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Sociology professors can teach students their perspective in evaluating different family development patterns. This will help students understand some of the limits they face on family choices of their own, as well as the limits faced by those less fortunate. As the students learn to judge empirical evidence, their decisions on public policy matters about family development will become better informed.

The article presents literary criticism of the books "Family Album" by Penelope Lively, "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood, and "Love, Again" by Doris Lessing. Particular focus is given to the roles of age and gender in the novels. According to the author, these authors have created unique styles as a result of their engagement with aging which interrogate the relationships between time, memory, family history, and form. Other topics include perception and emotional labor.

The article reflects on the financial instability of the European Union, focusing on what the author sees as Germany's assertion of hegemony over the process of financial restructuring with the aim of increasing its economic competitiveness. The author discusses the monetary policy of the European Union, the Treaty for Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG), and Germany's involvement with Greece's 2012 financial crisis.

A literary criticism of the article "For a Left With No Future," by T. J. Clark is presented. It outlines the main arguments presented by Clark, discusses his Situationist perspective to political and economic theory, and supports his argument that leftist movements have failed to capitalize on the social unrest of the 21st century.

The author reflects on the 2010 election in Great Britain. It is noted that the contest resulted in the formation of a coalition government under the control of David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, and his junior partner, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. A number of topics are addressed, including the Labour Party's position under the new government and the impact of the global financial crisis on Great Britain.

The article examines the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 in historical context. It notes that in the 2008 rescue efforts, unlike in the 1929 Great Depression, the U.S. Treasury Department was able to coordinate the world economy. It differentiates the rescue from the efforts of former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in that the banks were not disciplined but were supported and have flourished, benefiting from low interest rates to trade on their own behalf at the expense of the economy.

The article presents the author's views on the strong electoral chances of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005, despite the weak position of administrations of other countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The social and economic changes which have occurred due to neoliberal reforms in the 1990s and afterwards, are responsible for this reversal in the political system of OECD countries.

The article focuses on the role of the New Labour Party in the Neoliberal Order in Great Britain. The Americanization of British politicians has speed up dramatically under the New Labour. New Labour Party serves as heir to a social landscape transformed by Thatcherism. Part of the party's initial appeal to liberal sentiment has placed on its promise to take the region in the heart of Europe.

This article explores the concept of minor literature and examines the critical readings of "The Fifth Child," "Mara and Dann" and "Ben, in the World," novels written by Doris Lessing. The characteristics of minor literature are the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy and the collective assemblage of enunciation. "The Fifth Child" was the best received, although its disturbing qualities were often noted. Responses to "Mara and Dann" also suggest similar anxieties about form and content.

Examines the implications of the repudiation of the European Union (EU) constitutional treaty in the 2005 French and Dutch referenda. Mechanisms of hegemony in the Netherlands; Character of Europe's first steps towards a common foreign policy; Class divisions over the neoliberal treaty that were shown in the French and Dutch referenda; Role of Great Britain at the Convention for the Future of Europe; Analysis of the illusion that the EU could still emerge as an independent power, offering a more humanitarian, social-democratic alternative to the United States.

Critiques the book `Medea: A Novel in Voices,' by Christa Wolf, her first work of fiction since the reunification of Germany. Premise of the novel classified as a political allegory; Previous criticisms of Wolf's previous works; Dissidence of Wolf; Novel's focus on the relationship between the growth to womanhood of its main characters and the maturing of the new Germany.

The article focuses on how women are depicted in the pages of 'Demography' journal. Although historical demographers tried to account for distinctive female marriage patterns, the dominant explanatory framework emphasized the circumstances of men. The author has reviewed Demography, the official journal of the Population Association of America, from its first issue in 1964 to the present to find out how women are presented in the journal. The 624 articles--approximately half of those published in the past 30 years--are the basis for his conclusions about women in Demography. He read all the articles on fertility and those on marriage and the family. The author has formulated a set of question to keep in mind while reading each article. He tries to find whether article discusses about women, about men, or both. Tables in Demography show men on top, women on bottom. When the data are presented in columns, men are usually on the left, women on the right. On graphs showing both sexes, it is usually to find that men are shown as solid lines, women as dotted lines. Women also are expected to wish to conceal a contraceptive failure, thus leading to underestimate the extent of contraceptive use. Articles about marriage often are motivated by appeals to commonsense understandings about why women might want to marry, or about what makes women attractive to men. More typically, comparisons between men and women are implicit: gender is relevant even when men are absent.

