Marital Quality and Personal Well‐Being: A Meta‐Analysis

This study examines the association between marital quality and personal well‐being using meta‐analytic techniques. Effects from 93 studies were analyzed. The average weighted effect size r was .37 for cross‐sectional and .25 for longitudinal effects. Results indicate that several variables moderate the association between marital quality and personal well‐being, including gender, participants’ marital duration, source of measurement, data collection year, and dependent variable. These results suggest that longitudinal effects are more likely to be uncovered when using standard measurement and that future research should use samples homogenous in marital length. The longitudinal finding that the strength of the association is stronger when personal well‐being is treated as the dependent variable supports previous theorizing.     

Likelihood-based estimation for Gaussian MRFs

Markov random fields (MRFs) express spatial dependence through conditional distributions, although their stochastic behavior is defined by their joint distribution. These joint distributions are typically difficult to obtain in closed form, the problem being a normalizing constant that is a function of unknown parameters. The Gaussian MRF (or conditional autoregressive model) is one case where the normalizing constant is available in closed form; however, when sample sizes are moderate to large (thousands to tens of thousands), and beyond, its computation can be problematic. Because the conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is often used for spatial-data modeling, we develop likelihood-inference methodology for this model in situations where the sample size is too large for its normalizing constant to be computed directly. In particular, we use simulation methodology to obtain maximum likelihood estimators of mean, variance, and spatial-depencence parameters (including their asymptotic variances and covariances) of CAR models.     

Women with fear of childbirth might benefit from having a known midwife during labour

Aim

Having a known midwife at birth is valued by women across the world, however it is unusual for women with fear of childbirth to have access to this model of care. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence and factors related to having access to a known midwife for women referred to counseling due to childbirth fear. We also wanted to explore if women’s levels of childbirth fear changed over time.

Symposium sur Inventing Equal Opportunity de Frank Dobbin

Frank Dobbin's Inventing equal opportunities, published by Princeton University Press in 2009, has arrived at just the right time in a France where the theme of “diversity” has permeated big firms and where equal opportunity policies are being debated in the educational system, which, from kindergarten to university, is being accused of fostering inequality. This book provides a stimulating, innovative contribution to our understanding not only of these questions in the United States but also of the French case. We thought it was time to organize a symposium on a book that recounts and dissects nearly fifty years of development in equal opportunity policies in the United States. To fully describe the wealth of information in this book, we asked authors with different disciplinary perspectives to take part. By analyzing social movements, public actions, the legal system and occupational forms of mobilization, Frank Dobbin has revitalized and challenged accepted ideas about the role of public players in regulating behavior. He has also shown that legal uncertainty in civil rights cases has led to the formation of corporate standards that, though private, have the value of public ones.     

Occupational Stress,Burnout and Job Status in Female Academics

The study investigated perceived occupational stress in a sample of 582 academic staff members working in institutions of higher education in the UK. Data was collected using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson 1986), The Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman and Oldham 1974) and the Faculty Stress Index (Gmelch et al. 1986). The results indicate that women academics perceive the structure and content of their jobs similarly to men. However, women generally experience higher overall levels of stress in their jobs and results indicate that they may cope better with the demands placed upon them than their male counterparts. There is some evidence of the presence of a ‘glass ceiling’ in the institutions studied, with women holding more junior positions, and remaining in them longer, than men. A difference in effect size was found between those women who do achieve senior positions and men in similar posts. Higher grades predict greater job strain for women but not for men. The results from this study suggest fruitful avenues for future research.