The timing of maternity in the Netherlands

In this paper the timing of maternity is estimated by a hazard model. The novel aspect of this paper is that it is shown that wages and total household labor income have a significant effect on the timing of maternity. Both the wage rate of the woman and the wage rate of the husband have a negative effect on the timing of maternity. Total household labor income increases the probability of having a child at an earlier age. Calculated elasticities show that the timing of maternity is relatively elastic with respect to wage rates. However, the elasticities of the decision whether or not to have children altogether are much smaller. Women working in the labor market delay the timing of maternity compared to non-participating women. Attending school has the same effect. Until the age of 28 the maternity hazard increases with age, after that it decreases.We benefited from comments on previous drafts by Siv Gustafsson, Joop Hartog, Peter Kee, Herriette Maassen van den Brink, Eddie Mekkelholt, Joop Odink, Hessel Oosterbeek, Hans van Ophem, Gusta Renes, Andre Voskamp, two anonymous referees, and the Managing Editor of this Journal. This paper is a revised version of a paper presented at the third annual meeting of the European Society for Population Economics, Paris, June 1989. The usual disclaimer applies.     

The effects of direct experience on consumer product evaluation

The effects of different sales strategies on consumer product evaluation were investigated. It was expected that direct product experience could decrease economic product valuation. Experiments 1 and 2 studied the effects of product trials and money-back guarantees on consumer willingness to pay (WTP). It appeared that WTP was significantly lower after a product trial than with a money-back guarantee or normal sale. In Experiment 3 a structural equation model showed that product trials had a positive effect on attitude toward the product. Also, a negative effect on WTP was found when the effect was measured directly, but a positive effect when the effect was measured indirectly (through attitude).     

Homemaking on the streets and beyond

Homemaking is associated with domiciled family life, community, and secure work. Moving beyond this perspective, we explore the experiences of people dislocated from family, community, and work, and their efforts to make a place for themselves. We consider a homeless man's efforts to make a home on the streets of Auckland in the absence of positive social ties, employment, and a domiciled abode. This case draws upon an auto-biographical interview, three photo-production projects and three photo-elicitation interviews with Daniel. We consider Daniel's profound sense of loneliness and efforts at imagining a domiciled home beyond the streets where he can forge meaningful relationships. Daniel is now re-housed, in part, as a result of insights from this research being used in social work practice.     

Confronting or Complementing? A Case Study on NGO–State Relations from Kerala, India

NGOs have, of late, found some of their traditional domains, such as provision of micro-credit and participatory development, coinciding with or being taken away by the state. How do they position themselves and retain relevance vis-a-vis the state in the changed scenario? Tracing the trajectory of interventions of a local NGO in Kerala, India, this article shows that NGOs exhibit ‘multiple identities’—selective collaboration, gap-filling and posing alternatives—in the process of engagement with the state. The ‘strategizing’ of such identities may hold the key to their relevance vis-a-vis the state.     

Morality and Nuclear Energy: Perceptions of Risks and Benefits,Personal Norms,and Willingness to Take Action Related to Nuclear Energy

We examined factors underlying people's willingness to take action in favor of or against nuclear energy from a moral perspective. We conducted a questionnaire study among a sample of the Dutch population (N = 123). As expected, perceptions of risks and benefits were related to personal norms (PN), that is, feelings of moral obligation toward taking action in favor of or against nuclear energy. In turn, PN predicted willingness to take action. Furthermore, PN mediated the relationships between perceptions of risk and benefits and willingness to take action. In line with our hypothesis, beliefs about the risks and benefits of nuclear energy were less powerful in explaining PN for supporters compared to PN of opponents. Also, beliefs on risks and benefits and PN explained significantly more variance in willingness to take action of opponents than of supporters. Our results suggest that a moral framework is useful to explain willingness to take action in favor of and against nuclear energy, and that people are more likely to protest in favor of or against nuclear energy when PN are strong.     

Static versus dynamic analysis of the interaction between female labour-force participation and fertility

Numerous studies have found a negative relationship between female labour-force participation and fertility. In theory, there could be three explanations of this finding: (i) causality runs from labour-force participation to fertility, (ii) causality runs from fertility to labour-force participation, (iii) causality runs both ways. Alternatively, the relationship may not be a causal one. In practice, empirical studies covering a wide range of Western countries at different times, and utilizing a great variety of methods and techniques, have shown all four possibilities to be plausible. This may be because outcomes differ from country to country for socio-cultural reasons, or from period to period for historical ones. If so, applying various methodologies to data for one country at a particular point in time should yield consistent results that all point in one direction only. If they did not outcomes would appear to be method-dependent. The single data set used in this study refers to the Netherlands in 1984 (ORIN project). The relationship between fertility and labour-force participation in this data set is investigated by means of three methodologies, ranging from ‘static’ to ‘dynamic’, i.e., differing according to the degree in which they take the temporal aspects of the decision-making process underlying this relationship into account: simultaneous logit analysis, Granger analysis and Markov analysis. Each main approach is applied in two different ways or on two different subgroups, for a total of six applications. In spite of diverging operationalizations of the basic variables, it turns out that four of these six analyses favour the inference that fertility decisions do have an impact on labour force participation decisions but not the other way around, whereas the other two confirm earlier findings (from data sets collected during the 1970s) that the relationship is reciprocal. Substantively, this might indicate that the pattern of covariance is changing. But ‘static’ simultaneous logit analysis is the only method to consistently point at this causal unidirectionality, while outcomes from Granger and Markov analysis depend on the modality applied. Methodologically, this means that the issue of method-dependency, at least in this area, remains largely unresolved.     

Trends in cardiovascular diseases and associated risks in sub-Saharan Africa: a review of the evidence for Ghana,Nigeria, South Africa,Sudan and Tanzania

Background: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries are facing an epidemiological shift from infectious disease to chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). CVDs incidence in SSA are frequently attributed to the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and overweight/obesity. Nevertheless, some researchers contend that CVDs are not a priority public health problem in SSA.

Method: This paper systematically reviews the evidence on CVDs and their relation with hypertension, diabetes mellitus and obesity/overweight in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania. The publication’s content was analyzed qualitatively using the directed content analysis method and the results were presented in a tabular format.

Result: The paper illustrates the rising prevalence of CVDs as well as the three related risk conditions in the selected SSA countries.

Conclusion: The review indicates a poor health system response to the increasing risk of CVDs in SSA. The conditions and major drivers that contribute to this underlying increasing trend need to be further studied.     

Life-Satisfaction and Preference Drift

In this paper an empirical model is presented thataccounts for adaptation behavior in self-reports onlife-satisfaction. The model is used to determinepreference drift – adaptation to income levels – inlife-satisfaction. With preference drift, the effectof income on life satisfaction varies with the levelof life satisfaction. It is found that preferencedrift mainly occurs among individuals with a highlevel of life-satisfaction.     

Sympathy and the Value of Health: The Spill-over Effects of Migraine on Household Well-being

In this paper a model of life satisfactionmeasurement is formulated to calculatehappiness interdependencies. The model isapplied to estimate the spill-over effects ofmigraine headache on well-being. It is foundthat women are more compassionate thanmen. The results also show that ignoringhappiness interdependencies of migraineheadache underestimates the effects of migraineheadache on well-being.