Effects of Minority Status and Perceived Discrimination on Mental Health

Based in a minority social stress perspective, this study uses propensity score matching techniques to assess the impact of self-reported discrimination on mental health. Using a sample of 14,609 young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult  Health, we explore whether the effects of discrimination vary across status characteristics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and body mass), including both majority and minority populations. Further we investigate the heterogeneous effects of discrimination across propensity scores, or probabilities of experiencing discrimination. We find that self-reported discrimination increases the average perceived stress score and depressive symptoms score by roughly ½ standard deviation, but is not related to anxiety. Further, our results show that while all groups are negatively affected by discrimination, the magnitude of the impact is largest among groups with the lowest propensity scores.     

Measuring Temporal Dimensions of the Intensity of Violent Political Conflict

Violent political conflict shows patterns of varied intensity and persistence. These patterns may induce changes in human behavior in various temporal dimensions. In order to study these effects, empirical research needs a suitable way to measure conflict intensity. This paper suggests and illustrates a method of aggregating raw data on violence incidence into complementary temporal categories, in order to enrich empirical insights. We construct short-, medium-, and long-term measures based on daily fatality counts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between 1997 and 2011. We show that these dimensions, although constructed from the same set of raw data, contain complementary information since they are only weakly correlated. As an example, we illustrate how several such categories can be useful in modeling the dynamics of food prices. This demonstrates that such aggregations provide complementary temporal perspectives. They therefore can potentially enrich the analysis of the effects of conflict on human behavior beyond commonly employed measurements of daily or yearly frequency.     

Examining the Reciprocity Between Perceived Discrimination and Health: A Longitudinal Perspective

Population Research and Policy Review - This study aims to fill two interrelated knowledge gaps in the extant literature on the association between perceived discrimination and health. First,...     

A Proposal for a Model-Based Composite Indicator: Experience on Perceived Discrimination in Europe

Social Indicators Research - The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) is generally credited for better capturing the various components of poverty. Where such indexes have a spatial component,...     

Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions

Residential segregation has traditionally been measured by using the index of dissimilarity and, more recently, the P* exposure index. These indices, however, measure only two of five potential dimensions of segregation and, by themselves, understate the degree of black segregation in U.S. society. Compared with Hispanics, not only are blacks more segregated on any single dimension of residential segregation, they are also likely to be segregated on all five dimensions simultaneously, which never occurs for Hispanics. Moreover, in a significant subset of large urban areas, blacks experience extreme segregation on all dimensions, a pattern we call hypersegregation. This finding is upheld and reinforced by a multivariate analysis. We conclude that blacks occupy a unique and distinctly disadvantaged position in the U.S. urban environment.     

Multiple Dimensions of Attitudes About Homosexuality: Development of a Multifaceted Scale Measuring Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

Attitudes toward homosexuality are complex. To get a comprehensive view on the attitudes of people, different dimensions need to be included in research. Based on a review of the literature, we distinguish five dimensions: acceptance of homosexuality in a general sense; attitude toward equal rights; reactions to homosexuality “at close quarters”; reactions to homosexuality in public; and so-called modern homonegativity. In a study on a representative sample of Dutch Defence personnel (N = 1,607) we tested this model. Structural equation modeling of several items measuring the attitude toward homosexuality offers a six factor solution. These six factors are more or less comparable to the five dimensions we distinguished. The dimension “reactions to homosexuality at close quarters” is, however, empirically split in a dimension on affective reactions to homosexuality and homosexual persons in general and a dimension on affective reaction to homosexual friends or acquaintances.     

Exploring Perceived Discrimination Among LGBT Individuals in Turkey in Education,Employment, and Health Care: Results of an Online Survey

This article explores the discrimination practices encountered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in education, income, employment, and health care in Turkey. Limited quantitative data on LGBT individuals are available in Turkey. This study collected data from 2,875 LGBT individuals through a Web-based survey. The findings suggest that LGBT individuals report perceived direct and indirect discrimination in accessing education, employment, and health care. In a country where LGBT rights are not yet recognized and antidiscrimination legislation covering sexual orientation and gender identity is still nonexistent, findings demonstrate perceived discrimination of LGBTs rarely turns into a legal complaint. Even when they do, most LGBTs in our sample report that they did not feel that the justice system addressed their grievances.     

