The Population Education Transition Curve: Education Gradients Across Population Exposure to New Health Risks

The salutary effect of formal education on health-risk behaviors and mortality is extensively documented: ceteris paribus, greater educational attainment leads to healthier lives and longevity. Even though the epidemiological evidence has strongly indicated formal education as a leading “social vaccine,” there is intermittent reporting of counter-education gradients for health-risk behavior and associated outcomes for certain populations during specific periods. How can education have both beneficial and harmful effects on health, and under which contexts do particular effects emerge? It is useful to conceptualize the influence of education as a process sensitive to the nature, timing of entry, and uniqueness of a new pleasurable and desirable lifestyle and/or product (such as smoking) with initially unclear health risks for populations. Developed herein is a hypothesis that the education gradient comprises multiple potent pathways (material, psychological, cognitive) by which health-risk behaviors are influenced, and that there can be circumstances under which pathways act in opposite directions or are differentially suppressed and enhanced. We propose the population education transition (PET) curve as a unifying functional form to predict shifting education gradients across the onset and course of a population’s exposure to new health risks and their associated consequences. Then, we estimate PET curves for cases with prior epidemiological evidence of heterogeneous education gradients with health-risk behaviors related to mass-produced cigarettes in China and the United States; saturated fats, sugar, and processed food diets in Latin America; and HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. Each offers speculation on interactions between environmental factors during population exposure and education pathways to health-risk behaviors that could be responsible for the temporal dynamics of PET curves. Past epidemiological studies reporting either negative or positive education gradients may not represent contradictory findings as much as come from analyses unintentionally limited to just one part of the PET process. Last, the PET curve formulation offers richer nuances about educational pathways, macro-historical population dynamics, and the fundamental cause of disease paradigm.     

Why do households rent while owning houses? Housing sub-tenure choice in South Korea

This study aims to analyze the effects of household characteristics on housing sub-tenure choice and understand the behavior of families who opt to rent while owning other homes in South Korea. Tenure status is subdivided according to the difference between consumption and investment demands for housing. It is found that that when families are faced with the choice of renting while owning another house, the probability that they will decide on this option increases up to the sixth income decile and then declines. Similarly, this probability increases until the tenant reaches age 50 and then decreases. Furthermore, the probability of a household choosing to rent while owning another home is greater if a member of the household is married with school-age children.     

DOWNSIZING AND JOB INSECURITY

This article offers an explanation of why firms' downsizing patterns may vary substantially in magnitude and timing, taking the form of one‐time massive cuts, waves of layoffs, or zero layoff policies. The key element of this theory is that workers' expectations about their job security affect their on‐the‐job performance. In a situation where firms face adverse shocks, the productivity effect of job insecurity forces firms to balance laying off redundant workers and maintaining survivors' commitment. The cost of ensuring commitment differs between firms with different characteristics and determines whether workers are laid off all at once or in stages. However, if firms have private information about their future profits, they may not lay off any workers in order to signal a bright future, boosting worker's confidence. (JEL: J21, J23, D21, D82)     

《废都》分析与阐释

长篇小说《废都》在发表时曾激起巨澜,其中非难多,肯定性评论少。无论非难还是肯定性评论,大抵上都轻视对作品整体的细密考察,犯有断章取义、过度阐释的错误。因此,有对之进行重新解读的必要。《废都》中有相互区分又相互关联的四个故事（官司、事业、性、写作）,它们都是关于堕落和破灭的故事。现代化（贱民资本主义化）这一现实变化只允许顺应,不允许逃脱,而顺应则招致堕落的后果。《废都》所描写的正是这种堕落和破灭,以及伴随而来的自我意识上的苦痛。《废都》的性描写虽然是作为克服痛苦的契机出现的,但这里也有堕落的层面,所以,性的故事最终也归结为堕落和破灭。《废都》的结构原理正是这种自我意识的韵律节奏。本文试图立足于个人的分析、阐释,对既往的主要论点进行再检讨,对《废都》进行文学上的再评价。     

Couple interaction and child social competence: The role of parenting and attachment

The current study examined the association between positive couple interaction and child social competence as mediated through positive parenting and parent–child attachment security. Prospective, longitudinal data came from 209 mothers, fathers, and their biological child. Information regarding observed positive couple interaction, observed positive parenting, and parent–child attachment security were assessed when the child was 2–4 years old, and child social competence was assessed at 5 years old. Mothers and fathers were analyzed separately in the model. Results indicated that for both mothers and fathers, positive couple interaction was indirectly associated with child social competence through positive parenting and parent–child attachment. These pathways remained statistically significant even after child social competence at age 2–4 was taken into account. Results suggest that couple interaction spills over into parenting which impacts parent–child attachment, which is associated with positive child developmental outcomes.     

From Non-Believer to Believer: What Leads People to Change Their Climate Views

Studies have highlighted the political, economic, and psychological factors in the debate over anthropogenic climate change—a hegemony approach—but have rarely focused on the stories and possibilities of people's transitions from climate change non-believer to climate change believer. Based on publicly accessible narratives, this study examines the stories of those who have switched from non-believer to believer—a narrative approach—and the dilemmas involved in those switches. Our investigation illuminates that a transition to climate change believer is a cultural and moral matter based on changing social relations of knowledge and what people regard as ignorable. We find that narratives of transition commonly describe interrelated shifts in three social relational factors: the narrator's notions of self, material reality, and justice. We term this contextualized transformative experience a relational rupture. Our narrative approach thus contextualizes climate change denialism within a person's web of social relations, not the hegemony of climate change communication alone. Moreover, we suggest that, since public debate and polarization on scientific topics such as climate change, vaccination, and COVID-19 are socially situated, they may potentially be socially bridged.