Quality of life in rural areas: processes of divergence and convergence

In Germany, processes can be observed that have long been out of keeping with the principle of equality of opportunity. Unemployment is concentrated in the structurally weak peripheral areas, in Eastern Germany in particular; emigration of young and better-educated people to the West is not diminishing, but contrary to expectation is again on the increase; aging processes have set in already, and when it comes to the provision of infrastructure, e.g. in the field of professional training, some regions are already suffering from considerable problems. These difficulties are frequently interpreted as differences between East and West and are explained away as problems resulting from reunification, such as the deindustrialization and restructuring of the economy and the enormous decline in the birth rate in Eastern Germany. Although these problems cannot just be attributed to social transformation and the birth rate crisis alone, being subject to more general processes of intensified globalization and the aging of society, the increasing regional disparities are rarely considered in the overall context of regional development patterns throughout Germany. Moreover, the difficulty of even obtaining data for purposes of comparison generally means that an international yardstick is lacking when regional developments are analyzed. The present study investigates regional disparities over a period of time in the light of subjective and objective indicators of the quality of life for individuals. To this end, we make use of data from the Wohlfahrtssurvey [Welfare Survey] from 1978 to 2001, among other sources. On the basis of the Euromodule that has been established at the WZB, we compare current regional patterns in Germany with those in other European countries. This approach makes it possible to provide information on the scale of regional disparities in various different countries, and to identify privileged and handicapped regions with reference to standards of living and the sense of wellbeing. The study’s findings show that, in the past 25 years, welfare in Western Germany has evened out at a higher level, but currently a trend towards increasing economic disparity is discernible. In comparison with other European countries, on the other hand, the differences (regional differences) within Germany are comparatively slight.     

The Collapse of Civility in Russia: The Young and Aged in a Failed Society

Employing Edward Shils' paradigm of center–periphery, the successful functioning of which produces high levels of civility in a society, an analysis of the aged and the young subsystems in the former Soviet Union and present–day Russia is provided. Specifically, the center–periphery relationship and its deterioration is traced up to and through the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The negative consequences of this deterioration for the young and old, and the resulting loss of civility are also documented.     

Psychosocial Adjustment of African American Children in Single‐Mother Families: A Test of Three Risk Models

Three models of risk were examined for 277 African American children from single‐mother‐headed homes: cumulative, additive, and indirect models. Risk factors were mother‐reported community risks, inadequate income, maternal depressive symptoms, and inadequate parenting. Child‐reported internalizing and externalizing difficulties served as dependent measures of adjustment. Whereas the cumulative risk model identified a subset of children within this group as at‐risk for adjustment difficulties, only more proximal family variables (maternal depressive symptoms and inadequate parenting) accounted for unique variance in child outcomes (additive risk model). However, the more distal risk factors—community risk and inadequate income—were linked to both internalizing and externalizing difficulties through the proximal family variables (indirect effects model).     

Delayed Marriage and Very Low Fertility in Pacific Asia

The general decline in fertility levels in Pacific Asia has in its vanguard countries where fertility rates are among the lowest in the world. A related trend is toward delayed marriage and nonmarriage. When prevalence of cohabitation in European countries is allowed for, levels of “effective singlehood” in many countries of Pacific Asia have run ahead of those in northern and western Europe. This raises questions about the extent to which delayed marriage has been implicated in fertility declines, and whether the same factors are leading both to delayed marriage and to lowered fertility within marriage. The article argues that involuntary nonmarriage is likely to be more common in Pacific Asia than in Western countries, and that resultant involuntary childlessness plays a substantial role in the low fertility rates currently observed.