Improving Well-Being in Bhutan: A Pursuit of Happiness or Poverty Reduction?

Increasing happiness is a key priority for the Bhutanese government. This priority displaces more traditional (economic) objectives such as the pursuit of income growth and the reduction of income poverty. This paper examines the implications of this approach by examining whether there are common correlates of the four following measures of human well-being in Bhutan: income poverty; multidimensional poverty; perceived poverty; and happiness. Our findings suggest that whilst there is a degree of commonality, determinants of the different measures of well-being are distinct. Common factors include having a savings account, levels of literacy and household size. Further we show that higher levels of income poverty, multidimensional poverty and perceived poverty are found to be negatively associated with happiness. Importantly, our findings suggest that a focus on increasing happiness might come at the expense of improving other measures of wellbeing.     

Welfare and the Children of Immigrants: Transmission of Dependence or Investment in the Future?

The public concern that immigrant families might be using a disproportionate share of social benefits and transmitting some form of public dependency to their children, combined with the rising levels of immigrants entering the country, fueled the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, which limited public assistance to many immigrant families. This paper uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to explore the association between exposure to welfare and young adult outcomes of high school graduation, college enrollment and labor force participation with a focus on parental nativity status as well as broad country of origin group. Results indicate a persistent negative association between welfare legacy and high school graduation; a negative association that is most pronounced for children of natives. Results also show the largest positive effect of welfare receipt among the most disadvantaged group, the young adult children of immigrants from Mexican and Central American countries. The main finding of this study suggests that the negative impacts of welfare receipt might be lessened and in some cases reversed among the young adults from immigrant families. Such findings challenge the common notion that immigrant families use welfare as a crutch across generations and raise serious concern about U.S. immigration and welfare policies.     

Cohort Trends in Premarital First Births: What Role for the Retreat From Marriage?

We examine cohort trends in premarital first births for U.S. women born between 1920 and 1964. The rise in premarital first births is often argued to be a consequence of the retreat from marriage, with later ages at first marriage resulting in more years of exposure to the risk of a premarital first birth. However, cohort trends in premarital first births may also reflect trends in premarital sexual activity, premarital conceptions, and how premarital conceptions are resolved. We decompose observed cohort trends in premarital first births into components reflecting cohort trends in (1) the age-specific risk of a premarital conception taken to term; (2) the age-specific risk of first marriages not preceded by such a conception, which will influence women’s years of exposure to the risk of a premarital conception; and (3) whether a premarital conception is resolved by entering a first marriage before the resulting first birth (a “shotgun marriage”). For women born between 1920–1924 and 1945–1949, increases in premarital first births were primarily attributable to increases in premarital conceptions. For women born between 1945–1949 and 1960–1964, increases in premarital first births were primarily attributable to declines in responding to premarital conceptions by marrying before the birth. Trends in premarital first births were affected only modestly by the retreat from marriages not preceded by conceptions—a finding that holds for both whites and blacks. These results cast doubt on hypotheses concerning “marriageable” men and instead suggest that increases in premarital first births resulted initially from increases in premarital sex and then later from decreases in responding to a conception by marrying before a first birth.     

Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?

The growing economic resemblance of spouses has contributed to rising inequality by increasing the number of couples in which there are two high- or two low-earning partners. The dominant explanation for this trend is increased assortative mating. Previous research has primarily relied on cross-sectional data and thus has been unable to disentangle changes in assortative mating from changes in the division of spouses’ paid labor—a potentially key mechanism given the dramatic rise in wives’ labor supply. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to decompose the increase in the correlation between spouses’ earnings and its contribution to inequality between 1970 and 2013 into parts due to (a) changes in assortative mating, and (b) changes in the division of paid labor. Contrary to what has often been assumed, the rise of economic homogamy and its contribution to inequality is largely attributable to changes in the division of paid labor rather than changes in sorting on earnings or earnings potential. Our findings indicate that the rise of economic homogamy cannot be explained by hypotheses centered on meeting and matching opportunities, and they show where in this process inequality is generated and where it is not.     

China's Below‐Replacement Fertility: Government Policy or Socioeconomic Development?

The article challenges the notion that below-replacement fertility and its local variation in China are primarily attributable to the government's birth planning policy. Data from the 2000 census and provincial statistical yearbooks are used to compare fertility in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, two of the most developed provinces in China, to examine the relationship between socioeconomic development and low fertility. The article demonstrates that although low fertility in China was achieved under the government's restrictive one-child policy, structural changes brought about by socioeconomic development and ideational shifts accompanying the new wave of globalization played a key role in China's fertility reduction.     

Assessment of the Living Conditions in Polish and German Transborder Regions in the Context of Strengthening Territorial Cohesion in the European Union: Competitiveness or Complementation?

Social Indicators Research - The European Union's regional policy aims to strengthen economic, social, and territorial cohesion and equal space development opportunities. It is an action...     

