An Exploratory Study of Trust and Material Hardship in Ghana

We explore associations among interpersonal (thick and thin) and institutional (legislative, executive, and judicial) trust and material hardship outcomes in Ghana. We use data from the 2008 Afrobarometer survey. Material hardship is conceptualized in terms of frequency of going without five basic necessities/consumptive deprivations, each of which a separate outcome (food, water, medical care, cooking fuel, and cash income). Five multinomial logistic regression models are estimated. Models also include relevant socioeconomic and cultural factors. The stepwise forward entry method was used to identify important variables for each model, and common and unique predictors of each outcome are discussed. Results suggest that deprivations are trust-specific in Ghana. Interpersonal and institutional trust types matter differentially (for example, trust in parliament/national assembly is a unique food deprivation predictor; trust in courts is a unique water deprivation predictor; and trust in police is a unique cash income deprivation predictor). Common trust predictors across models are thin trust (trust in other Ghanaians) for predicting food and cooking fuel infrequency outcomes and executive trust for predicting water, medical care, and cash income infrequency outcomes. Some of the non-trust variables, like education and ethnicity, were prominent predictors of deprivation outcomes across all models. This is one of the beginning studies to explore micro-level data in an important area of trust and material hardship in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study also attempts to conceptualize material hardship within the context of a developing country and provides insightful results that could be beneficial to other research investigators and further probed in future studies building on this work. The study draws important implications for intervention policies based on analyses of material hardship composite parts which provide insights with great detail into specific target groups on specific component-outcomes.     

Religion and Subjective Well-Being in Ghana

Using 2008 Afrobarometer survey data, we examine the relationship between religion and subjective well-being (SWB) in Ghana, as well as religious group differences in their experiences of SWB. Two measures of religion—religious affiliation and religious importance, and two measures of SWB—absolute SWB (own perceived living conditions) and relative SWB (own living conditions compared to those of other Ghanaians) are employed in this study. Results show that religious affiliation is significantly related to both measures of SWB although associations depicted for such relationships were not strong. Religious importance significantly related to relative SWB only (with a weak-to-moderate association). Significant religious affiliation and religious importance group differences are found on both SWB outcomes via non-parametric test procedures (Kruskal–Wallis H test, followed by post hoc tests). On balance, the None/Traditional religious group experienced less favorable SWB than Other Christian, Evangelical/Pentecostal, and Muslim groups, especially for absolute SWB, while the None/Traditional group experienced particularly less favorable relative SWB than the Protestant group. Religious importance groups also significantly differed in such a way that the group that considered religion very important had more favorable experiences of both types of SWB than the group that considered religion not at all/not very important. Other significant differences on both outcomes are found among ethnic, educational, and regional groups. In view of the findings, the study contributes to SWB research and suggests policy implications.     

Cultural Access and Mental Health: An Exploratory Study

Loss of well-being, rising rates of depression and various psychological illnesses are a public health concern. This study aims to explore the associations between cultural access and mental illness. Applying a panel methodology to the 20 Italian regions (2002–2007 period) the relationship between public health expenditure per-capita (the dependent variable) and hospital discharge rates for different illnesses (the regressors) has been estimated. Then the impact of the private spending in culture (the regressors) on the mental illness—as approximated by the discharge rate for mental illness—(the dependent variable), has been verified via generalised method of moments (GMM) approach. Data came from the National Census of the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). The results of empirical analysis have highlighted how the discharge rate for mental illness is substantially improved by some forms of cultural consumptions. The coefficients associated with unemployment rates (the control variables) have a positive impact on mental illness, thus suggesting that unemployment has an impact on the discharge rate for mental illness; the greatest impact is observed for the long-term unemployment rate. The results are beneficial for designing and implementing preventive strategies to reduce mental illness and public health expenditure by considering the impact of cultural access.     

