Hellenic (Greek) gender attitudes

Using data from 1,120 residents of Athens, Greece, we used structural equation modeling to confirm the existence of three types of gender attitudes: (1) egalitarian housework attitudes, (2) acceptance of females in traditionally male occupations, and (3) acceptance of males in traditionally female occupations. There was more acceptance of females in traditionally male occupations than of males in traditionally female occupations. Consistent with previous research, there was a relatively strong relationship between gender and egalitarian attitudes. Compared to men, women were more accepting of females being employed in traditionally male occupations, of males being employed in traditionally female occupations, and of equality between husband and wife in performing household chores. Education and marital status had significant impacts on egalitarian housework attitudes but not on occupational gender attitudes. His primary areas of teaching and research include criminology, deviance, juvenile delinquency, gender roles, and adolescent drug use. His research and teaching areas are criminology and marriage and family. In recent years his research has focused on adolescent drug use and marital dissolution.     

Access, Choice and Travel: Implications for Health Policy

The UK National Health Service is introducing policies offering patients a choice of the hospital where they would like to be treated. ‘Patient choice’ policies form part of a wider debate about the access to health care and the interaction between providers (including information, provision, performance and reputation) and patients (including knowledge, resources and willingness to travel). As the hospital of ‘choice’ might not necessarily be the ‘local’ provider, such policy developments are predicated on an assumption that some patients will be willing to travel further. This will, in turn, affect patients’ access to services. In general, use of services decreases with distance but this is dependent on accessibility to services, the organization of those services, the socio‐economic characteristics of the patient, perceptions of the provider and the condition for which they are to be treated. This article reviews the evidence on patients’ willingness to travel in terms of access to health care and assesses the emerging implications of and for current UK policy on patient choice.     

Nicotine Addiction: Implications for Public Health Policy

Although the morbidity and mortality caused by cigarette smoking occur in adulthood, the initiation of tobacco use and the development of nicotine addiction typically occur during adolescence. The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of nicotine addiction, focusing on the development of addiction in youth, and to explore implications for public health policy. An understanding of the pharmacological and nonpharmacological factors that determine the course of nicotine addiction is critical in developing rational policies regarding tobacco products. The Food and Drug Administration's rule to regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products is discussed. The fact that smokers typically make the transition from casual use to nicotine addiction during adolescence argues for developing and implementing effective prevention efforts and smoking cessation treatment programs that are youth-oriented.     

Estimation of the Distribution Function of a Standardized Statistic

For estimating the distribution of a standardized statistic, the bootstrap estimate is known to be local asymptotic minimax. Various computational techniques have been developed to improve on the simulation efficiency of uniform resampling, the standard Monte Carlo approach to approximating the bootstrap estimate. Two new approaches are proposed which give accurate yet simple approximations to the bootstrap estimate. The second of the approaches even improves the convergence rate of the simulation error. A simulation study examines the performance of these two approaches in comparison with other modified bootstrap estimates.     

Getting Ahead in the Capitalist Paradise: Migration from China and Socioeconomic Attainment in Colonial Hong Kong1

This article examines the initial labor market outcome and the subsequent mobility process of Chinese immigrants in Colonial Hong Kong using complete work history data and event history modeling. Contrary to the rhetoric that Hong Kong is a capitalist paradise for adventurers, the data showed that immigrants were penalized in their initial class placement, subsequent mobility, and current income attainment. Differences in educational attainment and the lack of transferability of pre‐migration human capital partly explained the attainment gap between immigrants and the natives. Yet the disadvantage of immigrants was also embedded in the local economic structure. The process of deindustrialization significantly lowered the chance of immigrants getting good first jobs when entering the labor market. Moreover, since deindustrialization benefited the natives by providing them with more opportunities in the service sector, it inadvertently widened the gap in upward mobility chances between natives and immigrants.     

Action‐Oriented Research: Strategies for Engaged Scholarship

Action‐oriented research is a methodological approach for doing collaborative research with practitioners and community partners that can inform practice, programs, community development, and policy while contributing to the scientific knowledge base. This article discusses how family scholars can use action‐oriented research to work together with community partners to address their need for useful information about their practices and programs. We present some practical strategies that can help guide the action‐oriented research process including how to develop collaborative relationships with community partners; suggestions for determining sound, action‐oriented research questions; guidelines for selecting and implementing appropriate research designs; and considerations regarding data collection and the dissemination of findings.     

Social Support and Government Policy on Services for the Elderly

Government policy on services for the elderly is to increase the provision of care in the community. This paper examines this policy in relation to informal help received from relatives and friends.
Drawing on the results of a pilot study of 92 people over the age of 75, registered in a group general practice, data are presented on the balance between informal and formal help over a group of activities of daily livhg. The main informal helpers are described with the range of activities for which people in the study were receiving assistance.
Community services are, at present, limited in the help they can provide for people in their own homes. If policies of community care are to be successful, then they must take into account the strengths and weaknesses of informal support. Using the data presented, suggestions are made a bout improvements in services including task specific services not currently provided and the definition of groups at risk of their social support breaking down.     

Strategy,cross-subsidization and the “business portfolio”

Business portfolio analysis is becoming an increasingly important and indeed critical element in strategy analysis, and the problem of cross subsidization will almost certainly become an issue of some importance for managements under the influence of the new Price Commission. This article analyzes the problem of developing corporate strategy on the basis of the individual contributions which inter-dependent groups of services and products make to the company's profitability, stability and future potential.     

A Multivariate, Multilevel Rasch Model with Application to Self–Reported Criminal Behavior

In studying correlates of social behavior, attitudes, and beliefs, a measurement model is required to combine information across a large number of item responses. Multiple constructs are often of interest, and covariates are often multilevel (e.g., measured at the person and neighborhood level). Some item–level missing data can be expected. This paper proposes a multivariate, multilevel Rasch model with random effects for these purposes and illustrates its application to self–reports of criminal behavior. Under assumptions of conditional independence and additivity, the approach enables the investigator to calibrate the items and persons on an interval scale, assess reliability at the person and neighborhood levels, study the correlations among crime types at each level, assess the proportion of variation in each crime type that lies at each level, incorporate covariates at each level, and accommodate data missing at random. Using data on 20 item responses from 2842 adolescents ages 9 to 18 nested within 196 census tracts in Chicago, we illustrate how to test key assumptions, how to adjust the model in light of diagnostic analyses, and how to interpret parameter estimates.     

Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon

This paper seeks to broaden the application of demographyto environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature aggregate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household life cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Amazon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic characteristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of theeffects of farmer background, neighborhood context, institutional context, and off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinct environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal micro-level demographic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications forfuture changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest household life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.