Closeted cosmopolitans: Israeli gays between centre and periphery

Abstract In this article I present observations of gay life conducted in Tel Aviv in 1993 and 1998. Despite the invisibility of gay venues and the absence of gay political action, the men studied in 1993 (mostly professionals and artists) nevertheless did not express resentment or a wish to move to the Western havens of gay life with which they had been acquainted as frequent travellers. However, the gay scene in Tel Aviv seemed very different a few years later. A number of leading gay men made a successful claim for public recognition and a growing constituency of gay men and women came out to demonstrate for minority rights and a share of public space. Rather than relating the growth of gay empowerment solely to the idea of globalization or ‘postmodernism’, in this article I seek to consider the social context in which these worldwide influences take place. The introduction of two stages of observation displays the dynamic nature of social phenomena that ethnographers might often confront in their present‐day research projects.     

Incompletely Fractured Families

The modern family is increasingly isolated and increasingly unstable. As a result, family therapists are faced with a variety of problems in families where the parents have separated or divorced. One previously unrecognised problem occurs when the partners, although separated, covertly remain attached to the old alliance. Frequently a child, by becoming “ill”, remains as a bridge between them to prevent the final disintegration of the marriage bond. Three case histories are provided as an illustration of this phenomenon.     

International migration and labor force participation of married women

A focal issue in international immigration research has been immigration adaptation and assimilation and especially absorption and integration of immigrants into labor force roles. Nevertheless, such research has largely been focused on immigrant men, neglecting the systematic examination of labor force participation among immigrant women. This research is focused on the correlates of economic activity among immigrant and native born Jewish, urban, married females aged 18–54 in Israel. The specific objectives of the investigation are: (1) the impact of education, socioeconomic status, familial child care burdens, and ethnic background on the economic activity of native-born and immigrant, married women; and (2) to evaluate the extent to which the above patterns vary by veterancy and age. The data for this analysis are drawn from Israel's quarterly labor force survey of 6,000 families for 1970 and 1971. Education, socioeconomic status, ethnic origin, and child care burden were all found to have some effect on women's labor force participation; however, the pattern of effect was different for younger and older women and varied by veterancy status. Indications can be found in the data that age at immigration, or in other words the point in the women's life cycle at which immigration occurs, makes a difference in the type and strength of effect of immigration on labor force participation.Requests for reprints should be directed to Moshe Hartman, Department of Sociology, Population Research Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322.     

Arrow-Pratt Risk Aversion, Risk Premium and Decision Weights

This paper analyzes two issues: (a) the effect of decision-weights on risk premium, and (b) whether risk-aversion characterizes most investors. We theoretically show that cumulative prospect theory decision-weights systematically increase Arrow's risk premium, and may induce a positive risk premium even in the absence of risk-aversion. However, decision-weights may either increase or reduce Pratt's risk premium. We present three experiments revealing a striking result: a large proportion of the subjects' choices contradicts risk-aversion. This may be due to non-concave preferences, or to decision-weights. This result may have a dramatic impact on equilibrium models in economics and finance.