They Are Richer But Are They Happier? Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Citizens Across the Reform Era

This study examined Chinese’s subjective well-being (SWB) in the past two decades. By capitalizing on the single time-series data available on SWB in China during the reform era (spanning for nearly two decades) and adopting a newly-developed cross-classified random effects model that can disentangle the confounding effects of age, period and birth cohorts, this analysis detects significant age and period effect. First, Chinese exhibits a curvilinear and concave relation between age and life satisfaction. Secondly, economic prosperity in the past decades did not translate into greater satisfaction with life among Chinese people. Significant period effect reveals a V-shape pattern of life satisfaction: the declining trend has continued throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the millennium. By 2007 (the most recently available), the life satisfaction of Chinese people has rebounded to some extent, albeit still considerably lower than in 1990. Subsequently, in search of explanations for this overall trend of plummeted subjective well-being among Chinese citizens over time, whether and how the rising inequality asserts its influence on SWB in China’s context are tested and discussed.     

Are Happier Nations More Responsible? Examining the Link Between Happiness and Sustainability

Social Indicators Research - The paper uses aggregate data from 152 countries to analyze the association between happiness and sustainability. Our paper provides new evidence on happiness and...     

Are Happier People More Willing to Make Income Sacrifices to Protect the Environment?

There is considerable amount of debate about the effect of affluence on environmental concern. The empirical literature is inconclusive on this debate. Increasingly, more studies are examining individual level correlates of environmental concern. On the other hand, a large number of studies examine the correlates of happiness. An important aspect of the economics of happiness literature emphasizes the relationship between environmental quality or concern and happiness. A few scholars suggest that happiness may influence environmental concern. Yet studies on whether happiness affects environmental concern are lacking. This paper empirically investigates the effect of happiness on environmental concern in a cross-national sample. Using data for 18 countries, I find that happier people are more willing to make income sacrifices to protect the environment. This finding holds for residents of both African and developed countries.     

Correction to: Are Happier Nations More Responsible? Examining the Link Between Happiness and Sustainability

Social Indicators Research - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02725-4     

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...     

Are Theories About Social Capital Empirically Supported? Evidence from the Farming Sector

Social capital is the bond that links societies together and without which there is little opportunity for economic growth or individual well-being. Thus, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by providing an analytically reliable concept of social capital and a methodological tool for empirically testing a theoretical model of how social capital is built. Based upon a decomposition of the concept of social capital characterising three main dimensions (i.e., structural, relational and cognitive), for each specific group of individuals under study the structural equation model allows us: (1) to confirm the multidimensional construct of social capital; (2) to measure the interrelation between its different attributes and; (3) to set a solid basis for additional research on the effects of social capital. This approach has been empirically applied to Andalusian (southern Spain) farmers as case study. We believe this research to be a fundamental starting point for informing social capital policymakers and helping them implement the necessary tools to facilitate sustainable development processes at different moments in time as it takes into account the multidimensional, contextual and dynamic nature of the concept.     

A Survey Experiment of Women’s Attitudes About Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Rural Bangladesh

According to the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in poorer countries, 50 % of women of reproductive age report that wife hitting or beating is justified. Such high rates may result from structural pressures to adopt such views or to report the perceived socially desirable response. In a survey experiment of 496 ever-married women aged 18–49 years in rural Bangladesh, we compared responses to attitudinal questions that (1) replicated the 2007 Bangladesh DHS wording and portrayed the wife as transgressive for unstated reasons with elaborations depicting her as (2) unintentionally and (3) willfully transgressive. The probabilities of justifying wife hitting or beating were consistently low for unintended transgressions (.01–.08). Willful transgressions yielded higher probabilities (.40–.70), which resembled those based on the DHS wording (.38–.57). Cognitive interviews illustrated that village women held diverse views, which were attributed to social change. Also, ambiguity in the DHS questions may have led some women to interpret them according to perceived gender norms and to give the socially desirable response of justified. Results inform modifications to these DHS questions and identify women for ideational-change interventions.     

