The Selection Theory of Persisting Party Advantages in Russia: More Evidence and Implications

Rona-Tas and Guseva (2001) present four criticisms of the “selection theory” explaining why former Communist Party members do better in post-Soviet Russia. None of their criticisms constitute definitive evidence against the selection theory. However, they raise reasonable doubts regarding the timing of the survey and the specification of the model used to empirically confirm the theory in my original article (Gerber, 2000a). These doubts are laid to rest based on a range of empirical evidence, including a new analysis of survey data collected in 2000. The selection theory remains the most compelling and empirically substantiated explanation of the success of former Communist Party members in post-Soviet Russia. The theory points to previously overlooked similarities in stratification processes in state socialist and capitalist societies.     

Immigrant Remittances,Stability of Employment and Relative Deprivation

This paper examines the factors affecting immigrant remittances on the basis of the experience of immigrants to Greece. In addition to factors commonly used in similar analyses, we examine two new ones: stability of employment and relative deprivation. Our results show that the stability of employment has no significant effect on the decision to remit, while relative deprivation does. Immigrants from less relatively deprived families are more likely to send money back home. As for their effects on the size of remittances, our results show that the relative deprivation variable is insignificant, while those in steady jobs remit less money than those employed in unsteady jobs. The latter finding suggests that fluctuations in migrant employment and migrant income are borne by migrants themselves, whose goal appears to be to secure a steady flow of remittances to country of origin. This type of remittance behaviour has implications for the interpretation of volatility in remittance flows to migrant–sending countries. Specifically, variation in flows may be attributable to changes in the numbers of migrants and not only to changes in the economic and employment conditions in destination countries.     

Social Class Correlates of Stability and Change in Levels of Alienation: a Longitudinal Study

Identical allenation items were used on questionnaires administered to 334 subjects in 1963 and again in 1971. Drawing upon the variables of powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, and social isolation, an analysis was made of stability and change in alienation scores. The direction of change was toward disproportionate increases over decreases, with the largest increase occurring for normlessness. Differential educational and occupational status, along with other social characteristics, were examined for sources of subsequent change in different measures of alienation. The results indicated significant differences in levels of alienation by socioeconomic variables at the two points in time. The amount of change, however, was not differentiated by changes in socioeconomic characteristics.     

Economic Dependence,Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains “women's work.” As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender‐specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that the phenomenon is more likely one of deviance neutralization than of gender display.     

Mobility plans and mobility behavior: Convergences and divergences in Thailand

Using Thai data, this paper develops and tests a model of rural-urban mobility behavior in a context dominated by high levels of circular rural-urban mobility. With mobility plans and mobility behavior measured in analogous ways, a close correspondence between mobility plans and mobility behavior is found. In spite of this close correspondence, however, multivariate analysis shows that past mobility behavior—rather than mobility plans—is the most important predictor of subsequent mobility. Where experience with a given type of behavior is abundant, prior behavior may often be the best predictor of subsequent behavior, but where experience with a given type of behavior is scarce, behavioral intentions may be a more relevant explanatory variable.The research reported here was funded by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations' Research Program on Population and Development Policy (RF 77065; Allocation 164). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the section on migration strategies, migration intentions, and migration decisions at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 3–5, 1984.     

Fertility decision making,unintended births,and the social drift hypothesis: A longitudinal study

To explore relationships between fertility intentions and subsequent childbearing, data were collected from 334 mothers in a metropolitan area in 1963 and again in 1971, allowing for a time interval of eight years for testing a series of hypotheses on fertility control. The results suggested that social psychological obstacles to decision making should be taken into account as potential qualifiers of the more rational models of fertility behavior currently prevalent in the literature. The alienation variable of meaninglessness was examined in conjunction with education, age at marriage, marital duration, and previous parity. The analyses indicated that pregnancies for many women are experienced as occurrences, happenings, or unintended events within a social psychological context of social drift.Research support pursuant to contract NIH-71-2028 with the Center for Population Research, NICHD, is gratefully acknowledged, as is the assistance of David W. Chilson in the processing of the data. Request reprints from either author, Sociology Department, Bowling Green University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403.     

A social-psychological analysis of residential electricity consumption: the impact of minimal justification techniques

To explore the impact of the foot-in-the-door technique on residential energy conservation 66 homeowners were asked to curtail their consumption of electricity by 10%. In the Foot-in-the-Door condition this target request was preceded by a more moderate one to answer a short energy conservation questionnaire. Homeowners in the Second Request Only condition simply received the conservation request while those in the First Request Only condition received the questionnaire alone. These groups were compared to a Control group of homeowners who were never asked to comply to either request. The groups did not differ in electricity consumption during the 2 week baseline period or in their percentage change from baseline during the 4 week request period. However, throughout the 12 week follow-up period homeowners in all three request groups consumed significantly less electricity than Controls. In addition, the Foot-in-the-Door group contained significantly more Conservers than any other group. These findings were contrasted with the results of behavioral energy studies emphasizing strong external justifications. The implications of minimal justification techniques for producing long-term maintenance of energy conserving behaviors and for promoting their occurrence across a large population of individuals were also discussed.     

ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTENT ANALYSIS OF COUPLE AND THERAPIST PERCEPTIONS IN A REFLECTING TEAM SETTING*

An ethnographic content analysis was used to examine couple and therapist perspectives about the use and value of reflecting team practice. Postsession ethnographic interviews form both couples and therapists were examined for the frequency of themes in seven categories that emerged form a previous ethnographic study of reflecting teams (Sells, Smith, Coe, Yoshioka, & Robbins, 1994). The study demonstrated that quantitative numerical data and qualitiative narrative data can examine the same phenomenon from multiple perspecrives and allow for greater accuracy and stability in study findings. Ethnographic content analysis is briefly cosntrasted with conventional modes of quantitative cosntent analysis to illustrate its usefulness and rationale for discovering emergent patterns, themes, emphases, and process using both inductive and deductive methods of inquiry.