<p> Measuring spouses&rsquo; ages allows us to explore larger sociological issues about marriage, such as whether narrowing gaps signal gender progress or if a rise in female-older unions reveals a status change. Using Census and American Community Survey data, I test the merits of beauty-exchange and status homogamy theories as explanations for how heterosexual marital age gaps changed over a 40-year period of social and economic revolution. Analyses address questions about how age gaps compared for people with different characteristics, whether similarly aged couples exhibited greater educational and socio-economic homogamy than others, and if the odds of being in age-heterogamous marriages changed. </p><p> Chapter 4 provides the historical context of U.S. marriages from 1910 on, and shows that while disadvantaged groups retreated from marriage, the percentage of individuals with greater education and income who married remained high. Age homogamy rose over 100 years due to a decline in marriages involving much-older husbands rather than increases in wife-older unions. </p><p> Results in Chapter 5 show that mean age gaps decreased significantly over time for first-married individuals by most&mdash;but not all&mdash;characteristics. Gaps narrowed for those who were White, Black, other race, or of Hispanic origin; from any age group; with zero, one, or two wage earners; with any level of education; and from most types of interracial pairs. One exception was that mean age gaps increased between Asian wives and White husbands, and Asian women&rsquo;s odds of having a much older husband were higher than the odds for racially homogamous women. Those odds increased over time. </p><p> Findings lent support for status homogamy theory, since same-age couples showed greater educational homogamy than others in any decade, but showed mixed support for beauty exchange. In 2010&ndash;14, the median spousal earnings gap was wider in husband-older marriages than age-homogamous ones; however, the reverse was true in 1980. Women-older first or remarriages exhibited the smallest median earnings gaps in 1980 and 2010&ndash;14, and women in these marriages contributed a greater percentage of the family income than other women in 2010&ndash;14 (43.6% vs 36.9%, respectively). </p><p> The odds of being in age-heterogamous unions were significantly higher for persons who were remarried, from older age groups, from certain racial backgrounds, in some interracial marriages, less educated, and from lower SES backgrounds. Age and remarriage showed the greatest impact on odds ratios. While age homogamy increased overall, the odds of being a much older spouse (11+ years older) increased dramatically for remarried men and women between 1970 and 1980, and then remained high in 2010&ndash;14. Remarried women&rsquo;s odds of being the much older wife versus a same-age spouse were 20.7 times that of the odds of first-married women in 2010&ndash;14. Other results showed that Black men&rsquo;s odds of being with a much-older wife compared to one around the same age were about 2.5 times that of the odds of White men in each decade. Hispanic men&rsquo;s odds of being in a first marriage with a much-older wife versus one of the same age were also twice the odds of White men in 1980 and 2010&ndash;14. </p><p> Analyses demonstrated that marital age gaps have, indeed, changed significantly since the second-wave women&rsquo;s movement, and that while age homogamy increased, the odds of being age heterogamous also shifted for people with different characteristics.</p><p>

Orientador: Daniel Joseph Hogan / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T22:35:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_RobsonBonifacioda_M.pdf: 1529430 bytes, checksum: 7dc4e377238d310c48accc814fedc4bb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Esta dissertação é uma tentativa de relacionar o movimento pendular, considerado uma das modalidades da mobilidade espacial da população, com as vulnerabilidades socioambientais e sociodemográficas, já que acreditamos que as diversas formas de mobilidade populacional podem se constituir em elementos importantes para o avanço dos estudos sobre a vulnerabilidade, pois atuam na distribuição de perigos e afetam a exposição a riscos das pessoas. Inicialmente apresentamos um quadro geral do movimento sobre a Região Metropolitana da Baixada Santista e caracterizamos as pessoas que realizam o movimento pendular na região. Em seguida trabalhamos os conceitos de vulnerabilidade, especialmente a sociodemográfica e a socioambiental, ativos e estrutura de oportunidades. Por último, comparamos as pessoas que realizam o movimento pendular com as que não realizam, com o objetivo de identificar diferenças entre esses dois grupos de pessoas e a sua exposição a maior ou menor vulnerabilidade. Procuramos verificar também se há situações nas quais tais grupos apresentam maior enfrentamento da vulnerabilidade e quais os ativos que ambos mobilizam, tanto para enfrentá-la quanto para se recuperarem dos danos sócio-demográficos e socioambientais / Abstract: The purpose of this study is to relate commuting to social demographic and social environmental vulnerabilities. Many studies believe that several kinds of mobility can be considered as important elements to the understanding of the concept of the vulnerability. Initially we present the characteristics of the commuting and the commuters in the Baixada Santista Metropolitan Area. After, we work on the concepts of vulnerability, assets and structure of opportunities. Finally, we compare the people who commute to those who don't, trying to identify the differences between those two groups of people and their exposure to vulnerable situations. We also try to confirm the existence of situations in which different groups show a higher vulnerability and which assets they can mobilize to deal with the difficulties of life, especially to those related to social demographic and social environmental risks / Mestrado / Mestre em Demografia

