When Birds of a Feather Don't Flock Together: A Macrostructural Approach to Interracial Crime

The greater prevalence of intraracial crime to interracial crime is a common finding in criminology. This issue is best understood when specific crimes are studied from a proper theoretical basis. We argue that variation in rates of cross‐racial crime is explained by homophily bias, reflected in residential segregation, in conjunction with the motivational mindset of an offender, specifically whether a crime is instrumental or expressive in nature. We hypothesize that homophily bias is stronger in expressive crimes than it is in instrumental crimes. Using the National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for 2009 and 2010, we analyze robbery and aggravated assault as instrumental and expressive crimes, respectively. The analyses show that racial residential segregation increases, as expected, the relative frequency of black intraracial assault to black interracial assault, whereas it does not affect the relative frequency in robbery. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the same variable shows little effect on the relative frequency of white intraracial to interracial assault. We give possible explanations as to why white crimes are insensitive to residential segregation.     

Location and scale parameter estimation from randomly censored data

The problem of location and scale parameter estimation from randomly censored data is analyzed through use of a regression model for the Kaplan-Meier quantlle process. Continuous time regression techniques are employed to construct estimators that are both asymptotically normal and efficient. Estimators with a particularly simple form are obtained for the Koziol-Green model for random censorship. In the event of no censoring the regression model, and resulting estimators, reduce to those proposed by Parzen (1979 a, b).     

Support for Waste Facility Siting: Differences between Community Leaders and Residents

Abstract Decisions regarding hazardous waste facility siting are now open to extensive public debate. Efforts on the part of public officials and private companies to site waste management facilities have been thwarted by public opposition. Using survey data from leaders and residents in communities which are hosting or siting facilities, this study examines their sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, levels of trust, perceptions of risk, perceptions of economic impacts, perceptions of equity issues and the differential effects of these factors on acceptance of local waste facility siting. Leaders in these communities were more supportive of local waste facility siting than were other community residents. The major determinant of leaders' acceptance of waste siting was their perceptions of the economic benefits of a facility to the community. Although this was also important to residents, perceptions of health, safety, and environmental contamination risks had larger effects on their acceptance of such facilities.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN JOB SATISFACTION

This article analyzes gender differences in job satisfaction among full-time workers. Why do women report equal or greater job satisfaction than men in spite of objectively inferior jobs? Analysis reveals few differences between men and women in the determinants of job satisfaction when considering job characteristics, family responsibilities, and personal expectations. Little support is found for theories that men and women: (1) focus on different aspects of work in arriving at a given level of job satisfaction; (2) differentially condition their job satisfaction according to the extent of their family responsibilities; and (3) employ different personal expectations in evaluating their jobs. Two alternative explanations for women's relatively positive job attitudes are considered. First, women may arrive at a higher level of job satisfaction than men by using different comparison groups. Second, men may be more willing to verbalize dissatisfaction with work because of different socialization. The most likely explanation is that these processes operate in conjunction to produce greater reported job satisfaction among women.     

The Effects of Marital and Nonmarital Union Transition on Health

This study examines the effects of marital and nonmarital union transition on health. Utilizing Canadian longitudinal data, we find that exiting both marriage and cohabitation seems to have similar effects: Dissolving either union tends to be associated with a decrease in physical health, mental health, or both. With possible selection effects eliminated and protection effects held constant, we find that remaining in either type of union generally is associated with poorer health. We speculate that decreased union quality may account for this inverse relationship, and that protection effects may explain much of the reported health gains associated with union life.     

The Mental Health of the Childless Elderly

The substantial number of childless elderly in Canada and the United States raises important concerns about the nature of their family support, as well as their psychological well-being. Although the (mixed) effects of childlessness on the mental health of the elderly are well documented in the literature, little is known about the social distribution of psychological distress and depression within this population: how well the childless elderly live, the status of their mental health, and what factors affect their psychological well-being are all crucial questions that remain unanswered. This paper utilizes Pearlin et al.'s (1981) stress process model to examine psychological distress and depression among the childless elderly. Our empirical analysis uses a nationally representative sample of childless individuals aged 55 and over ( N = 2,311) from the 1996-1997 National Population Health Survey (NPHS), and generalized linear model (GLM) techniques. Generally, our results support the stress process model. We find that individual-level stressors exert a strong and consistently negative impact on psychological distress and depression. We also find significant buffering effects of (perceived) social support.     

Defrocking dualism: A new approach to defining industrial sectors

In this paper we argue that a division of the economy into core and periphery sectors does not do justice to the complexity of the structure of the U.S. economy. The dualistic approach is inadequate both theoretically and empirically. While the dual economy literature has utilized multiple concepts it has conceived of them as forming a single dimension. We develop additional concepts from the complex organizations literature and utilize this enlarged set of concepts in a truly multidimensional framework. We also present a new technique of categorization based on a combination of factor and cluster analyses. The resulting categorization is highly interpretable, and it is superior to previous operationalizations in that it fully reflects the multidimensionality of economic segmentation.     

A Half Century of Mate Preferences: The Cultural Evolution of Values

The qualities people believe are important in selecting a marriage partner afford one domain for assessing human values. We examined the cultural evolution of these values over more than half a century. Building on existing data on mate preferences collected in 1939 (N= 628 ), 1956 (N= 120 ), 1967 (N= 566 ), and 1977 (N= 316 ), we collected data using the same instrument in 1984/1985 (N= 1,496 ) and in 1996 (N= 607 ) at geographically diverse locations. Several changes in values were documented across the 57‐year span. Both sexes increased the importance they attach to physical attractiveness in a mate. Both sexes, but especially men, increased the importance they attach to mates with good financial prospects. Domestic skills in a partner plummeted in importance for men. Mutual attraction and love climbed in importance for both sexes. The sexes converged in the ordering of the importance of different mate qualities, showing maximum similarity in 1996. Discussion speculates about causes of the cultural evolution of values.