Diffusion Effects in the European Fertility Transition: Historical Evidence from Within a Belgian Town (1846–1910)

This article investigates empirically diffusion effects on married couples' fertility behaviour during the historical European demographic transition. To this end, a blended logistic model of parity-dependent stopping behaviour is developed, including indicators for both natural and structural determinants and diffusion effects. The model is applied to the birth intervals of three 19th century generations of urban working class couples living in the Belgian town of Leuven. The results indicate that occupational status cannot explain the adoption of stopping behaviour. The evidence suggests that diffusion mechanisms were at work on a neighbourhood level: the proportion of Francophone couples living in the Leuven streets had a significant positive impact on the probability that the Flemish couples were applying stopping behaviour. Also, working class couples who were living in a town quarter that was hosting many upper class people were significantly more likely to stop. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Care management and social work: A case study of the role of social work in hospital discharge to residential or nursing home care

The role of social work with vulnerable adults has changed markedly in many countries, including England and Wales following the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. The basis for this paper is a small qualitative study of the social work role in helping people entering residential or nursing care in the independent sector following an emergency hospital admission in England (Phillips and Waterson 1997). This double transition is an under-researched area (Bywaters 1993; Downs and Crossan 1999). Furthermore, the literature on hospital discharge to date relates to developing policy objectives (Department of Health 1989, 1992, 1994a) or a critique of them (Pearson 1994; Cresswell 1994; Nazarko 1994) or the impact on practice, highlighting issues of inter-disciplinary cooperation (Rachman 1993; Higgins et al. 1994; Davies and Connolly 1995a; Clark et al. 1997; Healey et al. 1999). Until very recently, there has been much less about the users and carers perspective of the effects on the social work role in this area (Hardy et al. 1999; Henton et al. 1999; MacDonald 1999; Chesterman et al. 2001; Hellstrom and Hallberg 2001). The research findings review the core tasks of care management and point to a devaluing of the 'social' dimension, which had previously been the mainstay of hospital social work, and which is precisely what users and carers continue to value. Whilst this paper is written from a UK perspective, and focuses on a small study of an atypical area of work, this finding raises issues of wider interest to those concerned with the health and social care of vulnerable adults in a range of transnational contexts. It raises fundamental questions about the nature of contemporary European social work.     

Social order,cultural capital and citizenship*

The question of whether education should be seen as an instrument of social order is an old topic in the social sciences. There exist several theories concerning this question. Two of these rival theories are dealt with in this paper. On the basis of each, historical data have been looked at anew and empirical research has been carried out into the prevailing conditions in the Netherlands. On the basis of the first theory, which was inspired by Bourdieu and which concerns economic, cultural (including educational) and social capital, data on the Dutch history between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries have been reanalysed with respect to the attitude of the diverse sections of the dominant class towards culture in general and the university in particular. Dutch history can be regarded as a national variant of the universal tensions between ‘culture’and ‘knowledge’and between ‘culture’and ‘economics’in human societies. On the basis of Bourdieu's theory it is assumed that under the prevailing social conditions elementary schools will differ in ‘educational status’in the schools market. Empirical investigation confirms this hypothesis. The ‘educational status’of elementary schools mediates (reproduces) almost all of the influence of the childrens’social background on their school career, and reinforces this influence. On the basis of the second theory, which is based on the work of Meyer, Boli and Ramirez, data on the Dutch history in the Enlightenment period have been reanalysed with respect to the rise of mass education. These historical data give substantial evidence to the theory that the construction of the nation-state is of decisive importance for the rise of mass education. Our empirical investigation, however, does not confirm the hypothesis that in the actual situation elementary schools differ in ‘comprehensiveness’. Neither schools nor parents are oriented towards integration. Rather, the contrasts seem to be getting sharper in the 1980s and the schools as well as the social classes seem to be distancing themselves further from each other. Various sections of the dominant class are busy strengthening their position of power in education. In short, the use of schools to constitute citizens does not lessen the pressure towards differentiation. Thus, the theory of Boli and Ramirez explains the rise of mass education, but cannot explain its social class bound form, a fact that can be explained very well by Bourdieu's theory. Therefore the theories of both Bourdieu and Boli and Ramirez should be regarded not as rivalizing, but as complementary.     

