About Cats and Dogs … Reconsidering the Relationship Between Pet Ownership and Health Related Outcomes in Community-Dwelling Elderly

Having a pet has been claimed to have beneficial health effects, but methodologically sound empirical studies are scarce. Small sample sizes and a lack of information about the specific type of pets involved make it difficult to draw unambiguous conclusions. We aimed to shed light on the relationship between pet ownership and several health related outcomes by conducting a survey among a large national sample of community-dwelling elderly in The Netherlands, all suffering from chronic illness or disability. We distinguished several types of pets, focusing on cats and dogs. Pet ownership was associated with a greater chance of using ambulatory mental healthcare, whereas it was not related to self-reported general or mental health. Considering possible mechanisms, associations between pet ownership and the frequency of social contacts or feelings of loneliness were not found. Having a dog increased the likelihood of being healthy active, whereas having a cat showed the opposite. Future research should pay more attention to pet related characteristics, in addition to characteristics of the human sample.     

Ageing of a giant: a stochastic population forecast for China, 2006–2060

This paper presents a stochastic population forecast for China with a special emphasis on population ageing. The so-called scaled model for error was used to quantify the uncertainty attached to the population predictions. Data scarcity was a major problem in the specification of the expected error of the population forecast. Therefore, the error structures estimated for European countries were used with some modifications, taking into account the large size and heterogeneity of the Chinese population. The stochastic forecast confirms the expectation of extremely rapid population ageing during the first half of the twenty-first century in China. The old age dependency ratio (OADR) will certainly increase. Simply maintaining the current demographic rates (no international migration) would drive the OADR to 0.42 in 2060, four times the current level. Including expected declines in mortality and net outmigration in the projection would increase the median OADR in 2060 to 0.59, with a 80% prediction interval of [0.47, 0.75]. In particular, the oldest-old population will grow much faster than any other age group. This development has major implications for policy-making in China.

Living in mobility: trajectories of Brazilians in Belgium and the UK

Within the social sciences, migration has traditionally been conceived of as a unidirectional, purposeful and intentional process from one state of fixity (in the place of origin) to another (in the destination). By mapping the trajectories of Brazilians who currently reside in Belgium or the UK, this article draws attention to a group of people whose mobile practices do not fit this definition. On the contrary, their experiences are marked by an ongoing mobility that consists of a multiplicity of potential routes, which are often unstable and which may be accompanied by changes in status. These Brazilians tend to ‘live in mobility’ in order to improve the quality of life at home. As such, leaving home becomes a strategy of staying home, which challenges what is usually evoked by the concept of ‘migration’, whereby ‘building up a new life elsewhere’ and ‘integration’ are seen as key. Whereas our respondents themselves have a more circular or mobile perspective, the receiving society discursively frames migration as one-way, and thus as a ‘threat’ that calls for social integration, control and the maintenance of national identity.     

Transmigration and urban social work: towards a research agenda

Many Western European countries, and especially the larger cities within these countries, are making a transition towards super-diversity. This shift towards super-diversity is also characterised by a growth of the phenomenon of transmigration, whereby people frequently move back and forth across borders. The social life of transmigrants is not only oriented towards their country of residence, but also consists of complex networks beyond boundaries. Transmigrants constantly shift between different modus operandi and between different visible and invisible, local and global networks. Many transmigrants face a high risk of social vulnerability and are overrepresented in the client population of urban social services. Although much research has been done on transmigration on the one hand, and on international social work on the other hand, the effect of transmigration on social workers and on social work practice is still under-investigated. Based on social work research in Brussels and Antwerp, the authors research the challenges transmigration poses to social work. They demonstrate that there is a difference in perspective between the translocal and transnational lives of transmigrants on the one hand versus the locally rooted practices of social workers on the other hand. Using this analysis as a springboard, they identify a number of avenues for additional inquiry in this field.     

