Productive Activities And Subjective Well-Being Among Older Adults: The Influence Of Number Of Activities And Time Commitment

This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should increase subjective well-being because these behaviors increase social integration and provide meaningful social roles. Using the first two waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives survey, we estimate a series of OLS and ordered logistic regression models to examine this issue among a sample of respondents 60 years old and older. Our multivariate regression results show that as time committed to productive activities increases, life satisfaction increases. Both increasing numbers of productive activities and increasing time commitment predict higher levels of happiness. Also, we find only modest support for a relationship between productive activities and the number of and changes in depressive symptoms. Our results provide support for the idea that engaging in productive activities is beneficial to older persons’ well-being, implying confirmation of the role enhancement hypothesis and demonstrating the importance of social integration.This research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R03 AG018910). We thank Jan Mutchler for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

An Investigation into the Cross-Cultural Equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index

The Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) is being developed for the cross-cultural measurement of subjective wellbeing (SWB). This paper reports the findings of its utility with the Hong Kong Chinese and Australian populations. An item on affect, ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was also investigated to determine whether it should be added to the index. Three-hundred and sixty participants (180 per country), with equal representation from groups aged 18–35, 35–64 and 65 years and above, were recruited from each country. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability, validity and sensitivity, which are comparable in both countries. The item ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was found to contribute significantly to the scale’s psychometric performance in Australia but not in Hong Kong. Cultural differences in the perception of the concepts ‘satisfaction’ and ‘happiness’ were suggested as an explanation for this finding. The PWI data are also consistent with homeostasis theory, which proposes that each person’s SWB level is maintained within a limited positive range. For the Australian population, their mean SWB level fell within the established Western range of 70–80, on a scale from 0 to 100. The Hong Kong population, however, fell below this range. Cultural response bias was identified as a plausible explanation for the differences between the Hong Kong and Australian samples.     

Temporal Aspects of Life Satisfaction

Time pressure is a familiar phenomenon. The quantity of spare time people have clearly effects their satisfaction with their leisure and with their life as a whole. But so too, we show, does how much control people have over how much spare time they have. We measure this through an indicator of ‘discretionary time’, which proves to be equally or more important than spare time itself in these connections.     

The State and Fate of Nations: Implications of Subjective Measures of Personal and Social Quality of Life

The equation of `more with `better – ofstandard of living with quality of life – is at theheart of a growing international debate aboutindicators of progress. At one level, the debate isabout the adequacy of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) asthe dominant indicator of national performance. However, the debate also reaches far beyond thisquestion to challenge conventional thinking aboutprogress. Quality of life includes both objective andsubjective elements, so indicators of progress shouldinclude measures of how people feel about their lives.Drawing mainly on Australian data – but also on USand international studies – this analysis examines anddifferentiates between subjective measures of personal and social quality of life, anddiscusses their use in evaluating whether life isgetting better – or worse.     

Testing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: National Quality-of-Life Across Time

Maslow's hierarchy-of-needs theory is used to predict development of Quality of Life (QOL) in countries over time. Previous data sets have not had sufficient power to test these development trends among countries. Therefore a new database was developed that includes annual quality of life time-series for 88 countries from 1960 to 1994, covering measures on all five of Maslow's need-levels. Results showed significant agreement with some of Maslow's predictions, including his sequence of need achievement, and parts of an S-shaped trajectory in QOL. However, his mechanism of growth – that countries must slow growth in one area to increase growth in another – was disconfirmed.     

Societal development and the shifting influence of the genome on status attainment

This paper builds on consensus areas within the study of societal development to theorize variation in the strength of genetic influence on status across primary societal types. Its thesis is developed by first constructing a general model of the genome → status relationship positing the strength of genetic influence on status attainment to be a function of specific structural elements of the society. The model is supported by two primary premises: (a) as inequality levels increase, the characteristics and abilities intrinsically useful in status attainment are increasingly influenced by individuals’ social backgrounds and decreasingly determined by their genomes; (b) as social closure and inequality increase, the utility of these characteristics and abilities to status attainment is diminished. After the model is elaborated, it is applied to assess the relative strength of genome → status relationship for each of the major phases of societal development. The results indicate that genetic influence on status attainment has followed a reverse ‘J’ curve, with the genome → status relationship being relatively strong among hunter-gatherers, sharply declining among horticultural and agrarian groups, and then moderately increasing among advanced industrial societies.     

