Stages of the Demographic Transition from a Child's Perspective: Family Size,Cohort Size,and Children's Resources

This article provides a new characterization of stages of the demographic transition from the perspective of children competing for resources within families and cohorts. In Stage 1 falling mortality increases the size of both families and birth cohorts. In Stage 2 falling fertility overtakes falling mortality to reduce family size, but population momentum causes continued growth in cohort size. In Stage 3 falling fertility overtakes population momentum to produce declining cohort size. We apply our framework to census microdata for eight countries and to United Nations population projections for a larger set of countries. The results suggest that most countries spend two to three decades in Stage 2, with declining family size offset by increasing cohort size. From the perspective of children aged 9–11, many countries enter Stage 3 between 2000 and 2010. Other countries, especially in Africa, will continue to experience increasing cohort size for several more decades.     

Living a Deportation Threat: Anticipatory Stressors Confronted by Undocumented Mexican Immigrant Women

Previous sociological research shows that exposure to stress varies by individuals’ social statuses and is a central mechanism in producing mental health disparities. This line of research suggests that ethnoracial groups are more exposed to racial discrimination, thus negatively impacting their mental health. There has also been a growing literature showing how legal status impacts the mental health of immigrants and their families. However, the sociology of mental health and migration literature has largely remained disparate. This paper bridges these literatures to highlight how living a deportation threat manifests itself as an anticipatory stressor that negatively impacts undocumented Mexican migrant women’s access to resources, social relationships, and social roles. Based on 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with undocumented Mexican immigrant women from Houston, Texas, my findings reveal living a deportation threat is a perpetual anticipatory stressor that intensifies the effects of avoiding authorities, family fragmentation, and economic uncertainty. I argue this anticipatory stressor transforms into a chronic stressor that undocumented Mexican women confront daily. By situating this study within an anti-immigrant social context, it highlights the social processes and mechanisms that exacerbate the stressors undocumented Mexican immigrant women confront.     

Beyond “filling in the gap”: the state and status of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies

Against the socio-economic and cultural backdrop of the ongoing Latina/o media “boom,” this critical literature review delineates the location and status of contemporary Latina/o Feminist Media Studies. Departing from a critique of current mainstream Feminist Media Studies research and citational practices, it traces the influence of rapidly expanding transnational Latina/o media markets, the gendering of Latinidad, and transnational feminisms on recent Latina/o Feminist Media Studies scholarship. As it not only breaks with exclusively domestic analyses of intersectionality and accurately reflects twenty-first century media’s transnational orientation, this essay argues that the theoretical paradigms and thematic concerns of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies must ultimately be reframed as central, not marginal, to Feminist Media Studies research.     

Fatalism and Well-Being Across Hispanic Cultures: The Social Fatalism Scales (SFS)

Social Indicators Research - Fatalism has been a core construct in the study of psychological and social processes related to well-being and life quality in social sciences. The objective of the...     

Persistence of an exclusionary model: Inequality and segmentation in Mexican society

Beginning in the 1980s, Mexico's social and labour policies took a neoliberal turn which exacerbated inequalities, poverty and social exclusion. The change of policy course that has occurred over the past decade has so far failed to bring about a critical review of the country's economic model and its social consequences. The role of the State has been systematically cut back; social services have been outsourced to the market; and informal family‐based social protection has gained ground. Mexico's social model has thus been reduced to a system that is almost exclusively concerned with protection for those living in extreme poverty.     

Getting to know reality and breaking stereotypes: the experience of two generations of working disabled women

This paper sets out the results of a Spanish study of the experience and meaning of work among disabled women of two generations, with three types of disability (physical, visual and hearing). Performing a socially recognised activity such as a job is a source of emotional welfare and self‐esteem. Moreover, it confers a certain social status. For the participants in this study the kind of work involved, whether productive, paid and ‘extra‐domestic’ or ‘reproductive’, unpaid and done at home, acquires different meanings, since for disabled women, sexist stereotypes – already more or less accentuated in the culture – social attitudes towards disability and personal factors introduce relevant differences, while leading to conflicts and dilemmas that these women have to solve. At any rate, their sense of responsibility in performing all types of work should be emphasised as evidence of their sense of independence and personal competence, forming a keystone in their construction of a sense of identity and social integration.     

Factors Preventing Gridlock in Chilean Couples’ Relationships Based on the Discourse of Couples Therapists and Highly Adjusted Couples

The term gridlock describes the occurrence of rigid patterns in couples’ conflict. This study aimed to describe strategies of conflict resolution and gridlock prevention from the perspectives of couples and couple therapists. Participants were couple therapists and highly adjusted couples scored by the dyadic adjustment scale (DAS), distributed according to traditional and non‐traditional position in life and duration of relationships. Conflict gridlock scenarios were used to create video stimulus that were presented to participants. A qualitative methodology was used to analyse couples’ and therapists’ commentaries on the scenarios. Results showed differences in preventing conflict gridlock among sub‐groups of couples. Long‐term traditional couples focused on loyalty to a common project and value sacrificing to a higher good; long‐term non‐traditional couples prioritised caring and validating the bond in the relationship. Short‐term traditional couples focused on mutual love and the relief of hurt while short‐term non‐traditional couples supported the value of equity.     

Robust bootstrap forecast densities for GARCH returns and volatilities

Bootstrap procedures are useful to obtain forecast densities for both returns and volatilities in the context of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models. In this paper, we analyse the effect of additive outliers on the finite sample properties of these bootstrap densities and show that, when obtained using maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters and standard filters for the volatilities, they are badly affected with dramatic consequences on the estimation of Value-at-Risk. We propose constructing bootstrap densities for returns and volatilities using a robust parameter estimator based on variance targeting implemented together with an adequate modification of the volatility filter. We show that the performance of the proposed procedure is adequate when compared with available robust alternatives. The results are illustrated with both simulated and real data.     

Homicide Rates in a Cross‐Section of Countries: Evidence and Interpretations

This study uses a regression analysis to explore the cross‐country variation in homicide rates for a large sample of countries. It starts by identifying seven significant regional variables, to which traditional socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional variables are added and tested. The importance of institutions, culture, and other factors affecting homicide rates is discussed. One unexpected finding is a curious relationship between the level of education and homicide rates: while an increase in male education tends to reduce homicide rates, an increase in female education tends to increase homicides. Several possible interpretations for this phenomenon are proposed. The study points to relatively unexplored areas of research in order to better understand homicide variation around the world.