Abstract not available.

Using annual statistics from the United, Anglican and Catholic Churches as well as demographic data from Quebec and Canada, the present thesis details the results of a series of quantitative analyses concerning the evolution of church indicators since the 1970s within the English-speaking community of Quebec. Data regarding religious affiliation, church attendance, membership and rites of passage (baptisms, professions of faith, confirmations, marriages and funerals) are also the object of comparisons with similar statistics from the rest of Quebec and Canada in order to establish the particularities of Anglo-Quebecers in this matter. The entirety of the results show three main axes which distinguish tendencies of decline from those of relative stability: differences between denominations (Protestantism-Catholicism), between linguistic communities (Anglophone-Francophone) and between regions (East-West). Anglo-Quebecers resemble more often than not English Canada regarding religious indicator tendencies from the three Christian churches being studied. Declines, especially protestant, in the English-speaking community are sometimes lesser than those in Ontario and in the West, but greater than those in the Atlantic region. These results are interpreted according to a theoretical framework allowing for the existence of several stories of secularization, dialoging most notably with the sociological works of David Martin, Daniele Hervieu-Leger and Raymond Lemieux --- experts regarding the link between church and national community as well as religious identity. In summary, new data is detailed and interpreted in order to contribute, in a modest but pertinent way, to the field of Sociology of Religion in Quebec and in Canada. An in depth examination of the relationship between Anglo-Quebecers and their three main Christian churches also allows to distinguish in many regards this population from other Quebecois and Canadian ethno-linguistic communities.

In this dissertation, I develop theoretical models and an empirical study of the role of social interactions, the evolution of social norms, and their impact on individual behavior. Although my models are consistent with individual utility maximization, they generally emphasize social factors that channel individual decisions and/or shape individuals' preferences. I apply this approach to three different issues: labor supply, fertility decisions, and intergenerational transfers, generating predictions that are more consistent with observed empirical patterns of behavior than standard neoclassical approaches that assume independent preferences, perfect information, and efficient markets. In the first essay, I explain the long-run evolution of working hours during the 20th century in developed countries: the substantial decline for the first three quarters of the 20th century and the deceleration or even reversal of the fall in working hours in the last quarter. I develop a model of the determination of working hours and how this process is affected by both the conflict between employers and employees and the employees' desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich reference group. The model also explores the effects of direct and indirect policies to limit hours advocated by political representations of workers such as trade unions or leftist parties. In the second essay, I study the coevolution of gender norms and fertility regimes. Since the 1990s, a new pattern of positive correlation between fertility rates and female labor force participation emerged in developed countries. This recent trend seems inconsistent with conventional economic approaches that explain fertility decline as a result of the increasing opportunity costs of childrearing, predicting a negative correlation between fertility and women's labor force participation. To address this puzzle, I develop a model of the evolution of gender norms and fertility in various economic environments influenced by the level of women's wages. Randomly matched spouses make choices related to fertility—labor supply and the division of household labor—based on their preferences shaped by gender norms. In the model, norm updating is influenced by both within-family payoffs and conformism payoffs from social interactions among the same sex. The model shows how changes in economic environments and the degree of conformism toward norms can alter fertility outcomes. The results suggest that the asymmetric evolution of gender norms between men and women could contribute to very low fertility, explaining the positive correlation between fertility and women's labor force participation. Finally, I estimate the effect of exogenously introduced public pensions for the elderly on the amount of private transfers they receive. There has been a long debate whether public transfers crowd out private transfers. Previous empirical studies on this issue suffer from the endogeneity of income that contaminates estimates. I use an exogenously introduced public transfer, the Basic Old Age Pension in Korea, to test the crowding out hypothesis. A considerable proportion of the elderly population, especially women living without a spouse, do not experience the crowding out effect and moreover, among those who do, the size of the effect is relatively small. The results support the redistribution effect of the Basic Old Age Pension targeting the poor elderly in Korea.

