Migration aspirations and the perceptions of the political,economic and social environment in Africa

While much research has investigated how objective pull factors in the destination countries affect migration movements, and how subjective push factors affect migration aspirations, we know little about the interrelationship between subjective and objective factors. This paper therefore examines how people's perceptions of their political, economic and social structural environment affect their migration aspirations and to what extent these perceptions are determined by the objective situation in a country. Accounting for individual perceptions is important because individuals may be affected by structural factors to different degrees, and their knowledge of the objective situation may vary. Perceptions may also be affected by individuals' norms and values as well as people's different expectations. This study is based on data from Round 7 of the Afrobarometer survey, fielded between 2016 and 2018 in 34 African countries. Our findings show that positive perceptions of the structural environment are related to lower migration aspirations and that this relationship is only partly dependent on the objective situation in a country.     

SURVEY MEASURES OF FAMILY DECISION PROCESSES FOR ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SCHOOLING DECISIONS

In this article, we consider the collection of novel subjective data on family processes of schooling decisions. In particular, we review recent progress on survey measurement of expectations, information, and locus of decision of American families within the context of secondary schooling, and we discuss possible future developments by providing concrete examples from recent exploratory efforts. We argue that collection of data on adolescents' and parents' perceptions of the available school options and the application‐and‐admission rules, their subjective expectations about short‐ and long‐term consequences of alternative choices, and their assessments of the locus of decision making within families could greatly enhance economic modeling and contribute to effective econometric analysis of schooling decisions. (JEL C83, D19, D79, D83, D84, I21, I26, J24)     

Toward Measuring Proactivity in Person-Environment Transactions in Late Adulthood

Abstract

Both a life-span developmental control perspective as well as an environmental gerontology view, particularly Lawton's notion of environmental proactivity, served as the theoretical background to suggest a new dimension of domain-specific control, namely housing-related control beliefs. The newly developed 23-item Housing-Related Control Beliefs Questionnaire (HCQ) is based on the widely used dimensions of Internal Control, External Control: Powerful Others, and External Control: Chance. In two studies of older adults (N= 485; 66-69 years and N= 107; 65-91 years), we examined the psychometric quality of the questionnaire and explored its relation with socio-structural variables, general control beliefs, and a set of housing-related aspects. Psychometric results indicate satisfactory levels of internal consistency and re-test stability in all three scales of the instrument and factor analysis supported the theoretically expected three-factor solution. Also, HCQ's external control subscales were correlated with higher age, lower education, and lower income and the correlational pattern between the HCQ and a general control measure was substantial and consistent with theoretical expectations. Relations between the HCQ and objective and subjective housing-related variables tended to be low in size. These preliminary findings suggest the potential usefulness of the HCQ as a measure to address environmental proactivity in late adulthood.     

Negotiating Control: From Recognizing a Need to Making a Decision to Apply for a Housing Adaptation

ABSTRACT

A housing adaptation (HA) can enable independent living in one's own home, but deciding to change the home environment can be a thought-provoking matter. The aim of this study was to explore the applicant's perspective and decision-making process when applying for an HA grant. Seventeen persons were interviewed about their application for such a grant, and the data were analyzed using a constant comparative approach. The findings illustrated how the participants negotiated control in their everyday lives as they went from recognizing a need to then deciding to apply for an HA grant. Before coming to a decision, alternative solutions were considered and their expectations on the effect of having an HA were explored. This knowledge is useful for professionals and caregivers to help support people during the HA decision-making process.     

Status Inconsistency: Its Objective and Subjective Components*

Sociologists need to recognize the distinction between objective and subjective status inconsistency. Objective inconsistency may be defined in terms of an arbitrary manipulation of an individual's status ranks, or it may be defined in terms of the normative expectations linking together the various status dimensions. Subjective inconsistency, on the other hand, involves asking the respondent to decide for himself whether or not he is inconsistent. When objective inconsistency is defined in terms of arbitrary mathematical manipulations, the relationship between these two components of inconsistency (i.e., objective and subjective) is basically an empirical question. However, when objective inconsistency is defined in terms of the normative expectations in a population, and when the respondent shares these expectations, we propose that these two components of inconsistency will be identical. Conversely, they will not be identical when the respondent does not share these expectations. Finally, the implications of defining inconsistency in terms of normative expectations are explored.     

Who feels constrained by high debt burdens? Subjective vs. objective measures of household debt

I analyze differences in debt perception of households confronted with an objective debt burden. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, my econometric analysis shows that a subjective debt burden is not only influenced by the current constellation of income, debt service and, possibly, the potential subsistence level. Expectations of the personal economic situation and several non-financial factors affect debt perception as well. Women report significantly higher subjective debt burdens. Unemployment is also associated with drastically higher self-assessed debt burdens even when controlling for the current financial situation and for expectations. Some differences in the subjective perception of objective debt burdens can be attributed to personality traits (such as locus of control) and life satisfaction. I draw the following conclusions: First, self-assessed debt burdens contain information beyond the current economic situation, e.g., expectations of future incomes. Second, relying on subjective debt statements can lead to biased results for policy analysis if the researcher does not account for non-financial factors.     

