Fertility and social change: the neglected contribution of men's approaches to becoming partners and parents

Attitude survey and interview data are mobilised to address neglect of men's contribution to low fertility and wider social change in families and relationships. Men's attitudes are as relevant as women's to understanding fertility behaviour. However, fertility behaviour can only be understood in the context of a package of changes in gender relations and family life. Data from a random sample of men aged 18–49 surveyed in the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey 2005/06 are combined with in‐depth interviews conducted in 2007 with 75 men aged 25–44 identified through the Scottish Household Survey as not living in co‐resident partnership arrangements. Both datasets encompass the age span conventionally associated with having children and men who were the potential partners of women delaying a first child until their 30s. They allow consideration of the impact of social contact with parents and children on men's fertility intentions and how the role of provider features in men's views about parenting. The interviews focus on men who have fallen out of, or have not entered, co‐resident partnerships and examine the relationship between partnering and parenting. In combination the data suggest how men act as a complementary or contradictory downward drag on women's fertility and that their role has been underestimated in understanding the package of family change of which low fertility is a part.     

“Earn Your Penny Elsewhere”: Banishment,Migrant Laborers,and Sociospatial Exclusion in Sixteenth‐Century Ulm*

Abstract The town council in Ulm, Germany banished over a thousand offenders in the course of the sixteenth century. Examination of the banishment verdicts issued by these magistrates reveals how they used expulsion to regulate both the physical borders of their territory and inclusion in the urban commune. In banishment cases involving resident aliens, the local authorities sought to expel resident aliens who seemed to threaten the community's property or its purity, using purgation to police the margin between legal and physical inclusion and exclusion. Finally, the local magistrates used the public expulsion rituals that accompanied banishment to display their role in regulating these boundaries before their subjects.     

Beyond black and white: the role of media in portraying and policing migration and asylum in Italy

This paper investigates the media’s role in shaping perceptions and policies concerning the so-called migrant crisis as well as how this affects solidarity with newcomers, specifically focusing on Italy. The first part of the paper examines the coexistence of the humanitarian narratives of saving lives and the spectacle of militarised borders. It unveils how the daily transmission of sensationalist and stereotyped images of migrants contributes to their transforming into subjects and objects of fear, both experiencing the fear of being rejected and eliminated and inspiring fear in the resident populations. The second part addresses the need for innovative approaches in the construction of a positive public image of migrants and refugees. Through an analysis of several communication campaigns, realised by state and non-state actors for the promotion of social coexistence between citizens and newcomers, this paper calls for a fundamental shift in the way we communicate about migration. A concluding reflection on the challenges and opportunities posed by the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers in our societies, proposes that they should not only be perceived as objects of policies, but should be considered active partners of their own inclusion in the receiving societies.     

“OK guys,thank you for coming today”: Indexicality,utterance events,and verbal rituals in political speeches in Sheikh Jarrah

This ethnography looks at the indexical function of several brief utterances, routinely employed by a Palestinian speechmaker, in the Sheikh Jarrah protest in East Jerusalem. Following Silverstein's contributions to the indexically based theory of (meta)pragmatics, “creative” and nonreferential utterances are examined at the utterance event level, in relation to the speech event level, and more generally to verbal rituals. The political speeches I study have been delivered weekly, in Hebrew, by a Sheikh Jarrah resident and activist, for over a decade. The ethnographic analysis depicts how the utterances create a physical and symbolic (rhetorical) space for the performance of the speeches, routinize and ritualize their recurrence, and secure their endurance in a hostile environment. This is accomplished by spatially disassembling and reassembling the protesters, modifying the participation structure, and establishing a host–guest relationship. The speaker is repositioned as a resident, activist, and political rhetor-in-the-becoming, and the protestors are repositioned as his audience.     

Implementation and results of the statewide ONHRSS

In response to increased consumer demand, state governments are publishing more detailed information about the quality of nursing homes. In 2002, Ohio legislation mandated the publication of a Long-Term Care Consumer Guide that included information on nursing home resident and family satisfaction surveys. Using the 2002 Ohio Nursing Home Resident Satisfaction Survey as an example, this article addresses two research questions: (1) how can statewide resident face-to-face satisfaction interviews be implemented to maximize participation of residents and facilities and produce reliable and valid results, and (2) how satisfied are residents with their nursing home experiences, overall and by level of cognitive function.     

The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the Global City

This article explores asylum seeker survival strategies and agency in relation to the structural, post‐industrial conditions that have emerged in Hong Kong. The focus is on the livelihoods of asylum seekers within spaces of illegality and social exclusion, how such spaces are formed, and how asylum seekers exploit local conditions to establish profitable networks across borders. The article considers asylum seekers' engagement in income‐generating activities and the importance of legal status in the sectors of the economy in which they most often work: recycling and trading. Far from being a burden to society or opportunistic deviants taking advantage of Hong Kong's economic prosperity, as they are normally depicted in public discourse, asylum seekers are economically productive. They act in economic spaces in which disadvantaged strata of the local resident population organize their means of survival, thereby improving the economic opportunities for locals.     