Hispanic Immigrant Poverty: Does Ethnic Origin Matter?

Hispanic immigrant poverty is nearly double that of other immigrants. Furthermore, poverty rates among Hispanic families differ substantially by ethnicity. This paper analyzes poverty rates for Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrants, and also for individual Hispanic ethnic groups, to determine the relative importance of different covariates of poverty. The general conclusion is that low levels of education and fluency in English contribute to high Hispanic poverty rates and are also contributing factors to differences in poverty among Hispanic ethnic groups. In particular, the high poverty rate of Mexican immigrant households is associated with the low educational attainments of household heads, along with a relatively large number of children, relatively low English fluency and a relatively short tenure in the U.S. Immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador have substantially lower poverty rates than Mexican immigrants despite a similar constellation of observable traits. Immigrants from South America have low poverty rates, largely due to strong family work effort and high educational attainments. The relatively low family work effort and high incidence of single parent families among Puerto Ricans overpowers the beneficial effects of higher rates of citizenship and English fluency.

Can LARC Fulfill Its Potential to Reduce U.S. Women’s Unintended Pregnancy Risk? Examining Women’s Contraception and Childbearing in the Year Before Initiating LARC

Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) have received increased attention in recent decades for their potential to reduce the high level of unintended pregnancy. We know little about women’s contraceptive use and (unintended) childbearing prior to LARC initiation, even though it provides vital context to considering the extent to which increased LARC use could be expected to reduce the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate. Data from 849 women who initiated LARC in the 2–3 years prior to the 2006–2015 cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth were analyzed to describe U.S. women’s contraceptive use and (unintended) childbearing in the year before initiating LARC. Results show that more than half of women (55.4%) who initiated LARC did so within a year of giving birth, with 47.3% of these births resulting from an unintended pregnancy. Among women without a recent birth, 5.0% had last relied on sterilization, 54.7% had last used a moderately-effective method, 34.7% had last used a less-effective method, and 5.6% had not used contraception in the year prior to initiating LARC. These findings advance understanding of the extent to which increased LARC use could be expected to reduce the unintended pregnancy rate. Women initiating LARC after a recent birth are selective of those at high risk of unintended pregnancy. In contrast, the majority of LARC initiators without a recent birth last relied on a moderately-effective method or sterilization—a pattern that could reduce LARC’s impact on the unintended pregnancy rate.

     

The Rising Share of Nonmarital Births: Is it Only Compositional Effects?

A recent article by Gray, Stockard, and Stone contended that the increase in the proportion of births to unmarried women since 1974 in the United States was not caused by any major change in underlying fertility behavior, but rather by a decrease in the proportion of women who are married, which increased both the population at risk and the birth rate of unmarried women relative to that of married women. In this comment, I argue that the statistical test of this explanation used in the article is invalid because the variables in the analysis are not stationary time series. Correct statistical tests reject the explanation. In particular, I demonstrate persistent, nonstationary deviations from the relationships predicted by the theory advanced by Gray et al. For long periods, the proportion unmarried played only a small role in the changes in the ratio of nonmarital to marital birth rates, contrary to the theory.     

Did Australia’s Baby Bonus Increase Fertility Intentions and Births?

In May 2004, the Australian government announced a “Baby Bonus” policy, paying women an initial A$3,000 per new child. We use household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (N = 14,932) and a simultaneous equations approach to analyze the effects of this bonus on fertility intentions and ultimately births. The results indicate that opportunity costs influence intentions and births in predictable ways. Fertility intentions rose after the announcement of the Baby Bonus, and the birth rate is estimated to have risen modestly as a result. The marginal cost to the government for an additional birth is estimated to be at least A$3,000 per new child. We use household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (N = 14,932) and a simultaneous equations approach to analyze the effects of this bonus on fertility intentions and ultimately births. The results indicate that opportunity costs influence intentions and births in predictable ways. Fertility intentions rose after the announcement of the Baby Bonus, and the birth rate is estimated to have risen modestly as a result. The marginal cost to the government for an additional birth is estimated to be at least A126,000.     

