Exploring parent–child communication in the context of threat: immigrant families facing detention and deportation in post-9/11 USA

This paper explores whether and how documented and undocumented migrant parents communicate with their children about the threats posed by the intensified enforcement of 1996 and 2001 US immigration reforms; whether parents facing potential detention and deportation plan for the care of their children; and whether their children learn from other sources about detention and deportation. The focus of this paper emerged in the context of a multiyear participatory and action research (PAR) process as one effort to understand the multiple meanings and divergent perspectives on parental–child communication that arose among and between participants and coresearchers. The aim is to better understand, in parents' own voices, their embrace of and resistance to direct communication with their children about the threat of deportation. Data are triangulated from in-depth interviews with 18 Central American immigrant coresearchers (Study 1), responses of 132 Latino/a immigrant parents to a survey with open-ended questions (Study 2), and conversations in a series of community meetings and workshops. Findings confirm the importance for advocates, service providers, and researchers to understand migrant parents' decisions about communication within the context of family and community values; gender expectations; lived and psychological experiences of being criminalized; and strategies to manage daily challenges of living without documents while parenting US-citizen children.     

Conscious Regulation of Sexual Arousal in Men

The goals of this study were to examine the effectiveness of emotional reappraisal in regulating male sexual arousal and to investigate a set of variables theoretically linked to sexual arousal regulation success. Participants first completed a series of online sexuality questionnaires. Subsequently, they were assessed for their success in regulating sexual arousal in the laboratory. Results showed that the ability to regulate emotion may cross emotional domains; those men best able to regulate sexual arousal were also the most skilled at regulating their level of amusement to humorous stimuli. Participants, on average, were somewhat able to regulate their physiological and cognitive sexual arousal, although there was a wide range of regulation success. Whereas some men were very adept at regulating their sexual arousal, others became more sexually aroused while trying to regulate. Age, sexual experience, and sexual compulsivity were unrelated to sexual arousal regulation. Conversely, sexual excitation, inhibition, and desire correlated with sexual arousal regulation success. Increased sexual excitation and desire were associated with poorer regulatory performance, whereas a propensity for sexual inhibition due to fear of performance consequences was related to regulatory success.     

The Demand for Labor: An Analysis Using Matched Employer–Employee Data from the German LIAB. Will the High Unskilled Worker Own-Wage Elasticity Please Stand Up?

This paper uses matched employee–employer LIAB data to provide panel estimates of the structure of labor demand in western Germany, 1993–2002, distinguishing between highly skilled, skilled, and unskilled labor and between the manufacturing and service sectors. Reflecting current preoccupations, our demand analysis seeks also to accommodate the impact of technology and trade in addition to wages. The bottom-line interests are to provide elasticities of the demand for unskilled (and other) labor that should assist in short-run policy design and to identify the extent of skill biases or otherwise in trade and technology.

Explaining the demand for structured financial products: survey and field experiment evidence

In many countries structured investment products are popular among retail investors. We explain the demand for these products using unique field data where we let subjects freely design their “favorite” structured product. Results suggest that the supply with capital protected products (guarantee certificates) might indeed be demand-driven. This does not seem to be the case for other product categories where marketing and sales practices might play a more important role. In a survey among financial practitioners we find furthermore that a demand for capital protected products can be explained by loss aversion and saving motifs, e.g. for buying a house.     

Assessing physical activity in inpatient rehabilitation—sensor-based validation of the PAIR

Increased physical activity is positively associated with better health in community-dwelling older persons. It is unclear whether physical activity also influences success of inpatient rehabilitation. For the assessment of physical activity in inpatient rehabilitation the Physical Activity in Inpatient Rehabilitation Assessment (PAIR), a short questionnaire based on five questions, was developed and preliminary validated. In this study, the PAIR was validated against a sensor-based physical activity measurement. Seventy functionally impaired and cognitively mostly intact patients of a German geriatric inpatient rehabilitation clinic who had undergone hip surgery (n?=?62 women, median age?=?83 years) participated. Physical activity was measured using the PAIR and a sensor-based activity monitor (Physilog ®; BioAGM, CH). Assessments were conducted at admission (T1) and 2 weeks later (T2) during the rehabilitation process. To assess concurrent and predictive validity, Spearman correlations and linear regression models were calculated using sensor-based walking activity and uptime activity (walking and standing time) as dependent variables. Criterion-related concurrent validity using physical activity sensors was weak to moderate. Correlations were slightly higher at T2 (r?=?0.45-0.53) than at T1 (r?=?0.44-0.46). The objectively measured variance of physical activity, explained by the PAIR, ranged from 25 to 43 %. PAIR activity scores and sensor-based walking or total activity increased in a dose-dependent manner, confirming the scoring system of the PAIR. The application time was usually less than 2 min. The validity of the PAIR is weak to moderate when compared to a sensor-based activity monitor and comparable to existing physical activity assessments for community-dwelling older adults.     

Postnatal quality of life — A content analysis of qualitative results to the Mother-Generated Index

Background

The Mother-Generated Index (MGI) assesses postnatal quality of life (QoL) without providing a predefined checklist, thus offering mothers the opportunity to identify areas of life affected by having a baby.

“The Young Ones are the Condom Generation”: Condom Use amongst Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda

This article reports on factors influencing condom use among out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Despite an abundance of negative discourses and myths about condoms in the community, these adolescents believe condoms protect them from sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and premarital pregnancies. Girls want partners to use condoms, but most lack the confidence to insist. Girls aged 13 to 14 reported the least difficulty asking for condoms; older girls attributed this to coming-of-age in the era of AIDS when condom use is the norm. Boys under 16 years want to use condoms, but lack confidence in application skills. Boys over 17 years always use condoms with casual partners, but only occasionally for pregnancy prevention with steady partners. Girls need skills training to improve confidence in negotiating condom use. Younger boys require training to improve confidence in skills with condom application. These findings are compared with studies conducted with in-school adolescents in the same study area. Health promotions that provide this skills training and focus on the need to think of the health of future family would be most effective for out-of-school adolescents. This study shows that it is self-confidence, rather than years of schooling, that has the greatest impact on condom use in this cohort.