Country-Specific Conditions for Work and Family Reconciliation: An Attempt at Quantification

The country-specific conditions for work and family reconciliation (family policies, labour market structures and gender norms) are believed to influence tensions between paid employment and childbearing. So far there have been very few attempts to quantify these conditions into a single measure which would allow for comparisons across countries of the magnitude of the barriers that working parents encounter. Such a quantitative index could also facilitate a quantitative investigation of the association between the macro-level conditions for work and family reconciliation and fertility at the individual level. In this paper, we seek to fill this gap by proposing a quantitative index of country-specific conditions for work and family reconciliation, which may be used, for example, in a two-level regression framework. The index takes into account all three components of the conditions for work and family reconciliation. We also perform a series of uncertainty and sensitivity analyses which verify the robustness of our assumptions and which illustrate the range of the index volatility.     

Spherical radial approximation for nested mixed effects models

We consider a likelihood approximation in generalized linear mixed-effects models (GLMM) with multilevel nested random effects. Likelihood evaluation in such models is difficult, hindered by the need for high dimensional integration, where the dimension is proportional to the number of units per level and the number of random effects per unit. Various integration approaches have been proposed, including the penalized quasi-likelihood method, Laplace approximation, quadrature approximation, simulation, and MCMC algorithms. We propose a new quadrature approximation method, which is based on the spherical radial integration approach of Monahan and Genz (J Am Stat Assoc 92:664–674 1997), and at the same time takes advantage of the hierarchical structure of the integration. Our new hierarchical spherical radial method has a time complexity that is linear in the number of units per level and the number of random effects per unit, in contrast to the exponential complexity of the adaptive Gaussian quadrature method of Pinheiro and Chao (J Comput Graph Stat 15:58–81 2006) for the same problem. Using a spline approximation, the generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) are GLMMs with two levels of nested random effects. We apply our method to estimation of GAMMs. We compare it with competing methods through simulations and apply our method to analyze virologic and immunologic responses in an AIDS clinical trial. An R package is written and available at http://?users.?wpi.?edu/?~jgagnon/?software.?html.     

Let the Citizens Map—Public Participation GIS as a Planning Support System in the Helsinki Master Plan Process

Current public participation methods are laborious, reach few participants and are ineffective at gathering usable information for planning. This situation leads often to mistrust and dissatisfaction in the process and outcome. This article identifies the critical conditions for meaningful use of public participation GIS (PPGIS) tools to support the making of master plan in Helsinki. With PPGIS tools, residents’ insight of their living environment can be reached and utilized along the planning process. The results are divided to conceptual and empirical points. Whereas the conceptual points emphasize better understanding of the locus of the PPGIS tools in planning process, the empirical findings reveal new ways to study how residents’ perceptions align with the plan proposal. Though new tools, data and analysis can support representativeness, independence, early involvement, influence and transparency, planners and residents need more understanding of the benefits of these tools. The study indicates that though planners found the collected data and the analysis valuable, they still lacked the skills and institutional motivation to use the data effectively. The results point out that when PPGIS tools can be integrated to the mainstream planning practices, the tools have the ability to evolve to a more comprehensive participatory planning support system.     

Warum werden Arbeiterkinder vom Studium an Universitäten abgelenkt? Eine empirische Überprüfung der „Ablenkungsthese“ von Müller und Pollak (2007) und ihrer Erweiterung durch Hillmert und Jacob (2003)

Why are the working- class children diverted from universities? In spite of the educational expansion, the decline of inequalities of educational opportunities in schools, and the institutional reforms in vocational training and university education, the access to tertiary education at university remains still remarkably unequal across social classes. In accordance with the ?diversion thesis‘ suggested by Müller and Pollak and extended by Hillmert and Jacob working class children are lead away from the direct path to university to non-academic education institutions because of both the impact of institutional structures of the educational systems on individuals‘ educational choices and the attractiveness of alternative education and training in non-academic areas. In order to investigate how does the diversion work the mechanisms of socially selective educational choices have to be analyzed from the perspective of rational action theory. For the empirical test of the theoretical approach data about school-leaves with the ?Abitur‘ (high school degree) in the East Germany federal state Saxony are employed. Subjective evaluation of the former educational performance, the expectation to be successful at university and the subjectively expected costs are the mechanisms mainly responsible that working class children more likely choose the vocational training than education at university. In particular, the subjectively expected success at university has the greatest impact on working class children‘s educational choices leading them away from the university.     