Gender,Anticipated Family Formation,and Graduate School Expectations Among Undergraduates

From a life course perspective, young adults' anticipations of future family formation transitions may shape their present‐day educational trajectories. Given gender unequal divisions of paid caretaking and domestic labor in heterosexual families, anticipations of family formation may affect women's educational expectations more or differently than men's. We analyze Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS ) data from undergraduates at 22 U.S. colleges and universities (N= 16,152) to examine how existing and anticipated family formation shapes expectations to earn a graduate or professional degree. Family formation is more consistently related to women's educational expectations than to men's, with existing and anticipated parenthood affecting only women's expectations. While existing parenthood lowers women's expectations to advanced degrees, anticipated future parenthood elevates them. Anticipated age at parenthood is positively associated with all students' expectations to graduate or professional degrees.     

What accounts for the variations in children's subjective well-being across nations?: A decomposition method study

Studies have shown that there are important differences in children's subjective well-being across nations. However, it has been difficult to explain why this level is lower or higher in certain countries. Using data from the Children's Worlds project, this study examines how much of the country-level children's subjective well-being can be explained by various social and cultural contextual factors. More specifically, we decompose the levels of children's overall subjective well-being to seven factors that are known to be important for children's well-being including leisure, environment, learning, money, relationship, freedom to choose, and self. After the decomposition, the unexplained part (intercept and residual) for each country is considered to represent cultural reporting bias. We found that cultural reporting bias cannot explain all of the variances in children's subjective well-being across nations. Rather, we found that the freedom to choose and self are the two most important factors that explain vast share of the variances in the overall levels of children's subjective well-being across nations. The paper also provides social policy implications of the study results.     

Expectations,education, and opportunity

Using a long panel of youths, we establish a causal link between parental expectations regarding education and educational attainment. In particular, we use an instrumental variables approach to find that the child’s chances of obtaining a high school or college degree are increasing in the parent’s expectations of the likelihood of these events. We then use differences between the objective likelihood of a child’s educational attainment and the parents’ subjective probabilities to consider the hypothesis that lower educational outcomes among certain groups are driven by a “culture of despair,” where children are low-achieving because they are expected to underachieve. While we do find that children from households with lower levels of income, wealth, and parental education are less likely to attain high school and college degrees, we reject the hypothesis that this is driven by low subjective expectations of educational success. Rather, we find that parents from disadvantaged groups have expectations for the educational outcomes of their children that differ more from the statistical likelihood of these outcomes than do parents of children from advantaged households. That is, we find that parents in more disadvantaged households are more optimistic about the educational outcomes of their children than those from more advantaged households.     

How Does Juvenile Offending Relate to Mothers' Aspirations and Expectations for Their Sons?

Mothers of 317 first‐time juvenile offenders (M = 15.35 years old) were interviewed over 2.5 years about their expectations and aspirations for their sons' futures. Mothers' expectations were lower than their aspirations, reflecting a discrepancy between what mothers felt was important for their child's future and what they considered likely to happen. As their children continued to engage in delinquent acts, mothers' expectations for their sons' future success diminished. Youth age moderated the association between delinquency and maternal expectations, such that when perceived delinquency was high, expectations were lower for mothers of young sons compared to mothers of older sons. These findings carry implications for practice and intervention, as parent expectations and aspirations are both directly and indirectly associated with youth achievement.     

Correlates and Consequences of Parent–Teen Incongruence in Reports of Teens' Sexual Experience

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, factors associated with incongruence between parents' and adolescents' reports of teens' sexual experience were investigated, and the consequences of inaccurate parental knowledge for adolescents' subsequent sexual behaviors were explored. Most parents of virgins accurately reported teens' lack of experience, but most parents of teens who had had sex provided inaccurate reports. Binary logistic regression analyses showed that many adolescent-, parent-, and family-level factors predicted the accuracy of parents' reports. Parents' accurate knowledge of their teens' sexual experience was not found to be consistently beneficial for teens' subsequent sexual outcomes. Rather, parents' expectations about teens' sexual experience created a self-fulfilling prophecy, with teens' subsequent sexual outcomes conforming to parents' expectations. These findings suggest that research on parent–teen communication about sex needs to consider the expectations being expressed, as well as the information being exchanged.     

