Measuring Geographic Migration Patterns Using <Emphasis Type="Italic">Matrículas Consulares</Emphasis>

In this article, we show how to use administrative data from the Matrícula Consular de Alta Seguridad (MCAS) identification card program to measure the joint distribution of sending and receiving locations for migrants from Mexico to the United States. Whereas other data sources cover only a small fraction of source or destination locations or include only very coarse geographic information, the MCAS data provide complete geographic coverage of both countries, detailed information on migrants’ sources and destinations, and a very large sample size. We first confirm the quality and representativeness of the MCAS data by comparing them with well-known household surveys in Mexico and the United States, finding strong agreement on the migrant location distributions available across data sets. We then document substantial differences in the mix of destinations for migrants from different places within the same source state, demonstrating the importance of detailed substate geographical information. We conclude with an example of how these detailed data can be used to study the effects of destination-specific conditions on migration patterns. We find that an Arizona law reducing employment opportunities for unauthorized migrants decreased emigration from and increased return migration to Mexican source regions with strong initial ties to Arizona.     

States and the nuclear power. An international perspective

This paper analyzes the evolution of public policies on nuclear energy from an international perspective highlighting an interesting sociological paradox: the opposition to nuclear power contributed to the development of the environmental movement; and at present, the promoters of this kind of energy are including environmental arguments in their discourses, the fear of climate change and the reduction of CO₂. Although the Kyoto Protocol does not accept this kind of energy as a clean development mechanism (CDM), its promotion is carried out on the basis of environment objectives, so that the nuclear lobby is obtaining more social acceptation thanks to the environmental discourse in the last four decades. For this research, the nuclear policies at an international level are analyzed inside a wider research about the nuclear debate financed by Encuentro Foundation (Spain).     

What's in a name? An exploration of the significance of personal naming of ‘mixed’ children for parents from different racial,ethnic and faith backgrounds

This article is concerned with how and why parent couples from different racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds choose their children's personal names? The limited literature on the topic of names often focuses on outcomes, using birth name registration data sets, rather than process. In particular, we consider the extent to which the personal names that ‘mixed’ couples give their children represent an individualised taste, or reflect a form of collective affiliation to family, race, ethnicity or faith. We place this discussion in the context of debates about the racial and faith affiliation of ‘mixed’ people, positing various forms of ‘pro’ or ‘post’ collective identity. We draw on in‐depth interview data to show that, in the case of ‘mixed’ couple parents, while most wanted names for their children that they liked, they also wanted names that symbolised their children's heritages. This could involve parents in complicated practices concerning who was involved in naming the children and what those names were. We conclude that, for a full understanding of naming practices and the extent to which these are individualised or affiliative it is important to address process, and that the processes we have identified for ‘mixed’ parents reveal the persistence of collective identity associated with race, ethnicity and faith alongside elements of individualised taste and transcendence, as well as some gendered features.     

Formulating waste management strategies based on waste management practices of households in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Rapid urbanisation, population growth and changes in lifestyles in low- and middle-income countries contribute to increasing the per capita domestic waste generation. This trend leads to deplorable environmental and public health conditions, especially in rapidly expanding cities of low- and middle-income countries lacking appropriate waste management systems, Santiago de Cuba is no exception. To improve solid waste management in the city of Santiago de Cuba, the generation of household waste was studied and individual waste treatment approaches were assessed. The principle of a household level analysis was adopted to enable the development of strategies based on the specific conditions of households, their awareness and needs.In February 2004, a survey covering 1180 households was conducted on issues such as monthly consumed goods, waste generated and its treatment. The waste generated by the households was subsequently assessed by means of a measuring campaign. The measured volume not only comprised the collected waste fraction but also the waste materials treated on-site or recovered and recycled by all the different means available.The paper contains the results of the composition and distribution of the waste generated by the households as a function of socio-demographic data. Furthermore, the paper describes the various household treatment strategies dependent on specific waste material types. Several types of household waste can be differentiated by statistical cluster analysis. These household types are characterised not only by the amount of waste generated but also by socio-economic status and waste treatment practices. The results obtained are used to develop a range of waste management strategies, each relating to a household type and characterised by its generated amount, waste material type and spatial urban distribution. Since the strategies are adapted to the requirements and needs of the households, they are more readily accepted by the population concerned. Such socially anchored strategies will contribute to improving the waste situation in the city of Santiago de Cuba and allow an optimised allocation of local resources.     

Sustainability Ranking for Cuban Tourist Destinations Based on Composite Indexes

This investigation approaches the levels and the predictors of loneliness among migrant youths from returned migrant families from France to Portugal. Three research questions guided the study: (1) Does loneliness of migrant youths differ from those who have never migrated? (2) Are migrant youths’ re-acculturation factors related to their loneliness? (3) Is the adaptation of migrant youths linked to their loneliness? The answer to these questions is important to improve migrant youths’ re-acculturation experiences and their adaptation. The sample included 222 youths from returned migrant families from France. Participants completed the brief Portuguese version of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-6), in addition to measures of re-acculturation and adaptation. A control group comprised of 211 Portuguese adolescents who have never migrated was also involved in the investigation. Youths from returned migrant families showed lower levels of loneliness than their native Portuguese counterparts who have never migrated. Demographic, re-acculturation, and adaptation factors were significantly related to adolescents’ loneliness. Major predictors of loneliness were age at return, contacts with peers without migratory experience, perceived discrimination, stressful adaptation experience, and satisfaction with life.     

Mantel test for spatial functional data

Statistics for spatial functional data is an emerging field in statistics which combines methods of spatial statistics and functional data analysis to model spatially correlated functional data. Checking for spatial autocorrelation is an important step in the statistical analysis of spatial data. Several statistics to achieve this goal have been proposed. The test based on the Mantel statistic is widely known and used in this context. This paper proposes an application of this test to the case of spatial functional data. Although we focus particularly on geostatistical functional data, that is functional data observed in a region with spatial continuity, the test proposed can also be applied with functional data which can be measured on a discrete set of areas of a region (areal functional data) by defining properly the distance between the areas. Based on two simulation studies, we show that the proposed test has a good performance. We illustrate the methodology by applying it to an agronomic data set.     

A spatial randomness test based on the box-counting dimension

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - Statistical modelling of a spatial point pattern often begins by testing the hypothesis of spatial randomness. Classical tests are based on quadrat counts...