Relating 7‐Month‐Olds Visuo‐Spatial Working Memory to Other Basic Mental Skills Assessed With Two Different Versions of the Habituation–Dishabituation Paradigm

This study examines the relationship between various basic mental processing abilities in infancy. Two groups of 7‐month‐olds received the same delayed‐response task to assess visuo‐spatial working memory, but two different habituation–dishabituation tasks to assess processing speed and recognition memory. The single‐stimulus group (N = 32) was familiarized with only one abstract stimulus, whereas the categorization group (N = 32) received varying exemplars of the same kind. In the categorization group, infants high on working memory showed stronger habituation and dishabituation responses than infants scoring low in working memory. No corresponding relations were found for the single‐stimulus group. This suggests that working memory performance is systematically linked to other basic mental skills in 7‐month‐olds, but that corresponding relations may not get evident in any kind of habituation–dishabituation procedure. Implications for understanding the complex interplay of basic mental abilities in infancy will be discussed.     

Can we trust parental reports of child care subsidy receipt?

In recent years, research examining determinants and consequences of the means-tested child care subsidy program (the Child Care and Development Fund [CCDF]) has grown dramatically. To measure subsidy utilization, existing studies typically rely on parent-reported measures of subsidy receipt drawn from large surveys. As the research literature on child care subsidies has grown, however, so have concerns about the trustworthiness of parent-reported subsidy use. One way to assess the quality of parent-reported subsidy use is to examine its overlap with another subsidy receipt measure, drawn from a different source. The current paper uses the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCWS), the only existing survey data source that contains an alternate measure of subsidy receipt — based on child care provider report — which permits a comparison to parent-reported measures. We find evidence that increases our confidence in the trustworthiness of parents as accurate reporters of subsidy receipt. In recognition that neither data source reflects “true” subsidy receipt, however, we conclude with a discussion of limitations and steps for future research.     

Employment effects of spatial dispersal of refugees

Refugees subjected to a spatial dispersal tend to be assigned to a location outside the immigrant-dense cities. We argue that such locations are associated with low place utility. Our partial equilibrium search model with simultaneous job and residential location search predicts that the reservation wage for local jobs decreases with place utility. We test the theoretical prediction by estimating the effects of characteristics of the location of assignment on the transition rate into the first job. Our sample is male refugees aged 30–59 who were subjected to the Danish spatial dispersal policy carried out in the period 1986–1998. We find little empirical support for the theoretical prediction. Empirically we find that the transition rate into the first job decreases with the local population size and the number of immigrants while the effect of the local number of co-nationals is insignificant.     

Epistemologies of Peace: Poetics,Globalization, and the Social Justice Movement

Abstract

Poetics, as an epistemological approach, articulates alternative imaginaries to those proffered by the neoliberal world order. With a long history of drawing upon various sites to further its aims (e.g. the academy, the international studies association, political parties, the state), the neoliberal world order has used its epistemologies to constitute a hegemony emphasizing the state as the primary actor of political life. Feminists and scholars in postcolonial IR, black studies, and ethnic studies have challenged this idea, arguing that there are differential epistemological economies in world politics. Larger questions at stake in these different sites/cites include self and collective knowledge of marginal peoples and the envisioning of alternative, oppositional histories of decolonization, struggle and contestation. Traditional disciplinary boundaries become sites/cites of contestation about the forging and making of alternatives as academics, grassroots organizers, and activists, through poetics, work together to creatively engage questions of economies, power, history, and subject-formations.     

International migration: a panel data analysis of the determinants of bilateral flows

In this paper, I empirically investigate the determinants of migration inflows into 14 OECD countries by country of origin between 1980 and 1995. I analyze the effect on migration of average income and income dispersion in destination and origin countries. I also examine the impact of geographical, cultural, and demographic factors as well as the role played by changes in destination countries’ migration policies. My analysis both delivers estimates consistent with the predictions of the international migration model and generates empirical puzzles.