How the local supply of day-care centers influences fertility in Norway: A parity-specific approach

In order to assess how expansion of day care facilities affects fertility, the Norwegian Family and Occupation Survey of 1988 was linked with individual register-based migration histories and time-series data on day-care coverage rates in all Norwegian municipalities. Many factors affect both the allocation of resources to day-care centers and a woman's probability of giving birth. The local coverage rate is positively associated with the probability of advancing from parity two, after control for geographical region, degree of urbanization and other confounders. This effect of day-care supply, which is significant at low coverage levels, contributed to a moderate rise in third-birth rates after the mid-1970s. However, if the aggregate employment rate for women is also regarded as a confounder, the effect of day care may actually be insignificant. Moreover, the effect fades at higher coverage levels. Finally, there are indications that second- and first-birth probabilities decline with increasing provision of day care. These results suggest that further efforts to improve the supply of private and public day care - which in Norway are likely to be motivated by non-demographic concerns - will have little stimulating effect on fertility, at least if the subsidies and quality of care remain unchanged.     

Bayesian analysis of spatial point processes in the neighbourhood of Voronoi networks

A model for an inhomogeneous Poisson process with high intensity near the edges of a Voronoi tessellation in 2D or 3D is proposed. The model is analysed in a Bayesian setting with priors on nuclei of the Voronoi tessellation and other model parameters. An MCMC algorithm is constructed to sample from the posterior, which contains information about the unobserved Voronoi tessellation and the model parameters. A major element of the MCMC algorithm is the reconstruction of the Voronoi tessellation after a proposed local change of the tessellation. A simulation study and examples of applications from biology (animal territories) and material science (alumina grain structure) are presented.     

ANOVA for unbalanced data: Use Type II instead of Type III sums of squares

Methods for analyzing unbalanced factorial designs can be traced back to Yates (1934). Today, most major statistical programs perform, by default, unbalanced ANOVA based on Type III sums of squares (Yates's weighted squares of means). As criticized by Nelder and Lane (1995), this analysis is founded on unrealistic models—models with interactions, but without all corresponding main effects. The Type II analysis (Yates's method of fitting constants) is usually not preferred because of the underlying assumption of no interactions. This argument is, however, also founded on unrealistic models. Furthermore, by considering the power of the two methods, it is clear that Type II is preferable.     

Goodness‐of‐Fit based on Downsampling with Applications to Linear Drift Diffusions

Abstract. A goodness‐of‐fit test for continuous‐time models is developed that examines if the parameter estimates are consistent with another for different sampling frequencies. The test compares parameter estimates obtained from estimating functions for downsamples of the data. We prove asymptotic results for stationary and ergodic processes, and apply the downsampling test to linear drift diffusions. Simulations indicate that the test is quite powerful in detecting non‐Markovian deviations from the linear drift diffusions.     

Simultaneous Credible Bands for Latent Gaussian Models

Abstract. Deterministic Bayesian inference for latent Gaussian models has recently become available using integrated nested Laplace approximations (INLA). Applying the INLA‐methodology, marginal estimates for elements of the latent field can be computed efficiently, providing relevant summary statistics like posterior means, variances and pointwise credible intervals. In this article, we extend the use of INLA to joint inference and present an algorithm to derive analytical simultaneous credible bands for subsets of the latent field. The algorithm is based on approximating the joint distribution of the subsets by multivariate Gaussian mixtures. Additionally, we present a saddlepoint approximation to compute Bayesian contour probabilities, representing the posterior support of fixed parameter vectors of interest. We perform a simulation study and apply the given methods to two real examples.     

Mental and Physical Health Trajectories of Norwegian Parents and Children before and after Union Dissolution

The aim was to examine the mental and physical health trajectories of mothers, fathers, and children before and after union dissolution. Register data covering the entire Norwegian population, and including information on consultations with general practitioners in 2006–2018, were used. Constant unobserved characteristics were controlled for with individual fixed effects. As judged by the number of consultations, mothers’ and fathers’ mental health deteriorates before the dissolution but improves immediately afterwards. In contrast, a worsening mental health among children before the dissolution is followed by an even more adverse development afterwards. There is only modest evidence of predissolution increases in noninfectious physical diseases, but more clearly rising numbers afterwards especially for mothers and daughters. Less adverse trends are seen for infections, although mothers experience a sharp temporary increase at the breakup time. On the whole, mothers’ health is more adversely affected by dissolution than that of fathers. Daughters may have a disadvantage compared to sons, but results vary across model specifications. The results suggest that effects on children's health do not operate through parents’ health. With respect to union type, the health changes before and after dissolution of a consensual union are not very different from those before and after marital separation.     

Child-care availability and fertility in Norway

The child-care and fertility hypothesis has been in the literature for a long time and is straightforward: As child care becomes more available, affordable, and acceptable, the antinatalist effects of increased female educational attainment and work opportunities decrease. As an increasing number of countries express concern about low fertility, the child-care and fertility hypothesis takes on increased importance. Yet data and statistical limitations have heretofore limited empirical tests of the hypothesis. Using rich longitudinal data and appropriate statistical methodology, We show that increased availability of child care increases completed fertility. Moreover, this positive effect of child-care availability is found at every parity transition. We discuss the generalizability of these results to other settings and their broader importance for understanding variation and trends in low fertility.     

The relationship between religious education and intercultural education

ABSTRACT

Religious education and intercultural education are seen by some to be in tension with each other, and by others as two sides of the same coin. The explanations for this unsettled relationship may be found in the different histories of the two fields. Intercultural education has become a cross curricular priority, resulting from rather recent developments marked by cultural complexity, following globalisation and migration processes of the last 50 years or so. Religious education has a long history of being a distinct school subject, much influenced by differing national and religious cultural heritages and which, during the last half century, has begun to address the issues of religious and world view diversity. In several countries today, religious education in the publicly funded school is conceived as non-confessional and deals with a diversity of religions and world views. Religious education may be the subject where socio-cultural differences are most visible and where the challenges of diversity are put to the test. This raises a series of challenges to curriculum designers and teachers in classrooms; the article will address some of them and suggest ways forward for teacher education and school practice.     

Child mortality in India: the community-level effect of education

When assessing the health benefits of increased education in less developed countries, many researchers have been concerned about the omission of important determinants of an individual's education from the models. The study presented here shows that one should also be concerned about the limitations of the individual-level perspective. According to a multilevel discrete-time hazard model estimated with data from the National Family Health Survey II, the average education of women in a census enumeration area has a strong impact on child mortality, in addition to the effect of the mother's own education. The lower child mortality associated with women's autonomy is taken into account in this estimation. Results from similar models for various health and health-care variables suggest that the effect of community education, like that of individual education, operates through the use of maternity services and other preventive health services, the child's nutrition, and the mother's care for a sick child.