The Quality of School Life: Teacher-Student Trust Relationships and the Organizational School Context

In exploring the quality of schools’ social system, this study provides insight into in which types of schools students may encounter barriers in developing supportive teacher-student relationships because of teachers exposing low levels of trust in students. Student culture and teachability perceptions are assessed as incentives for teachers’ perceptions of students’ trustworthiness. Information was gathered from 2,104 teachers across a representative sample of 84 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). A measure for trust in students was derived from the trust scales developed by Hoy and Tschannen-Moran. Multilevel analyses reveal that teacher perceptions of students’ teachability strongly predict teacher trust. This underscores the importance of teacher perceptions of students’ ability to meet the expectations imposed on them with regard to the formation of trust. Additionally, we show that teacher trust is affected by the organizational school context, although the academic orientation of the student culture plays no role.     

SOCIAL-ETHNIC SCHOOL COMPOSITION AND SCHOOL MISCONDUCT: DOES SENSE OF FUTILITY CLARIFY THE PICTURE?

This article assesses whether social-ethnic composition influences students' school misconduct. Based on general strain theory, we expect to find that individual sense of futility acts as an intermediate mechanism. Starting from cultural deprivation and oppositional culture theory, however, we hypothesize that a shared school culture of futility acts as mediator. Multilevel analyses of data from the Flemish Educational Assessment, consisting of 11,872 students in 85 schools, showed that ethnic composition has an impact on school misconduct: there is more deviance in ethnically mixed schools than in ethnic concentration schools due to a greater student sense of futility. The presence of a culture of futility did not affect the probability of being deviant. These results were true only for natives: school factors did not affect migrants' deviancy. We conclude that, although a dispersal of ethnically diverse students across all schools is favorable, this can yield negative side effects.     

In search of the mechanisms conducive to class differentials in educational choice: a mixed method research

This paper inquires into the mechanisms conducive to social class differentials in educational choice in Flanders (the Northern, Dutch‐speaking part of Belgium) using both quantitative data gathered from parents (N = 1339) and qualitative data gathered during two focus groups with pupils (N = 16). Unlike most of the previous studies, this study takes into consideration all three theoretical perspectives that have driven research on class differentials in educational choice so far, namely cultural reproduction theory, rational action theory and the notion of social capital. Logistic regression analysis shows that self‐selection does also occur in Flanders and that the effect of parental SES cannot be explained by a specific measure of cultural capital centred on knowledge of the educational system, nor by measures of social capital. What emerges most clearly from this study is that pupils' perception of their choice process is powerfully framed by deep‐rooted conceptions about the educational alternatives available to them. Furthermore, children's choices seem to be delimited by parents' opinions of which educational alternatives were acceptable, and which ones not. Our study calls for future research to take the wider context of decision‐making processes more explicitly into account.     

Can LARC Fulfill Its Potential to Reduce U.S. Women’s Unintended Pregnancy Risk? Examining Women’s Contraception and Childbearing in the Year Before Initiating LARC

Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) have received increased attention in recent decades for their potential to reduce the high level of unintended pregnancy. We know little about women’s contraceptive use and (unintended) childbearing prior to LARC initiation, even though it provides vital context to considering the extent to which increased LARC use could be expected to reduce the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate. Data from 849 women who initiated LARC in the 2–3 years prior to the 2006–2015 cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth were analyzed to describe U.S. women’s contraceptive use and (unintended) childbearing in the year before initiating LARC. Results show that more than half of women (55.4%) who initiated LARC did so within a year of giving birth, with 47.3% of these births resulting from an unintended pregnancy. Among women without a recent birth, 5.0% had last relied on sterilization, 54.7% had last used a moderately-effective method, 34.7% had last used a less-effective method, and 5.6% had not used contraception in the year prior to initiating LARC. These findings advance understanding of the extent to which increased LARC use could be expected to reduce the unintended pregnancy rate. Women initiating LARC after a recent birth are selective of those at high risk of unintended pregnancy. In contrast, the majority of LARC initiators without a recent birth last relied on a moderately-effective method or sterilization—a pattern that could reduce LARC’s impact on the unintended pregnancy rate.

     

Childbearing Biographies as a Method to Examine Diversity and Clustering of Childbearing Experiences: A Research Brief

Population Research and Policy Review - Due to increasing heterogeneity in if, when, and under what conditions women have children, the timing, spacing, and other demographic aspects of...