Human behavior: possibilities explain action

The first and decisive stage of human decision making is determined by constraints and knowledge about the alternatives available to an individual. Four types of constraints define the individual's possibility set: resources, the state of technique, standards, and self-imposed constraints. Knowledge may be objective and subjective, but for individual behaviour personal knowledge which tells the particular individual what applies to himself, is decisive. In the second stage the individual decides between the (few) alternatives in the possibility set. This perspective is contrasted with expected utility maximization and with Becker's theory of behaviour. It is illustrated with various applications.     

Contextualizing subjective well-being of children in different domains: Does higher safety provide higher subjective well-being for child citizens?

According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children are born with civil, political, social and economic rights. However, children's ability to exercise their citizenship rights and practices depend on which country context they live in. Within the limits of this article we want to explore how children's subjective wellbeing is affected by the level of safety provided within the larger country context by using data collected by the consortium of the International Survey of Children's Well-Being. The question we elaborate is whether there is a relationship between the welfare context and subjective well-being of children with respect to different domains, and whether age and gender play a role. We first cluster welfare contexts with selected indicators from international reports among the selected countries of the Children's World Survey from high to low safety provided for children. Then, by referring to the existing literature, we propose six domains for analyzing children's subjective well-being: Health; Material conditions; Education; Risk and Safety; Relationships, and Self-perception. By analyzing each domain we ask whether there is a linear relation between the levels of safety welfare contexts and the subjective well-being of children in different domains and whether this hypothetical relationship exists after controlling for the age and gender of participants. According to our findings, high and medium welfare contexts provide higher subjective well-being in the domains of ‘material’ and ‘risk and safety’. Girls have lower subjective well-being in the low safety welfare context compared to boys. We also find that in the domains of education and relationship, girls' subjective well-being is higher than boys in every safety welfare contexts. Last but not least we also find that the high safety welfare context has a lower average in the self-perception domain and also there is gender difference, girls compared to boys are less satisfied with themselves.     

From state-bound subjects to global subjects: notes toward an Althusserian theory of globalized subjectivity

ABSTRACT

This article puts Louis Althusser's conception of subjective production via ideological interpellation in dialogue with contemporary Global theories – especially those of Saskia Sassen and Manfred Steger. It does this to offer a more robust framework for understanding subjective production that captures subjective transformations in the age of globalization. The article looks at how Sassen's work captures transformations of social and institutional structures in globalization and then looks at Steger's account of subjective transformations. It then turns to the ways in which Althusser's understanding of the intertwining of subjectivity with institutions and social practices can help bridge the gap between Sassen and Steger and can also help us understand the rise of what I call ‘global subjects’ and a ‘global subjectivity’ that can be in conflict with more traditional ‘state-bound’ subjects. I use the example of globalized regimes of care work in order to help make sense of these distinctions.     

Rational forecasts: On confirming ambiguity as the mother of conformity

The Rational Expectations Hypothesis claims that all available information is used in making forecasts. We contend that one of the pieces of information used by forecasters is the previous forecasts of others. Psychologists have demonstrated that under conditions of ambiguous stimuli. individuals frequently adapt their individual opinions so as to conform to peer opinions. Thus, we develop a Convergent Expectations Hypothesis, in which forecasters incorporate previous forecasts of other agents in forming their own expectations. The hypothesis is tested using data from six forecaster groups for four time periods. In all four time periods, forecasters appear to make considerable use of the prior consensus forecast in developing their own predictions. The resulting expectations may still be ‘rational’ in that there are psychological and perhaps financial benefits to conforming to the forecasts of professional peers.     

Can Cultural Beliefs Cause a Gender Identity Disorder?

Abstract

Gender identity disorder (GID) is a relatively rare disorder with an unclear etiology. This case report involves a boy from Thailand who was thought by his parents at birth, on the basis of a birthmark, to be the reincarnation of his maternal grandmother. He subsequently demonstrated cross-gender behavior. A link between his parents' cultural beliefs and the boy's cross-gender behavior is explored. Implications for the causes of other cases of GID are explored, and in particular, the question of whether parental expectations, as exemplified by these parents' cultural beliefs, can be a contributor to the formation of GID is considered.     

Economic versus psychological forecasting. Evidence from consumer confidence surveys

Permanent and widespread psychological biases affect both the subjective probability of future economic events and their retrospective interpretation. They may give rise to a systematic gap between (over-critical) judgments and (over-optimistic) expectations – the “forecast” error. When things go bad, then, psychology suggests that people tend to become particularly bullish, amplifying the forecast error. Also, psychology argues that personal/future conditions are systematically perceived to be better than the aggregate/past ones. All this sharply contrasts with standard economic assumptions. Evidence from a unique dataset covering 10 European countries over 22 years confirms the presence of structural psychologically driven distortions in people’s judgments and expectations formation.