Gay male couples: the importance of coming out and being out to parents

This exploratory study applied grounded theory methodology to examine what coupled gay men thought were the relationship impacts of being out to parents and in-laws. Data were collected from an accidental sample of 40 men in 20 homosexual couples using a standardized, open-ended interview. Virtually all of the respondents who had come out to their parents experienced initial and ongoing parental and in-law disapproval for their lifestyles and relationships. However, most men believed that it benefitted their unions to be out to their parents and partner's parents. Not having to hide the relationship was seen as a primary relationship advantage. Inclusion of one's partner in family events also emerged as a significant benefit. In contrast to the existing literature, a large proportion of respondents believed that parental/in-law antagonism had no adverse impacts on their dyads. They shielded their relationships by maintaining a strong sense of independence and in turn solid intergenerational boundaries. This study provides evidence to suggest that disclosure of sexual orientation to parents may be a distinctive, important developmental task for gay men which is critical to their relationships with their partners. Based on the findings of this research, mental health practitioners would be advised to assist gay men in the establishment and maintenance of strong intergenerational boundaries to protect their unions from parental/in-law disapproval.     

Bicol hospital reaches out to rural folk

The Ago General Hospital in Legaspi City of the Philippines was opened in 1965, antedating the national family planning movement by 5 years. The 180 bed hospital integrates family planning into the overall hospital service; sterilization is the main method used. Of the 3600 patients per year, 15% are family planning acceptors. The hospital employs 3 family planning strategies: inhospital, out patient and supportive. Inhospital strategies center on sterilization counseling and motivation. The counseling sessions include patient education. Primary targets include high risk pregnancies and young couples with a lot of children. Outpatient strategies include a referral system involving hospitals and agencies with family planning programs, lectures for community organizations and personal visits to other clinics and rural health units. The hospital's mobile clinic, staffed mainly by students, provides information, deworming, and pediatric services to the community. Supportive program strategies consist of mass communication, and an acceptor's club for previous acceptors of sterilization. These clubs meet regularly to share and discuss experiences.     

我国老年人临终前需要完全照料的时间分析

根据中国老年人健康长寿影响因素2005年第4周期调查数据,用多水平随机效应序列模型,对中国65岁及以上老年人临终前需要他人完全照料的天数进行较为系统的分析。结果显示照料时间与杜区社会经济发展因素无很大关联性,但与性别、受教育程度、有病及时治疗、子女可近度、经常参与宗教佛事活动和基期健康等个体因素存在一定依存关系。     

Sex preference for children in German villages during the fertility transition

In the past, parents' sex preferences for their children have proved difficult to verify. This study used John Knodel's German village genealogies of couples married between 1815 and 1899 to investigate sex preferences for children during the fertility transition. Event history analyses of couples' propensity to progress to a fifth parity was used to test whether the probability of having additional children was influenced by the sex composition of surviving children. It appears that son preference influenced reproductive behaviour: couples having only girls experienced significantly higher transition rates than those having only boys or a mixed sibset. However, couples who married after about 1870 began to exhibit fertility behaviour consistent with the choice to have at least one surviving boy and girl. This result represents a surprisingly early move towards the symmetrical sex preference typical of modern European populations.     

Helping gay fathers come out to their children

This paper describes the treatment of seven gay fathers who were concerned about revealing their sexual identity to their children. A time-limited group was established for the purpose of developing strategies to help them past this juncture in their development as gay men. Role playing of specific situations was the modality chiefly employed. Discussions of the effects of internalized homophobia were also held. At the conclusion of the group (eight sessions) all participants rated the experience as "highly useful." Follow-up data are presented at 6 months.     

关于实现人与自然和谐发展的思考

人与自然和谐统一是可持续发展的本质要求,是科学发展观的实质,是实现全面建设小康社会宏伟目标的必然选择。本文就人与自然的历史关系、我国目前人与自然关系以及如何实现的人与自然和谐发展进行了分析和探讨。     

Special Program to Lift MinorityGroups out of Poverty

China is making a special Program to Support Development of Small Minority Groups (2005-2010), according to Mao Gongning, director general of policies and regulations at the National Commission for Ethnic Affairs.The plan calls for the eradication of poverty at poverty-stricken ethnic-inhabited areas in six years. Those that have met their basic needs for subsistence should be able to reach middle-income levels and others even higher levels. Of the 55 ethnic minority groups in China, acc…     

Population trends of nonmetropolitan cities and villages in subregions of the united states

