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Since the global release of the World Wide Web in 1994, the migration pattern of the highly trained individuals from developing nations, often referred to as Brain Drain, has dramatically increased. Despite debates over the positives and negative consequences, there is mounting evidence that these migration flows are both a product, and a compounding engine, of asymmetrical global development. Rarely considered, though, is the role played by new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) like the Internet. However, contemporary trends do suggest a strong association between the global diffusion of new ICTs and the increase in migration from less-developed to advanced nations or what this paper refers to as Digital Brain Drain. Also, not considered is how Foreign Aid efforts like ICT for development, or ICT4D, initiatives may be inadvertently contributing to Brain Drain, and perhaps paradoxically neutralizing efforts to reduce global disparities like those promoted by the United Nations' Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To begin to fill the gap in the literature, this paper offers various intersectional lenses by which to frame the phenomenon of Digital Brain Drain and an analysis of current trends, while also suggesting a strategic research agenda to assist policy-makers address this important 21st century intersectional, problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Increasing numbers of older adults cross-nationally are without children or partners in later life and therefore likely have greater reliance on non-kin (e.g., friends). This pattern may be particularly pronounced in country contexts that emphasize friendship. This paper hypothesizes that those who lack kin (e.g., children, partners) and/or who live in countries with a stronger emphasis on friendship have more friends in their networks. While these hypothesized patterns are consistent with interdisciplinary literatures, they have not been tested empirically and therefore remain overlooked in current "aging alone" narratives. Method. This study combines individual-level data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, Wave 6) with nation-level data from the European Values Survey (EVS) to estimate multilevel negative binomial models exploring number of friends among those aged 50+ who lack kin across 17 countries. Results. Older adults who lack kin or whose kin are unavailable report more friends in their networks, particularly in countries with a higher percentage of people who believe that friends are "very important" in life. Discussion. This paper challenges dominating assumptions about "aging alone" that rely heavily on lack of family as an indicator of "alone." Future studies of "kinlessness" should consider the extent to which friendship is correlated with lack of kin, particularly in more socioeconomically developed nations. Previous research on "aging alone" may have overestimated risk in more privileged countries that already emphasize friendship, but underestimated risk in familycentered countries where "kinlessness" and alternative sources of support are less common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The declining significance of communism and the emergence of transitional economies are among the most noticeable historical transformations at the end of the twentieth century. At the same time when China's reform and the demise of Soviet-centered international regime were making the headlines, economic globalization is exerting its formidable influence in every corner of human society. The impact of globalization on post-communist societies is salient in many areas, for instance, the changing pattern of welfare spending and welfare reform attempts. The relationship between economic globalization and welfare spending has been extensively explored in advanced western democracies, middle income countries, and less developed countries (LDCs). Two camps emerged from the present literature: those who believed economic globalization leads to the retrenchment of the welfare state, also referred to as the "efficiency hypothesis"; and those who believed the contrary, arguing that economic globalization contributed to the increase of welfare expenditure, also referred to as the "compensation hypothesis". This paper situates this debate in the emergent transitional economies. Based on a sample of twenty-three transitional economies within a time span of ten years (1993-2002), this paper finds evidence supporting the "compensation hypothesis." That is, the increasing cross border trade and capital flows corresponds to increasing government expenditure on social protection and social welfare programs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the studies based on developed countries, femle labor market have critical impacts on fertility int the post demographic transitional era. Currently East Asians NICs have already entered the stage of low fertility. How the labor market influence the fertility in this area becomes an important issue not only for the area study, but also for the general theory of low fertility. This paper examines the relationships between female labor force participation and fertility in Taiwan and South Korea and finds that Taiwanese women have higher labor force participation rates and more children. By using the survey data collected in 1996 in these two countries, this paper suggested that the difference in bargaining power in labor market, which is shaped by the structures of economical and educational opportunities, is responsible for the difference in these two countries. This result confirms the conclusions drew by the studies based on European countries. That is, a country with a more ?women friendly? environment will have both higher female labor force participation rate and fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of globalization, as a world-historic process, in the expansion of international household consumption. Part I shows how the structural tendencies of the Neoliberal trade regime produces underconsumptionist trends that led to increasing consumption in the developed countries while reducing wages and effective demand for exports in developing countries. Clealry, the US can not maintain its long-term share of global consumption due to its low savings rate, massive public sector indebtedness, and falling corporate taxes. The key question concerns how future growth in global exports will be absorbed at the systemic level. What is the debt capacity of Western developed countries like the US and how long can they sustain massive levels of foreign imports? The third section examines how US structural economic change, together with banking deregulation, produced an enormously successful mass marketing campaign in the late 1990s that dramatically altered American attitudes and behaviors toward consumer credit and debt. The paper then proceeds to examine how the EU is responding to surplus capacity problems and low levels of household indebtedness. If the US model is adapted to the continent, it can be expected that credit card market penetration will continue to soar and average consumer debt will continue to rise. The final section examines the profound shift in Asia following banking deregulation and the aggressive expansion of global banks such as Citibank and HSBC. The central issue is whether the primary threat to the Neoliberal trade regime is continued industry ?protectionism? or cultural resistance to Western attitudes toward credit and debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the following question: What explains patterns of gender economic inequality in advanced-industrial societies? The thesis advanced here, derived from a resource structuralism framework, highlights several factors: a gendered division of labor, the commodification of "women's work", the constraints of social reproduction, the decline and devaluation