Mothers’ Sexual Identity and Children’s Health

Sexual minority women face a plethora of structural, socioeconomic, and interpersonal disadvantages and stressors. Research has established negative associations between women’s sexual minority identities and both their own health and their infants’ birth outcomes. Yet a separate body of scholarship has documented similarities in the development and well-being of children living with same-sex couples relative to those living with similarly situated different-sex couples. This study sought to reconcile these literatures by examining the association between maternal sexual identity and child health at ages 5–18 using a US sample from the full population of children of sexual minority women, including those who identify as mostly heterosexual, bisexual, or lesbian, regardless of partner sex or gender. Analyses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N?=?8978) followed women longitudinally and examined several measures of their children’s health, including general health and specific developmental and physical health conditions. Analyses found that children of mostly heterosexual and bisexual women experienced health disadvantages relative to children of heterosexual women, whereas the few children of lesbian women in our sample evidenced a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. These findings underscore that to understand sexual orientation disparities and the intergenerational transmission of health, it is important to incorporate broad measurement of sexual orientation that can capture variation in family forms and in sexual minority identities.

     

Gratitude and Adolescent Athletes’ Well-Being

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to examine the relationships between gratitude and athletes’ well-being. Study 1 examines the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being, while Study 2 investigates the relationship between sport-domain gratitude and well-being. In Study 1, 169 Taiwanese senior high school athletes (M = 16.43, SD = 0.7 years) were administered the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough et al. 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112–127), Team Satisfaction Scale (Walling et al. 1993, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 15, 172–183), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75), and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke and Smith, 2001, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23(4), 281–306). In Study 2, a separate sample of 265 adolescent athletes (M = 16.47 years, SD = 0.7) were administered the modified Sport-domain GQ, Team Satisfaction Scale, and ABQ. Study 1 results showed that dispositional gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively predicts athlete burnout. Findings from Study 2 revealed that sport-domain gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and negatively predicts athlete burnout. A stronger gratitude and well-being relationship was observed in Study 2. This research provides the initial verification that gratitude and adolescent athletes’ well-being are related. Possible mechanism of this relation, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.     

Economic Migration and Happiness: Comparing Immigrants’ and Natives’ Happiness Gains From Income

Research on happiness casts doubt on the notion that increases in income generally bring greater happiness. This finding can be taken to imply that economic migration might fail to result in increased happiness for the migrants: migration as a means of increasing one’s income might be no more effective in raising happiness than other means of increasing one’s income. This implication is counterintuitive: it suggests that migrants are mistaken in believing that economic migration is a path to improving one’s well-being, at least to the extent that well-being means (or includes) happiness. This paper considers a scenario in which it is less likely that migrants are simply mistaken in this regard. The finding that increased incomes do not lead to greater happiness is an average (non)effect—and migrants might be exceptional in this regard, gaining happiness from increased incomes to a greater extent than most people. The analysis here, using data from the World Values Survey, finds that the association between income and happiness is indeed stronger for immigrants in the USA than for natives—but even for immigrants that association is still relatively weak. The discussion then considers this finding in light of the fact that immigrants also report lower levels of happiness than natives after controlling for other variables.     

Children’s educational attainment,occupation, and income and their parents’ mortality

Using data from Finland, this paper contributes to a small but growing body of research regarding adult children's education, occupation, and income and their parents' mortality at ages 50+ in 1970–2007. Higher levels of children's education are associated with 30–36 per cent lower parental mortality at ages 50–75, controlling for parents' education, occupation, and income. This association is fully mediated by children's occupation and income, except for cancer mortality. Having at least one child educated in healthcare is associated with 11–16 per cent lower all-cause mortality at ages 50–75, an association that is largely driven by mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Children's higher white-collar occupation and higher income is associated with 39–46 per cent lower mortality in the fully adjusted models. At ages 75+, these associations are much smaller overall and children's schooling remains more strongly associated with mortality than children's occupation or income.     

