Accounting for Cross-National Differences in Infant Mortality Decline (1965–1991) among less Developed Countries: Effects of Women's Status,Economic Dependency,and State Strength

The present study tests models derived from four theoretical perspectives: Modernization/free trade theory, gender inequality theory, developmental state theory, and dependency theory. It is based on a sample of 82 less developed countries for the period from 1965 to 1991. We find some support for each theoretical perspective. Foreign trade, investment, and debt dependency have adverse effects on infant mortality, mediated by variables linked to modernization/free trade theory and gender inequality theory. State strength has a beneficial direct effect on infant mortality decline. Women's education and reproductive autonomy have significant direct effects, but also play important roles as mediating variables as does rate of economic growth.     

Dimensions of social inequality in the Third World

This cross-national assessment of the empirical determinants of income inequality and infant mortality employs policy-relevant variables suggested by the major macrosocial theories of development and stratification. Findings based on sample sizes ranging from 34 to 61 LDCs indicate that modernization and ecological-evolutionary theories provide more consistent explanations of social inequalities than either dependency/world-systems theory or urban bias theory. Our analyses point to economic growth and the development of rural infrastructure and social complexity as the most expedient methods for facilitating mortality reduction and income equalization. We conclude that simplistic policy-orientations stressing such phenomena as urban bias or population growth should be replaced by more complex perspectives that include an emphasis on rural social organization.     

Support for democracy in cross-national perspective: The detrimental effect of economic inequality

Using survey data and national statistics on 35 modern democracies, this research explores the relationship between economic and political conditions and support for democracy. As expected from modernization theory, support for democracy tends to be highest in countries with a high level of economic development. More importantly, however, I contribute a new finding that income inequality matters much more. Specifically, citizens from countries with relatively low levels of income inequality tend to be more likely than others to support democracy. I also find that household income is positively related to support for democracy in most countries, though it tends to have its strongest effect if economic development is high and income inequality is low. Finally, even after taking into account the level of economic development in one's country, people from former Communist countries tend to have far less support for democracy than those from more established democracies.     

Women,Demography, and Politics: How Lower Fertility Rates Lead to Democracy

Where connections between demography and politics are examined in the literature, it is largely in the context of the effects of male aspects of demography on phenomena such as political violence. This project aims to place the study of demographic variables’ influence on politics, particularly on democracy, squarely within the scope of political and social sciences, and to focus on the effects of woman-related demographics—namely, fertility rate. I test the hypothesis that demographic variables—female-related predictors, in particular—have an independent effect on political structure. Comparing countries over time, this study finds a growth in democracy when fertility rates decline. In the theoretical framework developed, it is family structure as well as the economic and political status of women that account for this change at the macro and micro levels. Findings based on data for more than 140 countries over three decades are robust when controlling not only for alternative effects but also for reverse causality and data limitations.     

On the Compatibility of Islam and Gender Equality

Although the Muslim world is sometimes depicted as a homogeneous civilization lacking democracy and gender equality, Muslim countries show tremendous economic, political and cultural variation. In this paper, this variation is used to gain insight into the determinants of women’s labor market participation (LMP) in the Muslim world. We use data on 45 Muslim countries and apply SEM models to determine effects of modernization, democracy, cultural background, and state Islamization on women’s participation in the formal economy (absolute LMP) and on the share of women in the labor force (relative LMP). Women’s absolute LMP is higher in Muslim countries with higher levels of economic development and in the oil-exporting countries. For women’s relative LMP, practical democracy (the degree to which people actively participate in the system) takes in a key position. It has a strong positive effect on women’s relative LMP and mediates the effects of economic development (positive), formal democratic structures (positive) and state Islamization (negative) on women’s relative LMP. Results indicate that in these countries modernization may lead to empowerment of women by increasing their absolute LMP, but that for attaining gender equality the political opportunity structures is most important.     

Social Capital,Government and Democracy Satisfaction,and Happiness in Turkey: A Comparison of Surveys in 1999 and 2008

Based on data from a 1999 and a 2008 European Values Survey, the main objective of this study is to explore the relationship between a variety of social capital indicators, satisfaction with government and democracy, and subjective well-being. Happiness and life satisfaction were used as outcome measures of subjective well-being. The indicators of social capital used in this study are general trust, trust in institutions, political engagement, concern for others, societal norms, and membership in volunteer organizations. The analyses reveal a significant increase in happiness, life satisfaction, and many social capital variables between 1999 and 2008. Generalized trust, trust in institutions, government satisfaction, and democracy satisfaction are positive correlates of well-being, although some relationships are significant only in 2008. Several demographic variables are also linked with subjective well-being such as income, employment status, age, gender, and education. We discuss the findings in relation to the significant societal, economic, and political changes experienced in Turkey between 1999 and 2008. Policy implications are also emphasized such as improved trust among individuals, trustworthiness of government institutions, and functioning of democracy.     

