Cohabitation Premium in Men’s Earnings: Testing the Joint Human Capital Hypothesis

This paper provides new evidence on the increase in wage earnings for men due to marriage and cohabitation (in the literature, commonly referred to as marital and cohabitation wage premiums for men). Using data for a sample of white men from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, the paper shows that even after accounting for potential selection bias there is a cohabitation wage premium for men, albeit smaller than the marriage premium. Our analysis shows that a joint human capital hypothesis (a la Benham in J Polit Econ 82(2, Part 2):S57–71, 1974) with intra-household spillover effects of partner’s education can explain the existence of the wage premiums. Our estimates provide some empirical support for the joint human capital hypothesis.     

Unions and wages in Nevada’s hotel-casino industry

A significant union presence in the Las Vegas hotelcasino industry juxtaposed to the near absence of union representation in the Reno area provides a unique setting to study union wage effects in the industry. Results of the analysis using state wage survey data indicate that after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in the two locations median wages in occupations in Las Vegas with substantial union coverage are 24 percent higher than wages in identical occupations in Reno.     

The Burden of Sexual Problems: Perceived Effects on Men’s and Women’s Sexual Partners

Sexual dysfunction sometimes negatively affects the individual, his or her partner, and the relationship. We investigated the relationship between the distress experienced by men and women with orgasmic phase difficulties and the perceived distress of their partner(s). We also identified predictors of perceived partner distress, and related self and partner distress to severity of the problem and relationship quality. Data were drawn from 374 men with premature ejaculation (PE) and 377 women with anorgasmia who responded to a survey regarding their sexual functioning, including their distress about their condition and the perceived distress of their partners. Results yielded an overall distress score consisting of combined self and perceived partners distress, with women showing a higher overall score and higher perceived partner distress than men. For men, significant predictors of perceived partner distress included self-distress, relationship quality, interest in sex, and arousal difficulty; for women, only the level of self-distress significantly predicted perceived partner distress. These findings indicate the burden of experiencing sexual difficulty, identify factors related to perceived partner distress, and demonstrate differences in self versus partner distress across men and women. Overall, such findings reiterate the strong need for the inclusion of the partner in any attempted remediation of a sexual problem.     

China’s Non-governmental Microcredit Practice: History and Challenges

This paper provides a systematic assessment of China’s non-governmental microcredit practice. Based on survey results and existing key reports, this paper reviews the evolution and current situation, discusses the policy and legal framework, assesses the poverty outreach and social impact, and extracts the problems and challenges. This paper concludes with presenting some potential initiatives to address the key restrictive issues for sustainable development of the non-governmental microcredit sector.     

Rising Rates of Cohabitation and the Odds of Repartnering: Does the Gap Between Men and Women Disappear?

Men are more likely to repartner than women. This pattern might reflect gender disparities in barriers to repartnering. When rates of cohabitation increase, the gender disparity might shrink, as cohabitation is a less institutionalized form of coresidential partnership and therefore has lower entry barriers in comparison to marriage. Using event-history models applied to Czech data from the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that the odds of repartnering were indeed higher among men than among women in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No significant change in the gender effect, however, was found. Similarly, the analysis revealed no change in the effect of gender on the odds of entering cohabitation rather than marriage.     

At the frontier of imperial history: revisiting Edward Gait’s A History of Assam

Edward Gait’s A History of Assam was first published in 1906, later revised in 1926. The book has remained one of the most popular ‘textbooks’ in Assam, especially as the first modern historiography on the subject. This article looks at two broad issues in this regard. First, it looks at the contradictions that Gait was faced with in terms of his imperial ideology and interpreting the historical sources of an imperial frontier. Second, it tries to situate the relevance of the above point vis-à-vis some of the contemporary attempts at re-framing the region as an international borderland. In conclusion, the article looks at the reception of Gait and his appropriation into different discourses within Assam. A point explored is whether despite its contradictions, was Gait’s A History of Assam part of a wider, dynamic context of early twentieth century Assam, which made the book an important academic and political intervention of its times.     

Accounting for Men’s Refusal of Heterosex: A Story-Completion Study With Young Adults

In the present study we bring together theory regarding the construction of heterosexuality and masculinities to understand the shifting and changing terrain of heterosexual sex (heterosex). We use inductive qualitative content analysis of story completion data to discover the different ways that heterosex is constructed by the male and female respondents in scenarios where women initiate sex and men, at first, refuse. The stories represented a spectrum of responses that reify and subvert dominant understandings of heterosex. Five major themes were generated from the current data (1) men should initiate sex, (2) he wants to take it slowly, (3) it is natural for men to want sex, (4) it is men’s job to look after women, and (5) coercion. We discuss in detail the dominant narratives described by women and men and how they may be shifting. The study thus provides a rich, experience-based representation of heterosexual sexual activity and suggests subtle shifts in how masculinity is managed within heterosexual relationships.     

Demands of Maternal Chronic Illness and Children’s Educational Functioning: An Exploratory Study

The study explored the associations between characteristics (e.g., type of illness, years of illness, time spent on managing illness related activities, and the extent of physical impairment) of maternal chronic illness, household income, demands of illness experienced by the patients and their families, and their children’s academic achievement. One hundred and fifty mothers who were diagnosed with chronic physical illness (e.g., diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, etc.) participated in this study by completing a questionnaire asking their medical condition, experienced demands imposed by their illness, as well as their children’s grades in school. The results indicated that years of illness, extent of physical impairment, time spent on managing illness related activities, and household income were significantly associated with the demands imposed by the mothers’ physical illness. Household income was found to be the most robust predictor of children’s grades in the sample of chronically ill mothers. Implications and limitations of the present study will be discussed.     

