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Recent Publications | Working Papers
Clark, Samuel J. "Demographic impacts of the HIV epidemic and consequences of population-wide treatment of HIV for the elderly: Results from microsimulation." In Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research, edited by Barney Cohen and Jane Menken, 92-116. Washington: National Academies Press, 2006.
deSherbinin, Alex, Leah VanWey, Kendra McSweeney, Rimjhim Aggarwal, Alisson Barbieri, Sabine Henry, Lori M. Hunter, Wayne Twine, Robert Walker. “Rural Household Micro-Demographics, Livelihoods and the Environment.” Global Environmental Change 18, no. 1 (2008): 38-53.
Abstract: This paper reviews and synthesizes findings from scholarly work on linkages among rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment. Using the livelihood approach as an organizing framework, we examine evidence on the multiple pathways linking environmental variables and the following demographic variables: fertility, migration, morbidity and mortality, and lifecycles. Although the review draws on studies from the entire developing world, we find the majority of microlevel studies have been conducted in either marginal (mountainous or arid) or frontier environments, especially Amazonia. Though the linkages are mediated by many complex and often context-specific factors, there is strong evidence that dependence on natural resources intensifies when households lose human and social capital through adult morbidity and mortality, and qualified evidence for the influence of environmental factors on household decision-making regarding fertility and migration. Two decades of research on lifecycles and land cover change at the farm level have yielded a number of insights about how households make use of different land-use and natural resource management strategies at different stages. A thread running throughout the review is the importance of managing risk through livelihood diversification, ensuring future income security, and culture-specific norms regarding appropriate and desirable activities and demographic responses. Recommendations for future research are provided.
Boardman, Jason D., Casey L. Blalock, and Tanya M. M. Button. "Sex Differences in the Heritability of Resilience." Twin Research and Human Genetics 11, no. 1 (2008):12–27.
Abstract: We examine the heritability of psychological resilience among US adults aged 25 to 74 years. Using monozygotic and same sex dizygotic twin pairs from the National Survey of Mid-Life Development in the United States (MIDUS) we show that positive affect is equally heritable among men (h2 = .60) and women (h2 = .59). We then estimate the heritability of positive affect after controlling for an exhaustive list of social and inter-personal stressors, and we operationalize the residual for positive affect as resilience. According to this specification, the heritability of resilience is higher among men (h2 = .52) compared to women (h2 = .38). We show that self-acceptance is one of the most important aspects of psychological functioning that accounts for the heritability of resilience among both men and women. However, compared to women, men appear to derive additional benefits from environmental mastery that may enable otherwise sex-neutral resilient tendencies to manifest.
Madhavan, Sangeetha and Enid J. Schatz.. "Coping with change: Household structure and composition in rural South Africa, 1992 - 2003." Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35, no. S69 (2007): 85–93.
Abstract: Aim: To describe household change over a 10-year period of tremendous social, political, economic and health transformation in South Africa using data from the Agincourt health and demographic surveillance system in the rural northeast of South Africa. Methods: Examination of household structure and composition at three points: 1992, 1997, and 2003. These three years loosely represent conditions immediately before the elections (1992), short term post-elections (1997), and longer term (2003), and span a period of notable increase in HIV prevalence. Results: Average household size decreased and the proportion headed by females increased. The within-household dependency ratios for children and elders both decreased, as did the proportion of households containing foster children. The proportion with at least one maternal orphan doubled, but was still relatively small at 5.5%. Conclusions: This analysis is a starting point for future investigations aimed at explaining how HIV/AIDS and other sociocultural changes post-apartheid have impacted on household organization. The analysis shows both consistency and change in measures of household structure and composition between 1992 and 2003. The changes do not include an increase in various types of "fragile families", such as child-headed or skipped-generation households that might be expected due to HIV/AIDS.
Enid J. Schatz. "Taking care of my own blood": Older women's relationships to their households in rural South Africa." Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35, no. S69 (2007): 147 - 154.