India’s ‘Missing Women’ and Men’s Sexual Risk Behavior

Although scholars and policymakers have long been concerned with the ??missing women?? of India, little rigorous research has examined the consequences of India??s sex ratio imbalance for young men??s sexual risk behavior and reproductive health. We use data from the third wave of India??s 2005?C2006 National Family and Health Survey to examine the influence of the community female-to-male sex ratio at ages 10?C39 on men??s likelihood of marrying early in life, of engaging in premarital, multi-partnered, and commercial sex, and of contracting a sexually-transmitted disease. We estimate logistic regression models that control for respondents?? demographic and socioeconomic status and that adjust for the clustering of observations within communities. Net of the effects of other characteristics, the female-to-male sex ratio is positively and significantly associated with the likelihood that men marry prior to age 18 and inversely and significantly associated with the odds that men have had intercourse with a commercial sex worker. However, no significant net associations are observed between the sex ratio and the other outcomes. Education, wealth, religious affiliation, caste, and geographic region emerge as significant predictors of Indian men??s sexual risk behaviors.     

Tribal membership requirements and the demography of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Native Americans

This paper examines the twentieth-century population recovery of Native Americans with reference to urbanization, intermarriage, and differing definitions of the Native American population from census and tribal enrollment data. The recent increase in the Native American population reflected in regular US decennial censuses since 1960 is discussed in terms of changing self-identification of individuals as Native American. Also discussed are criteria for enrollment in Native American tribes, particularly blood quantum requirements. Census enumerations are compared with tribal enrollment data, and it is illustrated that a large proportion of those identifying as Native American in the census are not enrolled in Native American tribes. Special attention is given to how Native American tribal enrollment criteria might impact future population size.     

‘Freedom From’ and ‘Freedom To’ Across Countries

It has been over 70 years since Erich Fromm wrote “Escape From Freedom.” He defined two types of freedom: freedom from (negative) and freedom to (positive). Fromm’s masterpiece, however, does not measure the two types of freedom, and this is not surprising—there were no freedom data at the time. Now, there are plenty of data, and Fromm’s concepts of freedom can be operationalized across countries. The two types of freedom, positive and negative, correlate at below 0.5, and such low correlation is surprising—I discuss outliers and point out that freedom is an end in itself, as recognized, for instance, by Amartya Sen. Furthermore, while we acknowledge the importance of freedom from, we forget that freedom from is not fully realized without freedom to: it’s great to be free; but it’s even better to feel free as well.     

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

Labor migration profoundly affects households throughout rural Africa. This study looks at how men’s labor migration influences marital fertility in a context where such migration has been massive while its economic returns are increasingly uncertain. Using data from a survey of married women in southern Mozambique, we start with an event-history analysis of birth rates among women married to migrants and those married to nonmigrants. The model detects a lower birth rate among migrants’ wives, which tends to be partially compensated for by an increased birth rate upon cessation of migration. An analysis of women’s lifetime fertility shows that it decreases as the time spent in migration by their husbands accrues. When we compare reproductive intentions stated by respondents with migrant and nonmigrant husbands, we find that migrants’ wives are more likely to want another child regardless of the number of living children, but the difference is significant only for women who see migration as economically benefiting their households. Yet, such women are also significantly more likely to use modern contraception than other women. We interpret these results in light of the debate on enhancing versus disrupting effects of labor migration on families and households in contemporary developing settings.     

Epidurals during normal labour and birth — Midwives’ attitudes and experiences

BackgroundMidwives have their own beliefs and values regarding pain during childbirth. Their preferences concerning labour pain management may influence women’s choices.AimTo gain a deeper understanding of midwives’ attitudes and experiences regarding the use of an epidural during normal labour.MethodsA qualitative approach was chosen for data collection. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with midwives working in three different obstetric units in Norway. The transcribed interviews were analysed using Malterud’s systematic text condensation.FindingsThe analysis provided two main themes: “Normal childbirth as the goal” and “Challenges to the practice, knowledge, philosophy and experience of midwives”. Distinctive differences in experiences and attitudes were found. The workplace culture in the obstetric units affected the midwives’ attitudes and their midwifery practice. How they attended to women with epidural also differed. An epidural was often used as a substitute for continuous support when the obstetric unit was busy.DiscussionMidwives estimate labour pain differently, and this might impact the midwifery care. However, midwives’ interests and preferences concerning labour pain management should not influence women’s choices. Midwives are affected by the setting where they work, and research highlights that an epidural might lead to a focus on medical procedures instead of the normality of labour.ConclusionMidwives should be aware of how powerful their position is and how the workplace culture might influence their attitudes. The focus should be on “working with” women to promote a normal birth process, even with an epidural.     

