The negligible influence of premarital cohabitation on marital fertility in current danish cohorts, 1975

This paper studies the influence of premarital cohabitation on marital fertility by applying life table methods to data for cohorts of Danish women born in 1926–1955, collected in retrospective interviews made in 1975. For each five-year cohort, the data have been analyzed by duration of marriage or by duration since previous birth, for women who had no reported births before marriage. Our main empirical results are: (a) that women who married at age 15–19 had higher rates of marital first and second births than those married at ages 20–24, and (b) that premarital cohabitation had very little influence on births of these two first orders in our data.     

Communal invalidation of young adults with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health issues

This study explores how young adults with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health issues experience the challenges of belonging to their local communities. The data were generated through qualitative in-depth interviews with seven young adult service users, six of whom were interviewed twice. The qualitative data analysis resulted in three overarching themes: the need to accept one’s own life and the structures surrounding it; being caught between conflicting social worlds; and moral fumbling in choices and actions. Using an empirical study, we suggest that a process of ‘communal invalidation’ operates through which young adults in the community are socially defined as inadequate. This invalidation serves as a formidable barrier to their recovery.     

Poverty and Pediatric Palliative Care: What Can We Do?

It has been recognized that families of children with life-limiting health conditions struggle with significant financial demands, yet may not have awareness of resources available to them. Additionally, health care providers may not be aware of the socioeconomic needs of families they care for. This article describes a mixed-methods study examining the content validity and utility for health care providers of a poverty screening tool and companion resource guide for the pediatric palliative care population. The study found high relevance and validity of the tool. Significant barriers to implementing the screening tool in clinical practice were described by participants, including: concerns regarding time required, roles and responsibilities, and discomfort in asking about income. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving the tool are discussed. Screening and attention to the social determinants of health lie within the scope of practice of all health care providers. Social workers can play a leadership role in this work.     

Ethical decision making: A cross-cultural comparison

The purpose of this study is to compare the ethical decision making of respondents from two different cultures. Perceived organizational support for ethical decision making was also compared. The samples include residents of South Florida, United States of America and Jamaica, West Indies. Respondents were employed full time. Results indicate that for the majority of business dilemmas presented, no significant differences were found. Implications for these findings are discussed.     

Trends of international migration since 1965: what existing data reveal

Relying on data from a variety of sources, this article sketches the main trends of international migration during 1965–1996, thus documenting the changes that both the character and the direction of international migration have undergone over the course of time. In doing so, it provides a quantitative basis to assess the validity of certain common tenets regarding the evolution of migration at the end of the twentieth century.
The article concludes that the changes observed are generally less striking than usually claimed, although major historical events, such as the end of the cold war and the transformations it entailed, have had a determining influence in shaping many of the key migration movements occurring since 1985.
In particular, migration originating in the former Eastern bloc countries increased markedly and the dynamics of population mobility within the former Soviet space underwent important modifications. In addition, the end of the bi-polar era allowed the resolution of some long-standing conflicts that permitted the repatriation of large numbers of refugees.
However, the proliferation of ethnic or civil conflict that has accompanied the nation-building process in several regions has led to a series of forced migration movements. These developments plus the social, economic and demographic differentials that persist between countries at different levels of development have continued and will continue to fuel international migration.
By reviewing the quantitative evidence available at the regional level, this article sets recent developments in perspective.     

The use of hypothetical cohorts in estimating demographic parameters under conditions of changing fertility and mortality

The indirect methods of demographic estimation available to date are often inadequate to estimate levels in the presence of trends. The use of measures relative to hypothetical cohorts to minimize the effectsoftrends and estimate period levels is described. Procedures allowing the estimation of intersurvey levels of fertility, child mortality and adult mortality are illustrated using data from Thailand and Peru.     

Likelihood-Based Inference for the Shape Parameter of a Two Parameter Weibull Distribution

Based on a Type 2 censored sample, we use the likelihood-based approach to draw likelihood inference on the shape parameter gamma of a two-parameter Weibull distribution. In particular, we derive the profile, conditional and marginal likelihoods of gamma. Numerical results along with some concluding remarks regarding the use of likelihood-based methods for inference are provided.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Managers' Whistleblowing Tendencies*

In a global marketplace, managers often face major difficulties when it comes to handling ethical problems within a different cultural context. Whistleblowing is one possible response to ethical problems. This study considers the differences in culture between a United States sample of managers and a Jamaica, West Indies sample of managers using Hofstede's (1991) theory of International Cultures. The study explores how those cultural differences may help in our understanding of the differences in reported whistleblowing tendencies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.