of capital resources, and the gendered nature of welfare state policies. The paper explores these dimensions through a combination of a theoretical discussion and presentation of cross-national research, with particular attention to the Canadian situation. The paper has three main sections: 1) a discussion of resource structuralism as an explanatory framework; 2) an in-depth discussion of explanatory factors derived from the theory; and 3) summary remarks about the social and policy implications of the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I consider whether and how measures of economic exclusion, such as the relative poverty rate, should reflect rising inequality at the top of the income distribution. While most scholars of poverty in developed countries adopt a relative definition that identifies someone as poor if they lack sufficient resources to participate fully in "mainstream" society, the definition of "mainstream" has remained unchanged at the national median over the last halfcentury despite a massive upward redistribution of resources. I argue, based on studies of consumption and firm behavior, that US economic life is no longer centered on the median person. I then propose two modifications to the standard relative poverty metric that allow it to reflect the way the economy has shifted due to rising income inequality in general and income divergence between regions of the country in particular. Trends using the updated measure diverge sharply from those using standard poverty metrics, showing much larger increases in economic exclusion over time and higher rates of exclusion in high income regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death and dying remain taboo in modern societies. Care at the end-of-life is limited, even in advanced countries with an efficient public health system like Spain. In this paper I demonstrate that the knowledge acquired by the medical students in the textbooks they use during their studies in the medical school about end-of-life care and better dying is minimal. The majority of those textbooks is in English, and/or published by international publishing houses. I analyze both, national and international textbooks, as far as they are actually included in the reading lists of the 44 courses of the six years of the Medical School at the University of Barcelona (Spain). I work with 2,868 textbooks used by the students and recommended by teachers. I analyze all those books classified as textbooks at the library of the Medical School and Hospital Clínico (teaching hospital funded in 1906) in the heart of Barcelona. It is the best medical school and the best medical library in the region. I review the textbooks by courses and medical specialties. Some of those courses --like public health, and medical psychology-- do not deal adequately with the care at the end-of-life. The transitions to death of terminal patients are absent. I only found relevant information in some textbooks (like oncology, family and community Medicine). But even in those cases the information is biased and not original. The terminal patient care --i.e. the transition to a better dying-- is neglected in the medical schools. A modern model of death (MMD) is still absent in the medical textbooks researched. The case of Spain is probably similar to other countries, as it uses practically the same textbooks, but that needs to be demonstrated using further data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the developed world, families engage with a wide range of communication media as a part of their daily lives (Kennedy et.al., 2008). Young people experience the technology in their lives much differently than their parents do, and this can be a source of tension in family life (Cho & Hongsik, 2005; Hoover, Clark, & Alters, 2004; Livingstone & Helsper, 2007; Silverstone, 2007; Silverstone, 2002). Previous research has suggested that parents respond to parent/teen conflict in ways that reflect their general orientation to parental authority (Baumrind, 1991; Lareau, 2003). Employing Baumberg's (2004) narrative-in-interaction analysis to interviews with 55 parents and 125 young people, this paper explores both the discursive strategies parents employ when discussing their rules and regulations regarding digital technologies, and the strategies employed by their teenage young people in response. It considers how parents attempt to articulate authority in relation to digital media use among their teenage children, and how the ways in which those teens interpret those parental attempts to express authority influence the strategies they themselves embrace regarding digital media. The paper argues that although economically disadvantaged families experience the digital generation gap with particular intensity, their strategies reveal that they and their teenage children are able to deal with these challenges in creative and effective ways. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn this paper we try to investigate the empirical validity of the convergence thesis which assumes that welfare states are increasingly alike because more generous universal welfare states are adopting policies of retrenchment and neo-liberalization. Using data on the popularity of neo-liberal ideology, the generosity, and spending on the welfare state for 16 western countries we find that there is no general trend towards neo-liberalization and retrenchment. However, we do find that there is a trend towards convergence. More generous, universal welfare states are becoming more liberalized, and liberal welfare states are expanding, which causes convergence in the middle. In the end of the paper we try to find out why welfare states are converging. We find that, although they do not lead to neo-liberalization as is often thought, two common explanations for convergence, globalization and Europeanization, can explain convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike most industrialized nations, the marketplace for female gametes is currently unregulated in the United States, making monetarily compensated egg donation another case of American exceptionalism. Yet this laissez-faire stance is not absent of ideology. This paper focuses on one of the most compelling narratives of egg donation—that of a racialized and eugenic discourse. Although eugenics faded in popularity after World War II, contemporary debates about genetic screening, euthanasia, disability rights, welfare reform, and, indeed, egg donation, point us towards the ways that fears of a eugenic reprisal linger in the American consciousness. The material consequences of egg donation are markedly different from earlier eugenic practices, but we can still trace a lingering ideological and discursive thread from twentieth century eugenics to twenty-first century forms of reproductive and genetic technologies. This paper analyzes advertisements for donors and consumers, fertility treatment center websites, and the extensive screening and application process for egg donors for the superior criteria that “fit” egg donors must satisfy. This paper thus marks out the ways that egg donation is informed by, reinforces, and reproduces racialized and eugenic ideologies concerning both the ability and the desire to engineer the American social body. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to explain why men from economically strong western countries marry women from economically weaker countries. Two hypotheses are deduced from general partner choice theories (exchange theory, economic theory of the family). 1. Low physical and social attractiveness as well as low opportunities lead to marriage with a woman from a poorer country. 