The Effects of Social Trust and Institutional Trust on Formal Volunteering and Charitable Giving in Japan

This study is part of the growing literature on the effects on civic engagement of attitudinal predictors, such as trust, along with structural predictors. Drawing data from the 2005 Japanese General Social Survey, it examines the association between trust and the probabilities of formal volunteering and charitable giving. A bivariate probit analysis of the data suggests that trust, institutional trust in particular, matters more to predict giving than volunteering. Although the number of membership affiliations is positively and significantly associated with both types of civic engagement, the association between membership affiliations and formal volunteering is significantly greater. Implications of these and other findings are discussed for future studies linking trust to civic engagement in group-collectivist societies such as Japan.     

Locally best invariant test for outliers in a gamma type distribution

It is shown that the locally best invariant test for the existence of outliers for scale parameters of the gamma distribution is given by Bartholomew's test for exponentiality which is the ratio of the sum of squares of the data to the square of the sample mean. The optimality robustness, including null and nonnull robustness of the test is shown. A small simulation study to compare the power among the other eight competitive tests for testing exponentiality is performed. It is seen that the locally best invariant test is not always best but is reasonably good. It is slightly better than Cochran's test and suffers less from the limiting masking effect.     

Neighborhood Association Participation and Formal Volunteering in Japan

We examine the effect of participation in neighborhood association (NHA) activities on volunteering using the 2010 Japanese General Social Survey data. We find that controlling for established predictors of formal volunteering such as demographic and socioeconomic variables, NHA association participation, either operationalized as a dichotomous or interval variable, positively predicts volunteering. Moreover, some of the established predictors of volunteering (e.g., marital status and associational membership) are useful in predicting NHA participation. Our results indicate a complementary relationship between volunteering and NHA participation. We discuss implications of our study for future research on community volunteering in Japan and elsewhere.     

Dynamics of Spanish-Language Neighborhoods in Chicago and Atlanta: 1990–2000

This study examines and compares how the spatial arrangements of Spanish speakers have changed over time in a traditional immigrant gateway, Chicago, and in an emerging immigrant gateway, Atlanta. Using the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census data, spatial autocorrelation analysis confirms that Spanish-language neighborhoods continue to be in the city and the suburbs of Chicago. Atlanta’s Spanish-language neighborhoods, on the other hand, are mainly located in the suburbs where major growth took place over the decade. However, Spanish-language neighborhoods in both the city and suburbs of Atlanta and Chicago share similar characteristics: higher percentages of residents who are foreign-born and limited English proficient, and households with low levels of income. While the model of spatial assimilation is still relevant to our understanding of residential patterns among contemporary immigrants and their descendants, the interpretation of findings, including those for new destinations such as Atlanta where large-scale immigration occurred after suburbanization, should place less emphasis on the central city/suburb distinction and suburban homogeneity. The growing diversity in language use among residents necessitates the provision of accessible social services and information.     

Partnership and Parenthood in Post‐transitional Societies: Will Specters Be Exorcised?

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to reconsider partnership and parenthood in post-transitional societies from the viewpoint of sociology. As is well known, after the end of the Baby Boom, albeit with variations in the tempo and the level, a considerable decline in fertility has occurred in industrialized countries. Furthermore, this decline has occurred in tandem with the transformation of partnership such as an increase in the number of cohabited couples. The causes and effects of this decline in fertility have hitherto been studied by social scientists such as economists and demographers. Although the family has been one of the main research interests for sociologists for a long while, the changes in partnership and fertility behavior in developed countries have not been sufficiently argued from the perspective of sociological theory on family. In this article, we will initially compare and contrast two changes in fertility patterns: the first of these is the fertility decline that occurred around the latter half of the nineteenth century; the second is the change that has been observed in industrialized countries since the second half of the 1960s. We will then discuss the difference between economic and ideational approaches in the explanation of partnership and fertility changes. Finally, we will examine the convergence and the divergence theories on family change. This article will conclude with an emphasis on the importance of the middle-range theories.     

A cohort analysis of female labor participation rates in the U.S. and Japan

Aggregate data of female labor participation rates in U.S. and Japan, classified by period and by age, are decomposed into age, period, and cohort effects using innovative Bayesian cohort models that were developed to overcome the identification problem in cohort analysis. The main findings are that in both countries, age effects are the largest and period effects are the smallest; in both countries, age effects are roughly consistent with life-cycle movements expected by labor economics, but the negative effects of marriage and/or childbearing on women?’s labor supply in Japan are much larger than those observed in the U.S.; and in both countries, upward movements of cohort effects during 1930s–1960s were found. However, cohort effects are larger for the U.S. than for Japan. All the cohort results are roughly consistent with the marriage squeeze hypothesis and the Easterlin hypothesis.     

Life tables for worker honeybees

Summary Life tables for worker honeybees covering all life span, and those for adults, were prepared for three seasonal cohorts,June bees, July bees andwintering bees. Survivorship curves forJune andJuly bees show a convex type being exceptional for insects, with relatively high mortality at egg and feeding larval stages and at later adult stage after most bees became potential foragers. Adult longevity greatly lengthens inWinteriing bees and survivorship curve drops approximately with the same rate. A remarkable similarity of survivorship curves for men and honeybees was demonstrated, apparently due to highly developed social care in both. Some comments were given on mortality factors. The importance of life tables for population researches was shown by applying our result to the population growth curve made byBodenheimer, based upon the data byNolan. At the asymptote of the uncorrected curve, the ratio of total population estimated by uncorrected curve to that by corrected curve reaches about 3∶2. Contribution No. 821 from the Zoological Institute, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. Contributions from JIBP-PT No. 45. This study was in part supportod by a grant in aid from the Ministry of Education for the special project research, “Studies on the dynamic status of biosphere.” Population and bioeconomic studies on the honeybee colonies. II. We express our sincere thanks to Dr. YosiakiIt?, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Tokyo, for his kind stimulation and advices to the present work.     

Cointegration Detection Using Dynamic Factor Models

A method of information-criterion-based cointegration detection using dynamic factor models is proposed. The results of the data-based and non data-based Monte Carlo simulations suggest that this method is as effective as conventional hypothesis-testing methods. In the proposed method, an observed multivariate time series is described in terms of common stochastic trends plus stationary autoregressive cycles. Then the best model is selected from among alternative models obtained by changing the number of common stochastic trends, on the basis of information criteria. Consequently, the cointegration rank is determined on the basis of the selected model. Two advantages of the proposed method are also discussed.     

Overwintering ecology of two social halictine bees,Lasioglossum duplex andL. problematicum

Summary Overwintering of two social halictine bees,Lasioglossum duplex (Dalla Torre) andL. problematicum (Blüthgen), was studied. InL. duplex many females stay near the old nests, each female preparing a hibernaculum separated from the natal nest. InL. problematicum most females overwinter communally within the natal nest. This difference in overwintering habits relates to the social structure in the next spring.L. duplex is nearly always solitary in spring although later becoming eusocial, whereas many nests ofL. problematicum are polygynous, beginning in early spring.L. duplex overwinters much deeper ( ) in the soil than doesL. problematicum ( ), but both species are safe from drops in soil temperature, which is above 0°C even in midwinter, and the bees' supercooling points are lower than −6°C. This cold resistance and the storage of sufficient food in the crop are reflected in the winter survival, which is much higher (79%) than the rate of successful nests in the spring active phase (25%). Bionomics of the eusocial halictine beeLasioglossum duplex VII. Contribution No. 2654 from the Inst. Low Temp. Sci.