This is a comparison of the 1950-1970 trends in population size of U.S. nonmetropolitan cities and villages among 26 homogeneous subregions. There are wide variations in the proportion of the nonmetropolitan population in incorporated places, and, though this proportion generally increased over the 1950-1970 period, decentralizing tendencies also are evident. There was most often a decline in the differential between the growth rate of incorporated places and of open country over the two decades. The positive association between initial size of place and growth, present in half of the subregions in the 1950s and indicative of population centralization, was found only in the Corn Belt, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountain subregions in the 1960s. There were regionally distinctive differences in all variables considered; most notably, the percent of places growing ranged 50 percentage points over the 26 subregions. The extent of subregional variation revealed by this analysis indicates how differences in physiography, climate, history, and economy continue to be reflected in settlement trends which are obscured when larger regional groupings are used.     

我国外逃贪官人口的特点及外逃法律对策

目前,我国贪官携款潜逃现象非常严重,给我国带来极其恶劣的国际影响的同时,也给国家造成了极大的危害。严格抑制赃款外逃,掐断赃款外逃途径,对打击贪官携款潜逃具有釜底抽薪的意义。完善现有法律加快相关立法、加强国际司法合作是防止贪官携款外逃有效的法律手段。     

The emigrational function of valley and mountain-laid villages in the west of Mashhad province

People living in the villages located in the west of the city of Mashhad 1,400–1,900 m above sea level immigrate to cities much more than other villages because they are located in valleys and mountainous regions. The research done on 200 families from seven villages shows that these villages are faced with a shortage of flat land suitable for farming and other activities and as a result the villagers, specially the youth, having no job as a source of income, have to emigrate to cities. With the young force leaving the villages and shortage of means of production, the villages are now faced with a population decrease. In some cases, the villages have been totally abandoned in spite of the fact that they have the potential for economic activities specially tourism. By planning and actualizing the potential of these villages, it is possible to create jobs and return the villagers or to prevent further emigration.     

From natural fertility to family limitation: The onset of fertility transition in a sample of German villages

Utilizing data from a sample of German village genealogies, it is possible to document the changes in reproductive patterns on the family level that started to take place in Germany during the nineteenth century and formed the basis for the secular decline in fertility which eventually encompassed the entire country. One striking finding from this study was the substantial diversity among the small sample of villages in terms of the timing of the emergence of family limitation. While couples in all villages who married during the last half of the eighteenth century appeared to be characterized predominantly by natural fertility the emergence of family limitation began as early as the turn of the nineteenth century in some places and as late as the end of the nineteenth century in others. Occupational differentials with respect to family limitation were also examined. There is little evidence that changes in birth spacing played an important part in the initial phase of the fertility trnsition. Rather, the underlying process appears to involve a change from fertility patterns that were characterized by the absence of parity-dependent control to one in which attempts to terminate childbearing in response to the number of children already born becomes widespread.     

Parental disruption and the labour market performance of children when they reach adulthood

This paper uses data from the age 33 wave of the British National Child Development Survey (NCDS) to analyze the effects of a parental disruption (divorce or death of a father) on the labour market performance of children when they reach adulthood. The NCDS is a longitudinal study of all children born during the first week of March 1958 in England, Scotland, and Wales. Controlling for a rich set of pre-disruption characteristics, the results indicate that a parental disruption leads to moderately less employment among males and considerably lower wage rates among females at age 33. If pre-disruption characteristics are not controlled for, larger effects are estimated for both males and females. Parental disruption also seems to cause substantial reductions in educational attainment for both males and females. Received: 22 May 1998/Accepted: 27 April 1999     

The use of the CES-D for measuring symptoms of depression in three rural Russian villages

This paper reports the use of a standardized depression scale (CES-D) in a sample survey of three Russian villages (N=263) in the summer of 1993. The analysis shows a good response rate on all items, except for two. The internal consistency of the scale is good (alpha reliability is 0.79), and the factor loadings are sensible and relatively high. There is a greater percentage of the respondents in rural Russia who showed symptoms of depression compared to the percentage of respondents who showed symptoms of depression in other studies. Greater levels of depression were found among respondents who were elderly, in poor health, who were women, divorced or separated, and had little social support.     

Carry out Full-scale First-degree Prevention Work on Birth Defects to Improve the Health of Newborns

According to the hospital-based monitoring data on birth defects gathered by the Ministry of Health from 2001 to 2006 ,the rate of birth defects newborns is increasing. Every year 200thousand to 300 thousand babies with birth defects are born nationwide.     