An Empirical Approach to the Study of Well-being Among Rural Men and Women in Ghana

The paper indicates using community development and sustainable livelihood theories as lenses that well-being indicators vary among societies, especially in developing countries due cultural differences. The study which was carried in three rural communities in Ho Municipality in the Ghana was to show the extent to which men’s and women’s sense of well-being were determined by their local economic, religious, social, and education indicators; all of which were driven by their cultural values. Since men and women placed different values on religious, social, economic, education indicators, the paper discusses that their importance to overall well-being also differs between men and women.     

Child Health-Related Quality of Life and Parental Social Capital in Greece: An Exploratory Study

In this paper, we examined dimensions of child health-related quality of life in Greece in relation to parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support networks. For the analysis, two main measures were used: (1) child self-reported health-related quality of life in ten dimensions, as measured by the KIDSCREEN questionnaire; (2) subjective measures of parental neighbourhood social capital and social support. Parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support were both independently and positively associated with child self-reported health-related quality of life. However, they were not associated with the same dimensions of child well being, nor were they associated with all dimensions of child well being. These results suggest that greater attention in future research needs to be paid to the differential associations between the various dimensions of social capital and child health-related quality of life, with clear focus implications for social and health policies.     

College Education and Social Trust: An Evidence-Based Study on the Causal Mechanisms

This paper examines the influence of college education on social trust at the individual level. Based on the literature of trust and social trust, we hypothesize that life experience/development since adulthood and perceptions of cultural/social structures are two primary channels in the causal linkage between college education and social trust. In the first part of the empirical study econometric techniques are employed to tackle the omitted-variable problem and substantial evidence is found to confirm the positive effect of college education. In the second part contemporary information is used to examine the hypothetical mechanisms in the causal inference. That life experience is a primary channel via which college education promotes social trust fails to find support in our examination, while individual perceptions of cultural and social structures explain up to 77% of the causal effect.     

Urbanization and fertility: An event-history analysis of Coastal Ghana

In this article, we undertake an event-history analysis of fertility in Ghana. We exploit detailed life history calendar data to conduct a more refined and definitive analysis of the relationship among personal traits, urban residence, and fertility. Although urbanization is generally associated with lower fertility in developing countries, inferences in most studies have been hampered by a lack of information about the timing of residence in relationship to childbearing. We find that the effect of urbanization itself is strong, evident, and complex, and persists after we control for the effects of age, cohort, union status, and education. Our discrete-time event-history analysis shows that urban women exhibit fertility rates that are, on average, 11% lower than those of rural women, but the effects vary by parity. Differences in urban population traits would augment the effects of urban adaptation itself. Extensions of the analysis point to the operation of a selection effect in rural-to-urban mobility but provide limited evidence for disruption effects. The possibility of further selection of urbanward migrants on unmeasured traits remains. The analysis also demonstrates the utility of an annual life history calendar for collecting such data in the field.     

人口密度和生育率:一项探索性分析

20世纪是世界人口前所未有的增长期。文章利用世界187个国家1960～2000年(间隔5年)的时间序列资料,结合中国、印度和瑞典的个案分析,着重研究人口密度与人口增长率、生育率之间的关系。研究结果表明,人口密度是除影响人口增长率和生育率下降的社会、经济、文化变量之外的另一个重要因素,它直接影响生育率的水平和趋势,在未来人口预测中有必要考虑人口密度变量。中国、印度和瑞典的案例也反映出人口密度与生育率之间的显著相关关系。     

An Exploratory Study on the Quality of Life of older Chinese People Living alone in Hong Kong

This study successfully interviewed 109 randomly selected Chinese people aged 60 and over living alone in two public housing estates in an urban area of Hong Kong. The results show that mental health status, number of days staying in hospital, life satisfaction, age, and self-esteem are significant factors in predicting the life quality of older Chinese respondents living alone. The explanatory power of this model is 56.4. The results of this study are consistent with previous findings reported in the west and in Hong Kong. A subgroup analysis of those older Chinese respondents living alone who have offspring also living in Hong Kong shows that belief in childrens’ support in old age, good walking ability, and better self-reported health status via life satisfaction as the mediating variable, better self-reported health status and satisfactory self-reported financial status via self-esteem as the mediating variable, are crucial predictors of quality of life. This model explains 64.2% of the variance in quality of life from a subset of the predictor variables.     

