BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

HOMOSEXUALITY AND CIVILIZATION. Louis Crompton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003, xv + 623 pp. Reviewed by Claude J. Summers.

THE NEW GAY TEENAGER. Ritch C. Savin-Williams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, 272 pp. Reviewed by Steven M. Schoser.     

Repeat abortion

A reanalysis of the repeat abortion experience of New York City residents during July 1, 1970 to June 30, 1972 is undertaken on the basis of a probability model that generates repeat abortion ratios as a function of assumptions about fecundity, contraceptive efficiency, and exposure lengths. Tested are three hypotheses put forward by Daily et al. in a 1973 analysis: (i) the low repeat abortion ratio of .0245 is attributable in part to underreporting of registered induced abortions as repeat ones; (ii) a major part of the rise in repeat abortion ratios, from virtually zero to six percent over four consecutive six-month intervals, is explainable in terms of the rising volume of exposure time to risk of repeat abortion relative to the stream of initial abortions; and (iii) the higher abortion ratios of women in their twenties compared to those of older or younger women is ascribable to “differences in fecundity and intercourse frequency.” Support is found for the first two hypotheses, and a mixed outcome for the third.     

The United Nations on Levels and Trends of International Migration and Related Policies

Issues of international migration are drawing increasing attention not only from governments and their national constituencies but also from international organizations, notably from various components of the United Nations system. Better understanding of the causes of the flows of international migration and their relationship with development and answers to policy questions arising therefrom are, however, hampered by scarcity of up‐to‐date and reliable quantitative information concerning international migration. As a step toward remedying this gap, in March 2003 the Population Division of the United Nations issued a report, presumably the first of a series, titled International Migration Report 2002. A review essay by David Coleman discussing this publication appears in the book review section of the present issue of PDR. The bulk of this 323‐page document presents statistical profiles for more than 200 countries and territories and also for various regional aggregates. These summaries provide data or estimates (when available or feasible) on population, migrant stock, refugees, and remittances by migrant workers for 1990 and 2000, and on average annual net migration flows for 1990–95 and 1995–2000. These profiles also offer characterization of government views on policies relating to levels of immigration and emigration. According to the report, the total number of international migrants—those residing in a country other than where they were born—was 175 million in 2000, or about 3 percent of the world population. In absolute terms, this global number is about twice as large as it was in 1970, and exceeds the 1990 estimate by some 21 million. The introductory chapters of the report discuss problems in measuring international migration and summarize major trends in international migration policies since the mid‐1970s. An additional chapter reproduces a recent report of the Secretary‐General to the United Nations General Assembly on international migration. Reproduced below is much of the “Overview” section of the report (pp. 1–5). In addition to its published form (New York: United Nations, 2002, ST/ESA/SER.A/220), the full report is accessible on the Internet: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ittmig2002/ittmigrep2002.htm     

Permanent homelessness in America?

This paper seeks to determine the approximate number of homeless persons in the U.S., the rate of change in the number, and whether or not the problem is likely to be permanent or transitory. It makes particular use of a new 1985 survey of over 500 homeless people in New York City. It finds that:

1. the much-maligned 1984 study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs was roughly correct in its estimate of 250,000–350,000 homeless persons for 1983;
2. the number of homeless has grown since 1983, despite economic recovery, with the number of homeless families growing especially rapidly;
3. homelessness is a relatively long-term state for many homeless individuals, with an average incomplete duration, corrected for growth of the homeless population, of six years and an estimated completed duration twice as long;
4. much of the homeless problem can be attributed to increases in the number of the poor in the 1980s and declines or rough constancy in the number of low-rent rental units;
5. relatively few homeless individuals receive welfare or general assistance money; a large proportion have spent time in jail.

Overall, the study suggests that economic recovery will not solve the problem of homelessness and that, in the absence of changes in the housing market or in the economic position of the very poor, the U.S. will continue to be plagued with a problem of homelessness for the foreseeable future.     