Mobility,Stagnation, or Attrition? Diverse Earning Trajectories in a Cohort of Foreign‐born Men

Researchers and policymakers frequently debate about the integration of immigrants into the US economy. These debates are often based on limited data that do not capture the diversity of immigrants who arrived in the later twentieth century. Related research has also struggled to incorporate the experience of short‐term immigrants or immigrants who move in and out of the labor force. Using records from the Social Security Administration, we track the complete cohort of foreign‐born men who received social security numbers in 1978 through their subsequent working years and characterize their earning trajectories. We find that the share of foreign‐born men with low earnings declined over time, mainly due to attrition from the formal labor force. We also show, for the first time, that immigrants’ employment and earning histories vary considerably by their countries of origin: while those from several countries in Asia and Africa experienced substantial earnings growth and tended to stay in the United States for the long term, men from Central America and the Caribbean experienced more stagnation and had high levels of temporary and permanent attrition from the formal labor force. We end by discussing the historical contingencies and socioeconomic contexts—in sending countries and the United States—that shaped these trajectories.     

Internal Migration of the Foreign-Born: Population Concentration or Dispersion?

Recent analyses of the 1990 census migration data have pointed to the different demographic effects of internal migration and immigration. States and metropolitan areas either have large population gains through immigration or internal migration, but rarely both, leading to what has been labeled as an increasing demographic balkanization of the U.S. population. This paper explores the proposition that the internal migration of the foreign-born (pre-1985 arrivals) is likely to reinforce the demographic effects of immigration. Analysis is based on the five-percent Public Use Microdata file of the U.S. Census, with the demographic effects evaluated at both the state and metropolitan area levels. Distinctions were also made between nineteen separate national origin groups, increasing the detail of the analysis. Despite high internal migration rates and large net migration, there was little change in the overall distribution and concentration of the foreign-born population between 1985 and 1990. More important, however, distinctions were found across the national origin groups. While secondary migration leads to dispersion among some groups, other groups were becoming increasingly concentrated, suggesting that demographic balkanization of the American population is more variable than the literature would suggest.     

It’s Complicated: Sociocultural factors and the Disclosure Decision of Transgender Individuals in Pakistan

The literature on the disclosure decision of transsexual individuals is sparse, and that which does exist either uses empirical quantitative methods or aggregates transsexuals with other non-heterosexual individuals. The current study focuses this underresearched group and examines the disclosure decision of transsexual people in Pakistan, a developing Muslim country with a unique amalgam of social, cultural, and religious ground realities. Drawing on thematic analysis technique using in-depth interviews with 16 transsexuals, we show how sociocultural factors that are inherently embedded in the environment influence the disclosure decision in work and non-work settings. In particular, our respondents illustrate that their disclosure decision, which ranges from total disclosure on one end to nondisclosure on the other end, is influenced by the complexities of family honor, tightly integrated family network, social obligation to get married, and prevalent religious beliefs in the society. This study advances understanding of identity and disclosure decision of transsexual individuals by explicating the ways in which sociocultural factors are intricate part of their decision of coming out.     

Polarization or “Squeezed Middle” in the Great Recession?: A Comparative European Analysis of the Distribution of Economic Stress

This paper analyses variation in the impact of the Great Recession on economic stress across income classes for a range of advanced European countries. Our analysis shows Iceland, Ireland and Greece to be quite distinctive in terms of increases in their multidimensional income, material deprivation and economic stress profiles. Between 2008 and 2012 these countries moved from being predictably located within anticipated welfare regimes to becoming clear outliers. For this set of counties, each of which was exposed to different but severe forms of economic shock, trends in income class polarisation versus middle class squeeze were variable. Each exhibited substantial increases in levels of economic stress. However, changes in the pattern of income class differentiation were somewhat different. In Iceland a form of middle class squeeze was observed. For Ireland income class polarization did not exclude middle class squeeze. Greece came closest to fitting the polarization profile. Changes in the distribution of household equivalent income had no effect on stress levels once the impact of material deprivation was taken into account. Changes in levels of material deprivation played a significant role in accounting for changing stress levels but only for the three lowest income classes. These findings bring out the extent to which the impact of the Great Recession on the distribution of economic stress across classes varied even among the hardest-hit countries. They also serve to highlight the advantages of a multidimensional approach that goes beyond reliance on income in seeking to understand the impact of such shocks.     

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy: Blooming or bloomin’ awful? A review of the literature

BackgroundNausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) is a normal, commonly experienced affliction of early pregnancy. Despite this, its impact on women's lives is not necessarily minimal. For some women, the implications of NVP are substantial with multi-faceted effects, hindering their ability to maintain usual life activities, and particularly their ability to work. In an effort to understand the effect of NVP, several researchers have developed NVP measurement tools, which enable an understanding of NVP's effect on quality of life (QOL).ProblemThis paper seeks to provide a review of the literature to explore the impact of NVP on women's quality of life, particularly their ability to maintain social and professional commitments.MethodMedline, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Ebsco, Science Direct, Health Source, Academic Search Premiere, Cochrane databases were extensively searched using Boolean operators with various combinations of relevant terms: nausea, vomiting, pregnancy, emesis, quality of life, QOL, NVPQOL, PUQE, SF-12, SF-36 and limited to those published from 1999 onwards. Papers were scrutinised to include those discussing the impact of normal NVP on women's lives, particularly their QOL with careful exclusion of those addressing hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).FindingsNVP has a significant effect on women's QOL and therefore their ability to maintain day-to-day activities as well as work capacity. This has implications for the woman, her partner, her family and her employers.ConclusionIt is important that all maternity care workers consider the impact of NVP on the woman's QOL and that care is given not to minimise this experience. Further research is warranted which considers ways in which women can best manage this experience in relation to social and professional commitments. Given the authors were able to identify only one Australian study in this area, published in 2000 and utilising non-NVP specific QOL measurement tools, there exists scope for additional local studies using NVP-specific QOL tools to determine the impact of QOL for Australian women and therefore Australian society.     