The rhetoric against immigration in the United States mostly focuses on the economic threat to low-educated native-born men using a singular labor market competition lens. In contrast to this trend, this dissertation builds on a large body of previous work on job queuing and ethnic competition, as well as insights gained from the studies on female labor force participation and the outsourcing of care work. By exploring regional differences in the wage effects of immigration across 100 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2007, I argue that immigration is an intersectionally dynamic localized source of wage inequality and equality. The first chapter provides an overview of the current literature concerning the wage effects of immigration on native-born workers. The second chapter asks empirically whether immigration is related to regional differences in the gender wage gap, and finds that the gap is narrower in cities with higher concentrations of migrant domestic workers. In chapter three, I focus on native-born women only and investigate how within-women inequalities are mediated, unchanged, or sustained through immigration by race, class and motherhood. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the benefits and limitations of fixed- and random-effects models, and advocate for the use of hybrid-effects models for intersectional scholars who consider social inequality to be a multidimensional experience across time and space. Ultimately, I conclude that the wage effects of immigration are the result of gendered, raced and classed queuing processes, as well as changes in household production decisions. Findings presented in this dissertation advance empirical and theoretical debates on the linkage between immigration and within-country wage inequality by arguing that the wage effects of immigration are intersectionally dynamic. The policy implications of my dissertation are twofold. First, the binary treatment of native-born workers against immigrants is misguided because immigration intersects with other sources of inequality. Secondly, the continued reliance on the market-based care, as opposed to publicly provided care, increases the labor market vulnerability of some native-born workers.

This study examines older persons’ hopes, fears and expectations for the future, a topic little explored in Hong Kong. The study of twenty-five people aged 65-85 years adopts a qualitative approach to explore the experiences that shape older persons’ views of their future lives. Three models emerged from the empirical study, namely The Model of Resignation, The Model of Predestination and The Model of Adaptation. The findings suggest that respondents who had and still have little social support from friends tend to live very much in the present; they do not look forward to the future nor do they have a strong anticipatory sense of it. In addition, the research identifies “turning points” related to life events mainly in the domain of marriage, health, work and living arrangements that shape people’s attitudes toward their future. Turning points are identified by individuals as a moment when life is redirected into a different path. Turning points continue to influence subsequent events over their life-course. The concept of turning points helps us understand the life trajectories and transitions throughout the life-course. The research also identifies variables that influence respondents’ perceptions of their future. This research indicates that current living environment and living environment does not appear to play an important part in how respondents view their future. Respondents who believed they had performed their responsibilities to their family and society or have strong religious belief did not report any fears related to their health. Respondents who failed to maintain good marital relationships in the past or in the present did not create future hopes in the domain of social relationships. The study further investigates how older people translate their future hopes into daily activities and how they obstruct fears of the future. Furthermore, the research finds that respondents reported their own health and the well-being of their family members as the most important life domain. The research provides both formal and informal caregivers with ideas suited to motivating older persons to think positively about their daily lives and their future.

