The Effect of Population Growth on Economic Growth: A Meta‐Regression Analysis of the Macroeconomic Literature

Many studies have sought to gauge the impact of population growth on economic growth. A well‐known stylized fact of this literature is that the estimated effects of population growth measures on economic growth are not robust, varying between being positive, negative, and insignificantly different from zero. The present study analyzes 471 statistical regressions from 29 prominent economic growth studies using meta‐regression analysis to identify the effect of alternative methodologies on key population growth results. This study finds that a broad set of methodological factors explains more than half of the variation in the population growth effects observed from this literature, including the types of variables used to measure population growth, the countries selected, the time frame of the analysis, and the nature of the control variables specified. The study also yields results that have implications for policymakers, especially insofar as several policy factors seem to influence the population change–economic growth nexus. Particularly strong is the evidence in support of the increasingly adverse effects of population growth in the post‐1980 period, suggesting that demographic issues should warrant greater attention than they currently receive from the policymaking community.     

Measuring Child Poverty in South Africa: Sensitivity to the Choice of Equivalence Scale and an Updated Profile

This paper offers evidence on the sensitivity of child poverty in South Africa to changes in the adult equivalence scale (AES) and updates the child poverty profile based on the Income and Expenditure Survey 2005/06. Setting the poverty line at the 40th percentile of households calculated with different AESs the scope and composition of child poverty are found to be relatively insensitive to the scale used. The rankings of children of different ages, girls versus boys, racial groupings and children living in rural versus urban areas are unaffected by choice of AES, although some provincial rankings on the poverty headcount measure are. The proportions of children and households ‘correctly’ identified as poor for the full range of scales is extremely high. These findings support the argument that it may be appropriate for profiling poverty in South Africa to use a poverty line based on a per capita welfare measure. For the construction of the child poverty profile, per capita income is used as the welfare indicator with the poverty line set at the 40th percentile of household. The profile suggests that poverty amongst children is more extensive than amongst the population or adults even after the massive injection of transfers into households with poor children through the child support grant. The child poverty headcount, depth and severity are all highest amongst children age 0–4 and lowest amongst those aged 15–17, who are not yet beneficiaries of the grants. They are also highest amongst African and Coloured children. Large variations across provinces remain. The analysis underlines the importance of prioritising children in the fight against poverty, particularly in their earliest years.     

Exploring the Eligibility Criteria of the Child Support Grant and its Impact on Poverty

One of the most important policy objectives in the post-apartheid South African economy is to reduce poverty. Although economic growth and job creation are the preferred sources of alleviating poverty and inequality, social grant spending has contributed significantly to reduce poverty (Van der Berg et al. in Poverty trends since the transition: what we know. Stellenbosch Economic Working Papers: 19/09. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2009). Recently proposals were tabled by the Department of Social Development of South Africa (Fin24 in R3.3bn plan to extend child support grant to 21. http://www.fin24.com/Economy/R33bn-child-care-grant-extension-to-21-on-cards-20150316. Accessed August 7, 2015, 2015) to extend the age eligibility of the child support grant (CSG) to 21 years (at the time of writing children aged up to 18 years are eligible). This sparked an interest to investigate the impact on poverty of changes to the eligibility criteria of CSG, as well as its fiscal implications. Using person and household data from the 2010/2011 Income and Expenditure Survey, various simulations are performed to assess the impact on poverty rates and changes to social spending, given the following changes: (1) if all age-eligible children applied; (2) if all beneficiaries received the grant amount for the full 12-month duration; (3) if the age eligibility criterion is extended; and (4) if the monthly child grant income amount is revised upwards. We also examine how changes in the eligibility criteria affect the income distribution.     

Applying a social model of disability across the life span

With an estimated 21.3% of persons aged 15 and older experiencing disability in the USA, social workers will see clients present with disabilities across all practice settings and stages of human development. Yet, the training and terminology of social workers—which often closely aligns with medical professionals—may seem to occur in isolating silos or disciplinary theories. Social work education often views the needs of older adults and people with disabilities as two distinct populations, despite the fact that many of these individuals share similar needs for access, resources, and support. Furthermore, when discussing human development, the focus may skew to individual affective, behavioral, and cognitive processes and indicators of abnormal development and frailty. Thus, by clarifying terminology and applying a social model of disability across the life span, we identify how educational efforts related to human behavior and the social environment can promote intersectional and inclusive social work related to aging and disability.     

Trends in bird species richness,abundance and biomass along a tropical urbanization gradient

Impacts of urbanization on biodiversity are commonly studied using urbanization gradients which provide a space-for-time substitution in estimating consequences of urban expansion. Rates of urbanization and human population growth are high in tropical countries of the developing world, which also hold most of the world’s biodiversity hot-spots, yet few studies have considered biodiversity trends along urban gradients in these regions. Bird communities across a gradient of nine sites in Uganda, from the city centre of Kampala to outlying rural locations, were studied over a six year period. These sites were ordered along an urbanization gradient using Principle Components Analysis based on habitat variables estimated at each site. Bird species richness showed a decrease from rural to urban sites, a trend especially evident in forest birds. There was no clear pattern in total abundance, total biomass or biomass per individual along the gradient. However, this latter result was heavily influenced by a colony of Marabou Storks at one site. When this species was omitted, there was evidence of a positive trend with urbanization, showing that as species richness decreased, the bird community was increasingly dominated by larger species with increasing urbanization, which were mainly scavengers able to exploit human refuse. These results provide further support for the negative impacts of urbanization on species richness, but also demonstrate trends in abundance and biomass are variable across different regions. In particular, the increasing dominance of larger species in urban areas may be relevant to certain geographic and/or socioeconomic contexts.     

The Othering of Muslims: Discourses of Radicalization in the New York Times, 1969–2014

In this article, I engage with Edward Said's Orientalism and various perspectives within the othering paradigm to analyze the emergence and transformation of radicalization discourses in the news media. Employing discourse analysis of 607 New York Times articles from 1969 to 2014, this article demonstrates that radicalization discourses are not new but are the result of complex sociolinguistic and historical developments that cannot be reduced to dominant contemporary understandings of the concept or to singular events or crises. The news articles were then compared to 850 government documents, speeches, and other official communications. The analysis of the data indicates that media conceptualizations of radicalization, which once denoted political and economic differences, have now shifted to overwhelmingly focus on Islam. As such, radicalization discourse now evokes the construct radicalization as symbolic marker of conflict between the West and the East. I also advanced the established notion that the news media employ strategic discursive strategies that contribute to conceptual distinctions that are used to construct Muslims as an “alien other” to the West.     

Adolescent Deliberate Self‐Harm: Linkages to Emotion Regulation and Family Emotional Climate

Parents' responses to their children's emotional expressivity have been shown to significantly influence children's subsequent psychosocial functioning. This study hypothesized that adolescents' deliberate self‐harm (DSH) may be an outcome associated with poor emotion regulation as well as an invalidating family environment. The mediational role of specific emotion processes (i.e., poor awareness of emotion, difficulties expressing emotions) between family emotional environment and the frequency of DSH was examined with 131 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents (M age=14.84 years, SD=1.75 years). Results indicated that adolescents who self‐injured reported that this behavior reduced their negative emotional states. Structural equation modeling provided support for the proposed model that family climate influences frequency of DSH through emotion regulation skills but the model held for girls only. A direct model effect was not supported. Emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between family climate and DSH, and direct effects were also observed.