Are Births More Likely to be Intended Following Use of Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives? An Analysis of U.S. Births in 2003–2015

Population Research and Policy Review - A major shift in the U.S. contraceptive method mix has been the recent growth in the use of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs)—intrauterine...     

The Courbage-Fargues method of indirect measure of mortality. Adequacy or inadequacy in the case of Togo in 1971?

An indirect method of mortality estimation developed by Y. Courbage and P. Fargues is evaluated using incomplete data from a demographic survey carried out in Togo in 1971. The author concludes that the method gives good results in this case. The method is used to estimate life expectancy at birth to be 40.51 for men and 43.12 for women.     

Kids or courses? Gender differences in the effects of active labor market policies

We investigate active labor market programs in Austria. We find only small effects, if any, for most of the programs. However, the programs may have unintended consequences for women. In particular for younger women, a key effect of the programs and one reason for the male–female effect differential that is observed in the literature is to reduce or postpone pregnancies and to increase their attachment to the labor force. Furthermore, the variables capturing pregnancies and times of parental leave play a key role in removing selection bias.     

Your Place or Mine? On the Residence Choice of Young Couples in Norway

Norwegian registry data are used to investigate the location decisions of a full population cohort of young adults as they complete their education, establish separate households, and form their own families. We find that the labor market opportunities and family ties of both partners affect these location choices. Surprisingly, married men live significantly closer to their own parents than do married women, even if they have children, and this difference cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics. The principal source of excess female distance from parents in this population is the relatively low mobility of men without a college degree, particularly in rural areas. Despite evidence that intergenerational resource flows, such as childcare and eldercare, are particularly important between women and their parents, the family connections of husbands appear to dominate the location decisions of less-educated married couples.     

Security or insecurity? Representations of the UK border in public and policy discourses

This article analyses representations of the UK border (in relation to migration) in UK public and policy discourses. It uses methods from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to compare the two discursive domains. A 26 million-word corpus of policy documentation and British newspaper articles published between 2007 and 2014 is examined using the analysis tool Sketch Engine and applying qualitative concordance analysis. The analysis reveals a key difference between the two domains: while the UK border is represented as a security concept in the policy corpus, the corpus of the public newspaper domain frequently and saliently represents the UK border as a concept dominated by insecurity. The article argues that the discursive label of European Union has played a role in contributing to this difference.     

Nonmarital Childbearing in Russia: Second Demographic Transition or Pattern of Disadvantage?

Using retrospective union, birth, and education histories that span 1980–2003, this study investigates nonmarital childbearing in contemporary Russia. We employ a combination of methods to decompose fertility rates by union status and analyze the processes that lead to a nonmarital birth. We find that the increase in the percentage of nonmarital births was driven mainly by the growing proportion of women who cohabit before conception, not changing fertility behavior of cohabitors or changes in union behavior after conception. The relationship between education and nonmarital childbearing has remained stable: the least-educated women have the highest birth rates within cohabitation and as single mothers, primarily because of their lower probability of legitimating a nonmarital conception. These findings suggest that nonmarital childbearing Russia has more in common with the pattern of disadvantage in the United States than with the second demographic transition. We also find several aspects of nonmarital childbearing that neither of these perspectives anticipates.     

Divorce in sub‐Saharan Africa: Are Unions Becoming Less Stable?

Divorce is one of the main drivers of family instability in sub‐Saharan Africa. Using data from 101 Demographic and Health Surveys and novel estimation techniques, we 1) provide the first systematic estimates of divorce across 33 countries; 2) assess trends in divorce in 20 countries; and 3) investigate the key country‐level correlates of divorce both across and within countries. Despite considerable geographic variation, our estimates show that divorce is common in most countries. Contrary to expectations, however, we find no evidence that divorce is increasing. Instead, divorce has been either stable or declining in recent decades. We show that socioeconomic factors associated with industrialization have countervailing effects on divorce. Urbanization and female employment are associated with higher levels of divorce, while age at first marriage and female education correspond to lower rates. These findings have implications for current and future family dynamics in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Dutch Liberation Festivals: A Vehicle to More Politically Active Young Citizens,or Merely the Same Selective Audience?

Social Indicators Research - This article follows up on claims made on the motivating role of national commemorations for young people’s political participation. Cross-sectional data from a...