中秋月·关爱情

“感谢县计生委给我送来的中秋月饼及默问金，虽然我家受了灾．在全社会的关心下．我会努力进行生产自救．报答你们给予我家的关爱。”星子县温泉镇庐山垅村二女户家庭金平桂捧着月饼和走访慰问金激动地说。这是江西省星子县在中秋节前开展“中秋月·关爱情”活动时走访庐山垅村受灾二女户家庭中的一幕。     

The End of “Lowest‐Low” Fertility?

Total fertility rates fell to previously unseen levels in a large number of countries beginning in the early 1990s. The persistence of TFRs below 1.3 raised the possibility of rapid population aging and decline. We discuss the recent widespread turnaround in so‐called lowest‐low‐fertility countries in Europe and East Asia. The number of countries with TFRs below 1.3 fell from 21 in 2003 to five in 2008. Moreover, the upturn in the TFR was not confined to lowest‐fertility countries, but affected the whole developed world. We explore the demographic explanations for the recent rise in TFRs stemming from fertility timing effects as well as economic, policy, and social factors. Although the current economic downturn may suppress TFRs in the short run, we conclude that formerly lowest‐low‐fertility countries will continue to see increases in fertility as the transitory effects of shifts to later childbearing become less important.     

阳光·童心·女孩——石棉县开展“关爱女孩石棉行”社会宣传活动

石棉县在去年被列为四川省5个省级“关爱女孩行动”项目试点之一．目前也是雅安市惟一的试点县。继前阶段开展一系列形式多样的活动后．今年将活动进一步推向深入．又组织开展“关爱女孩石棉行”社会宣传活动。积极采取“结合、融入”的方法．争取县政府妇女儿童工作委员会、关心下一代工作委员会以及宣传．文化。     

恩克西·约翰逊留给我们的心声

2000年7月12日在南非的德班召开的第13届国际艾滋病大会上，一位11岁的感染者在大会上发言。表露了他的心声。他是战斗在艾滋病第一线的战士，这个发言对当时的南非政府的艾滋病政策提出了挑战，并号召干百万人，起来和艾滋病展开斗争。他死于2001年6月1日。这个发言是他留下的一份遗产。     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">Increasing Inequality in Parent Incomes and Children’s Schooling</Emphasis>

Income inequality and the achievement test score gap between high- and low-income children increased dramatically in the United States beginning in the 1970s. This article investigates the demographic (family income, mother’s education, family size, two-parent family structure, and age of mother at birth) underpinnings of the growing income-based gap in schooling using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Across 31 cohorts, we find that increases in the income gap between high- and low-income children account for approximately three-quarters of the increasing gap in completed schooling, one-half of the gap in college attendance, and one-fifth of the gap in college graduation. We find no consistent evidence of increases in the estimated associations between parental income and children’s completed schooling. Increasing gaps in the two-parent family structures of high- and low-income families accounted for relatively little of the schooling gap because our estimates of the (regression-adjusted) associations between family structure and schooling were surprisingly small for much of our accounting period. On the other hand, increasing gaps in mother’s age at the time of birth accounts for a substantial portion of the increasing schooling gap: mother’s age is consistently predictive of children’s completed schooling, and the maternal age gap for children born into low- and high-income families increased considerably over the period.     

An assessment of China’s fertility level using the variable-<Emphasis Type="Italic">r</Emphasis> method

The fertility level in China is a matter of uncertainty and controversy. This paper applies Preston and Coale's (1982) variable-r method to assess the fertility level in China. By using data from China's 1990 and 2000 censuses as well as annual population change surveys, the variable-r method confirms that Chinese fertility has reached a level well below replacement.     

Supervisor–Subordinate <Emphasis Type="Italic">Guanxi</Emphasis> and Job Satisfaction Among Migrant Workers in China

In urban China, improving rural–urban migrant workers’ subjective wellbeing has become an important goal for workplaces and local governments. Drawing from the social capital theory and using original survey data, we examine the relationship between migrant workers’ guanxi (‘personal relations’ in the Chinese context) with their supervisors and their job satisfaction. Our results show that supervisor–subordinate guanxi is positively related to migrant workers’ job satisfaction. This relationship is mediated by network resources and personal power, which serve as their social resources in workplaces. Our study contributes to the positive psychology literature by understanding the role of guanxi in shaping Chinese migrant workers’ job satisfaction. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The “difference between heaven and earth”: Urban–rural disparities in well-being in China

Although China is a rapidly developing nation, rural–urban disparities in well-being remain large, and perhaps have become larger than in the early years of the Communist period because the urban sector has benefited from China's transition to a market economy much more than has the rural sector; or perhaps have become smaller as earning opportunities in the export-oriented manufacturing sector have increased for those from rural origins. Economic disparities are exacerbated by institutional arrangements that have created a two-class society based on registration (hukou) status with sharp rural–urban distinctions in the public provision of schooling, health care, housing, and retirement benefits. Indeed, it is fair to say that China built an urban welfare state on the backs of the peasants.     

