Parenthood,child-rearing and fertility in England, 1850–1914

Fertility declines across Europe and the Anglo-world have been explained as the result of reversals of intergenerational flows of wealth. According to this theory, the child was transformed from an economically-useful household asset to an emotionally-valued parental burden. This article is based on a comparative study of changing understandings of parenthood in three provincial English localities between 1850 and 1914. It works from the premise that in order to make sense of reproductive behaviour, it is essential to examine the meanings that men and women attached to childlessness, child-rearing and parenthood.

It is argued that there was not a universal shift that made children into burdens. New understandings of the duties of parenthood did develop, but these were founded on class-, gender- and place-specific interpretations. These encouraged a minority of fathers and mothers to believe that together they had the capacity to improve the lives of their sons and daughters in pioneering ways. Given that husbands and wives had distinct motives for avoiding rearing many children and that the discussion of reproduction was shrouded in silence, the dissemination and use of new ideals of family was crucial in enabling birth control to be thought about respectably within marriage.     

Economic status,religion, and demography in an Ulster town in the early twentieth century

The paper offers an analysis of the demography of the confessionally-divided and heavily industrialized northern Irish town of Lurgan in the early twentieth century. Its main source is the individual household forms of the Irish population census of 1911. This was the first Irish census to provide household-level data on the number of children born—and the number still surviving—to married couples co-resident at the time of the census. The paper begins by producing standard cross-tabulations of socio-economic status, as represented by literacy, numeracy, occupation, and the labour force participation of married women, by religion. It then presents econometric analyses of female labour force participation, marital fertility, and infant and child mortality. The greater poverty of Catholic households forced a higher proportion of mothers to work outside the home, mainly as unskilled workers in the town's linen mills. The analysis of the marital fertility suggests that confessional affiliation did not influence family size much at this juncture. The analysis of infant and child mortality suggests that religious affiliation was to a significant extent a cloak for living standards and socio-economic advantage.     

加快县级党校发展之我见

2011年全国县级党校工作座谈会结束后,县级党校的发展迎来了新的历史机遇,如何做到与时俱进,把握时代脉搏,具有前瞻性和开放性,加快发展成了当前面临的首要任务。文章结合实际,对县级党校的发展提出了建议与对策。     

An Exploratory Analysis of Fertility Differentials in India

The association between improving economic conditions and declining growth of population has led economists and demographers to hypothesise a direct relationship between indicators of economic development and fertility rates. Using recent National Family Health Survey data and the 1991 Census to explore factors contributing to fertility rates in India, we found that economic variables explain 70 per cent of the interstate variations in India's fertility rates. However, several non-economic variables explain an even greater proportion, for example, indicators of female autonomy explain 84 per cent of the variations. Our analysis demonstrates that to successfully explain Indian fertility rates, models must rely heavily on non-economic variables.     

Peak Oil as a stimulus for a green economy transition in South Africa: Alternative liquid fuel and transport options

Abstract

While the arguments in favour of a green economy often rest on the need to reduce environmental damage, mitigate climate change and create environmentally friendly jobs, this article argues that the inevitable and possibly imminent peak and decline in world oil production provides another strong rationale for green economy policies and investments in South Africa. The South African economy has a high degree of reliance on imported petroleum fuels and evidence suggests that oil price and supply shocks – resulting from diminishing world oil exports and a decline in the energy return on investment for oil globally – are likely to have a debilitating socioeconomic impact under business-as-usual policies and behaviour patterns. Two broad strategies for mitigating the impact of increasing world oil scarcity and oil price shocks are considered. The first evaluates the prospects for developing indigenous sources of liquid fuels, including coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids and biofuels, and finds that there are significant resource and environmental risks associated with these options. The second strategy involves short-term measures to reduce demand for liquid transport fuels together with a long-term shift toward electrified mass transport, supported by accelerated investments in renewable energy. The latter strategy is argued to be compatible with and necessary for a societal transition towards a green economy.     

经济犯罪的现代化变迁动力——兼析经济犯罪的防治实践

随着我国社会主义市场经济的进步和发展,社会现代化建设的水平不断提高,受经济形态和社会生产方式的影响,经济犯罪不断的出现,且形式多样,给我国经济的发展带来了极大的影响,导致经济犯罪呈现出不断变迁的趋势.引起这种变化的因素有很多,其中最主要的当属经济转型、社会结构调整以及社会控制.鉴于经济犯罪带来的巨大影响,我国政府必须要高度重视对经济犯罪的查处与防治,确保我国经济的安全,保证国民经济的正常发展.     

The Politics of Universalisation: Establishing National Health Services in Southern Europe

Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain have enacted reform laws during the last 20 years with the intention of turning their health insurance systems into national health services. Universalisation of access to public health care was at the centre of the political debates which led to the passing of the reform laws. This article analyses the policy-making processes that allowed for such institutional change, as well as achievements and shortcomings of the implementation processes that followed. The analysis draws on the insights of the actor-centred neo-institutionalist approach in the policy sciences.     

Migration and the reconfiguration of Malaysia

This article examines the social impact of the 1997 financial crisis in South Korea. Although the crisis was short-lived, it has created major ripples all across the country, profoundly affecting the Koreans' lifestyle and family life as well as their values and worldview. In spite of the magnitude of the financial crisis and its social impact, scant scholarly attention has been paid to the issue, although the causes and economic impact of the crisis have been amply discussed. In view of this, the article examines major social changes brought upon by the financial crisis. The article probes, for example, how employment patterns have been deeply affected, whereby a majority of workers are now irregular workers or are underemployed. The article also demonstrates how the people's perception of work has changed and how the income gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Also discussed are, among others, the continuing discrimination against women in the workplace, rising divorce rate, increase in immigration and value conflicts over the relevance of Confucianism in contemporary Korea. In addition, the article examines the agency of the Korean people in reacting to or coping with the changing circumstances.     

Challenges in conflict management in multi-ethnic states – the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and Serbia and Montenegro

This article examines the break-ups of post-communist Czechoslovakia and the Union of Serbia and Montenegro under consociationalism. According to Arend Lijphart, social divisions may be neutralized at the elite level with power-sharing mechanisms. Lijphart's theory has been abundantly criticized, particularly because, while its intention is to induce cooperation, consociationalism does not give leaders actual incentives to cooperate. Czechoslovakia and the Union qualified as consociations; however most favorable factors were absent. The states failed to overcome their divisions and broke apart. Both states were going through a democratization period, experienced differently in each republic. The article argues that the application of consociationalism at this time magnified the divisions. Stirring up the ethnic sensitivity of the population was the most reliable strategy for politicians to secure popular support. In this context, and with the EU enlargement prospect, the consociational structure, instead of bringing elites together, weakened the federal power and provided elites the opportunity to defend republican interests at the expense of the federations. Hence, while a consociation requires certain conditions and favorable factors, the context in which consociationalism is implemented, and particularly democratization periods, may have a decisive influence on the leaders’ ability to cooperate, on their decisions, and thereby on the state.