New money,and old man/lady and ‘Two's company’: Subjective Welfare in the NORC General Social Surveys, 1972–1982

The nine surveys, dozens of variables, and more than ten thousand cases in the NORC General Social Surveys, 1972–1982, allow one to test a variety of cross-sectional and over-time hypotheses about Subjective Welfare (Happiness). I used discrete multivariate analyses to test five hypotheses: (1) the Economist's prediction that Happiness is a function of income; the Sociologist's hypotheses that Happiness is a function of (2) rank on various evaluated dimensions and (3) number of social ties; and the Psychologist's hypotheses that Happiness is affected by (4) social comparisons and (5) adaptation. None of the five is supported impressively, but three variables emerge as good cross-sectional predictors — Race (Blacks are less Happy, but not necessarily because of discrimination), Marital Status (all categories of nonmarried are less happy) and Financial Change (those whose finances are improving are happier, those who finances have turned for the worse are less happy). When Marital Status and Recent Financial Change are used in a year-to-year social indicator model, fluctuations in the predictors produce significant but small changes in Happiness.     

Positioning the self

This article explores how a group of regular magazine readers interpreted representations of women's lives in women's magazines. These readers consistently evaluated magazine texts in relation to their own lives and their own conceptions of identity. They used their personal experiences and their notions of what a woman's life is really like in order to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant journalism in women's magazines. When talking about women's magazines they formulated narratives about their own identities, and they drew on various discourses that placed women's magazines in relation to their subjective experiences of ordinary everyday life. A reflexive positioning of the self was therefore crucial to their mode of interpretation. The analysis is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with subscribers to a popular Norwegian women's magazine, and the findings are discussed in the light of Anthony Giddens' theory of the reflexive self and Toril Moi's reading of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist feminist philosophy.     

The long-term impact of parents' childbearing decisions on children's self-esteem

We examine the long-term impact of parents' childbearing decisions on children's self-esteem. We focus on subjective aspects of the home environment in the creation of children's internalized sense of self-worth. Unique 23-year family panel data combining measures of mothers' childbearing, mothers' childbearing intentions, and children's self-esteem allow us to examine the overall links between parents' childbearing and children's self-esteem. The results demonstrate that parents' childbearing intentions can have a significant long-term impact on their children's self-esteem. Children who were unintended by their mothers have significantly lower self-esteem 23 years later. Our findings indicate that giving birth to an unintended child can have a long-term negative impact on subjective aspects of the child's well-being, at least in terms of self-esteem. Unintended childbearing has received an increasing amount of research attention in recent years.     

Reliability and Validity of an Adapted Version of the Cantril Ladder for Use with Adolescent Samples

There are a number of measures of life satisfaction for use with adolescent samples. The adapted Cantril Ladder is one such measure. This has been collected by the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in HBSC member countries across Europe and North America for several survey cycles, dating back to 2002. Although this measure has been piloted in the HBSC member countries, and analysed and reported in several international scientific journals and reports, it has never been formally validated. This study aims to be a first step in validating the adapted Cantril Ladder to establish if it is fit for purpose in the measurement of global life satisfaction among adolescents in Scotland. The study found that across samples of 11–15 year old pupils, the Cantril Ladder showed good reliability, and among 11 year olds, better than that of the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale, an often used measure in adolescent samples. The Cantril Ladder also showed good convergent validity with other emotional well-being measures, perceived health and subjective health. Gender differences were noted in the convergent analysis suggesting gender differences in factors influencing or influenced by life satisfaction measured using this instrument.     

The effect of the Great Blackout of 1965 on births in New York City

A comparison of the number of births in New York City nine months after the Great Blackout of 1965 with comparable periods for the previous five years shows no increase in births associated with the blackout.     

Religious Affiliation and Fertility in a Sub-Saharan Context: Dynamic and Lifetime Perspectives

We use uniquely detailed data from a predominantly Christian high-fertility area in Mozambique to examine denominational differentials in fertility from two complementary perspectives—dynamic and cumulative. First, we use event-history analysis to predict yearly risks of birth from denominational affiliation. Then, we employ Poisson regression to model the association between the number of children ever born and share of reproductive life spent in particular denominations or outside organized religion. Both approaches detect a significant increase in fertility associated with membership in a particular type of African-initiated churches which is characterized by strong organizational identity, rigid hierarchy, and insular corporate culture. Membership in the Catholic Church is also associated with elevated completed fertility. We relate these results to extant theoretical perspectives on the relationship between religion and fertility by stressing the interplay between ideological, social, and organizational characteristics of different types of churches and situate our findings within the context of fertility transition and religious demographics in Mozambique and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Health-Related Quality of Life of Chinese Earthquake Survivors: A Case Study of Five Hard-Hit Disaster Counties in Sichuan

