Forced to deal with the future: uncertainty and risk in vocational choices among Portuguese secondary school students

In contemporary societies, adolescents' individuation is largely staged within the educational system, and is defined by several schooling options. This is particularly true when young people reach upper secondary education, as this transition implies the definition of a personal project. In the Portuguese context, authenticity is linked to the ‘obligation’ of choosing – by means of a compulsory vocational choice. To define a personal project that gives studies a meaning becomes a problem pupils have to deal with. Supported on empirical data based on in‐depth interviews to pupils attending 10th and 12th years of upper secondary education in Portuguese public schools, this article discusses some of these issues. Specially, we intend to explore pupils' obligation to exhibit their autonomy by choosing a school path with the awareness of risks that may emerge along with their options.     

Vector autoregressive models with measurement errors for testing Granger causality

This paper develops a method for estimating the parameters of a vector autoregression (VAR) observed in white noise. The estimation method assumes that the noise variance matrix is known and does not require any iterative process. This study provides consistent estimators and the asymptotic distribution of the parameters required for conducting tests of Granger causality. Methods in the existing statistical literature cannot be used for testing Granger causality, since under the null hypothesis the model becomes unidentifiable. Measurement error effects on parameter estimates were evaluated by using computational simulations. The results suggest that the proposed approach produces empirical false positive rates close to the adopted nominal level (even for small samples) and has a satisfactory performance around the null hypothesis. The applicability and usefulness of the proposed approach are illustrated using a functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset.     

A relational analysis of migration in old age: How transnational ties affect migration decisions

Recently, the role of personal ties in migration decisions has received considerable attention. However, this aspect has seldom been studied in the context of retirement. This paper addresses this gap by shedding light on the composition of personal networks, types of mobility patterns and retirement locations for four groups of older adults. To this end, two methodological approaches are employed: (1) a qualitative Social Network Analysis to examine the composition of older adults' personal networks and (2) thematic coding to analyse the relational aspects of migration decisions. This paper draws on 29 semi-structured interviews conducted in Spain and Switzerland in 2020 and 2021. The findings demonstrate that pre-retirement migration trajectories shape personal network composition. Moreover, personal ties play a critical role in older adults' mobility patterns and choices of retirement location. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the impact of personal networks on migration decisions of older adults.     

The impact of the term spread in US monetary policy from 1870 to 2013

In this paper, we apply a novel econometric approach joint with an exhaustive revision of the main events in the history of US monetary policy in order to check the effectiveness of monetary policy focused on interest rates. Unlike the traditional cointegration approach, this new methodology allows us to break with the rigidity of traditional approaches in favour of letting the series be cointegrated, and the spread is able to follow a long-memory process; i.e., it does not necessarily need to be I(0) and also rejects the assumption that interest rates could follow the dichotomy I(0)/I(1). To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first applications of the Fractionally Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive (FCVAR) model (Johansen and Nielsen (2012) and Nielsen and Popiel (2016)). Aiming to achieve this goal, we use two databases, i.e., the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database and Shiller’s database. Our results cannot reject the Expectations Hypothesis of Term Structure in this time period, and more importantly, we also find that the long-term rate drives the long-run relationship, contributing to the total proportion to the common trend; the persistence of the spread shows us effective control power over interest rates by the Fed.     

Welfare, labor supply and heterogeneous preferences: evidence for Europe and the US

Following the report of the Stiglitz Commission, measuring and comparing well-being across countries has gained renewed interest. Yet, analyses that go beyond income and incorporate non-market dimensions of welfare most often rely on the assumption of identical preferences to avoid the difficulties related to interpersonal comparisons. In this paper, we suggest an international comparison based on individual welfare rankings that fully retain preference heterogeneity. Focusing on the consumption-leisure trade-off, we estimate discrete choice labor supply models using harmonized microdata for 11 European countries and the US. We retrieve preference heterogeneity within and across countries and analyze several welfare criteria which take into account that differences in income are partly due to differences in tastes. The resulting welfare rankings clearly depend on the normative treatment of preference heterogeneity with alternative metrics. We show that these differences can indeed be explained by estimated preference heterogeneity across countries—rather than demographic composition.     

Procesos escabrosos en Psicología Social: el concepto de norma perversa

Resumen

Se analiza el peso relativo del nivel de violencia marital observada, y de la responsabilidad atribuida a los progenitors por sus conflictos, en la predicción de la violencia de pareja. De esta forma, se estudia el papel de la interpretación de la experiencia violenta en el proceso de transmisión. La investigación se llevó a cabo con sesenta parejas de universitarios. Los resultados confirman la importancia de la responsabilidad que se atribuye a los progenitores en la predicción de la transmisión de la violencia de pareja. Asimismo, sugieren que una interpretación de la violencia interparental más favorable al progenitor del mismo sexo sitúa a los hijos en una situación de mayor riesgo.     

Un modelo psicosociológico para el estudio de la salud mental

Resumen

Un número elevado de estudios ha demostrado que la mayoría de las personas recuerda con gran vividez las circunstancias en las que tuvieron noticia de sucesos sorprendentes y de gran trascendencia. Algunos autores han asumido que estos recuerdos, llamados «recuerdos-destello» (flashbulb memories), implican la existencia de un mecanismo neural especial. Otros, sin embargo, han cuestionado tal hipótesis y han argumentado que este tipo de recuerdos deben ser considerados como productos de los mecanismos ordinarios de memoria. El objetivo de este estudio fue identificar los hipotéticos mecanismos ordinarios que pudieran explicar la creación de estos recuerdos sin necesidad de apelar a mecanismos especiales. Mediante el uso de un cuestionario, analizamos los recuerdos de las circunstancias, la singularidad, el grado de impresión y la cantidad de repetición de dos sucesos nacionales de gran relevancia: el intento de golpe de estado de 1981 (23-F) y la muerte del general Franco (20-N). Nuestra hipótesis fue que el factor básico para la creación de «recuerdos-destello» es el grado de elaboración y distintividad de codificación de la noticia y su contexto, y que dicho grado es propiciado por la gran cantidad de recursos atencionales que se genera cuando en un suceso concurren con fuerza el factor sorpresa y el factor impacto emocional. Los resultados confirmaron esta hipótesis.     

Race,ethnicity, gender,and generational factors associated with the coming‐out process among gay,lesbian, and bisexual individuals

Age at coming out among gay/lesbian/bisexual (GLB) persons and sexual debut with same‐gendered partners has typically been investigated in samples that do not reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of these communities. Addressing this limitation, data were collected from a diverse sample of men and women attending large‐scale GLB community events in New York and Los Angeles in 2003 (N = 2,733). Compared to older cohorts, younger cohorts (18–24 year olds) of both men and women reported significantly earlier ages for sexual debut with same‐gendered partners, and earlier ages for coming out to themselves and to others. Also, women began the process at later ages than men, as they reported coming out to themselves and sexual debut with a same‐gender partner approximately two years later than men. There were no racial or ethnic differences in age out to self or others; however, people of color were less likely to be out to their parents. Service providers, sexuality educators, and researchers should attend to the diversity in experience of coming out among GLB populations as they relate to the individuals’ gender, age, and racial and ethnic backgrounds.