Echoes of the baby boom and bust: Recent and prospective changes in living alone among elderly widows in the united states

Today the great majority of noninstitutionalized elderly widows live alone, a striking increase from a quarter-century ago. A noticeable difference has occurred, however, in trends by age; the proportion of the young-old widows living alone is starting to decline. while that of the old-old continues to increase. We use a model suggested by earlier studies to explain the emergence of this difference, and assess the prospects of its continuing over the next three decades. We find that the recent differential change in the proportions of younger and older widows living alone is due primarily to a differential change in kin availability that has emerged as the baby boomers’ parents have begun to reach retirement age. Over the next decade, the same type of differential change by age in kin availability will continue; living alone is likely to become less common among young-old than among old-old widows, in a reversal of the pattern of the last quarter-century. In the first two decades of the next century, as the baby boom affects kin availability among the old-old, and as the subsequent baby bust affects that among the young-old, the age pattern of living arrangements among elderly widows will reverse once again.     

Refugees: On the Economics of Political Migration

Unless literally forced to leave, prospective refugees have a choice between staying and flight, subject to constraints, particularly the willingness of a country to grant asylum. Although all options may be unpleasant, they nonetheless represent alternatives amenable to economic analysis. The incentive to flee is a function of threat severity and credibility, and the attractiveness of available safe havens. The theoretical analysis suggests that restrictive asylum policies have little impact on demand for asylum, except in the interplay with other factors, such as costs of flight and retribution against unsuccessful refugees. While the case of bogus refugees has received much attention in the popular literature, this article shows that threatened individuals may choose emigration instead of flight if there are repercussions associated with refugee status. The article also analyzes the case of bogus refugees.     

Another characterization of the weibull distribution

A necessary and sufficient condition is given that an absolutely continuous positive random variable follow a Weibull distribution. The condition Is based on some functions of order statistics.     

Exemplar or matching: modeling DCJ problems with unequal content genome data

The edit distance under the DCJ model can be computed in linear time for genomes with equal content or with Indels. But it becomes NP-Hard in the presence of duplications, a problem largely unsolved especially when Indels (i.e., insertions and deletions) are considered. In this paper, we compare two mainstream methods to deal with duplications and associate them with Indels: one by deletion, namely DCJ-Indel-Exemplar distance; versus the other by gene matching, namely DCJ-Indel-Matching distance. We design branch-and-bound algorithms with set of optimization methods to compute exact distances for both. Furthermore, median problems are discussed in alignment with both of these distance methods, which are to find a median genome that minimizes distances between itself and three given genomes. Lin–Kernighan heuristic is leveraged and powered up by sub-graph decomposition and search space reduction technologies to handle median computation. A wide range of experiments are conducted on synthetic data sets and real data sets to exhibit pros and cons of these two distance metrics per se, as well as putting them in the median computation scenario.     

Divorced Parents’ Qualitative and Quantitative Reports of Children's Living Arrangements

We use data from a sample of divorced parents in Wisconsin (N = 1,392) to examine how parents describe their children's living arrangements. When the children spend substantial time in both parents’ homes, both parents are less likely to use the phrase live with to describe living arrangements. When children spend most nights with their mother, mothers are more likely than fathers to state that the children live with their mother. Together, these findings suggest that family researchers no longer can rely on simple questions to capture complex living arrangements. We need clearer and more careful question wording and, in some instances, follow‐up questions to accurately describe where children live.     

Statistical and Perceived Diversity and Their Impacts on Neighborhood Social Cohesion in Germany,France and the Netherlands

The question whether ethnic diversity is associated with declining social cohesion has produced much controversy. We maintain that more attention must be paid to cognitive mechanisms to move the debate ahead. Using survey data from 938 localities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, we explore a crucial individual-level mechanism: perceptions of diversity. We not only consider perceptions of the amount, but also of the qualitative nature of diversity. By asking about various qualitative aspects of diversity, we test the cognitive salience of three explanations that have been proposed in the literature for negative diversity effects: out-group biases, asymmetric preferences and coordination problems. We show that all three mechanisms matter. Perceptions both mediate statistical diversity effects, and have important explanatory power of their own. Moreover, we are able to address the question to what extend the relationship of perceived diversity and neighborhood social cohesion varies across policy contexts. Based on assumptions in the literature about positive impacts of inclusive and culturally pluralist immigrant integration policy approaches, we hypothesize that ethno-cultural diversity is less negatively related to neighborhood social cohesion in more inclusive policy contexts. Our results provide partial support for this hypothesis as perceived diversity has a significantly stronger negative impact on neighborhood cohesion in Germany.     

Assimilation of Foreigners in Former West Germany

Migration movements to industrialized countries have grown in number and size, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants has raised concerns about their integration and assimilation into host societies. This article is an empirical study of assimilation of foreign nationals in Germany. Their experience may hold lessons for other relatively recent immigration destinations. As expected, language is one of the most critical factors for determining integration and assimilation at the workplace and in society. Our results indicate uneven success in these two areas, and suggest that greater language skills may be required for social assimilation, compared to economic assimilation. Among the most important findings of our study are the strong and statistically significant effects of the attitudes by Germans toward immigrants, the significant influence of the region of residence, and the ambivalence of German‐born foreign residents toward naturalization and continued stay. This signals the failure of past integration and assimilation policies. The results show that negative attitudes by ethnic Germans against others at work or in society, in general, reduce interest in integration and assimilation. This is neither new nor surprising and this research does not contribute new theoretical insights, but it demonstrates the magnitude and significance of the effects. The question of why different locations seemed to have different impacts on citizenship aspirations is beyond the scope of this article. The data do not provide information to pursue this question and we suspect that the causes are too complex for a short answer. As expected, non‐EU citizens showed greater interest in acquiring German citizenship than EU citizens. Finally, the results also indicate that the immediate post‐World War II notion of “guest workers” was not completely false. There has been significant return migration and a significant number of respondents to the survey say that they intend to return.     

喜玛拉雅达波女隐士:藏族女尼邬金曲吉的传记

喜马拉雅藏族文化区域是多元文明的历史交汇区域,藏传佛教在本区域发挥较强的文化凝聚作用,区域内部及跨区域文化交流十分频繁。尼泊尔西北的达波地区是喜马拉雅中段藏族文化区域的西南角,达波北部的藏族文化与南部印度文化界限分明,彼此影响。作者通过对于达波藏族女瑜伽士邬金曲吉生命史的研究,探讨了文献背后本地的历史文化与社会背景,性别界限的社会作用与宗教神圣性的文化超越性。喜马拉雅山地“藏印文化走廊”的文化研究已经成为国际藏学界研究热点,译者希望通过本篇论文使我们进一步了解这种新兴学术趋势。     

Treating Serious Emotional and Behavioural Problems Using Multisystemic Therapy

Multisystemic therapy (MST) is a family‐ and community‐based treatment of serious emotional and behavioural problems presented by adolescents. The development of this model began in the late 1970s, and today MST is a leading evidence‐based treatment of serious antisocial behaviour in youths, with programs transported to more than 30 states in the United States and 12 nations, including Australia and New Zealand. This article rerviews the theoretical rationale that underlies MST and presents the central clinical features of the intervention model. In addition, the training and quality assurance protocols used to promote MST program fidelity and treatment adherence are described. Finally, findings from approximately 15 published randomised and two quasi‐experimental clinical trials with youths presenting serious clinical problems (e.g., violence, substance abuse, serious emotional disturbance, sexual offending, and chronic illness) are summarised.