Measuring the effect of sex preference on fertility: The case of Korea

Preferences for male or female children or a balanced number of sons and daughters are common throughout the world. The dominant preference is for male offspring, particularly in less developed countries. Strong son preference is often tempered, however, by a desire to have at least one child of each sex. In more developed countries a balance preference is more common, often together with a strong preference for the first child to be a son. Although it is usually assumed that sex preference can substantially influence fertility, some analysts argue that the effect is negligible. An intermediate position is taken by those who say that sex preference may not have much impact at high fertility levels, but that as average family sizes begin to fall, sex preference will become a more important factor in fertility decisions. Despite the keen interest that has been shown in sex preference, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence of its effects on fertility. Moreover, much of the research in this area is methodologically weak. The measures that have been used in the past have been subject to a number of criticisms that call their results into question. This paper proposes a new measure of the effect of sex preference on fertility that avoids many of the problems inherent in other methods. The measure is based on widely available survey data on the sex composition of children and can be used with any measure of fertility or family planning. It can handle any type of sex preference and does not assume a linear relationship between sex preference and fertility.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The social organization of criminal justice processing: An event history analysis

Crimes are social events that involve citizens and control agents interacting over time. Prior work neglects the dynamic and interactive qualities of these criminal events. Drawing from the work of Hawley and others, it is suggested that the processing of criminal events is a routine activity socially organized in time and space. Dynamic modeling techniques developed by N. Tuma are applied to longitudinal data collected on over 10,000 criminal events in California cities and used to model rates of transition from arrest to case disposition resulting from police release, prosecutor denial of complaint, or going to court. As the work of Hawley predicts, city size has much to do with the way criminal events are processed. For example, in larger cities it is demonstrated that crime specialists are processed more slowly than nonspecialists, and that each successive police processing of crime specialists results in slower rates of transition relative to nonspecialists; in smaller cities, it is demonstrated that black suspects are processed more quickly than whites, and that each successive police processing of black suspects results in faster rates of transition relative to whites. The former findings are explained in terms of rationalized intelligence gathering, the latter in terms of stereotyping and the harassment of minorities. The systematic form of the observed temporal changes, notwithstanding a large number of legal and extralegal variables taken into account, leads us to believe that we have identified important patterns of police activity. These and other findings convince us that the social organization of criminal justice processing deserves further study.     

Personality Similarity-Dissimilarity and Underlying Psychopathology in Couples Seeking Marital Counseling

Two hypotheses related to the conceptualization of marriage as an interaction relationship and marital dysfunction as interpersonal pathology were tested empirically. Thirty first-married couples asking specifically for marital counseling from a community counseling service were administered Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Husband and wife inter-correlations on each of the 16 first order and 2 second order factors were derived. Male and female mean sten scores on Neuroticism and Psychoticism were also derived. Data analysis revealed support for the second but not the first hypothesis.     

Help available--phenomenological models for research on aging

In "Help Wanted: Physiologists for Research on Aging," George Martin challenged the scientific community to find better means of tackling aging of the whole organism. Although initiatives such as those proposed by Martin would be most welcome, we propose an additional means by which scientists can take into account the integrative response of the organism and its changes over time. This method consists of systematizing facts that cannot necessarily be explained by considering those facts in isolation.     

Treatment services received in the CASAWORKS for Families program

This article presents information on treatment services received by women participating in an initial multistate evaluation of CASAWORKS families. Results indicated most women received services to address medical, employment, basic needs, alcohol and drug, family, and psychiatric problems during the first six months of the program. The clients also had frequent contact with their case managers and were retained in the program for an average of 222 days. Considerable variation was observed across sites in the percentage of clients who received various services and the number of sessions they received. In Cox regressions, shorter retention in the program was predicted by referral to program from Child Protective Services or parole/probation, social conflicts, employment, and marijuana use at baseline, whereas a history of suicide attempts was associated with longer retention. Longer retention was associated with better alcohol use outcomes but was unrelated to employment or drug use outcomes.     

Risk Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment—The Common Challenge of Dealing with the Precautionary Frame (Based on the Toxicity Controversy in Sweden and the Netherlands)

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and comparative risk assessment (RA) use the same building blocks for analyzing fate and potential effects of toxic substances. It is tacitly assumed that emission-effect calculations can give uniform and decisive answers in debates on toxicity problems. For several decades, mainstream policy sciences have taken a different starting point when analyzing decision making on complex, controversial societal issues. Such controversies in essence are thought to be caused by the fact that different actor coalitions adhere to a different, but in scientific terms equally reasonable, conceptualization or "framing" of the problem. A historical, argumentative analysis of the Dutch chlorine debate and the Swedish PVC debate shows that this is also true in the discussions on toxic substances. Three frames have been identified, which were coined the "risk assessment frame," "the strict control frame," and the "precautionary frame." These frames tacitly disagree about the extent of knowledge/ignorance about the impacts of substances, the robustness/fallibility of emission-reduction schemes, and the robustness/vulnerability of nature. The latter frame, adhered to by environmentalists, seeks to judge substances mainly on their inherent safety. Under the current institutional arrangements and practices, RA and LCIA are executed mainly in line with the philosophy expressed by the risk assessment frame. This article gives various suggestions for dealing with framing in debates on toxic substances. One of the options is elaborated in somewhat more detail, i.e., the development of multiple indicators and calculation schemes for RA and LCIA that reflect the different frames. An outline is given for a possible indicator system reflecting the precautionary principle.     

Venture Survival in a Transitional Economy

Many formerly controlled economies have undergone discontinuous transformations in their approach to markets, institutional environments, and the role of government in economic activity. We study the factors that affect venture survival in a transitional economy through a two-stage study of private ventures in Hungary. We find that ventures survive under uncertainty, even without significant government support. Industry experience, networking activities, and the strategic orientation of the firms predict survival. Contrary to our predictions, SOE experience, access to infrastructure, and differentiation strategies do not significantly differentiate survivors.