Understanding the demographic implications of climate change: estimates of localized population predictions under future scenarios of sea-level rise

Significant advances have been made to understand the interrelationship between humans and the environment in recent years, yet research has not produced useful localized estimates that link population forecasts to environmental change. Coarse, static population estimates that have little information on projected growth or spatial variability mask substantial impacts of environmental change on especially vulnerable populations. We estimate that 20 million people in the United States will be affected by sea-level rise by 2030 in selected regions that represent a range of sociodemographic characteristics and corresponding risks of vulnerability. Our results show that the impact of sea-level rise extends beyond the directly impacted counties due to migration networks that link inland and coastal areas and their populations. Substantial rates of population growth and migration are serious considerations for developing mitigation, adaptation, and planning strategies, and for future research on the social, demographic, and political dimensions of climate change.     

Composite Indices of Development and Poverty: An Application to MDGs

The measurement of development or poverty as multidimensional phenomena is very difficult because there are several theoretical, methodological and empirical problems involved. The literature of composite indicators offers a wide variety of aggregation methods, all with their pros and cons. In this paper, we propose a new, alternative composite index denoted as MPI (Mazziotta-Pareto Index) which, starting from a linear aggregation, introduces penalties for the countries or geographical areas with ‘unbalanced’ values of the indicators. As an example of application of the MPI, we consider a set of indicators in order to measure the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and we present a comparison between HDI (Human Development Index) methodology, HPI (Human Poverty Index) methodology and MPI.     

Disentangling the Circularity in Sen’s Capability Approach: An Analysis of the Co-Evolution of Functioning Achievement and Resources

There is an ambiguity in Amartya Sen’s capability approach as to what constitutes an individual’s resources, conversion factors and valuable functionings. What we here call the “circularity problem” points to the fact that all three concepts seem to be mutually endogenous and interdependent. To econometrically account for this entanglement we suggest a panel vector autoregression approach. We analyze the intertemporal interplay of the above factors over a time horizon of 15 years using the BHPS data set for Great Britain, measuring individual well-being in functionings space with a set of basic functionings, comprising “being happy”, “being healthy”, “being nourished”, “moving about freely”, “being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”. We find that there are indeed functionings that are resources for many other functionings (viz. “being happy”) while other functionings (“being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”) are by and large independent, thus shedding light on a facet of the capability approach that has been neglected so far.     

Generalized Trust and Trust in Institutions in Confucian Asia

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications.     

Are Educational Mismatches Responsible for the ‘Inequality Increasing Effect’ of Education?

This paper asks whether educational mismatches can account for the positive association between education and wage inequality found in the data. We use two different data sources, the European Community Household Panel and the Portuguese Labour Force Survey, and consider several types of mismatch, including overqualification, underqualification and skills mismatch. We test our hypothesis using two different measurement methods, the ‘statistical’ and the ‘subjective’ approach. The results are robust to the different choices and unambiguously show that the positive effect of education on wage inequality is not due to the prevalence of educational mismatches in the labour market.     

Social Trust,Social Partner Time and Television Time

Social trust is an important phenomenon, but the influence of important time-based measures upon trust has not been examined. Such measures include social contact and anti-social activity, such as television watching, which allows for the co-presence of other people. This paper reports on associations between trust and weighted means of co-present ‘social’ time (defined as time spent in various ‘social’ activities) and co-present time spent watching television, using the Australian Time Use Survey, 2006. It finds that trust is associated with social time spent in the co-presence of ‘strangers’ predominately from outside the household, and that TV watching in the co-presence of ‘familiars’—friends and family—is negatively associated with trust.     

Reporting Systems for Sustainability: What Are They Measuring?

The dominance of the neoliberal discourse in the sustainability debate has tended to privilege the economy over environment and social dimensions with implications for what is measured by sustainability monitoring systems. Moreover, systems to measure sustainability, including those influenced by neoliberal discourse, lack robust definitions and fail to address the interrelationship between social, economic and environmental contexts. If sustainability indicators are to help understand the interrelated forces driving change, by providing indications of sustainability, then the indicators should be derived from an epistemologically consistent conceptual framework which encapsulates clearly defined phenomena. The paper discusses whether sustainability indicators in the Australian context are derived from an epistemologically consistent framework. It is argued that the validity of current sustainability reporting systems is contestable.     

Effect of Changes in Living Conditions on Well-Being: A Prospective Top–Down Bottom–Up Model

Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examined life-satisfaction and housing satisfaction before and after moving (N = 3,658 participants from 2,162 households) with univariate and bivariate two-intercept two-slope latent growth models. The main findings were (a) a strong and persistent increase in average levels of housing satisfaction, (b) no increase in average life-satisfaction, (c) low stability in individuals’ level of housing satisfaction, and (d) high stability in individuals’ level of life-satisfaction. The results are discussed in the context of top–down and bottom–up models as well as adaptation theories of well-being. We conclude that moving or living in a better home is unrelated to life-satisfaction judgments for two reasons. First, housing makes a small contribution to life-satisfaction judgments. Second, positive effects of better housing are undermined by the greater costs of living in a better home. The results provide no support for the prediction of adaptation theory that shifting aspirations undermine the benefits of living in a better home.     

The Incompatibility of Materialism and the Desire for Children: Psychological Insights into the Fertility Discrepancy Among Modern Countries

We examined factors related to attitudes toward marriage and the importance of having children in both the US and Singapore. Path analysis indicated that life dissatisfaction leads to materialism, and both of these factors lead to favorable attitudes toward marriage, which leads to greater desire for children. Further analysis indicated this model was effective in explaining the difference in desire for children between Singaporeans and Americans, whereby Singaporeans have lower life satisfaction, higher materialism, and lower attitudes toward marriage and children. Materialistic standards of success were also related to the emphasis women placed on potential marriage partners’ earning capacity. As Singaporean women had higher materialistic standards, they also placed higher emphasis on potential mates’ earning capacity. Results suggest a consideration of psychological variables such as life satisfaction, materialism, and mate preferences may lead to a better understanding of larger-scale socioeconomic issues, including low fertility rates among developed East Asian countries.     

Cumulative Disadvantage and Connections Between Welfare Problems

In this paper, we perform a latent class factor analysis of a panel that involves two waves of data from an annual survey of living conditions in Sweden that were gathered in the years 1994–1995 and 2002–2003. We follow the same 3,149 individuals over both waves, describing them by sex, age group, family type, nationality background, education level and socio-economic class. Further, since the welfare disadvantages included in the analysis are chronic unemployment, economic problems, health problems, experiences of threat or violence, crowded housing, lack of a close friend and sleeping problems, we also have data on exactly which welfare problems each individual in the data set suffers from. In the empirical analysis, latent class factor analysis provides us not only with information on which individual characteristics that are important in the accumulation of welfare problems, but also gives us information on which disadvantages in fact are accumulated. First, we find that welfare problems do cluster. Second, the welfare problems that most often appear at a factor level with several disadvantages are experiences of threat or violence and sleeping problems. Finally, being an immigrant and being single are individual characteristics that turn up most often in factor levels with problem accumulation, whereas there is no distinctive difference between the sexes. However, women seem to be more prone to suffer from experiences of threat or violence and sleeping problems, while men are more likely to suffer from lack of a close friend.