2. Men from economically strong countries use the international marriage market to marry comparatively more attractive women than it is possible in marriages with women from their national marriage market. The paper tests the hypotheses for marriages with German men, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP, 1984-2005). First, it turns out that the attractiveness and the social contacts of men with wives from poorer countries and men with German wives are very similar. The hypothesis that low attractiveness and low social contacts lead to these marriages is thus proved wrong. Second, it is shown that due to an age-related marriage squeeze, German men older than 30 years tend to marry women from poorer countries. Third, the results offer strong evidence that the economic gap between the countries of origin allows German men to marry more attractive wives when they opt for women from poorer countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I introduce a social psychological dimension to the paradigm of new institutionalism in economic sociology. In particular, I demonstrate how the source of an actor's motivation impacts interpersonal relationships within institutional environments. The main question I address is why efforts to provide monetary rewards and sanctions to developing countries have been so unsuccessful. I contend that when motivated to engage in local exchanges solely through external rewards and sanctions (such as those based on aid money), aid recipients tend to engage in interpersonal exchanges with less commitment than they would if they perceived their actions were more self-willed. As a consequence of this lower commitment, interactions among aid recipients generate low degrees of trust, leading to exchanges that have a low overall level of commitment and are prone to degeneration. This account highlights the importance of motivational sources in institutional contexts. New institutionalism in economic sociology focuses on the importance of incentives, but it does not address the psychological impact of incentives that are extrinsic versus intrinsic. By elaborating on this distinction, this paper seeks to add an important dimension missing from the current literature in new institutionalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past thirty years, the global economic landscape has changed dramatically. Organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, and national governments, have through their interactions changed the international economy. Beginning in the late-1970s, structure adjustment programs (SAPs) have been implemented to encourage the governments of so-called developing countries to pay back debts to the World Bank and in the process become part of the global economy. SAPs are implemented as part of the conditions for loans given by monetary lenders including the World Bank. Lenders require that governments take steps that are intended to increase their gross domestic products. Governments must focus on increasing exports, decreasing spending on social programs, and privatizing public services such as water and electricity. Much has been written, particularly in the literature on inequality, about the negative effects of SAPs on developing countries and particularly on the neediest of the people of those countries (Seligson and Passe-Smith 2003; Cagatay and Ozler 1995; Afshar and Dennis 1992). Less has been written about the theoretical explanations for the implementations for SAPs by the World Bank and the IMF. Organizational theory would be useful for examining how the organizations of the World Bank, IMF, and national governments act within a particular organizational environment. In this paper, I apply resource dependency theory to the issue of SAPs to better understand this process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupations have long been regarded as central to the stratification systems of industrial countries such as the United States. Thus, they should-but unfortunately have not-figure centrally in attempts to explain the well-documented increases in wage inequality in the1980s and 1990s. This paper uses data from the Current Population Surveys from 1983 to 2002 to build upon recent work by Kim and Sakamoto (2006), who showed that most of the inequality in wages lies within- rather than between-occupations. We test a number of hypotheses about ways in which occupations might be related to the growth in wage inequality: between-occupation differences in skills and mechanisms of social closure; and within-occupation differences in organizational and industrial characteristics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption has become an epidemic in recent development ventures of the Third World countries. This concern has been expressed by scholars and developmental agencies highlighting various causes and consequences of corruption In general, there are two camps among scholars analyzing corruption: one group focusing on economic (sometimes economic reforms) factors (either as causes or as consequences of corruption), and the other shedding light on cultural issues, mainly as causes of corruption. However, without entering into a huge debate, the authors contend that the developing countries demand a comprehensive comparison to evaluate whether their characteristics, such as economic and cultural factors, contribute to their level of corruption. Therefore, the present paper examines some observations of both aforementioned camps based on their major findings. Thus, the authors examine the effects of economic reforms on corruption, and then turn to the effects of cultural values. Finally, the authors combine economic reforms, cultural values as well as their regional distinctiveness to assess their effects on corruption. Our results suggest that economic reforms do not increase corruption in general, while rational/secular values and socioeconomic power resources contribute to decrease corruption. However, self-expression values in developing countries do not have any distinctive effect yet to generalize. In relation to cultural distinctiveness, we find evidence that the residual cultures are less corrupted than ex-communist cultures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of income inequality, economic development, and democratic tradition in determining attitudes toward one increasingly prominent social issue: homosexuality. Using data on 38 countries from the World Values Survey, we fit multilevel logit models to assess the impact of both characteristics of individuals and their national contexts on whether individual's feel that homosexuality is ever justified. We find that the level of national income inequality strongly influences attitudes, and that the effect differs according to social class. We also find a large and significant difference in attitudes between those from post-Communist societies and those from societies that have never experienced Communist rule, with the latter tending to be much more liberal. There is no effect of per capita GDP, however. These finding suggest, then, that economic equality, rather than economic development, encourages liberal attitudes. Policy implications of these findings are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether conceptions of just rewards vary with economic development. Data are from our World Inequality Study which has relevant data for 69 surveys in 32 nations with 95,738 individual respondents collected at various years between 1987 and 2002. We measure inequality by the difference between what people think right for elite occupations and what they think right for low status occupations. A multilevel analysis shows patterns very similar to those found in earlier research, with one striking exception. But by far the most important influence, not previously documented, is the prosperity of the nation when respondents were growing up and first forming their political and social views: people growing up in poor nations are much more accepting of inequality than are people growing in prosperous nations. If this cross-sectional pattern reflects developmental trends, as is likely, then it seems that economic development creates equalitarian