Do significant labor market events change who does the chores? Paid work,housework, and power in mixed-gender Australian households

We examine how men and women in mixed-gender unions change the time they allocate to housework in response to labor market promotions and terminations. Operating much like raises, such events have the potential to alter intra-household power dynamics. Using Australian panel data, we estimate couple-specific fixed effects models and find that female promotion has the strongest association with housework time allocation adjustments. These adjustments are in part attributable to concurrent changes in paid work time, but gender power relations also appear to play a role. Further results indicate that households holding more liberal gender role attitudes are more likely to adjust their housework time allocations after female promotion events. Power dynamics cannot, however, explain all the results. Supporting the sociological theory that partners may “do gender,” we find that in households with more traditional gender role attitudes, his housework time falls while hers rises when he is terminated.     

Missing time with parents: son preference among Asians in the USA

We study prevalence of son preference in families of East and South Asian origin living in the USA by investigating parental time investments in children using American Time Use Surveys. Estimates show that East and South Asian mothers spend an additional hour of quality time per day with their young (aged 0–2 years) sons than with young daughters; son preference in mothers’ time allocation declines as children get older. East and South Asian fathers’ time with young children is gender neutral. We find gender specialization in time with children aged 6–17 with fathers spending more time with sons and mothers spending more time with daughters.     

Toward a gender politics of aging

The article proposes a Gender Politics of Aging approach to the study of aging societies. The approach recognizes the feminization of old age, ageism’s roots in sexist discourse, and the need to recognize the role of politics in driving demographic debates. Drawing together arguments from feminist gerontology and political demography, the article argues that the intersection of politics and gender must be considered if appropriate responses to an older, feminized demography are to be produced. I conclude that the work of aging feminists provides a rich vein of research and praxis from which a gender politics of aging approach can draw.     

Immigration and internal mobility in Canada

We analyse the impact of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) and permanent immigrants on interprovincial mobility in Canada. Empirical results are analysed through the lens of a theoretical model that incorporates a job-matching framework in a migration model à la Harris and Todaro. The effect of the inflow of TFWs in interprovincial mobility is negative, substantial and significant. This is not the case for the inflow of permanent immigrants selected through the Canadian point system. The robustness of these empirical results to issues of endogeneity is assessed through a classical instrumentation approach as well as through a diff-in-diff analysis taking advantage of a pilot project facilitating the admission of TFWs in two Western provinces over the 2007–2010 period. Our paper suggests that, in general, the impact of immigration on labour market conditions depends critically on the way immigration policy is set.     

Klassen messen

The article investigates whether Austrian sociological research empirically addressed social class conceptions between 1945 and 1990. Contrary to the German reception, we find that, indeed, during the whole period scientific publications analyzed social relations and social change from a class perspective with an empirical approach. We embed this research in its historical context in order to work out the implicit explanations given concerning the existence of social inequalities. Moreover, we work out if post-World War II Austrian class analysis did link its work to the Austro-Marxist tradition that flourished between the two World Wars. The empirical focus of the article lies on scientific publications with an empirical approach to social classes and social change.     

Marxistische Theoriearbeit in der Krise

The economic as well as political and ideological crises and transformations of capitalist social formations have created a crisis for Marxist approaches. This affects their assumption about the necessity, desirability and possibility of social transformation, but also about the actors fighting them out and their activities. Thus, a far reaching reformulation of its fundamental epistemological and theoretical assumptions is necessary. This contribution argues that the crisis of Marxism demands a self-reflective engagement with conditions of Marxist theoretical work. The acknowledgement of the fundamental openness and incompleteness of Marxist social critique as well as its contested production is indispensable to avoid authoritarian forms of politics and to be implicated into the legitimation of domination again. The encompassing character of the crisis tendencies of capitalist social formations and the multiplication of fields of conflict demands to overcome a monistic interpretation of social dynamics. To conceptualise capitalist social formations as relation of relations is an indispensable precondition for the analysis of the connections between different social structures and relations of power and dominance. Furthermore, the ability of capitalist social formations to change, which has been shown by the recent crises and transformations, demands a fundamental dynamisation of the Marxist concept of reproduction. The dynamisation of relative surplus production in knowledge based capitalism moves the adaptability of the subjects and their capacity to work centre stage. Only against this background can the plurality of perspectives for emancipation and social struggles come into view for Marxist theoretical work.     

Living with parents and educational outcomes in developing countries: empirical evidence from PISA Thailand

Family is a fundamental determinant of children’s welfare outcomes, not only in terms of good or bad behaviour, but also in terms of child development, comprising emotional, social, and cognitive skills. Family structure is even more important in a developing country in which educational achievement tends to lag. Using a national sampling from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted in 2009 and 2012 in Thailand as a case study for a developing country, this paper quantifies impacts the effects of family structure on cognitive skills and learning performance among Thai students. The findings reveal that family structure, especially for those living with both father and mother, can positively affect the academic achievement of Thai students compared to those who do not live with both parents. Thus, strengthening family structures should be another necessary policy to could promote positive educational outcomes in this developing country.     

Rethinking the effectiveness of family planning in Africa

For the past 50 years there has been a near global consensus that the demands of development necessitate that couples reduce their fertility as a critical act which would jump start economic growth. This consensus heralded the era of the One Child policy and over 90% of least developed states continue to run programs which seek to induce lower fertility rates in their populations. However, a growing body of literature is questioning both the validity and utility of these interventions. This article seeks to contribute to the rethinking of family planning programs. Using new data on family planning scores from forty two African states this article shows that rates of fertility are unlikely to be affected by the strength of family planning programs at lower levels of development. However, at moderate levels of development, family planning programs may contribute to accelerating the decline in fertility initiated by exogenous factors. These findings offer a fresh perspective on the wide spread adoption of family planning policy that permeates the developing world.     

Effectiveness of training to promote routine enquiry for domestic violence by midwives and nurses: A pre-post evaluation study

Background

Asking women about experiences of domestic violence in the perinatal period is accepted best practice. However, midwives and nurses may be reluctant to engage with, or effectively respond to disclosures of domestic violence due a lack of knowledge and skills.