Mobility,Stagnation, or Attrition? Diverse Earning Trajectories in a Cohort of Foreign‐born Men

Researchers and policymakers frequently debate about the integration of immigrants into the US economy. These debates are often based on limited data that do not capture the diversity of immigrants who arrived in the later twentieth century. Related research has also struggled to incorporate the experience of short‐term immigrants or immigrants who move in and out of the labor force. Using records from the Social Security Administration, we track the complete cohort of foreign‐born men who received social security numbers in 1978 through their subsequent working years and characterize their earning trajectories. We find that the share of foreign‐born men with low earnings declined over time, mainly due to attrition from the formal labor force. We also show, for the first time, that immigrants’ employment and earning histories vary considerably by their countries of origin: while those from several countries in Asia and Africa experienced substantial earnings growth and tended to stay in the United States for the long term, men from Central America and the Caribbean experienced more stagnation and had high levels of temporary and permanent attrition from the formal labor force. We end by discussing the historical contingencies and socioeconomic contexts—in sending countries and the United States—that shaped these trajectories.     

Work Disability Among Native-born and Foreign-born Americans: On Origins,Health, and Social Safety Nets

Public debates about both immigration policy and social safety net programs are increasingly contentious. However, little research has explored differences in health within America’s diverse population of foreign-born workers, and the effect of these workers on public benefit programs is not well understood. We investigate differences in work disability by nativity and origins and describe the mix of health problems associated with receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. Our analysis draws on two large national data sources—the American Community Survey and comprehensive administrative records from the Social Security Administration—to determine the prevalence and incidence of work disability between 2001 and 2010. In sharp contrast to prior research, we find that foreign-born adults are substantially less likely than native-born Americans to report work disability, to be insured for work disability benefits, and to apply for those benefits. Overall and across origins, the foreign-born also have a lower incidence of disability benefit award. Persons from Africa, Northern Europe, Canada, and parts of Asia have the lowest work disability benefit prevalence rates among the foreign-born; persons from Southern Europe, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Caribbean have the highest rates.     

Social remittances and intra-EU mobility: non-financial transfers between U.K. and Poland

The massive rise in intra-European Union (EU) mobility in recent decades has spawned several important social and cultural phenomena that are still not covered by academic research. Social remittances – the transfer of ideas, practices, codes of behaviours, values and norms between the place of origin and destination are an important aspect of social change and modernity and they are still to be explored and documented. However, not all migrants acquire, transfer and implement them in the same way. Ongoing acts of resistance, imitation and innovation are involved, so that some migrants become ‘ordinary agents of change’ in their local microcosms, while others may contest that change. Tracing these processes in a transnational perspective through a three-year transnational multi-sited qualitative longitudinal research, this article offers an in-depth look at the consequences of human mobility within the enlarged EU.     

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.     

Income Affluence in Poland

This paper examines the evolution of income affluence (richness) in Poland during 1998–2007. Using household survey data, the paper estimates several statistical indices of income affluence including income share of the top percentiles, population share of individuals receiving incomes higher than the richness line, and measures that take into account both the extent and the intensity of affluence. Results show that over the period under study there was a statistically significant and socio-economically sizable rise in income affluence by between 9 and 50%, depending on the index used. The overall income distribution in the period has shifted in favour of the rich as relative poverty and relative size and income share of the middle class have declined.     

The implications of increased survivorship for mortality variation in aging populations

The remarkable growth in life expectancy during the twentieth century inspired predictions of a future in which all people, not just a fortunate few, will live long lives ending at or near the maximum human life span. We show that increased longevity has been accompanied by less variation in ages at death, but survivors to the oldest ages have grown increasingly heterogeneous in their mortality risks. These trends are consistent across countries, and apply even to populations with record-low variability in the length of life. We argue that as a result of continuing improvements in survival, delayed mortality selection has shifted health disparities from early to later life, where they manifest in the growing inequalities in late-life mortality.     

The Overlooked Side of the Experience: Personal Growth and Quality of Life Among Grandparents of Children Who Survived Cancer

This study adopted the theoretical framework of Schaefer and Moos (1992) to identify the resources that contributed to the personal growth and quality of life of 56 grandparents of childhood cancer survivors and compare them with 60 grandparents of healthy children. Participants filled out questionnaires addressing sense of coherence, social support, personal growth, and quality of life. A significant difference was found only with regards to personal growth. Hierarchical regressions revealed that health, economic status, higher levels of sense of coherence, and support contributed to quality of life, whereas being a grandparent of a child who survived cancer, lower sense of coherence, support, and past experience of the Holocaust contributed to personal growth. It seems that though they are both positive dimensions, quality of life and personal growth represent different entities in grandparents’ lives. This study sheds light on the experiences and perspectives of grandparents, indicating that alongside the physical and emotional toll taken by their grandchild’s illness, there are also positive implications that can lead to personal growth. Strengthening grandparents could enable families to take advantage of the potential contribution of one of the most committed support providers in the family.     

Returns on Lifetime Investments in Children in Egypt

Parental expectations about the companionship and assistance they will receive in later life from their children are key considerations in family formation decisions. We explore patterns of parents’ investment and the support and contact they receive from adult children in Egypt, where fertility is falling and sources of support at all life stages are in flux. Using data from a survey of older adults in Ismailia governorate, we consider parents’ past investments in childbearing, child survival, and children’s education and marriage, as well as recent assistance to adult children via housing, care for grandchildren, gifts, and money. The returns from children considered include economic assistance, instrumental support, and visits. Most parental investments are associated with frequent visits from children. The assistance children provide to parents is gendered: sons tend to provide economic transfers, whereas daughters tend to provide instrumental help. A greater number of surviving children is most strongly associated with parents’ receipt of multiple types of later-life returns. Investments in children’s education and marriage are not associated with assistance, but recent assistance to children—especially economic transfers and provision of housing—is associated with receiving instrumental assistance from adult children.     

Pitfalls of Self-management in the Kibbutz

This article traces and analyzes the changes that have occurred in the self-managed Kibbutz communities and in their industrial organization. It primarily examines changes concerned with self-management and democracy in the community and the Kibbutz economy, and analyzes their direction. The article raises the question whether a self-managed democratic community is able to remain as such at a time when the national economy, public support and the collective ideology are all weakened. Even though the Kibbutz community is not self-managed now as it was in the past, it still retains representative democracy, as well as some direct democracy, and presents a unique way of managing its industrial, agricultural and social organizations, which enables the Kibbutz community to adhere to some, if not all, of its basic values.