Abstract: Aim: This paper examines financial, emotional, and physical responsibilities elderly women are being asked to take on due to the incapacity of their adult children to care for the next generation; such incapacity is likely to increase as the HIV/AIDS epidemic worsens. Methods: This paper combines quantitative and qualitative data. Census data from the Agincourt health and demographic surveillance system (AHDSS) describe the presence of the elderly (specifically women over the age of 60 and men over the age of 65) in households in the Agincourt study site. Semi-structured interviews with 30 female residents aged 60-75 complement the census data by exploring the roles that older women, in particular, are playing in their households. Results: An elderly man and/or woman lives in 27.6% of households; 86% of elders live with non-elders. Households with a woman over the age of 60 resident (as opposed to those without) are twice as likely to have a fostered child living in the household and three times as likely to have an orphaned child in the household. Elderly women face financial, physical, and emotional burdens related to the morbidity and mortality of their adult children, and to caring for grandchildren left behind due to adult children's mortality, migration, (re)marriage, and unemployment. Conclusions: Older women provide crucial financial, physical, and emotional support for ill adult children and fostered and orphaned grandchildren in their households. As more prime-aged adults suffer from HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality, these obligations are likely to increase.
Schatz, Enid J. and Catherine Ogunmefun. "Caring and Contributing: The Role of Older Women in Rural South African Multi-generational Households in the HIV/AIDS Era." World Development 35, no. 8 (2007): 1390-1403.
Abstract: This paper explores households’ coping strategies in rural South Africa, where HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality are having profound effects on household resources. Older women’s pensions play a potentially crucial role in multi-generational households during crises and for day-to-day subsistence. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 elderly women from the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) fieldsite, who were eligible for the South African non-contributory pension. Although we stratified our sample by household mortality experience, the area’s high levels of migration, unemployment, and HIV/AIDS prevalence made our respondents’ pensions an important, regular, and reliable source of household-income regardless of their households’ mortality profile.
Raymer, James and Andrei Rogers. "Using Age and Spatial Flow Structures in the Indirect Estimation of Migration Streams." Demography 44, no. 2 (2007): 199-223.
Online Article | Article (pdf)
Abstract: This article outlines a formal model-based approach for inferring interregional age-specific migration streams in settings where such data are incomplete, inadequate, or unavailable. The estimation approach relies heavily on log-linear models, using them to impose some of the regularities exhibited by past age and spatial structures or to combine and borrow information drawn from other sources. The approach is illustrated using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. and Mexico censuses.
Little, Jani and Andrei Rogers. "What can the age composition of a population tell us about the age composition of its out-migrants?" Population, Space and Place 13, no. 1 (2007): 23-39. (Published online December 19, 2006.)
Abstract: Preliminary findings show that the age structure of a population can provide valuable information about the age composition of its out-migrants, and that this relationship can become a key ingredient in the proposed new method for estimating the age profile of out-migrants when accurate data are not available. The method relies on the Rogers-Castro model schedule to consistently and accurately represent age profiles of out-migration, and the results show that variation among these out-migration schedules can be captured by a typology based on a small set of clusters, or families of schedules. Membership of the clusters is then predicted from simple measures of population composition using discriminant function analysis. The investigation is based on data for US states, CMSAs, MSAs and non-metropolitan counties, and their outflows of migrants between 1995 and 2000. The measures of population age composition come from official 1995 intercensal age-specific population estimates for the same geographical units.
Pampel, Fred C. Sociological Lives and Ideas: An Introduction to the Classical Theorists. Second Edition. New York: Worth, 2006.
Pampel, Fred C. "Socioeconomic Distinction, Cultural Tastes, and Cigarette Smoking." Social Science Quarterly 87, no. 1 (2006):19-35.
Abstract: Objectives. The inverse relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and smoking is typically seen in terms of the greater economic and social resources of advantaged groups, but it may also relate to cultural resources. This study aims to test theories of symbolic distinction by examining relationships between smoking and ostensibly unrelated cultural preferences. Methods. Using the 1993 General Social Survey, ordinal logistic regression models, and a three-category dependent variable (never, former, and current smoker), the analysis estimates relationships of musical likes and dislikes with smoking while controlling for SES and social strain. Results. Preferences for classical music are associated with lower smoking, while preferences for bluegrass, jazz, and heavy metal music are associated with higher smoking. Conclusions. The results suggest that SES groups may use smoking, like other cultural tastes, to distinguish their lifestyles from those of others.
Pampel, Fred C. "Global Patterns and Determinants of Sex Differences in Smoking." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 47, no. 6 (2006):466-487.
