Work disability and migration in the early years of welfare reform

The inter- and intra-state migration of American families with work-disabled members is a neglected area of empirical study. Longitudinal migration and health status data from the 1996 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) are merged with state-level welfare policy indicators to investigate migration behavior under welfare reform’s emphasis on requiring work and encouraging reliance on social support networks. We use a nested discrete-choice event history model that incorporates the departure decision and interstate destination choice in a single model that tests the effects of state-level welfare policy and economic opportunity characteristics, with state fixed effects, plus family sociodemographic characteristics and social networks, as the basis for comparing migration of families with and without work disabilities. The results show that although families with disabilities and illnesses are less likely to migrate than other families generally, they are “pushed” to migrate if they live in states that do not exempt them from TANF activities requirements. Furthermore, in-migration is inhibited by stringent state welfare illness exemption rules and high state unemployment rates. Intrastate migration is more likely among families who received family and community social support, regardless of work-disability status.     

Measuring spatial focusing in a migration system

Equality indexes used in other geographical contexts may be used to gauge the degree of spatial focusing in an entire migration system or within the gross in- and out-migration fields of specific regions. They provide useful indicators of overall shifts in the patterns of interregional migration and can help give insight into the population redistributive roles played by specific regions. Perhaps the most common equality index used to measure income distribution is the Gini coefficient, yet it appears almost never to have been applied in migration research. In this paper we set forth a variety of Gini indexes to be used for different migration analyses and illustrate their application with recent data on U.S. interstate movements. We argue that the Gini index provides some singularly useful insights that differ from those afforded by other measures more commonly found to date in the migration analyst’ s toolkit.     

Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States and Canada in Response to the September 11, 2001 "Attack on America"

In this paper, we describe recent trends in attitudes toward immigration in North America, and we suggest how these attitudes are likely to be affected by the September 11, 2001 "Attack on America." We begin by explaining why public attitudes toward immigration are important, and describe recent trends in these attitudes in the United States and Canada. Then, we apply psychological perspectives to predicting how these attitudes are likely to change in response to the events of September 11th. In particular, we describe expected short-term changes in immigration attitudes and expected long-term trends. We conclude by suggesting that an understanding of the psychological processes underlying unfavorable attitudes may assist in counteracting these effects; we also suggest that policy makers will be faced with the difficult task of balancing the need for a sense of security for members of the national group, and maintenance of the positive features of current immigration policies.     

The Minimal Model of Argumentation: Qualitative data analysis for epistemic speech,text and policy

Social scientific work on argumentation is yet to address the perennial tension between social cognition and social constructionism. Moreover, argumentation-based qualitative analysis protocols are needed for interview and textual data. Nonetheless, argumentation models remain too complex to reflect everyday argumentation and are not necessarily reflective of underlying cognitive processes. This presents the need for further theorising social behaviour, with a view to formulating a model of argumentation that (a) is parsimonious, and (b) aligns with the literature on joint projects, due to the fact that in social cognition terms, argumentation is for doing. In this paper, we draw upon interdisciplinary literature on argumentation, noting convergences among different approaches. We then proceed to consider the socio-cognitive bedding provided by Lay Epistemic Theory, to present our Minimal Model of Argumentation (MMA). In MMA, interlocutors are held to make claims concerning an issue of concern, and defend them using warrants, evidence and qualifiers. We end by providing empirical examples supporting the utility of our model in qualitative research.     

THE INTERACTION OF TRANSPORTATION AND INVENTORY DECISIONS

The management of inventories and determination of transportation policy are normally carried out by different groups of people in an organization. These activities interact, however, when the transportation is used to replace inventory and when the transportation alternatives have different speed, reliability, and cost characteristics. This paper presents exact and heuristic procedures for jointly determining the inventory reorder points, order quantities, and transportation alternatives that provide minimum total transportation and inventory costs. The effectiveness of each procedure is demonstrated for a broad range of problems. The heuristic procedure was also applied to actual company data to determine the potential for cost savings. The results showed that savings were possible both from improving the current procedures and from applying the procedure developed in this study.