Issues in the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Socioeconomic Background: Do Different Measures Generate Different Conclusions?

Parental occupation and education are used extensively in the analysis of socioeconomic inequalities in education and subsequent social and economic outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine if different ways of measuring socioeconomic background substantially alter substantive conclusions on cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement. The effects of father’s occupational group are largely consistent across countries, with students from teaching backgrounds scoring very highly in many countries. Student performance by mother’s educational group is quite similar across countries although the relative performance of students whose mothers completed vocational education differs between countries. Notwithstanding these differences, continuous measures of father’s and mother’s occupation and education, and composite measures comprising combinations of these four indicators and additional indicators produce similar, but not identical, orderings of countries in terms of socioeconomic inequalities in student performance. However common single indicator measures, mother’s education and father’s occupation do not show a particularly high correspondence, cross-nationally. On theoretical and empirical grounds, the preferred measure is a composite of both parents’ occupation and education.     

How Wide Is the Income Gap in China?

Thanks to the introduction of the reform and opening up policy, China has achieved rapid economic development and recorded a significant rise in the income level of its urban and rural residents as a whole. However, the level of income varies from industry to industry, from rural to urban areas, and from region to region, and the gap is widening. Estimates show that the Gini coefficient (an economic indicator measuring disparities in personal income) in China was 0.424 in 1996, 0.456 in 1998,…     

Comments on Daniel A. Seiver's ‘Recent fertility in Mexico: Measurement and Interpretation.’

In a recent article in this Journal,¹Daniel A. Seiver concludes that ‘fertility’ in Mexico did not decline between 1960 and 1970. His conclusion is based primarily on an increase in the child-woman ratio from 725 per 1,000 in 1960 to 762 in 1970. Seiver simply asserts that this increase cannot be completely explained by declining infant mortality and under-enumeration. ² Ibid, p 343. . ³ Ibid, p 351.      

Healthy Grandparenthood: How Long Is It,and How Has It Changed?

Healthy grandparenthood represents the period of overlap during which grandparents and grandchildren can build relationships, and grandparents can make intergenerational transfers to younger kin. The health of grandparents has important implications for upward and downward intergenerational transfers within kinship networks in aging societies. Although the length of grandparenthood is determined by fertility and mortality patterns, the amount of time spent as a healthy grandparent is also affected by morbidity. In this study, we estimate the length of healthy grandparenthood for the first time. Using U.S. and Canadian data, we examine changes in the length of healthy grandparenthood during years when grandparenthood was postponed, health improved, and mortality declined. We also examine variation in healthy grandparenthood by education and race/ethnicity within the United States. Our findings show that the period of healthy grandparenthood is becoming longer because of improvements in health and mortality, which more than offset delays in grandparenthood. Important variation exists within the United States by race/ethnicity and education, which has important implications for family relationships and transfers.     

China and ROK to Strengthen Cooperation in Environmental Issues

The environment ministers of China and the Republicof Korea have agreed to strengthen bilateralcooperation in tackling regional environmentalproblems while promoting the development ofrelevant industries.     

Relatively Different? How do Gender Differences in Well-Being Depend on Paid and Unpaid Work in Europe?

Absolute as well as relative hours of paid and unpaid work may influence well-being. This study investigates whether absolute hours spent on paid work and housework account for the lower well-being among women as compared to men in Europe, and whether the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework differ by gender attitudes and social context. Attitudes towards women’s and men’s paid work and housework obligations may influence how beneficial or detrimental it is to spend time on these activities, as may social comparison of one’s own hours to the number of hours commonly spent among similar others. A group of 13,425 women and men from 25 European countries are analysed using country fixed-effects models. The results suggest that while men’s well-being appears to be unaffected by hours of paid work and housework, women’s well-being increases with increased paid working hours and decreases with increasing housework hours. Gender differences in time spent on paid work and housework account for a third of the European gender difference in well-being and are thus one reason that women have lower well-being than men have. Gender attitudes do not appear to modify the associations between hours and well-being, but there is a tendency for women’s well-being to be higher the less housework they do compared to other women in the same family situation and country. However, absolute hours of paid work and housework appear to be more important to women’s well-being than relative hours.

How Durable are Social Norms? Immigrant Trust and Generosity in 132 Countries

This paper estimates the global prevalence of social trust and generosity among immigrants. We combine individual and national level data from immigrants and nativeborn respondents in more than 130 countries, using seven waves of the Gallup World Poll (2005–2012). We find that migrants tend to make social trust assessments that mainly reflect conditions in the country where they now live, but they also reveal a significant influence from their countries of origin. The latter effect is one-third as important as the effect of local conditions. We also find that the altruistic behavior of migrants, as measured by the frequency of their donations in their new countries, is strongly determined by social norms in their new countries, while also retaining some effect of the levels of generosity found in their birth countries. To show that the durability of social norms is not simply due to a failure to recognize new circumstances, we demonstrate that there are no footprint effects for immigrants’ confidence in political institutions. Taken together, these findings support the notion that social norms are deeply rooted in long-standing cultures, yet are nonetheless subject to adaptation when there are major changes in the surrounding circumstances and environment.     