attitudes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classic development theory and its contemporary counterparts rely on industrialization as the main driver of changes that produce wide increases in social well-being. In the original "industrializers," manufacturing did indeed enable a broad swath of the population to gain a share of the dynamic productivity increases associated with machine-assisted production. Yet the evolution of the structure of employment in contemporary developing countries has been and will continue to be dramatically different. Using historical data on employment by sector in several developed and developing countries, this paper examines the evolution of development trajectories over time. In China, the 21st century analog to Britain's 19th century "workshop of the world," manufacturing employment has declined in recent years and seems unlikely to ever absorb more than one-sixth of the workforce. This will have massive impacts on the development process in the Global South. Overall, in the absence of East Asian industrialization and the growing real per capital incomes associated with it, conventional ideas of development would seem doomed to extinction, both as theory and ideology. China and the East Asian tigers are, of course, key exceptions to the general disillusionment. They are consequently the principle "exhibits for the defense" offered by those hoping to rescue conventional development theory. How effective this defense will ultimately prove to be will depend on China's future evolution. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seven decades framed by the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the institutionalization of organized labor in the wake of World War II constitutied a unique period of U.S. labor relations which labor historians have identified as the most violent and bloody of any Western industrialized nation. The causes of that violence have been debated by those seeking to maintain, transform, or merely understand the emergent industrial system for more than one hundred and twenty-five years. Several thoughtful studies of labor-management conflict have been produced. They have nevertheless either lacked the systematic methodological rigor required of sociological analysis and/or failed to involve the American case. In this paper, I detail the production of an annualized count of U.S. picket line deaths for the years 1877-1947. I then demonstrate its utility by presenting two introductory time-series regression equations which model the suspected determinants for strike fatalities during the years 1901-1918; and conclude that labor market deterioration is the clearest determinant of strike deaths during that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper purpose is to discuss critically the discourse of women and poverty by feminist perspective in the context of advanced capitalist and under-developed countries. Firstly, it is focused on women and poverty discourses in the US context in which mainly feminization of poverty discussion is dominant. It will be argued that women’s poverty is not equated only with the female-headed household. Second, It is discussed that women’s poverty experiences are also important in the household that women and men live together that is not taken into consideration both feminization of poverty and the mainstream poverty studies. Third, how women and poverty relations are reproduced ideologically in the gender and development discourse by IMF and World Bank project and policy for under-developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working-class mobilization has been neither the sole nor a necessary factor for welfare state formation in advanced industrial countries, yet in all others the working classes did mobilize for a welfare state (independent of their degrees of success), and hence the question of the failure of the US working classes to do so calls for explanation. This paper weighs historical-sociological, political-cultural and state-structural explanations of workers? failure to mobilize politically for a redistributive welfare state in the US. It finds that working-class consciousness did not develop strongly in the US, both because individual, ethnic and religious identities were most often stronger than class identities (and capitalist elites were effective at manipulating these identity-based divisions), and because class identities per se were antithetical to US political culture. Moreover, not only was working-class consciousness weak; attempts at political engagement for redistributive goals were impeded by formidable institutional mobilization hurdles. For these reasons, US workers only rarely and weakly fought for social citizenship rights or redistribution, and when they did, lacked the strength to overcome mobilization hurdles. Instead, they supported non-redistributive elite policies aimed at the welfare goals of securing individual economic opportunity (through low taxes, weak labor and environmental regulation and aggressive foreign economic policy), individual self-sufficiency (through high rates of labor-market participation und denial of aid to the ?undeserving? poor), decent living standards for the ?deserving? poor (through homesteads, Aid to Dependent Children, EITC), and retirement security (through Veterans? Pensions, Social Security and Medicare). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inglehart?s thesis of postmaterial value change is one of the most influential accounts of social and political change in advanced Western nations. This paper uses data from the World Values Survey and the Australian Election Surveys to reexamine the relationship between age and values in 19 advanced industrial nations. We find evidence of a monotonic age structuring of values in a number of countries, but in others, the relationship between age and values is not as Inglehart would predict. In addition, the impact of birth cohort on values differs between countries that are dominated by two major parties and those where there are many smaller parties. The presence of successful Green parties is also important for enhancing the uptake of postmaterialist values. These findings suggest that Inglehart?s arguments about generational value change should be modified to take into account national political institutions and political cultures that might enhance or impede generational-based values change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of globalization on the efficacy of modern social welfare regimes. I hypothesize that those nations that have both more recently and rapidly integrated into the global economy have experienced more adverse effects to their national social welfare than those nations that have not dramatically increased their involvement with the global economy, ceteris paribus. Results from structural equation models lend credence to this hypothesis, which then call into question the applicability of much of the existing research on the relationship between advanced industrial countries and globalization to lesser-developed and developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses Grusky and Sorenson's (1998) challenge to salvage class analysis by investigating differences between the industrial and postindustrial class structures. In contrast to occupational-based models of class, I employ a more Marxist model based around the exploitation of rent-generating class resources. Beginning from the product characteristics framework, I develop hypotheses about changes in the exploitative value of class resources as the US economy turns from goods production to service production. Empirical analyses compare national-level data from the 1960 PUMS and the 2001 CPS to investigate shifts in the class structure during this period. Results demonstrate that while traditional class relations remain salient, the class structure has nonetheless been altered. Income attainment becomes less dependent on the traditional owner/worker