Welcome to my website.  I am Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Canada Research Chair Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto.  I completed my doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, taught at Carleton University for 16 years, and then moved to Florida State University where I was Distinguished University Research Professor.  For many years, I was simultaneously senior visiting fellow with the Analytical Studies branch at Statistics Canada.

Research

My research career has been animated by a question that I encountered in my first sociology course:  Who gets what and why?  My first book, Old Age in the Welfare State, engages with lively debates in comparative politics on the role of national differences in working class power on the development of contemporary welfare states. My most recent book, Income Inequality and the Fading Politics of Redistribution is co-edited with Keith Banting and my current interest is focused on the resurgence of welfare state reforms in Canada since 2015.

Since 1986, I have conducted a parallel program of research with colleagues at Statistics Canada on topics related to poverty and income inequality in Canada. We were among the first to document trends in wage polarization in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s and later contributed numerous studies on child and old age poverty, and racial and economic segregation.   

A list of publications can be found on Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=4cJTFwEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Awards

In 1991, John Myles received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Sociology Association, Section on Aging.  Relations of Ruling, co-authored with Wallace Clement, won the 1995 Innis Award for best book in Canadian social sciences.  In 2012, John received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leuven (Belgium) for contributions to old age security policy and in 2013, the Canadian Sociology Association’s award for Outstanding Contribution to the Discipline of Sociology in Canada.  He has been a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada since 2004.