Causes and consequences of early-life health

We examine the consequences of child health for economic and health outcomes in adulthood, using height as a marker of childhood health. After reviewing previous evidence, we present a conceptual framework that highlights data limitations and methodological problems that complicate the study of this topic. We then present estimates of the associations between height and a range of outcomes—including schooling, employment, earnings, health, and cognitive ability—measured in five data sets from early to late adulthood. These results indicate that, on average, taller individuals attain higher levels of education. Height is also positively associated with better economic, health, and cognitive outcomes. These associations are only partially explained by the higher average educational attainment of taller individuals. We then use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults survey to document the associations between health, cognitive development, and growth in childhood. Even among children with the same mother, taller siblings score better on cognitive tests and progress through school more quickly. Part of the differences found between siblings arises from differences in their birth weights and lengths attributable to mother’s behaviors while pregnant. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that childhood health influences health and economic status throughout adulthood.     

Investigating Validity Evidence of the Satisfaction with Life Scale Adapted for Children

This study introduces the Satisfaction with Life Scale adapted for Children (SWLS-C) and presents psychometric findings regarding its validation. The SWLS-C was adapted from the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985), which is one of the most commonly used measures to assess satisfaction with life in adults. Three subject matter experts adapted the SWLS by changing the wording of the item stem and response format in order to make it more understandable for children. A stratified random sample of 1,233 students (48% girls) in grades 4–7 (mean age 11 years and 7 months) provided data on the SWLS-C and measures of optimism, self-concept, self-efficacy, depression, emphatic concern, and perspective taking. The SWLS-C demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and high internal consistency. Furthermore, differential item functioning and differential scale functioning analyses indicated that the SWLS-C measures satisfaction with life in the same way for different groups of children (i.e., with regard to gender, first language learned at home—English vs. other language(s) than English—and across different grades) at the item and at the scale level. Associations between scores on the SWLS-C and demographic variables were statistically non-significant or of small effect size. In addition, the SWLS-C showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity in relation to the other measures. Our results indicate that the SWLS-C is a psychometrically sound instrument that demonstrated evidence of construct validity for this age group. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Double Return Migration: Failed Returns to Poland Leading to Settlement Abroad and New Transnational Strategies

Many Poles who have arrived in the UK since EU accession show signs of settling. Often (especially for families with school‐age children) this is a gradual process. Other Poles have returned to Poland, but Poland currently seems to be having problems keeping its return migrants. Many go back only to depart again. This article focuses on why some returnees change their minds and decide to make a long‐term home abroad. It explores the implications of this decision for transnational practices and identities. It argues that often the key objective is stability. Choosing to settle abroad in the hope of a stable life, returnees attempt to live less split lives. While maintaining certain transnational practices, they scale down others, such as return visits to Poland and keeping well‐informed about Polish current events. Simultaneously, they make a decisive effort to integrate into the regular UK labour and housing markets.     

The Politics and Discourse of Migrant Return: The Role of UNHCR and IOM in the Governance of Return

This article proposes that there is added value in moving beyond isolated studies of return-related migration policies in order to consider both deportations and so-called assisted voluntary returns under the common heading of ‘state-induced returns’. Based on official documents and interviews with staff members of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration, it argues that international actors working in the field of migrant return engage in a type of task-sharing that goes beyond functional complementariness. With regard to the return of rejected asylum seekers, for instance, they legitimise each other's engagement as well as the overarching return objectives of governments, and are, therefore, involved in norm-building regarding the acceptability of state-induced returns. In addition to setting certain minimum standards regarding states' treatment of their immigrant population, international actors assist states in upholding control over them. Rather than merely replacing state-led regulation, international actors thus support domestic governments in reaching their migration control objectives, and thereby contribute to a stabilisation of state sovereignty in the governance of migration.     

