Development of an Asset Value Map for Disaster Risk Assessment in China by Spatial Disaggregation Using Ancillary Remote Sensing Data

The extent of economic losses due to a natural hazard and disaster depends largely on the spatial distribution of asset values in relation to the hazard intensity distribution within the affected area. Given that statistical data on asset value are collected by administrative units in China, generating spatially explicit asset exposure maps remains a key challenge for rapid postdisaster economic loss assessment. The goal of this study is to introduce a top‐down (or downscaling) approach to disaggregate administrative‐unit level asset value to grid‐cell level. To do so, finding the highly correlated “surrogate” indicators is the key. A combination of three data sets—nighttime light grid, LandScan population grid, and road density grid, is used as ancillary asset density distribution information for spatializing the asset value. As a result, a high spatial resolution asset value map of China for 2015 is generated. The spatial data set contains aggregated economic value at risk at 30 arc‐second spatial resolution. Accuracy of the spatial disaggregation reflects redistribution errors introduced by the disaggregation process as well as errors from the original ancillary data sets. The overall accuracy of the results proves to be promising. The example of using the developed disaggregated asset value map in exposure assessment of watersheds demonstrates that the data set offers immense analytical flexibility for overlay analysis according to the hazard extent. This product will help current efforts to analyze spatial characteristics of exposure and to uncover the contributions of both physical and social drivers of natural hazard and disaster across space and time.     

State work and the testing concours of citizenship

Anyone trying to be a citizen has to pass through a set of practices trying to be a state. This paper investigates some of the ways testing practices calibrate citizens, and in doing so, perform “the state.” The paper focuses on three forms of citizenship testing, which it considers exemplary forms of “state work,” and which all, in various ways, concern “migration.” First, the constitution of a “border crossing,” which requires an identity test configured by deceptibility. Second, the Dutch asylum process, in which “being gay” can, in certain cases, be reason for being granted asylum, but where “being gay” is also the outcome of an examination organized by suspicion. And third, the Dutch measurement of immigrants’ “integration,” which is comprised of a testing process in which such factishes as “being a member of society” and “being modern” surface. Citizenship is analyzed in this paper as accrued and (re)configured along a migration trajectory that takes shape as a testing concours, meaning that subjects become citizens along a trajectory of testing practices. In contributing both to work on states and citizenship, and to work on testing, this paper thus puts forward the concept of citizenship testing as state work, where “state work is the term for that kind of labor that most knows itself as comparison, equivalency, and exchange in the social realm” (Harney, 2002, pp. 10–11). Throughout the testing practices discussed here, comparison, equivalency, and exchange figure prominently as the practical achievements of crafting states and citizens.     

Gender differences in labour market integration trajectories of recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands

This study investigates gender differences in recently arrived migrants’ labour market activity and occupational status both shortly after arrival and with increasing length of stay. We examine the role of education, household composition and traditional gender role values by estimating multi-group multilevel models based on three waves of the New Immigrants to the Netherlands Survey. In line with findings regarding gender gaps in labour market behaviour, recent female migrants are less active on labour market than their male counterparts, and we observe a clear motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium on the number of hours worked. Men and women show only marginal differences in their occupational statuses. Changes over time do not differ between men and women, indicating persistent gender inequality in labour market attainment. Moreover, interesting differences between the nationalities were found. Polish migrants show the highest activity levels and lowest occupational status, also when compared to Bulgarians. Spanish migrants hold the highest occupational statuses. Recent Turkish migrants seem to be better integrated and show fewer gender differences than the more established Turkish minority in the Netherlands.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective

The question of how educational assortative mating may transform couples' lives and within‐family gender inequality has gained increasing attention. Using 25 waves (1979–2012) of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shapes income dynamics in couples during the marital life course. Couples were grouped into three categories—educational hypergamy (wives less educated than their husbands), homogamy, and hypogamy (wives more educated than their husbands). Results show that change in husbands' income with marital duration is similar across couples, whereas change in wives' income varies by educational assortative mating, with wives in educational hypogamy exhibiting more positive change in income during the marital life course. The finding that husbands' long‐term economic advancement is less affected than that of wives by educational assortative mating underscores the gender‐asymmetric nature of spousal influence in heterosexual marriages.     

挣脱生态牢笼的路径探幽——《共产党宣言》中马克思生态思想解读

《共产党宣言》蕴含着深刻的生态思想,其体系以人、社会、自然整体为背景,其核心观点认为生态问题是由资本主义生产方式引起的.马克思在唯物史观视野下,科学论证了资产阶级的所有制必然灭亡、共产主义必然实现的历史发展逻辑,廓清了人与人、人与自然之间双重和解的演化路径.其中关于科技提升、市场拓展、交通和通信发展等引起世界市场“生态扩张”的思想,对全球化程度日益加深境况下“生态文明”和“人类命运共同体”的构建具有重大的理论和实践指导价值.     

Human capital,family structure and religiosity shaping British Muslim women’s labour market participation

Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains considerably lower and their unemployment rate significantly higher than among the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other individual characteristics. This study utilises two data sets to explore possible factors underlying these differences, such as overseas qualifications, language skills and religiosity. It reveals that while religiosity is negatively associated with labour market participation among British Christian-White women, economic activity among Muslim women are not negatively affected by high religiosity. Furthermore, family structure and the presence of dependent children were among the most important factors explaining the latter’s labour market participation, although these relationships were moderated by qualifications. More women with higher qualifications were economically active even if married and with children, although some of them experienced greater unemployment, probably due to discrimination in recruiting practices and choices and preferences on religious grounds.     

Another economy: towards a cultural dialectics between energy and society

The looming oil crisis, pollution, and climate change have pushed governments, corporations, and individuals to think of new policies, new objects/products and new manners to market them – usually under the label of “green economy” (or the shifting towards a sustainable economy).

The changes that are on the way as a result of the envisaged “green revolution” need a broad vision that couples the economy of energetic techniques with the related socio-cultural economy that is induced by, and at the same time reciprocally influences, the mere technical transformations.

Based on previous analysis of theories of socio-technological change and putting at its center the concept of subjectivation in social sciences, this article proposes a theoretical understanding of cultural shifts and their relationship with changes in the practices of production, transfer and use of energy.

First part presents a schema of subjectivation in triangulation, that links the biological level with the material culture and with the representational realm of normativities in our society. It will be developed through the example of electric vehicle as metaphor of the energetic transition. Through this understanding, second part deals with the modeling of the three items as a processual energetic system by using the concepts of surplus and expenditure. Within this frame, we show how disruptions in one of the poles of this model influences the others and bring about changes in the entire Anthropo-Social level. Third part proposes possible types of emerging subjectivities and advances the idea of extending the realm of consciousness to the energetic transfers and their potentiality.     

Families with young children in times of economic downturn: Implications for social work practice

In response to the global financial crisis, social policies in Europe and elsewhere incorporated a logic of social investment to reduce (child) poverty and social inequality. Several critiques, however, have been raised against the narrowness of this discourse. In order to introduce another way of seeing, an interview study was conducted inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation. This has allowed us to acquire a critical, in‐depth understanding of the consequences of economic downturn and unemployment for families with young children (0–3 years old), from their point of view. Findings highlight the importance of listening to parents here and now, in order to be able to take account of their concrete, lived realities within the context of the broader society and critically assess these realities according to principles of human dignity and social justice. Implications for social work practice are discussed.