Explaining the Immigrant Health Advantage: Self-selection and Protection in Health-Related Factors Among Five Major National-Origin Immigrant Groups in the United States

Despite being newcomers, immigrants often exhibit better health relative to native-born populations in industrialized societies. We extend prior efforts to identify whether self-selection and/or protection explain this advantage. We examine migrant height and smoking levels just prior to immigration to test for self-selection; and we analyze smoking behavior since immigration, controlling for self-selection, to assess protection. We study individuals aged 20–49 from five major national origins: India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. To assess self-selection, we compare migrants, interviewed in the National Health and Interview Surveys (NHIS), with nonmigrant peers in sending nations, interviewed in the World Health Surveys. To test for protection, we contrast migrants’ changes in smoking since immigration with two counterfactuals: (1) rates that immigrants would have exhibited had they adopted the behavior of U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites in the NHIS (full “assimilation”); and (2) rates that migrants would have had if they had adopted the rates of nonmigrants in sending countries (no-migration scenario). We find statistically significant and substantial self-selection, particularly among men from both higher-skilled (Indians and Filipinos in height, Chinese in smoking) and lower-skilled (Mexican) undocumented pools. We also find significant and substantial protection in smoking among immigrant groups with stronger relative social capital (Mexicans and Dominicans).     

Perceived Climate in Physical Activity Settings

This study focused on the perceived climate for LGBT youth and other minority groups in physical activity settings. A large sample of undergraduates and a selected sample including student teachers/interns and a campus Pride group completed a school climate survey and rated the climate in three physical activity settings (physical education, organized sport, exercise). Overall, school climate survey results paralleled the results with national samples revealing high levels of homophobic remarks and low levels of intervention. Physical activity climate ratings were mid-range, but multivariate analysis of variation test (MANOVA) revealed clear differences with all settings rated more inclusive for racial/ethnic minorities and most exclusive for gays/lesbians and people with disabilities. The results are in line with national surveys and research suggesting sexual orientation and physical characteristics are often the basis for harassment and exclusion in sport and physical activity. The current results also indicate that future physical activity professionals recognize exclusion, suggesting they could benefit from programs that move beyond awareness to skills and strategies for creating more inclusive programs.     

Discrimination of SM-identified individuals

The belief that sadomasochism (SM) is violence or abusive behavior has resulted in harassment, physical attacks, and discrimination against SM-identified individuals. Historically, they were often opposed by self-identified feminists. One reason the women who practiced SM were targeted was the official opposition to sadomasochistic practices promulgated by the National Organization for Women (NOW). Current statistics of incidents of discrimination, harassment and physical attacks against SM-identified individuals and SM groups are compiled by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF).     

Dimensions of social inequality in the Third World

This cross-national assessment of the empirical determinants of income inequality and infant mortality employs policy-relevant variables suggested by the major macrosocial theories of development and stratification. Findings based on sample sizes ranging from 34 to 61 LDCs indicate that modernization and ecological-evolutionary theories provide more consistent explanations of social inequalities than either dependency/world-systems theory or urban bias theory. Our analyses point to economic growth and the development of rural infrastructure and social complexity as the most expedient methods for facilitating mortality reduction and income equalization. We conclude that simplistic policy-orientations stressing such phenomena as urban bias or population growth should be replaced by more complex perspectives that include an emphasis on rural social organization.     

Perceived quality of life in a centre-periphery framework

Centre-periphery relationships have generally been a characteristic of every level of development regardless of the type of political economy. Usually, the centre is well-developed, and has a higher level of facilities and infrastructure, while shortages and a poorer infrastructure, sometimes bordering on marginality, characterize the periphery. In the province of Alberta in Canada, the Edmonton—Calgary corridor represents the centre while the rest of the province, especially Northern Alberta characterizes the periphery.Do people in the centre necessarily evaluate the quality of their lives differently from the people in the periphery? Within the periphery region, do the people on the periphery of the periphery evaluate their lives differently from those in the centre of the periphery?These issues are addressed using data from the Edmonton Area Studies and field work conducted in the High Prairie region of Northern Alberta between December, 1985 and January, 1986.     

The Role of Perceived Discrepancy in Satisfaction Evaluation

This study investigates if satisfaction measures involve an implicit have-want comparison by examining the relationships between direct have-want discrepancy, amount, and satisfaction, which vary in their degree of explicitness. The have-want discrepancy measure explicitly asks respondents to rate the discrepancy between what they have and what they want. The amount measure requires respondents to think about the amount of discrepancy between what one has and what one wants, but does not explicitly ask about that. Finally, the satisfaction measure is assumed to incorporate a component of the have-want comparison but does not ask respondents to consider such a comparison in the question. Three hundred and thirty undergraduate students at National Taiwan University participated in this study. Correlation analysis showed that satisfaction has a closer relation with amount than have-want discrepancy. In addition, a mediation model in which have-want discrepancy influence amount, which then influences satisfaction, was generally supported in conventional mediation analysis and multilevel path analysis. In brief, this study showed that satisfaction measures involve an implicit have-want comparison.     