Assessing the ‘Agedness’ of A Population

In this paper we follow a lead provided by Basu and Basu [‘The Greying of Populations: Concepts and Measurement,’ Demography India 16, pp. 79–89], in order to advance a class of ‘agedness’ indices which, because they have been motivated by analogous considerations in the poverty measurement literature, can find application in that area of enquiry as well. The properties of the proposed indices are discussed, and illustrations of empirical application are provided. The note is intended as a contribution to the larger enquiry into the measurement of development indicators.     

Resilient or Resigned? Criminal Victimisation and Quality of Life in South Africa

A victimisation study conducted among 3300 householders in South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (NMMM) in the Eastern Cape Province aimed to inform a crime prevention strategy for the metropolitan area. The study found that the variables ‘fear of crime’ – measured in terms of perceived likelihood of victimisation – and concern about ‘personal safety’ had greater negative influence on life satisfaction than actual victimisation. Individual crimes against the person had greater negative influence on subjective wellbeing and feelings of personal safety than property and other household crimes. Individuals who perceived themselves to be at risk of becoming a victim of crime also perceived greater risk of other misfortunes. However, materially better-off victims reported higher levels of life satisfaction than non-victims in spite of their crime experience. South Africa has high crime rates by international standards and fighting crime presents the country with one of its major challenges in the second decade of democracy. Nevertheless, findings suggest that the negative impact of crime issues on achieving the good life are overshadowed by issues of racial inequalities and poverty. The conclusion is drawn that residents of Nelson Mandela Metropole are hardy when it comes to living with crime but nonetheless suffer stress in doing so. From a methodological perspective, the discussion considers whether subjective crime issues such as fear of crime and personal safety should be regarded as personal or neighbourhood quality-of-life issues. Based on survey findings, the conclusion is drawn that concern for personal safety is both. However, a crime-as-neighbourhood-issue is more likely to attract remedial action on the part␣of␣local authorities to better protect citizens and allay their fears of crime.     

An Australian history of the subordination of midwifery

This paper analyses the history of the subordination of midwifery to medicine and nursing. With the important exception of Evan Willis’ work on medical dominance and Annette Summers’ work on the takeover of midwifery by nursing, other histories of Australian midwifery have taken a neutral approach to issue of power and control. The aim of analysing this period is to identify the strategies of power that were used to subordinate midwifery. With increased consciousness of how power has operated in the past, midwives and woman of today can be more empowered when seeking to promote normal birth and midwifery models of care.Concepts of ‘power’, ‘the state’ and midwife are defined and discussed. A summary of the decline of midwifery and the rise of obstetrics in Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) gives a background against which to understand the Australian experience. The historical account given here draws to a climax by focussing on the period 1886–1928. It was during this time that medicine forged an alliance with nursing and achieved both legal and disciplinary control of midwifery. Knowing how this was done is important because it helps us to recognise the power strategies that are currently being used by medicine. This is helpful when planning how these strategies might be matched or countered by contemporary woman and midwives when seeking to promote normal birth and midwifery models of care.     

Indicating Socioeconomic Status among Elderly People in Developing Societies: An Example from Brazil

This paper is concerned with how to indicate Socioeconomic status (SES) among elderly people with census or survey data from less developed societies. It reports findings from a study of independent living among elderly people 65 years and over in Brazil in 1980 and 1995 that uncommonly had comparable data on education, income and housing attributes. It found that the potential indicators of SES are not substitutable. Rather, although they tend to be positively related to each other, each can have a different relationship with independent living, one being positively related even as another has no relation and a third has a negative relation. I recommend that the indicators not be combined into one measure, and that if only one is used, that choice not be called ‘Socioeconomic status’ but rather precisely what it is (e.g. education). [One]… stance involves a measurement-by-.at approach through which the investigator selects whatever remotely connected indicators he or she can locate and then merely announces that these will serve as measures [or proxies] of some highly abstract theoretical construct. The presumed rationale is that since the concept is di.cult to measure, almost any indicators will do. (Blalock, 1982, p. 19). However, insofar as di.erent perspectives lead to con.icting conclusions concerning the ‘same’ issue, the sensitivity of findings to (…) measurement (…) is clearly a matter of concern. (World Bank, n.fd.) Support from NICHD to the Center for Demography and Ecology through grant HD05876, and comments from Flavia Andrade are gratefully acknowledged.     

