As Good as it Gets? A Life Course Perspective on Marital Quality

Marital relationships, like individuals, follow a developmental trajectory over time with ups and downs and gains and losses. We work from a life course perspective and use growth curve analysis to look at trajectories of change in marital quality over time. Although the tendency is for marital quality to decline over time, some groups begin with much higher levels of marital quality than others. Moreover, a number of life course and contextual factors can accelerate or slow this path of change. Our findings point to the importance of considering the multi-dimensionality of time (e.g., age, marital duration, the passage of years) as well as family transitions (e.g., having children, emptying or refilling the nest) in creating the meanings and experiences of marriage over time.     

Interracial and Intraracial Patterns of Mate Selection Among America’s Diverse Black Populations

Despite recent immigration from Africa and the Caribbean, Blacks in America are still viewed as a monolith in many previous studies. In this paper, we use newly released 2000 census data to estimate log‐linear models that highlight patterns of interracial and intraracial marriage and cohabitation among African Americans, West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites, and their interracial marriage and cohabitation with Whites. Based on data from several metropolitan areas, our results show that, despite lower socioeconomic status, native‐born African Americans are more likely than other Blacks to marry Whites; they also are more likely to marry other Black ethnics. West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites are more likely to marry African Americans than to marry Whites. Interracial relationships represent a greater share of cohabiting unions than marital unions. The majority of interracial unions, including native and immigrant Blacks, consist of a Black man and White woman. The implications for marital assimilation are discussed.     

MILITIAS AT THE MILLENNIUM:

Critically important to Neil Smelser's theory of collective behavior is the idea that people join radical social movements because they experience strain. A social movement arises to reassure participants that something is being done to redress the underlying source of strain. Militia presence and activity on the Internet (especially Usenet) is a phenomenon that can be studied within Smelser's framework. Militia watchers contend that those who join the militias have experienced the kinds of strain to which Smelser refers. The purpose of this article is to analyze the content of Internet traffic of U.S. militias in order to test the thesis outlined above. It uses militia Web sites and militia messages posted to Usenet (N = 1,196) as primary data to test Smelser's theory. Information was gathered on 171 men and women from 28 U.S. militias who posted messages to Usenet from 1998–2001. Based on the militiamen/women studied, Smelser's thesis is generally confirmed. Most experienced some form of social stress or strain prior to or during the time that they were in the militia, and most conditions for social movement development as specified by Smelser were met and confirmed by the data.     

The Causes and Consequences of Immigrant Labour in the Construction Sector in Malaysia

Malaysian construction is highly dependant on immigrant labour; immigrants account for nearly 70 per cent of its workforce. Although they have aided the sector's rapid expansion, it has not been without costs. This paper examines the impact of immigrant labour on construction. The main finding is that immigrants, being largely unskilled, did not contribute to skill formation. Instead, they accumulated skills on‐the‐job, which were lost when they returned home. There was no evidence that immigrants displaced domestic workers since they were concentrated in jobs rejected by Malaysians. Furthermore, unlike in earlier periods, legal immigrants were no longer a cheap option, given the regulations governing their employment. They were not used to cut costs per se, but were used because domestic workers were not available in sufficient numbers. Despite the large immigrant presence, the general wage level increased, though admittedly not as rapidly as it might have in their absence. The reliance on immigrant workers has increased the need for supervision and quality control, thereby reducing the savings in cost; nonetheless, immigrants have helped keep costs in check. Surprisingly, rising wages and the continued shortage of labour have not led to a widespread adoption of labour‐saving methods. This is partly because productivity increases have managed to outpace wage increases, though this advantage is petering out. Also, immigrant presence has kept wages, as a proportion of total costs, manageable. The over reliance of the sector on immigrant labour is not desirable, especially since the majority is drawn from one source ‐ Indonesia. Any disruption of supply from this source can undermine the Malaysian economy. To avoid this, Malaysia must vary its source of immigrant labour and intensify efforts to attract domestic workers by improving conditions in construction.     

薏米中微量有机锗测定的研究

依据二甲氧基羟基苯芴酮与锗的显色原理,用分光光度法对薏米中微量锗进行测定.研究了于HAC-NaAC的缓冲体系,在溴化十六烷基三甲铵(CTMAB)存在下,二甲氧基羟基苯芴酮与Ge(Ⅳ)形成红色络合物,其络合物的最大吸收波长为529nm,Ge(Ⅳ)在0-1.0ug/mL范围内符合比尔定律.拟定方法具有较好的选择性,多数金属离子不干扰检测,用于薏米中微量有机锗的测定,该方法简单可靠,并获得满意的分析结果.     

The impact of gender on gambling attitudes and behavior

Researchers have often attributed the consistent relation of gender and gambling behavior to gender role socialization. If they are correct, gender should affect different sets of gambling attitudes in a manner consistent with at least three aspects of gender role socialization: a double standard of morality, a guardian of the hearth role for women, and a dualism of orientations. A survey measuring gambling attitudes and behavior was sent to a sample of residents in North Dakota after legalization of several games of chance (e.g., blackjack). Gender affects behavior but only some of the specified attitudes. These mixed results may reflect changes in gender role socialization and the increasing legalization of gambling.     

What influences a decision? Some results from a highly controlled defence game

A closed game is described in which one person, representing a land force commander, plays against an unknown but pre-determined threat and decides when and where to deploy reserves. The game was designed to investigate the value of various levels of intelligence data. But large changes in data have had little effect on the quality of decisions made; the dominant feature is the variation between players. The possibility that the game itself might add unnecessarily to this variation has been examined. Accepting that large variation between players may be a fact of life, a way of increasing the efficiency of highly controlled games has also been tested. A number of working hypotheses, thought to be independent of the defence context, are offered to future game designers and the question is raised as to why Operational Researchers, who claim to assist decision-taking, know so little about what influences a decision.     

Management attitudes toward two-tier pay plans

Two-tier pay plans, under which new hires are paid on a lower pay scale than existing employees, have been used with increasing frequency in union-management contracts. The two-tier phenomenon appears to be associated with the wider concession bargaining movement that began in the early 1980s. In this study, management attitudes toward and forecasts about two-tier pay plans are explored by means of a questionnaire survey. In general, the management community is found to be optimistic about the spread and utility of two-tier pay plans in the near term. Managers in firms that actually have two-tier plans are more enthusiastic about their impacts than other managers. Over a longer term, however, the managers surveyed tend to believe that separate wage scales under two-tier plans will eventually be merged into a unified scale. The authors would like to thank Maury Pearl and Gwang-Gi Baek for research assistance on this study.