Developmental Idealism and Beliefs About Marriage and Fertility in Turkey

Population Research and Policy Review - Developmental idealism (DI) contains a set of beliefs endorsing development, low fertility, and late marriage and causal connections between development,...     

How does Conflict in Migrants’ Country of Origin Affect Remittance‐Sending? Financial Priorities and Transnational Obligations Among Somalis and Pakistanis in Norway

This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants’ remittance‐sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi‐structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance‐senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in‐depth comparison to explore the differences in how Somali and Pakistani migrants decide about remittance‐sending. Second, we use survey data on all 10 migrant groups to evaluate whether the differences that are not explained by socioeconomic characteristics, may partly reflect whether or not there is ongoing conflict in the country of origin. In our analyses we differentiate between (1) the effect of migrants’capacity to remit and their prioritizing of local and transnational expenditures, and (2) the impact of state collapse and absence of human security on migrants’ and refugees’desire to remit. We find that ongoing conflict in the country of origin exerts an upward pressure on remittance‐sending.     

“It Is Not a Big Deal,I Can Do It,Too”: Influence of Parental Divorce on Professional Women's Marital Experience in Turkey

This article reports on a study of how parental divorce affects the marriage and divorce experiences of professional women in Turkey. Drawing on the retrospective accounts of eight professional women in relation to their own divorce and those of their parents, this study highlights the role of parental divorce and cultural context in adult children's attitudes, beliefs, and experiences regarding their own union formation. Based on this small qualitative sample, results demonstrate that parental divorce affected women's entire lives, with considerable impact on their commitment to marriage and view of divorce in general. They learn from their parents that marriages can be broken when they do not function properly. As a result, instead of being more patient or self- sacrificing, as is frequently advised to women in Turkish society, the women in this study readily tended toward divorce as a viable solution to marital problems.     

Health and health behaviors during the great recession: a note on drinking,smoking, obesity,and physical activity

Previous studies have shown that recessions are typically associated with better health and health behaviors. With the exception of a few recent studies however, these studies focus on sample periods that end prior to the Great Recession. The few exceptions that extend the analysis period beyond the Great Recession suggest that the pro-cyclical relationship between macroeconomic conditions and mortality obtained in earlier studies might have weakened over time. In this paper, we revisited the relationship between state unemployment rate and a large set of outcomes of health and health behaviors using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) between 1990 and 2014. Overall, our results suggest that state unemployment rate is weakly related to both health and health behaviors as our estimates are too small to have any meaningful implications, although they are largely imprecisely estimated. Finally, we tested whether the Great Recession played a significant role in influencing the pattern in the relationship between unemployment rate and health and health behaviors. Our results from this analysis do not reveal any measurable recession effect, although the estimates are again largely imprecise.     

YOUTH DEPRESSION AND FUTURE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

While the contemporaneous association between mental health problems and criminal behavior has been explored in the literature, the long‐term consequences of such problems, depression in particular, have received much less attention. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the effect of depression during adolescence on the probability of engaging in a number of criminal behaviors later in life. In our analysis, we control for a rich set of individual‐, family‐, and neighborhood‐level factors to account for conditions that may be correlated with both childhood depression and adult criminality. One novelty in our approach is the estimation of school and sibling fixed effects models to account for unobserved heterogeneity at the neighborhood and family levels. Furthermore, we exploit the longitudinal nature of our data set to account for baseline differences in criminal behavior. The empirical estimates show that adolescents who suffer from depression face a substantially increased probability of engaging in property crime. We find little evidence that adolescent depression predicts the likelihood of engaging in violent crime or the selling of illicit drugs. Our estimates imply that the lower‐bound economic cost of property crime associated with adolescent depression is approximately 227 million dollars per year. (JEL I10, K42)     

A novel Hybrid RBF Neural Networks model as a forecaster

We introduce a novel predictive statistical modeling technique called Hybrid Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (HRBF-NN) as a forecaster. HRBF-NN is a flexible forecasting technique that integrates regression trees, ridge regression, with radial basis function (RBF) neural networks (NN). We develop a new computational procedure using model selection based on information-theoretic principles as the fitness function using the genetic algorithm (GA) to carry out subset selection of best predictors. Due to the dynamic and chaotic nature of the underlying stock market process, as is well known, the task of generating economically useful stock market forecasts is difficult, if not impossible. HRBF-NN is well suited for modeling complex non-linear relationships and dependencies between the stock indices. We propose HRBF-NN as our forecaster and a predictive modeling tool to study the daily movements of stock indices. We show numerical examples to determine a predictive relationship between the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Index (ISE100) and seven other international stock market indices. We select the best subset of predictors by minimizing the information complexity (ICOMP) criterion as the fitness function within the GA. Using the best subset of variables we construct out-of-sample forecasts for the ISE100 index to determine the daily directional movements. Our results obtained demonstrate the utility and the flexibility of HRBF-NN as a clever predictive modeling tool for highly dependent and nonlinear data.     

Return Migration and Transnationalism: How Are the Two Connected?

Return migration and migrant transnationalism are key phenomena in research on international migration. Here we examine how the two are connected. The article introduces a special section and draws partly upon this selection of papers and partly upon the broader literature. First, we argue that there is often a blurred boundary between mobility as a transnational practice, for instance in the form of return visits, and purportedly permanent or long‐term return migration. Second, we examine the effects of transnationalism on return migration intentions and experiences. Third, we explore how migration trajectories, involving various forms of ‘return’ moves, create different forms of transnationalism. Examples include the ‘reverse transnational’ practices of returnees and the ‘residual transnationalism’ of migrants who have had an unsuccessful return experience and decided to settle permanently abroad. We end by considering how both return migration and transnationalism exist in the interplay between the personal and the social.     

Difficulties in Diagnosing Sexual Abuse in Children with Condyloma Acuminata in Turkey

Human papillomavirus is responsible for anogenital warts and could be regarded as an indicator of possible sexual abuse in children. A genital wart was detected during an investigation of anti–hepatitis C virus positivity in a four-year-old male patient. No pathological findings of another sexually transmitted disease were found except complete cleft palate and circumferential lesions in the perianal region. No family member was anti-hepatitis C virus positive, but the patient's uncle and his wife had genital condylomata. Although detailed physical examination uncovered no other findings indicative of sexual abuse, suspicion of abuse could not be eliminated. Therefore, we wanted to draw the attention of health professionals to the association of anogenital warts and sexual abuse.