Exploring patterns of environmental injustice in the Global South: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Maquiladoras</Emphasis> in Ciudad Juárez,Mexico

Decades of research in countries of the Global North have revealed distinct environmental injustices whereby industrial hazards tend to be located in poor and minority neighborhoods; few studies have investigated similar relationships between humans and hazards in the Global South. This study uses conventional quantitative environmental justice methodology to investigate spatial relationships between residential socio-demographics and maquiladoras (i.e., final assembly plants) in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. When predicting maquiladora density using percent children and social class in a spatial error regression model, we find that percent children was a positive and significant predictor, while social class was not significant. Adding formal residential development to the model, social class becomes a negative and significant predictor. Formal residential development and percent children are also positive and significant. As is the case in the Global North, relationships between neighborhood characteristics and transnationally operated maquiladoras along the northern border of Mexico are linked to urban development.

How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within <Emphasis Type="Italic">Young Lives</Emphasis>

‘Wellbeing’ is a key concept in the study of children’s lives over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are holistic, contextualized and longitudinal. For this reason wellbeing is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15-year project (2000–2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see ). This paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture aspects of child wellbeing in the context of a range of children’s life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. It draws on a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting three core qualitative methods in the four study countries. The paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

“Roll Back Malaria,Roll in Development”? Reassessing the Economic Burden of Malaria

Recent efforts to mobilize support for malaria control have highlighted the economic burden of malaria and the value of malaria control for generating economic development. These claims have a long history. Beginning in the early twentieth century, they became the primary justification for malaria‐control programs in the American South and in other parts of the globe, including British India. Economists conducted none of these studies. Following World War II and the development of new anti‐malarial drugs and pesticides, including DDT, malaria control and eradication were increasingly presented as instruments for eliminating economic underdevelopment. By the 1960s, however, economists and demographers began to raise serious substantive and methodological questions about the basis of these claims. Of particular concern was the role of rapid population growth, resulting in part from the decline of malaria mortality, in undermining the short‐term economic gains achieved through malaria control. Despite these concerns, malaria continues to be presented as an economic problem in the work of Jeffrey Sachs and others, justifying massive investments in malaria control. The methodological basis of these claims is examined. The paper concludes that while malaria takes a dreadful toll in human lives and causes significant economic losses for individuals, families, and some industries, the evidence linking malaria control to national economic growth remains unconvincing. In addition, the evidence suggests that there are potential costs to justifying malaria‐eradication campaigns on macroeconomic grounds.     

The ‘Dark Side’ of Social Capital: A Cross-National Examination of the Relationship Between Social Capital and Violence in Africa

Social Indicators Research - Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however,...     

Who will Decongest Bengaluru? Politics,Infrastructures & Scapes

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this paper is to investigate deliberate instances of the unclogging of congested urban infrastructures through such measures as widening roads and constructing underpasses. Such decongestive actions have increasingly become routine in the burgeoning cities of the Global South. The city of Bengaluru, India’s hub for business process outsourcing and for new information technology innovation and entrepreneurship, provides an apt location to examine and excavate the political connotations of decongestive work. In doing so, this paper proposes infrastructure scape as an explanatory concept to describe three facets of decongestive efforts in Bengaluru – first, the organizing principle that assembles them, second, the technological sensibility that constitute these efforts, and finally the value commitments that each scape proposes.     

Resource management and fertility in Mexico’s Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Campos</Emphasis>, cash,and contraception in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen

This case study examines the link between marine resource management, and the universal contraceptive use among married couples in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen, located in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Several reasons appear to contribute to small desired and actual family sizes. Some of these include a medical clinic staff effective in promoting family planning, cooperative and private resource ownership, changing cultural attitudes, geographical limitations to population and economic growth, and a desire to conserve the environment for aesthetic and economic motives. Lastly, families desired to preserve a sustained balance between benefiting from lobster harvests today and safeguarding this marine resource for their children in the future.