Sibship Characteristics and Transition to First Marriage in Taiwan: Explaining Gender Asymmetries

Sociologists have long been interested in the effects of sibship structures. Although previous research generally focuses on the impacts of sibship characteristics on educational outcomes, these characteristics may also affect individuals?? decisions about marriage by shaping their resource availability, parental expectations, or social skills and contacts. Using a nationally representative sample from Taiwan, we examine how sibship size, birth-order rank, and sibship sex composition are associated with men??s and women??s transitions to first marriage. The analysis shows that men who have no male siblings tend to accelerate their rates of entering marriage. By contrast, women with more siblings or in earlier birth positions are likely to do the same. We argue that the findings for women reflect the influences of sibship structures on household resource allocation, whereas those for men have to do with the cultural emphasis on sons?? responsibility for carrying on the family lineage. Moreover, Chinese cultural norms that prescribe different roles for married sons and daughters account for the asymmetrical mechanisms revealed for men and women in Taiwan. Results from this study thus underscore the need to consider family norms and cultural contexts in explaining the transition to marriage.     

社会网络视角下中国农村成年男性初婚风险的影响因素分析

在婚姻挤压背景下,男性拥有较多的社会网络资源是否意味着他们有更多结识异性和获得应急性经济支持的机会,从而增加了其初婚的概率?利用2008年西安交通大学人口与发展研究所在安徽X县调查的数据,从社会网络角度出发,采用事件史分析方法分析影响18~50岁农村男性初婚风险水平的因素。分析结果表明,当前农村男性的初婚年龄主要集中在22~27岁之间,27岁以上仍未结婚的男性,其成婚的概率急剧下降,成为婚姻市场的弱势群体;男性自身的特征和资源拥有状况,包括婚前社会网络、个人经济和非经济特征、家庭和社区因素,往往决定着个人的初婚风险水平,一般来说,男性自身特征和资源拥有状况越差,结婚的可能性越小。     

Social Support and Psychological Well-Being Under Social Change in Urban and Rural China

The economic reforms of the past two decades have initiated a major social transition in China, characterized by unprecedented social mobility and stratification. Meanwhile, the privatization of health care has increased costs to the consumer. While such changes would logically affect individuals’ psychological well-being, little attention has been paid to this association. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (2005), this paper looks at the relationships between social changes and the psychological well-being of individuals in both urban and rural areas, as well as the role of social support in Chinese society. We find that an increasing health-care burden is significantly associated with individuals’ psychological well-being, especially in rural China. Perceived social status, its change over time and its comparison with perceived status of peers, are also significantly correlated with psychological well-being both in rural and urban China. Social support has a protective function for psychological well-being across different samples, and also compensates for the negative association between increasing health-care burden and psychological well-being, but it strengthens relative deprivation during social change on psychological well-being in rural areas.     

论我国社会转型期的城市贫困问题

城市贫困是一个综合性概念。我国目前城市贫困问题具有非常明显的突发性、困难性、交融性、多元性和分散性等特性。在我国社会转型过程中,城市贫困加剧的原因主要是贫富差距拉大、分配不公、机会不均等。对解决现阶段的城市贫困问题提出相应对策。     

"后人口转变时期"我国人口问题面临的挑战与对策

20世纪末,我国人口发展进入了以“低出生率、低死亡率和低增长率”为特征的“后人口转变时期”。本文首先对“后人口转变时期”我国人口发展的特征进行了论述,在此基础上分析了该时期我国人口问题面临的挑战,并对“后人口转变时期”我国的人口问题的解决特别是计生政策提出了建议。     