Heterosexual Women’s and Men’s Labeling of Anal Behaviors as Having “Had Sex”

This study explored labeling of penile–anal intercourse (PAI), manual–anal (MA), and oral–anal (OA) behaviors as having “had sex” among heterosexual men and women with such experience residing in the United States (n = 3,218). Adult men and women completed an online questionnaire assessing sexual behaviors and whether each counted as having had sex. With the exception of anal intercourse, there was high variation in whether a behavior was labeled having had sex. There was not consensus on which anal sexual behaviors constituted having had sex, with attitudes varying across age, gender, and behavioral experience. Those who were older, male, and had the specific behavioral experience were more likely to label it as having had sex. Behaviorally specific assessments of the various anal behaviors as part of the sexual repertoire is critical to more accurate evaluation of sexual histories and assessment of risks to sexual health.     

“First Train Out”: Marriage and Cohabitation in the Context of Poverty,Deprivation, and Trauma

There has been a steep rise in the proportion of children born to and living with unmarried parents. Unmarried parents are increasingly likely to cohabitate, especially low-income couples, placing their children at elevated psychosocial risk. This life history study of poor, White single mothers suggests that the current focus on differences between married and cohabiting poor women may overstate underlying similarities in factors associated with their partner formation and dissolution and that poor women's decisions about marriage and cohabitation must be understood in a developmental context that reflects the stacking, over time, of multiple forms of vulnerability to unstable partnerships, single motherhood, and continuing poverty into adulthood.     

A life of one’s own: republican freedom and disability

This article outlines a republican perspective on disability. We argue that a commitment to ensuring the republican freedom of disabled citizens offers a promising account of what disabled citizens are owed as a matter of justice. A republican perspective offers a particular diagnosis of the injustice of disability disadvantage, both in relation to individuals (dominium) and the state (imperium), that is congenial to prominent concerns voiced by the disability rights movement. This article also offers a brief outline of three republican remedies: the right of social participation, the right of opportunities for civic contribution, and the right of democratic contestation. These remedies constitute key guidelines for the robust institutional protection of disabled citizens’ republican freedom.     

Men’s Work Efforts and the Transition to Fatherhood

In this paper we tested three hypotheses: (a) the transition to fatherhood is associated with an increase in work effort; (b) the positive association (if any) between the transition to fatherhood and work effort is greater for fathers who are married at the time of the transition; and (c) the association (if any) is greater for men who make the transition at younger ages. The data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort. The transition to fatherhood was associated with an increase in work effort among young unmarried men, but not for married men. Among married men who were on-time fathers, work effort decreased. Among childless men, the marriage transition was associated with increased work effort.     

The Lovers of Venice: Musset’s Works and Life in Kuzmin’s A New Rolla

The title of Mikhail Kuzmin’s Novyi Rolla [A New Rolla] has been considered cryptic despite its evident allusion to Alfred de Musset’s “Rolla,” a poem with which it shares little. In this article I argue that the link to Musset is clear if we read A New Rolla as responding not just to “Rolla,” but also to Musset’s novel La Confession d’un enfant du siècle [The Confession of a Child of the Age] and his biography. From this composite source Kuzmin takes up the themes of a debauchee finding love, love as serial yet serious, and a love triangle in Venice, as well as an apostrophe to the kiss. Kuzmin endorses most of Musset’s idea of love, but rejects the egalitarian ideal implicit in the sympathetic treatment of the prostitute Marion in “Rolla.” A secondary allusion to Nikolai Nekrasov’s “Kogda iz mraka zabluzhden’ia” [When, out of the darkness of error] reinforces Kuzmin’s rejection of the egalitarian ideal of sexual love. The allusions to Musset and Nekrasov amount to anachronisms that partially undermine the precise temporal setting of A New Rolla. Kuzmin’s work thereby occupies an intermediate position among his period pieces, as it is neither openly playful like Venetsianskie bezumtsy [Venetian Madcaps] nor constructed with its seams hidden like the Aleksandriiskie pesni [Alexandrian Songs].     

Does Premarital Cohabitation Predict Subsequent Marital Stability and Marital Quality? A Meta‐Analysis

Cohabitation with a romantic partner has become common in recent decades. This meta‐analysis examined the link between premarital cohabitation and marital stability ( k = 16) and marital quality ( k = 12). Cohabitation had a significant negative association with both marital stability and marital quality. The negative predictive effect on marital stability, however, did not remain when only cohabitation with the eventual marital partner was analyzed, suggesting that these cohabitors may attach more long‐term meaning to living together. Moderator analyses demonstrated that effects of cohabitation have remained consistent over time, despite the fact that cohabitation has become more normative.     

Let’s be honest: A review of experimental evidence of honesty and truth-telling

Honesty toward strangers can be considered an important norm of any given society. However, despite burgeoning interest in honesty among experimenters, the heterogeneous nature of prior experimental designs obfuscates our understanding of this important topic. The present review of 63 economic and psychological experiments constitutes the first attempt to compare findings across a range of honesty experiments. Our findings across experimental designs suggest the robust presence of unconditional cheaters and non-cheaters, with the honesty of the remaining individuals being particularly susceptible to monitoring and intrinsic lying costs.