Work–Family Conflict,Job Insecurity,and Health Outcomes Among US Workers

Previous scholarship has highlighted how work–family conflict (work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict) and job insecurity interfere with health outcomes. Little work, however, considers how these stressors jointly influence health among workers. Informed by the stress process model, the current study examines whether job insecurity moderates the relationships between work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict and two health outcomes: self-reported physical health and poor mental health. The analyses also consider whether a greater moderating role is played by work-to-family conflict or family-to-work conflict. Using data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, we also examine if patterns diverge by gender. Our results show that work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict have direct effects on poor mental and physical health. Additionally, we find that the negative effect of work-to-family conflict on poor mental and physical health is stronger for those with job insecurity, while no such relationship was found for family-to-work conflict. We found no evidence of significant gender differences in how these relationships operate. Overall, we contribute to the literature by testing the combined effects of both forms of work–family conflict and job insecurity on poor mental and physical health. We also deepen the understanding of the stress process model by highlighting the salience of the anticipatory stressor of job insecurity.     

Understanding circulation in Australia

Progress in the nascent field of inquiry concerned with understanding circulation in developed countries requires a balance between individual and aggregate modes of explanation. The sparsity and fragmentation of current studies is traced to the dearth of appropriate data sources and the complexity of circular moves, reflecting the integral connections between data, method and theory in migration research. It is argued that circulation, like permanent migration, can be divided into production-and consumption-related categories, but that measurement of circulation is complicated by three additional features: variable duration, repetition and seasonality. Four dimensions of population movement are identified: intensity of circular migration, movement distances, patterns of redistribution and migration networks. Census and survey data are used to quantify these dimensions. Revised version of Presidential Address to the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Australian Population Association, Melbourne, 29 November 2000.     

Time use and leisure: Subjective and objective aspects

This paper utilizes data from the 1981 Canadian Time Use Pilot Study and from a small Halifax time-budget study to look at subjective and contextual dimensions of leisure for women and men. The Canadian study (n=2685) had information on the time spent in daily activities as well as on the settings and social contexts of those activities. The Halifax study included similar time-budget information on 60 married couples, but also incorporated subjective ratings of all diary events in terms of perceived work or leisure. Using subjective weightings from the Halifax study, estimates of subjective leisure were made for different categories of daily activity and for different Canadian population subgroups. Hypercodes were used to look at the effect of social roles on leisure time, and the AID procedure was used to analyze the contextual dimensions of leisure for men and women. The results show that objective activity and well as subjective leisure vary by population subgroup. Constraints to leisure include being female, being employed, having children, and, to some degree, being married. Of the contextual dimensions, subjective leisure was shown to be influenced primarily by type of objective activity. Location, time of day and day of the week also influenced leisure designations, but to a lesser extent. This study suggests the potential usefulness of subjective weightings of activities in order to gain a greater understanding of leisure patterns and participation.     

The structural context of family welfare in the regions of Italy

A factor analysis of household-level attributes of welfare reveals three dimensions across the 20 regions of Italy: affluence, nuclear family oriented style of life, and basic consumption. Because the data on which these empirical patterns is based is normatively oriented, these dimensions conform to the definition of social indicators. The three dimensions of regional social structure that resulted from a separate factor analysis of variables selected from the point of view of structural theory were not so interpreted. These three structural dimensions — industrial-urban differentiation, agrarian rigidity, and central government subsidies — predict affluence, family oriented style of life and basic consumption respectively. This unexpectedly symmetrical result can be interpreted in causal or definitional terms.     

Tackling Poverty-migration Linkages: Evidence from Ghana and Egypt

Are migrants able to use the migration experience to their benefit, that is to improve their livelihoods, and is this result nuanced by whether migrants are poor or non-poor? This paper explores these questions quantitatively using data on migrants and non-migrants from Ghana and Egypt. It describes the main challenges in the empirical literature and introduces a conceptual model to explore the links between migration and poverty. The empirical model accounts for the direct effects of migration on poverty and for the role of migration in moderating the dynamics of poverty. Results show the selectivity of migration with respect to subjective poverty and that migration can have a significant impact on helping people improve their livelihoods. The paper further finds that selectivity with respect to human capital depends on ‘reasons for migration’ and visa status. These findings enrich existing empirical studies by providing a clear estimation of sequential events and enable policymakers to better understand the processes behind migration and poverty.     