Abstract: The worldwide spread of tobacco use in recent decades raises questions about the relative prevalence of smoking among men and women. Does the degree of gender equality in nations promote equality in cigarette use? Does rising use of cigarettes by women stem from the stage of cigarette diffusion and earlier increases among men? Or have changes in economic factors and smoking policy affected the sexes differently? This study uses aggregate data for 106 nations, measures of smoking prevalence circa 2000, and lagged measures of gender equality, cigarette diffusion, and tobacco access to address these questions and evaluate the underlying theories. With the logged ratio of female to male prevalence as the dependent variable, regression results reveal that gender equality has inconsistent effects on women's smoking relative to men, cigarette diffusion has more consistent and moderately strong effects, and economic factors have weak effects. Global patterns of adoption of cigarettes by women appear most closely associated with the early adoption by men and then movement through a regular pattern of cigarette diffusion.
Cohen, Barney and Jane Menken (eds.). Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington: National Academies Press, 2006.
Menken, Jane and M. Omar Rahman. "Reproductive health". In International Public Health: Diseases, Programs, Systems, and Policies, 2nd ed, edited by Michael H. Merson, Robert E. Black and Anne J. Mills, 71-126. Sudbury MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2006. (First edition published 2001.)
Young, J. T., Jane Menken, Jill Williams, Nizam Khan and Randall S. Kuhn. "Who Receives Healthcare? Age and Sex Differentials in Adult Use of Healthcare Services in Rural Bangladesh." World Health and Population (2006).
Abstract: Use of healthcare services may vary according to the cultural, social, economic and demographic situation of the person who may need care. In certain contexts, it particularly varies with age and sex of the potential user. Bangladesh is a less developed, primarily rural and predominantly Muslim traditional society with a pluralistic healthcare system. This paper endeavours to delineate the age, sex and other factors associated with obtaining healthcare in this pluralistic system. Using the Matlab Health and Socio-economic Survey, the paper uses logistic regression to ask whether factors commonly related to Western healthcare utilization in a theoretical framework useful in the study of Western research on healthcare services are also useful in the study of healthcare utilization in the developing world. Elderly women, never-married women and Hindus were less likely to visit any practitioner, which may indicate less health empowerment for these groups. Obtaining care is inversely related to household size and positively related to age (for men), education, poor health status and impaired mobility. Controlling for these factors, household wealth and ever-married status showed no significant effect on obtaining care. The differential in use of healthcare services can partially be ameliorated by changes in policy related to the elderly and women.
Kuhn, Randall, Omar Rahman, and Jane Menken. "Survey Measures of Health: How well do self-reported and observed indicators measure health and predict mortality?" In Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research, edited by Barney Cohen and Jane Menken, 314-341. Washington: National Academies Press, 2006.
Trapp, Erin and Jane Menken. "Differential treatment of children by sex." In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2006.
McNown, Robert F., Janice Boucher Breuer and Myles Wallace. "Misleading Inferences from Panel Unit Root Tests: a Reply." Review of International Economics 14, no. 3 (2006): 512-516.
Abstract: Ford et al. (this issue) point out that the SURADF panel unit root test may be sensitive to panel composition. This reply shows that they overstate the case since they focus on a short time series of 44 observations. Type II errors are much more likely in this environment so that inconsistent conclusions may arise for individual panel members across differently composed panels. We demonstrate that this problem becomes much less likely when the number of time-series observations increases.
Boardman, Jason D.. "Self-Rated Health Among U.S. Adolescents." Journal of Adolescent Health 38, no. 4 (2006): 401-408.
Abstract: Purpose: This article investigates the meaning of subjective health assessments for younger respondents by examining the temporal stability of self-rated health (SRH) among adolescents. Two competing understandings of SRH are tested: SRH as a spontaneous health assessment or as an enduring self-concept. Methods: Using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 13,511), an intra-class correlation coefficient and a weighted Kappa estimate are calculated to assess the test-retest reliability for SRH. Self-rated health (T2) is then modeled as a function of SRH (T1), physical health (T1), and mental health (T1), and changes in physical and mental health (T2–T1). Results: SRH is found to be moderately stable over repeated observations (K = .40; ? = .55) among adolescents. Findings from multivariate analyses suggest that SRH (T2) is largely determined by SRH (T1) and less so by changes in physical or psychological health status (T2-T1). Conclusions: SRH among adolescents is in part a spontaneous health assessment but it is best understood as an enduring self-concept.
