A multilevel perspective of the identity transition to motherhood

This study examines the identity transition of women when they become mothers and return to work. Twenty‐two first‐time mothers were interviewed at two points in time: just after giving birth and on re‐entry into employment after maternity leave. The findings suggest that this transition is influenced by multiple factors on different levels which include individual factors, such as partner support and career aspirations, organizational factors such as family‐friendly work practices and role models, and societal factors such as social norms and attitudes towards the maternal body. The findings highlight the importance of context by stressing the interrelated nature of factors on the micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐level in order to better understand the identity transition to motherhood.     

WHERE ARE THE ECONOMISTS WHO PUBLISH? PUBLICATION CONCENTRATION AND RANKINGS IN EUROPE BASED ON CUMULATIVE PUBLICATIONS

We measure the past production of research articles by current members of European economics institutions. All EconLit journals are used, weighted to reflect differences in quality. Both a long (1971–2000) and a short (1996–2000) time period are considered. We also provide production indices that take into account the authors' career length. The total output of each research center is measured as well as its production per member. The focus is on 600 centers from eighteen European countries (EU 14, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey). European centers are compared to the top sixty U.S. economics departments. Statistics regarding the concentration of article production across researchers, institutions, and countries are provided, as well as on publication habits. (JEL: A14, L11, R32)     

DATA‐DRIVEN SMOOTH TESTS AND A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL FOR LACK‐OF‐FIT FOR CIRCULAR DATA

Two contributions to the statistical analysis of circular data are given. First we construct data‐driven smooth goodness‐of‐fit tests for the circular von Mises assumption. As a second method, we propose a new graphical diagnostic tool for the detection of lack‐of‐fit for circular distributions. We illustrate our methods on two real datasets.     

The Impact of Dietary Changes Among the Inuit of Nunavik (Canada): A Socioeconomic Assessment of Possible Public Health Recommendations Dealing with Food Contamination

Inuit populations meet a large portion of their food needs by eating country food in which pollutants are concentrated. Despite the fact that they contain pollutants, the consumption of country food has many health, social, economic, and cultural benefits. A risk determination process was set up in order to help regional health authorities of Nunavik to deal with this particular issue. Based on Nunavik health authorities' objectives to encourage the region's inhabitants to change their dietary habits, and on both the risks and the benefits of eating country food, several management options were developed. The options aimed at reducing exposure to contaminants by either substituting certain foods with others that have a lower contaminant content or by store-bought foods. This article aims at assessing the potential economic impact of these risk management options before being implemented. Relevant economic data (aggregate income and monetary outlays for the purchase of food and equipment required for food production by households) were collected and identified to serve as a backdrop for the various replacement scenarios. Results show that household budgets, and the regional economy, are not significantly affected by the replacement of contaminated foods with the purchase of store-bought meat, and even less so if the solution involves replacing contaminated foods with other types of game hunted in the region. When financial support is provided by the state, the households can even gain some monetary benefits. Results show that public health authorities' recommended changes to dietary habits among the Inuit of Nunavik would not necessarily involve economic constraints for Inuit households.     

Development,a Question of Opportunity? A Critique of the 2006 World Development Report: Equity and Development

The World Bank's World Development Report 2006 addresses equity and development, defining equity as respect for equal opportunities combined with the avoidance of absolute deprivation. Equity has up to now remained a marginal issue in development economics. This detailed analysis endeavours to place the subject within the context of the evolution of World Bank thinking and policies. The wealth of the concept is illustrated, the downside being the difficulty in defining it accurately. We also emphasise the gap between the prospects opened up by such an enlargement of development goals and the report's policy recommendations, which are generally merely an extension of the World Bank's traditional analyses.     

The peculiar history of scientific reason

Science is a social field of forces, struggles, and relationships that is defined at every moment by the relations of power among the protagonists. Scientific choices are guided by taken-for-granted assumptions, interactive with practices, as to what constitutes real and important problems, valid methods, and authentic knowledge. Such choices also are shaped by the social capital controlled by various positions and stances within the field. This complex and dynamic representation thus simultaneously rejects both the absolutist-idealist conception of the immanent development of science and the historicist relativism of those who consider science as purely a conventional social construct. The strategies used in science are at once social and intellectual; for example, strategies that are founded on implicit agreement with the established scientific order are thereby in affinity with the positions of power within the field itself. In established scientific fields of high autonomy, revolutions no longer are necessarily at the same time political ruptures but rather are generated within the field themselves: the field becomes the site of a permanent revolution. Under certain conditions, then, strategies used in struggles for symbolic power transcend themselves as they are subjected to the crisscrossing censorship that represents the constitutive reason of the field. The necessary and sufficient condition for this critical correction is a social organization such that each participant can realize specific interest only by mobilizing all the scientific resources available for overcoming the obstacles shared by all his or her competitors. Thus, the type of analysis here illustrated does not lead to reductive bias or sociologism that would undermine its own foundations. Rather it points to a comprehensive and reflexive objectivism that opens up a liberating collective self-analysis.For Darwin, living means to submit an individual difference to the judgement of the entire congregation of those alive. This judgement includes only two sanctions: either to die, or to become in turn, for a time, part of the jury. But, one is always, for as long as one lives, both judge and judged. (Canguilhem, 1977)Two people, if they truly wish to understand one another, must have first contradicted one another. Truth is the daughter of debate not of sympathy. (Bachelard, 1953)