Study of age misstatement among young children in Ghana

In the 1960 Population Census of Ghana, the first attempt to enumerate the population by single years of age was made. The use of these data to estimate fertility levels was rendered somewhat difficult by the pattern assumed by the age statement of children. This pattern was similar to others found widely in developing countries. There appeared to be unexpectedly few children under two years of age and more children aged three years than any other single age. In order to investigate such age reporting, and in the hope of being able to provide some kind of correction to the census data, an attempt was made to trace one thousand children 0-99 months of age in ten different centers, with knoum dates of registered birth. If found, they were approached, as if by census enumerators, to obtain statements of age from the families. The investigation had to be confined to the compulsory registration areas where an eighth of the population of the country lives.It was found that age misstatement occurs partly because of digital preference but even more commonly because of a tendency to approximate age to the nearest birthday. Thus, when age misstatement occurs through the latter cause, it always takes the form of age advancement. Errors in age statement of more than one year fell evenly and randomly above and below the correct age. The age data in years were not appreciably affected by seeking further information on age in years and months. However, it was shown that the standard deviation of stated from real age was approximately proportional to real age and was equal to about one-eighth of it.The findings were then applied to the 1960 enumeration, where some problems such as the small number of one-year-olds, were solved. More work is needed to explain satisfactorily the peaking at three years of age. It was shown that age advancement may have reduced the size of the 0-4 age group by about 5 percent relative to adult female age groups, and this would result in an understatement of fertility as measured by the child/woman age ratio of the same amount.The research described in this paper was program of that post. With the exception of a carried out when the writer held the Population part of the analysis which has been carried out at Council demography post attached to the University of Ghana and formed part of the research program of that post. With the exception of a carried out when the writer held the Population part of the analysis which has been carried out at the Australian National University, the project was financed entirely by the Population Council.     

An Exploratory Study on the Quality of Life of older Chinese People Living alone in Hong Kong

This study successfully interviewed 109 randomly selected Chinese people aged 60 and over living alone in two public housing estates in an urban area of Hong Kong. The results show that mental health status, number of days staying in hospital, life satisfaction, age, and self-esteem are significant factors in predicting the life quality of older Chinese respondents living alone. The explanatory power of this model is 56.4. The results of this study are consistent with previous findings reported in the west and in Hong Kong. A subgroup analysis of those older Chinese respondents living alone who have offspring also living in Hong Kong shows that belief in childrens support in old age, good walking ability, and better self-reported health status via life satisfaction as the mediating variable, better self-reported health status and satisfactory self-reported financial status via self-esteem as the mediating variable, are crucial predictors of quality of life. This model explains 64.2% of the variance in quality of life from a subset of the predictor variables.     

Social Inclusion and Health Conditions Among Chinese Immigrants in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom: An Exploratory Study

Whether and how immigrants are included in the host society has become a hot topic in the context of globalization. How inclusive a society is for immigrants can be answered by comparing the inclusion of immigrants to near-culture host society and those to a different-culture society. This paper reports the social inclusion and their correlation with health conditions among Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Two non-probability sample surveys were conducted using the Social and Communities Opportunities Profile and its Chinese version as survey instruments. Altogether 56 new arrivals in Hong Kong and 51 immigrants in UK were recruited through NGOs to participate in face-to-face individual interviews. Both Hong Kong and UK participants reported high overall social inclusion. The two sub-samples shared many similarities in the perceived opportunities and satisfaction of opportunities in various social domains. There was evidence that immigrants in a host society with similar language demonstrated higher perceived satisfaction with opportunities in contact with friends and family, as well as higher perceived opportunities for community involvement than immigrants in a society with a different language. However, overall social inclusion appeared to be independent of one’s health conditions.     

The Role of Religion in Union Formation: An Economic Perspective

Previous research has shown that the faith in which a young woman is brought up has important effects on the subjective costs and/or benefits of many decisions that she makes over the life cycle, including schooling, employment, and fertility. Based on this evidence, the present paper develops hypotheses regarding patterns of entry into marriage and cohabitation for the main religious groups in the United States: mainline Protestants, conservative Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and the unaffiliated. The empirical results, based on young women from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, are generally supportive of the hypotheses.     

