Human Rights and Human Subjects: Ethics and Strategies in Social Science Research*

New guidelines implemented by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services exempt broad categories of social science research from regulation by university review boards. The analysis examines how exemption from regulation will change the way researchers manage ethical matters in the future. Social scientists will wish to protect the rights of research subjects and, at the same time, study sensitive social issues by scientific designs. As in the past, these goals will be incompatible in various ways. The analysis examines the parameters within which researchers will deal with several ethical and methodological dilemmas.     

Social compromise and social metrics

In the context of constitutional design, a committee of citizens' representatives proposes (social choice) axioms. The outcome should not necessarily be the aggregation rule, or rules, satisfying each of the axioms. Alternative procedures are recommended for aggregating a set of axioms into a single summary axiom. The summary axiom generates a single social decision function when a social metric is applied.     

An analysis of the impact of education on family size

The impact of education on family size is divided into a direct effect (holding labor force participation and age at marriage constant) and an indirect effect (varying labor force participation and age at marriage). The results suggest that (1) the indirect effect of education is greater at higher levels of the wife's education, (2) the direct effect is greater at lower levels of education in most cases, (3) the indirect effects do not vary systematically with husband's education, (4) but the direct effect does vary systematically with husband's education if the education of the wife is low but not if wife's education is high.