Mass tutoring on senior secondary curricula, with specific focus on examination syllabi and techniques, has expanded rapidly in Hong Kong in the recent decade. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews, conducted in summer 2007, with 20 certificate level (Secondary 4 and 5) and 21 advanced level (Secondary 6 and 7) students with various level of involvement in mass tutoring, this study discovered: (1) Risk awareness and future-oriented mentality: Students expected that mass tutoring could help improve their performance in public examinations, and could secure good grades. To them, better grades mean higher chance to get a recognized qualification, fulfil their career aspiration, and secure a better life in the uncertain future. (2) Individualization of decisions and choices: Students thought that they should be responsible and accountable for their own life-choices. The decision to enrol in mass tutoring was made on their own. When they needed advice on choices of tutors, they referred to the opinions from the schoolmates with similar learning experience and academic performance as themselves. In order to locate the most suitable tutors, some students even collected various tutors’ lecture notes or recordings for comparison, or attended free-of-charge trial lessons before finalizing their choices. (3) Individual reflexivity and conditional trust on authority: In terms of enhancement of academic performance, a number of students trusted cram school tutors more than daytime school teachers, as they thought the former more familiar with the examination requirement than the latter. Nevertheless, they did not completely trust their tutors. They evaluated from time to time the effectiveness and suitability of the tutorials they were attending, and discontinued and made changes if necessary. (4) Detraditionalization of schooling values: Students viewed senior secondary education different from more idealistic lifelong learning. In their eyes, getting good grades and preparing for good prospect in further studies and career are of utmost importance in senior secondary schooling. Some of them even preferred daytime school teachers to adopt cram school tutors’ approach. With the above findings, the study argues that the microscopic phenomenon of blossoming mass tutoring enrolment is a reflection of the macroscopic risk culture of late modernity, which has been addressed by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. The study unfolds several specific qualities of individual life and social environment in the post-industrial era. To deal with the uncertain social environment, individuals prefer adapting to the existing social order rather than imposing changes to the external social environment. Appreciated traditional values not conforming to the modern social order will only be practised only after an individual has achieved ontological security in the highly modernized social environment. Individuals are locked in a cage where they had to endlessly appeal to uncertain measures to deal with the uncertainties embedded in daily life. This study also reveals the unbalanced power between individuals and social structure in the structuration process, and the disparity in power of risk negotiation due to wealth difference in the highly modernized environment, which were under-examined by the proponents of the late modernity paradigm.

Hong Kong is one of Asia’s more demographically-aged cities, with 14% of population aged 65+ in 2012, projected to be 23% by 2025. Facilities and transport are generally good by world standards although the urban environment may not consistently be particularly ‘age-friendly’. Drawing on a range of urban sub-areas, this research investigated the ‘age-friendliness’ of Tuen Mun, a ‘new town’ of half a million population in Hong Kong. This study was also interested in socio-cultural variables and age-friendly cities (AFC) characteristics in its predominantly Chinese population, and relationships with psychological well-being (PWB). A total of 503 participants aged 50 years or above were interviewed in a face-to-face questionnaire survey in Tuen Mun. Two focus groups were held afterwards as a post facto evaluation to ascertain and explain the findings of the survey. Among the WHO’s original eight AFC domains, in this study ‘Social participation’ scored the highest AFC rating. ‘Housing’, ‘Civic participation and employment’, and ‘Community support and health services’ perhaps surprisingly scored the lowest. Interestingly, the ‘higher social group’ (i.e. respondents from private housing, with a higher education attainment and household income) tended to be less satisfied with the AFC domains than the lower social group. An important contribution of this study is therefore to show the importance of considering social variations in attitudes to AFC characteristics, as perceptions/expectations of AFC might vary across different social groups. This study also addressed the potential role of AFC characteristics in influencing older persons’ PWB. AFC, especially the ‘software’ aspects related to social support, were found to have the strongest positive correlations with PWB. A newly-proposed ‘Food and shopping’ dimension appeared to be a salient factor affecting PWB, showing such ‘lifestyle’ items should be included in AFC in Asian settings. The policy implications and the value of the AFC concept in cities such as Hong Kong are discussed.

Post the Millennium Development Goal project a significant number of countries are still faced with the challenge of monitoring child mortality. Despite numerous enquiries since 1996 to provide this basic health indicator, South Africa has experienced prolonged periods of uncertainty regarding the level and trend of infant and under-5 mortality. The thesis develops an analytical framework to review all available data sources and methods of analysis and presents the results of the four approaches adopted to measure child mortality trends. Reviewing the demographic indicators produced from seven census and survey enquiries, the overall performance and the strengths and limitations of each approach is evaluated. Poor and extremely poor quality of data for child mortality emerges as a pervasive challenge to census and survey data. The thesis presents the remarkable improvement in the completeness of birth and death registration through South Africa's CRVS system, particularly since 2000, illustrating the possibility of using CRVS data to monitor provincial child mortality in the future and highlighting statistical challenges arising from the movement of children. In conclusion, South Africa should focus on improving CRVS for purposes of monitoring childhood mortality provincially and the comprehensive evaluation of available data is a useful lesson for other upper-middle-income countries.