Search results for "DEMOGRAPHY"
showing 10 items of 2125 documents
Do female leaf beetles Galerucella nymphaeae choose their mates and does it matter?
1998
The role of active female choice in sexual selection is frequently difficult to ascertain, and this is particularly the case for many insect species. Also, it is uncertain whether choosing between males would affect offspring viability. We designed an experiment to investigate the presence of female choice in a Coleoptera species (Galerucella nymphaeae). We also estimated whether mate choice would have any effect on offspring performance. Females were first placed with two males in a test arena to see which of the males copulated with the virgin female, and how quickly. Subsequently the loser male was offered a new virgin female to test for any change in latency time until mating. The two-m…
Overcoming the crisis : the changing profile and trajectories of Latvian migrants
2016
The work was funded by the National Research Programme [grant number 5.2.4] and the Latvian Council of Sciences [grant number 514/2012]. Taking mobility between Latvia and Western Europe as an empirical lens, this analysis explores the complex relationship between spatial disparities in earning potential and migration. The very dramatic shifts in the economic and political context against which migration from Latvia has occurred over the period 2004-2012 make it an especially apposite focus of research investigating the link between mobility and labour market circumstances. As an analytical starting point, conventional economic theory broadly explains the movement of workers from lower to h…
Pastoralists are peoples: Key issues in advocacy and the emergence of pastoralists' rights
2017
This article deals with the rights-based approach to development that in the last decade has informed discourse on pastoralism. It focuses on the organisations that have engaged in pastoral advocacy at the global level, considering the dynamic conceptions of development, human rights and policy that provide their cultural and operative background. It outlines the convergence of indigenous rights with the core challenges of pastoralism, and the emergence of the new concept of 'pastoralists' rights', eventually considered as a separate domain. It argues that the mobility paradigm of pastoral development may not by itself provide an adequate answer to the problems of pastoral communities, unle…
Outsourcing within the Nordic context: Care services for older people in Finland.
2018
The early 1990s economic setback brought significant reforms favoring the outsourcing of care in Finnish municipalities. Here, outsourcing refers to the practice of municipalities employing private organizations through different means (e.g., open tendering) to deliver public care services. In this context, this study examines the growth in the outsourcing of service housing and home-help services in 311 municipalities from 2001 to 2015 and investigates the municipal factors associated with outsourcing using four dimensions: care needs, population size, economic situation, and political ideology of the municipality. The findings reveal a steep increase in the outsourcing of home-help and se…
Migration, Productive Return and Human Capital: Lessons from the new Governmental Policy on Migration in Ecuador
2017
In 2008, the Government of Ecuador initiated a programme for productive return dubbed the Cucayo Fund, aimed at financing small businesses for migrants who were returning to the country. This programme has been a cornerstone in the new governmental policy on migration. In 2015, the IOM considered it an exemplary practice among the instruments enabling the economic and social reinsertion of returning migrants. In this article, based on the mining and analysis of the implementation data from the Cucayo Fund in the three provinces comprising Administrative Region No 7, we specifically examine the incidence of human capital accumulated by the migrants in the success of their ventures. Our resul…
How perceptions of immigrants trigger feelings of economic and cultural threats in two welfare states
2017
Better understanding of attitudes toward immigration is crucial to avoid misperception of immigration in the public debate. Through two identical online survey experiments applying morphed faces of non-Western immigrants and textual vignettes, the authors manipulate complexion, education, family background, and gender in Denmark and Germany. For women, an additional split in which half of the women wore a headscarf is performed. In both countries, highly skilled immigrants are preferred to low-skilled immigrants. Danes are more skeptical toward non-Western immigration than Germans. Essentially, less educated Danes are very critical of accepting non-Western immigrants in their country. It i…
Between a ‘student abroad’ and ‘being from Latvia’: inequalities of access, prestige, and foreign-earned cultural capital
2017
This paper visualises tertiary-level students who study abroad as simultaneously both international students and members of an emerging diaspora. Coming from a country (Latvia) which is peripheral and relatively poor by European standards, students go abroad for multiple reasons not necessarily directly connected with study (e.g. family reasons, labour migration); yet their evolving diasporic status is instrumentalised by the Latvian government which wants them to return and contribute to the country’s development. Based on 27 in-depth interviews with Latvian students and graduates who have studied abroad, our analysis focuses on three interlinked dimensions of inequality: access to educati…
Why People Born During World War II are Healthier
2017
War leads civilians to suffer. This can take extreme forms, such as during periods of intense violence or famines. But also outside of such episodes, civilians’ lives during wars can be harsh, as they suffer from poorer nutritional situations, stress, recessions, and sub optimally functioning health care systems. The more extreme types of suffering are proven to lead to a worse health among those prenatally exposed to them. But long-run effects of prenatal exposure to the latter circumstances have thus far largely been unexplored, even though in many wars more pregnant women are exposed to these “everyday” circumstances than to the extreme circumstances. We study the general, population-wid…
Romanian Households Dealing with Precariousness: A life-course approach
2016
This paper addresses the main pathways through which households avoid slipping into poverty in Romania by employing a life-course approach. Recent researches on social stratification found that in every country we can delineate a particular social layer composed of households living just above the poverty threshold, whose members struggle to reach a more secure prosperity while facing constant threats of downward mobility. Drawing on recent precarious prosperity research, and based on in-depth interviews carried out in 2013 with 25 households situated in between poverty and prosperity from a Romanian city (Cluj-Napoca), we use a life-course approach in order to account for the main routes i…
Fasting During Pregnancy and Children's Academic Performance
2011
Conventionally studied educational interventions tend to be costly and may be subject to “fade out”. In contrast, experiences during the prenatal period can have large and persistent effects on academic performance, even when quite brief. In this paper, we consider a relatively mild and commonly-experienced prenatal exposure – that occasioned by daytime fasting during the lunar month of Ramadan. In register data from England, we find that test scores at age seven are approximately .05 to .08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. We argue these “intent to treat” estimates are downward biased relative to fasting’s effect due to…