How much do we count? interpretation and error-making in the decennial census

Following a critique of the 1990 decennial census procedures, we conducted a field study among low-income, inner-city residents in 1991 to examine how they conceptualized and managed the civic task of census response. Interpretations about the purpose and meaning of the census, about commitment to the task, and about connection to government, singly and together with literacy skills (e.g., reading and general literacy competence), were associated with errors that are not detectable by evaluative methodologies used regularly by the Census Bureau. The validity and reliability of census data, and possibly other self-administered survey research, will be increased by greater use of knowledge about both interpretation and literacy skills in formulating data collection procedures.     

How Durable Are Ethnoracial Segregation and Spatial Disadvantage? Intergenerational Contextual Mobility in France

Building on emerging research into intergenerational contextual mobility, I use longitudinal data from France (1990–2008) to investigate the extent to which second-generation immigrants and the French majority continue to live in similar neighborhood environments during childhood and adulthood. To explore the persistence of ethnoracial segregation and spatial disadvantage, I draw on two measures of neighborhood composition: the immigrant share and the unemployment rate. The analysis explores the individual and contextual factors underpinning intergenerational contextual mobility and variation across immigrant-origin groups. The results document a strong stability of neighborhood environments from childhood to adulthood, especially with regard to the ethnoracial composition of the neighborhood. Individual-level factors are quite weak in accounting for these patterns compared with the characteristics of the city of origin. Moreover, the degree of contextual mobility between childhood and adulthood varies across groups. I find that neighborhood environments are more stable over time for non-European second-generation immigrants. The findings offer important new empirical contributions to the French literature on the residential segregation of immigrants and will more broadly be of interest to scholars of intergenerational spatial and social mobility.     

How high is infant mortality in central and eastern Europe and the commonwealth of independent states?

This paper examines the measurement of infant mortality in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). There are worrying indications that official infant mortality counts, based on administrative data, may understate the true gravity of the problem in 15 countries in the region, including 11 out of 12 CIS countries, and 4 countries in South Eastern Europe. In the case of eight CIS countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia plus Romania, the evidence is strongest, not least because surveys that allow independent estimation of infant mortality have been carried out there. In the case of the remaining six countries, the evidence is more circumstantial, and based on inconsistencies within the official data themselves, combined with information on how live births are defined. However, we find also that surveys are rather blunt instruments, and that the confidence intervals that surround estimates from these surveys are often large.     

Origins and Destinations,but How Much and When? Educational Disparities in Smoking and Drinking Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Educational inequalities in health behaviors change dynamically across the life course. Yet, how parental and personal education interactively shape age-specific behavioral inequalities across the transition to adulthood has yet to be understood. Drawing on national Add Health data (N?=?12,605; 6,675 women and 5,930 men), we analyze age- and gender-specific trajectories of current smoking and binge drinking from adolescence to young adulthood. In line with previous work, we find that parental education associates with smoking and drinking disparities even after respondents’ own education is completed. Reciprocally, we also find that disparities by eventual educational attainment appear early. During the college years, higher parental education predicts higher—not lower—rates of binge drinking. We find that attaining higher education “against the odds” of an educationally disadvantaged family background circumscribes the lowest rates of smoking and drinking for men and women alike, and especially during the college years, while “falling from grace” by not attaining higher education at levels matching one’s parents predicts the highest levels of smoking and drinking for both genders during or after college. These results shed new light on the interactive socioeconomic processes that help to explain behavioral health gradients across adolescence and adulthood.

     

Economic and Political Issues of Fertility Transition in the Arab World—Answers and Open Questions

Population and Environment -     

Mortality and fertility: How large is the direct child replacement effect in China?

Olsen (1980) proposed a method for quantifying the fertility response to child mortality. He showed how to correct for bias in the OLS estimator. He also proposed the use of mortality rates as an instrumental variable. This method is applied here to a new Chinese microdata set. It appears that the method works well. The bias-corrected direct replacement effect based on the Chinese data is about 0.6, which is three times as large as the effects found by Olsen (1980, 1988) using data for Colombia and Malaysia. Several explanations are provided for this result.I am grateful to Frank Denton, Martin Dooley, Ronald Lee, Lonnie Magee, Byron Spencer and three anonymous referees for many helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the International Statistical Institute Research Center for supplying the data used in this study.     

