Rethinking the construction of welfare in Mexico: Going beyond the economic measures

This study utilized a multidimensional measure of social welfare composed of 26 social indicators integrated in nine categories: education, employment and social protection, income, health, housing conditions, subjective wellbeing, social capital, use of technology, and culture and leisure to help understand social welfare in Mexico. We also compared the integrated measure with the Human Development Index. Estimation was performed using the method. Our analysis indicated that the health and housing conditions categories contributed the most to social welfare across the 32 Mexican States. In relation to the indicators, income and trust in other people were associated with welfare. Further, results on the welfare ranking of Mexican states revealed variations between the two indices and the HDI). Specifically, only four states occupied the same position on both indices, ten recorded different positions on moving up or down from their levels of social welfare. Implications of observed correlations are presented.     

ON THE IMPUTATION OF RENTAL PRICES TO OWNER‐OCCUPIED HOUSING

This paper challenges the usual objections to the possibility of applying the rental equivalent approach to determine the weight that nonrental housing services should have in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Using data from two Spanish household budget surveys, it is shown that market rents can be well represented in terms of an index of housing quality, two geographical variables, and the year of occupancy. This parsimonious empirical model is used to impute a rental value to nonrental housing units, taking into account the possible selection bias induced by systematic differences in housing characteristics between the market rental sector and the nonrental stock. On average, the estimated hedonic values are relatively close to the self‐imputations provided in the household surveys by the occupants of such dwellings. Therefore, using either of the two alternatives to assess the importance of nonrental housing services in the CPI have small consequences for inflation. Instead, dropping these services from the CPI creates a downward bias in the measurement of inflation of 0.33 percentage points per year during 1985–1992, and an upward bias of 0.38 percentage points per year during 1993 to 2000. (JEL: C43, D12, R21, C21, E31)     

Gender segregation and the wage gap in Portugal: an analysis at the establishment level

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper aims at quantifying the trend in worker segregation at the establishment level and its impact on wages in Portugal over a fifteen year period. We concentrate on the gender dimension, to answer the questions: What is the level of gender segregation across establishments in the Portuguese labor market and how has it evolved over time? What is the impact of segregation on wages? Is that impact different for men and women? Systematic and random components of segregation are computed. We use standard wage decomposition techniques to evaluate the impact of the composition of the labor force at the establishment level on wages. The results reveal a high degree of systematic gender segregation. A higher proportion of females in the establishment lowers females’ wages while, on the contrary, it raises males’ wages. The evidence gathered is consistent with the taste-based model of employer behavior and with the theory of sorting of workers across establishments based on their productivity.     

Taux de résistance des tests de rang d'indépendance

The resistance of tests to acceptance and rejection of null hypotheses was denned and studied by Ylvisaker in the context of one-sample problems. This notion provides a measure of a test's resistance to outliers. In this paper, we propose an extension of this notion to rank-based tests of independence for bivariate random variables. We show, among other things, that Kendall's test of independence is more resistant than Spearman's test.     

Estimation and specification testing in female labor participation models: parametric and semiparametric methods

Female labor participation models have been usually studied through probit and logit specifications. Little attention has been paid to verify the assumptions that are used in these sort of models, basically distributional assumptions and homoskedasticity. In this paper we apply semiparametirc methods in order to test the previous hypothesis. We also estimate a Spanish female labor participation model using both parametric and semiparametirc approaches. The parametirc model includes fixed and random coefficients probit specification. The estimation procedures are parametric maximum likelihood for both probit and logit models, and semiparametric quasi maximum likelihood following Klein and Spady (1993). The results depend cricially in the assumed model.     

Autophagy and aging--when "all you can eat" is yourself

A recent paper provides evidence that macroautophagy is an essential downstream pathway for one of the mutations known to extend life span. Autophagy, or the degradation of intracellular components by the lysosomal system, was thought for a long time to be a catabolic process responsible for cellular cleanup. However, in recent years, we have learned that autophagy comes in different sizes and shapes, macroautophagy being one of them, and that this cellular maid plays many more roles than previously anticipated. Activation of autophagy is essential in physiological processes as diverse as morphogenesis, cellular differentiation, tissue remodeling, and cellular defense, among others. Furthermore, its participation in different pathological conditions, including cancer and neurodegeneration, is presently a subject of intense investigation. A role in aging has now been added to this growing list of autophagy functions. The activity of different forms of autophagy decreases with age, and this reduced function has been blamed for the accumulation of damaged proteins in old organisms. Research such as that covered in this Perspective shows that there is much more than trash to worry about when autophagy is not functioning properly.     

