The visual construction of “the people” and “proximity to the people” on the online platforms of the National Front and Swiss People’s Party

The article explores and compares how the online communication of the National Front (FN) and Swiss People’s Party (SVP) visualise and define “the people” and “proximity to the people” in the wake of the Swiss federal elections and the French regional elections in 2015. Considerations based on netnography, discourse analysis and visual culture studies inform the corpus-based approach of the study. The results of the analysis show significant differences in the way each party represents itself: the FN visually frames itself as a party for the people whereas the SVP portrays itself as a party of the people. This is due to distinct ways of depicting the relation between party representatives and citizens as well as the “in-group”.     

The relative importance of the husband’s and wife’s characteristics in family migration, 1960–2000

We explore whether the growing labor force attachment of married women has increased the importance of the wife’s characteristics in determining the household migration decision. To the contrary, we find that surprisingly little changed between 1960 and 2000. Wives were a weak determinant of family migration over the entire period. Our results suggest that it is difficult to balance two careers simultaneously, with households finding it optimal to focus primarily on the husband’s career rather than settling for significantly inferior labor market outcomes for each spouse.     

Employment gains and wage declines: The erosion of black women’s relative wages since 1980

Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions have been arguably less progressive for black women’s employment and earnings: through the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, the wage gap between black and white women widened considerably. Using data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG), this article documents the racial wage gap among women in the United States from 1979 to 2005. We investigate how demographic and labor market conditions influence employment and wage inequality among black and white women over the period. Although shifts in labor supply influence the magnitude of the black-white wage gap among women, structural disadvantages faced by black women help explain the growth in the racial wage gap.     

The intersection of social protection and mobilities: a move towards a ‘Practical Utopia’ research agenda

Currently, a number of contributions in mobility studies are looking for fruitful intersections with other ‘adjacent’ approaches . In this spirit, our theoretical paper argues to study one particular aspect: the intersection of social protection and mobilities. Currently, the provision of social services in the ‘West’ is strongly entrenched within nation-state logics, which assume that clients’ immobility is a precondition of service delivery and that national citizenship is the desirable conditionality of gaining social rights. To overcome such a wide-spread conflation of social security with state security, we introduce the heuristic concept ‘social protection’. It allows social security to be imagined beyond a state-centric perspective and avoids the pitfalls of either a citizenship or a migration approach by taking on a mobility perspective. Thus, for scholars anchored in mobility studies we propose how to develop a social security perspective in a progressive way. For readers from other areas, e.g. citizenship, migration or social policy, we will show how a mobility perspective enriched by a No Border approach can overcome a narrow Western, statist and static perspective on social security. Our goal is to conceptually open up what we call a ‘practical utopia’ research agenda, one that expands our political horizons for future and present socialities.     

Pangs of Loneliness Breed Material Lifestyle but Don’t Power Up Life Satisfaction of Young People: The Moderating Effect of Gender

Associations between loneliness, materialism, and life satisfaction were examined in a sample of 366 Malaysian undergraduate students. Also examined was the mediating role of materialism in the relation between loneliness and life satisfaction, and such a mediational link (i.e., loneliness–materialism–life satisfaction) is expected to be moderated by gender. Loneliness was significantly and positively associated with materialism but negatively associated with life satisfaction. Materialism was significantly and negatively associated with life satisfaction. In addition to these direct associations, materialism emerged as a significant partial mediator in the relation between loneliness and life satisfaction. As predicted, gender moderated the loneliness–materialism–life satisfaction relationship. In particular, materialism significantly mediated such a link for male undergraduate students but not for female undergraduate students. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for youth wellness are discussed.     

‘The Great Event of the Fortnight’: Steamship Rhythms and Colonial Communication

Abstract

This paper engages with Tim Cresswell’s ‘contellations of mobility’ in order to contribute some understanding of historical maritime rhythms. The empirical focus is upon a steamship mail service in the post-emancipation Caribbean. In examining this communications network, it is stressed that while those managing the network valorised predictable efficiency, ‘friction’ was prized by mercantile groups at the steamers’ ports of call. Thus, the different aspects of mobility signified differently across the network, and this historical case study reinforces the resonance of slowness and stoppage time. The synchronisation of steamship arrivals with sociocultural norms in the Caribbean colonies also necessitated the adaptation of mail service rhythms. Through a focus on shipping operations, this paper proposes to temper our understanding of the role of steamship technology in empire. The influence of colonies on the metropole encompassed an alteration of the rhythms of imperial circulation, and it is within the maritime arena that these realities came into sharp focus.     

The reversal of the gender gap in education and relative divorce risks: A matter of alternatives in partner choice?