Partners’ Educational Pairings and Fertility Across Europe

We provide new evidence on the education-fertility relationship by using EU-SILC panel data on 24 European countries to investigate how couples’ educational pairings predict their childbearing behavior. We focus on differences in first-, second-, and third-birth rates among couples with varying combinations of partners’ education. Our results show important differences in how education relates to parity progressions depending on the education of the partner. First, highly educated homogamous couples show a distinct childbearing behavior in most country clusters. They tend to postpone the first birth most and display the highest second- and third-birth rates. Second, contrary to what may be expected based on the “new home economics” approach, hypergamous couples with a highly educated male and a lower-educated female partner display among the lowest second-birth transitions. Our findings underscore the relevance of interacting both partners’ education for a better understanding of the education-fertility relationship.     

Social Relationships and Children’s Subjective Well-Being

The quality of relationships is now recognised as an important aspect of children??s subjective well-being. This article focuses on both positive and negative quality of relationships. It includes six areas of children??s relationships??family, neighbourhood adults, positive affect friendship, negative affect friendship, experiences of being bullied by other young people, and being treated unfairly by adults and analyses their association with children??s subjective well-being. Data for this study were obtained from a national survey among 4,673 children in secondary schools across England. Children??s relationships with their family, friends (positive affect) and neighbourhood adults appear to increase their well-being, whereas, negative aspects of friendship relations, experiences of being bullied and treated unfairly by adults is proved to decrease young people??s well-being. Relationships with family, positive relations with friends and experience of being bullied appear to have respectively the first, second and third highest effect on children??s subjective well-being. Although the influence was low, children??s relationships with neighbourhood adults, their experiences of being treated unfairly by adults and their negative relations with friends contributed significantly to explaining variations of their subjective well-being. These findings are discussed in the context of previous empirical studies and theories on social relationships and subjective well-being. Suggestions for future research are also put forward.     

Stability and Change in Youths’ Political Interest

Political interest is a key for the survival and development of democracies. Therefore, it is important to establish when political interest develops. We examined changes in political interest—when and in which directions—among youths between 13 and 28 years of age. We followed five age groups of Swedish youths over 2 years, with a total of 2621 participants. Analysis of stability coefficients supported the idea that political interest becomes more stable with age. From their early twenties, youths’ political interest was found to be as stable as has been earlier reported for adults. Among adolescents, the lowest stability rate was observed in the youngest cohort (ages 13–15). The results also showed that, when taking the increase in political interest into account, the proportion of youths losing their interest in politics corresponded to the proportion of youths gaining interest over time. On the whole, this study brings new insights on the development of political interest over time. It provides empirical evidence on when political interest is most susceptible to change and on how it is likely to change. Implications for research and intervention are discussed.     

Corruption and the ‘Paradox of Redistribution’

The existing literature on the determinants of income redistribution has identified a ‘paradox’. Namely, that countries with a high degree of market income inequality redistribute little, which is in disagreement with the median voter theorem. In a first step, this paper outlines several mechanisms that explain why government corruption might be partially responsible for this ‘paradox’. In a second step, different corruption perception indices and an instrumental variable approach are used to provide empirical evidence that indicates a significant negative impact of corruption on redistribution levels for a sample of 148 developing and developed countries. This finding suggests that, next to political and need factors, government corruption explains to some extent the ‘paradox of redistribution’. This is especially true for many developing countries, given that they typically have relatively high degrees of corruption and low levels of redistribution.     