Introduction: Quality of Life in Countries Undergoing Rapid Social Change

Social Indicators Research -     

中国的男孩偏好和婚姻挤压——初婚与再婚市场的综合分析

中国强烈的男孩偏好和对女性的歧视导致了婚姻市场上严重的男性婚姻挤压。本文使用中国2000年普查数据和所预测的2001~2050年人口数据,结合初婚和再婚市场设计了度量婚姻挤压的指标,测度了2001~2050年中国的婚姻挤压程度,考察了男孩偏好和再婚因素对中国未来婚姻挤压的影响。结果表明未来中国婚姻市场每年有10%~15%男性过剩人口,达到120万人。男孩偏好导致的高出生性别比显著影响未来婚姻市场,而再婚人口对婚姻市场上过剩人口也有显著影响。     

中国社会变化中的生育文化

1生育文化的决定因素 生育文化在本质上是由经济、社会、政治、科技等因素决定的.首先,生产力发展水平和生产方式,以及与此相应的经济、社会制度,是决定社会群体主流生育文化的基础.封建社会中较低的生产力发展水平,较低的科学技术水平,分散的以农耕劳作为主的生产方式,按家庭人头摊派的劳役、兵役与赋税征收制度,连绵不断的战争、饥荒、不能控制的温疫等导致较高死亡率的现实等,都必然诱导人们形成崇尚多子女、偏好男性、喜欢早婚早育、追求多代同堂大家庭的生育观念,并由此演进出封建社会的传统生育文化.     

高校扩招对我国初婚年龄的影响——基于普查数据的分析

利用第五次和第六次全国人口普查数据,考察了自高校扩招以来我国人口受教育结构发生的巨大变化对我国初婚年龄的影响.结果显示,高校扩招后,我国各年份出生同期人的中位初婚年龄持续上升;在2010年,受益于高校扩招的适婚人口的已婚比例相比2000年同龄人的已婚比例显著下降,且受高等教育人口的已婚比例低于未受高等教育人口的已婚比例.高校扩招带来的人口受教育结构变化对我国初婚的推迟现象具有较强的解释力,解释力表现出随年龄增加逐渐减小的特点,并具有性别差异,其中对“六普”时点23岁的男性解释力高达78％,对23岁女性的解释力亦超过50％.     

各国社会医疗救助制度及其对建立我国城市贫困人口社会医疗救助的启示

社会医疗救助是医疗保障体系的重要组成部分。本文描述了新加坡、加拿大、英国和美国等国家社会医疗救助的特点,分析建立我国城市贫困人口社会医疗救助制度的意义,并对覆盖对象、资金来源以及保障项目与水平等作出思考。     

Investigating Social Welfare Change in Urban Village Transformation: A Rural Migrant Perspective

An increasing number of large cities have experienced urban village transformation because of the rapid industrialization and urbanization in China. Extant literature largely focuses on urban village transformation and its ensuing developments. This research examined the social welfare change through six welfare categories of indicators, namely, economic condition, dwelling condition, development opportunity, social security, living environment, and psychology. Value change in fuzzy membership was used to reveal the changes in social welfare for rural migrants before and after urban village transformation. Data were collected from questionnaires distributed in four cities of Zhejiang Province in 2014. Fuzzy assessment model was developed to analyze the collected data. Results corroborated that nearly all the values of the welfare categories decreased, except for the value of dwelling condition. The findings confirmed that the rural migrants do not primarily receive the benefits of urban village transformation. In addition, such transformation does not improve urban village harmony. Various measures should be applied to improve rural migrant welfare, including enhancing rural migrant settlement intention, encouraging rural migrants to return to their respective hometowns, and implementing policies for regionally differentiated welfare rights. The findings of this study can provide references for local governments to substantially implement urban village transformation.     

Transition to Parenthood: The Role of Social Interaction and Endogenous Networks

Empirical studies indicate that the transition to parenthood is influenced by an individual’s peer group. To study the mechanisms creating interdependencies across individuals’ transition to parenthood and its timing, we apply an agent-based simulation model. We build a one-sex model and provide agents with three different characteristics: age, intended education, and parity. Agents endogenously form their network based on social closeness. Network members may then influence the agents’ transition to higher parity levels. Our numerical simulations indicate that accounting for social interactions can explain the shift of first-birth probabilities in Austria during the period 1984 to 2004. Moreover, we apply our model to forecast age-specific fertility rates up to 2016.     