Downey, Liam. "Using Geographic Information Systems to Reconceptualize Spatial Relationships and Ecological Context." The American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 2 (2006): 567-612.
Abstract: In this article, the author demonstrates how geographic information system (GIS) software can be used to reconceptualize spatial relationships and ecological context and address the modifiable areal unit problem. In order to do this, the author uses GIS to (1) test an important category of spatial hypotheses (spatial proximity hypotheses), (2) overcome methodological problems that arise when data sets are not spatially comparable, and (3) measure ecological context. The author introduces a set of GIS variable construction techniques that are designed to accomplish these tasks, illustrates these techniques empirically by using them to test spatial proximity hypotheses drawn from the literature on environmental inequality, and demonstrates that results obtained using these techniques are methodologically superior to and substantively different from results obtained using traditional techniques. Finally, the author demonstrates that these techniques are the product of an alternative conceptualization of physical space that allows sociologists to develop new ways to think about and measure spatial relationships, ecological context, and place-based social inequality and that gives them the ability to reconceptualize spatially based methodological problems that have confronted them for years.
Downey, Liam. "Environmental Racial Inequality in Detroit." Social Forces 85, no. 2 (2006): 771-796.
Abstract: This study uses industrial pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and tract-level demographic data from the 2000 U.S. census to determine whether environmental racial inequality existed in the Detroit metropolitan area in the year 2000. This study differs from prior environmental inequality research in two important ways. First, it offers a positive rationale for using hazard proximity indicators. Second, it uses a distance decay modeling technique to estimate hazard proximity. This technique weights each hazard's estimated negative effect by distance such that the estimated negative effect declines continuously as distance from the hazard increases, thus providing more accurate estimates of proximity-based environmental risk than can be obtained using other variable construction techniques currently found in the literature. Using this technique, I find that Detroit's black neighborhoods were disproportionately burdened by TRI facility activity in 2000 and that neighborhood racial composition had a strong independent effect on neighborhood proximity to TRI activity.
Downey, Liam. “Environmental Inequality in 14 Major Metropolitan Areas in 2000.” Sociological Spectrum 26, no. 1 (2006):21-41.
Abstract: This article compares black and Hispanic environmental inequality levels across 14 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and asks how conclusions regarding the existence of environmental inequality differ when different definitions of environmental inequality are employed. Using census tracts as the unit of analysis, industrial pollution data from the Toxic Release Inventory, and demographic data from the U.S. census, tobit regression analysis is used to determine whether two types of environmental racial inequality—disparate social impacts inequality and relative distribution inequality—existed in each metropolitan area in 2000. Results show that black and Hispanic environmental inequality were fairly widespread throughout the 14 metropolitan areas, that Hispanic environmental inequality was more widespread than black environmental inequality, and that conclusions vary depending upon which definition of environmental inequality is employed. This latter findings suggests that the conclusions researchers draw are likely to be inaccurate if they do not properly specify the definitions of environmental inequality they are using and the types of environmental inequality they are studying.
Rachel Silvey. "Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia." Global Networks 6, no. 1 (2006):23-40.
Abstract: There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the costs to families' of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant-sending community in West Java, I focuses on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low-income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.
Rachel Silvey. "Geographies of Gender and Migration: Spatializing Social Difference." International Migration Review 40, no. 1 (2006):64.
Abstract: This article provides a review of the contributions that the discipline of geography is making to gender and migration research. In geographic analysis of migration, gender differences are examined most centrally in relation to specific spatialities of power. In social construction of scale, the politics of interlinkages between place and identity, and the socio-spatial production of borders. Supplementing recent reviews of the gender and migration literature in geography, this article examines the potential for continued cross-fertilization between feminist geography and migration research in other disciplines. The advances made by feminist geographers to migration studies are illustrated through analysis of the findings and debates tied to the subfield's central recent conceptual interventions.
McKinnish, Terra. “Importing the Poor: Welfare Magnetism and Cross-Border Welfare Migration.” Journal of Human Resources 40, no. 1 (2005):57-76.
