Values and Vegetarianism: An Exploratory Analysis1

The American diet has changed substantially over the last few decades. These changes provide a test for social theory and have substantial effects on the demand for various food products, thus impacting U.S. agriculture. In this paper a rapidly growing dietary choice—vegetarianism—is explored. Prevalence of various forms of vegetarianism is estimated in a representative sample of a suburban population and factors that influence choice of a vegetarian diet are examined. About 7 percent of the sample report they are vegetarians. The prevalence of vegetarianism is not influenced by age, gender, or education, but individuals holding traditional values are less likely to be vegetarian than others. There also is some evidence mat individuals holding altruistic values are more likely than others to be vegetarians.     

ETHNICITY, GENERATION, AND SCHOOL ATTAINMENT OF ASIANS, HISPANICS, AND NON-HISPANIC WHITES

Research on immigration and attainment in U.S. schools typically does not separate out generation of U.S. residence, a critical factor in attainment. This article explores immigrant generation effects (native, child of immigrant, immigrant) on schooling attained for Asians, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites, using Current Population Survey data. Previously unpublished cross-sectional data are presented. Regressions predicting school years completed show variable generation-by-ethnicity effects. Asian attainment increases sharply between immigrant and child-of-immigrant generations, leveling off thereafter. Hispanic attainment improves with successive generations of U.S. residence. Non-Hispanic white attainment peaks in the child-of-immigrant generation and declines for later generations.     

Going to Pieces: Paul Monette and the Fragments of the Tribe

Author of the highly acclaimed Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1988) and winner of the 1992 National Book Award for his autobiography Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, Paul Monette died of complications from AIDS in Los Angeles on February 12, 1995. His most recent work, Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (1994), is his third volume in a trilogy of autobiographical writing on growing up gay, coming-out, and living with AIDS. A graduate of Phillips Academy and Yale University, Monette received a number of awards for his writing and his work as an outspoken voice in the battle against AIDS, including the National Book Award, three Lambda Literary awards, the PEN Center West Freedom to Write Award, and three honorary doctorate degrees, from Wesleyan University, the City University of New York, and the State University of New York at Oswego. A memorial service was held for Monette on Sunday, February 19, 1995, at the Directors Guild of America on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Paul Monette was 49.     

Clinical supervision: Its role in “Containing” countertransference responses to a filicidal patient

This paper illustrates the role of supervision in processing countertransference responses with might have disrupted the therapist's empathy with a patient who had killed her child. The clinical material demonstrates how the therapist's responses of initial denial and subsequent disgust and fear were dealt with in supervision. As a result, the treatment process led to genuine, albeit limited, therapeutic change in a patient with severe character pathology.This paper is developed from a presentation of the case of Mrs. Jay at Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, on May 2, 1989.     

Was there compression of disability for older Americans from 1992 to 2003?

Medical advances and the growth of the elderly population have focused interest on trends in the health of the elderly. Three theories have been advanced to describe these trends: compression of morbidity, expansion of morbidity, and dynamic equilibrium. We applied multistate life table methods to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey to estimate active and disabled life expectancy from 1992 to 2003, defining disability as having difficulty with instrumental activities of daily living or activities of daily living. We found increases in active life expectancy past age 65 and decreases in life expectancy with severe disability. These trends are consistent with elements of both the theory of compression of morbidity and the theory of dynamic equilibrium.     

Using age and spatial flow structures in the indirect estimation of migration streams

This article outlines a formal model-based approach for inferring interregional age-specific migration streams in settings where such data are incomplete, inadequate, or unavailable. The estimation approach relies heavily on log-linear models, using them to impose some of the regularities exhibited by past age and spatial structures or to combine and borrow information drawn from other sources. The approach is illustrated using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. and Mexico censuses.     

As low birth weight babies grow,can well-educated parents buffer this adverse factor? A research note

This research note combines two national Taiwanese data sets to investigate the relationships among low birth weight (LBW) babies, their parents' educational levels, and their future academic outcomes. We find that LBW is negatively correlated with the probability of such children attending college at age 18; however, when both parents are college or high school graduates, such negative effects may be partially offset. We also show that discrimination against daughters occurs, but only for daughters who were LBW babies. Moreover high parental education can buffer the LBW shock only among moderately LBW children (as compared with very LBW children) and full-term LBW children (as compared with preterm LBW children).     

Race,military service,and marital timing: Evidence from the NLSY-79

I use data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to examine the relationship between military service and marital timing for white men and black men during the 1980s. I use information about active-duty and reserve-duty service as well as veteran status to implement strong controls for selectivity. I find that active-duty military service increases the probability of first marriage for both whites and blacks. In part, this relationship is due to positive selectivity into the military and, for whites, to greater income and economic stability. Above and beyond the effects of selectivity, income, and economic stability, the effect of active-duty military service is particularly strong for black men.