurred at roughly the same rate.

In Macomb County, 13% of communities moved up, while 4% moved down. Wayne County showed the least change overall, with about 91% of communities remaining in the same tier between 2010 and 2023. This may be due to decades of economic hardship that have made it more unlikely for communities there to move in either direction.

Oakland County remains one of Michigan’s wealthiest counties. But its communities are not all moving in the same direction. Understanding these differences will be important as the region plans for the future.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.