Marital Status and Mothers’ Time Use: Childcare,Housework, Leisure,and Sleep

Assumptions that single mothers are “time poor” compared with married mothers are ubiquitous. We tested theorized associations derived from the time poverty thesis and the gender perspective using the 2003–2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS). We found marital status differentiated housework, leisure, and sleep time, but did not influence the amount of time that mothers provided childcare. Net of the number of employment hours, married mothers did more housework and slept less than never-married and divorced mothers, counter to expectations of the time poverty thesis. Never-married and cohabiting mothers reported more total and more sedentary leisure time than married mothers. We assessed the influence of demographic differences among mothers to account for variation in their time use by marital status. Compositional differences explained more than two-thirds of the variance in sedentary leisure time between married and never-married mothers, but only one-third of the variance between married and cohabiting mothers. The larger unexplained gap in leisure quality between cohabiting and married mothers is consistent with the gender perspective.     

Quality of Life and Leisure Activities: How do Leisure Activities Contribute to Subjective Well-Being?

The quality of life is determined with objective factors and also with subjective perception of factors which influence human life. Leisure activities play a very important role in subjective well-being because they provide opportunities to meet life values and needs. Through participation in leisure activities people build social relationships, feel positive emotions, acquire additional skills and knowledge, and therefore improve their quality of life. In this report we will explore how leisure activities improve subjective well-being. We will try to distinguish among different types of leisure activities and find those which contribute more to the subjective well-being. Particularly, we will explore which leisure activities contribute to the subjective well-being of women and men of different age. Our study is based on data from a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N = 4,000), who estimated their subjective well-being and participation in various leisure activities. First, we will describe the subjective well-being of various groups of people who differ by gender and age. Afterward, we will identify important leisure activities which determine subjective well-being across age and gender groups. Overall, our results show that engagement in leisure activities contributes to subjective well being, while the pattern of important leisure activities somewhat varies across different age and gender groups.     

How Chinese Elderly Spend Leisure Time

ＨｏｗＣｈｉｎｅｓｅＥｌｄｅｒｌｙＳｐｅｎｄＬｅｉｓｕｒｅＴｉｍｅＡｓｕｒｖｅｙｗａｓｃｏｎｄｕｃｔｅｄｉｎ１９９４ｏｎ３，０００ｏｌｄｆｏｌｋｓａｇｅｄ６０ａｎｄｏｖｅｒｉｎｃｉｔｉｅｓｏｆＴｉａｎｊｉｎ，ＨａｎｇｚｈｏｕａｎｄＷｕｘｉ．Ｄａｔａｉ...     

Promoting Older Women's Health and Well-Being Through Social Leisure Environments: What We Have Learned from the Red Hat Society®

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to describe the ways that participation in a leisure organization contributed to the health and well-being of middle-aged and older women. We analyzed 1,693 members' responses to a query about meaningful experiences garnered through participation in the Red Hat Society®. Results suggested that older women's lives have been enriched and changed by their experiences, with the women in this study citing multiple psychosocial health benefits from their participation in the Red Hat Society®. Main themes encapsulating these health benefits were creating happy moments, responding to transitions and negative events, and enhancing the self. These findings are related to research on positive psychology, social support and coping, transformative leisure processes, and social identity formation. We conclude by providing suggestions for applying these findings to leisure and health promotion programming to enhance women's health and well-being in later life.     

Social Support Schemes

ＳｏｃｉａｌＳｕｐｐｏｒｔＳｃｈｅｍｅｓＷａｙｓｆｏｒｔｈｅｅｌｄｅｒｌｙａｎｄｔｈｅｗｉｄｏｗｅｄｔｏｂｅｃｏｍｅａｃｃｅｓｓｉｂｌｅｔｏｓｏｃｉａｌｓｅｃｕｒｉｔｙａｌｓｏｄｉｆｆｅｒｗｉｄｅｌｙ．Ｒｅｓｅｒｖｅｆｕｎｄｓａｒｅｏｎｌｙｕｓｅｄｔ...     

