The demography of disadvantage

This paper discusses the contribution that demographers can make to the study of disadvantage. Demographers from Malthus onwards have been interested in analysing disadvantage through the lens of demographic variables, notably fertility, mortality and population growth, and their effect on poverty and welfare, both at an aggregate level and in terms of intra-household differences in well-being. The methodology of demography, including the concern with getting denominators right, cohort analysis and standardization procedures, can contribute to the analysis of disadvantage in many different ways. As examples, this paper highlights two issues: that of inequality of access to quality education, and the social and economic disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians. The goal of understanding the causes of disadvantage with a view to reducing it may be best served through multidisciplinary efforts, in which demographers should play a role.     

The role of income in marriage and divorce transitions among young Americans

The paper investigates the importance of income in young Americans decisions to form and dissolve households. Using data on young American men and women from the NLSY, an important role for income in both these transitions is found. There are significant differences between young men and women. High earnings capacity increases the probability of marriage and decreases the probability of divorce for young men. High earnings capacity decreases the probability of marriage for young women, and has no impact on divorce.Thanks are due to seminar audiences at Bristol and the Royal Economic Society, two anonymous referees and the Editor for useful comments, and to Matt Dickson for preparation of the tables. Any errors are those of the authors. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

The Role of Housing Space in Determining Freedom and Flourishing in Older People

This paper takes as its central thesis Martha Nussbaum’s normative proposition that social arrangements should be evaluated primarily according to the extent of freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value. Using this as a lens the paper explores the housing circumstances of older people in the UK. The paper makes three points. Firstly, given that people use their homes to structure and manage their lives, the design, quality and standard of their home is therefore a critical factor in determining their “doings and beings” [Sen: 1992, Inequality Re-examined (Clarendon Press, Oxford) p. 40]. Since older people are more likely to spend greater time within the home through lower income, lessening mobility or loss of companions, this may be of greater significance to them than other age groups. Secondly the paper argues that the design of “specialist” dwellings for older people where there is a shifting balance between housing and care has played a part in shaping the thinking about the position and status of older people as well as providing a material context in which older people live [Laws: 1994, Environment and Planning A 26: pp. 1787–1802]. This paper suggests that this context may alter or deny many aspects of life that may be meaningful to individuals and therefore may inhibit rather than promote human flourishing. The paper draws mainly on a small qualitative study in which older people spoke of their home and its meaning. Quotations from this work are given in italics.     

The importance of non-linearity: A comment on the views of Taylor

Summary Taylor's (1984) view that his power law is better measurement of the distribution pattern of animals than 1/k, I _ρ and relation because almost all the data on means and variances of given species could be fitted by the power low, was critisized. Changes in values of 1/k, I _ρ and suggest the change of distribution pattern of the species, but the data can still be fitted by the power law because of the great linearizing power of log-log plots, and, using the power law only, we shall overlook the information on the meaningful changes in the distribution pattern.     

The adaptive significance of leaf-mining pattern as an anti-parasitoid strategy: A theoretical study

Summary An adaptive significance of linear leaf mining patterns as the anti-parasitoid strategy is theoretically analysed. In the model, a leaf-miner is allowed to move in one of four ways; mining ahead in unexploited area of a leaf, backtracking, branching off from the backtracking mine, and crossing the previous mine. The model parasitoid searches for the leaf-miner by tracing the mine by the tactile cue of mine surface after detecting the mine. The average duration from detecting the mine to finding the leaf-miner host is calculated for various patterns of mining, changing numbers of branches and of crosses. This average duration becomes longer when the leaf-miner stays near either end of the mine compared with when staying near its center. It is also prolonged as the numbers of branches and of crosses increase.     

Children and return migration

We explore reasons for return migrations which are motivated by immigrants concerns about their children. We develop a simple model, where parents have paternalistic preferences. We show that parental concerns about the child may lead to an increase, or to a decrease in the tendency to return to the home country. Our model suggests that return plans of the parent may respond differently to the presence of daughters than to the presence of sons. The empirical test of our models relies on the exogeneity of childrens gender. We use a survey panel data set, containing information on both return realisations over 14 years, and intended return plans. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that children influence return plans of their parents.I am grateful to Jerome Adda, Jaap Abring, David Card, Slobodan Djajic, and Ian Preston for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Child schooling and contraceptive use in rural Africa: A Ghanaian case study

In this study, I examine the contributions of childrens schooling to fertility decline in Africa. I use cross-sectional data collected in the late 1980s to look at how household child schooling patterns and community access to schools affect contraceptive use among rural Ghanaian women. My results indicate that the schooling of children is associated very strongly with increased use of modern and traditional contraceptive use and thereby suggest that educational policy has played a role in initiating and sustaining fertility decline in Ghana and possibly elsewhere in Africa.     

Arts and the quality of life: an Exploratory study

The aim of this investigation was to measure the impact of the arts broadly construed on the quality of life. A randomly drawn household sample of 315 adult residents of Prince George, British Columbia served as the working data-set. Examining zero-order correlations, among other things, it was found that playing a musical instrument a number of times per year was positively associated with general health (r = 0.37), while singing alone a number of hours per week was negatively associated with general health (r = ?0.19). The strongest positive associations with life satisfaction are satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking and embroidery, needlepoint or cross-stitching, at r = 0.39 andr = 0.32, respectively. The satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking (r = 0.35) and buying works of art (r = 0.32) were the most positive influences on happiness. The strongest associations with the Index of Subjective Well-Being are the satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking (r = 0.37) and the satisfaction obtained from knitting or crocheting (r = 0.34). Examining multivariate relations, it was found that eight predictors combined to explain 59% of the variance in life satisfaction scores, with self-esteem satisfaction (β = 0.35) and friendship satisfaction (β = 0.27) most influential. Among the arts-related predictors in the eight, singing alone was fairly influential and negative (β = ?0.18), while the satisfaction obtained from reading to others (β=0.08) and the Index of Arts as Self-Health Enhancers (β = 0.11) were somewhat less influential. When the arts-related predictors were combined with a set of domain satisfaction predictors, total explanatory power was increased by only 3 percentage points. Seven predictors could explain 58% of the variance in satisfaction with the overall quality of life scores. Of the arts-related predictors, only time spent going to non-art museums was significant (β = 0.07). Arts-related predictors did not increase explanatory power at all beyond that obtained from domain satisfaction variables alone. Eight predictors explained 42% of the variance in happiness scores, with the most influential predictors including satisfaction with self-esteem (β = 0.37) and financial security (β = 0.21), followed by the Index of Arts as Self-Developing Activities (β = 0.18). Arts-related predictors added 3 percentage points of explanatory power to that obtained from domain satisfaction scores. Seven predictors could explain 65% of the variance in scores on the Index of Subjective Well-Being, led by self-esteem satisfaction (β = 0.35) and financial security satisfaction (β = 0.30). The Index of Arts as Community Builders had a modest influence (β = 0.11), but all together, arts-related predictors increased our total explanatory power by a single percentage point. Summarizing these multivariate results, it seems fair to say that, relative to the satisfaction obtained from other domains of life, the arts had a very small impact on the quality of life (measured in four somewhat different ways) of a sample of residents of Prince George who generally cared about the arts. Even in absolute terms, arts-related activities could only explain from 5% to 11% of the variance in four plausible measures of the self-perceived quality of respondents’ lives. By comparing the composition of our sample with census data from 2001, it was demonstrated that the sample was not representative of residents of our city. It would, therefore, be wrong to generalize our findings to the whole population of Prince George or to any larger population.