Child support and father-child contact: Testing reciprocal pathways

I use three waves of panel data to examine the relationship between child support payments and fathers' contact with their nonmarital children. I disaggregate support into fathers' formal and informal payments and incorporate cross-lagged effects models to identify the direction of causality between payments and contact. After including the behavior from the prior wave (lagged term) and a rich set of family characteristics, I find a marginally significant effect of paying formally at Time 1 on the likelihood of contact at Time 2 but no effect of contact at Time 1 on formal payments at Time 2. In the first examination of the relationship between informal support and father-child contact, I find a strong, positive reciprocal relationship between the likelihood and frequency of father-child contact and the likelihood and amount of informal support, with slightly stronger and more consistent effects of contact on payments than of payments on contact.     

Was there compression of disability for older Americans from 1992 to 2003?

Medical advances and the growth of the elderly population have focused interest on trends in the health of the elderly. Three theories have been advanced to describe these trends: compression of morbidity, expansion of morbidity, and dynamic equilibrium. We applied multistate life table methods to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey to estimate active and disabled life expectancy from 1992 to 2003, defining disability as having difficulty with instrumental activities of daily living or activities of daily living. We found increases in active life expectancy past age 65 and decreases in life expectancy with severe disability. These trends are consistent with elements of both the theory of compression of morbidity and the theory of dynamic equilibrium.     

Older women's fears of violence: the need for interventions that enable active ageing

Women's fear of violence can impact negatively on their active participation in life. An ageing survey conducted with 2,620 Australian respondents aged 50 to 90 years examined aspects of work, learning, social, spiritual and emotional status, health, vision, home, life events, demographics, and asked an open-ended question about what being actively engaged in life meant. Ordinal regression was carried out on two dependent variables: wanting and needing to learn to discourage violence. Analyses found that as women's age increased, those on lower incomes were more likely than others to say they needed to learn how to discourage violence against them. This paper investigates the variables associated with the findings-transport, finances, news media, home safety, and reduced social interactions. Results highlight the importance of understanding women's fear in the context of personal and social issues, and the need to provide learning opportunities to improve safety and social engagement.     

是分析社会还是改造社会——哈贝马斯与卢曼之争

哈贝马斯与卢曼在 1971年的理论之争是德国学生运动的最后一次理论争论 ,它对整个一代人和德国社会科学界有重大影响。1.争论的出发点哈贝马斯和卢曼在 1971年时都知道 ,必须突破社会学理论和方法的长期停滞状态和不充分性。他们同时也知道这种突破面临一个困难 ,就是必须分析一个比过去更加复杂和更加无法一目了然的社会。哈贝马斯认为“批判理论”已经提供了分析这种社会的理论和方法 ,霍克海姆和阿多尔诺的《启蒙辩证法》(1974)就是“现代社会辩证发展理论”。他未能采纳在北美 (特别由帕森斯 )得到发展的系统论。卢曼 (NiclasL uhmann1…     

世界保险业

世界保险业市场的保险费已连续几年超过 2 0 0 0 0亿美元 ,1997年还曾达到 2 12 90亿美元 ,较之 1996年实际增长 4.5 %。投向人寿保险较之财产保险的增幅大 ,如 1991年 ,人寿保险的比例为 5 3% ,6年以后该比例增至 5 8%。财产保险增长缓慢 (1997年实际只为0 .2 % ) ,因而使其所占比例下降的关键原因是最主要市场的剧烈竞争和过度设备能力。在日本、北美和西欧 ,该项价目不可能脱离业务规模的相应增大 ,由于受经济增长率的限制 ,致使这些地区收入量降低。相反 ,东欧、拉美和东南亚因业务规模扩大而使利润增加。从每个国家看 ,1997年保险收入…     

人口流动对基督教全球传播的影响

基督教流动人口是基督教在全球传播过程中的关键因素。在基督教存在的前五个世纪,广泛的人口流动将基督教变成了全球化的信仰。广泛的人口流动在其它主要的世界宗教在世界各地的传播过程中也发挥了重要作用,但是,就基督教来说,流动可能是这种信仰固有的因素。基督教超越罗马帝国成为全球性信仰是个非常复杂的过程,包含许多不同类型的人口流动。跨国界的领袖们、俘虏、难民和流浪者、商人是人口流动的四种主要类型。虽然,东部教会传教的成功是短暂的,但是东部教会在第一个千年形成的移民传教模式无疑为21世纪的基督教提供了典范。基督教在过去的两三个世纪里再次全球化,基督信仰作为新的中心在非洲、拉丁美洲和亚洲的某些地区出现,表明"人口流动"在基督教全球传播过程中的作用比以前更加明显。当代基督教的全球化与早期基督教的全球化在发展道路上有很大不同,但有一点是不变的,即基督教的全球化仍将主要依靠流动者的行动和决策。     

公司文化:美国高等教育的新威胁

为民主而斗争是一项政治任务,也是一项教育任务.要促进充满活力的民主文化的产生,最根本的就是要认识到,教育必须被作为公共利益来看待.使高等教育沦为公司文化的附庸违反了教育支持和发展包含民主在内的公共空间的重要社会规则.从汤姆斯·杰佛逊到约翰·杜威,再到C.赖特·米尔斯,赞颂教育对于民主公共生活的根本的重要性成为一个悠久的传统.     

人类的自救

在这个过于巨大和复杂的世界中,对数量庞大、形色各异的人群进行有效和严格的控制是行不通的.尽管我们有着最好的专家学者和最精密的电脑辅助,自然灾害仍超出了人类的理解范围.