Do We Need to Weight Satisfaction Scores with Importance Ratings in Measuring Quality of Life?

Trauer and Mackinnon (2001; Quality of life research 10, pp. 579–585) recently proposed that weighting satisfaction scores by importance ratings in measuring quality of life is undesirable and unnecessary. However, they didn’t use empirical data to support their claim. In this study, different weighting algorithms developed by Cummins (1997; Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale – Adult: Manual [Deakin, University Australia]), Raphael et al. (1996; Journal of Adolescent Health 19, pp. 366–375), Ferrans and Powers (1985; Advances in Nursing Science 8, pp. 15–24) and Frisch (1992; Comprehensive Casebook of Cognitive Therapy [Plenum Press, New York]) for measuring quality of life (QOL) were applied. Weighted scores computed from these weighting algorithms were compared with unweighted scores in predicting a global life satisfaction measure by correlation and moderated regression analyses. One hundred and thirty undergraduate students at National Taiwan University participated in the study voluntarily. They completed a 15-item questionnaire on quality of campus life developed by the authors. They also completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), a global life satisfaction measure developed by Diener et al. (1985; Journal of Personality Assessment 49, pp. 71–75). The correlation results revealed that the weighted scores computed from different algorithms didn’t have higher correlations to the SWLS than the unweighted scores. The moderated regression results also revealed that item importance did not moderate the relationship between item satisfaction and the overall life satisfaction. All these findings revealed that weighting satisfaction with importance is unnecessary. This paper was a part of the first author’s Master Thesis     

SHORT REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Martin Carnoy, Sustaining the New Economy: Work, Family, and Community in the Information Age Joop Garssen, Joop De Beer, Lieneke Hoeksma, Kees Prins, And Rolf Verhoef (Eds.), Vital Events: Past, Present and Future of the Dutch Population International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rural Poverty Report 2001: The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty Andrew Mason and Georges Tapinos (Eds.), Sharing the Wealth: Demographic Change and Economic Transfers between Generations Phil Mullan, The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why An Ageing Problem Is Not a Social Problem National Research Council, Board on Sustainable Development, Our Common Journey: A Transition toward Sustainability National Research Council, Forum on Biodiversity Committee, Nature and Human Society: The Quest for a Sustainable World Ronald E. Seavoy, Subsistence and Economic Development United Nations Children's Fund, A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations     

Evolution of recent economic-demographic modeling: A synthesis

This paper develops a flexible framework for modeling population's role in economic growth by assessing and extending a rendering suggested by several Harvard economists. Our framework includes a ``productivity' model explaining output-per-worker growth and a ``translation' model translating that growth into per-capita terms. We specify a core economic model and several ``enriched' demographic variants that include dependency, size, and density. Regressions using a cross-country panel spanning the period 1960-1995 reveal that combined impacts of demographic change have accounted for approximately 20% of per capita output growth impacts, with larger shares in Asia and Europe. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at a conference on ``Population Change, Labor Market Transition and Economic Development in Asia,' Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 6–9 December 2002. A pre-publication version of this paper will be presented at a joint conference (by COE/JEPA) entitled ``Towards a new economic paradigm: Declining population growth, labor market transition and economic development under globalization,' held at the Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center, Kobe, Japan, 17–19 December 2005. We have benefited from comments by Michelle Connolly, Andrew Mason, Pietro Peretto, Warren Sanderson, Alessandro Tarozzi, Jeffrey Williamson, and two anonymous referees. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Book reviews

Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition: Selected Perspectives. 2001. Edited by John B. Caster-Line. National Research Council, Committee on Population. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Pp. xi + 271. N.p.g. ISBN: 0-309-07610-2. Available online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076102/html/Rl.html The Explanatory Power of Models. 2002. Edited by Robert Franck. Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Pp. x + 310. ￡74.00. ISBN: 1-4020-0867-8. Communism, Health and Lifestyle. The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950-1990. 2001. By Arjan Gjon?a. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pp. ix + 227. US$69.95. ISBN: 0-313-31586-8. Historical Studies in Mortality Decline. 2002. By William H. Hubbard, Kari Pitk?nen, Jürgen Schlumbohm, S?lvi Sogner, Gunnar Thorvaldsen, and Frans van Poppel. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Pp. 134. ISBN: 82-7099-360-3. Population and Society in Western European Port-Cities. 2002. Edited by Richard Lawton and Robert Lee. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Pp. xx + 385. ￡18.95. ISBN: 0-85323-907-X. The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation. 2003. Edited by Peggy Levitt and Mary C. Waters. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Pp. xi + 408. US$39.95. ISBN: 0-87154-517-9. The Demography of Victorian England and Wales. 2000. By Robert Woods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxv + 447. ￡50.00. ISBN: 0-521-78254-6. The Life Table: Modelling Survival and Death. 2002. Edited by Guillaume Wunsch, Michel Mouchart, and Josianne Duchêne. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (European Studies of Population, Volume 11). Pp. x + 306. ￡89.00. ISBN: 1-4020-0638-1.     

Wilhelm Roscher on Means of Promoting Population Increase

The assembling of a mass of historical detail to buttress policy argument was a feature of the nineteenth‐century German historical school in economics. At its best, this gave a healthy appreciation of institutional contingency and a skepticism toward deductive theorizing, in both respects contrasting with the disciplinary mainstream. More often, however, the detail overwhelmed a meager or derivative analytical text. The treatment of population by Wilhelm Roscher, a founder of the historical school, is of this latter kind—its interest lying mainly in the wealth of historical references contained in its swollen footnotes. The brief excerpt below, on measures to raise population growth, conveys its flavor. Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher (1817–1894) was for most of his career professor of political economy at the University of Leipzig. Among his many books were the five volumes of his System der Volkswirtschaft [System of Political Economy] (Stuttgart, 1854–1894). The first volume, Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie, appeared in 1854, and was steadily enlarged in size and documentation through many subsequent editions. (It was still in print, in its 26th edition, in the 1920s.) A two volume English translation by John J. Lalor, titled Principles of Political Economy (New York: Henry Holt, 1878), was based on the 13th German edition (1877). J. A. Schumpeter, in his History of Economic Analysis, remarks of Roscher that “There is hardly another economist of that period who enjoyed so nearly universal respect inside and outside of Germany.” Schumpeter's own verdict, however, was brusquer and less complimentary: Roscher “conscientiously retailed, in ponderous tomes and in lifeless lectures, the orthodox—mainly English—doctrine of his time, simply illustrated by historical fact.” Population—much of it retailing Malthus—is the subject of Book V of the Principles, comprising three lengthy chapters. The excerpt is pp. 347–354.     

Dudley Kirk on Population Changes and Prospective Power Relations after World War II: A View from 1943

