Network strategies of nineteenth century Hesse-Cassel emigrants

Between 1820 and 1930 over 5 million Germans emigrated to overseas destinations, most to the U.S. By the 1850s the number of German migrants living in the U.S. was large, a consequence partly of cumulative causation. I provide evidence for the dramatic increase in networks by using micro-level data for the German principality of Hesse-Cassel in the mid-nineteenth century. A conservative measurement of network relationships finds that after 25 years almost half of them were related to a previous family member from the same village. Migrants who used family networks tended to move in small units. Usually only a few years separated networked family members, but some links lasted over a decade. Women were unlikely to start a network but more likely than men to travel to the U.S. Within some families, migrants switched from continental destinations to the U.S., perhaps due to the failure of the 1848 March Revolution.     

Societal openness during the urban crisis. Partner selection in the 19th-century Belgian textile cities Ghent and Verviers

This paper examines the partner selection of the lower classes during an urban crisis period in early industrial Belgian cities. It was found that in this period characterized by an economic transition, overpopulation, migration and a low standard of living, social heterogamy was high, whereas social homogamy increased, or was ‘restored’, in the subsequent period. The urban crisis effect on partner selection contradicts the claims of modernization theory that there was a gradual increase in societal openness and that societal openness was typically modern, but it fits the idea of the informalization of marriage, a process marked by an increase in unmarried cohabitation and illegitimacy.     

Marriage patterns in 19th-century Vila do Conde: The study of an urban centre in northwest Portugal

This article investigates marital patterns in the urban town of Vila do Conde, northwest Portugal, during the 19th century. The analysis, which is based on the application of the family reconstitution method, reveals differences in marital patterns between rural and urban settlements. It was observed that Vila do Conde displayed different patterns of marriage than those that have often been described for the northwestern region of Portugal, with an emphasis on lower levels of celibacy, as well as lower fertility rates. It was discovered that migration played a very important role in these dynamics. It is a fact that the increasing outflow of male emigrants had a distortion effect on the marriage market. Nevertheless, the influx of in-migrants to the town contributed to alleviate the adult male shortage and resulting gender imbalance, generating lower proportions of celibacy and higher levels of total fertility. Although several important publications have already identified demographic trends in many parishes of the region in focus, few have been concerned with urban parishes. This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the population dynamics of urban centres in northwest Portugal when set within the context of a number of the structural changes specific to that region and Portugal as a whole in the 19th century.     

Physical stature and biological living standards of girls and young women in the Netherlands,born between 1815 and 1865

This is the first study in Dutch anthropometric historiography that describes and analyzes the development of the biological standard of living of girls and young women from the perspective of female adult stature. It is shown that adult stature of women, imprisoned in the second half of the nineteenth century and born between 1815 and 1865, slightly increased, approximately 1cm. From 1850 onwards stature of women born in the cities notably increased. Development of female adult stature was compared to that of male stature; both were quite similar. No circumstantial evidence was found that girls or young women were on a disadvantage with respect to nutrition and (medical) care.     

EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS IN MEXICO OF OLDER ADULTS AS A FUNCTION OF THEIR ANTIQUITY

The population grows and ages. Older adults, which is the group of people sixty years of age and older, increasingly represents a numerically larger group. Therefore, the legal rules are issued, and must be of such a nature that adequately protects them. In particular labor standards in Mexico, containing general provisions, but are emissive in relation to work of older adults subordinate.     

Supervision mode effects in computerized delinquency surveys at school: Finnish replication of a Swiss experiment

Objectives

This study provides a Finnish replication of a recent Swiss experiment (Walser and Killias: J Exp Criminol 8:17–28, 2012) on the supervision mode effects in computerized delinquency surveys in schools. This study supplements the Swiss study by using individual level randomization and two additional outcome variables: meta-questions of response integrity and incidence-counting heuristics.

Methods

A total of 924 ninth grade students (15–16 years old) in southern Finland were randomly assigned (at the level of individuals) to supervision either by their teachers or by an external research assistant. Students then responded to an online self-report delinquency survey. Chi-square and t tests were used to compare prevalence levels and means.

Results

In both last year and lifetime recall periods, only one offence type (unspecified theft) showed significantly different outcomes, with external supervision yielding a higher prevalence figure. For other offences, no supervision effects were found. When females and males were separately examined, limited evidence of gender-specific supervision effects emerged. Thus, females appear to report more thefts in external supervision while males report more violence in teacher supervision. No statistically significant supervision effects were found in questions probing response integrity and counting heuristics.

Conclusion

Using teacher supervision in online self-report delinquency surveys does not appear to compromise the validity of the survey results. The findings thus largely corroborate the results of the earlier Swiss test. How supervision condition interacts with respondent characteristics apart from gender calls for further scrutiny.     

Vice Laws and Self-Sovereignty

There is an important moral difference between laws that criminalize drugs and prostitution and laws that make them illegal in other ways: criminalization violates our moral rights in a way that nonlegalization does not. Criminalization is defined as follows. Drugs are criminalized when there are criminal penalties for using or possessing small quantities of drugs. Prostitution is criminalized when there are criminal penalties for selling sex. Legalization is defined as follows. Drugs are legalized when there are no criminal penalties for manufacturing, selling and possessing large quantities of drugs. Prostitution is legalized when there are no criminal penalties for owning or operating a brothel or escort service, no criminal penalties for working as a paid agent for sex work, and no criminal penalties for paying someone for sex who is above the age of legal employment and sexual consent. The criminalization of drugs and prostitution violate the right of self-sovereignty in depriving individuals of important forms of control over their own minds and bodies, but nonlegalization does not violate this right. It is therefore consistent, as a matter of principle, to advocate decriminalization but to oppose legalization.     

Moving up versus moving out: Neighborhood effects in housing mobility programs

Abstract

This article suggests ways to better design, conduct, and interpret evaluations of the effects of housing mobility programs on participants, with emphasis on how to isolate neighborhood effects. It reviews earlier critiques of neighborhood effects research and discusses the key assumptions of housing mobility programs—about the benefits of affluent neighbors, the spatial organization of opportunity for the urban poor, and the meanings of “neighborhood” to residents, researchers, and policy makers.

Studying mobility contexts, especially in suburban areas, offers special challenges to researchers. More research is needed that looks at residents’ social ties and uses mixed‐methods approaches. Ethnographic data, in particular, would enhance the validity of the quantitative data that now dominate studies of neighborhood effects. Adding substantially to what we know about the processes or mechanisms—the “how” of neighborhood effects—mixed‐methods approaches would also make research much more useful to policy makers and program managers.     

Confusion politique au Congo-Kinshasa

This article, written in February 1998, describes political confusion, contradictions, and ambiguities (institutional as well as ideological) typical of the Kabila’s regime at that time. Political mobilisation as well as political identification were polarised by opposition between “local Zairians,” born from locally-born parents, and “new Congolese” who were born elsewhere or whose parent were born outside of the country. Other factors of political identification were ethnicity, regionalism, and generation. Given the fact that the new political regime suspended all political parties and that Kabila himself did not openly declare himself leader of a political movement, there was no open political activity. The article suggests that the new political crises is coming; it was confirmed by August 1998 rebellion/invasion.