This article focuses on the effect of famines on population growth. Famines in small areas are likely to have been more devastating than is reflected in national figures. If famines are to explain population stagnation, they must occur sufficiently frequently to offset the effects of growth in the inter-crises periods. A population that has experienced famine cannot be as large as it would have been in the absence of famine. In the initial famine simulations, mortality was age selective, following the pattern observed in Bangladesh in 1974-75. Fertility dropped by 33 percent at all ages for the duration of the famine. Fertility decreased by 50 percent in the high-intensity crisis and 10 percent in the low-intensity crisis. It rebounded to 20 percent and 5 percent higher than normal for the year after famine ended. Thus, the causes of the normal high levels of mortality, rather than their unusual sharp peaks, should be sought as the explanation for slow growth or population stagnation.

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the patterns of marriage in regional areas of Europe during 1870-1960. In 1900, the marriage trends of Europe were characterized by late age at marriage for women and the widespread spinsterhood. But a marriage boom took place in 1930 and 1960 in Europe leading to a sharp decline in the marriage age among women and an increase in proportion of women marrying by the end of their child-bearing age. In the provinces which were dominated by large cities the marriage rates were reduced in 1960 and at the same time the nuptiality in urban areas was often lower than in rural areas.

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A longer life means that current cohorts can spend more years as members of a family in the statuses of parent, child, or spouse and in the combination of these statuses that defines the conjugal family. How much has this potential been realized? This question is addressed for the United States through a simulation of demographic conditions in 1800, 1900, 1960, and 1980. Despite declining fertility and higher divorce rates, women in the 1960 and 1980 cohorts spent more years in marriage and as parents than did earlier generations. They also spent more years as children of aged parents. But much of the potential offered by longer life spans has not been achieved. Not only did the number of years in marriage and parental statuses decline between 1960 and 1980, but current cohorts spend a smaller proportion of their adult lives in them. On the basis of these results, we propose some scenarios of the ways that potential increases in the amount of time that people spend in family statuses may provoke social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of a process framework for teaching functional apparel design is discussed as it relates to developing students' creative problem-solving abilities. A typical design process framework is presented, and practical approaches to implementing the various stages of the design process in the functional apparel design classroom are discussed. References from works on creative thinking are used to support the author's premise that the development of the "process" orientation is, over the long run, more important to design education than a "product" orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Provides quantitative and comparative estimates of the extent and duration of family separation. Immigration to the United States at the turn of the century; Information from the Public Use Sample of the 1910 US Census; Separation of husbands from wives and parents and children; Comparison of largest ethnic groups; Ethnic myths and ethnic stereotypes.

This article is an introduction to the special issue of the Journal of Family History devoted to spinsters, who are defined as women who have not married by age 35 and are thus unlikely ever to marry. Relatively high propor tions of spinsters in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries raise questions for the history of marriage, the family, and women. After in troducing the articles in this issue, the author discusses differences in the propor tions of women never-marrying in China and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western Europe, and the association of spinsterhood with the timing of mar riage, the sex ratio, economic circumstances, and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article compares the declines in fertility in Europe and the Third World. Lower levels of fertility were largely due to the adoption of innovative behavior within marriage. So far this transformation of reproduction has been monotonic and rapid. Socioeconomic development is associated with the timing of the onset of the transition and is responsible for differences among groups during the transition, although it is not yet possible to rule out alternative explanations such as ideational or institutional change The pace and pervasiveness of the declines, however, suggest that a mechanism of diffusion is involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for writer Doris Lessing is presented.