The gender gap in wages in Russia from 1992 to 1995

This paper examines the gender gap in wages in Russia from 1992 to 1995. It uses data on prime aged men and women from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) and focuses on those living in urban areas. Differences in hours of work appear to explain about one half of the gender differential, but there is still a large differential in average hourly wages between men and women. Observable differences in characteristics between men and women explain almost none of the differential or the changes through time. Received: 29 October 1997/Accepted: 24 January 2000     

Social comparison and risk taking behavior

This paper studies the effects of social comparison on risk taking behavior. In our theoretical framework, decision makers evaluate the consequences of their choices relative to both their own and their peers’ conditions. We test experimentally whether the position in the social ranking affects risk attitudes. Subjects interact in a simulated workplace environment where they perform a work task, receive possibly different wages, and then undertake a risky decision that may produce an extra gain. We find that social comparison matters for risk attitudes. Subjects are more risk averse in the presence of small social gain than social loss. In addition, risk aversion is decreasing in the size of the social gain.     

The transmission of language and religion in immigrant families: a comparison between mothers and children

The aim of this paper is to explore intergenerational transmission of values in immigrant families, focusing on the mother–child relation. Drawing on qualitative interviews with women and young people of immigrant origin, the paper analyses how mothers and children negotiate parental styles on transmission of cultural values – the importance of language and religion. The following dimensions will be analysed: (1) the language: which language is spoken in the family – mother tongue or Italian – and how the mother tongue is transmitted to children; (2) the importance given to the meanings and the practices of religion that the family professes. For this purpose we are going to compare Asian and East European women and children living in different urban and rural contexts of the Lombardy region.     

Female employment following childbirth: differences between native and immigrant women in Switzerland

This paper analyses how native and immigrant women adapt their labour supply soon after childbirth in Switzerland. The analysis aims to examine whether the heterogeneity in post-birth female employment is explained by differences by women's origin with respect to skills composition, occupational attainment and household financial situation. Using 2010–2015 panel data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey, multinomial models focus on the transitions experienced by employed women from t?1 (one year prior) to different levels of labour-market involvement in t (reference week) after childbirth (which occurs when a woman has a child of less than one year of age in t). Three possible outcomes are considered: same/more working hours, fewer working hours, and withdrawal from employment. Double hurdle models are also used to account for the total amount of hours worked by those women who remain in employment after childbirth. In post-birth employment patterns, a larger positive effect of women's opportunity cost, measured through educational attainment and previous job characteristics, than of partners’ income, is observed, especially for immigrant women.     

Minority students’ psychological adjustment in the school context: an integrative review of qualitative research on acculturation

The present study aims at systematically analyzing the findings reported in qualitative research on acculturation and psychological adjustment in the school context. Content analysis was conducted using the deductively developed and inductively enriched system of categories. The results of the study provide insights into youths’ acculturation and their psychological adjustment in the school context as well as schools’ mechanisms and strategies for responding to minority youths’ needs in the process of the cultural transition.     

Framing Immigration News in Spanish Regional Press

In this paper, an exploratory content analysis has been developed for a case study on the topic of immigration reported in the regional newspapers of the largest Spanish autonomous community, Castilla and Leon. This study based its research conceptualization on the framing theory in mass communication. In addition to usual issue frames and issue images, two framing devices were established for analytic variables ‐‐ the index of importance and the index of affective attribute. They formed a frame package capable of making latent frames evident by their linkage to manifest frames. Comparing to the general assumption of relevant‐bad‐news production, results obtained in this study proved that, on occasion, negative news stories could be reported as less relevant than the positive ones. The outcomes also show how concept mapping of frames was applicable to immigration issues and immigrants’ visual aspects of immigrant communities that were systematically articulated and disseminated by the press in this regional society of Spain.     

Seven-months-old infants show increased arousal to static emotion body expressions: Evidence from pupil dilation

Human body postures provide perceptual cues that can be used to discriminate and recognize emotions. It was previously found that 7-months-olds’ fixation patterns discriminated fear from other emotion body expressions but it is not clear whether they also process the emotional content of those expressions. The emotional content of visual stimuli can increase arousal level resulting in pupil dilations. To provide evidence that infants also process the emotional content of expressions, we analyzed variations in pupil in response to emotion stimuli. Forty-eight 7-months-old infants viewed adult body postures expressing anger, fear, happiness and neutral expressions, while their pupil size was measured. There was a significant emotion effect between 1040 and 1640 ms after image onset, when fear elicited larger pupil dilations than neutral expressions. A similar trend was found for anger expressions. Our results suggest that infants have increased arousal to negative-valence body expressions. Thus, in combination with previous fixation results, the pupil data show that infants as young as 7-months can perceptually discriminate static body expressions and process the emotional content of those expressions. The results extend information about infant processing of emotion expressions conveyed through other means (e.g., faces).     

Measuring agri-food supply chain performance and risk through a new analytical framework: a case study of New Zealand dairy

Abstract

Many researchers and practitioners have long recognized the significance of measuring performance. Although general guidelines for measuring business performance are widely available, no appropriate measurement frameworks have been developed for measuring agri-food supply chain performance. Particularly, food quality and risk-related indicators have not been well integrated into existing performance measurement systems. Our research, therefore, addresses this knowledge gap by first providing an in-depth review of extant performance measurement systems and frameworks. It then develops an analytical framework by extending the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model which has been extensively implemented across non-food industries. The analytical framework is further validated by utilizing a case study of 50 farmers and 10 dairy companies, operating in the New Zealand dairy industry.

Our pilot testing and subsequent findings show that the individual metrics interlocked with the analytical framework are in-line with the key industrial practices adapted by the New Zealand dairy industry. In addition, the framework is flexible and scalable to evaluate and benchmark other agri-food supply chains – ranging from fresh products such as fruits and vegetables to processed foods such as canned fruits. The findings further show that the detailed information required for measuring the level-3 SCOR metrics is not easily available in the industry, as researchers need to access specific company records that may be confidential. Consequently, this study provides how agri-food supply chain managers can employ our new analytical framework in-conjunction with the SCOR model for a deeper understanding of the complicated performance measurement indicators applied in their agri-food production systems and relevant supply chains.