Is It Safer to Fly or Drive?

In attempts to soothe the nascent fear of the scheduled airline traveler, passengers waiting takeoff are sometimes reminded of the cliche that they may have already completed the most dangerous part of their trip — the drive to the airport. The objective of this paper is to communicate under what conditions air travel is indeed safer than highway travel and vice versa. The conventional wisdom among risk communicators that air travel is so much safer than car travel arises from the most widely quoted death rates per billion miles for each — 0.6 for air compared to 24 for road. There are three reasons why such an unqualified comparison of aggregated fatality rates is inappropriate. First, the airline rate is passenger fatalities per passenger mile, whereas the road rate is all fatalities (any occupants, pedestrians, etc.) per vehicle mile. Second, road travel that competes with air travel is on the rural interstate system, not on average roads. Third, driver and vehicle characteristics, and driver behavior, lead to car-driver risks that vary over a wide range. Expressions derived to compare risk for drivers with given characteristics to those on airline trips of given distance showed that 40-year-old, belted, alcohol-free drivers of cars 700 pounds heavier than average are slightly less likely to be killed in 600 miles of rural interstate driving than in airline trips of the same length. Compared to this driver, 18-year-old, unbelted, intoxicated, male drivers of cars 700 pounds lighter than average have a risk over 1000 times greater. Furthermore, it is shown that the cliche above is untrue for a group of drivers having the age distribution of airline passengers.     

‘A murderous ‘underclass’? the press reporting of sexually motivated murder

The 'underclass' is widely held by commentators of the Right to be responsible for a host of social problems, including violent crime. This paper shows how in the reporting of sexually motivated murder in a sample of nine British newspapers for one complete year (1992), the image constructed is one where unemployed and other marginalised men are portrayed as the main perpetrators of sexual violence. This, the authors argue, hampers our understanding of sexual violence, for it suggests that it is only men of a 'low' socio-economic background who are a potential threat to women and children. It is also suggested that the 'symbolic environment' of the press reporting of sexual murder provides a context in which a more authoritarian benefit regime and greater control of poor communities can be spuriously justified.     

A longitudinal assessment of productivity in prominent sociology journals and departmental prestige

This paper tests the theory of cumulative advantage and disadvantage as it applies to the productivity and prestige of academic departments within sociology. The theory suggests that past perceptions of departmental prestige and cumulative records of faculty productivity are of greater significance than more recent levels of productivity in determining their perceived level of eminence within the discipline; a phenomenon due to the accumulation of past performance and recognition over time. The paper employs two widely disseminated measures of departmental eminence: the 1966 Cartter Report rankings and the 1982 Conference Boards assessments. Measures of departmental productivity are derived from cumulative publication histories of departments between 1936 and 1989 in three preeminent sociological journals; namely, theAmerican Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, andSocial Forces. The paper finds that while past accomplishments do not bear importantly on current perceptions of departmental prestige after controlling for the level of productivity maintained during the preceding decade, prior perceptions of prestige are strongly associated with current rankings. In addition, past perceptions of academic prestige are found to be highly stable, thereby creating the potential for a stratification hierarchy that allows for little mobility over time.     

Have Americans' Attitudes Become More Polarized?—An Update*

Objective. I examine polarization in public opinion using the method of DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson (DEB) (1996), but go further than DEB by using newly available years of survey data. Method. Like DEB, I derive aggregate distributional parameters for social groups in each year of the surveys, and then regress the year of the surveys on each parameter. Results. As in DEB's original paper, there is little evidence of general polarization in attitudes between the early 1970s and today. However, while DEB found some evidence that polarization in the public may be the result of polarization in our political system, with the additional years of data this conclusion is inescapable. Conclusions. Although political scientists have recently found polarization among our elected officials on economic issues, it seems clear that members of the public who identify with the partisan labels of our political system are becoming polarized on moral issues.     

The economics of housespousery: An essay on household work

The economic model of the household has been used extensively to examine questions relating to work within the household. This essay takes a critical look at this model and these household work applications. It concludes that the model provides several useful insights regarding factors that have influenced the decline in women's household work time during this century and the changes in the overall economic value of household work. In other areas (e.g., parental child care), the model has rarely been used although it has the potential to provide useful insights. Finally, in certain applications, such as investigations of the gender-related specialization of function within the household, the model relies on unrealistic assumptions that need to be modified if it is to prove useful. His research interests include the consumption, investiment, and time-use behavior of families and family members. Her research interests include family time allocation, household structure and economic well-being, and consumer policy.