Recent evidence from the United States suggests that the reversal of the gender gap in education was associated with changes in relative divorce risks: hypogamous marriages, where the wife was more educated than the husband, used to have a higher divorce risk than hypergamous marriages, where the husband was more educated, but this difference has disappeared. One interpretation holds that this may result from cultural change, involving increasing social acceptance of hypogamy. We propose an alternative mechanism that need not presuppose cultural change: the gender-gap reversal in education has changed the availability of alternatives from which highly educated women and men can choose new partners. This may have lowered the likelihood of women leaving husbands with less education and encouraged men to leave less educated spouses. We applied an agent-based model to twelve European national marriage markets to illustrate that this could be sufficient to create a convergence in divorce risks.     

The undying ideologies of race and gender: the zombie apocalypse in Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season One

Telltale Games’ narrative-based The Walking Dead: Season One portrays Lee Everett, an African American male, fighting through the zombie apocalypse. In addition to providing an intriguing character, the game pushes back against racial stereotypes frequently seen and further establishes a zone of oppositional politics. In addition to race, TWD: Season One’s gender ideologies also open up spaces of counterhegemonic politics, specifically through its presentation of abortion. Overall, the seemingly “undying” ideologies of race and gender are reconfigured and questioned in the space of the zombie apocalypse, providing alternative visions of identity politics.     

An Econometric Investigation of Easterlin's ‘Synthesis Framework’: The Philippines and the United States

In this paper we estimate a fertility model based on Easterlin's synthesis framework. The model assumes that not all couples are able to achieve their desired number of living children because of supply constraints and that, for other couples, the number of living children may exceed desired fertility, depending upon child mortality, the level of fertility in the absence of control, and the degree of contraceptive regulation practised. Estimates of the model for samples of women with completed fertility taken from the Philippines (1973) and the United States (1965) indicated that a higher proportion of Filipino women than women in the U.S. were unable to achieve desired fertility because of supply constraints, that levels of fertility control of Filipino women not supply-constrained were lower, and that excess fertility of Filipino women was much higher. Demand-for-children equations based on the constraints model were quite different from those not taking into account the possibility that some women were supply-constrained, or that some women may have had more children than desired.     

Homosexuality,Religion, and the Family: The Effects of Religion on Americans’ Appraisals of the Parenting Abilities of Same-Sex Couples

Although a growing body of research focuses on Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex couples as parents, very few include measures of religion, and those that do fail to capture its multidimensional nature. Furthermore, many past studies relied on convenience samples of college students, or samples gathered outside the United States. Multivariate analyses of the 2012 General Social Survey—a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States—reveal that a slim majority of Americans still do not believe same-sex couples can parent as well as male-female couples, and the religious beliefs, behaviors, and affiliations of Americans are significantly and at times differentially associated with appraisals of same-sex couples’ parenting abilities. It appears that although religion is generally associated with more negative appraisals of the parenting abilities of same-sex couples, it is not uniformly so. Americans’ immediate religious and cultural context can shape their appraisals of homosexuality in diverse ways.     

Family Planning and Women’s and Children’s Health: Long-Term Consequences of an Outreach Program in Matlab, Bangladesh

We analyze the impact of an experimental maternal and child health and family planning program that was established in Matlab, Bangladesh, in 1977. Village data from 1974, 1982, and 1996 suggest that program villages experienced a decline in fertility of about 17 %. Household data from 1996 confirm that this decline in “surviving fertility” persisted for nearly two decades. Women in program villages also experienced other benefits: increased birth spacing, lower child mortality, improved health status, and greater use of preventive health inputs. Some benefits also diffused beyond the boundaries of the program villages into neighboring comparison villages. These effects are robust to the inclusion of individual, household, and community characteristics. We conclude that the benefits of this reproductive and child health program in rural Bangladesh have many dimensions extending well beyond fertility reduction, which do not appear to dissipate rapidly after two decades.     

The effect of women’s participation in the labour market on the postponement of first childbirth: a comparison of Italy and Hungary

This paper analyses the effect of increasing female participation in the labour market on the transition to first childbirth. Regional perspectives are considered to help us understand how postponement behaviour is changing over time and at different paces in each region. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey of Italy and Hungary. We use a multilevel event history random intercept model to examine the effect of individuals’ positions in the labour market on the transition to motherhood, controlling for differences in macrolevel factors related to regional backgrounds in the two countries. The regional data for Italy came from the Italian National Statistical Institute, and for Hungary from our imputation developed from the time series available at the national and the regional levels (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, KSH). The postponement of first childbirth is strongly linked to the increasing involvement of women in paid work, but with opposite effects in the two countries. Even if we control for changes in women’s levels of education over time and for shifts in women’s aspirations and levels of attainment in the labour market, we find that being employed remains a risk factor for the postponement of the first birth among Italian women, and a strong protective factor among Hungarian women. At the contextual level, the variables that take into account the regional socio-economic changes provides evidence of important effects on individual behaviour among Italian women, and of only minor effects among Hungarian women. All of the regional breakdowns in both Italy and Hungary show that the postponement of motherhood goes hand-in-hand with the acceptance of deep cultural and socio-economic changes.     

