Social Protection and Health: Experiences in Uganda

There is an interesting and continuing debate on the nature and role of social protection in poverty reduction. Within the health sector, discussion has focussed on the drawbacks associated with fee exemption schemes and community‐based health insurance, with much less attention paid to the policy option of abolishing user fees. This paper reviews empirical evidence on the impact of the Government of Uganda's decision in 2001 to abolish user fees for health services. The paper finds that this policy intervention has had a significant positive impact on health‐seeking behaviour in Uganda and concludes that this policy measure can make an important contribution towards a more ‘promotional’ policy approach to social protection.     

Book reviews

The Skewed Revolution: Trends in South African Higher Education 1988–1998. By David Cooper and George Subotzky. Cape Town: Education Policy Unit of the University of the Western Cape. 2001. 284 pages. Paperback

Africanizing Anthropology: Fieldwork, Networks and the Making of Cultural Knowledge in Central Africa. By Lyn Schumaker. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2001. 376 & xii pages.

On the Postcolony By Achille Mbembe. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2001. 274pp. Paperback.

Fighting Poverty: Labour Markets and Inequality in South African Studies. By Haroon Bhorat, Murray Leibbrandt, Muzi Maziya, Servaas van der Berg and Ingrid Woolard. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. 2001. 252 pages.     

Investigating Race,Class and Context through Historical Evidence: Segregation and the Ecology of Aspirations of Black College Students in the 1960s South

In an era of re-segregation among school systems in the United States, we find ourselves revisiting times of forced school segregation (pre Brown v. Board) for a better understanding of explanations and potential consequences. One consequence, depressed aspirations for occupational mobility, is examined here. Using data for Mathews and Prothro's Negro Participation Survey, administered to black college students in 1961, we examine this relationship while controlling for various individual level indicators of capital, demographics, political participation, and ecologically-centered organizational and economic factors through the use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). We uncover patterns of aspirations (or lack thereof) concerning social class mobility that are directly related to social class background and the cultural orientations of the environment in which the student hails. Our conclusions link such patterns to the current trajectory of re-segregation in the education system.     

Bayesian variable selection for multioutcome models through shared shrinkage

Variable selection over a potentially large set of covariates in a linear model is quite popular. In the Bayesian context, common prior choices can lead to a posterior expectation of the regression coefficients that is a sparse (or nearly sparse) vector with a few nonzero components, those covariates that are most important. This article extends the “global‐local” shrinkage idea to a scenario where one wishes to model multiple response variables simultaneously. Here, we have developed a variable selection method for a K‐outcome model (multivariate regression) that identifies the most important covariates across all outcomes. The prior for all regression coefficients is a mean zero normal with coefficient‐specific variance term that consists of a predictor‐specific factor (shared local shrinkage parameter) and a model‐specific factor (global shrinkage term) that differs in each model. The performance of our modeling approach is evaluated through simulation studies and a data example.     

Support for torture over time: Interrogating the American public about coercive tactics

In this study, we examine what influences public attitudes toward torture and whether the public's attitude affects or is affected by shifts in presidential policy on torture. We employed ten surveys over five years that looked at approval of torture, as well as two surveys that asked questions about specific methods. We find that public support for torture has risen mildly, but a resilient ambivalence best describes the public's attitude. The public was not affected by the change in government from an administration that strongly supported enhanced interrogation techniques to one that opposed them, and labeled them torture. Public opinion also seemed unaffected by the increased criticism of torture generally. Large majorities oppose most specific methods of interrogation, while at times a majority supports torture in general. We also find support for torture and specific methods is affected most strongly by partisanship and ideology.     

Can Body Mass Index (BMI) be used as a proxy for somatotype?

In a paper published in The Social Science Journal, Maddan et al. [Maddan, S., Walker, J. T., & Miller, J. M. (2008). Does size really matter? A reexamination of Sheldon's somatotypes and criminal behavior. The Social Sciences Journal, 45, 330–344.] proposed that Body Mass Index (BMI) can be used as proxy for somatotype, a quantitative system for describing body build, in social science research. This paper tests this proposal using a sample of 200 males from an archival data set collected by Sheldon [Sheldon, W. H. (1942). The varieties of temperament: A psychology of constitutional differences (with S.S. Stevens). New York: Harper and Row Publishers.]. The data included somatotype data, height, and weight. BMI was calculated and individuals were assigned to the categories endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph based on the Maddan et al. BMI criteria. The BMI method was only able to correctly classify 110 individuals, 55% of the sample. This finding suggests that BMI is an inadequate proxy for somatotype.     

When nature pushes back: environmental impact and the spatial redistribution of socially vulnerable populations

Objectives. This research investigates the spatial redistribution of socially vulnerable subpopulations during long-term recovery from natural disaster. We hypothesize that the local environmental impact of a disaster influences this redistribution process and that how it does so varies by the urban or rural context in which the disaster occurs.Methods. To test these hypotheses, we use a novel research design that combines the natural experiment offered by Hurricane Andrew with GIS technology and local census data.Results. Findings indicate that in a more urbanized disaster zone (Miami), long-term recovery displaces socially disadvantaged residents from harder-hit areas; yet, in a more rural disaster zone (southwestern Louisiana), long-term recovery concentrates socially disadvantaged residents within these harder-hit areas.Conclusion. These findings bridge classic and contemporary research on postdisaster recovery and open new terrain for thinking about how environmental and social forces intersect to transform regions in different settlement contexts.     

Explaining the Motherhood Wage Penalty During the Early Occupational Career

Prior research shows that mothers earn lower hourly wages than women without children, and that this maternal wage penalty cannot be fully explained by differences between mothers and other women in work experience and job characteristics. This research examines whether the residual motherhood wage penalty results from differences between mothers and other women in the accumulation of work interruptions and breaks in schooling. Using longitudinal data for 486 women followed from ages 19 to 31 in the Minnesota Youth Development Study, we find that accumulated months not in the labor force and not enrolled in school explain the residual pay gap between mothers and other women.