schism, but exploitation becomes increasingly dependent. Classes with authority assets become less likely to exploit, while skill resources become a more potent form of exploitation. Professionalization, unionization, and government employment all prove to be additional resources around which the class structure is built. These class resources prove particularly critical in their capacity to shelter groups of workers from the yoke of exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breastfeeding outcomes vary significantly worldwide, even among high-income, industrialized countries. This paper examines the effects of welfare state policies and public health initiatives on breastfeeding initiation and duration among eighteen high-income, OECD countries. Using data compiled from national databases and surveys, I employ a qualitative comparative analysis to assess pathways leading to high and low breastfeeding initiation and duration. This research reveals that countries that are early adopters of international recommendations have the highest breastfeeding rates. My results also suggest that country-wide adherence to the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative is significantly related to higher breastfeeding initiation. Finally, I find that women's representation in government and the political process is an important predictor of breastfeeding duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the connection between positivism, the claim that the social world can be studied like the natural world, and capitalism? The overwhelmingly dominant view common to both positivists themselves, and critical theorists is that positivism is a product of industrial capitalism or industrial society. In the light of this consensus our paper examines a "case" of positivism that clearly does not fit with these expectations. We show that positivism in Italy was widespread in the late nineteenth century, but was linked to Italy's perceived developmental failure not its success. The perceived failure of unification to achieve even development across the peninsula pushed northern intellectuals to theorize geographical differences as intrinsic, immutable, and at times racial. Even more paradoxically, this positivist wave began to break down when political solutions to the southern question appeared on both the right and left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Separating students for instruction and teaching them different things, or "tracking," is widespread across industrialized countries' secondary school systems. But there is much variation in these practices cross-nationally. They go by many different names and can consist of anything from rigid occupational streams located in separate school buildings to very flexible subject-by-subject grouping within schools. A large body of past research has compared the effects of countries' tracking systems on inequality in achievement (Rosenbaum 1976; Oakes 1985; Kerckhoff 1986; Gamoran and Mare 1989; Slavin 1990; Pallas and al. 1994; Lucas 1999; Buchmann and Dalton 2002; Schuetz, Ursprung et al. 2005; Hanushek and Woessmann 2006; Vandenberghe 2006; Waldinger 2006). This paper attempts to improve upon prior comparative tracking research both theoretically and methodologically, by both more explicitly hypothesizing and testing the relative importance of different mechanisms through which tracking may affect achievement inequality, and by using those mechanisms to construct improved measures of tracking that are more cross-nationally comparable than those of previous studies. I develop a conceptual framework hypothesizing that tracking practices may affect achievement inequality through three mechanisms: assignment, separation, and differences in treatments; use these concepts to construct country-level measures of tracking practices; and analyze the relationship between these measures and country-level achievement inequality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior empirical studies have found that American workers report longer hours than workers in other highly industrialized nations. Jacobs and Gerson (2004) have shown that highly educated professionals report the highest hours relative to other occupations and educational levels. This paper analyzes differences in working hours by gender and education levels in 17 high- and middle-income countries in order to test whether this finding holds cross-nationally. In contrast to many studies of working time, we use a measure of weekly rather than annual hours worked; weekly hours, we argue, provide a better window on the discretionary time available to individuals and households. When weekly working hours are used rather than annual hours, Americans' working hours are less exceptional in cross-national perspective. That is especially true among men; employed men report average work weeks in excess of 40 hours in the U.S. and in most western European countries as well. However, within-country differentials in working time show different patterns in middle- compared to higher-income countries. The higher income countries appear more likely to show the U.S. pattern, with the highly educated working longer hours than their less-educated counterparts, while middle-income countries often show the reverse, with less educated workers reporting longer hours. We relate these findings to variation in income inequality and union coverage, and to prior research that finds a correlation between GDP, higher education levels and a self-reported preference for shorter hours. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper analysis the motivations of German professionals and highly skilled workers regarding temporary migration abroad. The exchange of highly skilled workers among developed countries is on the rise. The question is if this new movement of brain circulation is as much determined by economic opportunities than other migration streams or do different reasons play a role in the decision to move abroad? The analysis is based on 38 in-depth interviews with professionals from Germany and their families who temporarily migrated to the U.S. As the interviews show there is a shift in the rational to go abroad and economics are only partially responsible. Globalization has made it easier for temporary migration and offers intrinsic value for personal growths that is often sought by professionals. This entails being exposed to a different language, culture and to prepare children for a future in a global world. Key Terms: highly skilled migration, temporary migration, brain circulation ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data from 18 interviews with genetic researchers working to understand the mechanisms of aging. They argue in developed countries the greatest risk factor of death is old age. They maintain their goal of using genetic research to create anti-aging interventions would be the next logical step in the progress of improving health and extending lifespan. In order to manipulate the aging processes, researchers discussed two challenges: 1) the 'traditional' way aging is perceived; 2) potential ethical and social implications of altering the aging process. Scientists argue scientific progress within biogerontology is treated differently than other biomedical research because of societal (mis)understanding of the aging process itself. Interviewees discussed how they've engaged academic and public audiences in dialogue about the ethical and social implications of their "anti-aging" research. We've developed a typology of such concerns including: Health Span versus Lifespan; Tampering with 'Nature'; Resource Allocation and Social Justice. We illuminate the need for candid communication between scientists, the public and policy makers in order to better understand public concerns regarding genetic research on aging. Adding to the sociology of science we draw attention to the social and ethical concerns of the public related to