International Conference on Population Aging. Keynote address

This is the keynote address of H.E.Dr. Vincent Tabone, President of Malta, at the International Conference on Aging, which was held in San Diego in September 1992. He states that the conference celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Vienna International Plan of Action, and provides an opportunity to evaluate progress and plan future direction. Dr. Tabone, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, first introduced the question of aging at the UN General Assembly over twenty years ago; the United Nations Secretariat established its first program in the field of aging in 1970. At the World Assembly on Aging in 1982, all members adopted the International Plan of Action, which defined guidelines for policies and programs in support of the aging populations. As a direct result of this, and in support of the needs of developing countries, the UN signed an agreement with the government of Malta that established the International Institute on Aging as an autonomous body under the auspices of the UN; it is the major expression of the Vienna Plan of Action. Concern for aging populations has developed enough maturity and momentum to oversee its own progress. Although current events may relegate the social and economic implications of the aged to the sphere of rhetoric, they demand thinking in terms of generations and transcend all political boundaries. This conference will evaluate progress toward deflecting a situation where the elderly constitute an increasing proportion of the population, without adequate and appropriate provision for their livelihood, and could have direct bearing on encouraging and ensuring the continuity of the family's vital and traditional role in preserving the dignity, status, and well-being of its aging members. A nation which begrudges its dues to the elderly, the successful products of society and triumphs of life, denies its past. This conference is a reaffirmation of commitment to the United Nations Principles for Older Persons, an omen of the review of the Global Targets on Aging for the year 2001 by the General Assembly at its forty-seventh session in October, and a stepping stone in the path toward integrating the elderly more fully into the mainstream of society. The year 1992 is a year for solidarity between the generations.     

HIV testing of health care workers

Until recently, nothing much beyond education and the dispensing of condoms was being done to control the spread of AIDS. We have not yet taken sufficient measures to prevent the spread of this disease. Instead, we insist on protecting the privacy of the HIV-positive individual. However, we ignore the right to privacy by mandating testing for syphilis, which is not nearly as serious a disease as AIDS. Now, mandatory testing of health care workers is being proposed more frequently.     

Immigrant fertility: an examination of social characteristics and assimilation

"This study compares the fertility patterns of foreign-born and native-born women in Canada and examines whether [the] same set of social characteristics accounts for differential fertility among both the groups. The study also assesses the importance of social characteristics and assimilation on immigrant fertility behavior. Two generations of currently married/cohabiting women with spouse present are analyzed using multiple regressions. The results reveal similar effects on fertility of social characteristics for foreign-born and native-born, while in the case of younger generations the effects are stronger."     

Socio-demographic interests of the population during the transition to a market economy

These are the results of a 1971 survey on reproductive behavior in the former Soviet Union. The survey covered 3,152 women aged 16 or over living in rural or urban areas. Questions were included on ideal, desired, and expected number of children. The results indicate that low fertility expectations characterize the majority of the population and that current political and economic problems are likely to push expected fertility even lower. Significant differences between rural and urban populations and among regions are identified.     

Complete censuses and samples

"Complete decennial censuses are needed for small areas and other domains. Sample surveys yield diverse and timely data. Censuses can also be combined with samples, and sometimes with data from registers, for diverse estimates that are detailed over both space and time, and hence are timely for small domains. Methods of 'postcensal estimates' for small domains are described. We note uses of censuses for improving samples and of samples for improving censuses, and propose a method for cumulating data from 'rolling' (or rotating) periodic (weekly, monthly or quarterly) samples specifically designed to cover the population in detail over designed spans (annual and quinquennial)."     

How bad can a voting location be

Two questions concerning the location of a single facility by a voting process are investigated for transportation networks:

- What is the maximum number of customers located on the network preferring some rival point over a voting solution?

- How does the average distance of the customers to the facility increase when a voting location instead of a Weber location is chosen for the facility?

Complete answers are given for general networks and for certain planar networks, viz., the so-called generalized cacti.     

The Philippine national recording systems on international migration

The author reviews migration data sources and government collection agencies in the Philippines. He finds that "despite the importance of international migration for national policy, efforts to correct the serious data limitations in the area of migration statistics have been limited and uncoordinated. In fact, most estimates of emigration levels from the Philippines still rely heavily on the data gathered by receiving countries."     

Leveraging middle managers’ brokerage for corporate entrepreneurship: The role of multilevel social capital configurations

Building on recent efforts to bring a socio-political perspective to social capital research, we develop and test a multilevel framework that explains why middle managers who occupy brokerage positions differ in their ability and willingness to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. More specifically, we provide a contextualized understanding of the links among middle managers' brokerage, their political-support ties, and their personal initiative. Results derived from data on 383 middle managers and 72 top managers in 34 business units indicate that political-support ties with top managers strengthen the relationship between middle managers’ brokerage and personal initiative. However, this positive effect depends on the social capital resources available in the focal business unit. It is attenuated in business units with a supportive and trusting social context and amplified in business units with high levels of internal connectedness. By uncovering these incompatibilities and complementarities, our study demonstrates the value of accounting for different social capital configurations and the interplay of their inherent social capital resources when examining the effects of brokerage on corporate entrepreneurship.