Black, Dan, Terra McKinnish, and Seth Sanders. "The Economic Impact Of The Coal Boom And Bust." Economic Journal, 115, no. 503 (April 2005):449.
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the impact of the coal boom in the 1970s and the subsequent coal bust in the 1980s on local labour markets in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. We address two main questions in our analysis. How were non-mining sectors affected by the shocks to the mining sector? How did these effects differ between sectors producing local goods and those producing traded goods? We find evidence of modest employment spillovers into sectors with locally traded goods but not into sectors with nationally traded goods.
McKinnish, Terra. "Lagged dependent variables and specification bias." Economic Letters, 88 no. 1 (July 2005):55-59.
Abstract: Many panel data models include a lagged dependent variable as a regressor. Analytical results in this note show that common forms of misspecification induce negative bias in the coefficient estimate. An analysis of welfare caseloads illustrates these results.
Chen, Yongmin and Terra McKinnish. "Do Economics Departments Search Optimally in Faculty Recruiting?" Economic Inquiry, 43 no.3 (July 2005):676-688.
Abstract: We find that it is optimal for higher-quality departments to search broadly across many or even all fields in faculty recruiting, whereas it is optimal for lower-quality departments to conduct narrower searches. We develop a simple search model in which optimal search scope is shown to increase in department quality. Using data from Job Openings for Economists, we find that higher-ranked departments do conduct broader searches. We find that a 10-place increase in department ranking is associated with 3.5–4.8 more Journal of Economic Literature subfields listed in a position announcement.
Black, Dan A., Terra G. McKinnish, and Seth G. Sanders. "Tight Labor Markets and the Demand for Education: Evidence from the Coal Boom and Bust." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 59 no. 1 (2005).
Abstract: Human capital theory predicts that individuals acquire less schooling when the returns to schooling are small. To test this theory, the authors study the effect of the Appalachian coal boom on high school enrollments. During the 1970s, a boom in the coal industry increased the earnings of high school dropouts relative to those of graduates. During the 1980s, the boom subsided and the earnings of dropouts declined relative to those of graduates. The authors find that high school enrollment rates in Kentucky and Pennsylvania declined considerably in the 1970s and increased in the 1980s in coal-producing counties relative to counties without coal. The estimates indicate that a longterm 10% increase in the earnings of low-skilled workers could decrease high school enrollment rates by as much as 5–7%—a finding with implications for policies aimed at improving low-skilled workers’ employment and earnings, such as wage subsidies and minimum wage increases.
Rogers, Andrei and Junwei Liu. "Estimating Directional Migration Flows from Age-Specific Net Migration Data." Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies 17, no. 3 (2005):177-270.
Abstract: This paper focuses on a method for indirectly inferring migration flows in the absence of migration data, using two successive counts of birthplace-specific population stocks. Such stocks have been used in the past to infer patterns of mortality and indeed of net migration. But a workable method for using such population stocks to indirectly estimate directional migration flows still eludes us. Widely observed regularities in the age patterns of outmigration indicate that age-specific propensities of migration are correlated, and this characteristic suggests an estimation method that directs attention to the age-specific relative propensities of two or more flows exhibited in the historically preceding time intervals, and then uses those past measures of relative propensities to disaggregate residually estimated net migration flows into the underlying contributions of inmigration and outmigration. A detailed demonstration of the method, applied to US data, is set out in this paper.
Rogers, Andrei and James Raymer. "Origin Dependence, Secondary Migration and the Indirect Estimation of Migration Flows from Population Stocks." Journal of Population Research 22, no. 1 (2005):1-19.
Abstract: US census data from 1940 to 2000 are used in this paper to illustrate the importance of origin dependence on migration streams and to examine the effects of such dependence on patterns of interregional migration. These findings are then used to make possible the indirect estimation of migration flows. A method is introduced that uses historical regularities found in the ratios of secondary to primary migration and two consecutive birthplace-specific counts of multiregional population stocks. The results demonstrate how patterns of primary and secondary migration act to shape population redistribution processes.
Rogers, Andrei, Luis J. Castro, and Megan Lea. "Model Migration Schedules: Three Alternative Linear Parameter Estimation Methods." Mathematical Population Studies 12, no. 1 (2005):17-38.
