Being Poor and Feeling Rich or Vice Versa? The Determinants of Unequal Income Positions in Old Age Across Europe

Individual prosperity and welfare can be measured using both objective and subjective criteria. Although theory and previous research suggest that these two methods can produce corresponding results, the measurements can also be inconsistent. Against this background, the current paper investigates the relationship between the objective income position of older Europeans (aged 50?+?years) and their perception of their financial situation, using the seventh wave of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) conducted in 2017. The main research questions include (1) how is objective income distributed in old age across Europe?, (2) how do elderly Europeans evaluate their income situation subjectively?, (3) is there a discrepancy between the objective prosperity position and their subjective perception observable?, (4) are there country-specific differences that are observable?, and (5) how can such discrepancies be explained?

The results show that objective income positions can be congruent with subjective self-perceptions, both good (well-being) and bad (deprivation), of one’s income situation. However, this is not always the case, and country-specific variations do exist. In analyzing the causes of the 2 forms of nonconformance—namely, adaptation (satisfaction paradox) and dissonance (dissatisfaction dilemma)—this paper concludes that sociodemographic and socioeconomic determinants alone cannot account for discrepancies. The consideration of certain social-psychological influences or personality traits and especially social comparison processes (namely, with one’s past) is essential in explaining both the satisfaction paradox and the dissatisfaction dilemma.

     

The failure of meta-analytic asymptotics for the seemingly efficient estimator of the common risk difference

We consider the case of a multicenter trial in which the center specific sample sizes are potentially small. Under homogeneity, the conventional procedure is to pool information using a weighted estimator where the weights used are inverse estimated center-specific variances. Whereas this procedure is efficient for conventional asymptotics (e. g. center-specific sample sizes become large, number of center fixed), it is commonly believed that the efficiency of this estimator holds true also for meta-analytic asymptotics (e.g. center-specific sample size bounded, potentially small, and number of centers large). In this contribution we demonstrate that this estimator fails to be efficient. In fact, it shows a persistent bias with increasing number of centers showing that it isnot meta-consistent. In addition, we show that the Cochran and Mantel-Haenszel weighted estimators are meta-consistent and, in more generality, provide conditions on the weights such that the associated weighted estimator is meta-consistent.     

Driving complementarity in interdisciplinary research: a reflection

ABSTRACT

The value of interdisciplinary research is increasingly recognised by the research community. Funding bodies are nowadays specifically encouraging that research they fund is interdisciplinary in nature. However, what is often branded as interdisciplinary research is in fact a network of researchers working to deliver a research output. In this research note, we share our experience of what we think can be labelled “truly interdisciplinary”. We share some best practice tips for those who are interested to go through a similar metamorphosis as we did as a team, learning from each other’s ways of working. Overall, it has been a very positive experience and a revelation that has had a big impact on each author’s view on how to conduct research as an integrated multidisciplinary team, as it has shifted our mental models and broadened our thinking, capacity to reflect, and critical analysis. We hope that our research note clearly shows the benefits of truly interdisciplinary research and motivates other researchers to follow our pathway of transformation.     

(Verleugnete) Einflussnahme: allgemeine und besondere Organisationsdynamiken am Beispiel Schule

While the research on universal organisational dynamics is considerably the research on particular organisational dyanmics is a desideratum. The paper describes universal and particular organisational dynamics using the example of public schools. The reasoning uses a psychoanalytic framework in sociology manners. The text argues that two essiantial particular organisational dynamics in public schools can be understood as a power-verdict and a pull of infantile.     

Asymptotic behavior of RA-estimates in autoregressive 2D processes

In this work we study the asymptotic behavior of a robust class of estimators of the coefficient of a AR-2D process. We establish the precise conditions for the consistency and asymptotic normality of the RA estimator. The AR-2D model has many applications in image modeling and statistical image processing, therefore the relevance of knowing such properties. The adequacy of the AR-2D model is analyzed with real images; we also show the impact of contamination and the capability of the RA estimator to produce useful results even in the presence of spurious data.     

CAMCR: Computer-Assisted Mixture model analysis for Capture–Recapture count data

Population size estimation with discrete or nonparametric mixture models is considered, and reliable ways of construction of the nonparametric mixture model estimator are reviewed and set into perspective. Construction of the maximum likelihood estimator of the mixing distribution is done for any number of components up to the global nonparametric maximum likelihood bound using the EM algorithm. In addition, the estimators of Chao and Zelterman are considered with some generalisations of Zelterman’s estimator. All computations are done with CAMCR, a special software developed for population size estimation with mixture models. Several examples and data sets are discussed and the estimators illustrated. Problems using the mixture model-based estimators are highlighted.     

Characteristics of men and women who complete or exit from an on-line internet sexuality questionnaire: a study of instrument dropout biases

This study compared respondents who completed an Internet sexuality questionnaire and those who dropped out before completion. The study was in Swedish and comprised 3,614 respondents over a 2-week period (53% males, 47% females). There were significant differences between males, of whom 51% dropped out before completion of the 175-item questionnaire, and females, of whom 43% dropped out. Dropout in both genders followed a curve of negative acceleration. The data suggest that dropout is likely to be significant and gender and demographically biased, and to occur significantly earlier for men than for women. Geography, education, sexual orientation, age, relationship status, living arrangements, and Internet connection speed were related to dropout for men, while only relationship status and living arrangements, which were in the opposite direction from men, were related to dropout in women.     

Evacuating People with Mobility‐Challenges in a Short‐Notice Disaster

In past disasters, arrangements have been made to evacuate people without their own transportation, requiring them to gather at select locations to be evacuated. Unfortunately, this type of plan does not help those people who are unable to move themselves to the designated meeting locations. In the United States, according to the Post‐Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, state or local governments have the responsibility to coordinate evacuation plans for all populations. These include those with disabilities. However, few, if any, have plans in place for those who are mobility‐challenged. The problem of evacuating mobility‐challenged people from their individual locations in a short‐notice disaster is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem. In order to develop the model and select a solution approach, we surveyed related literature. Based on our review, we formulate the problem and develop an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to solve it. We then test two different versions of the ACO algorithm on five stylized datasets with several different parameter settings.     

Characteristics of men and women who complete or exit from an on‐line internet sexuality questionnaire: A study of instrument dropout biases

This study compared respondents who completed an Internet sexuality questionnaire and those who dropped out before completion. The study was in Swedish and comprised 3,614 respondents over a 2‐week period (53% males, 47% females). There were significant differences between males, of whom 51% dropped out before completion of the 175‐item questionnaire, and females, of whom 43% dropped out. Dropout in both genders followed a curve of negative acceleration. The data suggest that dropout is likely to be significant and gender and demographically biased, and to occur significantly earlier for men than for women. Geography, education, sexual orientation, age, relationship status, living arrangements, and Internet connection speed were related to dropout for men, while only relationship status and living arrangements, which were in the opposite direction from men, were related to dropout in women.     

Assessing the association between two spatial or temporal sequences

This paper deals with the codispersion coefficient for spatial and temporal series. We present some results and simulations concerning the codispersion coefficient in the context of spatial models. The results obtained are immediate consequences of the asymptotic normality of the sample codispersion coefficient and show certain limitations of the coefficient. New simulation studies provide information about the performance of the coefficient with respect to other coefficients of spatial association. The behavior of the codispersion coefficient under additively contaminated processes is also studied via Monte Carlo simulations. In the context of time series, explicit expressions for the asymptotic variance of the sample version of the coefficient are given for autoregressive and moving average processes. Resampling methods are used to compute the variance of the coefficient. A real data example is presented to explore how well the codispersion coefficient captures the comovement between two time series in practice.