Basic relationships between human capital,migration and labour markets in the Western Balkans: An econometric investigation

The high outward mobility that characterises the countries in the Western Balkan region—already for three decades—is often seen as tightly linked to labour market imbalances and persistently low utilisation of human capital over time. To shed light on these issues we analysed the effects of labour market determinants and human capital endowment on migration and vice versa by estimating simultaneously a system of equations that accounted for such relationships in the context of WB countries. The period under analysis is 2007–2019 and the destination countries are the EU15. The empirical results confirm the importance of wage gaps and their changes as an important pull factor for driving emigration. In addition, gaps in human capital emerge as a powerful determinant for explaining emigration into countries where returns to human capital are relatively higher.     

“Having a family is the new normal”: Parenting in neoliberal academia during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made explicit the burden of care shouldered by academic mothers, in addition to juggling their scholarly commitments. Although discussions are abundant on the impact of caring responsibilities on the careers of women academics, neoliberal academia continues to minimize such struggles. Despite the disruptions to family routines caused by the health crisis, academic institutions have expected academic mothers and fathers to continue undertaking their professional responsibilities at the same level as before, disregarding their parenting demands. This paper contributes to the research on parenthood in academia by looking at how, throughout the pandemic, academic parents have negotiated the tensions between parenthood and academic demands, and by investigating the strategies they use to confront neoliberal culture of academic performativity, even amid the health crisis. The paper engages with the “space invaders” concept used by Puwar (2004) to analyze the “hypervisibility” of academic mothers' and fathers' “bodies out of place” during the pandemic, and to investigate their “renegade acts” against the uncaring attitudes of their institutions. Evidence is drawn from a qualitative study conducted during December 2020 and January 2021 among scholars affiliated to Portuguese academic institutions: 17 in-depth interviews conducted with women, and two mixed-gender focus groups. Our results research reveal how the experiences of academic mothers and fathers were not uniform during the pandemic. In addition, it shows how, despite their commitment to their academic responsibilities, these parents have crafted various resistance strategies to confront the institutional pressure to continue maintain their working routines, and instead positioning themselves as “more than just academics.”     

Mothers and work–life balance: exploring the contradictions and complexities involved in work–family negotiation

This article presents data from a project exploring women's experiences of work and care. It focuses primarily on work–life balance as a problematic concept. Social and economic transformations across advanced post-industrial economies have resulted in concerns about how individuals manage their lives across the two spheres of work and family and achieve a work–life balance. Governments across the European Union have introduced various measures to address how families effectively combine care with paid work. Research within this area has tended to focus on work–life balance as an objective concept, which implies a static and fixed state fulfilled by particular criteria and measured quantitatively. Qualitative research on women's experiences reveals work–life balance as a fluctuating and intangible process. This article highlights the subjective and variable nature of work–life balance and questions taken-for-granted assumptions, exploring problems of definition and the differential coping strategies which women employ when negotiating the boundaries between work and family.     

Making race and nation in the United States,South Africa,and Brazil: Taking Making seriously

Theory and Society -     

Ethnicity as cognition

This article identifies an incipient and largely implicit cognitive turn in the study of ethnicity, and argues that it can be consolidated and extended by drawing on cognitive research in social psychology and anthropology. Cognitive perspectives provide resources for conceptualizing ethnicity, race, and nation as perspectives on the world rather than entities in the world, for treating ethnicity, race, and nationalism together rather than as separate subfields, and for re-specifying the old debate between primordialist and circumstantialist approaches.     

Risk Factors for Ethnic Prejudice During Early Adolescence

This study examines risk factors for ethnic prejudice during early adolescence in a sample of Italian middle school students (N=187). It was predicted that low peer status would be associated with negative ratings of ethnic out‐groups, but that this relation would be moderated by self‐esteem. It was further hypothesized that individuals and their self‐nominated groups would be similar with regard to ethnic prejudice, and that antisocial behavior would be positively related to ethnic prejudice. Consistent with our prediction, results revealed that when self‐esteem was low, low peer status was associated with high prejudice against out‐groups. On the contrary, when self‐esteem was high, this relation was non‐existent. Moreover, individuals and their self‐nominated groups were similar with regard to ethnic prejudice, but only for stigmatized out‐groups. A relation was found between antisocial behavior and ethnic prejudice, but only for non‐stigmatized out‐groups. The present study emphasizes the importance (1) of studying individual differences in risk factors and levels of prejudice and (2) of investigating the influence that peers may have on the development of ethnic prejudice.     

Do Absentee Voters Differ from Polling Place Voters?: New Evidence from California

In the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election 2,775,785absentee ballots were cast, representing about 30 percent ofall voters statewide. Given the number of absentee ballots andthe increasing propensity for voters in California and elsewhereto choose this voting method, we some basic questions: Who areabsentee voters, and are they different from polling place voters?To answer these questions, we fielded a statewide survey ofabsentee voters in the days before the October 7 recall election,asking respondents why they voted absentee, their partisan andideological preferences, demographic characteristics, and otherrelevant questions. We find that absentee voters do not differsignificantly from the overall state electorate in terms oftheir vote preferences, despite being older and better educated.For example, 56 percent of absentee voters in our survey voted"yes" on the recall, compared with 55 percent for the entirestate, according to official returns. Further, absentee votersfavored Arnold Schwarzenegger over Cruz Bustamante by a considerablemargin, similar to the overall election results. We found partyregistration among absentee voters to be nearly identical tostatewide partisan registration.     

Patients-in-waiting: Living between sickness and health in the genomics era

What are the social consequences of the recent expansion of newborn screening in the United States? The adoption of new screening technologies has generated diagnostic uncertainty about the nature of screening targets, making it unclear not only whether a newborn will develop a disease but also what the condition actually is. Based on observations in a genetics clinic and in-depth interviews with parents and geneticists, we examine how parents and clinical staff work out the social significance of uncertain newborn screening results. We find that some newborns will experience a specific trajectory of prolonged liminality between a state of normal health and pathology. Based on a review of related literatures, we suggest "patients-in-waiting" as an umbrella concept for those under medical surveillance between health and disease.