Social status and fertility: A study of a town and three villages in Northwestern Iran

Studies of the relationship between social status and fertility in developing societies have shown diverse results. This study suggests that such findings result in part from problems in the conceptualization of social stratification and social status. In developing societies such as Iran the differentiation of modern and traditional cultural (and occupational) groups within social classes has resulted in the emergence of a dual hierarchy. Measures of social status must therefore reflect these conceptually distinct hierarchies, rather than be limited to linear scales. Figures from a study in a town and three villages in northwest Iran undertaken in 1973 are analyzed. Findings indicate that for women in towns, as social status increases within both traditional and modern occupational hierarchies (husband's occupation) and as measured by income, education and index of modern items, there is a general and almost monotonic decrease in the number of living children, children ever-born, and ideal number of children, with an increase in age at marriage and contraceptive use. The social and cultural homogeneity of the village sample is reflected in the relatively small variations in fertility-related behaviour and attitudes; however, fertility differences between landed and landless villages appear similar to the pattern found in the urban samples. The differences in the fertility behaviour of village and urban women of similar income and educational status indicate that fertility behaviour is related partially to class and partially to status distinctions between urban and rural communities.     

Does the marriage market sex ratio affect parental sex selection? Evidence from the Chinese census

Recent increases in the (male/female) sex ratio at birth in eastern Asia are thought to be associated with a preference for sons and to result from parental sex selection. However, males are less likely to marry and to have offspring as the ratio increases, and that decreases the expected number of grandchildren. Using data from the 2000 Chinese census, we test whether the sex ratio in the marriage market has an effect on the gender of subsequent births and hence on the sex ratio of the birth cohort. The slow population growth caused by the Great Famine in the early 1960s and the quick recovery that followed produced major changes in the sex ratio for those of marriageable age two decades later. We estimate that an increase of 1 % in the number of marriageable males relative to females, the marriage market sex ratio, would decrease the probability of having a son by 0.02 percentage points. That implies that the Great Famine, which occurred around 1960, led to an increase in the early 1980s of 5.8 extra male births per 100 females.     

The (Non) Impact of Minimum Wages on Poverty: Regression and Simulation Evidence for Canada

We estimate the effect of minimum wages on poverty for Canada using data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for 1997 to 2007 and find that minimum wages do not have a statistically significant effect on poverty and this finding is robust across a number of specifications. Our simulation results, based on the March 2008 Labour Force Survey (LFS), find that only about 30?% of the net earnings gain from minimum wage increases goes to the poor while about 70?% ??spill over?? into the hands of the non-poor. Furthermore, we find that job losses are disproportionately concentrated on the poor. Our results highlight that, political rhetoric not-withstanding, minimum wages are poorly targeted as an anti-poverty device and are at best an exceedingly blunt instrument for dealing with poverty.     

A Legal Analysis of Segregation in Public Education

Many people fear that the current explosion in mass media technology is negatively affecting individuals and society via-à-vis considerations related to the accessibility of pornographic materials. The way this accessibility affects young people is of particular concern. In this article, the author addresses these concerns from the legal and media-effects perspectives. He argues that social studies teachers can respond to questions about pornography and the mass media in a more confident and informed manner if they gain some familiarity with court rulings and contemporary social science research relevant to the impact of the mass media in a democratic society. The author contends that education, not censorship, is the best way to address the issue.     

A Bayesian Analysis of Synchronous Distance Learning versus Matched Traditional Control in Graduate Biostatistics Courses

Distance learning can be useful for bridging geographical barriers to education in rural settings. However, empirical evidence on the equivalence of distance education and traditional face-to-face (F2F) instruction in statistics and biostatistics is mixed. Despite the difficulty in randomization, we minimized intra-instructor variation between F2F and online sections in seven graduate-level biostatistics service courses in a synchronous (live, real time) fashion; that is, for each course taught in a traditional F2F setting, a separate set of students were taught simultaneously via online learning technology, allowing for two-way interaction between instructor and students. Our primary objective was to compare student performance in the two courses that use these two teaching modes. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to test equivalence of modes. The frequentist mixed model approach was also conducted for reference. The results of Bayesian and frequentist methods agree and suggest a difference of less than 1% in average final grades. Finally, we discuss barriers to instruction and learning using the applied online teaching technology.     

Further Evaluation of the Accuracy of Managerial Prediction of Employee Preference

Previous research (i.e., Wilder, Rost, &; McMahon, 2007 Wilder, D. A., Rost, K. and McMahon, M. 2007. The accuracy of managerial prediction of employee preference: A brief report. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 27(2): 1–14. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has suggested that managers perform poorly when predicting items and activities which their employees state that they might like to earn as part of performance improvement programs. The purpose of the current study was to replicate the earlier study conducted by Wilder et al. (2007 Wilder, D. A., Rost, K. and McMahon, M. 2007. The accuracy of managerial prediction of employee preference: A brief report. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 27(2): 1–14. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) with a larger and more diverse sample of managers and employees. One hundred employees and 15 managers were asked to rank order a list of items/activities they thought their employees would most prefer to be incorporated into a performance improvement plan. Next, employee preference for these same items was directly assessed using an employee reinforcer survey. Kendall rank-order correlation coefficients were used to compare the results of the managerial rank with the employee reinforcer survey. Correlations ranged from ?.6 to 1, with a mean of .25.     

Development of Sexual Expectancies among Adolescents: Contributions by Parents,Peers and the Media

To expand the scant research on sexual expectancies development among non–sexually active adolescents, we examined the relationship between adolescents' exposure to four socializing agents—mother/female guardian, father/male guardian, peers, and television programs with high sexual content—and their endorsement of four sexual expectancies: social benefit, pleasure, social risk, and health risk. Data are from Waves 2 and 3 of a three-wave annual longitudinal study conducted among California adolescents, the majority of whom were not sexually active (N = 914, 84%). Structural equation models were conducted to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between the socializing agents and the sexual expectancies. Cross-sectional results indicate associations between peer sexual communication and social benefit, pleasure, and social risk expectancies. A positive association was found between exposure to music videos and social benefit expectancies, and a negative association was found between exposure to music videos and health risk expectancies. Longitudinal results suggest that communication with peers positively predicted pleasure expectancies and negatively predicted social risk expectancies. No other socializing agents were associated with any sexual expectancies. An invariance test found that significant correlations were similar across the different age groups. Results suggest that efforts to support positive sexual decision making among non–sexually active adolescents should target peer sexual communication.     

Time series analysis and stochastic forecasting: An econometric study of mortality and life expectancy

Methods for time series modeling of mortality and stochastic forecasting of life expectancies are explored, using Canadian data. Consideration is given first to alternative indexes of aggregate mortality. Age-sex group system models are then estimated. Issues in the forecasting of life expectancies are discussed and their quantitative implications investigated. Experimental stochastic forecasts are presented and discussed, based on nonparametric, partially parametric, and fully parametric methods, representing alternatives to the well known Lee-Carter method. Some thoughts are offered on the interpretation of historical data in generating future probability distributions, and on the treatment of demographic uncertainty in long-run policy planning. All correspondence to Frank T. Denton. This paper is a revised version of one presented at the Annual Congress of the European Society for Population Economics, Athens, Greece, June 2001. The underlying work was carried out as part of the SEDAP (Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population) Research Program supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Ronald Lee provided comments that were very helpful in revising an earlier version of the paper. We thank him and participants at the ESPE session at which that version was presented. We thank also the Journal's anonymous referees. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.