Dividedness,Institutions and Economic Performance: A Cross-National Analysis of Democratic Stability

Why divided societies face particular obstacles in maintaining democracy is one of the most challenging questions posed in the literature. Several studies posit that ethnically, religiously, and linguistically divided societies are incapable of establishing and holding a democratic system because of their social divisions and institutional weaknesses. We challenge this argument and examine whether political institutional arrangements (constraints over the executive, geographic distribution of political power, and form of government) in addition to economic performance are the crucial factors of success to establish and sustain a democratic regime and social unity in divided states. We use the Quality of Governance time-series standard dataset to test this hypothesis. By analyzing data on 163 states (1960–2012) we find that institutional constraints imposed over the executive and economic performance are the two primary influential factors in sustaining democratic regimes in multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious societies.     

Social Construction of Public Intellectuals in Vietnam: Current Situation and Possible Changes

In the literature on political support, much empirical effort has been devoted to the link between economic performance and satisfaction with democracy. Nevertheless, analyses are often inconclusive in their findings. This study tries to renew the interest in the topic by using multilevel models to analyse 108 surveys from the repeated cross-sectional Eurobarometer data between 1985 and 2013, and focuses on southern European countries which share political and economic characteristics. Thus, the article links economic trends to changes in satisfaction with democracy in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, also emphasizing the relevance of transformations in their political systems. The results demonstrate that low economic performance seems to negatively affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in the four countries and across the whole period analysed. This also holds true for different model specifications and when other potential factors such as the format and the performance of the institutional context are controlled for. By providing empirical evidence based on a longitudinal analysis, this article contributes to the wider debate on how economic conditions influence opinions about democracy.     

Comparing relative effects of education and economic resources on infant mortality in developing countries

Research on the social determinants of health has often considered education and economic resources as separate indicators of socioeconomic status. From a policy perspective, however, it is important to understand the relative strength of the effect of these social factors on health outcomes, particularly in developing countries. It is also important to examine not only the impact of education and economic resources of individuals, but also whether community and country levels of these factors affect health outcomes. This analysis uses multilevel regression models to assess the relative effects of education and economic resources on infant mortality at the family, community, and country level using data from demographic and Health Surveys in 43 low-and lower-middle-income countries. We find strong effects for both per capita gross national income and completed secondary education at the country level, but a greater impact of education within families and communities.     

Economic Development,Gender Inequality,and Demographic Outcomes: Evidence from India

This article examines the determinants of fertility, child mortality, and female disadvantage in child survival in India, using a district‐level panel data set linking 1981 and 1991 censuses. The results question the dominant view that variables directly related to women's agency (specifically, the female literacy rate and the female labor force participation rate) have played the crucial roles here. Instead, variables reflecting the general level of development and modernization are shown to have had the greatest effect in reducing fertility and child mortality during the period of the study. Both economic development and women's agency are seen to have had significant effects in reducing the female disadvantage in child survival. The results suggest, however, that with continued economic development, the two women's agency variables lose their significance in influencing this disadvantage. The policy implications of these findings are considered.     

Gender and the Politics of Death: Female Representation,Political and Developmental Context,and Population Health in a Cross-National Panel

There is considerable speculation that female political empowerment could improve population health. Yet, evidence to date is limited, and explanations for why political empowerment would matter and the conditions under which this might be enhanced or muted are not well understood. In this article, we draw on theoretical work on the politics of representation to frame an investigation of whether increases in the percentage of females in a country’s parliament influence mortality rates. We further examine whether the relationship is conditioned by extent of democracy and economic and social development. Through multivariate longitudinal regression, we analyze four indicators of mortality in 155 countries spanning 1990 to 2014 with controls for initial country conditions, time-stable structural predispositions to higher mortality, and a number of time-varying potential confounders. Results indicate that a high level of female representation—30 % or greater in our models—has large negative associations with mortality, that these are particularly strong in lesser developed and weak democratic contexts, that high female political representation effectively offsets liabilities associated with low development, and that the relationships are robust to various operationalizations of social development. In the end, our research provides a particularly thorough accounting of the relationship between female political representation and population health, particularly by specifying the conditions under which female representation is most salient. In doing so, the research suggests important links between issues of female empowerment, political context, and developmental trajectories of countries more generally.     