从医疗保险制度考察城市居民医疗服务的不平等问题

文章通过对城市医疗保险制度的考察,分析过去20年城市实行医疗保险方案改革的经验,以及城市医疗保险制度在医保筹资和获取的公平性、服务提供的有效性方面的影响,探讨了新医疗保险政策的公平和效率含义及提高城市居民医疗服务公平性的挑战与机会。     

The Health Benefits of College Education in Urban China: Selection Bias and Heterogeneity

China has undergone a rapid expansion in higher education since the late 1990s. Drawing on a recently collected nationwide representative data, the current study makes contributions to the understanding of the health benefits of college education in urban China. Using propensity score matching to deal with potential selection bias, the results of the current research suggest that higher education attainment can significantly promote people’s self-rated health status, with the control for a series of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Moreover, this research also highlights the heterogonous treatment effects: those who are more likely to attend college benefit less from the health returns to higher education than those who are less likely to go to college, lending support to a negative heterogeneous treatment effect pattern. Finally, we also examine the cohort difference in the heterogeneous treatment effect and it turns out that the negative pattern mainly takes place among the cohorts born after 1981, the generations who experienced the expansion of higher education.     

城市流动人口的社会融合:文献述评

通过文献综述,对影响流动人口社会融合的主要因素进行一些理论性的述评,并总结提出4方面的基本结论:第一,移民过程中的每一个环节都受到移民社会资本或社会网络的影响,社会资本影响着流动人口在城市的生活、发展和融合;第二,以户籍制度为依托的流动人口管理制度,以及一系列与户口相关的社会福利制度对流动人口的限制与排斥,对流动人口的社会融合有着根本性的影响;第三,教育、培训,以及工作经历,是流动人口人力资本积累的重要方式,并促进其社会融合;第四,流动人口在劳动力市场的地位和处境,是他们社会融合状况的表现,也影响其社会融合的能力。     

The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Different-Sex Marriage: Evidence From the Netherlands

It has long been argued that the legalization of same-sex marriage would have a negative impact on marriage. In this article, I examine how different-sex marriage in the Netherlands was affected by the enactment of two laws: a 1998 law that provided all couples with an institution almost identical to marriage (a “registered partnership”) and a 2001 law that legalized same-sex marriage for the first time in the world. I first construct a synthetic control for the Netherlands using OECD data for the period 1988–2005 and find that neither law had significant effects on either the overall or different-sex marriage rate. I next construct a unique individual-level data set covering the period 1995–2005 by combining the Dutch Labor Force Survey and official municipal records. The estimates from a discrete-time hazard model with unobserved heterogeneity for the first-marriage decision confirm the findings in the aggregate analysis. The effects of the two laws are heterogeneous, with presumably more-liberal individuals (as defined by their residence or ethnicity) marrying less after passage of both laws and potentially more-conservative individuals marrying more after passage of each law.     

Choices or Constraints: Education of Migrant Children in Urban China

Population Research and Policy Review - China’s monumental volume of labor migration has led to a rise in the migrant children population in urban China. In this study, we examine school...     

中国城市老年群体的社会分层及其结构——以长春市为例

中国老龄化社会早已到来,但养老保障制度的改革却相对滞后,究其原因在于人们没有准确把握膨胀的养老需求和有限的养老能力之间的矛盾。据此,从社会分层的视角以收入水平为标准对庞大且复杂的城市老年群体进行层级划分,深入分析养老需求,为保障制度的建构提供依据。由于经济体制改革、社会政策调整、离岗方式等多方面原因,导致当代社会城市老年群体内部由于对经济资源占有的不同而呈现出明显的"战斗机型"层级结构。