A crime based analysis and classification of 729 American cities

Thirty social indicators, consisting of crime rates and variables which may be regarded theoretically as correlates of crime, are factor analyzed for 729 incorporated American cities with a minimum population of 25000. Factors associated with crime, poverty, native-born status, city revenue, residential stability, home construction, city size, and population age are identified. The data matrix is partitioned in order to identify high crime and low crime cities. The cities in each category are then subjected to cluster analysis on the basis of the seven socioeconomic factors, and the resulting groups are investigated further in order to identify distinctive clusters and underlying patterns of social conditions. A group of model low crime communities is identified — virtually all were incorporated white noose suburbs of metropolitan areas. Residential instability and large population size are associated with two of the high crime groups, which include stereotypical crime problem cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City. The member cities constituting each of the eight groups are documented, and the policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Pre- and Post-1997 Well-Being of Hong Kong Residents

Since July 1997, Hong Kong has become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the sovereignty of China. This paper compares the social well-being of Hong Kong residents before and after the change of sovereignty by analyzing six sets of survey data collected between 1990 and 2001. These are six biennial territory wide Social Indicator Surveys conducted to collect subjective assessments of well-being of Hong Kong residents. Analysis of the survey data which are typically categorized subjective evaluations has to deal with the commonly encountered problems of direct quantification (Schuessler and Fisher, 1985) and incomplete data (Little R.J.A. and Rubin D.B., 2002, Statistical Analysis with Missing data (Wiley-Interscience, New Jersy). The problems are handled by applying optimal scaling and hot-deck imputation as recommended by Shen S.M. and Lai Y.L. (2001, Social Indicators Research 55, pp. 121-166). Different life domain measures as well as compound measures in the form of indices are studied. The data analysis indicates that the residents of Hong Kong were most satisfied in 1997 and least satisfied in 1995. It reveals that the sovereignty change had major impact on many life domains of the people of Hong Kong and the effect was compounded by the economic situation of the territory.     

A typology of lifestyles

Lifestyle, currently a popular lay term but not an important construct within the social sciences, is examined briefly. Two studies designed to explore a lifestyle typology using personal projects methodology are reported. In the first study, three distinct lifestyle types were identified among a large community sample. They were tentatively labelled pressured, relaxed, and wishful thinking lifestyles. In the second stuty, these types were replicated for a university student group, with two types of a relaxed lifestyle being revealed.Four lifestyle types were found among those in the university sample reporting high subjective well-being. They were tentatively labelled hedonistic, adventuristic, individualistic, and promethean. A preliminary analysis of a variety of demographic and socioeconomic variables using the four types for the subsample reporting high well-being revealed age and sex differences. Young respondents tended to be assigned to the hedonistic and adventuristic types, while older respondents tended to be assigned to the promethean type. Women tended to be assigned to hedonistic type. The results and some implications for further research are discussed.     

Change in the stressfulness of life in American states and regions from 1976 to 1982

The State Stress Index (SSI) described in this paper^I measures difference between the states of the United States, and differences over time, in the occurrence of stressful life events. The method of constructing the SSI is described and the scores for each of the American states in 1976 and 1982 are presented. There are large differences between the states in the stressfulness of life. The construct validity of the SSI was supported by analysis which show that the higher the SSI, the higher the incidence of behaviors that have long been assumed to be affected by stress, such as violence and heavy smoking and drinking, and suicide. Scores on the SSI revealed an increase in the stressfulness of life between 1976 and 1982, largely due to the economic recession in 1982. Despite this the 1982 rank order of the states was essentially the same as their relative position in 1976. The West remained the most stressful region of the United States, despite its other attractions, and the North Central and North East remained the least stressful regions, despite their rustbelt and frostbelt images.     

Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessments of Societal Metabolism: Integrating Biophysical and Economic Representations Across Scales

The crucial challenge for integrated analyses of socioeconomic systems is keeping coherence in their multidimensional representation. Our approach describes the hierarchical structure of socioeconomic systems using the profile of allocation of human activity over a set of compartments defined at different hierarchical levels (e.g., whole countries, economic sectors, individual households). Compartments are characterized in terms of intensive variables (intensity of both exosomatic energy flows and added value flows per unit of human activity) and the extensive variable Total Human Activity population. In this way, relations of congruence across hierarchical levels can be used to link non-equivalent analyses. That is, changes in demographic variables, economic variables, technical coefficients, indices of environmental loading, institutional settings, and social aspirations are no longer independent of each-other even if described within different scientific disciplines.     