Postdemokratie, Humankapital und politische Handlungsfähigkeit

Reconstructing the transformation of manpower into human capital this article shows the effects on individual and collective political agency. In booming societies of the 1960s and early 1970s which were based on mass consumption, the utopia of a revolutionary proletarian subject vanished. It was superseded by the idea of a dualistic society providing a growing sphere of autonomy from economic dependancy. The neoliberal transformation of society destroyed this belief. If there is a strong convergence between labor and human capital, labor tends to interfuse the whole life. Complex governmental and economic regulation restricts democracy and effects individualization. The critical examination of processes of individualization shows the mechanisms that produce social antagonism.     

How Social Relations and Structures can Produce Happiness and Unhappiness: An International Comparative Analysis

In this paper, subjective well being, as measured by survey questions on happiness and life satisfaction, is investigated from a sociological-comparative point of view. The central thesis is that happiness and satisfaction must be understood as the outcome of an interaction process between individual characteristics and aspirations on the one side, and social relations and macrosocial structures on the other side. A distinction is made between life satisfaction and happiness; the former is more seen as the outcome of an evaluation process including material and social aspirations and achievements, the latter as an outcome of positive experiences, particularly close personal relationships. The focus of this paper is on micro- and macrosocial conditions favouring or inhibiting the emergence of happiness and satisfaction. It is hypothesized that dense and good basic social relations, occupational involvement and success, sociocultural (religious and altruistic) orientations and participation are conducive to happiness and life satisfaction; the same should be true at the macrolevel for economic prosperity, relatively equal social structures, a well-established welfare state and political democracy. The latter conditions, however, should be more important for life satisfaction than for happiness. A comparative, multilevel regression analysis of happiness in 41 nations around the world is carried out (using the World Value Survey 1995–1997). Both our general assumption and most of the specific hypotheses could be confirmed. It turned very clearly that “happiness” and “life satisfaction” are two different concepts. It could be shown that microsocial embedding and sociocultural integration of a person are highly relevant for happiness. However, contrary to earlier studies, we find that macrosocial factors like the economic wealth of nation, the distribution of income, the extent of the welfare state and political freedom are also relevant, particularly for satisfaction. What counts most is the ability to cope with life, including subjective health and financial satisfaction, close social relations, and the economic perspectives for improvement in the future, both at the level of the individual and at that of the society. These abilities are certainly improved by favourable macrosocial conditions and institutions, such as a more equal income distribution, political democracy and a welfare state.     

Fertility decline in the modern world and in the original demographic transition: Testing three theories with cross-national data

This study uses aggregate data on a large number of the world's societies to test three theories of fertility decline in the modern world and in the original demographic transition. One prominent theory relates fertility decline to the changing economic value of children. With industrialization and overall modernization the economic value of children's labor shifts from positive to negative. This interpretation has been challenged by those who claim that the flow of wealth in preindustrial societies is always from parent to child rather than from child to parent. An alternative interpretation is that fertility levels reflect people's efforts to promote their reproductive success, and that this requires the careful tracking of infant and child mortality. Fertility rates are adjusted to the rate of infant and child survival, and will be high when survival rates are low and low when survival rates are high. A third theory emphasizes female empowerment. Fertility will be high when women are highly subordinated to men, but as women gain more autonomy and control over their own lives they reduce their fertility levels because, among other possibilities, higher levels of fertility present them with serious burdens. We tested all three theories through multiple regression analyses performed on two samples of societies, the first a large sample of the world's nation-states during the period between 1960 and 1990, and the second a sample of now-developed societies between 1880 and 1940. Our findings showed that infant mortality was an excellent predictor of fertility, and that female empowerment was a good predictor. However, there was only weak support for the argument that the economic value of children's labor plays an important role in fertility decisions. The findings were discussed in the context of a broader interpretation of fertility behavior in societies with high levels of industrialization and modernization.     

Union Formation Implications of Race and Gender Gaps in Educational Attainment: The Case of Latin America

We use census microdata to assess the levels of educational homogamy in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico. This paper contributes to the literature on homogamy in three ways. First, by conducting a comparative analysis between countries belonging to the still little-studied region of Latin America, which is still undergoing intense and varied processes of demographic, economic, social, and political modernization. Second, by simultaneously including variables of structural and individual nature. Finally, by making progress with respect to the interactions between educational homogamy and other important variables associated with high levels of social inequality in the region: race, ethnicity and birthplace.     

Child Health and NGOs in Peruvian Provinces

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are widely accepted in developing countries as a crucial organizational asset. They combine entrepreneurship, provision of quasi-government services and donor financing, but their conceptual status is unclear. Are they the organizational embodiments of social capital, generating cohesion and superior performance, or do they expand the competitiveness of the province, contributing to superior performance via political pluralism? This analysis of the relationship of NGOs to three criteria of child health in the provinces of Peru examines that question and concludes that NGOs are best interpreted as actors in provinces that foster political contestation. As such they contribute to the growth of a core dimension of democracy in developing countries and to higher levels of health.     