Getting Involved: Exploring Latino GBT Volunteerism and Activism in AIDS and LGBT Organizations

The purpose of this article is to investigate the community involvement (e.g., volunteerism, activism) of Latino gay and bisexual men and transgender persons (GBT) in two areas: AIDS/LGBT and other general causes. Drawing from volunteering and identity theories, we explore the following: Who is likely to get involved? What factors affect variation in the levels of involvement? Where do Latino GBT participate and what do they do? Data come from a cross-sectional sample (N = 643) of Latino GBT in Chicago, Illinois, and San Francisco, California. We found high levels of involvement, but primarily focused on AIDS/LGBT. Involvement appears to be driven by income, early involvement, role modeling, and childhood stigmatization of gender nonconformity.     

Personal reflexivity and biography: methodological challenges and strategies

This article examines the methodological device used in a sociological study that analyses empirically the concept of personal reflexivity. Taking into account the specific challenges of such an investigation the paper emphasises the potential of a biographical approach and the concrete parameters of its use. It is based on the experience of in-depth interviews conducted in more than one session and considers the different phases and elements of the empirical research process. Topics such as epistemological concerns, preparation of the interview guide, methodological cautions, the research relationship and the interview setting are at the centre of the discussion.     

Black Purgatory: Enslaved Women's Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Rio Grande do Sul,Brazil

This article explores the cases of two Brazilian-born enslaved women who were convicted of infanticide and murder in the city of Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) in the 1820s. Maria was convicted of slitting the throats of her two children with her master's razor. Mônica was convicted of killing her master, André Dias, with five axe blows. Although the crimes these two women perpetrated differed in some ways, their sentences were similar. They were not sentenced to death, the typical fate of enslaved individuals who committed murder. Instead, they were publicly flogged then sent into degredo (penal exile) in Benguela, two Portuguese colonies in West Central Africa. These cases suggest that in the context of slavery in Rio Grande do Sul, the limited possibilities of negotiation between masters and slaves resulted in enslaved women committing violent acts of individual resistance, which, although apparently desperate acts, were also the result of a larger strategy. The article shows that in both prosperous and poor households in the domestic environment, enslaved women experienced various forms of daily violence. It also sheds light on how early in Rio Grande do Sul's history, public defenders started condemning physical violence by slave owners against enslaved women, and how the judicial system recognized the legitimacy of their arguments by sentencing the women to penal exile rather than the death penalty. For the two unmarried enslaved women who were constant victims of abuse, and who very probably did not have any close relatives, being exiled to Benguela was perhaps a blessing in disguise.     

Tensions between work and home: job quality and working conditions in the institutional contexts of Germany and Spain

Good jobs can generate capabilities that allow employees to avoid tensions between work and family/home. Following the conceptual framework of Amartya Sen, we examine how job-related demands and resources are related to the level of interference, as well as satisfaction with managing work and home in Spanish and German employees, using three different large-scale European surveys: European Quality of Life Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey. We find that long working hours systematically increase tensions between work and home, as do time pressure, job-related stress, and working hard. Job control or autonomy at work, which is hypothesized to expand individuals' capabilities and agency, tends to increase work–home interference rather than alleviate it. Family responsibilities and household demands do not seem relevant to the tensions employees experience at the work–home interface. This also holds true for women, which is a surprising result in view of the “double burden” hypothesis. Employed mothers in Germany and Spain are a select group of women, as combining employment with raising children in conservative–corporatist and conservative–familialist states may be particularly problematic. Thus while the institutional contexts of Germany and Spain curtail women's ability to reconcile employment and parenthood, the mothers (and fathers) who are employed do not experience significantly higher levels of work–family/home tensions than nonparents.