The theory of demographic transition in its best‐known modern formulation was developed in the early 1940s by a small group of researchers associated with Princeton University's Office of Population Research, under the leadership of Frank W. Notestein. A notable early adumbration of the theory in print—in fact preceding the most often cited contemporaneous articles by Notestein and by Kingsley Davis—was by Dudley Kirk, one of the Princeton demographers, in an article titled “Population changes and the postwar world,” originally presented by its author on 4 December 1943 at the 38th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society, held in New York. It is reproduced below in full from the February 1944 issue of American Sociological Review (Vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 28–35). In the article Kirk, then 30 years old, briefly discusses essential elements of the concept of the demographic transition. He characterizes trends in birth and death rates as closely linked to developmental changes: to the transition “from a peasant, self‐sufficient society to an urban, industrial society.” He sees the countries of the world as arranged on a “single continuum of development” and, correspondingly, on a continuum of demographic configurations. These countries, he suggests, may be divided into three broad groups: the first, with high mortality and high fertility, possessing great potential population growth; the second, “caught up in the tide of industrialization and urbanization,” hence exhibiting birth and death rates that are both declining but in a pattern that generates rapid population growth; and a third, with low fertility and low mortality, pointing toward the prospect of eventual depopulation. He describes the temporal and geographic process of material progress and demographic change as one of cultural and technological diffusion emanating from the West. But Kirk's main interest in this article is the effects of the patterns generated by economic change and the ensuing demographic transition on shifts in relative power—military and economic—within the system of nations, both historically and in the then dawning postcolonial era. On the latter score, even if occasionally colored by judgments reflecting perspectives unsurprising in 1943, such as in his assessment of the economic potential of the Soviet Union, Kirk's probing of the likely consequences of evolving trends in power relationships as shaped by shifting economic and demographic weights—issues now largely neglected in population studies—is often penetrating and remarkably prescient. His views on the implication of these trends for the desirable American stance toward the economic and demographic modernization of less developed countries—friendly assistance resulting in rapid expansion of markets, and trade speeding a social evolution that also brings about slower population growth—represent what became an influential strand in postwar US foreign policy. Dudley Kirk was born 6 October 1913 in Rochester, New York, but grew up in California. After graduating from Pomona College, he received an M.A. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University in 1935 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard in 1946. He was associated with Princeton's OPR between 1939 and 1947, where he published his influential monograph Europe's Population in the Interwar Years (1946) and, with Frank Notestein and others, coauthored the book The Future Population of Europe and the Soviet Union (1944). From 1947 to 1954 he was demographer in the Office of Intelligence Research of the US State Department, the first person having that title in the federal government. From 1954 to 1967 he was director of the Demographic Division of the Population Council in New York, and from 1967 until his retirement in 1979 he was professor of population studies at Stanford University. In 1959–60 he was president of the Population Association of America. Dudley Kirk died 14 March 2000 in San Jose, California.     

Family Planning Programs for the 21st Century: Rationale and Design

Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition: Selected Perspectives. 2001. Edited by John B. Caster‐Line. National Research Council, Committee on Population. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Pp. xi + 271. N.p.g. ISBN: 0‐309‐07610‐2. Available online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076102/html/Rl.html

The Explanatory Power of Models. 2002. Edited by Robert Franck. Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Pp. x + 310. £74.00. ISBN: 1‐4020‐0867‐8.

Communism, Health and Lifestyle. The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950‐1990. 2001. By Arjan Gjonça. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pp. ix + 227. US$69.95. ISBN: 0‐313‐31586‐8.

Historical Studies in Mortality Decline. 2002. By William H. Hubbard, Kari Pitkänen, Jürgen Schlumbohm, Sølvi Sogner, Gunnar Thorvaldsen, and Frans van Poppel. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Pp. 134. ISBN: 82‐7099‐360‐3.

Population and Society in Western European Port‐Cities. 2002. Edited by Richard Lawton and Robert Lee. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Pp. xx + 385. £18.95. ISBN: 0‐85323‐907‐X.

The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation. 2003. Edited by Peggy Levitt and Mary C. Waters. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Pp. xi + 408. US$39.95. ISBN: 0‐87154‐517‐9.

The Demography of Victorian England and Wales. 2000. By Robert Woods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxv + 447. £50.00. ISBN: 0‐521‐78254‐6.

The Life Table: Modelling Survival and Death. 2002. Edited by Guillaume Wunsch, Michel Mouchart, and Josianne Duchêne. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (European Studies of Population, Volume 11). Pp. x + 306. £89.00. ISBN: 1‐4020‐0638‐1.     