Temporal variations in mortality: A comparison of U. S. suicides and motor vehicle fatalities, 1972–1976

Among the various types of mortality, motor vehicle fatalities (MVF) and suicides are two that are very responsive to social, economic, and psychological factors. The analysis of the temporal patterns of suicides and MVF points to important but neglected forces affecting them. This paper examines the daily patterns of MVF and suicides for the United States from 1972 to 1976. The effects of the day of the week, month, year, and holidays on these types of mortality are estimated. Total MVF and suicides, as well as daily differentials by sex, age, and race, are analyzed with regression techniques. The results show that temporal variations are stronger in MVF than in suicides but are present in both. MVF tend to peak on Saturday, in the summer months, in 1972 and 1973, and on holidays. Suicides are generally highest on Monday, in the spring months, in 1975 and 1976, and on nonholidays. Differentials in the temporal patterns are evident. For instance, whites generally have a sharper decline in suicides on holidays than do nonwhites. The holiday peak in MVF for the 60 and over population is Christmas, while it is New Year’s for the younger age groups. Males exhibit a greater increase in suicides from March to May than do females. Finally, the results of a comparison of the daily patterns of MVF and suicides revealed a negative correlation. This contrasted with the strong positive relationship between MVF and suicides generally found in cross-sectional studies. The implications of these findings are briefly discussed.     

Consequences of Family Policies on Childbearing Behavior: Effects or Artifacts?

This article argues for a more careful consideration of theoretical and methodological approaches in studies of the effects of public policies, labeled here as family policies, on childbearing behavior. We employ elements of comparative welfare‐state research, of the sociology of “constructed categories,” and of “the new institutionalism” to demonstrate that investigations into policy effects need to contextualize policies and need to reduce their complexity by focusing on “critical junctures,”“space,” and “uptake.” We argue that the effects of family policies can only be assessed properly if we study their impact on individual behavior. Event‐history models applied to individual‐level data are the state‐of‐the‐art of such an approach. We use selected empirical studies from Sweden to demonstrate that the type of approach that we advocate prevents us from drawing misleading conclusions.     

Green giant or straw man? Environmental pressure and civil conflict, 1961–99

The proposition that environmental scarcity causes violent conflict attracts both popular and academic interest. Neomalthusian writers have developed theoretical arguments explaining this connection, and have conducted numerous case studies that seem to support the view that scarcity of biological assets such as land and other renewable resources causes conflict. So far there have been few systematic quantitative or comparative studies, and the few that exist have focused on particular forms of environmental degradation or on a small subset of resources, particularly mineral wealth. We test a more general argument about the effects of resource scarcity by examining the most widely-used measure of environmental sustainability: the ecological footprint. Contrary to neomalthusian thinking, we find that countries with a heavier footprint have a substantially greater chance of peace. Biocapacity and the ecological reserve also predict to peace, but these results are more fragile. Separate tests for smaller conflicts, for the post-Cold War period, and with additional control variables do not yield stronger support for the scarcity thesis. On the whole, the neomalthusian model of conflict receives little support from this analysis. We cannot exclude that erosion of the earth’s carrying capacity can increase conflict in the long run, but an empirical analysis with the ecological footprint measure does not provide any support for such a position.     

The Contraceptive Role of Breastfeeding

We review (1) neuro-hormonal mechanisms by which breastfeeding postpones the return of ovulation and menstruation after birth, and (2) various statistical procedures used to analyse this effect in human populations. This review reveals that the biology and the statistical procedures are incompatible. We propose a statistical approach, compatible with present knowledge of physiology, that differentiates between ovulation-inhibiting mechanisms at birth and the weakening of these inhibitions thereafter, so that it is possible to investigate the effects on these mechanisms due to breastfeeding and to other determinants such as mother's age. An empirical test with typical recall data indicates that full breastfeeding postpones ovulation longer than does supplemented breastfeeding, and that both have stronger contraceptive effects than has previously been thought.     