Multi-Dimensional Analysis of International Social Indicators – Education,Economy, Media and Demography

Using multi-dimensional analysis methods, it ispossible to uncover a structure representing therelationship between multiple internationaleducational, social and economic indicators. In thisstudy, we applied Smallest Space Analysis to datacollected by international agencies for 138 countriesand 20 indicators. A preliminary structure was foundand replicated for different data sets. Thisstructural interrelationship shows that these variousindicators are part of a larger field called welfare.This structure can be further expanded and refined tobe used as a tool for indicator selection.     

Leisure Inequality in the United States: 1965–2003

This article exploits the complex sequential structure of the diary data in the American Heritage Time Use Study (AHTUS) and constructs three classes of indicators that capture the quality of leisure (pure leisure, co-present leisure, and leisure fragmentation) to show that the relative growth in leisure time enjoyed by low-educated individuals documented in previous studies has been accompanied by a relative decrease in the quality of that leisure time. These results are not driven by any single leisure activity, such as time spent watching television. Our findings may offer a more comprehensive picture of inequality in the United States and provide a basis for weighing the relative decline in earnings and consumption for the less-educated against the simultaneous relative growth of leisure.     

China''''s Social Security Policy

ForewordSocial security is one of the most importantsocioeconomic systems for a country in modern times.To establish and improve a social security systemcorresponding to the level of economic development is alogical requirement for coordinated economic and socialdevelopment. It is also an important guarantee for thesocial stability and the long-term political stability of acountry.China is the biggest developing country with a largepopulation, but its economic base is weak and there aregreat i…     

Social Capital or Social Cohesion: What Matters For Subjective Well-Being?

The theoretical analysis of the concepts of social capital and of social cohesion shows that social capital should be considered as a micro concept whereas social cohesion, being a broader concept than social capital, is a more appropriate concept for macro analysis. Therefore, we suggest that data on the individual level should only be used to analyze the relationship between social capital, social cohesion indicators and subjective well-being and that they do not allow commenting on the level of social cohesion in a society. For this last type of analyses aggregated indicators of social cohesion have to be computed which is not the issue of this paper. Our empirical analysis is based on individual data for Luxembourg in 2008. In general, our results suggest that investments in social capital generate monetary returns (increased income) and psychic returns (increased subjective well-being) even in a highly developed and multicultural country like Luxembourg. When we are adding on the micro level variables representing the economic domain of social cohesion following Bernard (1999), then we observe that this domain also has an effect on income and on subjective well-being. Therefore, we recommend including the economic domain in any future analysis using the concept of social cohesion.     

Population Aging and Social Security

ＰｏｐｕｌａｔｉｏｎＡｇｉｎｇａｎｄＳｏｃｉａｌＳｅｃｕｒｉｔｙＣｈｉｎａｈａｓｔｈｅｌａｒｇｅｓｔｅｌｄｅｒｌｙｐｏｐｕｌａｔｉｏｎｉｎｔｈｅｗｏｒｌｄ．Ｉｎ１９９０，ｔｈｅｐｏｐｕｌａｔｉｏｎａｇｅｄ６０ｙｅａｒｓａｎｄｏｌｄｅｒａｐｐｒｏａｃｈ...     

Special Plan for Population,Employment and Social Security Between 2001-2005

This Plan lays out the guidelines, objectives, main tasks and policy measures for ensuring adequate employment, improving social security while controlling the population growth during the 10th five-year plan (2001-2005) period. Challenges Population growth: The issue of population has been a major factor constraining the socio-economic development of China. the country抯 population is expected to increase by 56 million during the next five years, peaking at 1.5 billion by the 2040s. For a …     

Social Security Programme for Farmers

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Social security, economic growth, and the rise in elderly widows’ independence in the twentieth century

The percentage of elderly widows living alone rose from 18% in 1940 to 62% in 1990, while the percentage living with adult children declined from 59% to 20%. This study finds that income growth, particularly increased Social Security benefits, was the single most important determinant of living arrangements, accounting for nearly one-half of the increase in independent living. Unlike researchers in earlier studies, we find no evidence that the effect of income become stronger over the period. Changes in age, race, immigrant status, schooling, and completed fertility explain a relatively small share of the changes in living arrangements.     

In Social Capital We Trust?