Abstract: Observed schedules of migration rates exhibit strong regularities in age patterns. These regularities may be captured and represented by a mathematical expression known as the multiexponential model migration schedule. Fitting this function to empirical data requires non-linear regression methods and often some experimentation with alternative initial estimates of the parameters. Simpler, linear methods of estimation are adequate for most applications. These may be carried out with hand calculators or simple spreadsheet-based calculations on the computer. Such methods are studied and appear to perform satisfactorily.
Pampel, Fred C. "Forecasting Sex Differences in Mortality in High Income Nations: The Contribution of Smoking." Demographic Research 13, no. 18 (2005):455-484.
Abstract: To address the question of whether the sex differential in mortality will in the future rise, fall, or stay the same, this study uses the relative smoking prevalence among males and females to forecast future changes in relative smoking-attributed mortality. Data on 21 high income nations from 1975 to 2000 and a lag between smoking prevalence and mortality allow forecasts up to 2020. Averaged across nations, the results reveal narrowing of measures of the sex differential in smoking mortality. However, continued widening of the differential in non-smoking mortality would counter narrowing due to smoking and lead to future increases in the female advantage overall, particularly in nations at late stages of the cigarette epidemic (such as the United States and the United Kingdom) where narrowing of the smoking differential has already begun to slow.
Boardman, Jason D., Jarron M. Saint Onge, Richard G. Rogers, and Justin T. Denney. "Race Differentials in Obesity: The Impact of Place." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46, no. 3 (2005):229-243.
Abstract: This article reveals race differentials in obesity as both an individual- and neighborhood-level phenomena. Using neighborhood-level data from the 1990–1994 National Health Interview Survey, we find that neighborhoods characterized by high proportions of black residents have a greater prevalence of obesity than areas in which the majority of the residents are white. Using individual-level data, we also find that residents of neighborhoods in which at least one-quarter of the residents are black face a 13 percent increase in the odds of being obese compared to residents of other communities. The association between neighborhood racial composition and obesity is completely attenuated after including statistical controls for the poverty rate and obesity prevalence of respondents' neighborhoods. These findings support the underlying assumptions of both institutional and social models of neighborhood effects.
Silvey, Rachel M.. “Review of the Film Born into Brothels.” Children, Youth and Environments 15, no. 1 (2005): 362-363.
Silvey, Rachel M.. "Transnational Islam: Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia." In Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space, edited by Ghazi-Walid Falah and Caroline Nagel, 203. New York: The Guilford Press, 2005.
Silvey, Rachel M.. "Borders, Embodiment, and Mobility: Feminist Advances in Migration Studies." In Blackwell Companion to Feminist Geography, edited by Lise Nelson and Joni Seager. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.
Ridao-Cano, Christobal and Robert McNown. "The effect of tax-benefit policies on fertility and female labor force participation in the United States." Journal of Policy Modeling 27, no. 9 (2005): 1083-1096.
Abstract: This paper presents an investigation of the effects of the tax exemption for dependents and the child care tax credit on age-specific fertility rates and female labor supply for the U.S. 1948–1997. These policies are incorporated in a model that is tested within a cointegration framework for women of two age groups: 20–24 and 25–34 year olds. Tests indicate the existence of two cointegrating relations for each of the two age groups, and these are identified as a fertility equation and a female labor force participation equation, with signs and statistical significance supportive of the economic model. The tax exemption elasticity in the fertility equation for younger women is moderately large, but this policy variable is dominated by effects from changes in women's wages. The 25–34 year olds are less responsive to all economic changes, including the tax exemption, reflecting reduced flexibility in their timing of fertility.
Downey, Liam. "Single Mother Families and Industrial Pollution in Metropolitan America." Sociological Spectrum 25, no. 6 (2005):651-675.
Abstract: Environmental inequality researchers have studied the distribution of social groups around a variety of environmental hazards. However, researchers have focused their attention primarily on race and class-based environmental inequality, largely ignoring the question of whether other subordinate groups—children, the elderly, women, welfare recipients, single mother families—are disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards. I address this gap in the literature by asking whether single mother families are overrepresented in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods, whether the percentage of single mother families in a neighborhood is a better predictor than a neighborhood's racial and income characteristics of environmental hazard presence levels, and whether the representation of single mother families in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods is similar to that of single father families and married parent families.
