Social Welfare and Remittances to Older Adults in Two Caribbean Cities

This study explores the correlates of financial and material remittances to older adults in Havana and Bridgetown. These cities, both within countries at a very advanced stage of population ageing, have different institutional contexts for older adults. Data come from the 2000 Survey on Health, Well‐Being and Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean (SABE) of adults 60 years and older with children overseas, Havana (n = 461) and Bridgetown (n = 1,003), representing 342 and 531 families, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analyses indicate that remittances to Havana were significantly associated with parents' and children's socio‐economic resources. Remittances to Bridgetown were associated with parents' sociodemographic characteristics and sibling's coresidence with parents. In both cities, remittances were positively associated with parents' support of their children. The findings suggest remittances are both a household survival strategy, which can reinforce socioeconomic inequality, and symbolic of social norms of family relations.     

The Importance of Racial Socialization: School‐Based Racial Discrimination and Racial Identity Among African American Adolescent Boys and Girls

This study examined various parental racial socialization messages as mediators between school‐based racial discrimination and racial identity formation over 4 years for African American boys (N = 639) and African American girls (N = 711). Findings indicated that school‐based racial discrimination was associated with racial identity beliefs. For African American boys, behavioral racial socialization messages mediated the relation between school‐based racial discrimination and racial centrality over time. Mediation also resulted for African American girls, but for a different set of race‐related messages (negative messages and racial barriers) and racial identity beliefs. The developmental significance of the findings and implications for future research are discussed.     

Interplay Between Sensation Seeking and Parental Rules in the Emergence of Heavy Episodic Drinking

This study examined the parallel mediational processes between sensation seeking and parental rules on alcohol, in the emergence of heavy episodic drinking (HED) in adolescents. Data were drawn from a U.K. clustered randomized control trial (control arm only, N ≈ 6,300, M_age at baseline = 12.5). Using parallel process latent growth curve analysis, stricter parental rules at baseline were found to be associated with greater declines in sensation seeking over time and a lower risk of HED at follow‐up (+33 months). Higher initial levels of sensation seeking predicted a faster relaxation of parental rules and a greater risk of HED. By maintaining strict rules about alcohol, parents may promote a positive reduction in sensation seeking and a lower risk of HED.     

Downsizing for downtown: limb lengths,toe lengths,and scale counts decrease with urbanization in western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis)

Urban Ecosystems - Urbanization-induced habitat loss and alteration causes significant challenges for the survival of many species. Identifying how species respond to urbanization can yield...     

Level of choice in older women’s decisions to retire or continue working and associated well-being

Retirement is a complex life transition. Women’s retirement, like their work lives, may be further complicated, for example, by family or financial obligations; they may feel forced to retire or to continue working or feel they have the choice to do so. This study examines the role of voluntary versus involuntary retirement or continued work participation among retirement-age women; specifically, the relationships between choice, work status, and well-being. Compared to women forced to retire, women who chose retirement or continuing to work had higher levels of life satisfaction. Findings highlight the importance of examining retirement within the life course context.     

Child Obesity and the Interaction of Family and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Context

Population Research and Policy Review - The literature on neighborhoods and child obesity links contextual conditions to risk, assuming that if place matters, it matters in a similar way for...     

A DECISION THEORY EXAMPLE IN FOOTBALL

In the 1967 Harvard-Cornell football game, Harvard was ahead 14–0 late in the game when Cornell scored two touchdowns. On both occasions, Cornell tried and failed on the two-point conversion attempt and lost the game 14–12. Postgame arguments were divided on the merits of Cornell's strategy. For this frequently occurring scenario in college football, we derive a maximum expected utility decision rule for the decision of kicking versus running/passing based on the relative utility of a win, a tie, or a loss and the probabilities of success with a kick as opposed to a run/pass.     

COST-VOLUME-PROFIT ANALYSIS IN STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING MODELS

This paper applies mathematical programming to cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis under contribution margin uncertainty. Three CVP probabilistic chance-constraint models based on various safety-first criteria for decisions under uncertainty are presented and compared. It is shown that a break-even segment of the mean-standard deviation frontier is a set of optimal solutions for the proposed models. An operational parametric quadratic programming (QP) model is constructed, and the efficiency frontier is generated. The procedures for locating an optimal solution on the efficiency frontier are then presented. The recommended QP procedure offers both technical relief from the computational difficulties posed by the probabilistic constraints and a desired flexibility in generating and presenting the relevant information for decisions under uncertainty.     

From Mothers of the “People's Home” to Biologically Rational Consumers

The aim of the present article is to study how women's alcohol consumption has been defined and contested in the Swedish press from 1955 to 2010 in relation to the development of Swedish society from a social democratic welfare state to a neoliberal competition state. Our material consists of articles published in the largest Swedish national and regional newspapers in 1955, 1965, 1977, 1982, 1995, 2004, and 2010. In the study, we apply Fraser's concepts of recognition and redistribution to analyse how the press contributed to the formation of cultural injustices and counter-claims through its recognition of women's drinking, and how these cultural injustices and counter-claims have conditioned the redistribution of societal resources. Our analysis shows that, during the study period, women were recognized in the Swedish press in limited and stigmatizing subject positions. These dominating representations of drinking women changed over time in an unpredictable way. As collectively shared, widely accepted cultural images, they tended to downplay the possibility of women achieving equal and just participation in cultural interaction, social activities, and healthcare services. In counter-discourses, the possibilities for women to formulate public claims in order to make surrounding structures more “enabling” of their independency, weakened during the study period.