Cross-Cultural Difference in Subjective Wellbeing: Cultural Response Bias as an Explanation

This study investigates whether the Australian-Chinese differences in subjective wellbeing (SWB) can be attributed to cultural response bias (CRB) caused by the influence of Chinese culture. Four samples are compared: Australians, first generation Chinese immigrants, second generation Chinese immigrants, and Hong Kong Chinese. It is hypothesized that the effects of CRB on means scores and variance will be the highest for Hong Kong Chinese, followed by Australian Chinese immigrants and second generation, and the lowest for Australians. These predictions were generally supported. Income is used as a covariate to test whether the predicted pattern of results remain unchanged. The result was affirmative. CRB is thus verified as contributing to the SWB difference between the Australians and Hong Kong Chinese. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Trade, and Skilled Labour Demand in Eastern Europe

In this paper, we study the effects of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade on relative skilled labour demand in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Our estimates show significant heterogeneity in the FDI effect across the three economies: the effect is always significantly positive for Hungary, weakly negative for Poland, and negligible for the Czech Republic. As to trade, we find much more homogeneity in coefficient estimates, which are generally negative for all countries, although significant only in the case of Hungary.     

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.     

Naturalization and Earnings: A Denmark–Sweden Comparison

The determinants and consequences of the naturalization of immigrants is a hot topic in the political debate in Europe. This article compares the effect of naturalization on the income attainment of immigrants in two Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Sweden, using longitudinal register data from 1986 and onward. Sweden is characterized by low obstacles to naturalization, and existing studies provide inconclusive evidence regarding the impact of naturalization on labor market outcomes. Denmark is instead characterized by higher barriers to naturalization, as well as a virtual inexistence of previous studies on the topic. Results, obtained through individual fixed-effect regression analysis, suggest similar effects in both countries. A consistent naturalization premium is detected for immigrants of Asian and African descent, but not for any other immigrant group. The similarity across contexts arguably questions the use of more stringent naturalization laws to promote the economic integration of immigrants.     

Ethnic and religious perspectives on disability and the helping professions

This note looks at ethnic and religious perspectives of people who are training for and/or working in the helping professions in regard to their views of disability. The Modified Issues in Disabilities Scale (MIDS) was administered to a sample of people training for and/or working in the helping professions. A statistically significant association was found between ethnic and religious perspectives and scores on the MIDS.     

Neighbourhood Life,Social Capital and Perceptions of Safety in the Western Suburbs of Adelaide

In this paper we report on a South Australian study of perceptions of safety and aspects of neighbourhood life including social capital which involved the analysis of 2400 self‐completed questionnaires. A path analysis found that perceptions of safety were directly associated with gender, age, perceptions of neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood trust, and indirectly associated with age, neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood connections. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the findings for public policy.     

On the asymptotic independence of numbers of observations near order statistics

In this paper, we consider the numbers of observations in two-sided neighbourhoods of the kth and (n?r)th order statistics from a sample of size n and show that they are asymptotically independent as n→∞. We also establish a result that generalizes all the existing results regarding the asymptotic independence of numbers of observations in the left and right neighbourhoods of order statistics. Finally, we consider the limiting joint behaviour of numbers of observations in the neighbourhoods of s central order statistics and establish that they are asymptotically independent.     

On Moments of k-Records from Discrete Distributions

In this article, we establish recurrence relations satisfied by first and second moments of k-records arising from discrete distributions. Then we use these relations to obtain means, variances, and correlation coefficients of geometric k-records. We consider all the three known types of k-records: strong, ordinary, and weak.