Regulating farmworkers: The state and the agricultural labor supply in California

Conclusion The state in a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production is compelled to seek resolution of contradictions within the forms of social relationships compatible with the continuity of a dominant capitalist form and to insure capital accumulation. The resolution should also be able to submerge at least temporarily the inherent conflicts within that situation. Thus, the state may attempt to restrict the possible activities of a militant organization while at the same time helping maintain its existence. The ability of the state decisively to limit and restrict organizations like the United Farm Workers is not, however, guaranteed. The struggle for transitional reforms is thus crucial not only in consolidating gains but also in providing a basis for future actions. From all indications the United Farm Workers seem to recognize the situation. The future of the United Farm Workers as a militant, democratically organized, grassroots organization of agricultural workers capable of mobilizing widespread public support may be influenced more by their ability to stay free of constraining state regulation than by a struggle with a particular segment of agricultural growers. This suggests that if the UFW becomes established on a more permanent basis, its most significant struggles in the future may be with elements of the state which ironically are trying to guarantee its existence. It is this aspect of agricultural labor relations within California as well as the United States in general which may be the most significant during the next decade.     

Introduction: Structure or strategy? Essays on family, demography, and labor from the Dutch N.W. Posthumus Institute

The concept of ‘family strategies’ has yielded much valuable research when used in the classic ‘quantitative’ and ‘anthropological’ approaches to the history of family life. Its continued use as a research concept requires, however, that significantly more attention be paid to the relationships between families as social units and their individual members, to the great variety of families and households, and to the different motives that guided families in charging strategies. These questions are brought to the forefront when the history of the family is investigated cross-culturally and comparatively, as the articles of this Special Issue, written by researchers of the Dutch N. W. Posthumus Institute, seek to do.     

Weisungsfreie Verwaltungsbehörden nach der B-VGNovelle BGBl I 2008/2

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

THE EFFECT OF THE CHILD-CARE CREDIT ON LOW-AND MIDDLE-INCOME TAXPAYERS' PURCHASES OF CHILD CARE

The child‐ and dependent‐care credit in the Internal Revenue Code is intended to encourage the consumption of commercial day‐care services. This research finds, through econometric analysis of tax returns from 1983 and 1987, that reducing child care's after‐tax price increases child‐care consumption by low‐ and middle‐income taxpayers who purchase commercial child‐care services.     

Low fertility in premodern China: Positive,preventive or proactive behaviour?

There has taken place recently the re-emergence among specialists of Chinese population history of a debate that started in the 1980's. This debate deals with the reasons for relatively low Chinese fertility in the 19th and early 20th century, and focuses on the question of whether proactive behaviour or a low standard of living was responsible for the low fertility. In this article we summarize the debate and tackle two issues. First, we summarize the biological evidence for the relationship between food and fertility. It turns out that some studies support the existence of this relationship, while other authors contest it. Even if fertility and malnourishment are related, one has to prove that the Chinese population was poor enough to influence fertility negatively. Both contemporary writers and anthropometric studies oppose the recent revisionist view that Chinese fertility was not determined by positive checks. On both issues the debate is still unsettled. The article looks at the reasons for this and advocates a less polemical and more constructive approach.