A time series model for cohort data

A univariate time-series model is presented for projecting age- or duration-specific data for recent cohorts. The model is also capable of taking period effects into account, is illustrated using Dutch data on marital fertility rates.     

The labour market experiences of Canadian immigrants

The economic adaptation of immigrants to Canada is analyzed using government data on the labor force and landed immigrants. In particular, the labor force experience of a sample of immigrants in Canada is examined and compared with that of a Canadian cohort with regard to length of unemployment and income. "Differences in unemployment and insurable earnings are examined by age, sex, immigrant category..., world area of last permanent residence, official language abilities, education, and region of residence." (summary in FRE, SPA)     

Myth and Reality: The ERA and the Gender Gap in the 1980 Election

Attitudes toward the Equal Rights Amendment were not an importantfactor in the emergence of the "gender gap" in the 1980 presidentialelection. Conclusions to the contrary by news analysts, feministpolitical activists, and political scientists are based on acombination of the power of expectation, faulty analysis, andrandom bias in the most frequently used survey in politicalscience. The data analyzed herein were collected by the New York Timesand CBS News and processed by the New York Times and CBS Newsunder a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation; by Warren E.Miller and the National Election Studies of the Center for PoliticalStudies at the University of Michigan; and by the National OpinionResearch Center of the University of Chicago. The data wereprovided through the Interuniversity Consortium for Politicaland Social Research of the University of Michigan. The New YorkTimes, CBS News, the CPS, NORC, and the ICPSR bear no responsibilityfor the analysis and interpretations presented here.     

THE EFFECT OF PROVIDER CONTROL OF BLUE SHIELD PLANS ON HEALTH CARE MARKETS

Blue Shield plans often are granted regulatory advantages by the states in which they operate. Run efficiently, such not-for-profit firms should use these lower costs to eliminate their less advantaged rivals, the commercial insurers. However, these higher-cost commercial providers have been able to offer insurance coverage at prices competitive with the Blues, as evidenced by the fact that Blue plans have, on average, less than 50 percent market share. Similar prices with lower overall costs implies that economic rents are being earned, rents which a not-for-profit firm cannot distribute to owners. In this paper we argue that when there are competing goals among the groups controlling the Blue Shield plans, the different possible "uses" of the regulatory advantage become endogenously determined, necessitating the use of simultaneous equation estimation. Testing this model we find the major effect of doctor-control of Blue Shield plans is to raise doctors' fees while lowering the amount of rents captured by both consumers and administrators.     

Relationship quality of gay men in closed or open relationships

This study compared gay men in monogamous ("closed") relationships (n = 98) and gay men in nonmonogamous ("open") relationships (n = 34). Partners in open relationships were living together significantly longer than partners in closed relationships. Partners in the two types of relationships did not differ in Psychological Adjustment. Controlling for length of time living together, partners in closed relationships reported higher Affiliation/Dependency, more Favorable Attitudes toward the Relationship, and lower Tension than partners in open relationships. Global relationship quality for both types of couples was related to many Attractions, many Barriers, and few Alternatives to the relationship; few beliefs regarding both Disagreement is Destructive and Partners Cannot Change; high Dyadic Attachment; high Shared Decision Making; and low Psychological Maladjustment. Partners in both types of relationships were more similar to each other than different from each other, especially on the variables of Relationship Quality, a belief in Partner Changeability, and Dyadic Attachment.     

Changing gender roles of Egyptian females

A high population growth rate in the Middle East is prompting investigators to look for cultural conditions and attitudes that can be encouraged to facilitate lower fertility rates. Population researchers find an inverse relationship between the educational level of females and their fertility, especially in Third World countries. This suggests that education can become an internal cultural mechanism for population control. The author explores this notion using data collected from interviews with 750 teenage girls and their mothers in Cairo, Egypt.     

Individual behavior under risk and under uncertainty: An experimental study

These experiments are concerned with individual behavior under risk and under uncertainty. By exploiting the isolation effect the experiments were able to offer to 134 subjects the possibility of actually gaining or losing an important sum of money.The experimental data show that under risk as well as under complete ignorance the subjects' attitudes towards prospects of gains and towards prospects of losses are totally unrelated.The data also show that when facing prospects of gains, the subjects generally take the exact probabilities of the events into account, whereas, when facing prospects of losses many of then have only recourse to coarser categories of plausibility, or even no longer use their information at all.     

Improving comparability of international migration statistics: contributions by the Conference of European Statisticians from 1971 to date

This article summarizes the 3 main types of interrelated activities which the Conference of European Statisticians has worked on to improve the measurement and international comparability of international migration flows. The work has encompassed collaborating with the UN Statistical Commission on the preparation and implementation of the revised international recommendations on statistics of international migration, organizing a regular exchange of data on immigration and emigration flows among the UN Economic Commission for Europe countries and selected countries in other regions, and conducting bilateral studies on international migration within the framework of the Conference's program of work in this field of statistics. The bulk of the work which has been carried out to date by the conference has been conducted rather anonymously and even unobtrusively by the staff of national statistical offices in Economic Commission for Europe countries; they have achieved a modest but important amount of progress during the past 15 years. There is reason to expect that further progress will be made over the next decade, particularly if national statistical offices in the region continue to undertake bilateral studies and endeavor to improve their migration statistics. However, more substantial progress could be achieved if additional countries and organizations established projects aimed at achieving these ends (author's modified).     

The nature and scope of international migration data in Nigeria

Nigeria, the largest country in Western Africa, has been attracting migrants from neighboring countries for the past decade or so. Although most of the movement of African migrants has occurred outside the regulatory framework set up to control migration, it is important to know the main elements of the latter to understand the likely limitations of the data collection systems currently in operation. Sources of data on international migration include censuses, arrival and departure statistics, work and resident permits, and sample surveys. The author concludes that, with the exception of information on residence and work permits, the relationship between Nigeria's data sources and the laws regulating migration is weak. Arrival and departure statistics, in particular, are not designed to distinguish migrants from all other international travellers. Lacking the political will to modify the system in accordance with internationally accepted recommendations, the prospects for increasing the usefulness of available data are grim.