Conceptualising and Measuring Social Cohesion in Africa: Towards a Perceptions-Based Index

Social cohesion is a key concept in development studies. Weak social cohesion is often related to slow economic growth and (violent) conflict. So far few attempts have been made to measure this complex concept in a systematic manner. This paper introduces an innovative method to measure national-level social cohesion based on survey data from 19 African countries. We distinguish three dimensions of social cohesion; i.e. the extent of perceived inequalities, the level of societal trust, and the strength of people’s adherence to their national identity. Importantly, our Social Cohesion Index (SCI) is based on individuals’ perceptions vis-à-vis these three different dimensions of social cohesion rather than certain macro-level ‘objective’ indicators such as GDP/capita or Gini-coefficients. We develop two social cohesion indices: a national average SCI and a Social Cohesion Index Variance-Adjusted (SCIVA); the latter one takes into account the level of variation across different ethnic groups within countries. The SCI and SCIVA are computed for and compared across nineteen African countries for the period 2005–2012 on the basis of Afrobarometer survey rounds 3, 4 and 5. We also investigate quantitatively the relationship between countries’ levels of social cohesion and the occurrence of a range of conflict events. As expected, we find that countries with low levels of social cohesion in a particular year according to our SCI are more likely to experience a range of different violent conflict events in the subsequent year.     

Demographic responses and socioeconomic structure: Population processes in England and Wales in the nineteenth century

This paper explores some theoretical and empirical aspects related to the theory of change and multiple response. The empirical analysis focuses on 600 relatively small and homogeneous geographical units of England and Wales for the period 1851-1910. These units are classified into six identifiable socioeconomic types and the analysis is male for each of them. Two interrelated tissues are studied. First, a set of explanatory variables, connected either with strain or with factors relieving strain, is constructed. The effects of these explanatory variables on nuptiality, marital fertility, and migration responses are examined for each socioeconomic type, with respect to their significance, intensity, and direction. The patterns of these effects show general consistency with multiphasic response considerations for all socioeconomic types. A significant finding in this part is that migration affects very strongly the intensity of the marital fertility decline response. The second issue deals with theoretically expected patterns of interrelationships among responses in terms of substitutability and complementarity. The theoretical interrelationships are compared with the empirical for each socioeconomic type; and in general, consistency is established. Moreover, these interrelationships can be interpreted for each socioeconomic type in a way that appears to be consistent with multiphasic response considerations. An important finding in this part is that emigration and marital fertility decline are substitute responses in agricultural-based districts. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Putting people into place

Over the past two decades, there has been an explosion of empirical research on neighborhoods and health. However, although the data and approaches owe much to the early contributions of demographers and population scientists, this debt is largely unrecognized. Likewise, challenges posed in the early literature remain largely unanswered. I argue that just as demographers and population scientists were pioneers in the study of neighborhoods and health, they are uniquely poised to lead the field again. Putting people into place means explaining behavior and outcomes in relation to a potentially changing local context. A more dynamic conceptualization is needed that fully incorporates human agency, integrates multiple dimensions of local social and spatial context, develops the necessary longitudinal data, and implements appropriate tools. Diverse approaches with complementary strengths will help surmount the many analytic challenges to studying the dynamics of neighborhoods and health, including agent-based microsimulation models.     

A reducible four-parameter system of model life tables

Abstract In this paper a four-parameter extension of Brass's relational system of model life tables is suggested that (1) matches a wide range of empirical age patterns of mortality, (2) is easy to apply, especially to partial life tables, and (3) contains demographically meaningful parameters. A test of the model on a set of 62 empirical life tables indicates that four parameters are necessary and sufficient for fitting a wide range of mortality patterns. A further test on an historical series of Swedish life tables reveals a consistent pattern of mortality change. Examination of the parameters for a set of geographicallyrelated life tables suggests a way to define families of life tables. Identification of such temporal and spatial relationships allows the model to be reduced to a form with twoor three-parameters for application to incomplete or inaccurate data.     

Extracting More Knowledge from Time Diaries?

Time-use diary data convey information about the activities an individual was engaged in, when and for how long, and the order of these activities throughout the day. The data are usually analyzed by summarizing the time used per activity category. The aggregates are then used to determine the mean time use of a mean individual on an average day. However, this approach discards information about the duration of activities, the order in which they are undertaken, and the time of day each activity is carried out. This paper outlines an alternative approach grounded in the time-geographic theoretical framework, which takes the duration, order, and timing of activities into consideration and thus yields new knowledge. The two approaches to analyzing diary data are compared using a simple empirical example of gender differences in time use for paid work. The focus is on the effects of methodological differences rather than on the empirical outcomes. The argument is made that using an approach that takes the sequence of activities into account deepens our understanding of how people organize their daily activities in the context of a whole day at an aggregate level.     

