1,721,010 research outputs found
Early baptism & early mortality
Il capitolo discute la connessione tra ritardo al battesimo e mortalità infantile nel Veneto del XIX secolo
Narratives of the Future Affect Fertility: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment
In recent years, fertility rates have declined in most wealthy countries. This phenomenon has largely been explained by focusing on the rise of economic uncertainty. We contribute to this debate by arguing that, under uncertain conditions, narratives of the future—i.e., socially conveyed imagined futures—impact individuals’ decision-making about childbearing. To assess this impact, we conducted (for the first time in fertility intention research) a controlled laboratory experiment in two contrasting settings: Florence (Italy, N = 800) and Oslo (Norway, N = 874). Individuals were randomly exposed to a specific positive or negative future economic scenario (treatments) and were compared with individuals who were not exposed to any scenario (control group). Participants were then asked whether they intended to have a child in the next three years. The results showed a clear causal impact of narratives of the future on fertility intentions among the participants. Moreover, when the actual economic condition at the macro- (country context) or micro-level (labor-market status and characteristics) was more favorable, negative narratives of the future played a more crucial role. Conversely, when the actual economic conditions were less favorable, positive narratives of the future proved especially important. We conclude that, in the era of global uncertainty, individuals respond to more than their actual situation and constraints; narratives of the future create a distance experience from the daily routine that plays a potent role by inhibiting or facilitating fertility decision-making
Manage your money, be satisfied? : money management practices and financial satisfaction of couples through the lens of gender
First published online: 18 December 2019There is a difference between who brings in income, who spends and manages money, and who finally benefits. All these aspects are important in determining how satisfied spouses are with their individual financial situation. Relying on Swiss Household Panel (SHP) data from 2004 to 2013 (N = 1,810 couples), this assumption is tested by analyzing how women's relative income and the management of economic resources within couples affect women's and men's financial satisfaction in the household. Results show that a change in the composition of total income in favor of women directly increases their financial satisfaction and net of household income, while men's financial satisfaction increases up to the point at which women earn more than one third of the total income. Money management regimes serve as an important additional tool in creating and compensating for (dis) advantage between partners. The results are discussed in the context of traditional gender norms in the Swiss Society
First signs of transition: The parallel decline of early baptism and early mortality in the province of Padua (northeast Italy), 1816‒1870
Objective: The aim of this article is to investigate the parallel decline of early baptism and early mortality at the beginning of the demographic transition in a European high-neonatal mortality context. Methods: We use an individual-nominative linked database of 33,000 births and 10,000 deaths for 11 parishes in the province of Padua (northeast Italy) from 1816 to 1870. We utilize life tables, logistic regressions, and two-level logistic regressions, including characteristics of the family. Results: Life tables and regression models show that during the winter, the association between early baptism and the risk of death is pronounced. The connection persists also during the summer, when the exposure to low temperature could not influence the risk of death, and a reverse effect could prevail. (Children in periculo mortis were immediately baptized.) Family behaviours influence both early baptism and early death. Conclusions: The data shows clearly that those social groups and families and those areas experiencing the most intense decline in early baptism were also those in which mortality during the first three months of life declined more. However, it is not true that - as suggested by commentators at the time - the strong statistical connection between the two events was just a direct one, with cold exposure exacerbated by early baptism increasing the risk of dying from hypothermia or respiratory diseases. Contribution: We first show that in the province of Padua during the central part of the 19th century (1816‒1870), there is a clear and strong statistical connection between the decline of early mortality and the decline of early baptism. Second, we try to disentangle the meaning of this connection
A Reflection on Economic Uncertainty and Fertility in Europe: The Narrative Framework
The generalized and relatively homogeneous fertility decline across European countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession poses serious challenges to our knowledge of contemporary low fertility patterns. In this paper, we argue that fertility decisions are not a mere “statistical shadow of the past”, and advance the Narrative Framework, a new approach to the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility. This framework proffers that individuals act according to or despite uncertainty based on their “narrative of the future” – imagined futures embedded in social elements and their interactions. We also posit that personal narratives of the future are shaped by the “shared narratives” produced by socialization agents, including parents and peers, as well as by the narratives produced by the media and other powerful opinion formers. Finally, within this framework, we propose several empirical strategies, from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective, including an experimental approach, for assessing the role of narratives of the future in fertility decisions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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