Earnings of foreign-born doctoral engineers in the United States: intersectionality of citizenship status and gender

Abstract

Foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States make significant contributions to their fields. While some studies of their career outcomes investigate the internal differences among immigrant scientists and engineers, there is little scholarly attention to how immigration status and gender work together in shaping their career outcomes. This study employs the intersectionality framework and uses National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2017 to examine how citizenship status and the intersection of citizenship status and gender affect earnings among engineers with doctoral degrees. Findings show that naturalized U.S. citizens do not earn less than comparable native-born citizens, but permanent residents and temporary residents do. In terms of intersectional effects, U.S.-born women experience an earnings disadvantage due to their gender, naturalized U.S. citizen women and permanent resident women face earnings disadvantages because of both citizenship status and gender, and temporary resident women earn less because of their citizenship status. The preceding findings persisted in the period of study with one exception. These findings reveal the internal variations among foreign-born engineers, intersectional effects of citizenship status and gender, and the complexity and persistence of these effects, suggesting the intersectional and enduring nature of inequality.     

To Empower with Meaningful Data: Lessons Learned in Building an Alliance Between Researchers and Long-Term Care Ombudsmen

Abstract

This is the story of how a research team formed an alliance with state long-term care ombudsmen to develop a national database of resident complaints. Beginning with background information on problem identification and analysis, the article focuses on lessons learned in building alliances between practitioners and researchers, in recognizing individual site needs, in advocating for credible dissemination of findings, and in acknowledging philosophical and political differences. The article stresses the importance of tenacity in seeking funding for projects that empower practitioners to truly advocate for the needs of vulnerable populations.     

Social Fathers and Child Well‐Being

Many young children born to unwed parents currently live with their biological mothers and their mothers’ new partners (social fathers). This study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Well‐Being Study (N = 1,350) to assess whether involvement by resident social fathers is as beneficial for child well‐being as involvement by resident biological fathers and whether the involvement of the child’s nonresident biological father alters the relationship between resident social father engagement and child outcomes. Results indicate that involvement by resident social fathers is as beneficial for child well‐being as involvement by resident biological fathers and that frequent contact with the child’s nonresident biological father does not diminish the positive association between residential social father involvement and child well‐being.     

Adjusting for Change of Status in International Migration: Demographic Implications

The calculation of net immigration for the purpose of estimating the resident population in Australia is based on net permanent and long–term (12 months or more) movements into and out of the country. All international movements with duration of stay in Australia or travel abroad of less than 12 months (defined as short–term) are excluded. However, changes between short–term and long–term/permanent status can occur when people extend or shorten their stay or travel. Because net immigration is a significant component of Australia’s population growth (accounting for 40–50 per cent of annual growth), adjusting for these changes in migration status is thought to result in better estimates of net immigration and the resident population. The paper shows that adjusting for change of status can have a large impact on net immigration, particularly when the immigrant intake is small. Failure to adequately adjust for change of status can also lead to misleading conclusions about the relative contributions of net temporary and permanent movements to total net immigration. The effect on the resident population, however, is relatively small, being less than 1 per cent of the total population. The paper also addresses the question of how important it is for countries to adjust for change of migrant status in international migration statistics in the context of increasing international mobility.     

Parental choice and the rural primary school: Lifestyle,locality and loyalty

This paper discusses the geography of parental choice in a rural locale and shows how a group of parents negotiated their way through the process of primary school choice. Using ethnographic data collected through interviews and observations with parents and staff from three rural primary schools in England, the research utilises Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field to show how the resources and values the parents held affected the school choices they made. The paper demonstrates that the longer-term resident local parents were influenced not only by their cultural capital but also by familial ties and an emotional commitment to the rural locale and these parents were therefore more inclined to support their local school. In contrast, the more recent newcomer parents used their cultural capital and spatial power to shop around to find what they believed to be the ‘right’ school. The paper argues that the newcomer parents had less allegiance to place and hence to the symbolic position that the school holds within the rural community within which they lived.     

Effects of urbanization on breeding birds in European towns: Impacts of species traits

Urbanization acts as a filter on bird species behavioral traits so that only few species can tolerate urban constraints. We analyzed how behavioral traits (nesting, feeding, and migratory habits) of breeding bird species affect their frequency of occurrence in the urban centers of 38 European towns. We used binary logistic regression analysis to predict the bird species traits belonging to each trait group. A total of 108 species (21% of the European breeding bird species) were found to breed in the European town centers. According to our broad-scale analyses the bird species most frequently breeding in town centers nest in buildings and/or buildings have diverse diets, in trees (40%) and are resident omnivores, or relied on seeds or fruits as their sources of food. However, almost all bird species also fed on arthropods (92%) during the breeding season. Only a few urban bird species bred on the ground. Four out of the studied 108 species were non-native and five species were predators. Our broad-scale results from Europe indicate that bird species with different behavioral traits can respond differently to urbanization. Bird species that nest in cavities/buildings have diverse diets, that benefit a resident way-of-life, may have an advantage in living and settling in European town centers. Our results from Europe may provide insights related to the development of bird assemblages in the urban core areas of the New World.     