Generalized Trust and Trust in Institutions in Confucian Asia

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications.     

Ethnicity and fertility desires in Ghana

Journal of Population Research - The extant literature shows that fertility desires are an important indicator for understanding and predicting the future course of fertility; however, little work...     

An Exploratory Analysis of Societal Preferences for Research-Driven Quality of Life Improvements in Canada

Research in the humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) tends to have impacts that enhance quality of life (QOL) but that are not amenable to pricing in established markets. If the economic value of ‘non-market’ research impacts is ignored when making the business case for HASS research, society will under-invest in it. My goal in this research was to quantify priorities and tradeoffs Canadians were willing to make between broad QOL attributes. A national sample (N = 1,612; 14,571 observations) cleaved into five distinct latent classes, each of which varied according to their preferences and willingness to pay for QOL impacts. One class, comprising 21% of the sample, placed a strong priority on QOL indicators relating to people, community, and culture, and was willing to pay, on average, 892 per household per year for improvements across a full range of QOL attributes. While willing to pay892 per household per year for improvements across a full range of QOL attributes. While willing to pay 1,393 per household per year in total, a second segment, comprising 20% of the sample, focused heavily on benefits more likely to be derived from science and technology research. Willingness to pay for specific and aggregate improvements amongst the balance of the sample was lower. Diverse preferences regarding potential QOL impacts suggest that researchers will need to consider both the source and magnitude of public benefits arising from HASS research in the future.     

Growth Effects of Religion Dependent Social Capital: An Empirical Evidence

Social Indicators Research - There is an imperceptible laxity in literature in finding socio economic effects of social capital by integrating role of religion. However, international surveys data...     

Self-Management of a Chronic Illness: An Exploratory Study on the Role of Spirituality Among Older African American Women

ABSTRACT

Living with a chronic illness is an experience characterized by changes in self-management behavior. Few studies have addressed the role of spirituality in the self-management of a chronic illness among older African American women. The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the role of spirituality in the self-management of chronic illness. Data from a sample of 10 African American women were collected from semi-structured interviews and analyzed for common themes through narrative analysis. Four themes emerge from the linkage of spirituality and self-management. Understanding this experience will assist public health providers in creating culturally appropriate health education interventions.     

The Value of Trust: An Analysis of Social Capital in Natural Areas

This paper defines and analyses the characteristics of social trust that develop in natural areas, examining the connections and interactions between the people and institutions involved. It offers a deeper understanding of the different degrees of trust and the identification of those attributes that affect the generation of this trust at three different levels: strategic, normative and cognitive. The study of the value of trust allows, or at least contributes to, an understanding of different levels of development. The study population consists of local associations, as a sample of existing social structures, and is taken from two areas in Andalusia, Spain. From the application of the proposed method a null hypothesis for the runs and Mann–Whitney tests is accepted at the three levels of trust for both areas. For strategic and cognitive trust, the behaviours of both areas are homogenous, while in the case of normative trust for the Chi square test the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The methodology that is developed demonstrates the interest presented by trust as a study variable in research dealing with social capital and its direct influence on the development of territories. Trust should be considered alongside physical, natural and human capital, since none of these alone is sufficient for complete territorial development.

     

Predictors of Life Satisfaction among Urban Iranian Women: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper explores life satisfaction among married and unmarried Iranian women in urban areas. Data is analyzed from a sample of 335 women of which 61% are married and 39% are unmarried (i.e., single, divorced, or widows). Data is collected through the use of self-reported questionnaires administered during 1992 and 1994. A series of path analysis and cross tabulations suggest that for married women life satisfaction is directly linked to their satisfaction with marriage, employment, and their leisure experiences. There is an inverse relationship between satisfaction and the women's activity, however. For unmarried women, satisfaction is affected by their leisure experiences and educational level. The study suggests that any effort to reduce or increase the educational, employment, or leisure activities of women will directly affect women's general satisfaction and therefore affect Iranian society as a whole.