It has been widely postulated in the literature that social capital is positively related to or is the same as trust. The present study presents three theoretical perspectives regarding how individual and organizational social capital may be related to network trust and generalized trust: the compositional element (Putnam), functional equivalence (Fukuyama), and mutual independence (Lin). To each of these perspectives we allocated distinct measures of individual and organizational network mechanisms considering their operational definition of social capital. Using nationally representative data sets from the United States and China, we developed a comparative research design through which the three perspectives were put into an empirical test. In conclusion, we found that the compositional element perspective is most prone to cross-national contingencies, whereas the mutual independence perspective is freer from such contextual influences. In particular, the positive association between number of membership in voluntary associations (organizational social capital) and generalized trust exists only in the United States, whereas individual social capital based on network diversity and resources is unrelated to generalized trust in neither country. Lastly, the functional equivalence perspective does not get empirical support from the data, particularly with regard to the proposed negative relationship between network closure and generalized trust. These findings challenge the assumptions concerning the positive association or equivalence between social capital and trust in the literature.

     

China’s Social Security Policy

(Continued from Page 24, Vol. 21, No. 4-5)VI. Social WelfareThe Chinese government actively promotes thedevelopment of social welfare, raising funds throughvarious channels to provide social welfare benefitsfor the elderly, orphans and the disabled.Social Welfare for the ElderlyIn accordance with the Law of the People’s Republicof China on the Protection of Elderly People’s Rightsand Interests, the state and society have adoptedmeasures to improve conditions for such people’slivelih…     

Social Security and the National Economy

ＳｏｃｉａｌＳｅｃｕｒｉｔｙａｎｄｔｈｅＮａｔｉｏｎａｌＥｃｏｎｏｍｙＰｒｏｐｏｒｔｉｏｎｏｆａｇｅｄｐｏｐｕｌａｔｉｏｎ（６０ａｎｄｏｖｅｒ）Ｒａｔｉｏｏｆｔｏｔａｌｓｏｃｉａｌｓｅｃｕｒｉｔｙｅｘｐｅｎｄｉｔｕｒｅｔｏｎａｔｉｏｎａｌｉｎｃｏｍｅ...     

Statistics on China''''s 1996 Social Development

ｔａｔｉｓｔｉｃｓｏｎＣｈｉｎａ’ｓ１９９６ＳｏｃｉａｌＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔＡｌａｒｇｅｓｉｚｅｓｅｗａｇｅｄｉｓｐｏｓａｌｐｌａｎｔｉｎＦｕｚｈｏｕＣｉｔｙ，ＦｕｊｉａｎＰｒｏｖｉｎｃｅ．ＥｄｕｃａｔｉｏｎａｌＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔＣｈｉｎａｈ...     

China＇s Social Security Policy

The Chinese government actively promotes the development of social welfare, raising funds through various channels to provide social welfare benefits for the elderly, orphans and the disabled.     

Economic,Social, and Cultural Determinants of Life Satisfaction: Are there Differences Between Asia and Europe?

This paper investigates the influence of the economic, social, and cultural variables on life satisfaction in Asia and Europe. The second section sets a unifying theoretical framework for all three domains by defining life satisfaction as a function of aspirations and expectations which in turn are affected by micro- and macro-level variables. On the micro-level, economic capital is a resource for the actor. On the macro-level, societal economic capital improves the opportunity structure for the individual under certain conditions. Thus, economic capital on both levels positively affects the perceived chances of fulfilling aspirations. As long as the latter remain unchanged life satisfaction will increase. Social and cultural factors partially follow the same logic, as indicated by the terms social and cultural capital. Under a set of assumptions, the hypotheses derived are that personal and societal economic capital, national pride and national integration, religiosity, and societal religious integration, all positively affect the life satisfaction of the individual. A multi-level analysis of data from the European Values Study and the AsiaBarometer confirms the micro-level hypotheses. The economic macro-level indicators also display the theoretically expected positive effect on life satisfaction in the multivariate analysis of Asian and European data. By contrast, the direct cross-level effects of a society’s national integration and particularly of religion do not become significant in Europe, yet they are highly significant in Asia. This strong influence of the social and cultural context in Asia can be interpreted in two different ways.