Benzler, Justus and Samuel J. Clark. "Toward a Unified Timestamp with explicit precision." Demographic Research 12, no. 6 (2005):107-140.
Abstract: Demographic and health surveillance (DS) systems monitor and document individual- and group-level processes in well-defined populations over long periods of time. The resulting data are complex and inherently temporal. Established methods of storing and manipulating temporal data are unable to adequately address the challenges posed by these data. Building on existing standards, a temporal framework and notation are presented that are able to faithfully record all of the time-related information (or partial lack thereof) produced by surveillance systems. The Unified Timestamp isolates all of the inherent complexity of temporal data into a single data type and provides the foundation on which a Unified Timestamp class can be built. The Unified Timestamp accommodates both point- and interval-based time measures with arbitrary precision, including temporal sets. Arbitrary granularities and calendars are supported, and the Unified Timestamp is hierarchically organized, allowing it to represent an unlimited array of temporal entities.
Kuhn, Randall. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Health and Mortality in a Migrant-Sending Region of Bangladesh." In Migration and Health in Asia, edited by Santosh Jatrana, Mika Toyota, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh. London: Routledge, 2005.
Abstract: Twelve specialist essays explore health aspects of the migration of workers which is now an established feature of Asia's socio-economy. The matters addressed include: implications for the spread of Aids in Indonesia; relocation of the Akha people in Northwest Laos; foreign labour migrants and SARS in Singapore; role of nativity in Singapore's elder-health; maternal anaemia in the Visayas, the Philippines; Filipinos in Sabah; migration differentials in healthcare in Japan; migration and health within China; migrant-sending area's health in Bangladesh; reproductive health of wives of out-migrants in Bihar. The final papers draw general conclusions very useful to policy planners and administrators as well as to those directly concerned with health matters. With bibliography and index.
Becker, Charles M. and Dina S. Urzhumova. "Mortality recovery and stabilization in Kazakhstan, 1995–2001". Economics & Human Biology 3, no. 1 (2005):97-122.
Abstract: This paper documents both the extraordinary rise in mortality that accompanied economic deterioration in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as the far more tentative recovery. Kazakhstan's multi-ethnic population also makes it possible to identify a large mortality disadvantage for those—especially working-age males—who are not of Kazakh ethnicity. There are also stark regional differences—mortality decline is underway in many areas with substantial economic recovery, while elsewhere there has been no discernable improvement.
Pampel, Fred C. "Diffusion, Cohort Change, and Social Patterns of Smoking." Social Science Research 34 (2005):117-139.
Abstract: In noting that common explanations of smoking cannot account for both its current inverse relationship with SES and the shift over time toward greater concentration among low SES groups, this paper presents an explanation based on diffusion and status distinctions. The explanation predicts that, as cigarette diffusion proceeds and fashions change, the social determinants of smoking will shift across cohorts, such that initially positive relationships between pre-adult components of socioeconomic status and smoking in early cohorts become negative in later cohorts. Tests using historical, cohort-linked aggregate data on cigarette diffusion, and individual-level data from the General Social Surveys covering the years from 1978-1994 and cohorts from 1889-1976 largely support the predictions. In comparing older to newer cohorts, the results show correspondence between the stage of cigarette diffusion and the direction and strength of the relationships of education, parental status, urban residence and gender with cigarette smoking.
Rogers, Richard G. and Jarron M. Saint Onge. "Race/Ethnic and Sex Differentials in Pulse Pressure among U.S. Adults." Ethnicity & Disease 15, no. 4 (2005): 601-606.
Abstract: The prevalence of high blood pressure in the U.S. is a pressing public health concern. The purpose of this study is to use the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994) and linear regression to document variations in pulse pressure by race/ethnicity and sex in the United States. We find higher pulse pressures among racial and ethnic minorities than among non-Hispanic whites and among males than females. The results indicate that the effect of race on pulse pressure decreases with the inclusion of various controls; nevertheless, African Americans maintain higher pulse pressures than non-Hispanic white Americans, even net of controls. Compared to females, males exhibit higher pulse pressures. Moreover, this sex gap progressively increases with controls for socioeconomic status and physical activity. Given the known health consequences associated with high pulse pressure, these results highlight the importance of better understanding and addressing the risk of high pulse pressure among demographic subpopulations in the United States.