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.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Christopher Caldwell
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West Andrew J. Cherlin
The Marriage‐Go‐Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today David Boyd Haycock
Mortal Coil: A Short History of Living Longer SHORT REVIEWS
by Sajeda Amin, John Bongaarts, Susan Greenhalgh, Geoffrey McNicoll Daryl Collins , Jonathan Morduch , Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven
Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a day Susan A. Crate and Mark Nuttall (eds .)
Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers (eds .)
Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor George Martine , Gordon Mc Granahan , Mark Montgomery, and Rogelio Fernández ‐Castilla (eds .)
The New Global Frontier: Urbanization, Poverty and Environment in the 21st Century Dambisa Moyo
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa Vaclav Smil
Oil: A Beginner's Guide Peter Uhlenberg (ed .)
International Handbook of Population Aging United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat
2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate     

“Starting To Feel Like A Chick”

This article explores the relationship between Campion's campion, jane. 2003. Interview with Lizzie Francke in. Sight and Sound, 13(11): 19 (November) [Google Scholar] In the Cut (2003 in the cut (film) (2003) Jane Campion (dir.), Australia/USA/UK, Sony Pictures [Google Scholar]) and the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998 sex and the city (television series) (1998–2004) USA, HBO, Seasons 1-6 [Google Scholar]–2004), and in particular, the series' concluding two episodes, “An American Girl in Paris (Parts Une and Deux).” It argues that In the Cut, despite its visual and narrative references to film noir, is most usefully seen, as Felperin observed in Sight and Sound, as a film for and about “the Sex and the City generation.” In its representation of contemporary New York, and of female friendship, in its exploration of the relationship between femininity, feminism and fantasy, and in its account of the problems of female authorship, it both evokes and interrogates the dominant themes of the hugely successful HBO series. In doing so, it also exposes the losses, repudiations, and violence which form the repressed shadow to the fantasised resolution which Sex and the City offers: that of a feminised New York as the place in which romance can be re-authored by women to serve a post-feminist female narcissism.     

William Farr on the Economic Value of the Population

The modern theory of human capital came to prominence in economics only in recent decades, but its antecedents can be traced back to the earliest economic writings. The notion that human skills represent economic value comparable to that of capital was clearly articulated by the classical economists, notably by William Petty and Adam Smith. That improvement of skills and increase in the number of persons in whom skills are embodied are sources of economic progress follows from their conceptual clarification. Attempts to quantify the economic value of the population and assessment of the effect of mortality improvements and population growth were, however, later developments. Among the earliest contributions to such calculations, one by William Farr, published in 1877 and reprinted below, is particularly notable. Defining the economic value of a person as the discounted sum of expected future earnings, Farr arrives at a figure of £5,250 million (for 1876) “as an approximation to the value which is inherent in the people [of the United Kingdom], and may be fairly added to the capital in land, houses, cattle or stock, and other investments.” In addition to providing insightful commentary on the rationale and weaknesses of his calculations, he estimates the addition to that amount from population growth in the preceding four decades, discusses the impact of outmigration to the colonies and the United States during that time, and notes the dependence of the economic value of the population on the level of education, on the state of health of the population, and on people's longevity. William Farr (1807–1883) was perhaps the most influential British statistician of the nineteenth century. Although trained as a physician, in 1839 he accepted a post in the General Register Office and from 1842 to 1880 he served as Statistical Superintendent. During his long tenure he was the main force in the development and analysis of British vital statistics and in setting the foundations of modern epidemiology. He constructed the first British life table (based on deaths in 1841) and carried out a wide range of creative analyses of British mortality statistics, especially on mortality differentials, with an aim of promoting social reform. The most accessible route to his written output for modern readers is a posthumously published collection: Vital Statistics: A Memorial Volume of Selections from the Reports and Writings of William Parr (London: Offices of the Sanitary Institute, 1885). A reprint edition of this work was published under the auspices of the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine (Metuchen, N. J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1975). The passage reproduced below (pp. 59–64) is an excerpt from the Registrar‐General's 39th Annual Report (1877), titled The Economic Value of Population. The topic was earlier treated in Parr's paper “The income and property tax,” Quarterly Journal of the Statistical Society of London (March 1853), excerpted on pp. 531–550 of the book under the title Cost, and the Present and Future Economic Value of Man.     