As one of the most destructive natural disasters, earthquakes affect the health of survivors. The devastating earthquakes that hit Sichuan, China have aroused the concern of domestic and international scholars. The health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of survivors also requires substantial research. Studies on impact factors, such as gender, age, monthly income, and education, have become controversial. The subjects in this study are the people of five hard-hit disaster counties in Sichuan Province, namely, Wenchuan, Qingchuan, Mianzhu, Lushan, and Dujiangyan. A preliminary survey was conducted in May and June 2013 in areas badly hit by the earthquake in Sichuan, China. A total of 2000 questionnaires were distributed, and 1672 of which were received, yielding a recovery rate of 83.6 %. To further complement and corroborate the conclusions, a follow-up survey was conducted in October and November 2013, where 1526 effective questionnaires were received. The analysis in this paper is mainly based on the first survey, and the collected data from the follow-up survey were used to perform a supplementary analysis. By analyzing data from five hard-hit areas in Sichuan and by establishing models, we drew the following conclusions: The results of analysis of variance and Tukey’s honestly significant difference tests revealed the following results. First, the results of two investigations indicate the HRQOL of earthquake survivors is relatively poor, especially in terms of general health (GH), mental health (MH), social functioning (SF), etc. However, results of the second survey indicate that the scores of all domains (except GH) have increased significantly, with the SF having the most significant increase. Second, the HRQOL scores of men are higher than those of women. Individuals with higher education or monthly income have higher HRQOL scores than those with lower education or income. Moreover, younger survivors have higher HRQOL scores than older survivors. Third, a positive correlation exists among the HRQOL domains of all survivors. Among all domains, the PF, RP, GH, MH, and VT of survivors have a very strong correlation. In addition, SF, BP, MH, and VT have a strong correlation. Other variables have a relatively weak correlation.     

Nowcasting Indicators of Poverty Risk in the European Union: A Microsimulation Approach

The at-risk-of-poverty rate is one of the three indicators used for monitoring progress towards the Europe 2020 poverty and social exclusion reduction target. Timeliness of this indicator is critical for monitoring the effectiveness of policies. However, due to complicated nature of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) poverty risk estimates are published with a 2–3 years delay. This paper presents a method that can be used to estimate (“nowcast”) the current at-risk-of-poverty rate for the European Union (EU) countries based on EU-SILC microdata from a previous period. The EU tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD is used for this purpose in combination with up to date macro-level statistics. The method is validated by using EU-SILC data for 2007 incomes to estimate at-risk-of-poverty rates for 2008–2012 and to compare the predictions with actual EU-SILC and other external statistics. The method is tested on eight EU countries which are among those experiencing the most volatile economic conditions within the period: Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania.     

Men's influence on the onset and progress of fertility decline in Ghana, 1988–98

While lower fertility is commonly associated with women's reproductive autonomy, we demonstrate that the influence of men's education on reproductive decision-making increased during the first decade of rapid fertility decline in Ghana. Husband's education exerts a stronger influence on wife's fertility intentions than does her own education, and the magnitude of the effect of his education increased significantly from 1988 to 1998. Lower fertility in Ghana seems to be associated more with men's declining fertility desires than with women's increasing reproductive autonomy. Nevertheless, there is some indication that women's education may play a relatively greater role in reproductive decision-making as fertility decline progresses still further.     

Well-being and ill-being: Different dimensions?

This paper presents evidence for regarding well-being and ill-being as distinct, although not orthogonal dimensions. It is suggested that well-being and ill-being may be like measures of quantitative and verbal ability in intelligence tests. For some purposes (e.g. for admitting students to particular courses of study) it may be sensible to use only one of the measures. For other purposes a combined measure-I.Q.-is appropriate. In this study we employ Indices of Well-Being and Ill-Being and a combined measure, Balance of Well-Being and Ill-Being. Using data from the first wave (1981) of an Australian panel study (N=942), four measures of well-being and three measures of ill-being were factor analysed, confirming the existence of distinct dimensions. The value of the distinctions was underlined by findings indicating that well-being and ill-being have different correlates and causes. Wellbeing depends more than ill-being on the personality traits of extraversion and optimism, and also on the existence of supportive social networks. Ill-being is more strongly related to SES, poor health and low scoring on the trait “personal competence”,. Overall, however, it was found that more variance can be accounted for in the Balance of Well-Being and Ill-Being Index than in the separate indices of Well-Being and Ill-Being.     

The Subjective Happiness Scale: Translation and Preliminary Psychometric Evaluation of a Spanish Version

The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper in Soc Indic Res 46:137–155, 1999) in a wide sample of 1,155 participants (448 men, 707 women) from three different groups (high school students, college students, and community adult participants). The participants completed the following measures: the Spanish version of SHS, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results revealed preliminary evidence of adequate internal consistency, appropriate test–retest reliability and convergent validity for research purposes. Also, results from confirmatory factor analyses showed a clear one-factor structure, identical with the English version. No significant sex effects were evidenced, although differences between the high school student group and the undergraduate university group were found. In general, our findings add empirical evidence of the usefulness of such a brief measure for the assessment of subjective happiness in large-scale national and international studies with native Spanish-speaking populations. Finally, practical recommendations and future lines of research are suggested.     