The influence of financial, human and social capital on Japanese men’s and women’s health in single- and two-parent family structures

Large-scale demographic changes have been occurring in Japan over the last few decades. During this time, the proportion of two-parent (nuclear) and single-parent families have doubled. Despite this rapid increase, the health of individuals in these family structures have received limited attention, as the focus has been directed towards the health of Japan’s aging society and the health implications related to the decline in multigenerational households. However, researchers and policy planners cannot afford to overlook issues that influence the health of men and women in single- and two-parent family structures, not only because these families have become increasingly common throughout the nation, but also because the western literature has indicated that the health of families are largely influenced by the gender-by-family structure divide. Through logistic regression models, using the 1999 Nationwide Family Survey, this paper examines how financial, human and social capital influences the likelihood of good health among men and women in single- and two-parent families. As was expected, key determinants in predicting good health amongst these four sub-groups of parents were found. While parents in two-parent families were the least influenced by various measures of capital, these same measures were found to be significant in predicting good health amongst fathers, and more so mothers, in single-parent families.

Young Children’s Developmental Ecologies and Kindergarten Readiness

Children enter the crucial transition to school with sociodemographic disparities firmly established. Domain-specific research (e.g., on poverty and family structure) has shed light on these disparities, but we need broader operationalizations of children’s environments to explain them. Building on existing theory, this study articulates the concept of developmental ecology—those interrelated features of a child’s proximal environment that shape development and health. Developmental ecology links structural and demographic factors with interactional, psychological, and genetic factors. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), this study conducts latent class analyses to identify how 41 factors from three domains—namely, household resources, health risks, and ecological changes—cluster within children as four overarching developmental ecologies. Because it documents how numerous factors co-occur within children, this method allows an approximation of their lived environments. Findings illuminate powerful relationships between race/ethnicity, parental age, socioeconomic background, and nativity and a child’s developmental ecology, as well as associations between developmental ecology and kindergarten cognition, behavior, and health. Developmental ecology represents a major pathway through which demographic characteristics shape school readiness. Because specific factors have different implications depending on the ecologies in which they are embedded, findings support the usefulness of a broad ecological approach.     

Green Pu’er City and the Cloud Tea

正If being asked which is the largest city of Yunnan,nine out of ten people would give the wrong answer-just as some people would reply that Toronto is the capital of Canada,Sydney is the capital of Australia and Guilin is the capital of Gaungxi.In fact,the largest city of Yunnan is Pu’er,not Kunming.Many people are familiar with Pu’er because of Pu’er Tea.They believe the place"Pu’er"is named after the tea.But the     

The ‘What’, ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Employee Well-Being: A New Model

This paper examines the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of employee well-being. Beginning with the ‘what’ of well-being, the construct of mental health was explored with the aim of building a model of employee well-being. It was proposed that employee well-being consists of three core components: (1) subjective well-being; (2) workplace well-being and (3) psychological well-being. Following this, the ‘why’ of employee well-being was investigated; that is, why employee well-being should be an important matter for organisations. It was argued that employee well-being is an important precursor to organisational well-being, as indicated by its links to employee turnover and performance. The next section was concerned with the ‘how’ of employee well-being; that is, how well-being can be reliably enhanced. Drawing on two models of strengths and a practice model of psychological assessment, it was asserted that strength-based development can reliably enhance employee well-being. A solid framework for understanding and measuring employee well-being is offered in the hope that it will foster a more integrated approach to assessing and optimising employee well-being.

China’s Tibetan Population and Population in Tibet

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Family size and children’s education in Vietnam

Data from the nationally representative 1994 Inter-Censal Demographic Survey are used to examine the association between family size and children s schooling in Vietnam. The data provide information on several education measures for all children over age 10, including children no longer residing in the household. Although a clear inverse bivariate association between family size and children s school attendance and educational attainment is evident, multivariate analysis controlling for urban/rural residence, region, parents’ education, household wealth, and child’s age, reveals that much of this association, especially that predicting educational attainment, is attributable to these other influences. Moreover, much of the effect that remains after statistical adjustment for the other influences is seen mainly at the largest family sizes. We consider the implications of these findings for current population policy in Vietnam and the possible features of the Vietnamese context that might account for the modest association.