Leaving Home Early: Passing from Girlhood to Womanhood

This paper presents a case study of a young woman’s narrative of leaving home and her transition to adulthood. The case study is part of a larger research project about young women with an experience of an early break-up from home, through running away or being thrown out. Empirical material underlying this paper consists of a qualitative study of 12 young women that have been interviewed. The aim of the study is to understand how events like running away/being thrown out of home influences their transition to adulthood. The particular narrative demonstrates how a young woman presents and accounts for such a dramatic event as running away or being thrown out from home, and how that is understood in relation to her adulthood. A further aim is to illustrate how social services efforts are reflected in her narrative.     

Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks

Human beings have always been intuitive toxicologists, relying on their senses of sight, taste, and smell to detect harmful or unsafe food, water, and air. As we have come to recognize that our senses are not adequate to assess the dangers inherent in exposure to a chemical substance, we have created the sciences of toxicology and risk assessment to perform this function. Yet despite this great effort to overcome the limitations of intuitive toxicology, it has become evident that even our best scientific methods still depend heavily on extrapolations and judgments in order to infer human health risks from animal data. Many observers have acknowledged the inherent subjectivity in the assessment of chemical risks and have indicated a need to examine the subjective or intuitive elements of expert and lay risk judgments. We have begun such an examination by surveying members of the Society of Toxicology and the lay public about basic toxicological concepts, assumptions, and interpretations. Our results demonstrate large differences between toxicologists and laypeople, as well as differences between toxicologists working in industry, academia, and government. In addition, we find that toxicologists are sharply divided in their opinions about the ability to predict a chemical's effect on human health on the basis of animal studies. We argue that these results place the problems of risk communication in a new light. Although the survey identifies misconceptions that experts should clarify for the public, it also suggests that controversies over chemical risks may be fueled as much by limitations of the science of risk assessment and disagreements among experts as by public misconceptions.     

Saving and consumption patterns of the elderly

The paper provides an empirical analysis of saving and consumption choices of the elderly in Germany, based on the German income and expenditure surveys 1978 and 1983. Main feature of these data is the large sample size making it possible to analyze saving and consumption patterns of the very old (aged 75 and above).The observed age-consumption profiles are very different from those predicted by the pure life-cycle theory. Although wealth is declining between age 60 and 70, it increases again after 70, such that the very old have the highest savings rates among all age groups and accumulate wealth rather than decumulate it. These profiles are not confounded by cohort effects and mortality differences. The corresponding expenditure data suggest the following explanation: due to the generous German pension system and the almost complete coverage of health expenses by the mandatory health insurance in Germany, the declining consumption n very old age cannot exhaust the annuity income of the elderly such that wealth is being accumulated in old age.Research in this paper was supported by the National Institute on Aging, grant no. 3 PO1 AG05842-01. I appreciate the helpful comments by Doug Bernheim, Angus Deaton, Daniel McFadden, Jonathan Skinner, Konrad 'Stahl and David Wise, and two anonymous referees. I am indebted to Hermann Buslei and Johannes Velling who provided most valuable and able assistance.     

Interrupted stories, interrupted lives

In attempting to manage their practices efficiently, doctors may not allow seriously ill patients enough time to sort out their feelings and raise important questions. What is at stake here is not information about prognosis and treatments but the very survival of the soul.     

Waste paper and the market mechanism

Increasing attention is being given to the possible consequences which might follow from the exhaustion of the world's natural resources. Countering the pessimistic conclusions of such institutions as the Club of Rome, economists such as Wilfred Beckerman have emphasized the importance of substitution, pointing to many examples where a shortage of one raw material has led to the discovery or development of alternative materials, e.g. artificial for natural rubber, aluminium for copper.Substitution usually occurs through normal market mechanisms, i.e. changes in relative prices. However in some circumstances the market mechanism may be inhibited by a variety of factors, so that its operation requires to be supplemented by an outside agency. This article explores this possibility in relation to the paper making industry, which provides a particularly interesting example owing to the existence of a well established market in waste paper, the main substitute for the major natural resource, woodpulp.A brief indication is given of the relative importance of waste paper and an outline of the structure of the U.K. market; the conditions under which greater utilization of waste paper might occur are then considered taking a sideways look at the influence of the individual. In the final section the various implications for the role of the state are summarized.     

Family structure and child outcomes in the USA and Sweden

Previous research shows that living in a non-intact family is associated with educational disadvantages. This paper compares the relationships between childhood family structure, schooling, and earnings in Sweden and the USA. This comparison is interesting because both family structure and public policies differ significantly. We find a negative relationship between living in a non-intact family and child outcomes, and the estimates are remarkably similar in both countries. After using sibling-difference models, the correlation with family structure is no longer significant. These results cast doubt on the causal interpretation of the negative relationship between non-intact family structures and child outcomes.     

Seasonal forcing on the dynamics ofClethrionomys rufocanus: Modeling geographic gradients in population dynamics

We interpret gradients in population dynamics of the gray-sided vole from the southwestern part of the island of Hokkaido to its northeastern part within the framework of a phenomenological model involving the relative length of summer and winter. In Hokkaido, as in other northern regions, both spring and fall is considered as short transition periods between the two main seasons — summer (the primary breeding season) and winter (the non-reproductive or secondary breeding season). We show that the geographic transition in dynamics may be understood as the combined consequence of different patterns of density-dependence during summer and winter, and geographically varying season lengths. Differences are shown to exist between summer and winter with respect to strength of density-dependence. Direct density-dependence, in particular, is stronger during winter than during summer. A model is presented to show how relative lengths of seasons can induce both stable and periodically fluctuating population dynamics. The results are compared and contrasted with what is otherwise known about the gradient in rodent dynamics in Fennoscandia.