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.     

National variation in the context of struggle: postwar class conflict and market distribution in the capitalist democracies

Comment et pourqui la dynamique des classes varie-t-elle d'un pays capitaliste démocratique à l'autre, alors que I'on s'attendrait à découvrir un scénario commun? On ne trouve que peu d'évaluations d'ensemble de cette question qui soient d'inspiration marxiste. Ce manque a pour effet d'invalider diverses conceptions marxistes de l'organisation de classe et de la lutte de classe, en leur donnant souvent une allure exagérément mécaniste. Les approches utilisées jusqu'à maintenant pour étudier la variabilité nationale de ces processus souffrent de graves handicaps, dont le caractère a-historique de modèles trans-nationaux quantitatifs et l'incapacitéà généraliser qui accompagne les analyses historiques comparatives traditionnelles d'un petit nombre d'Etat-nations. A partir d'un point-de-vue marxiste ‘genéral’ sur l'établissement des taux de croissance de la syndicalisation et des salaires, nous estimons un ensemble de séries chronologiques pour 18 démocracies capitalistes avancées et stables; ces modèles reflètent bien l'histoire entre 1959 et 1980 de certains de ces pays, mais pas celle de certains autres. Nous suggérons alors que ces relations historiques infra-nationales sont elles-mêmes fonction d'autres differences trans-nationales, temporellement invariantes, qui différencient les pays capitalistes les uns des autres. D'une démocracie capitaliste à l'autre, les degrés différents de contrôle du gouvernement qu'ont eu les sociaux-démocrates semblent partiellement responsables de la variabilité des relations historiques entre prolétarianisation, syndicalisation, niveau de grèves et croissance des salaires. Les mouvements syndicaux de nations dont la représentation social-démocrate a été soutenue ou cumulative, semblent connaître plus de succès dans la conversion de travailleurs/euses indépendants/es en syndicalistes que les mouvements d'autres pays; ils sont moins capables, par ailleurs, d'obtenir des hausses de salaire au moyen de la grève. Nous débattons quatre implications théoriques et méthodologiques de cette recherche, dont les effets contradictoires de la social-démocracie sur la dynamique des classes. Comprehensive assessments of how and why theoretically ‘general’ class dynamics differ across the capitalist democracies are infrequent in research inspired by the Marxist problematic. This has tended to vitiate the potential explanatory power of Marxist conceptualizations of class organization and class struggle, often giving them an overly mechanistic flavor. Existing research approaches to the study of national variability in these processes suffer from several severe limitations, including the ahistoricism of static quantitative cross-national designs and the lack of generality accompanying traditional comparative/historical analyses of a small number of nation-states. Using ‘general’ Marxist understandings of the determination of unionization and wage growth, we estimate a series of time-series models for 18 advanced, stable capitalist democracies, finding that our expectations are consistent with the 1959-80 histories of some of these nations and not of others. We then posit that these within-nation historical relationships are themselves a function of other temporally invariant, cross-national differences distinguishing one capitalist country from another. Differences in social democratic control of government across the capitalist democracies, in particular, appear partially responsible for some important country-to-country differences in the historical relationships among proletarianization, unionization, strike activity, and wage growth. Labor movements in nations with sustained or cumulative social democratic representation appear more successful in converting dependent workers into trade unionists than do other countries, but are less successful in using strikes to extract wage gains. We discuss four theoretical and methodological implications of this research, including the contradictory effects of social democracy on class dynamics.     

Child therapy outcome in a community mental health center

Studies by the Davis Child Therapy Effectiveness Project reveal that brief therapy is the norm. A retrospective outcome study in one mental health center shows a large proportion of adjustment reactions. Outcome ratings from therapists, parents and patients show fairly high levels of outcome and significant improvement in rated impairment. The children who were more impaired at intake were found to have the most visits and numbers of visits were unrelated to success in treatment. Examples are provided illustrating the use of parent responses to modify center practices.     

LET US FIRST DO NO HARM

This article offers the hypothesis that an increasing effort to help families and marriages may inadvertently contribute to their dysfunction. By examining the institutions of family and marriage in the broader societal perspective as well as the theories we use to assign the labels "functional" or "dysfunctional" to families and marriages, we may render a more useful service to the health of these systems. In our enthusiasm to do good, let us first do no harm.     

Childhood sexual abuse, teenage pregnancy, and partnering with adult men: exploring the relationship

Although the mechanism by which early victimization, specifically sexual abuse, increases the risk of adolescent pregnancy is unclear, a relationship between previous victimization and adolescent pregnancy has been demonstrated. While partnering with an older man may initially offer the means necessary to escape a neglectful or violent family of origin, this protection be accompanied by an imbalance of power and control. Both adolescent mothers partnered with adult men and adolescent mothers partnered with male peers reported sexual abuse perpetrated by family members, family friends, strangers, and peers. Policies developed to protect young people from victimization, including mandatory reporting and statutory rape laws, should be evaluated for their consistent application to all children, regardless of age, race, gender, or pregnancy status.     

Female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and romantic attachment style in a college student sample

The frequency, severity, and reciprocity of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and its consequences (i.e., injuries) were investigated in a college sample of women (N = 457). Participants were classified into one of the following four groups on the basis of self-reported physical assault perpetration and victimization against their relationship partners: nonviolent, perpetrator-only, victim-only, and bidirectionally violent. Results showed that females in the bidirectionally violent group had a reportedly higher occurrence (although not always statistically significant) of perpetration and victimization than those in the perpetrator-only and victim-only groups. Additionally, a similar degree of reciprocity was indicated by females in bidirectionally violent relationships in terms of violence severity and the occurrence of injury. Adult romantic attachment style was also examined among a subset of females (N = 328), and bidirectionally violent females were found to have the highest reported levels of attachment anxiety. Further, females high in attachment anxiety and low in attachment avoidance were more likely to report perpetrating violence than females high in both styles. Implications for prevention are discussed.