Stagnation only on the surface? The implications of skill and family responsibilities for the gender wage gap in Sweden, 1974–2010

The wage differential between women and men persists in advanced economies despite the inflow of women into qualified occupations in recent years. Using five waves of the Swedish Level‐of‐Living Survey (LNU), this paper explores the gender wage gap in Sweden during the 1974–2010 period overall and by skill level. The empirical analyses showed that the general gender wage gap has been nearly unchanged for the past 30 years. However, the gender difference in wage in less qualified occupations fell considerably, whereas the gender pay gap remained stable for men and women in qualified occupations. The larger significance of family responsibilities for wages in qualified occupations is one likely explanation for this result.     

Toward a multi‐ethnic public sphere? Media consumption in highly diverse districts in Spain

This article examines media consumption in highly diverse districts in Spain as representative of recent changes in this field due to new immigration to countries in Southern Europe in times of crisis. Drawing on findings from two surveys, we observed a decrease in access to media specifically aimed at audiences of minority cultures between 2010 and 2012. It is suggested that this decline is not due to a modification in media consumption habits by minority groups, but rather the economic crisis of 2008. Furthermore, we study the consumption of minority media by natives: we observe that youth and more educated individuals consume other cultures’ minority media to a greater extent, particularly the press, radio, and Internet news sources. We suggest that elements are present that public administrations could utilize to further develop a multi‐ethnic public sphere. Finally, we explore the emergence of a new transnational dimension to the multi‐ethnic public sphere.     

PEER PRESSURE: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM RESTROOM BEHAVIOR

We provide experimental evidence on the effect of peer pressure on individual behavior. Specifically, we study the effect of being exposed to an observer in a public restroom on handwashing and urinal flushing behavior. Our estimates show that being exposed to an observer increases the probability of handwashing by 13 percentage points and the probability of urinal flushing by 15 percentage points. Given that handwashing and urinal flushing have social benefits that exceed individual benefits, our findings provide support for peer pressure as an additional way of addressing the social suboptimality arising from externalities. (JEL C91, C93)     

Human rights through the paradigm changes of the social communication theories

Human rights (HR), from the perspective of interest and thematic selection, are recognized in the topics of the communication. In general, there is considered to be a positive relationship between the media and its function of mediation with citizenship in reference to the declared general principles since inception in 1948. With this approach, the paper deals with providing an updated reflection of that connection and its main difficulties, such as the crisis of credibility in the information in the context of the European Union and within the framework of the paradigm changes that has derived in the knowledge society of the so-called third environment. The precepts of those recognized as generations of HR survive in the informational stories, of which, due to their current relevance in recent decades, those related to migratory movements, inequality, and poverty stands out. Moreover, the paper explores and discusses how a new generation derived from the implementation and intervention of technology gets involved as an essential characteristic in the relations between the members of society.     

Thinking politics and fashion in 1960s Cuba: How not to judge a book by its cover

Theory and Society - This article presents fashion as a mechanism of domination and political legitimacy, focusing on Soviet-type state socialist regimes. In particular, it documents some dynamics...     

Using the Shapley Decomposition to Disentangle the Impact of Circumstances and Efforts on Health Inequality

Following previous work on inequality in health opportunity, this paper attempts to determine the contribution of circumstances, efforts and lifestyle, and demographic variables to the overall inequality in health in Luxembourg. Health is measured via the answers given to a question on self-assessed health and is considered as an ordinal variable. The educational level of each parent, the financial situation of the family during childhood, the area of birth of the individual, and of his/her parents, and the year of immigration are considered as circumstances. Effort and lifestyle variables are proxied by information on the educational level of the individual, whether he/she smoked and whether he/she had a physical activity on a regular basis. Sex and age are considered as demographic variables. To solve the issue of correlation between circumstances and effort and lifestyle the estimation is implemented in two stages. In the first stage, each effort and lifestyle variable is regressed in a separate equation against the vector of circumstances and demographic variables and, in a second stage, the individual health status is regressed against the vector of circumstances and demographic variables along with the estimated residuals of the effort equations described previously. The respective impacts of the three categories of explanatory variables (circumstances, effort and lifestyle and demographic variables) on health inequality are derived via a Shapley decomposition of the likelihood ratio of the health ordered logit regression. It appears that differences in circumstances and effort and lifestyle explain each around a quarter of this likelihood ratio.     

Relationship between duration of second stage of labour and postpartum anaemia

Aim

To assess the relationship between the duration of the second stage of labour and postpartum anaemia during vaginal birth.

Impact of support networks for breastfeeding: A multicentre study

Background

The rates of breastfeeding worldwide are slowly improving since 1996. Europe is still trailing behind the global breastfeeding incidence and prevalence rates. Thus, breastfeeding promotion, protection, prolongation and support have become an important challenge as breastfeeding sharply decreases in the first six months of life.

Welfare State Development,Individual Deprivations and Income Inequality: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean

Several scholars have confirmed the role that the welfare state (WS) plays in reducing poverty, promoting equality and ensuring the common wellbeing. One of the limitations of the scholarship has been the conceptualization and operationalization of the WS and poverty as one-dimensional variables. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between welfare state development, single-dimensions deprivations and income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. The WS is operationalized as a one-dimensional variable, but also taking into account its multidimensional nature. Three individual deprivations suffered by people on poverty and two income inequality indicators are used as dependent variables. Three pooled time-series cross-section regression analyses with panel-corrected standard errors models were carried out on 18 countries in the region around 2000, 2005 and 2010. This paper shows that the development of social-welfare programs and institutions seems to be an effective way of tackling individual deprivations suffered by people on poverty in the region. On the other hand, the WS development didn’t appear to be effective to reduce income inequality. The outcomes of welfare institutions appear to be the pivotal dimension to reduce income inequality and income deprivations in the region.     

Living Near to Attractive Nature? A Well-Being Indicator for Ranking Dutch,Danish, and German Functional Urban Areas

While nature is widely acknowledged to contribute to people’s well-being, nature based well-being indicators at city-level appear to be underprovided. This study aims at filling this gap by introducing a novel indicator based on the proximity of city-residents to nature that is of high-amenity. High-amenity nature is operationalized by combining unique systematic data on people’s perceptions of what are the locations of attractive natural areas with data on natural land cover. The proposed indicator departs from the usual assumption of equal well-being from any nature, as it approximates the ‘actual’ subjective quality of nature near people’s homes in a spatially explicit way. Such indicator is used to rank 148 ‘cities’ in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany. International comparability of the indicator is enhanced by the use of a definition of cities as functional urban areas (FUAs), which are consistently identified across countries. Results demonstrate that the average ‘nearness’ of FUA populations to high amenity nature varies widely across the observed FUAs. A key finding, that complements insights from existing city-level indicators, is that while populations of FUAs with higher population densities may live relatively far from nature in general, they also live, on average, closer to high-amenity nature than inhabitants of lower density FUAs. Our results may stimulate policy-debates on how to combine urban agglomeration with access to natural amenities in order to account for people’s wellbeing.