The Attractiveness of an Additive Hazard Model: An Example from Medical Demography

With the intention of studying sociodemographic differentials in theelevated mortality from cancer, a mixed additive-multiplicativecontinuous-time hazard model with categorical covariates is suggested. Thismodel is a simple and plausible extension of the multiplicative hazard modeldemographers are well acquainted with. As an empirical example, survival fromprostate cancer among Norwegian men is examined on the basis of individualregister and census data. The model has some advantages compared to themodels based on an additive mortality structure that have previously beenused in studies of cancer survival. In other demographic research areas, itcould be an interesting alternative to the commonly employed multiplicativehazard model.     

A multilevel analysis of the effects of a reproductive health programme that encouraged informed choice of contraceptive method rather than use of officially preferred methods,China 2003–2005

Using data from the Food and Agricultural Organization and some other sources, it was estimated that rapid population growth in countries with an initial average calorie availability of below 2800 per head inhibited improvements in food production and availability per head during the 1980s and early 1990s. There were statistically significant negative effects of population growth on the growth in the production of noncereal food crops, milk, and meat, and in total food production. Because net food imports and aid shipments of cereals responded similarly, rather than acting as compensatory factors, the development in total calorie availability per head was least satisfactory in countries with the most rapid growth. A rapid increase in the number of adults of working age appeared to be no less disadvantageous than an increase in the number of children or elderly. Weaker effects were found when the entire 1970-95 period was considered. There were few indications that poverty, illiteracy, or land or water scarcity made it particularly difficult to cope with a growing population.     

The Emergence of a Positive Relation Between Education and Third Birth Rates in Norway with Supportive Evidence from the United States

Data derived from the Central Population Register of Norway and the 1988 National Survey of Families and Households show a positive association between mothers' educational level and rates of third births. Norwegian women who had a second birth during the late 1970s and had received more than 12 years of schooling gave birth to a third child more frequently than women who had only received the minimum compulsory education. Similar results were obtained for American women who had a second birth during the 1970s. Attempts to explain this positive effect of education in terms of economic status, or a differential impact of commitment to work by the mothers, have failed. It also seems that trends and variations in selection to parity 2 play a minor role.     

A Convolution Estimator for the Density of Nonlinear Regression Observations

Abstract. The problem of estimating an unknown density function has been widely studied. In this article, we present a convolution estimator for the density of the responses in a nonlinear heterogenous regression model. The rate of convergence for the mean square error of the convolution estimator is of order n ^?1 under certain regularity conditions. This is faster than the rate for the kernel density method. We derive explicit expressions for the asymptotic variance and the bias of the new estimator, and further a data‐driven bandwidth selector is proposed. We conduct simulation experiments to check the finite sample properties, and the convolution estimator performs substantially better than the kernel density estimator for well‐behaved noise densities.     

The MySocialworker app system – a pilot interview study

An app system was developed in Denmark by caseworkers and clients from three municipalities, a software company, and a University College. The app system enabled young clients to track their wellbeing, positive behaviours, disturbances in their lives, and their experiences of interventions on smartphones. Statutory caseworkers could follow the change in their client’s situation and have an overview of all their clients on a web interface. This article describes the system and the results of a pilot qualitative interview study with six young clients. Clients used the app to reflect on their lives, to set specific personal goals and to remember their goals. The young clients also used the app to monitor changes in how they had been doing overall and as a reminder to keep up specific behaviours that were counterintuitive. The app became an integral part of the young clients’ relationship with their caseworker. The app was a lens that the client and the caseworker used to explore specific aspects of the client’s life. The app itself also became a joint venture, a shared point of interest. The app strengthened the young persons’ relationship with their caseworker, but there was also concern about whether they might become too close.     

State Formation and the Politics of Regime Survival: Zimbabwe in Theoretical Perspective

This article analyses state formation in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. The main question posed is this: Why has state power eroded so dramatically? To answer this question, the development of the state is analysed in the light of general theories of state formation. In spite of a situation which according to prevailing theories was conducive for the formation of a strong state, Zimbabwe entered a downward spiral, where state power gradually eroded. To explain this, it is necessary to move beyond these theories, and analyse the changing nature of the ruling regime's constituencies. While security threats and sources of revenue are important, their impact on processes of state formation is mediated by the inter‐relationship between ruling regimes and their constituencies, which is shaped by society's class structure.     

A fixed-effects multilevel analysis of how community family structure affects individual mortality in Norway

By using register data for the entire Norwegian population aged 50-89 in the period 1980-1999, during which there were about 720,000 deaths, I estimate how the proportions of persons who were divorced or never married in the municipality affected all-cause mortality, net of individual marital status. The data include individual histories of changes in marital status and places of residence, providing a rare opportunity to enter municipality fixed effects into the model, thereby capturing the time-invariant unobserved factors at that level. The positive health externality of marriage that is suggested in the literature is supported by some of the estimates for women. Other estimates--especially those for men--point in the opposite direction. One possible interpretation of these findings is that social cohesion is perhaps not as beneficial for people's health as often claimed, at least not for both sexes. Alternatively, the results may reflect that marriage perhaps undermines rather than strengthens social cohesion, or that other mechanisms are involved-for example, those that are related to people 's perceptions of their health relative to the health of others. Estimates from models without such municipality fixed effects are markedly different, but these also shed doubt on the notion that a high proportion of unmarried persons generally increases individual mortality.     

The weak impact of female labour force participation on Norwegian third-birth rates

Individual-level retrospective data from the Family and Occupation Survey of 1988 are used to estimate the effects of various employment variables on the third-birth rates among post-war Norwegian birth cohorts. Women who appear to have a strong work orientation, and may face relatively high opportunity costs of childbearing, do not have particularly low probability of advancing to parity three. This is consistent with previous Swedish and British studies, and lends some support to the view that other factors than stronger employment preferences and increased job opportunities have been largely responsible for the “second demographic transition” in Europe.     

Volunteers and Professionals in Norwegian Sport Organizations

The mass media, politicians, and social scientists assert that there are increasing problems in recruiting volunteers to voluntary organizations. This paper investigates the situation with respect to voluntary sport organizations in a Norwegian context. The situation for voluntary and paid work is described and discussed with respect to different kinds of sport organizations. The empirical results show that voluntary work still is the foundation of most sport organizations, but that there are large differences between various types of organizations, and that voluntary work functions in complex interaction with other important economic and structural features of these organizations.