Labor Markets’ Institutional Properties And Distributive Justice In Modern Society: A Comparative Empirical Analysis

The paper’s main argument is that the rates of distributive injustice in industrial societies are significantly influenced by labor markets’ institutional properties. Markets characterized by institutional properties that heavily favor capital at the expense of labor are expected to produce more distributive injustice - as well as more income inequality – than others. In particular, distributive injustice is expected to be inversely linked with labor’s institutional power in economy and society. The paper intends to make a contribution to institutional analyses of distributive justice and related social problems such as income inequality in modern societies.     

Rumour of angels and heavenly midwives: anthropology of transpersonal events and childbirth

Some contemporary women can experience non-ordinary states of consciousness when childbearing. The purpose of this paper is to bring a ‘transpersonal’ frame to these non-ordinary states of consciousness (hereafter: NOSC). Transpersonal psychology is an interdisciplinary movement in Western science that studies ‘religious’, ‘peak’ or ‘healing’ experiences in different cultures and social contexts. Between 2001 and 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand, while engaged in anthropological fieldwork, I collected stories from mothers, fathers, and midwives who had participated in transpersonal events during childbirth.I will compare the local women's NOSC with ethnographic accounts of spirit-possession and its relationship to indigenous midwifery then revisit and reconstruct the witch-hunts of Medieval Europe from this perspective. Midwives are encouraged to learn to identify and support women's NOSC during labour and birth as many women find strength and wisdom by passing through these states in labour. The subject is also critical to men, whether they are present with women and birth as fathers or health professionals. The hoped for result of this inquiry is to revalorise NOSC among birth-giving mothers, and to educate birth attendants in this field.     

Environmental Refugees

There are fast-growing numbers of people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems. In their desperation, these environmental refugees—as they are increasingly coming to be known and as they are termed in this paper—feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt. Not all of them have fled their countries, many being internally displaced. But all have abandoned their homelands on a semi-permanent if not permanent basis, having little hope of a foreseeable return.     

On the Decline of Marriage in Rural Ireland 1851–1911: The Role of Ecological Constraints and/or Developing Philopatry

The proportion of people who never married and the age at first marriage increased in rural Ireland after the famine (1845–1847). In 1851, 11% of the population were never married at 45–54 years and this percentage increased steadily over time to 34% for men and 25% for women in 1936. The period from 1851 to 1911 was marked by economic progress, and despite some bad years, production, incomes and standards of living increased steadily. Ownership of land, passing from landlord to tennant, thus fixed the population to specific geographic locations and made the rural population increasingly philopatric. The Ecological Constraints Hypotheses (E.C.H.). has been used to explain the low marriage rate. It asserts that delayed dispersal and reproduction are caused by constraints such as a lack of access to resources such as land or mates. However in rural Ireland, wealthy heads of households were more likely to be celibate than occupiers of small holdings. The low nuptiality that developed after the famine appeared first in the more prosperous parts of Ireland and was accompanied by a substantial rise in living standards. The increasingly secure tie after the famine between the rural population and its geographic location reflected a new ecological situation which facilitated a change in reproductive strategy that was characterised by delayed marriage and an increase in celibacy. This strategy is adaptive in a stable ecology without major threats to survival. The data are consistent with evidence from animals and human populations showing associations in a stable ecology between long life expectancy, low population turnover and low fecundity, yet a rate of reproduction that is sufficient to maintain the population in its environment.     

The association between husbands’ and wives’ labor market positions in the Netherlands

This study describes (1) the association between husbands’ and wives’ employment statuses and occupations in the Netherlands, (2) establishes possible trends in the association, and (3) explores to what extent the association can be attributed to educational homogamy. We use 12 waves of the Dutch Labor Force Survey (1994–2006), and use log-linear models to analyze the associations between the labor market positions of spouses. Overall, we find positive associations, implying that favorable positions are accumulated within households. For couples with children, the association between spouses’ employment status is negative, which means that they divide paid labor. Over birth cohorts, the association between spouses’ employment statuses becomes stronger, and between spouses’ occupational success remains stable. Education is an important contributor to the occupational association, but still half of the association between spouses’ success cannot be attributed to spouses’ education.     

Does the recording of parallel activities in Time Use Diaries affect the way people report their main activities?

