Quality of life declines in big and growing cities. Poverty in cities

The quality of life in developing countries during the first couple of decades after the Second World War was higher in cities than in small towns and villages. However, the relative advantage of city dwellers in developing countries has declined since the 1970s, with high-growth rate cities experiencing a more severe decline. Infant mortality levels in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s are as high in large cities as in the smallest towns and villages. In most developing regions, big city residents are increasingly disadvantaged, such that researchers and policymakers can no longer assume that the quality of life in urban areas is better than in rural areas. The urban transformation of the developing world is similar to the 19th century urbanization of now-developed countries, but today many more people are crowding into far bigger cities. Using survey information from 43 countries representing 63% of the developing world's urban population outside of China and India, Martin Brockerhoff of the Population Council and Ellen Brennan of the UN Population Division found that rapid population growth and big size have overwhelmed the capacity of cities to provide essential goods and services.     

Sociology as a Strategy of Support for Long-Term Unemployed Workers

In recent years workers in the United States have become increasingly vulnerable to spells of long-term unemployment, which are often accompanied by self-devaluation and the internalization of stigma. The existing literature consistently finds that dominant self-help career support institutions activate individualistic cultural narratives that obscure the shared and structural determinants of career challenges and often intensify the self-stigmatization and emotional toll of long-term unemployment. This paper examines an alternative approach to support based on sociologically-informed discourses and practices. Drawing on in-depth interviews of long-term unemployed white-collar workers who received such support we explore whether and how sociologically-informed support practices can reduce self-stigmatization and help workers confront the challenges posed by long-term unemployment. We show that self-stigmatization is not an inevitable outcome of unemployment in the American cultural context, and that the application of a sociologically-informed approach to support can activate narratives focused on the shared and structural roots of unemployment. The activation of such narratives counteracts the debilitating internalization of stigma and generates what we call a “re-valuation” of the self. Beyond long-term unemployment, the findings in this paper suggest broader benefits to American workers from institutions that foster a sociological imagination for contextualizing employment-related challenges.     

Living Arrangements,Knowledge of Health Risks,and Stress as Determinants of Health-Risk Behavior Among College Students

Abstract

The association of knowledge of health risks, living arrangements, and perceived stress with health-risk behaviors was examined in a sample of college students included in the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Supplement of the National Health Interview Survey. Regressions of each health-risk behavior (dependent variable) were performed on the predicted correlates. Although knowledge was not associated with participation in physical activity or smoking, the study found that students who knew more about the harmful effects of alcohol drank less, and those with greater knowledge of health risks practiced fewer risky behaviors. Students living independently were more likely to smoke, and those living in residence halls were less like to do so. Drinking, however, was more common among students living in residence halls or independently than among those living at home. Hall residents engaged in more group physical activity than other students did, but their physical activity was unrelated to health-risk behaviors. Stress was associated with smoking but not with other health practices. The findings suggest that smoking may be less influenced by health knowledge and more associated than drinking is with a response to stress. Drinking appears to be a social activity associated with living among peers and is potentially modifiable by increased knowledge about the effects of alcohol on health.     

Breadth versus Depth: The Timing of Specialization in Higher Education

This paper examines the trade‐off between early and late specialization in the context of higher education. I develop a model in which individuals accumulate field‐specific skills and receive noisy signals of match quality across different fields of study. I derive comparative static predictions between educational regimes with early and late specialization, and examine these predictions across British systems of higher education. Using survey data on 1980 university graduates, I find that individuals who switch to unrelated occupations have lower initial earnings, and that early specialization in England is associated with more costly switches. But higher wage growth among those who switch eliminates the wage difference after several years, and average earnings are not significantly different between England and Scotland.     

College smoking-cessation using cell phone text messaging

Although rates of smoking among college-aged students continue to rise, few interventions that focus on college smokers' unique motivations and episodic smoking patterns exist. The authors developed and evaluated a prototype program targeting college students that integrates Web and cell phone technologies to deliver a smoking-cessation intervention. To guide the user through the creation and initialization of an individualized quitting program delivered by means of cell phone text messaging, the program uses assessment tools delivered with the program Web site. Forty-six regular smokers were recruited from local colleges and provided access to the program. At 6-week follow-up, 43% had made at least one 24-hour attempt to quit, and 22% were quit--based on a 7-day prevalence criterion. The findings provide support for using wireless text messages to deliver potentially effective smoking-cessation behavioral interventions to college students.     

Constructing Unemployed Job Seekers as Professional Workers: The Depoliticizing Work–Game of Job Searching

Unemployed Americans overwhelmingly describe their predicament as an individual and private challenge, and not as a public issue with structural causes and political solutions. This case study utilizes participant observation and in-depth interviews at a support organization for unemployed white-collar workers to explore the concrete dynamics that render the structural and political dimensions of unemployment beyond discussion. Whereas the existing literature focuses on the role of ideology in shaping subjective understandings of unemployment, my ethnographic data indicate that the lived experience of job searching is critical to understanding why individualist ideologies resonate with unemployed job seekers. Engagement in the process of job searching is analyzed as a type of work that generates an absorbing “work–game.” Playing this game depoliticizes unemployment by channeling the players’ practical energies towards strategic decision-making and individual level maneuvers and away from larger structural contexts. The depoliticizing effects of the game endure even after job seekers cease to play. For job seekers who encounter obstacles to finding employment in the labor market and become discouraged, the process of playing the game generates the experience of being a loser, and thus reinforces individualized understandings of unemployment.