Neighborhood Characteristics and Older Adults’ Well-Being: The Roles of Sense of Community and Personal Resilience

The ecological model stresses the importance of the neighborhood context to aging successfully. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the associations between neighborhood characteristics (public space, senior population density, and senior service) and the well-being of older adults, with sense of community as a potential mediator and personal resilience as a potential moderator. The sample consisted of 628 individuals (aged 60–97 years) recruited from 32 neighborhoods in Beijing, China. They completed measures of resilience, sense of community, and well-being. Neighborhood characteristics, including per capita public space, senior population density, and senior services, were obtained from neighborhood committees. We used hierarchical linear modeling to analyze the individual data from participants’ self-reported measures and objective data regarding neighborhoods. The results showed that: (a) public space, senior population density, and senior services were positively associated with the well-being of older adults; (b) sense of community mediated the above associations; (c) the associations between neighborhood characteristics—such as per capita public space, senior services, and well-being—were strengthened by personal resilience. This study highlighted the importance of neighborhoods to older adult’s well-being, including objective characteristics and a subjective sense of community. Besides personal strength, enhancing neighborhood resources is recommended to promote the well-being of elderly people.     

The Social Construction of Official Statistics: The Case of the UK ‘Measuring National Well-being’ Programme

Social Indicators Research - This article is interested in the process of official statistic-making which, it is argued, has previously only been lightly examined. It makes the case that role of...     

The Impact of Having a Baby on the Level and Content of Women’s Well-Being

The primary objective of this study was to more fully understand the impact of having a baby on women’s well-being by attending to both the level and the content of well-being. To cover the judgemental and affective aspects of well-being we included global measures of life satisfaction and well-being and affective experience measures derived from the day reconstruction method. In a sample of 19 first-time mothers no differences between pre and postnatal reports of general life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and experienced positive and negative affect were found, suggesting that the arrival of the newborn baby does not universally impact on women’s level of well-being. Changes in the content of well-being were studied by examining changes in the way women experience specific activities and interactions with various social partners. There appeared to be an upward shift in experienced positive affect during active leisure and a slight decrease in negative affect during time spent with relatives. The results are discussed in light of previously documented changes across the transition to motherhood in negative mood states, time use, women’s evaluation of various aspects of daily life, and relational satisfaction.     

“The Freak of Nature”: On Erich Fromm’s Vindication of Binomial Sexuality and the Potentials of the “Homosexual Deviation”

As a Freudian revisionist and neo-Marxist, Erich Fromm (1900–1980) lessened the import of sexuality in the individual psyche but stressed the role played by the sex differential in the distribution of power throughout history and in the post-patriarchal form of matriarchy he envisioned. Seeking to reinforce the male/female divide and heteronormativity, Fromm outlined a “New Science of Man” that readily ignored not only the challenges posed to binary sexuality by post-Darwinian critical sexologies, but also the same-sex complexities evinced by key figures of his own cultural pantheon. Regardless of his declared pursuits, however, Fromm at times expressed insights suitable to undermine the cogency of his most cherished sexual convictions. As a tool for uncovering “indubitable commonsensical axioms” as sources of alienation, Fromm’s conception of “idology” challenges his own sanction of sexual binarity and heterosexuality, thus facilitating an understanding of the individual’s sexual difference as a unique modulation of male/female intermediariness.     

Sharing the wealth: The effect of siblings on adults’ wealth ownership

Inequality in wealth has been well-documented, but its causes remain uncertain. Family processes in childhood are likely to shape adults' wealth accumulation, but these factors have attracted little attention. I argue that family size matters: children from larger families accumulate less wealth than do those from smaller families. Siblings dilute parents' finite financial resources and nonmaterial resources, such as time. This diminishment of resources reduces educational attainment, inter vivos transfers, and inheritance. Reduced educational attainment and transfers alter financial behavior; saving; and, ultimately, adults' wealth. I demonstrate that sibship size is associated with lower overall wealth in adulthood and that parents' resources and education, respondent's education, financial transfers, and financial behavior all mitigate the effect of siblings. Sibship size also reduces the likelihood of receiving a trust account or an inheritance and decreases home- and stock ownership. The findings provide important insights into early family processes that shape wealth accumulation and inequality.