Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age

European Journal of Population - Considering soaring wealth inequalities in older age, this research addresses the relationship between family life courses and widening wealth differences between...     

小设计 大智慧

“GOOD DESIGN”奖创设于1957年,是日本惟一的综合性设计评价奖项,每年向全世界征集优秀作品进行评审。它的评选标准是“品质·实用·设计”,通过巧妙的设计或是一点小小的改变,为我们的生活带来更大的乐趣和享受,这就是“GOOC DESIGN”所要贯彻的精神。     

Flowers for Mom, a Tie for Dad: How Gender is Created on Mother’s and Father’s Day

Mother’s and Father’s Day celebrations were investigated to understand how gender is created on these two occasions. Fifty-three heterosexual couples were interviewed about family holidays. Mother’s Day was given more attention than Father’s Day. Families spent more time celebrating; they were more likely to eat out, and were more likely to celebrate with others. Mothers were also more likely to receive gifts than fathers. The gendering of the holidays was reflected in the more stereotypical gifts received on Mother’s and Father’s Day than on birthdays, and in that mothers were more likely to report relief from chores on Mother’s Day than fathers were on Father’s Day (p < .01). Families in which women worked full-time and whose husbands contributed substantially to domestic labor were as likely to celebrate in gendered ways as traditional families were. These holidays reflect and promote hegemonic notions of the gendered nature of motherhood and fatherhood.

Invisible Mothers: Parenting by Homeless Women Separated from Their Children

Though surveys repeatedly demonstrate that most women who are homeless alone have minor children living apart from them, there is little information on the circumstances of their separations or whether and how they remain involved with their children. Analysis of data from in-depth interviews with mothers, relatives caring for their children, and shelter and child welfare staff highlights a tension between perspectives and aspirations of mothers and the agendas and social processes through which institutional systems manage the family life of women marginalized by homelessness and disability. Though women’s agency is evident in their efforts to maintain parenting roles, without facilitating resources and supportive structures, agency is often reduced to unpalatable choices among constraining alternatives. We consider how service systems might mitigate barriers to mothering as well as broader changes needed to genuinely support women’s aspirations for themselves and their families.

Understanding Diversity in the Meaning of Cohabitation Across Europe

This study investigates the diversity in the meanings attached to cohabitation across Europe. Utilizing a sample of 9,113 cohabiters between ages 18 and 79 from 10 European countries that participated in the Generations and Gender Surveys, we develop a typology of different meanings of cohabitation and study their prevalence across and within countries. Based on answers to questions about marriage intentions, marriage attitudes and feelings of economic deprivation, six types of cohabiters are distinguished. Cohabiters in some of these types mainly view cohabitation as a stage in the marriage process (i.e. a prelude to marriage, a trial marriage, cohabitation for economic reasons, intend to marry, despite an unfavourable attitude towards the institution of marriage), whereas other cohabiters mainly view it as an alternative to marriage (i.e. refusal of marriage, marriage is irrelevant). Results suggest that cohabiters constitute a heterogeneous group. For many, marriage is important and cohabitation serves as a period preceding marriage. Cohabitation as an alternative to marriage is more prevalent in Western and Northern Europe, where cohabitation rates are high. The group of cohabiters who intend to marry despite an unfavourable attitude towards the institution of marriage is particularly large in Central and Eastern European countries, where cohabitation is less widespread.     

Dirichlet process mixture models for unsupervised clustering of symptoms in Parkinson's disease

In this paper, the goal of identifying disease subgroups based on differences in observed symptom profile is considered. Commonly referred to as phenotype identification, solutions to this task often involve the application of unsupervised clustering techniques. In this paper, we investigate the application of a Dirichlet process mixture model for this task. This model is defined by the placement of the Dirichlet process on the unknown components of a mixture model, allowing for the expression of uncertainty about the partitioning of observed data into homogeneous subgroups. To exemplify this approach, an application to phenotype identification in Parkinson's disease is considered, with symptom profiles collected using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale.     

Economic Theory and Subjective Well-being: Mexico

Several studies have been conducted on the topic of well-being. Most of them, however, have been done in industrialized countries where income is distributed relatively more equitatively and the population tends to be more homogeneous. This paper studies the relationship between subjective and economic well-being in Mexico, a country where the economic differences among the population are more clearly marked.