Disparities in levels of regional development in Ghana

The paper highlights the need for the use of indicators other than Gross-Domestic Productive and its derivatives to measure development. It reviews some of the techniques for analysing socio-economic indicators and selects the Wroclow Taxonomic Analysis for more detailed analysis. The main attributes of this technique are presented and the model is then applied to measure the levels of development of the regions in Ghana. Applying the Wroclow Taxonomic Technique to 10 socio-economic variables the paper finds that the Greater Accra Region, which is the seat of the Central Government, is far more developed than any other region. It categorizes the regions into four groups: More Developed Region, Developed Regions, Developing Regions and Less Developed Regions. It thus provides a basis for regional development in Ghana as well as a pattern for equitable distribution of the ten social amenities on a regional basis.     

Measuring Advances in Equality of Opportunity: The Changing Gender Gap in Educational Attainment in Canada in the Last Half Century

The notion of Equality of Opportunity (EO) has pervaded much of economic and social justice policy over the last half century in conveying a sense of liberation from the circumstances that constrain an individual’s ability to achieve it, and it has been a cornerstone of many gender equality programs. However unequivocal pursuit of the so called “Luck Egalitarianism” imperative has met with many critics who question why individuals who are blessed with good circumstances would wish to be “liberated” from them. This has led to a more qualified pursuit of Equal Opportunity which adds an additional proviso—that no circumstance group should be made worse off by such a policy or decentralized private initiative. Indeed observed practices, by focusing on the opportunities of the poorly endowed in circumstance, do accord with such a qualified Equal Opportunity mandate. Here it is contended that, because of the asymmetric nature of such a policy or initiative, existing empirical techniques will not fully capture the progress made toward an EO goal. Hence a new technique is introduced and employed in examining progress toward such a Qualified Equal Opportunity (QEO) Objective in the context of the educational attainments of Canadian males and females born between the 1920s and the 1970s (In the early part of that century, females did not perform as well as males educationally, and were much more constrained by their parental educational circumstance). A QEO goal is generally found to cohere with the data with females becoming less attached to their parental educational circumstance, and indeed surpassing males in their educational attainments.     

An evaluation of brass mortality estimates under conditions of declining mortality

An evaluation of the Brass childhood mortality estimates under conditions of declining mortality shows them to overestimate current mortality. Error increases as the rate of mortality decline increases, as the childhood age up to which cumulative mortality is being estimated increases, and as age at onset of childbearing decreases. We use the results to develop a method for correcting the Brass estimates for the effects of quasistability. The method requires an estimate of the rate of mortality decline within the population in addition to information on the pattern of childbearing in the population.     

Urbanization and de-urbanization of the black population before the civil war

Pre-Civil War black urbanization is examined using data from federal census records, 1790 to 1860. The black population is found to be as urban as the white population initially, but its urbanization underwent relative decline in the last two decades before the Civil War. Foreshadowing current patterns, the northern black population was heavily concentrated in the largest cities, and the free black population was the most urban of all groups. The timing of black urban decline in the North, as well as regional and size of place differences in that decline, suggest that both competition with immigrants in major eastern seaboard cities and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 contributed to black de-urbanization. For the South, the explanations of black urban decline proposed by Wade, Conrad and Meyer, Goldin, and Bonacich are evaluated, and Bonacich’s split labor market theory is judged to be most consistent with the demographic trends.     

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.     

Xena On The Cross

This article examines those moments in Xena, Warrior Princess (XWP) in which Xena appears on the cross. Its purpose is to use those moments to explore how the messianic paradigm that dominates western heroic literature and popular culture affects and is reinvented in XWP. The paper argues that while XWP critiques the embedded violence and misogyny within this paradigm, the producers' commitment of XWP to a liberal vision threatens to pre-empt this critique with Xena's death in Japan and Gabrielle's reconstruction as a just warrior. Ultimately, the inconsistency between Xena's death and the explanations for it and the show's general rejection of the embedded violence of western ideals of justice invite a different reading of the show's ending than the producers may have intended.     

Between the look (la mirada) and the Escape (la fuga): the imaging of women in Solanas' La hora de los hornos and Tangos/El exilio de Gardel

This paper revisits the issues raised in debates on the politics of recognition from the point of view of media practitioners and their experiences in covering women's issues and perspectives. It explores the concerns regarding the attempts to improve media coverage of women's issues and perspectives by looking into one particular women's programme, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. The analysis is based primarily on interviews with members of the Woman's Hour's team and complemented by basic information on the presence of different subject areas and speakers in a sample of actual programming. The paper explores the criteria employed by journalists in their day-to-day decisions regarding the issues and approaches appropriate for the specialist women's programme. It discusses interviewees' definitions of Woman's Hour items and the three main factors that influence their selection of issues and the ways to approach them. The first factor concerns the identity of the programme: its issues, voices, and their diversity. The second factor is the listeners or, more broadly, the public and the ways it shapes Woman's Hour. The third factor is the professional and institutional context of the programme. The concluding discussion examines the ways in which Woman's Hour combines or oscillates between recognition and deconstruction of women's/gender identities, producers' interests and the perceived interests of their audiences, and feminist politics and journalistic principles.     

Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.