genetic research in aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once seen as a feature of developed countries, population aging is now occurring in many developing countries and is projected to intensify in the future. With just over ten percent of its population over 60 years old Jamaica now joins the ranks of those countries classified as aged societies. While population aging is an achievement it poses several challenges for the structure and functioning of society. This paper uses data from the 2001 census to examine the nature of population aging in Jamaica. The data indicate that population aging is not taking place uniformly across the country. Rural areas are aging faster than urban areas and the oldest old constitute the fastest growing segment of the population. There is also a high proportion of elderly who are not in any type of marital union and a growing number of elderly men living alone, despite the greater longevity of females. However, the large majority of older people live in households of which they are heads. Based on the current and projected trends, population aging is expected to become a major issue with significant implications for public health and pensions spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the sociology of occupations focused on intra and inter-professional struggles over internal and external jurisdiction and on the special relationships between the profession and local elites and the state. Yet, the growing role of professionals, consultants and media experts in society today clearly extends jurisdictional claims and power struggles among overlapping occupations. Actually, an emerging global economy, vast communication networks, a changing division of labor and the blurring of ethical and cultural boundaries have created more mundane types of interactions between professions and occupations, which are re-shaping the occupational landscape in advanced industrial societies. This paper sets out to explore the consequences of a new encounter between Israeli lawyers and PR people. This new encounter took place within a pre-existing barter economy between lawyers and journalists, which was composed of embedded and direct social ties. Using in-depth interviews and extensive archival research we analyze three strategies used by the PR people to position themselves as brokers between lawyers and the journalists: (1) commercializing social ties (2) becoming translators and (3) presentation of self as media advisors. Our discussion centers on the consequences of the emerging barter economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those familiar with the US and Netherlands know that during the last quarter of the 20th century, there were two areas in which these two advanced industrial nations have profoundly differed. The first arena of difference is the way sexuality and bodily matters are conceived and managed; the second arena of difference pertains to the welfare and penal state, both regarding actual welfare policies and public expectations. But while the latter has received ample attention from sociologist, the former has remained under-explored. Using data from a comparative study on adolescent sexuality and drawing on Foucauldian analytic tools regarding the relationship between sexuality and subjectivity, this paper examines how adolescent sexuality and personhood are conceptualized, controlled and constituted among the white middle classes in the two countries. It then considers how these processes of control and constitution in the white middle-class family are related to the well-documented differences in the organization of the two welfare and penal states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to low-income targeting and various programs explicitly designed to alleviate poverty in industrialized democracies. Three questions relevant for current social reform debate are addressed. First, the extent to which minimum income protection has suffered from the stagnation and decline of welfare states in recent decades? Second, whether the social agenda in the Europeanization of welfare states marks a distinct European path in the development of low-income targeting? Third, if it is possible to observe certain gendered dimensions in the structure of minimum income protection, whereby women are treated differently than men? The empirical analyses are based on new and unique institutional data from the Social Assistance and Minimum Income Protection Interim Data-set. It is shown that last-resort arrangements for the poor and the needy have suffered from retrenchment during the last one and a half decade, although extensive cross-national differences do exist. There is some evidence of convergence in benefit levels among the European countries, but there is no clear evidence of gender inequalities embodied in benefit standards. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since WWII, rates of type 2 diabetes (henceforth diabetes) have skyrocketed. In industrialized societies pre-diabetes, diabetes and diabetes complications disproportionately affect the poor. While the disease is predicted to increase worldwide, the increase will be greater in industrializing economies. Mechanisms causally relating diabetes and poverty are well established, and include the effects of nutrient-deficient or poorly monitored diabetic pregnancies on the fetus, of stunting in young children, and of structural constraints on adequate nutrition, physical activity, and access to medical care. Yet we find that poverty is rarely highlighted as a causal factor in published medical research on diabetes, and when it is, it is given scant attention. In our data set of 30 journal articles indexed under both diabetes and poverty and addressing American settings, explanations for pre-diabetes, diabetes, and diabetic complications overwhelmingly emphasized features of patients (their biology, behaviors, psychological states, or culture), while reframing, neglecting, or ignoring the structural roots of the disease. Our paper discusses the implications of our findings for diabetes research, diabetes care practices, and diabetes-relevant policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No human being can live without water. Yet over one billion people do not have adequate access to this vital resource. With globalization has come a set of policy prescriptions for addressing these shortcomings, yet few clear policy lessons have emerged. Though the private sector participation in water sectors promoted by international financial institutions has had some success in expanding the state capacity in specific contexts, the rush to implement these "best practices" under the Washington Consensus has led to spectacular failures as well. Under what circumstances are proposed solutions most promising? Our findings indicate that successes and failures of state-led reform, private contracting and concessions, and decentralization depend on preexisting state structures and social relations in determinate ways. In this paper, we present the theoretical framework for examining these contextual considerations, with reference to a larger empirical study of water sector reform in three countries. The results offer a cautionary tale regarding the wholesale transfer of public goods models from one context to another, as well as a roadmap regarding which policies and practices might be better suited to dealing with the complexity inherent to the essential task of improving water provision in developing countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I investigate the critical role that cultural capital plays in linking parental SES to children's educational outcomes. Using the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 database, I adjudicate between Bourdieu's cultural reproduction model and DiMaggio's cultural mobility model in Western industrialized countries. While the cultural reproduction model emphasizes the close linkage