Quality of Life in Older Adults: Benefits from Caring Services in Hong Kong

Many older adults are in need of care. Therefore, older people would generally benefit from the use of caring services, notably including home care, residential care, nursing, and medical services. The contributory factors underlying caring services tend to be a caring perspective that aspires to sustain older peoples social relationships and real-life involvement. To gauge the benefits from various social and health services, the present study relies on a large-scale survey of 3000 older adults in Hong Kong, using quality of life as a criterion. Results showed that an older adult who had used (ordinary or enhanced) home care services for a longer time turned out to have appreciably more improvement in quality of life. Besides, those who joined an interest group more frequently were higher in quality of life, including the health domain. On the other hand, frequent use of medical and meal-to-home services were signals that reflected problems detrimental to the older users quality of life. Despite this, the quality of clinics or hospitals, as perceived by the older adult, was the most beneficial. As such, caring services that foster older adults interests, cater to their health care needs, and embody quality can have principal contribution to their users quality of life.     

Assessing the Impact of Proposed Bank Mergers on Rural Communities: A Case Study of Bbritish Columbia

The restructuring of financial markets and financial institutions through bank mergers has been accompanied in many countries by concerns about the resulting `geography of finance. In Canada, two proposed mergers involving four of the largest banks have raised concerns about the possibleimpacts of the proposed mergers on the access to financial institutions in rural Canada. This paper assesses the potential impact of the proposed mergers on the geography of finance in rural communities in British Columbia. The methodological choices which must be made to frame such an anlysis are discussed and include choices related to the definitions of `accessibility, the `industry, a `competitive industry, a `bank branch and a `community. A new Index is devised to measure the vulnerability of rural communities to post-merger bank branch closures. It is concluded that the bank mergers will, if approved, have significant negative impacts for the accessibility of the banking system in rural British Columbia. It is also suggested that Canada needs to examine establishing a wider regulatory framework which addresses the issue of accessibility on a longer term basis.     

The utility of happiness

The issue. Nineteenth century utilitarian philosophers considered happiness as the highest good (utility in their words) and claimed political priority for attempts to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In reaction, many of their contemporaries cried out that happiness is not good at all, because it turns people into contented cows and undermines social bonds. Modern psychologists, however, tend to suggest positive effects: sharper awareness, more activity, better social functioning and better health. Data. No empirical investigations have yet focussed on consequences of happiness. Nevertheless, indications can be found in various studies covering other matters. This paper gathers the available data. These data do not allow definite conclusions, but do suggest several small yet noteworthy effects. Enjoyment of life seems to broaden perception, to encourage active involvement and thereby to foster political participation. It facilitates social contacts: in particular contacts with spouse and children. Further, happiness buffers stress, thereby preserving health and lengthening life somewhat. There is no evidence of harmful effects. It is concluded that society is more likely to flourish with happy citizens than with unhappy ones.     

How Do Classes Make Use of Their Incomes?

Against the backdrop of occasional claims by social scientists that class analysis is no longer relevant this article will study the consumption patterns of different classes. Two hypotheses are derived and tested. These are to assume that classes' consumption differences are due to processes of social closure, or are of a cultural kind. This is investigated using a Swedish family expenditure data-set from 1992. The focus is on classes' different uses of their incomes regarding basic expenditures, expenditures on non-durables and ownership of durables. The most striking result is that 'higher' classes tend to spend a great deal of money on activities outside the home, 'appearance' and information, while other classes' consumption resembles the 'higher' classes, to different degrees. Moreover, the class hierarchy, constructed theoretically from employment factors, resembles a hierarchy constructed from similarities in patterns of consumption. The main conclusion is that class matters, in interesting ways, for consumption, though there are also other powerful factors. The closure hypothesis receives support, even though a combination of the two hypotheses seems sound.     