Major Natural Catastrophes, 1950–2001

The organizations with most interest in recording worldwide disaster statistics are humani‐tarian agencies such as the International Red Cross (see its annual World Disasters Report) and the large reinsurance companies. The latter are likely to be more meticulous. The data and the brief text below come from an annual report on natural disasters, Topics 2001, issued in March 2002 by Munich Reinsurance Company (more familiarly known as Munich Re), and are reproduced by permission. The trend in economic losses from “great catastrophes” (those requiring interregional or international assistance) over the last 50 years is strongly upward, as shown in the annual statistics and decadal comparisons. Both total losses and insured losses have been rising, the latter more sharply. An implication is that insurance premiums calculated on the basis of historical experience will underestimate future risks. The trend in disasters mainly results from greater exposure to risk through thegrowth of economies and populations rather than from changes in natural hazards themselves. One exception noted in the report is an increasing likelihood of “extreme precipitation” during hurricanes and other windstorms, which may be associated with global warming‐a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. (There is no consensus on whether the frequency or intensity of storms is increasing, but there is evidence that they are getting wetter.) Greater allowance will have to be made for flood damage: Hurricane Andrew in the United States in 1992, causing a record $30 billion in estimated total losses, was a relatively “dry” storm‐ and it missed Miami and New Orleans. Munich Re describes 2001 as an “average year” for natural disasters, with an estimated 25,000 fatalities worldwide and total economic losses of some $36 billion. The four events during the year classed as great catastrophes were an earthquake and landslides in El Salvador in January, killing 845 persons; a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Gujarat in the same month, killing more than 14,000; a hailstorm in Kansas City in April, killing no one but costing the insurance industry $2 billion; and Tropical Storm Allison in June, in which 72 m of rain over 12 hoursjlooded Houston, Texas, causing about $6 billion in total losses‐ “the costliest non‐hurricane of all time.” A recurrent concern of Topics 2001 is the problem of what are termed unidentified loss potentials. These are low‐risk but high‐loss events, exemplified by the 1999 Taiwan earth‐quake, which had an estimated return period of 10,000–100.000 years (or, more exotically, by the remote chance but catastrophic eflect o f a large meteorite impact‐the subject of one section of the report). Other kinds of hard‐to‐calculate loss potentials are related to unanticipated chains of events leading to or following from a disaster. The September terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center, although unambiguously man‐made and thus not treated in the report, has been a further stimulus to wide‐angled thinking on loss potentials. It demonstrates the broad scope of worst‐case scenarios that now have to be considered by under‐writers who must seek to eliminate “the ‘bare patches’ on the ‘risk landscape.’” The full report is available online at http://www.munichre.com/pdf/topics~2001‐e.pdf     

A Theory of Life Satisfaction Dynamics: Stability,Change and Volatility in 25-Year Life Trajectories in Germany

An adequate theory of life satisfaction (LS) needs to take account of both factors that tend to stabilise LS and those that change it. The most widely accepted theory in the recent past—set-point theory—focussed solely on stability (Brickman and Campbell, in: Appley (ed) Adaptation level theory, Academic Press, New York, pp 287–302, 1971; Lykken and Tellegen in Psychol Sci 7:186–189, 1996). That theory is now regarded as inadequate by most researchers, given that national panel surveys in several Western countries show that substantial minorities of respondents have recorded large, long term changes in LS (Sheldon and Lucas in The stability of happiness, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2014). In this paper we set out a preliminary revised theory, based mainly on analysis of the LS trajectories of the 2473 respondents in the German Socio-Economic Panel who reported their LS for 25 consecutive years in 1990–2014. The theory entails three sets of propositions in which we attempt to account for stability, change and also volatility. First, it is proposed that stability is primarily due to stable personality traits, and also to parental influence on LS. The second set of propositions indicates that medium and long term changes are due to differences and changes in personal values/life priorities and behavioural choices. Differences in the priority given to pro-social values, family values and materialistic values affect LS, as do behavioural choices relating to one’s partner, physical exercise, social participation and networks, church attendance, and the balance between work and leisure. Medium term change is reinforced by two-way causation—positive feedback loops—between values, behavioural choices and LS. The third set of propositions breaks new ground in seeking to explain inter-individual differences in the volatility/variability of LS over time; why some individuals display high volatility and others low, even though their mean level of LS may change little over 25 years.     