私营企业内对劳动力就业歧视的分析

私营企业在缓解就业压力的同时,对劳动力的就业歧视现象也日趋增多、严重,引起人们的关注。本文对私营企业内的劳动力就业歧视现状、原因加以分析,并提出了相关的建议。     

Evaluating Evidence of Discrimination in Multiethnic Housing Markets

Landlords and realtors occasionally are identified as causal agents in the creation or maintenance of segregated neighborhoods. The existence of racial/ethnic separation at local scales, however, is no sure proof of illegal discriminatory acts or intentions by housing market agents. Other factors can and do produce racial/ethnic separation within neighborhoods. Applied demographic analysis can play a part in clarifying what constitutes discrimination and in evaluating the statistical data used to screen for unlawful acts of discrimination within local housing markets. We report a study of tenancy and tenancy turnover in a group of apartment buildings located in a densely settled and ethnically diverse neighborhood in Los Angeles. Turnover in these buildings altered the ethnic mix of tenants, increasing the Asian proportion and decreasing the Hispanic proportion. We trace this change to two market processes that differentiate tenants economically and by differing preferences for luxurious housing: (1) an upgrading of housing stock, which repositioned certain rental units at a higher price point; and (2) the market response to newly-available luxury units. These processes promote ethnically homogeneous apartment-building “neighborhoods” within an otherwise unsegregated ethnically diverse area.

对性别收入歧视的经济学分析

自改革开放以来,女性就业的比例逐年增长,就业的范围也逐步扩大。但是男女平均收入的差别却逐渐增加。这种差别包含两方面:一、可解释的差异所导致的差别。二、不可解释的对女性的歧视所导致的差别。本文根据贝克尔的歧视理论,对收入性别歧视现象进行经济学分析,并结合目前我国对女性收入歧视的特点,提出反性别收入歧视的对策。     

Dimensions of Housing Deprivation for Older People in Ireland

Housing is an important aspect of living standards and quality of life for older persons, but the housing-related problems they may face encompass rather different circumstances, relating to the condition of the dwelling, how well equipped it is, whether housing costs represent a serious burden, and whether the neighbourhood environment is problematic. This paper brings out the importance of distinguishing these different dimensions of housing problems for older people, illustrated empirically using data for Ireland from an important new European dataset. Controlling for other factors, being older is associated with more housing quality problems but fewer housing cost and neighbourhood problems than for those of working age. The variables predicting deprivation among older people differ across the dimensions and the correlations between the dimensions are low. Over half the older people in the sample experience some form of housing-related deprivation, but a majority of these are reporting only one. Scores on a summary index for older persons are much less strongly associated with factors such as household income and poverty, marital status, and location and type of dwelling than for all households, bringing out the importance of distinguishing and studying the different dimensions and framing appropriate policy responses to each.     

Discrimination Against Older Women in Health Care

Growing awareness of apparent gaps in health care received by women and men raises concern over possible discrimination. This literature review examines this issue for elderly women, whose health care is obtained in a system that also may be permeated with age discrimination. Physicians tend to spend more time with women and older patients, suggesting that discrimination may not be an issue in the physician-patient relationship or may work in favor of older women. However, this may simply reflect elderly women's poorer health. Gender and age disparities in medical treatments received provide a more compelling argument that the health care system is a source of discrimination against older women, who are less likely than others to receive available treatments for cardiac, renal, and other conditions. The history of medical treatment of menopause suggests that stereotypes of older women have been advantageous for segments of the health care system. Finally, in addition to discrimination that has its source within the health care system itself, societal-wide inequities, particularly economic, are extremely detrimental to older women's health care. As we respond to the health care crisis, we must be alert to the potential to rectify those structures and tendencies that can lead to discrimination against women and the aged. Health care reform presents a unique opportunity to ensure health care equity.     

Perceived Environmental Response Mechanism in Tehran Public Spaces

Social Indicators Research - Perception of environmental quality, figured out as a feeling of a space that extend beyond a visual perceptual quality that is usually assumed; it is a complex...