Book review

Social workers around the world are increasingly working with culturally diverse populations. Since the 1960s, United States schools of social work have included in their curricula content on ethnic minorities. This paper provides a historical overview of how US schools of social work have introduced content on cultural diversity. The paper then reviews models for teaching this content and models for understanding cultural diversity. Finally, the processes by which the United States experience can be transferred to other countries are considered.     

Parental Childrearing Attitudes as Correlates of Father Involvement During Infancy

Using daily diary data to document involvement with infants at 6 - 8 months of age (n = 142) and 6 months later (n = 95), we examined relations between reported childrearing attitudes and resident fathers' relative (as compared to mothers') involvement with children. Fathers' authoritarian views related negatively to their relative involvement on weekdays, and this relation held over time for caregiving and playing activities. Mothers' protective attitudes had concurrent negative associations with fathers' relative weekend involvement. Findings suggest that fathers' authoritarian and mothers' protective attitudes relate to how parenting responsibilities are shared within families and may be detrimental to how much fathers become, or choose to become, directly involved in the care of their infants in comparison to mothers.     

Chapter 5 Impacts of Profit Status of Assisted Living Facilities

Abstract

Florida is a bellwether state in terms of the need for assisted living among elderly persons and has more than 2,000 of the nation's estimated 11,459 assisted living facilities (ALFs). The authors of this article surveyed 140 ALFs in Florida in order to examine the relationship of profit status to ownership of other facilities, willingness to serve low income groups, formal policies, and persons involved in decisions about resident retention. Significant differences were found between for-profit and non-profit facilities in terms of ownership of nursing homes and resident involvement in retention decisions. A discussion of how the profit motive and formal policies can impact residents concludes the article.     

I'm Not a Bad Mother — Stories of Mothering‐on‐the‐Edge

This article is located in the field of custody and day‐to‐day care, with a focus on experiences of mothering where mothers no longer have everyday care of their children. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of mothers live separately from their children in Aotearoa, New Zealand. However, there is a general perception of rarity associated with non‐resident mothers, partly due to their reluctance to speak of loss of custody. In this article, we develop a theoretical discussion around the inside/outside relationships between non‐resident mothers and their children that informs therapeutic practice. We argue that mothers who live apart from their children are situated at the edge or periphery of their children's day‐to‐day lives and experience this as outside the lives of their children. Nevertheless, mothers' stories speak of qualities of (m)othering that have been born of and nurtured by longstanding and long‐term commitment to their children.     

When Children Have Two Mothers: Relationships With Nonresident Mothers,Stepmothers, and Fathers

Using data on 294 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health who live with a biological father and have both a resident stepmother and a nonresident biological mother, this study examines the prevalence, antecedents, and consequences of adolescents’ closeness to each of their parents. Findings demonstrate that adolescents vary in their likelihood of having close relationships to resident fathers, resident stepmothers, and nonresident biological mothers, but when they can do so, they appear to benefit. Close relationships with both resident fathers and nonresident mothers are associated with fewer adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Closeness to resident stepmothers, however, is unrelated to these two outcomes. Results suggest that fathers play a particularly important role in these families.     

The specter of failure: rendering Afghan women as sites of precarity in empowerment regimes

This article analyzes how the category of “Afghan women” and discourses of precarity intersect within the women’s empowerment regime in Afghanistan. By examining an NGO that seeks to empower women through writing, I argue that staff members draw upon precarity as a go-to logic to describe the state of Afghan women writers’ successes under conditions of insecurity and limited communication. Specifically, it is writers’ desires to subvert their social orders and to carve out their own futures that staff members and writing coordinators frame as subject to potential destruction. While recent work has highlighted the importance of recognizing the precarious lifeworlds of vulnerable populations, this article points to the potential implications of a hyper-recognition of precarity – namely, the obscuring of the complexities of individual women’s past and present realities. Through analyzing the pedagogies of one empowerment NGO working with women in a post-9/11 Afghanistan, I show how the logic of precarity is concerned with the vulnerability of women’s desires and sentiments, rather than their material and political vulnerabilities. It is thus deeply inflected by a historically situated “common sense” about which potentialities and aspirations are inherent to Afghan women.     

The objects that personalize bedrooms and their relationship with attachment and self / Los objetos que personalizan los dormitorios y su relación con el apego y el self

The personalization of space is constructed through the items that the resident distributes around the space they inhabit, and they can be considered part of the resident’s self. Three studies were conducted with the goal of establishing the categories into which the objects contained in bedrooms can be organized and to evaluate to what extent these categories are related to the extended self and attachment. In the first study, with 77 students, we obtained a list of the most representative objects in their bedrooms. In the next study, a group of 56 students classified these objects freely using their own criteria; a subsequent cluster analysis showed four categories: Functional, Personal Grooming, Symbolic and Free Time. In the last study, 144 students evaluated the relationship between the categories of the objects and the extended self and attachment. The results showed that the residents’ representative objects were part of their extended self more than the level of attachment attributed to these objects.