Vocational Status,Hukou and Housing Migrants in the New Century: Evidence from a Multi-city Study of Housing Inequality

In the 1960s and 1970s, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union experienced an unanticipated stagnation in the process of mortality reduction that was accelerating in the west. This was followed by even starker fluctuations and overall declines in life expectancy during the 1980s and 1990s. We identify statistically the extent to which, since the 1990s, the countries of the post-communist region have converged as a group towards other regional or cross-regional geopolitical blocks, or whether there are now multiple steady-states (‘convergence clubs’) emerging among these countries. We apply a complex convergence club methodology, including a recursive analysis, to data on 30 OECD countries (including 11 post-communist countries) drawn from the Human Mortality Database and spanning the period 1959–2010. We find that, rather than converging uniformly on western life expectancy levels, the post-communist countries have diverged into multiple clubs, with the lowest seemingly stuck in low-level equilibria, while the best performers (e.g. Czech Republic) show signs of catching-up with the leading OECD countries. As the post-communist period has progressed, the group of transition countries themselves has become more heterogeneous and it is noticeable that distinctive gender and age patterns have emerged. We are the first to employ an empirical convergence club methodology to help understand the complex long-run patterns of life expectancy within the post-communist region, one of very few papers to situate such an analysis in the context of the OECD countries, and one of relatively few to interpret the dynamics over the long-term.     

Midwifery management of second-degree perineal tears in New Zealand: A cross-sectional survey of practice

Background

Second-degree tears are the most common form of perineal trauma occurring after vaginal birth managed by New Zealand midwives, although little is known about midwives’ perineal practice.

Female fertility history and mid-late-life health: Findings from China

China’s middle-aged and older women suffer from poorer health than men. Using national baseline data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a survey conducted from 2011 to 2012, this article applies logistic models to investigate the association between female fertility history (parity, early childbearing, late childbearing) and middle-aged and late-life health. We find that parity is related to the mid-late-life health of women. Women with four children or more are more likely to suffer from activities of daily living (ADL) impairment and poorer self-rated health than those with one to three children. Early childbearing is associated with ADL impairment; however, the correlation is mediated by socioeconomic status. Early childbearing is related to self-rated health in later life by an indirect-only mediation effect via educational attainment and personal income.     

自媒体时代“网络话语权”的二元结构解析与规制

自媒体的出现修正了媒体资源分布失衡的弊端,促使个体身份发生角色转变,进而使话语权的行使形成了“话语权利”与“话语权力”两个维度.前者是言论自由在网络空间的体现,后者是个人言论衍生为媒体式表达后形成的超个体权力.“话语权利”的行使应当受国家对言论自由所设的界限限制,“话语权力”的赋予则使自媒体成为国家新闻管理体制下的“准媒体”,其作为互联网新闻信息服务提供者,应当受到约束与规制.     

自媒体时代童书出版社群营销的逻辑研究

近年来,众多专营童书出版及分享推广的微信公众号开始崛起并引发大量关注.以微信公众号为例,从自媒体童书出版的社群营销这一角度入手,试图探讨自媒体童书出版社群营销的逻辑.研究认为,以“趣缘群体”为核心建构的社群以及通过人格化的意见领袖而形成的凝聚力,是童书社群营销的基础;社群的认同感以及由此引发的消费行为,是童书社群营销的核心:通过社群内部成员的分享和交流而建构认同感,从而让成员的消费意愿在不知不觉中得以产生,改变了传统图书“硬广告”的生硬之感;而社群的维护和发展则主要通过注重人际传播与群体传播、鼓励核心成员分享互惠、保持社群黏性以及强化意见领袖的“人格背书”等方式来促进童书出版社群营销的可生长点.     

经典剧作的对外传播与中国国家形象建构

经典剧作是我国优秀传统文化的代表,是中国人民智慧的结晶,也是中华民族优良品德的集中体现。做好经典剧作的对外传播,有利于将客观、真实的中国介绍给世界,消除个别国家对我国国家形象的误解,对于我国的社会主义现代化进程和在国际社会树立良好的大国形象,具有积极的推动作用。     

Divorce Chinese Style

This study investigated divorce during China's social and economic transformation period from 1970 to 2012. Specifically, the study examined the trend development of divorce and demonstrated how marriage formation type and individual socioeconomic characteristics were associated with the likelihood of divorce across time. Event‐history analysis was applied to longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010–2012 waves). The results showed a threefold increase in divorce from the pre‐1990s to the 1990s. Surprisingly, the trend shifted to a plateau toward the 2000s. When cohabitation was in its rapidly diffusing stage in the 1990s, individuals who cohabited prior to marriage had a substantially higher likelihood of divorce. As cohabitation became increasingly common in the 2000s, its effect on divorce weakened. The role of socioeconomic characteristics in divorce also varied across time. This study enriches the knowledge of family dynamics in contemporary Chinese society.     

HORIZONTAL MERGERS IN THE PRESENCE OF CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS

We examine a merger between two competitors in a Bertrand‐Edgeworth model. We find that the effects of merger depend on the tightness of capacity constraints. The combination of two firms has no price effect if and only if the capacity constraints of all firms are binding both before and after the merger. However, a merger may turn a binding capacity constraint into a slack one, which results in higher prices. In an industry where excess capacity drives the premerger prices of all firms to the marginal cost, a merger may cause prices to rise even though aggregate capacity remains constant. (JEL L13, L40)     

Relation between the skew-rank of an oriented graph and the independence number of its underlying graph

An oriented graph \(G^\sigma \) is a digraph without loops or multiple arcs whose underlying graph is G. Let \(S\left( G^\sigma \right) \) be the skew-adjacency matrix of \(G^\sigma \) and \(\alpha (G)\) be the independence number of G. The rank of \(S(G^\sigma )\) is called the skew-rank of \(G^\sigma \), denoted by \(sr(G^\sigma )\). Wong et al. (Eur J Comb 54:76–86, 2016) studied the relationship between the skew-rank of an oriented graph and the rank of its underlying graph. In this paper, the correlation involving the skew-rank, the independence number, and some other parameters are considered. First we show that \(sr(G^\sigma )+2\alpha (G)\geqslant 2|V_G|-2d(G)\), where \(|V_G|\) is the order of G and d(G) is the dimension of cycle space of G. We also obtain sharp lower bounds for \(sr(G^\sigma )+\alpha (G),\, sr(G^\sigma )-\alpha (G)\), \(sr(G^\sigma )/\alpha (G)\) and characterize all corresponding extremal graphs.