Goodbye to the golden cage: Transformations in gender norms and family morality for working‐class women in occupations considered masculine in Mexico

This article seeks to contribute to the debate, within the feminist sociological theory and gender studies, about the possibility of ‘undoing gender’ in different social fields, mainly family relations. It is based on the premise that as women's objective dependency in the social structure decreases, the unstable character of what Bourdieu called ‘submissive dispositions’ becomes visible, and that women act reflectively, both to adapt to the challenges posed by their participation in different social fields and to gain personal liberties. The results of qualitative research, based on discussion groups and narrative interviews in which 109 women in working‐class sectors in Mexico City participated, are presented. Conflicts around breadwinning, housework distribution and personal liberties demonstrate a displacement of gender norms, parallel to efforts to maintain certain assurances regarding the traditional family model within the context of economic precariousness.     

Why a fixed workweek?

The main goal of this article is to explain why the fixed workweek appeared. To this purpose we differentiate between “jobs” and “hours per job”. We consider an economy where hours and number of workers are substitutes in production but in which hiring a worker entails a fixed cost plus a variable cost per hour worked. As a consequence, firms would like workers to work as many hours as possible. In an unregulated economy, workers work more hours that they would like to at the on-going wage rate. This situation characterizes the economy of today’s industrialized countries in the 19th century.     

Child Care Choices in Spain

In this paper we examined the determinants of child care choices among families with young children in Spain, by means of a conceptual framework that encompassed need, costs, and availability. Based on data from the Spanish Time Use Survey and Household Budget Survey, our study indicated that, regardless of model specification, the age of the child, the mother’s labor force decisions, and the prices of child care services available were the most important factors that mothers considered when they chose a type of child care. Day care center services substituted for babysitters when the price of babysitters rose; and relative and parent care substituted for day care centers when these services became more expensive. We found no different sensitivity to price changes for working and non-working mothers. From a public policy perspective, child care price subsidies were found to have much stronger effects on child care decisions than child allowances or public provision of school slots.     

Modes of engagement of immigrants with their home societies: types and measurements of engagement

The objective of this article is to review how transnational engagement has been traditionally measured and then offer a proposal for measurements corresponding to how immigrants perceive their transnational practices. Based on the traditional conceptual model of immigrant transnationalism, a system of indicators was developed in accordance with a broad and integral view of the connection with their home societies. This system of indicators was applied to an Andean sample population residing in the Basque Country, Spain, and analysed using factor analysis to produce an empirical model of engagement from the traditional conceptual one. Results show the importance of the private aspect of the relationships with origin and the existence of a continuum in the immigrant connection with their home countries that ranges from the personal to the community. Moreover, two types of intensity of this connection stand out: the first suggests a mere interest in the place of origin while the second implies an active connection with their home countries, both personal and community based.     

Youth talking about news and civic daily life

This paper considers how young people talking about news and politics in their family and peer contexts influences their civic life. The research involved 35 Portuguese youngsters from diverse social, economic and cultural backgrounds that were interviewed in 2010, in Portugal, at the onset of the Eurozone crisis. Based on talking and news-mediated contexts and habits, we identified three different profiles: Limitations to empowerment; Civic capital and self-empowerment; and socioeconomic conditions and empowerment. These profiles show how family and peer talking play a central role in strengthening and making a habitus of being an active citizen, even in contexts with limited cultural, economic and social conditions.     

Impulsivity and household indebtedness: Evidence from real life

Using a probit model, we estimated the role of emotional factors in determining household participation in the debt market, after controlling for such traditional economic predictors as age, level of education, income, wealth, and work status. A sample of 445 Caucasian subjects selected among fulltime employees at international asset management companies underwent the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) while skin conductance was recorded, and a series of questions related to their demographic-socio-economic profile. Aside from confirming the role played by traditional explanatory variables commonly used as determinants of household indebtedness, results revealed the significant influence of individuals’ impulsivity in making debt decisions. Impulsivity predicted unsecured debt (i.e. consumer credit), but it was not significantly associated with secured debt (i.e. mortgages). Neither presence of a somatic marker to guide decisions nor performance at the IGT predicted real-life indebtedness decisions in this non-clinical sample. The notion that “non-rational” factors influence debt demand has been largely ignored and raises concerns about the risk of over-indebtedness for impulsive individuals.     

“Me Against the World”: Parental Uncertainty Management at Home Following Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Discharge

This study explored the uncertainty management processes experienced by parents at home following their child’s discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 18 mothers and fathers whose children were cared for and “graduated” from NICU units in seven different hospitals from 6 to 183 days (M = 63.58 days). Interviews revealed three types of parental uncertainties: parental role shift, caring through equipment, and adherence to provider advice. Parents relied on three strategies to manage these uncertainties: reorientation, calibrating appropriate responses, and limiting exposure. Findings highlight how parental experiences, communication interactions, and expectations in the NICU complicate parental uncertainties postdischarge and negatively affect parental perceptions of self-efficacy, readiness, and competency. Our findings suggest that family-centered care can be enhanced by redefining discharge as an ongoing process that necessitates distinct uncertainty management practices to negotiate tensions between protecting preterm children and supporting parents.     

A Second Best Theory of Institutional Quality

This paper illustrates a theory of the second best where the constraints to the achievement of the optimum are of institutional nature. We consider the effects of corruption and bad governance on the public decision to privatize the provision of a service when contracts are incomplete and there is asymmetric information. We show that both corruption and bad governance are detrimental to welfare, but that removing only one of the two is not necessarily beneficial if the other is still present. The theory supplies a possible explanation to the controversial empirical evidence on the economic effects of corruption.     

Evaluation of Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Parenting in the Italian Context: Adaptation of a French Questionnaire

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Italian version of a French scale to detect attitudes toward same-sex parenting. The Italian sample was split into two subsamples. On one, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to detect the factor structure of the Italian scale, and on the other, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run to find the data’s best fit model. The scales’ internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. The questionnaire’s convergent validity was also evaluated. EFA extracted a four-factor solution, in accordance with the original French scale’s validation study. CFA showed that the translated scale had good consistency, similar to that of the original version, showing satisfactory internal consistency for three of four subscales. There will be benefits to further validation studies of the translated scale on the Italian population and it may possibly be innovative and useful in both research and social fields.