Starting age and subsequent birth intervals in cohabitational unions in current danish cohorts, 1975

This paper presents some main results of an investigation by life table methods of birth interval data in cohabitational unions (marriages as well as consensual unions) in current Danish cohorts. Our results confirm previous findings that an early age at the start of recorded exposure to childbearing risk is indicative of a rapid pace and high level of subsequent fertility. The analysis modifies previous results and adds several new details regarding cohort trends and the effect of parity at the start of reported cohabitation. For each parity within a period of cohabitation, fertility differentials by reported starting age seem to have diminished from our older cohorts (of age up to 49 years in 1975) to our younger ones (of age less than 30 years in 1975). There are indications of a dramatic change in childbearing behaviour following the arrival of novel attitudes to non-marital cohabitation and childbearing in Denmark about 1967.     

A competing risks approach for nonparametric estimation of transition probabilities in a non-Markov illness-death model

Competing risks model time to first event and type of first event. An example from hospital epidemiology is the incidence of hospital-acquired infection, which has to account for hospital discharge of non-infected patients as a competing risk. An illness-death model would allow to further study hospital outcomes of infected patients. Such a model typically relies on a Markov assumption. However, it is conceivable that the future course of an infected patient does not only depend on the time since hospital admission and current infection status but also on the time since infection. We demonstrate how a modified competing risks model can be used for nonparametric estimation of transition probabilities when the Markov assumption is violated.     

Gaining from the global ambitions of emerging economy enterprises: An analysis of the decision to sell a German firm to a Chinese acquirer

This paper examines the issue of cross-border acquisitions by companies from emerging economies in industrialised countries: an important phenomenon that has recently found increasing emphasis in international business research. In analysing Chinese acquisitions of German firms in the machinery and equipment industry, the paper addresses the question of why firms from industrialised countries are sold to companies from emerging economies. Several real and imagined reasons may induce the German side not to sell; nevertheless, this type of acquisition occurs with increasing frequency. Using case study evidence and interview data, the study finds explanations for the decision to sell to a Chinese company. The results show that German firms can gain substantially from the global ambitions of the Chinese firms for advancement of their own business objectives. This is due to complementarities in the motivations for engaging in the deals, as well as the underlying strategic needs of both firms. In addition, the specific nature of the cooperation between both firms instils in the German managers a sense of control and security—either real or merely perceived—creating conditions that are favourable to the selling decision. Most importantly, in the context of emerging economy enterprises acquiring advanced economy firms, motivations on both sides of the acquisitions appear to go beyond the commonly known goals such as capital transfer and additional market access, as the acquisitions provide the companies involved with conditions favourable to expansion into previously inaccessible market segments. The findings of this study provide useful guidance for the development of future strategic relationships between firms from industrialised and emerging economies.     

Exploring the Uncertainties in Cancer Risk Assessment Using the Integrated Probabilistic Risk Assessment (IPRA) Approach

Current methods for cancer risk assessment result in single values, without any quantitative information on the uncertainties in these values. Therefore, single risk values could easily be overinterpreted. In this study, we discuss a full probabilistic cancer risk assessment approach in which all the generally recognized uncertainties in both exposure and hazard assessment are quantitatively characterized and probabilistically evaluated, resulting in a confidence interval for the final risk estimate. The methodology is applied to three example chemicals (aflatoxin, N‐nitrosodimethylamine, and methyleugenol). These examples illustrate that the uncertainty in a cancer risk estimate may be huge, making single value estimates of cancer risk meaningless. Further, a risk based on linear extrapolation tends to be lower than the upper 95% confidence limit of a probabilistic risk estimate, and in that sense it is not conservative. Our conceptual analysis showed that there are two possible basic approaches for cancer risk assessment, depending on the interpretation of the dose‐incidence data measured in animals. However, it remains unclear which of the two interpretations is the more adequate one, adding an additional uncertainty to the already huge confidence intervals for cancer risk estimates.