Simulating bias in the estimator of labor market discrimination

In this study, the statistical bias in the most widely used estimator of labor market discrimination is investigated. An algebraic expression for the bias is derived and then simulated for a selected set of explanatory variables and model parameters. The results for a large national dataset seem to indicate that when the variables years of schooling and labor market experience are used in earnings functions, the estimator tends to underestimate the actual or true amount of labor market discrimination.     

Constructing a Quality of Life Scale for Older Chinese People in Hong Kong (HKQoLOCP)

This paper reports a multi-stagestudy carried out between 1999 and 2001 whichaimed to develop an instrument to address theneed for a culturally relevant measure ofquality of life for Chinese older persons inHong Kong and similar communities. The firststage of the research involved a focus groupstudy conducted in August 1999 which it washoped would reflect how quality of life maybe interpreted by older persons themselves. Thenext stage, a content analysis of the focusgroups, enabled the construction of aquestionnaire containing over 100 items onvarious aspects of quality of life (QoL). Thequestionnaire was reviewed by a panel ofexperts and the items were refined and reducedto 86 to which were added a further 25 itemsfor socio-demographic background. This formedthe initial instrument. The final stage was avalidation study based on a representativecommunity survey, with a sample of 3,000respondents drawn for the research team by theCensus and Statistics Department of the HongKong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)Government. The survey yielded 1,616 successfulinterviews with older persons aged 60 or above.The careful stratification of the sampleenabled us to say that subjects in all thestages of the survey had broadly similarcharacteristics to the general Hong Kongelderly population in sex and age distribution.After a rigorous process of validation, theresearch team recommended the adoption of bothan index and six domains for measuring HongKong older persons QoL. The new scale containsa total of 21 items which can be grouped intovarious domains: subjective well-being, with 4items; health with 5 items; interpersonalrelationships with 6 items; achievement-recognition with 4 items, finance and livingconditions (1 item each). The overall QoL scalehas a Cronbachs alpha of 0.72 with its domainsranging from 0.65 to 0.77 which indicates ahigh degree of statistical reliabilities. Thename recommended for the scale was Hong KongQuality of Life for Older Persons Scale-abbreviated as HKQoLOCP.     

Beyond IPAT and Kuznets Curves: Globalization as a Vital Factor in Analysing the Environmental Impact of Socio-Economic Metabolism

We bring the rapidly developing tools for analyzing society's metabolism to the attention of a scientific audience concerned with matters of population and, in a complementary fashion, we draw the attention of material and energy flow analysts to the role of population and population dynamics within their own paradigm. As an analytic framework, we use the classic IPAT-model that relates environmental impact (I), population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T). We relate the IPAT model to the tool commonly used in MFA, so-called environmental Kuznets curves, and re-analyze empirical data from various sources, for both affluent industrial and for developing countries, within these frameworks. We conclude that population and technology seem to dominate over affluence as far as environmental impact is concerned, but that both the IPAT and Kuznets models fail to take into account the intricate interdependencies among different socio-economic systems and the increases in their the economic, material and population exchanges. In effect, both models tend to underestimate the environmental impact and create too optimistic an image of dematerialization in affluent industrial countries.     

Measurement and determinants of socioeconomic development: A critical conspectus

The study evaluates the progress made in the past decades on the measurement of socioeconomic performance. Both income and social indicators approaches are thoroughly surveyed and an additional contribution is made to the latter by undertaking a large-scale correlation study. The results of the correlation analysis indicate a high level of correspondence between per capita GNP and various composite social indices constructed by an aggregation procedure called the Wroclaw Taxonomic Method. On the determinants of socioeconomic progress, the study examines two well-known development strategies, equity and basic needs. Besides, it suggests few other policy instruments which might influence the level of socioeconomic development. Finally, some new areas are identified for future research in this subject.     

Three Centuries of Global Population Growth: A Spatial Referenced Population (Density) Database for 1700–2000

The Earths surface has changed considerably over the past centuries. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1700s, humans from the Old World started to colonize the New World. The colonization processes lead to major changes in global land use and land cover. Large parts of the original land cover have been altered (e.g., deforestation), leading to extra emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere and enhancing global climate change. The spatial and temporal aspects are still not very well known. More and more global integrated environmental assessments concerning global sustainability require long time series of global change indicators, of which population is an important one. This study presents an update of the geo-referenced historical population maps for the period 1700–2000, part of the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE), which can be used in integrated models of global change and/or global sustainability.     