It is widely recognised that studies based ontime diaries form the most valid and reliabledata source concerning peoples' timeallocation, but it is also documented thatvarious designs give somewhat divergentresults. Usually both main activities andpossible parallel activities are captured intime diaries. Much research has been undertakento evaluate various aspects of the design ofsuch surveys, but there has been littlesystematic investigation on the possibleeffects of recording parallel activities on theway people report their main activities. Asmost analyses focus mainly on primaryactivities, validity in this area is of utmostimportance. Utilising the Norwegian Time UseStudy from 1990–1991 we discuss in this paper if,and possibly how, the registration of secondaryactivities influences the picture we get ofpeople's main activities. Also the role of theexamples presented to participants isinspected. Our findings indicate that therecording of parallel activities does affectthe way people report their main activities.Especially indistinct and fuzzy activities likechildcare, socialising and television viewingseem to be sensitive, but effects differ forwomen and men. Undoubtedly, information onsecondary activities is needed in order tofully reflect people's time patterns, but it isimportant that guidelines for diary keeping andexamples presented to participants aredeveloped carefully so that information onprimary activities is not distorted.     

Time preference and labour migration in an OLG model with land and capital

This paper constructs a two-country migration model in the lines of Galor (1986), in which the world population consists of individuals of two types who have different time preferences. Production uses three inputs: mobile labour, immobile capital and land. It is shown that both countries are necessarily inhabited by agents of both types and exhibit equal density of population and equal interest rate at the steady state equilibrium of the integrated economy. The steady state welfare implications of international labour migration are studied.This paper has been written during Philippe Michel's visit at CORE, September 1994. Earlier drafts of this paper have been presented at the meeting Journées d'étude générations imbriquées (Marseille, November 24–26, 1994), at the ESPE conference (Lisbon, June 1–3, 1995) and at the EEA annual meeting (Prag, September 1–3, 1995). Comments by participants are gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful to Stéphane Déo, Kamhon Kan, Pierre Pestieau, Christoph Schmidt and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno     

Proletarianization with polarization: Industrialization, globalization, and social class in Turkey, 1980–2005

This paper analyzes the social class structure of Turkey during the latest wave of economic globalization in four dimensions: by sector of employment, with the Erikson–Goldthorpe–Portocarero (EGP) class schema, by occupational group, and in terms of informal employment. Since 1980, when Turkey opened to the global economy, the Turkish social class structure changed significantly. During this period, Turkey became a significant exporter of mostly low-technology, but also increasingly medium- and high-technology, manufactured goods. I contend that this economic globalization and industrialization contributed to a dual process of proletarianization and polarization. Proletarianization occurred through a transition from Turkey's agrarian tradition, a relative decline of the public sector, and an expansion of classes who sell their labor without workplace authority. Polarization entailed the growth of private-sector entrepreneurial, professional and managerial classes, and a simultaneous expansion of the informal sector. There were also differences between sexes. The share of manufacturing employment and the low-skilled labor classes expanded at rates much higher among women than among men, contributing to more rapid proletarianization.     

Public policy and the labor market adjustment of new immigrants to Australia

Two separate cohorts of immigrants to Australia are compared in order to assess the potential role of immigrant selection criteria, labor market conditions, and income-support policy in facilitating the labor market adjustment of new arrivals. Although these two cohorts entered Australia only five years apart, their initial labor market outcomes varied dramatically. The results indicate that changes in immigration policy may have led to increased human capital endowments that in turn resulted in higher participation rates and reduced unemployment. At the same time, improvement in Australian labor market conditions and changes in income-support policy over the 1990s – which most likely altered the returns to human capital – were probably instrumental in reinforcing the effects of tighter immigrant selection criteria. As much as half of the fall in unemployment rates among women and one third the decline among men appears to have occurred as the result of changes in the returns to demographic and human capital characteristics. Responsible editor:Christoph M. Schmidt     

Social Trust,Social Partner Time and Television Time

Social trust is an important phenomenon, but the influence of important time-based measures upon trust has not been examined. Such measures include social contact and anti-social activity, such as television watching, which allows for the co-presence of other people. This paper reports on associations between trust and weighted means of co-present ‘social’ time (defined as time spent in various ‘social’ activities) and co-present time spent watching television, using the Australian Time Use Survey, 2006. It finds that trust is associated with social time spent in the co-presence of ‘strangers’ predominately from outside the household, and that TV watching in the co-presence of ‘familiars’—friends and family—is negatively associated with trust.