How much does income matter in neighborhood choice?

There is a substantial literature on the residential mobility process itself and a smaller contribution on how households make neighborhood choices, especially with respect to racial composition. We extend that literature by evaluating the role of income and socioeconomic status in the neighborhood choice process for minorities. We use individual household data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study to investigate the comparative choices of white and Hispanic households in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. We show that income and education are important explanations for the likelihood of choosing neighborhoods. But at the same time, own race preferences clearly play a role. While whites with more income choose more white neighborhoods, Hispanics with more income choose less Hispanic neighborhoods. One interpretation is that both groups are translating resources, such as income and education, into residence in whiter and ostensibly, higher status neighborhoods.

Is demography destiny? The role of structural and demographic factors in Australis past and future labour supply

Following the release of the Intergenerational Report, the Australian Treasury identified the levers to address the economic effects of demographic ageing as ‘the three Ps’: population, participation and productivity. To date, the first ‘P’, population, has been treated as an exogenous factor, with the common view being that there is very little that the government can do to supplant demographic ageing. Focusing upon labour supply, this paper shows how variation in Australia’s underlying demography can significantly alter Australia’s future labour supply. Although governments cannot redirect the cohort flow component of population ageing, much can be achieved in promoting growth of the labour supply by maintaining or increasing fertility (in the longer term), or increasing targeted migration (in the short to medium term). This paper also decomposes the relative role of cohort flow, changing demography and changing labour force participation on the growth of the labour supply over the past 20 years. Over this period, the entry of the baby boom generation (cohort flow) and increased labour force participation of women accounted for almost all of the growth in the labour force. Changing demography had very little effect. However, Australias future labour supply will not include a large increase in cohort flow (as caused by the baby boomers) or a very large increase in female labour force participation. Regardless of the assumptions used, labour supply growth will be considerably lower in the next and subsequent 20 years, when compared to the previous 20.     

Student Degree Program and Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians in the Military: Is There a Connection?

Individuals routinely experience discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since the implementation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in 1994, over 13,000 military personnel have been discharged from the U.S. military on the basis of sexual orientation. As helping professionals, social workers will often provide services to returning gay and lesbian veterans. Therefore, social work programs must ensure that students develop positive attitudes toward and understanding of the needs presented by this population. Little is known about whether a specific degree program can be a predictor of student attitude toward gay and lesbian individuals in the military. Eighty-nine graduate students completed the Attitudes Toward Homosexuals in the Military (ATHM) scale, and scores were compared between two graduate degree programs: Social Work and Business Administration. A statistically significant relationship was found between degree program and ATHM scores. Implications for policy, practice and research related to gay and lesbian veterans are discussed.     

Is Debbie Does Dallas dangerous? Representations of cheerleading in pornography and some possible effects

Commonly depicted as a focus of universal heterosexual male desire, cheerleaders are a recurring theme in Western pornography and loom large in the pornographic imaginary. This article maps manifestations of cheerleading-themed pornography since the 1970s, and shows the way sexualized representations of cheerleading in pornography circulate alongside related representations in non-pornographic media domains. An analysis of these framings is then used to venture a claim about the possible impact of these combined depictions on the lived realities of cheerleaders. Specifically, I argue that discourse which sexualizes, trivializes, and stereotypes cheerleaders contributes to the fact that cheerleading suffers from a disempowering reputational deficit. This, in turn, can be linked to—among other problems—the paucity of regulation and profusion of preventable injury associated with the sport. This article’s aim is thus to closely examine cheerleading-themed pornography with an eye to understanding how these depictions—in combination with other media representations—negatively impact cheerleaders’ practice and wellbeing.     

How High is Hispanic/Mexican Fertility in the United States? Immigration and Tempo Considerations

In this article, I demonstrate that the apparently much higher fertility of Hispanic/Mexican women in the United States is almost exclusively the product of period estimates obtained for immigrant women and that period measures of immigrant fertility suffer from three serious sources of bias that together significantly overstate fertility levels: difficulties in estimating the size of immigrant groups; the tendency for migration to occur at a particular stage in life; and, most importantly, the tendency for women to have a birth soon after migration. When these sources of bias are taken into consideration, the fertility of native Hispanic/Mexican women is very close to replacement level. In addition, the completed fertility of immigrant women in the United States is dramatically lower than the level obtained from period calculations. Findings are consistent with classical theories of immigrant assimilation but are a striking departure from the patterns found in previous studies and published statistics. The main implication is that without a significant change in immigration levels, current projections based on the premise of high Hispanic fertility are likely to considerably exaggerate Hispanic population growth, its impact on the ethno-racial profile of the country, and its potential to counteract population aging.