Better Government,Happier Residents? Quality of Government and Life Satisfaction in China

Social Indicators Research - How quality of government affects residents’ life satisfaction is a seldom discussed subject, especially in a non-democratic context. This research aims to...     

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.     

Is Freedom Just About the Absence of Inhibitions,or Also About the Availability of Options?

Social Indicators Research -     

Are migrant minorities strategically self-selected?

In this paper we focus on the possibility of migrants' self-selection through strategic remittances. We argue that migrants of a specific community might be pooled with migrants from other ethnic minorities on the labor market of the foreign host country and that this could reduce the occurrence of strategic remittances. In a simple model with two types of workers, skilled and unskilled, facing two possible actions, to migrate or not to migrate, we derive the theoretical conditions under which strategic transfers are still operating when pooling among communities is introduced. We then show through numerical illustrations that the case for strategic transfers is rather weak when using realistic values for the main parameters of the model. Received: 1 October 1997/Accepted: 7 April 1998     

Homeownership and Subjective Wellbeing in Urban China: Does Owning a House Make You Happier?

This paper examines the effect of homeownership status on individual subjective wellbeing indicators in urban China using a large nationally representative dataset. It is the first to gauge the relationship between homeownership and individual subjective wellbeing in the setting of China and is also among the few empirical studies concerning developing countries. The results show that the homeownership status does have a strong positive effect on both one’s housing satisfaction and overall happiness in urban China. Even after controlling for housing satisfaction in the equation, the homeownership status still positively affects one’s overall happiness, suggesting that the homeownership status might also contribute to other possible aspects of life satisfaction except for housing satisfaction. In addition, in terms of housing satisfaction, females seem to value much more on owning a house than males, while the subjective benefits of owing a house in large cities seem to be much smaller than in small cities.     

What Characterises Women Vulnerable to Chronic Energy Deficiency?

Weight-for-squared height or body mass index (BMI) is often considered as an effective predictor of morbidity and mortality rates. This study uses BMI data from a sample of ever-married women in the age group of 15–49 years in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for the year 1998–1999, to analyse the determinants of chronic energy deficiency (CED) and estimate the population vulnerable to CED. The results highlight that CED rates and vulnerability rates can be very different, emphasizing need for policy intervention to focus on ‘potential’ CED persons. The characteristics of vulnerable population identified would be appropriate channels for policy intervention.

Women Left Behind? Poverty and Headship in Africa

Two stylized facts about poverty in Africa motivate this article: female-headed households tend to be poorer, and poverty has been falling in the aggregate since the 1990s. These facts raise two questions. First, how have female-headed households fared? Second, what role have they played in Africa’s impressive recent aggregate growth and poverty reduction? Using data covering the entire region, we reexamine the current prevalence and characteristics of female-headed households and ask whether their prevalence has been rising, what factors have been associated with such changes since the mid-1990s, and whether poverty has fallen equiproportionately for male- and female-headed households. Lower female headship is associated with higher gross domestic product. However, other subtle transformations occurring across Africa—changes in marriage behavior, family formation, health, and education—are positively related to female headship, resulting in a growing share of female-headed households. This shift has been happening alongside declining aggregate poverty incidence. However, rather than being left behind, female-headed households have generally seen faster poverty reduction. As a whole, this group has contributed substantially to the reduction in poverty despite their smaller share in the population.     

Feminine or feminist? Women’s media leadership

This paper presents a small-scale qualitative case study of five women’s experiences of leadership roles in Irish media industries. Relational Leadership Theory is used to examine whether there is a gendered dimension to women’s leadership and to explore why women’s participation in leadership has not resulted in significant feminist gains or changes to media organisations. The article finds that: the women saw their leadership as relational and simultaneously as socially constructed in a gendered manner. Moreover, the women led organisational change towards greater gender equality in the norms of media work. However, while the women’s leadership was relational and feminine, it was not necessarily feminist; it did not aim to generate systemic changes within the gendering of the media as an institution. The changes that the women wrought incorporated women into a system of production that remained nonetheless masculinist.