Inequality in Human Development across the Globe

The Human Development Index is the world's most famous indicator of the level of development of societies. A disadvantage of this index is however that only national values are available, whereas within many countries huge subnational variation in development exists. We therefore have developed the Subnational Human Development Index (SHDI), which shows within-country variation in human development across the globe. Covering more than 1,600 regions within 161 countries, the SHDI and its underlying dimension indices provide a 10 times higher resolution picture of human development than previously available. The newly observed within-country variation is particularly strong in low- and middle-developed countries. Education disparities explain most SHDI inequality within low-developed countries, and standard of living differences are most important within the more highly developed ones. Strong convergence forces operating both across and within countries have compensated the inequality enhancing force of population growth. These changes will shape the twenty-first century agenda of scientists and policy-makers concerned with global distributive justice.     

Sex Differences in Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources in Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

Although enhancing family functioning has become a rising concern of social workers in Chinese contexts such as Hong Kong, little has been known on perceived family functioning and family resources. To fill in this knowledge gap, this article reports part of the results of a telephone survey conducted in Hong Kong, aiming to identify the sex differences in these two areas. The results of the study have shown that Chinese women perceived better affective involvement, one of the crucial indicators of family functioning, than Chinese men. However, among the different family resources, men rated better physical and mental well-being whereas women's social connection was stronger than men's. Further analysis have shown that the linkage of three family resources (namely stress coping efficacy, time spent with family and income) to perceived family functioning was statistically significant irrespective of genders. Implications of this study for social work practice are discussed at the end of the article.     

Welfare attitudes and social class: the case of Hong Kong in comparative perspective

Based on a survey of Hong Kong residents, this article explores the attitudes towards the welfare state and whether or not there are significant differences between different social classes with regard to their approval of the welfare state. The findings were then compared with those for Sweden and the USA. The study shows that Hong Kong residents strongly approve of the welfare state. The strength of their support is similar to that in Sweden and is far stronger than in the USA. In Hong Kong, the influence of social class on attitudes towards the welfare state is negligible. In some cases, the privileged classes expressed greater approval for the welfare state than the underprivileged classes. This is in striking contrast to the experiences in Sweden and the USA where the underprivileged classes are more supportive of the welfare state than are the privileged classes.     

New Possibilities for Integration and Unification in Interdisciplinary Studies Commentary on Janice Haaken's Pillar of Salt

Janice Haaken's ambitious and wide-ranging interdisciplinary work synthesizes a large and diverse array of profoundly complex subjects. By focusing primarily on her psychotherapy work, I demonstrate close kinship between her therapeutic attitudes, beliefs, and values and my own. My beliefs and values are psychoanalytic, and I find that similar or compatible ones motivate Haaken's feminist, social activist, and radical academic sensibilities. Thus, underlying common attitudes, beliefs, and values between these seemingly diverse areas and psychoanalysis contribute significantly to the authority, unity, and integrative power in Haaken's interdisciplinary work.     

Distributional properties of simpson's index of diversity

Closed expressions for the first four moments of Simpson's index of diversity are derived using techniaues suggested by Haldane (1937). As the samole size increases the behavior of the skewness and kurtosis is studied for several Dopulations with varying degrees of diversity, If the populationproportions decrease accordinq to a geometric progression, graphs of β₁and β₂ indicate that convergence to normality in general is more rapid for populations which are less diverse.     

Organizational rhetoric and collective action in a medical association ∗

Research on organizational rhetoric and on joint action within organizations can be enriched through investigation of ideological accounts - public rhetorical statements that explain and justify collective actions. This paper assumes that ideological accounts, like other forms of organization rhetoric, are worthy of study in their own right - rather than being trivial reflections of “important” structures and processes, as many social scientists assume. The accounts examined here were provided by the heads of the Israel Medical Association (IMA), a national professional association and representatives of the physicians’ union during two conflicts between the IMA, government agencies, and the nation's largest health care organization. The IMA's accounts contributed to the dynamic flow of talk and action during these conflicts - rather than merely reflecting group interests. The IMA cases suggest that accounts usually change incrementally, as leaders respond to the ebb and flow of organizational interactions. Occasionally power shifts or emergent, collective-behavior episodes produce radically new accounts. This study also shows how accounts can contribute to collective mobilization and joint action by sustaining solidarity and coalition formation and by shaping the interpretive frames used by members of an organization.     

Erratum to: The Measurement of Multidimensional Gender Inequality: Continuing the Debate

The measurement of multidimensional gender inequality is an increasingly important topic that has very relevant policy applications and implications but which has not received much attention from the academic literature. In this paper I make a comprehensive and critical review of the indices proposed in recent years in order to systematise the different underlying ideas. I also present new gender inequality indices that overcome some limitations of the preceding ones. Using United Nations data, empirical results for the new indicators are provided, suggesting that the choice of one indicator or another can make an important difference for the ranking of those countries that have achieved high levels of gender equality.     

A note on inference for P(X < Y) for right truncated exponentially distributed data

In this paper, a likelihood based analysis is developed and applied to obtain confidence intervals and p values for the stress-strength reliability R  =  P(X  <  Y) with right truncated exponentially distributed data. The proposed method is based on theory given in Fraser et al. (Biometrika 86:249–264, 1999) which involves implicit but appropriate conditioning and marginalization. Monte Carlo simulations are used to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed method.     

Introduced and native plant species composition of vacant unmanaged green roofs in New York City

Urban Ecosystems - Vacant spaces, such as unplanted, unmanaged, or infrequently accessed green roofs, may play a critical role in sustaining biodiversity in cities. Initial plant composition of...