Zur Analyse multidimensionaler Ungleichheitsverhältnisse

Complex inequality cannot be explained by way of summing up isolated research on single factors of inequality such as class, race or gender. Rather, the connections and interactions of those factors are to be analysed. In a first step, the article focuses on common institutional mechanisms which produce those three forms of social inequality. Furthermore, dimensions of inequality are compared, drawing upon common patterns of interpretation as well as conflict processes. In a subsequent step, the article focuses on effects of interaction between classe, race and gender. Basic sources of inequality are identified upon which connections develop. Finally, the controversial question is raised whether research can do more than carry out analysis upon individual constellations, namely develop general models of interaction effects between multiple factors of inequality.     

The demographic evolution of human populations: The role of selection and environmental factors

Selection (genetic and cultural) and environmental variation are the principal mechanisms determining patterns of demographic change in human populations. Conditions exist under which the nature and intensity of these forces can be inferred from temporal trends in the demographic variables. These conditions, which can be expressed in terms of relations between the Malthusian parameter and population entropy, provide a means for evaluating the effect of selective and nonselective factors on demographic trends in human populations. The distinction between the roles of selection and environmental factors is illustrated by a study of the demographic transition in Sweden (1778-1965). This study shows that demographic changes during the pre- and posttransitional phases are determined mainly by environmental factors, whereas the changes during the transitional phase are mainly due to cultural selection. This analysis provides, for all three phases of the demographic transition, quantitative measures of the intensity of the forces (selective and nonselective) acting on both mortality and fecundity distributions.     

Assessing the temporal stability of the population/environment relationship in comparative perspective: a cross-national panel study of carbon dioxide emissions, 1960–2005

This study examines the temporal stability of the population/environment relationship. We analyze panel data from 1960 to 2005 to determine whether the national-level association between population and carbon dioxide emissions has remained stable, declined, or intensified in recent decades. Results indicate that population size has a large and stable positive association with anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The findings of temporal stability generally hold for both developed countries and less-developed countries. The authors conclude that population, in tandem with other social drivers, remains an important consideration for research that addresses the human dimensions of global environmental change.     

Time and Money: A New Look at Poverty and the Barriers to Physical Activity in Canada

The relationship between time, money, and regular participation in physical activities, especially at the intensities and durations required to improve one’s health, is an important public health and social policy issue. The objective of this research is to develop a better understanding of the extent to which income poverty and time poverty act as barriers to regular participation in moderate or higher intensity physical activities. This study uses Canadian time use data collected in 2005 in order to measure income poverty, time poverty, and active living. Objective measures of physical activity engagement (participation rates, daily occurrences, and daily time budgets) are used to explore differences between the rich and poor categories of both income and time wealth. The income and time wealth categories are corroborated using subjective assessments of stress and perceived barriers to regular participation in sports. The results illustrate the multidimensional nature of poverty, but from a public health and social policy perspective, time poverty may be more important than income poverty as a barrier to regular physical activity engagement.     

Pictorial Approaches for Measuring Time Use in Rural Ethiopia

Time use researchers working in least developed countries (LDCs) face difficulties collecting data from illiterate populations who may conceptualize time differently than those in industrialized countries. We identify existing gaps in time use data collection methods and discuss two novel, pictorial methods to collect time use data from these populations. The first method is a modified recall interview modeled on participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods that asks respondents to place macaroni on pictures of activity categories in proportion to the amount of time spent on that activity during the previous day. The second is a simplified pictorial time diary that uses a timer and sequentially-numbered stickers to re-create the temporal order of activities in 30-min increments. The latter method also avoids recall bias problems. We present time use data collected in 2009 using these methods in a study examining the impacts of water infrastructure on women and children’s time use in rural Ethiopia. In total, we collected information using the first method from 263 household members over age 10, including 167 water collectors, and pilot-tested the pictorial diary approach with 10 adult respondents.     

Educational assortative mating and economic inequality: A comparative analysis of three Latin American countries

Educational assortative mating and economic inequality are likely to be endogenously determined, but very little research exists on their empirical association. Using census data and log-linear and log-multiplicative methods, I compare the patterns of educational assortative mating in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, and explore the association between marital sorting and earnings inequality across countries. The analysis finds substantial variation in the strength of specific barriers to educational intermarriage between countries, and a close association between these barriers and the earnings gaps across educational categories within countries. This finding suggests an isomorphism between assortative mating and economic inequality. Furthermore, educational marital sorting is remarkably symmetric across gender in spite of the different resources that men and women bring to the union. This study highlights the limitations of using single aggregate measures of spousal educational resemblance (such as the correlation coefficient between spouses’ schooling) to capture variation in assortative mating and its relationship with socioeconomic inequality.