"It's your badge of inclusion": The Red Hat Society as a gendered subculture of aging

Although studies document the health-enhancing effects of social engagement, they reveal little about the underlying mechanisms operating within specific organizational contexts. Limited attention is given to the role of inequality - particularly age and gender - in shaping either the organizations to which we belong or their consequences for our well-being. We address this issue by examining the Red Hat Society, a social organization for middle-aged and older women. Interviews with members (n=52) illustrate how age and gender inequality interact to shape the organization, which can be viewed as a gendered subculture of aging. Drawing on this framework, we discuss four processes through which participation generates benefits for older women involved in age- and gender-segregated organizations: enhancing social networks, countering invisibility, creating positive frames for aging experiences, and promoting youthful identities.     

Rights discourses in relation to education of people with intellectual disability: towards an ethics of care that enables participation

In this paper we argue that human rights approaches for intellectually disabled people have failed to recognise the complexity of rights claims made by and on behalf of this group. Drawing on a research project into discourses of education for intellectually disabled people in the Eastern Cape, South Africa we discern three rights discourses; namely, rights to full participation, rights to special services and rights to protection. These draw off a social model, a medical model and a protective model, respectively. We note that these discourses may be set up in contestation with each other. However, we argue that they can be seen as complementary if viewed within an ethics of care that enables participation. Within this conceptualisation, participation is viewed within relations of care but is subject to a critique that examines the role of context and disciplinary power in constructing dependency.     

Successful Word Recognition by 10‐Month‐Olds Given Continuous Speech Both at Initial Exposure and Test

Most words that infants hear occur within fluent speech. To compile a vocabulary, infants therefore need to segment words from speech contexts. This study is the first to investigate whether infants (here: 10‐month‐olds) can recognize words when both initial exposure and test presentation are in continuous speech. Electrophysiological evidence attests that this indeed occurs: An increased extended negativity (word recognition effect) appears for familiarized target words relative to control words. This response proved constant at the individual level: Only infants who showed this negativity at test had shown such a response, within six repetitions after first occurrence, during familiarization.     

Women’s Advantage in Higher Education: Towards Understanding A Global Phenomenon

This article reviews prior and emerging research on the gender gap in higher education using a comparative lens. The article outlines historical trends in the gender gap in higher education, focusing on areas where women are advantaged and disadvantaged. It then reviews prior explanations for women’s increasing enrollment in college and continued sex segregation in fields of study. It suggests three fruitful areas for future research to understand the cross‐national female advantage in the completion of college and university degrees: (1) the female advantage in schooling; (2) male vulnerability to growing up in resource‐deprived homes; and (3) changing incentives for men and women to complete higher education.     

Social firms: Sustainable employment for people with mental illness

Objective: Social firms or enterprises aim to offer sustainable employment in supportive workplaces for people who are disadvantaged in the labour market. Therefore, this study sought to explore employees' views in one social firm about the features of their workplace that they found supportive.Participants: Seven employees were recruited, all of whom experienced persistent mental illness, and had worked in this social firm for between eleven months and six years. Methods: A semi-structured interview, the Work Environment Impact Scale (version 2.0), was used to explore participants' views of their workplace and to rate how its physical and social characteristics impacted them. Participants also rated their job satisfaction with a modified Indiana Job Satisfaction Scale. Results: Features of the social firm workplace identified by these employees as contributing to their sustained employment and satisfaction were the rewards, task demands, work schedule, and workplace interactions with supervisors and other co-workers. From their views, guiding principles for the development of supportive workplaces and evaluation of their capacity to afford sustainable employment were derived. Conclusions: This study adds to current knowledge about workplace supports from an employee perspective, and is of relevance for informing future social firm development, workplace design and evaluation.     

Exploring the Link Between Caregiver Affect and Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Does Neighborhood Disadvantage Matter?

In a sample of urban youth (N = 1,070), we examined the links between primary caregiver affect (i.e., warmth and hostility) and two measures of sexual behavior in adolescence - early sexual initiation and sex with multiple partners. We also examined the extent to which neighborhood disadvantage moderated associations between caregiver affect and adolescent sexual behavior. We found that caregiver hostility was positively associated with early sex and sex with multiple partners in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of disadvantage, but inversely associated with both sex outcomes in neighborhoods characterized by low levels of disadvantage. Caregiver warmth, on the other hand, was inversely associated with early sexual initiation and sex with multiple partners in all neighborhoods regardless of neighborhood disadvantage.