Population quality must be improved to carry out the strategic goal of economic construction]

The poor population quality (quality of life of the population as a whole) of Zhejiang Province in southeast China and the imperative need for its improvement are the subject of this report. Its 40 million inhabitants have a life expectancy of 69 years. For every 1000 people there is only 1 doctor and 1.7 hospital beds. These figures are lower for all the other southeastern provinces. According to the 1982 census, there are 47 college graduates, 517 high school graduates, and 1779 middle school graduates for every 10,000 people. The quality of life of the population can be improved through increased productivity because there is a direct relationship between the 2. Although China already enjoys a high level of productivity, it is up to the government to concentrate its efforts on the quality of productivity through reform. China's political structure, its rules, regulations and conventions have contributed to making the economy backward. A substantial change within the social system is imperative to put China's economy on a more progressive footing. Moreover, efforts in family planning must continue. The current population growth rate is not commensurate with the economic growth rate. As population control and population quality are interrelated, a smaller population would mean a higher standard of living. The report concludes that in order to fulfill the strategic goal of economic construction quality is a task that cannot be postponed, since it concerns Zhejiang Province's economic projections, as well as the quality of the new labor force that will be in place by then.     

Coming out to parents and self-esteem among gay and lesbian youths

The significance of the parents for the coming out process and for the self-evaluation of 317 gay and lesbian youths between the ages of 14 and 23 years was assessed in the current study. Responses from a 10-page questionnaire are analyzed, and these findings are discussed in the context of sex differences for both adolescents and parents, the importance of the parents for the self-esteem of gay and lesbian youth, and limitations of the current investigation.     

坚决贯彻西部大开发战略努力改善西北地区人口环境--对军民共建计划生育工作实践的几点思考

实施西部大开发战略必须坚持发展经济与控制人口两手抓。本文通过分析西北地区面临的人口形势,对兰州军区部队在贯彻西部大开发战略中,以军民共建形式参与西北地区人口与计划生育工作、促进该地区经济社会发展进行了展望,提出了军民共建计划生育工作所要坚持的指导思想和基本原则、基本任务和主要目标,并就实践的具体途径和应配套的措施作了相应思考。     

Investigation on birth desires of couples of childbearing age in Hongsheng and three other villages conforming to consideration conditions for the second birth]

The opinions of inhabitants of outlying rural areas regarding second births are explored in this report. By means of household interviews, it is revealed that 22 households out of 153 (i.e., 14.4%) that are eligible for a second birth usually do not opt for the second birth. In a study that took place in four villages within one county, findings showed that desire for a second birth is determined in large part by the sex of the firstborn, males being preferred to females. Moreover, this desire decreases in proportion to time in that the elegible married couple often realizes the economic benefit of having only one child after the first child's birth and chooses not to have a second one. Similarly, many low-income couples would like to have a second child but find that it is not within their economic means. Mid-range income couples often want a second child as well. However, it is generally the couples with higher income that choose to remain with only one child. The desire for a male child is quite strong in the People's Republic of China, especially in rural areas. The fact that the male carries on the family name is very important in most people's opinion, as is the fact that a son has the potential to increase the family's income through manual labor. Thus, the inhabitants of rural areas traditionally favor male children.     

Factors affecting the coming out process for lesbians

Cass' model (1979) of identity development and her Stage Allocation Measure (1984a) were assessed to determine their utility in describing the subjective experience of coming out as a lesbian and whether proposed stages could be tied to behavioral correlates of the Openness Questionnaire (Graham, Rawlings, & Girten, 1985). The process was considered in terms of a woman's differentiation from her family, sex-role attitudes, and levels of internalized homophobia. Eighty-one lesbians anonymously completed questionnaires. The results suggest that subjective labeling and behavior are congruent, but that rate of progression through stages does not imply integration of behavior. Four patterns of identity development were identified which suggest that relevant stages, speed of development, and stage attainment are characteristic of certain women. Intergenerational intimidation was significantly related to stage development, sex-role attitudes, openness behavior, and levels of internalized homophobia.     

Willingness to speak out about gay laws reform: some cause for optimism

We examined the extent to which people's private attitudes to gay law reform are influenced by the attitudes of others. Ninety-six university students were told that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group on their attitudes to gay law reform. Contrary to a number of assumptions made in the social psychological literature, participants who supported gay law reform were more prepared to act in line with their attitudes than were those who opposed gay law reform. Furthermore, anti-gay law reform participants appeared to reassess their attitudes when they were told they were in a minority; in contrast, pro-gay law reform participants were unaffected by the group norm. This suggests that anti-gay law reform attitudes are softer and more easily influenced than are pro-gay law reform attitudes. The implications of these results for activists are discussed.