Demography,Education, and Democracy: Global Trends and the Case of Iran

Reconstructions and projections of populations by age, sex, and educational attainment for 120 countries since 1970 are used to assess the global relationship between improvements in human capital and democracy. Democracy is measured by the Freedom House indicator of political rights. Similar to an earlier study on the effects of improving educational attainment on economic growth, the greater age detail of this new dataset resolves earlier ambiguities about the effect of improving education as assessed using a global set of national time series. The results show consistently strong effects of improving overall levels of educational attainment, of a narrowing gender gap in education, and of fertility declines and the subsequent changes in age structure on improvements in the democracy indicator. This global relationship is then applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past two decades Iran has experienced the world's most rapid fertility decline associated with massive increases in female education. The results show that based on the experience of 120 countries since 1970, Iran has a high chance of significant movement toward more democracy over the following two decades.     

The Impact of Social and Economic Indicators on Maternal and Child Health

As early as 1985, Rosenfield and Maine began to look at what is called the maternal child field (MCH). More than two decades later, maternal and infant mortality is still among the worst performing health indicator in resource-poor countries and regions, and it has barely changed since 1990. Although three of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals aim at reducing child mortality, maternal mortality, and promoting gender equality, most literature in the field is either clinical or exclusively deals with women’s health problems. In this study, I proposed an empirical model that tests the impact of gender equality, women’s human rights, and maternity care on MCH with economic and political development as background factors. The proposed model was tested by using structural equation analysis. Data were obtained from 137 developing countries. The proposed model is partially supported by the data. Empirical findings demonstrate that gender equality has a pivotal role to play in the promotion of MCH. The relationship between MCH and maternity care is found to be strong and statistically significant. This finding may permit a probable verification given the current social conditions in some developing countries, particularly the neglect of many of women’s health needs and the assignment of their primary responsibilities in childrearing. The women’s human rights hypothesis is not supported by the data. It is perhaps that human rights instruments provide a legal discourse for political functions and social welfare issues, but that the legal approach alone does not necessarily provide a moral and social foundation to ensure the implementation of social welfare and human well-being, particularly maternal and child health in developing countries. The findings also indicate the importance of economic development in predicting maternity care. Finally, a positive and statistically significant relationship is found between economic development and gender equality. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Does Trust Mean the Same for Migrants and Natives? Testing Measurement Models of Political Trust with Multi-group Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Political trust is seen as an important attribute in contemporary representative democracy. Political trust can cause social trust, foster associational life and make the efficient implementation of policy easier. Political trust can also be seen as a measure of political integration of migrants in Europe. However, if we want to measure this, we need to know for sure that we measure the same concept in all countries and among all cultural groups under research. This paper describes and tests four (existing) models of political trust. We find that there are multiple dimensions of political trust that can be modeled in a structural equation model. Furthermore, we research the cross-cultural equivalence of this measurement model in 22 European Union countries among natives, EU-migrants and non-EU migrants in these countries. Our results indicate that we can compare levels of political trust within countries pretty well, however, we should be careful comparing levels of political trust between EU countries since full scalar equivalence could not be reached. On a substantive note, we find quite some differences between the EU countries concerning the political trust natives have and we find diverging results concerning the migrants. In most countries we did not find a significant difference between migrants and natives. However, when the difference was significant, migrants showed higher levels of political trust in most instances.     

The determinants of Infant Mortality in the Less Developed Countries: A Cross-National Test of Five Theories

The infant mortality rate varies widely across theless developed countries. Five macro-social changetheories exist that can explain the variation of theinfant mortality rate across the less developedcountries: modernization theory,dependency/world-systems theory, gender stratificationtheory, economic disarticulation theory, anddevelopmental state theory. Although research supportsthe claims of each theoretical narrative, no singlestudy examines all five narratives simultaneously oris based on recent data. The purpose of the researchreported here was to fill this gap in the literatureby examining the simultaneous effects ofindustrialization, four alternative measures ofeconomic dependence, female educational attainment,economic disarticulation, state strength, and acontrol variable, Sub-Saharan African status, on theinfant mortality rate for 59 less developed countriesin 1991. Results of eight tests of the fivetheoretical narratives indicate thatindustrialization, state strength, and three of thefour measures of economic dependence have little neteffect on infant mortality, whereas economicdisarticulation, female education, debt dependence,and Sub-Saharan African status have the expectedeffects on infant mortality. Theoretical and policyimplications of the results are briefly discussed.