between parental socioeconomic status and cultural capital, the cultural mobility model argues that such a connection has become loose in modern Western societies with fluid mobility systems. I also advance ideas in the cultural approach by investigating whether cultural capital affects educational inequalities differently in distinct welfare regimes. Results indicate that cultural capital moderately mediates the effects of parental SES on educational performance in most industrialized nations in this study. I also find that in the liberal regime and the United States children from high-status families receive higher return on cultural capital than those from low-status families, a pattern predicted by the cultural reproduction model. This pattern, however, does not exist in other welfare regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on archival materials from the Roman Republic and U.S. antebellum South, this paper questions narratives that place the origins of administrative theory in late 19th or early 20th century industrial society. Agrarian societies based on chattel slavery relied on an extensive corps of supervisors and devoted considerable effort to discourse surrounding the management of unfree labor. Following Bendix, we seek to understand management theories in these societies as ideologies, rooted in ideas that justify the authority of landowners and defend their organizations against legitimacy crises. Based on a systematic review of documents from Roman and Southern writers, we argue that the distinctive political challenges in each historical case led to divergent management ideologies, despite a common economic basis in agricultural enterprise employing gang-system slave labor. In the late Roman Republic and early empire, management ideology confronted challenges to large-scale landownership and absentee landlords. In the antebellum South, following the Nat Turner revolt, management thinkers staved off threats from abolitionism and Northern political activists. We conclude by asking why the managerial belief systems in these agrarian societies have largely been ignored by subsequent organizational scholars, including research on the history of management. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the status of women changes across societies, it is important to understand the mechanisms that impact women, especially early in the life course. This paper examines the educational and occupational expectations of adolescent girls and boys, as well as the female-favorable gap in expectations, across a broad range of industrialized countries, using PISA 2003, a standardized comparative dataset. I examine how both sex-role socialization of adolescents and the egalitarian attitudes of parents affect gendered expectations at both the individual and country level. Additionally, I analyze the impact of institutional arrangements, specifically different welfare regimes, on gender gaps in expectations. My findings shed light on how micro and macro factors influence gender gaps in expectations, which is important for understanding later gender stratification processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As research has increasingly demonstrated that household bargaining over the division of housework does not fully comply with principles of economic exchange, gender-based accounts (such as "doing gender") have been invoked to better understand this phenomenon. This paper elaborates on and tests the "doing gender" argument by examining the impact of men's relative resources on their share of housework across cultures. It is theorized that one mechanism generating variability in men's household bargaining behavior is the extent to which their culture values the importance of breadwinning-related activities, such as providing for one's family and competition in the public arena. Because breadwinning is strongly associated with masculinity in most developed countries, men who live in cultures that place a high value on work as a central part of identity may feel a heightened pressure to devote themselves to distinctively work-related (versus household) activities. The author employs multilevel models to test this proposed relationship in 22 industrialized countries by matching International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) datasets from 1997 and 2002. The results confirm the author's prediction that men are more likely to "do gender" in cultures that strongly value breadwinning activities. The analyses confirm the important role that expectations about masculinity play in men's willingness to do housework, and highlight the significance of cultural context for understanding the link between men's paid and unpaid work. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great body of literature documents the socioeconomic gradients in health. Yet, little have we known about how the socioeconomic features actually influence health outcome under particular social institutes. In order to fill this gap in literature, as well as to examine the external validity of the socioeconomic-health gradients for the developing countries and socialist societies, I examine the health disparities and its dynamics in contemporary China. This paper represents the first stage of research of my dissertation "Health Disparities in Market Transitional State: Evidence from China, 1991-2004". Using a nationally representative sample, I investigate the self-reported health among urban Chinese residents in 1994. My research revealed a positive association between income and health and strong impacts on health outcome from political capital. The education-health association and the occupation-health association are more complicated. Future discussions and research are needed to clarify the SES-health associations in China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban bohemian community constitutes a countercultural phenomenon that accompanied the rise of industrial society. Since the first such community emerged in nineteenth century Paris, new generations of urban artistic strivers have created variations on the original bohemian prototype. This paper draws on a case study of Lawrenceville Pittsburgh to examine the contemporary manifestation of urban bohemia. Like bohemian communities described in previous studies, Lawrenceville's bohemia is an urban cultural enclave formed by struggling artists and artisans dedicated to free aesthetic production, personal liberation, and cheap yet aesthetically stimulating urban living. Lawrenceville, however, is devoid of the intense antagonism between bohemians and bourgeois that has been a virtual trademark of previous bohemias (e.g., the East Village bohemians of the 80's used the phrase "Die Yuppie Scum"). Instead, Lawrenceville artists work in partnership with hip yuppies and other urban bourgois to promote neighborhood redevelopment, and attend common artistic and social events (e.g., parties at local art galleries and a hip local bar). This finding is consistent with Richard Florida's (2002) controversial claim that in the postindustrial city, relations between bohemians and other hip urban residents tends to be non-adversarial as well as beneficial to urban economic development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of research on environmental concern has focused on two related areas: attitudes about environmental issues and environmentally-significant behaviors. Most studies have focused on the former rather than the latter, generating a large body of evidence regarding the social determinants of environmental concern, beliefs and values. Much less is known about pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) and virtually no comparative research has been conducted with regards to the predictors of these behaviors in less developed countries. This paper contributes to this research by studying several indicators of pro-environmental behaviors in a cross-national comparison, focusing