Social Networks and Stratification in the Urban Chinese Labor Market: The Case of Laid‐Off Textile Workers and Their Officials in the Tianjin Municipality*

By what mechanisms has China's developing capitalist labor market been producing stratification patterns of reemployment and wage differences among laid‐off workers in the late 1990s? Theoretical perspectives delineating state, market, and societal mechanisms are used to guide exploratory analyses of data from a sample of workers who were laid off from state‐owned textile enterprises in the Tianjin municipality. Three findings are reported. First, men with what Portes defined as downward leveling “negative social capital” are less likely to become reemployed. A second, more tenuous, finding is that workers with a higher level of education are more likely to be reemployed. Third, workers with a social network tie to at least one official from a government administrative agency are more likely to be reemployed and, among those reemployed, more likely to earn higher wages, as compared to workers with a social network tie to at least one official from a state‐owned enterprise or workers lacking a social network tie to any official. This third finding, along with reports of analogous findings culled from a review of published literature, stimulates us to go beyond the data to theoretically speculate about how Chinese officialdom has become somewhat more differentiated and consequent ramifications for understanding newly emerging changes in China's stratification order.     

Observing Erotic Videos With Heterosexual Content Induces Different Cerebral Responses in Homosexual and Heterosexual Men

ABSTRACT

To determine the cerebral functionality associated with the perception and processing of erotic stimuli in men with different sexual orientation, this work evaluated the electroencephalographic activity (EEG) from several cortical areas, as well as subjective arousal in homosexual and heterosexual men during observation of an erotic film with heterosexual content. The heterosexual men rated the erotic video with higher general and sexual arousal than the homosexual participants. During observation of the neutral and erotic videos, both groups showed a decreased amplitude of the alpha band in prefrontal and parietal cortices, indicating increased attention. When watching the erotic video, the homosexual men showed an increased amplitude of the theta and fast bands only in the prefrontal cortex, which could be related to the cognitive processing of the erotic stimulus. These EEG results should broaden our knowledge of the cortical mechanisms related to the different perception and processing of erotic stimuli in men with different sexual orientations.     

Foundations in periods of political and economic uncertainty: The Latin American link and the Argentine case

Foundations — or proto-foundations — that had their roots in the western world in the Greek and Roman civilisations later found their way into ancient Spanish law. The early historical inheritance was transferred by Spain and Portugal to Latin America. Those first foundations were dedicated to a few activities in the areas of health, education and community services. In this article I briefly follow the transition from the traditional foundations to the contemporary one with their wider scope of activities. There is an attempt to follow the correspondence that may exist for the Argentine case between these foundations and extant theories that attempt to explain their role in a wider societal and economic context to conclude that the evidence is still limited for the various failure approaches discussed in the literature. Alternatively, we suggest that the retrenchment of the welfare state should be considered one of the factors that lead to the increase in the number of foundations and the diversification of their activities. The analysis incorporates the issue of discontinuities and crisis, and the strategies followed by different types of foundations under authoritarian rule and periods of high inflation. Surprisingly, during those periods the foundations continued to increase in numbers. I suggest that an adequate explanation for the dynamics of those foundations requires a socio-political approach complemented with the analysis of some economic factors.     

Stability and Change in the Experience of Partner Violence Among Low‐Income Women*

Objective. In this analysis we identify factors associated with the dynamics of partner violence among low‐income women. Methods. Using two waves of the Welfare, Children and Families Study (1999–2001), we examine the multivariate predictors of ever having experienced abuse, as well as factors associated with the initiation, resumption, and discontinuation of violence between the two interviews. Results. Over half the women who reported violence at Wave 1 reported no violence at Wave 2. These women were older, had experienced less severe violence, and reported less financial strain than women for whom violence continued or began. For 11 percent of the sample, violence began or resumed by the second interview. These women were younger, less educated, had weaker social networks, and were less likely to be Hispanic than those who never experienced violence. Conclusions. Partner abuse appears to be highly dynamic and a fuller understanding of the phenomenon requires a longitudinal focus.     

Maternal Punitive Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions and Young Adult Trait Anger: Effect of Gender and Emotional Closeness

The current study tested whether young adult's recollected reports of their mother's punitive reactions to their negative emotions in childhood predicted anger expression in young adulthood and whether emotional closeness weakens this association. Further, a three-way interaction was tested to examine whether emotional closeness is a stronger protective factor for young women than for young men. Results revealed a significant three-way interaction (gender × emotional closeness × maternal punitive reactions). For young men, maternal punitive reactions to negative emotions were directly associated with increased anger expressions. Maternal punitive reactions to young women's negative emotions in childhood were associated with increased anger in adulthood only when they reported low maternal emotional closeness. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness may serve as a buffer against the negative effects of maternal punitive reactions for women's anger expression in young adulthood.     

When the Floods of Compassion Are not Enough: A Nation's and a City's Response to the Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina exposed serious deficiencies in the social support safety net at the federal, state, and local level. This article explores the impacts of the disrupted safety net through participant observation and interviews with service providers and evacuees resettled in one southern city. Their stories illustrate how vulnerable low‐income groups struggle to cope with disaster within the context of inadequate larger support systems and the legacy of racism. The data also illustrate the limits of the local resources and response, given the years of retrenchment and underfunding and increasing dependence on nongovernmental sources of support. The authors explore some of the implications of this trend for evacuees' long‐term recovery and social work intervention.     

The main themes of Sociology in Europe

Social conditions influence sociological research muck more than they do other sciences. Consequently, beyond the common interests of the whole sociological community one can observe interests that are specific to social and cultural areas. It is to the interaction of general and specific sociological interests, and their relation to the possibility of constituting a ‘European’ sociology, that this paper is addressed. Its starting point is an analysis of the contributions at the XIIth World Congress of Sociology (Madrid, 1990). The relation of the proposed theme to the geographical area and gender of the conference participant was studied via the application of content analysis and the use of residual analysis. A profile of thematic preference was established for each variable category. The analysis shows that in Europe there is an evident preference for some questions, but despite this common trait, significant differences can be observed in terms of both the geographical area and gender variables.     

The Spanish public retirement pensions system: Principal challenges and recent developments

This paper first describes the basic characteristics of the Spanish system of retirement pensions, before addressing its major challenges in the future and the principal solutions proposed. For this purpose, many of the works on social security published in Spain over the past years have been reviewed to provide a recent overview of technical discussions on this subject. Finally, the main reforms undertaken by the government since 1995 are described in some detail and assessed.     

Non-clearing labor markets and minority employment in municipal government

This paper posits a public choice model for explaining the variation across cities in the minority share of local government employment. The paper argues that, when hiring under conditions of excess supply, vote-maximizing local public employers exchange public sector jobs for political support from identifiable special interest groups. The model is tested for two local government occupations — police officer and firefighter — using a sample of cities above 50,000 in population. The results are compatible with the basic hypothesis that the greater the excess supply for an occupation, the higher the share of minority employment in that occupation. We are indebted to James D. Adams, Bernard Bernstein, Ali Rassuli, and Loren Solnick for helpful comments on an earlier draft. The authors alone are responsible for the contents of the paper.