Family size and educational attainment in England and Wales

In this paper, we use linked census data from England and Wales to investigate whether having a large number of siblings leads to lower educational attainment. There is a large literature suggesting that with large sibship size, parental resources will be diluted and this, in turn, will lead to lower educational attainment. Using twin births and the sex composition of the sibling group as instrumental variables, we find that the evidence of a family size effect on educational attainment is rather uncertain. Similar results are obtained when we use occupational attainment as the dependent variable. We also demonstrate the confounding of birth order and family size effects, and show that an adjusted birth order index proposed by Booth and Kee provides an effective solution to this estimation problem.     

“Unnatural Fornication” Cases Under State-Socialism: A Hungarian–Slovenian Comparative Social-Historical Approach

This comparative social-historical study examines different versions of state-socialist body politics manifested in Hungary and Slovenia mainly during the 1950s by using archive material of “unnatural fornication” court cases. By analyzing the available Hungarian “természet elleni fajtalanság” and Slovenian “nenaravno ob?evanje” court cases, we can shed light on how the defendants were treated by the police and the judiciary. On the basis of these archive data that have never been examined before from these angles, we can construct an at least partial picture of the practices and consequences of state surveillance of same-sex-attracted men during state-socialism. The article explores the functioning of state-socialist social control mechanisms directed at nonnormative sexualities that had long-lasting consequences on the social representation of homosexuality in both countries.     

Monte Carlo Approximations of the Quantiles of a Sample Statistic

We consider in this article the problem of numerically approximating the quantiles of a sample statistic for a given population, a problem of interest in many applications, such as bootstrap confidence intervals. The proposed Monte Carlo method can be routinely applied to handle complex problems that lack analytical results. Furthermore, the method yields estimates of the quantiles of a sample statistic of any sample size though Monte Carlo simulations for only two optimally selected sample sizes are needed. An analysis of the Monte Carlo design is performed to obtain the optimal choices of these two sample sizes and the number of simulated samples required for each sample size. Theoretical results are presented for the bias and variance of the numerical method proposed. The results developed are illustrated via simulation studies for the classical problem of estimating a bivariate linear structural relationship. It is seen that the size of the simulated samples used in the Monte Carlo method does not have to be very large and the method provides a better approximation to quantiles than those based on an asymptotic normal theory for skewed sampling distributions.     

Our population predicament: a new look

Issued to mark the Population Reference Bureau's 50th anniversary, this issue updates the story of world population presented in its popular predecessor of 1971, "Man's Population Predicament." Estimated at 1/2 billion in 1650, world population reached about 2 billion in 1930, 4 billion in 1975, and is projected to be about 6 billion in 2000. Most of today's rapid growth is occurring among the 3/4 of the world's peoples living in less developed countries where the post-World War II gap between high birth rates and falling death rates has only recently begun to narrow. This growth, coupled with high consumption in developing countries, is putting tremendous pressures on the Earth's resources, environment, and social fabric. New evidence on Europe's population transition and from China, Indonesia, and Thailand in the 1970s suggests that well-designed family planning programs can speed fertility decline but rapid worldwide attainment of replacement level fertility will also require special development efforts and measures that go beyond family planning. Current projections of the world's ultimate peak population range from 8 billion in the mid 21st century to 11 billion in about 2125, depending on when replacement-level fertility is reached. China's drive for a drastic birth rate reduction and the oil crisis might change fertility behavior more rapidly than most demographers have heretofore thought likely.     

Olympic medals as an indicator of social welfare

The relation between the amount of medals won at the Olympic games and various welfare indicators has been established for the games of Barcelona and Seoul using a Bayesian method of Poisson regression. It was found that medals won correlate strongly with income as well as with more general welfare indicators and that the elasticity with respect to the size of the population is surprisingly smaller than unity.     

Understanding the social and cultural bases of Brexit*

We use data from a large scale and nationally representative survey to evaluate two narratives about the social bases of Brexit. The first narrative sees Brexit as a revolt of the economically left-behinds. The second narrative attributes Brexit to the resurgence of an English nationalism. There is some, albeit not always consistent, evidence that people in relative poverty or those living in areas that have seen greater Chinese import penetration are slightly more pro-Leave. People living in economically deprived neighborhoods are not more pro-Brexit. Using the Weberian class–status distinction, it is social status, not social class, which stratifies Brexit support. Individuals for whom being British is important are more pro-Leave. But those who see themselves as British rather than English, and those reporting omnivorous cultural consumption are less supportive of Brexit. Overall, there is empirical support for both narratives. But the weight of the evidence suggests a strong cultural dimension in Brexit support.     

Understanding cultural omnivores: social and political attitudes

In this paper, I use data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society to investigate the social and political attitudes of cultural omnivores. I report a threefold typology of cultural consumption in the domains of music and visual arts that is consistent with previous research. Then by linking data across the two panel surveys, I show that cultural omnivores have quite a distinctive profile of social attitudes. Specifically, omnivores are more trusting and risk‐taking. They hold more favourable views about the European Union, and they tend to eschew subnational identities. Omnivores are politically more engaged. But they are not more ‘class conscious’, nor are they particularly left‐wing or right‐wing on distributional issues. When asked what is important to the sense of who they are, the two most important status‐conferring attributes, that is, profession and education, are not more salient to omnivores than to others. But omnivores are more extravert and open to new experiences. Taken together, these results suggest that omnivorousness is an expression of cosmopolitan postmaterialism rather than a new form of distinction.     

Adherence to exercise programs and determinants of maintenance in older adults with mild cognitive impairment

After a randomized controlled trial showing that improvement on some aspects of cognitive function was related to adherence to an exercise program, determinants of adherence and maintenance were further studied. Older adults with mild cognitive impairment were contacted 6 mo after the end of exercise programs for a telephone interview addressing patterns of adherence and determinants of maintenance. Mean adherence during the trial was 53%. About one third of participants had lapses during the trial but completed, one third had no lapses, and one third dropped out or never started. Practical barriers (time, location) were related to not starting and functional limitations to dropout. After the trial 25% of participants continued the programs, 14% reported intention to continue, and 61% quit. Maintenance was determined by fewer health complaints, higher satisfaction with the programs, and better adherence during the programs. Although maintenance was low, this study identified several reasons and barriers to adherence and maintenance that could be addressed.