specifically on the role of perceived agency in prediction models. Survey data from the ISSP 2000 Environment II Module are analyzed for 27 countries. The findings from these analyses show that in the case of the selected indicators, the multi-item perceived agency index was a significant predictor of pro-environmental behaviors in the global and national samples. Importantly, this association varies considerably across the countries compared in the study. The paper examines possible reasons for this country-variation in the agency-behavior association. The findings contribute to the theoretical models of pro-environmental behaviors and highlights new areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replicating in large part a study by Thomas, Wang, and Fan (2001), this paper estimates Gini coefficients for educational attainment among the 25 years old and above population for 22 advanced industrialized societies between 1950 or 1960 and 2000. The results refute claims of unequivocal reductions in educational inequality over time: only in a small group of countries is this the case, many other demonstrate stability, and a few even reveal increases in inequality. To understand the variation in Gini coefficients over time and across countries, the next part of the paper looks more closely the dynamics of inequality at different stages of education, to see, for example, whether reduced inequalities in primary school attainment are counteracted by growing inequalities in higher forms of education. Finally, different institutional settings are explored as a possible explanatory factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of international sport and mass media in the creation of symbolic boundaries between social groups at the national level. Although the relationship between sport and nationality has been researched for some time in other contexts, nationality in the field of sport has been largely ignored in the US. Using qualitative content analysis I document the ways in which US media coverage of the men's World Cup of soccer characterized each national team as possessing a peculiar way of performing the same sport. This paper underscores these assigned playing styles as a form of cultural representation through which nations are represented via a set of expected cognitive states and behavioral tendencies that manifest during collective performance of sport. While primarily referenced as idealized manifestations of the national, these representations also called upon culturally constructed notions of economic development and performance within the global market, racial demography of the nation, and anticipated gender roles to more fully articulate each nation's imaginary core. Theoretically, I emphasize the importance of sport a site for the symbolic creation of nations as imagined communities but also the importance of race, gender, and development within this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary associations devoted to environmental issues are proliferating throughout the world. We seek to understand the origins and cross-national variation of environmental associations using statistical data over the past half-century for a large sample of countries. Functionalists view the growth of association as a natural response to ever-greater environmental problems. Mainstream sociologists emphasize domestic societal factors that enhance social movements and civic engagement - such as education, national wealth, and democracy. We argue that associational life is profoundly shaped by transnational organizational structures and dynamics of the global environmental movement. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, we examine the role of world society and the global environmental movement in shaping civic life around the world. "Domestic" associations - especially those in the developing world - are often direct or indirect offshoots of broader global structures and dynamics. Event history analyses identify two distinct patterns: Within the industrialized West, domestic factors such as education, democracy, and economic development largely predict the prevalence of environmental organizations. In the developing world, in contrast, international factors such as the influence of global civil society account for the prevalence of environmental associations. We consider implications for global environmentalism and for theories of civil society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I use interactions in an experimental setting to measure of the status of women in China. The parameters of the experiment are set according to the status characteristic and expectation states theory to measure the status of women as indicated by the choices subjects make during the experiment. The experiment was replicated in three locations (Wuhan, Beijing, and Taiwan) to determine the impact of economic development on women's status. The results indicate that economic development in Mainland China has had a detrimental effect on women's status and that democratic advances in Taiwan have not improved the status of women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss and elaborate upon the theory of cross-national ecological unequal exchange. Drawing upon world-systems theoretical propositions, ecological unequal exchange refers to the increasingly disproportionate utilization of ecological systems and externalization of negative environmental costs by core industrialized countries and, consequentially, declining utilization opportunities and imposition of exogenous environmental burdens within the periphery. We provide a descriptive overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to date examining this issue. Ecological unequal exchange provides a framework for conceptualizing how the socio-economic metabolism or material throughput of core countries may negatively impact more marginalized countries in the global economy. It focuses attention upon the global uneven flow of energy, natural resources, and waste products of industrial activity. Further, the distributional processes underlying ecological unequal exchange is relevant to considerations of both the socio-economic and environmental imperatives underlying the pursuit of sustainable development, as it contributes to underdevelopment outside the core of the world-system. We conclude by highlighting the interconnections between uneven natural resource flows, global environmental change, and the challenge of broad-based sustainable development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic research argues that women's labor force participation in industrializing countries is a strategy for managing the risk of household shortages, but few statistical models of women's employment incorporate this into their models. Drawing from the literature on household survival strategies, I argue that married women act as household managers who respond to macro-economic, local labor market, and household conditions by differentially allocating their labor between productive and reproductive work. Mexican census data from 1970, 1990, and 2000 shows that in response to weak labor demand conditions precipitated by Mexico's economic crisis and restructuring, the female labor force became more demographically and socio-economically diverse as a growing number of women entered the labor force to maintain their households' standard of living. Married women were increasingly likely to enter the labor force, though more often in non-wage than wage positions — a pattern that differed, however, between the export-oriented industrial northern border and older industrial and agricultural regions of the country. A mid-level model of the household as the locus of risk diversification supports the contention that women's employment may begin as a household survival strategy but often evolves into an adaptation to the restructured economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]