An Exploration of the Experience of Lesbians with Chronic Illness

An exploration of the challenges facing lesbians with chronic conditions and their coping strategies was investigated by examining the experiences of participants who were clients of a volunteer organization serving chronically ill lesbians. This article reports the results associated with those challenges, with its ultimate goal being and to assess the effectiveness of current services. Using the participant observation method, as employed by O'Toole (2000 O'Toole, C. J. 2000. The view from below: Developing a knowledge base about an unknown population. Sexuality and Disability, 18(3): 207–224. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the analysis was based on multiple data sources and 10 years experience within the volunteer organization, including 3 years in direct client support. A qualitative method served as the primary focus for the study. The quantitative method preceded the qualitative method and provided limited supporting data. The total number of participants included all past and current clients, but the number participating in each data source varied. Qualitative sources included archival structured interviews (n = 69), taped interviews (n = 5-6), and extensive comments written in response to the quantitative surveys (n = 14). The quantitative measures (n = 14) included the researcher-developed Chronic Conditions Challenges Checklist (C4) and the Short Form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire ([SF-MPQ]; Melzack, 1998 Melzack, R. 1998. “The short-form McGill pain questionnaire”. In The compendium of quality of life instruments, Edited by: Salek, S. 2J:3–2J:3C. New York: Wiley. (Compiler) [Google Scholar] ). A content analysis of all data sources found a number of challenges that met the criteria of being identified in at least two data sources and across multiple participants. Challenges included those related to the disease process (i.e., pain, fatigue, and decreases in mobility) to impacts of the condition (financial security, ability to participate, support from family of origin and independence, loneliness, and issues related to mental health). Challenges were discussed in terms of those that are similar to and different from other women suffering from chronic illness, as well as their relevance to related literature.     

The Global Science Panel on Population in Sustainable Development

The forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa (26 August – 4 September 2002) has been called by the United Nations to consider strategies toward sustainable development in all its dimensions. Hence, its mandate is broader than that of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio Conference). Population issues have previously been discussed in a separate series of World Population Conferences (Bucharest 1974, Mexico City 1984, Cairo 1994). With no new World Population Conference scheduled for 2004 and Johannesburg having a mandate that explicitly includes social and economic aspects, population as a key component of sustainable development should figure prominently in the deliberations. Yet, after the third of four preparatory meetings for WSSD (which ended in New York on 5 April), population considerations are absent from the planned agenda. A plausible explanation for this absence is bureaucratic: in most countries inputs to Johannesburg are being prepared mainly by environment ministries that have little experience in dealing with population questions. There may also be political reasons for not wanting to discuss population issues in Johannesburg. But, arguably, sustainable development strategies that do not take into account the diversity and the dynamics of human populations will fail. This is one of the conclusions of the Global Science Panel on Population and Environment. The Panel is an independent body of international experts from the fields of population and environment that was organized by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), and the United Nations University (UNU). (Members of the Panel acted in their individual capacity, rather than representing their institutions.) After a ten‐month preparatory process, in April 2002 the Panel finalized a statement that summarizes its understanding of the role of population in sustainable development and outlines key policy priorities. The full text of this statement, titled Population in sustainable development, is reproduced below.