Is happiness a trait?

One of the ideological foundations of the modern welfare states is the belief that people can be made happier by providing them with better living conditions. This belief is challenged by the theory that happiness is a fixed trait, rather than a variable state. This theory figures both at the individual level and at the societal level. The individual level variant depicts happiness as an aspect of personal character; rooted in inborn temperament or acquired disposition. The societal variant sees happiness as a matter of national character; embedded in shared values and beliefs. Both variants imply that a better society makes no happier people.Happiness can be regarded as a trait if it meets three criteria: (1) temporal stability, (2) cross-situational consistency, and (3) inner causation. This paper checks whether that is, indeed, the case.     

Reflections on sustainability,population growth,and the environment

The related terms, sustainable and sustainability, have become popular and are used to describe a wide variety of activities which are generally ecologically laudable. At the same time, the term compromise is heard more frequently because the needs of the environment often are in conflict with the needs of humans. A brief examination of the question of compromise shows that a series of ten compromises, each of which saves 70% of the remaining environment, results in the saving of only 3% of the environment. Judging from the ways in which the terms sustainable and sustainability are used, their definitions are not very precise, especially when compromises are involved. An attempt is made here to give firm definition to these terms and to translate the definition into a series of laws and hypotheses which, it is hoped, will clarify the implications of their use. These are followed by a series of observations and predictions that relate to sustainability.     

On opulence driven poverty traps

Endogenous population growth, i.e., making the rate of population growth dependent on society's opulence, causes parametric changes to have a larger impact and can cause multiplicity of steady states in a dynamic intertemporal optimization framework. This provides a simple explanation for the possibility of differing growth paths between countries (using a standard production function) or another explanation of the poverty trap. We give two examples (opulence sensitivity and production sensitivity) that both give rise to three steady states in which poor (rich) countries will evolve over time to the low (high) income steady state. In both examples there are middle income countries that will choose the low (high) income steady state if they are impatient (patient), where patience is measured through the rate of time preference o. Foreign aid in the form of a large transfer of capital from abroad enables poor and impatient middle income countries to move to the high income steady state.We would like to thank Nico Heering, Martijn Herrmann, Theo Junius, Ngo van Long, Ad Pikkemaat, John Pitchford, Lakshmi Raut, Casper de Vries, an anonymous referee, participants of workshops at the University of Groningen and the University of Amsterdam and especially Harry van Dalen for valuable comments. The article was presented at the fifth annual conference of the European Society of Population Economics, Pisa 1991. The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the World Bank.     

Multiple-Scale Integrated Analysis of Farming Systems: The Thuong Lo Commune (Vietnamese Uplands) Case Study

This paper presents an application of an innovative methodological tool for the integrated assessment of farming systems (Multi-Objective Multiple-Scale Integrated Representation). It describes the effect of rural development in parallel on economic and ecological reading at different levels: household, village, and the commune comprising 3 villages. Socio-economic and environmental indicators are organized into integrated packages across scales. This is an ex-post facto analysis of a program of rural development implemented in the Central Vietnamese uplands in 1995 by the central government with the collaboration of FAO. We conclude that two classic problems can only be faced by using an integrated analysis across levels: Large scale generalizations can miss important location-specific characteristics, and exclusive focus on location specific issues carries the risk of loosing the big picture.     

Do some authoritarian governments foster physical quality of life?

A recent claim that the populations of populist authoritarian governments have relatively high physical quality of life is tested empirically and found to be true. Analysis of life expectancy in 103 countries shows that although political rights contribute to the prediction of life expectancy, net of GNP per capita, one category of authoritarian governments, here called the constrained authoritarians, has higher than expected physical quality of life. Of interest is the additional finding that location in sub-Saharan Africa has a strong negative impact on life expectancy, net of GNP and political rights.I appreciate the contributions to this paper of Linda Bush, Rebecca Miles Doan, Eugene Erickson, Joe Francis, Donald Freebairn, Victor Nee and Linda Jacobsen.