Custom Epoch Estimation for Surveys

The paper provides a method for generating epoch estimates for time series survey data, allowing for different periods of time (or even point estimates) according to user demand. The method uses a modified kriging estimator, which suppresses the contribution of sampling error variability in order to guarantee that custom epoch estimates have an interpolation property. For the veteran population variable of the American Community Survey, we utilize a simple Brownian Motion model of the population process and derive the modified kriging estimator for this case. The tuning parameters of this population model can be calibrated to the data via simple formulas. We illustrate the application of this method to the generation of point estimates of veteran population, an important objective for Veterans Affairs.     

Changing Frameworks in Attitudes Toward Abortion

For more than two decades, legal abortion has been the subject of heated political debate and adversarial social movement activity; however, national polls have shown little change in aggregate levels of support for abortion. This analysis examines how the determinants of abortion attitudes have changed between 1977 and 1996, using data from the General Social Surveys. While in early time periods, whites were more approving of abortion than blacks, that pattern had reversed by the late 1980s. After controlling for other factors, older people are more accepting of abortion throughout the two decades, while gender is generally unrelated to abortion views. Catholic religion weakens slightly as a predictor of abortion attitudes, while religious fundamentalism and political liberalism increase in explanatory power. The associations between attitudinal correlates and abortion approval also change over this time period. Religiosity becomes a less powerful predictor of abortion attitudes, while respondents' attitude toward sexual freedom and belief in the sanctity of human life increase in their predictive power. Support for gender inequality remains a weak but stable predictor of abortion attitudes. This pattern of results suggests that the public is influenced more by the pro-life framework of viewing abortion than by the pro-choice perspective.     

Household structure and consumption insurance of the elderly

This paper examines the role of household formation in providing consumption insurance to the elderly. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys, raw tabulations of per adult equivalent consumption indicate that the elderly who live alone have higher levels of well-being relative to those who live with others. This is misleading, however, because the decision to live alone is clearly endogenous. The empirical estimation accounts for this endogeneity using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results provide evidence that household formation plays a significant role in maintaining consumption levels. Without the opportunity to live with others, the welfare gap measured by the difference between per adult equivalent consumption levels of dependent and independent livers would be even larger. These findings suggest that co-residing with others effectively supplements social security, pensions, and private savings and helps the elderly to smooth consumption in old age.

关于大学英语写作教学实践的调查与反思

本研究以第二语言写作理论为指导,对五所高校的大学英语写作教学现状进行抽样调查。调查结果表明,学生写作能力欠佳的原因主要来自于教师的教及学生的学等不同的层面。为提高大学英语写作教学的质量,在教学中教师应该改变现有的教学模式,加强英语写作地位;合理设置写作任务,激发学生写作动机;加强目的语输入,扩大学生积极词汇量。     

Estimating household structure in ancient China by using historical data: a latent class analysis of partially missing patterns

Summary.  Social data often contain missing information. The problem is inevitably severe when analysing historical data. Conventionally, researchers analyse complete records only. Listwise deletion not only reduces the effective sample size but also may result in biased estimation, depending on the missingness mechanism. We analyse household types by using population registers from ancient China (618–907 AD) by comparing a simple classification, a latent class model of the complete data and a latent class model of the complete and partially missing data assuming four types of ignorable and non-ignorable missingness mechanisms. The findings show that either a frequency classification or a latent class analysis using the complete records only yielded biased estimates and incorrect conclusions in the presence of partially missing data of a non-ignorable mechanism. Although simply assuming ignorable or non-ignorable missing data produced consistently similarly higher estimates of the proportion of complex households, a specification of the relationship between the latent variable and the degree of missingness by a row effect uniform association model helped to capture the missingness mechanism better and improved the model fit.     

Household strategies in the face of resource scarcity in coastal Ghana: are they associated with development priorities?

In many developing regions, women and young girls spend several hours daily in the collection of natural resources. Still the link between these household resource strategies and stakeholder perceptions of development priorities remains unexplored. This project examines this association with survey data representative of the adult population from Ghana’s Coastal Region. Although natural resource scarcity and the sustainability of resource use represent key development challenges, there are others (e.g., energy, sanitation, employment, and educational opportunities). As such, even in the face of natural resource scarcity, individuals may place greater importance on other dimensions of development, especially if household resource strategies are perceived as relatively efficient. The analytical focus here is on water and the results suggest that gender roles shape household water collection strategies, while also shaping these strategies’ perceived opportunity costs. Specifically, Ghanian adults more often see drinking water provision as their primary development need when water sources are distant and/or when male household members collect water (particularly male heads). In the end, I argue that social science inquiry benefits by contextualizing social dynamics within environmental context, particularly within cultural settings in which human subsistence is intimately tied to the state of the natural environment.     

Household debt and financial assets: evidence from Germany, Great Britain and the USA

Summary.  We explore the determinants of debt, financial assets and net worth at the household level by using survey data for Germany, Great Britain and the USA. To identify which households are potentially vulnerable to adverse changes in the economic environment, we also explore the determinants of a range of measures of financial pressure: the probability that a household has negative net worth; the debt-to-income ratio; mortgage income gearing; the saving-to-income ratio. Our empirical findings suggest that the poorest and the youngest households are the most vulnerable to adverse changes in their financial circumstances.     

The econometrics of female labor supply and children

This is a survey of applied econometric research on the effects of children on female labor supply. Reasons for interest in the topic, and a basic model and terminology, are reviewed. Concerns are raised about the possible endogeneity of child status variables, and about the instrumental variables approach for dealing with this problem. Alternative ways of conceptualizing and estimating child status effects are considered, together with selected empirical evidence. Relevant developments from the household demand literature are summarized. Basic issues of model choice are also discussed.     

《现代汉语》与《语言学概论》教学的对接研究

本文从教学内容、教学方法改革的角度对现代汉语与语言学概论课程的对接教学进行了研究和探讨。     

农地制度变迁的机理与合约分析：生产队制和家庭联产承包责任制

家庭联产承包责任制在农业生产上的高能激励自农地制度变革以来一直被学界所推崇,但这并不意味着生产队制的低效率。为此,在否定以生产队制低效率作为农地制度变迁的解释的基础上,从发展战略转换、制度安排缺陷、农民信念及其他方面尝试性地探讨了推动生产队制向家庭联产承包责任制变迁的内在原因,并且从生产责任制形式、土地分配方式、期限结构等方面详细阐述了家庭联产承包责任制向农业产出最大化演化的过程。相应地,伴随着农地制度变迁而来的是签约主体以及合约结构的变动,因此,从合约的角度进一步研究了生产队制与家庭联产承包责任制在合约实施和劳动监督与计量上的差别,以及作为二者共同之处的合约模糊性特征,并在此基础上对家庭联产承包责任制下税费合约的性质与形式进行了具体的分析。