"All my friends are doing it:" the impact of the perception of peer sexuality on adolescents' intent to have sex

The purpose of the authors in this study was to determine if the proportionality of peers who believe other youth are having oral sex or vaginal/anal intercourse influence the youth's intention to also have oral sex or vaginal/anal intercourse in the next three months. The results supported the hypothesis that the proportionality of perceiving one's peers as sexually active was correlated with one's intent to have oral sex in the next three months (r = .34 and .39, p < .01) and one's intent to have vaginal or anal sex within the next three months (r = .51 and r = .65, p < .01). Approximately 50% of youth who intent to have oral sex are also likely to have vaginal/anal sex. The results were not moderated by age, gender, or Hispanic/White status, but were moderated by being in a special/committed relationship.     

“Drunkorexia”: Exploring the Who and Why of a Disturbing Trend in College Students’ Eating and Drinking Behaviors

Abstract. Objective: “Drunkorexia,” limiting food intake before alcohol consumption, increases college students’ risk for negative alcohol-related health consequences. The current study tested whether (1) women engage in drunkorexia more frequently than men; (2) weight control motivations explain sex differences in drunkorexia; and (3) among women, weight control motivations are a particularly strong predictor of drunkorexia for heavier drinkers. Participants: Undergraduate males and females (N = 63) recruited during fall of 2011. Methods: Participants self-reported their alcohol consumption, drunkorexia, and weight control motivations online. Results: Findings supported hypotheses: weight control motivations explained why women engage in drunkorexia more than men; and the weight control motivation → drunkorexia relation was strongest for heavier- (vs lighter-) drinking women. Conclusion: Women have more weight concerns than men, which makes them more likely to engage in drunkorexia. Heavy-drinking women with strong weight control motivations are at greatest risk for drunkorexia. Interventions should help students more safely reconcile pressures to be thin and drink alcohol.     

Unemployment and psychological distress among young adults in the Nordic countries: A review of the literature

This article reviews Nordic research, published from 1995 and onwards, on the relationship between unemployment and mental health among young adults. Cross‐sectional, longitudinal and time‐series studies are included. Cross‐sectional studies show that the unemployed experience more mental health problems than the non‐unemployed. Leaving unemployment is associated with increased well‐being. Economic problems, feelings of shame and poor social support increase the likelihood of psychological distress. The longitudinal studies show that unemployment increases the risk of psychological distress and attempted suicide, after initial mental health status and confounding factors are accounted for. The relationship remains significant when time‐invariant characteristics of the individuals are controlled for. The time‐series studies found no relationship between unemployment and suicide, but levels of psychological distress were found to vary with changes in the labour market. This relationship remained significant after excluding the non‐employed, indicating that unemployment trends have effects beyond those directly associated with unemployment.     

Evaluating the Move to a Linear Tax System in Germany and Other European Countries

This paper proposes a comparison of the results of tax policy analysis obtained on the basis of unitary and collective representations of the household. We first generate labour supplies consistent with the collective rationality, by use of a model calibrated on microdata as described in Vermeulen et al. [Collective Models of Household Labor Supply with Nonconvex Budget Sets and Nonparticipation: A Calibration Approach (2006)]. A unitary model is then estimated on these collective data and unitary and collective responses to a tax reform are compared. We focus on the introduction of linear taxation in Germany. The exercise is replicated for other European countries and other topical reforms. Distortions due to the use of a unitary model turn out to be important in predicting labour supply adjustments, in the design of tax revenue neutral reforms, and in predicting a reform’s welfare implications.

Multicultural Meanings of Social Support among Immigrants and Refugees

Canada continues to be a prominent immigrant and refugee‐receiving country in worldwide migration, resettlement, and search for refuge, yet there is a gap in our understanding of these newcomers’ views of the specific meanings of social support and their support needs and resources. The purpose of this study was to understand the meanings of social support for immigrants and refugees in Canada, and to explore the types and adequacy of formal supports. Individual interviews were conducted with 60 service providers and policymakers initially (Phase 1), and 120 immigrants and refugees (60 Chinese, 60 Somali) in the second phase. The implications of these findings were elicited in group interviews (Phase 3) of policy decision‐makers, advocates, service providers, and managers. This investigation revealed many interrelated challenges facing refugees and immigrants such as language difficulties, inadequate information on services, poor health, racism, needs for retraining, rejection of foreign qualifications, unemployment, social isolation, social insecurity, dwindling social networks, and family conflicts. The study also illuminated culturally and socio‐economically determined perceptions of social support and support‐seeking strategies. Limited personal resources and dwindling social networks are an impediment to coping with integration and settlement challenges. In many cases, newcomers’ efforts to seek help are thwarted by systemic obstacles. Newcomers experienced extensive unmet support needs, which service providers cannot adequately meet due to bureaucratic and resource constraints. Policies in various sectors that affect the lives of immigrants and refugees are inadequate for bridging their support deficiencies. These support gaps hinder the successful settlement and integration of newcomers. Policies and programs fostering culturally relevant support, and inter‐sectoral collaboration among organizations addressing the support needs of immigrants and refugees are timely.     

The wage gap and the leisure gap for double-earner couples

Empirical research has consistently shown that, on average, men are paid higher wages than women. Moreover, men enjoy more leisure time than women. We develop a noncooperative model of the private provision of family public goods to analyze whether the wage gap and the leisure gap are related. Simultaneous and sequential decision-making structures within a couple lead to different empirical hypotheses. Our estimates based on the German Socio-Economic Panel data show that husbands enjoy, other things equal, more leisure time than their wives. This advantage can be explained if the husband is the Stackelberg leader in a sequential private provision game.      

Do husbands and wives pool their incomes? A couple experiment

We propose a simple and direct test of in-couple income pooling and provide a typology of couples that pool resources and those who do not. For this purpose, we performed a five-round experiment with 95 established real-life couples in Germany. In each round, the couples received the same total amount of money, but the relative allocation to the spouses differed and they had to agree on an irreversible private goods consumption pattern. We find that for the majority of the sample, the consumption choices depend on the spouses’ relative resources. While this suggests a rejection of income pooling at the mean, a substantial share of the couples do indeed pool their resources. Pooling behavior is more common among couples in which the spouses’ socioeconomic characteristics are more similar. In particular, traditional couples with distinct work division between the spouses are significantly less likely to pool their individual resources and treat any spouse’s income symmetrically. Conventional variables used to approximate income pooling are only loosely related to the behavior observed in our experiment.     

Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Cost-Effectiveness

We gathered information on the cost-effectiveness of life-saving interventions in the United States from publicly available economic analyses. "Life-saving interventions" were defined as any behavioral and/or technological strategy that reduces the probability of premature death among a specified target population. We defined cost-effectiveness as the net resource costs of an intervention per year of life saved. To improve the comparability of cost-effectiveness ratios arrived at with diverse methods, we established fixed definitional goals and revised published estimates, when necessary and feasible, to meet these goals. The 587 interventions identified ranged from those that save more resources than they cost, to those costing more than 10 billion dollars per year of life saved. Overall, the median intervention costs $42,000 per life-year saved. The median medical intervention costs $19,000/life-year; injury reduction $48,000/life-year; and toxin control $2,800,000/life-year. Cost/life-year ratios and bibliographic references for more than 500 life-saving interventions are provided.