According to the economic definition of well-being, higher levels of income are associated with higher levels of well-being through greater levels of material consumption. Taking into consideration this definition, it is worth asking just how important income is for an individual's happiness?Existing studies in psychology have found a positive correlation between economic well-being (socioeconomic status) and subjective well-being (happiness). However, this positive relationship is weak and a large percentage of human happiness remains unexplained.

Although the mentioned studies make a good approximation of the existing relationship between income and happiness, the characteristics or specification of the function that generates the relationship between these two variables is often assumed to be linear and positive. The main objective of this paper is to investigate further the relationship between subjective and economic well-being. In this study different specifications and approaches are used to approximate the relationship between these variables.

An empirical analysis is made from the results of a survey conducted in two Mexican cities. The investigation studies the impact of demographic, social, and economic variables on subjective well-being in Mexico. Several hypotheses are tested to identify the relationship between household income and individual well-being. It is found that income does not have a strong influence on neither well-being nor on the probability of happiness. However, people tend to overstress the impact that additional income would have on their subjective well-being. This fact could explain the importance that people place on increasing their income level, and it could possibly explain the relative sense of dissatisfaction once a higher income level is achieved.

The relationship between income and the sense of basic need satisfaction is also explored. A main assumption in economic theory suggests the existence of a direct relationship between these variables; however, empirical results show this relationship to be extremely weak. Results indicate that subjective well-being is positively related to the sense of basic need satisfaction but not to income.

     

Influences and Consequences of Well-being Among Australian Young People: 1980–1995

This paper investigates the determinants and consequences of subjective well-being. Although there is an extensive literature on well-being there are few panel studies which measure well-being frequently and over a long time period. The Australian Youth in Transition panel data is used to examine several aspects of well-being: the influence of sociodemographic and labour market characteristics, the dynamics of well-being and its determinants; the isolation of aging, cohort and contextual effects, and the effects of well-being on marital status and labour market outcomes. Women and those married or in de facto relationships show higher levels of well-being. The effect of being in a de facto relationship is sensitive to age. The presence of children decreases subjective-well-being and again this effect is age-specific. Income and occupational statusalso influence well-being with income having consistent effects and status effects declining. The unemployed consistently show substantially lower levels of well-being. Contextual effects were identified, increases in the national level of unemployment decrease average well-being levels in all but the youngest cohort. Controlling for lagged effects, subjective well- being has substantial effects on the odds of being married and unemployed, smaller effects on income and age specific effects on being in a de facto relationship.     

The Future Lives of Sociology Graduates

After earning a bachelor's degree, the fate of sociology undergraduates is mysterious. We know little about how many Canadians have sociology degrees and even less about what they do after graduation. Using a variety of data sources from Statistics Canada, we paint a historical portrait of the discipline by charting how many people, and who, become sociologists. We also examine where they are employed, how much they earn, and how satisfied they are with their degrees. Our findings show that sociology graduates are competitive with other fields of study on both wages and employment, but are less satisfied with their degrees. We stress how the discipline would be wise to pay more attention to our graduates and their opportunities. Nous en savons peu sur l'avenir et le nombre de Canadiens ayant des diplômes de sociologie et encore moins ce qu'ils font après la graduation. Grâce à des données de Statistiques Canada, nous dressons un portrait historique de la discipline en montrant combien de personnes, et quel genre de personnes, deviennent sociologues. Nous examinons aussi où ils travaillent, combien ils gagnent et leur niveau de satisfaction par rapport à leurs diplômes. Nos résultats démontrent que les gradués en sociologie sont compétitifs par rapport aux autres champs d’étude en termes de salaire et de taux d'emploi, mais qu'ils sont moins satisfaits de leurs diplômes. Nous notons que la discipline aurait intérêt à porter plus d'attention sur les gradués et leurs opportunités.     

Re-evaluating gender differences in self-rated health: The importance of cohort

Research examining gender differences in self-rated health (SRH) has typically not distinguished between age and cohort-related changes in the health of men and women over time. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study finds gender diffegrences in SRH may actually be an artifact of cohort. Prior to examining health across cohorts, women reported worse health than men. With the introduction of cohort to the models, no gender difference was found except in the earliest cohort (born 1924–1933). Historical context is therefore critical to understanding the health trajectories of women and men, which are not uniform across cohorts.