Recent migrations from Morocco to Spain

"This study addressed the problem of the Moroccan immigration into Spain within the context of South-North movements, focusing on analyzing provisional data from the last immigrant regularization in the country completed during the end months of 1991."     

Dynamic reliability models with conditional proportional hazards

A dynamic approach to the stochastic modelling of reliability systems is further explored. This modelling approach is particularly appropriate for load-sharing, software reliability, and multivariate failure-time models, where component failure characteristics are affected by their degree of use, amount of load, or extent of stresses experienced. This approach incorporates the intuitive notion that when a set of components in a coherent system fail at a certain time, there is a jump from one structure function to another which governs the residual lifetimes of the remaining functioning components, and since the component lifetimes are intrinsically affected by the structure function which they constitute, then at such a failure time there should also be a jump in the stochastic structure of the lifetimes of the remaining components. For such dynamically-modelled systems, the stochastic characteristics of their jump times are studied. These properties of the jump times allow us to obtain the properties of the lifetime of the system. In particular, for a Markov dynamic model, specific expressions for the exact distribution functions of the jump times are obtained for a general coherent system, a parallel system, and a series-parallel system. We derive a new family of distribution functions which describes the distributions of the jump times for a dynamically-modelled system.     

A cultural economy perspective on service sector migration in the global city: the case of Hong Kong

This article argues that in order to fully understand the geography of labour migration to global cities, it is necessary to consider economic forces in conjunction with mediating socio-cultural influences. Support for this argument is based on an examination of the pattern of migration to Hong Kong, a city which plays a significant role in the world economy.
Reported here are the results of an analysis of recently released 1996 by-census data, and the authors' interviews with foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong. These findings have shown that highly skilled immigrant workers were drawn largely from developed countries, the main sources of inward investment in this city, while less skilled immigrants were drawn from less developed neighbouring labour markets.
While the geographical pattern of immigration followed broadly that predicted from Hong Kong's position in the world economy, the results have revealed that cultural influences such as language and social networks are also important in shaping the economic roles of migrant workers.     

Do Migrants Worsen the Current Account?

There is some concern in Australia that immigration contributes to a widening of its current account deficit. Several cross-section studies have found that migrant households have a lower saving rate than the local born households. In conjunction with a well-known national income identity that the current account deficit is equal to the excess of investment over saving, such findings have been interpreted by many to mean that the migrants contribute to increasing the level of foreign liabilities at a rate greater than that by the local-born.
However, it should be realized that immigration impacts on the economy in a complex way through various demand and supply side channels. Its direct and chain effects on such variables as the current account are spread over both the short and the long term. These effects are neither unidirectional nor always easy to isolate. The final outcome, which is the sum total of all the effects, is uncertain, and cannot be fully understood from a knowledge of cross-sectional saving performance alone.
This article utilizes aggregate time series data to investigate the relationship between the current account and immigration. It finds that although an increase in net migration tends to raise the current account deficit, the longer term effect of immigration on the current account is negligible.     

Power, Politics, and the Framing of Environmental Illness

The medical community, along with other government agencies, has created its own frame of environmental illness. This frame has been generally accepted by the American public. In this paper we discuss framing in general and the factors related to how the environmental illness frame has been constructed and maintained. We offer a brief history of the medical institution and illustrate the frame with its definitions of environmental illness. Qualitative data from a study of Oak Ridge, a contaminated community located in Tennessee, are examined to analyze the consequences of challenging the environmental illness frame. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Patient assertiveness in ethnically diverse older women with breast cancer: Challenging stereotypes of the elderly

Patients' views of patient-physician interactions—particularly the perspectives of older, ethnically diverse women—are poorly understood. The older patient's attitude toward and understanding of the medical encounter, however, are essential to the design of strategies to improve patient-physician communication. To date, investigations have primarily emphasised the ways in which the therapeutic relationship is influenced by immutable patient characteristics. This qualitative study extends previous research findings by looking beyond the effect of ascribed categories (such as age, race, and gender) and focusing on aspects of patient behavior, specifically assertiveness. Focus groups were conducted with older African-, Chinese-, European-, and Hispanic American breast cancer patients from sites in the eastern and western United States. The study explores the potential of a form of patient activation for challenging stereotypes of the elderly and changing health care practitioners' behavior.     

Changing U.S. immigration law and the occupational selectivity of Asian immigrants

This study explored the relationship between US immigration laws and their impact on the immigration of Asian professionals. The article relied on a 1996 Population Association presentation. Data were obtained from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service on legally admitted immigrants to the US. The authors describe the paths to admission, trends in immigration of professionals during 1972-94, and the Immigration Act of 1965 and its 4 amendments. Standardization-decomposition techniques are used to explain the relative differences in professional immigration across 1972-77, 1978-91, and 1992-94. The crude professional rate for all Asians declined by 19% during 1972-91. 62% of the decline was due to changes in the class of admission composition, and 25% was due to a decline in the class-specific professional rates. During 1992-94, the Asian crude professional rate increased 7%, most of which was due to changes in class composition, with the exception of Korean rates. Only the Vietnamese experienced a decline in rates. The 1965 law allowed for equity between countries in admission. The paths of immigration were family ties, job skills, or refugee status. During 1972-77, Chinese took advantage of family reunification, and Indians entered on employment preferences. The legal changes affected the size and share of each class of admission. The revisions indirectly affected the occupational selectivity of immigrant groups. 27% of the flow of Asians during 1972-77 was accounted for by employment preferences. Professionals were 44% of Asian immigrants during 1972-77, 26% during 1978-91, and 33% during 1992-94.