Downey, Liam and Marieke Van Willigen. "Assessing Environmental Inequality: How the Conclusions We Draw Vary According To the Definitions We Employ." Sociological Spectrum 25, no. 3 (2005): 349-369.
Abstract: This article demonstrates that the conclusions environmental inequality researchers draw vary according to the definitions of environmental inequality they employ and that researchers can use a single set of results to test for the existence of multiple forms of environmental inequality. In order to illustrate these points, I set forth five definitions of environmental inequality, list the kinds of evidence we must obtain in order to determine whether each form of environmental inequality exists, and show how conclusions drawn from several recent environmental inequality studies vary depending on the definition of environmental inequality we employ. My goal is not to show that any one definition is superior to the others; nor am I trying to generalize from the studies reported here to a broader set of research findings. Instead, my goal is to a) show that we can use a single set of results to address a variety of environmental justice concerns and b) demonstrate that our interpretations of environmental inequality research have been too narrowly focused on one set of environmental inequality outcomes.
Downey, Liam and Marieke Van Willigen. "Environmental Stressors: The Mental Health Impacts of Living Near Industrial Activity." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46, no. 3 (2005): 289-305.
Abstract: A growing literature examines whether the poor, the working class, and people of color are disproportionately likely to live in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods. This literature assumes that environmental characteristics such as industrial pollution and hazardous waste are detrimental to human health, an assumption which has not been well tested. Drawing upon the sociology of mental health and environmental inequality studies, we ask whether industrial activity has an impact on psychological well-being. We link individual-level survey data with data from the U.S. Census and the Toxic Release Inventory and find that residential proximity to industrial activity has a negative impact on mental health. This impact is both direct and mediated by individuals' perceptions of neighborhood disorder and personal powerlessness, and is greater for minorities and the poor than it is for whites and wealthier individuals. These results suggest that public health officials need to take seriously the mental health impacts of living near industrial facilities.
Boardman, J. D. "Health Pessimism among Black and White Adults: The Role of Interpersonal and Institutional Maltreatment." Social Science & Medicine 59, no. 12 (2004): 2523-33.
Abstract: Using data from the 1995 Detroit Area Study (N = 1106) this paper finds that black adults report significantly worse self-rated health when compared to whites with similar levels of self-reported morbidity. This relationship, called health pessimism, persists despite statistical controls for age, gender, socioeconomic status, health care access, and health related behaviors. Interpersonal maltreatment is found to be positively associated with health pessimism and more importantly, when comparing adults who perceive similar levels of maltreatment, white and black adults do not differ with respect to health pessimism. This suggests that the increased risk of health pessimism among black adults is due in part to race differences in the perception of interpersonal maltreatment.
Boardman, J. D. "Stress and Physical Health: The Role of Neighborhoods as Mediating and Moderating Mechanisms." Social Science & Medicine 58, no. 12 (2004): 2473-83.
Abstract: Using data from the 1995 Detroit Area Study (N = 1106) in conjunction with tract-level data from the 1990 census, this paper evaluates the relationship between residential stability and physical health among black and white adults. Results suggest that neighborhood-level variation in health is primarily mediated by key sociodemographic characteristics of individuals (e.g., age, race, and socioeconomic status). However, a significant portion of health differentials across neighborhoods is due to disparate stress levels across neighborhoods. Further, high levels of neighborhood stability provide an important buffer to the otherwise deleterious effects of increased stress levels on adults' overall health.
McNown, Robert F., and Cristobal Ridao-Cano. "A Time Series Model of Fertility and Female Labour Supply in the Uk." Applied Economics 37, no. 5 (2005): 521 - 32.
Abstract: Multiple time series procedures suitable for estimation and testing with nonstationary data are applied to UK data on age-specific fertility rates, age-specific female labour force participation rates, and women's and men's wages. Cointegration tests establish the existence of two long-run equilibrium relations, identified as a fertility relation and a labour supply equation, for each age group. Maximum likelihood estimates of these equations are consistent with the new home economics model of fertility, and tests of Granger-causality show evidence of extensive feedback among the variables.
This research was funded by grant # SES-9910662 from the National Science Foundation. The authors appreciate the comments of three anonymous referees and those of James Alm, Editor of this special issue.
McNown, Robert F., and Cristóbal Ridao-Cano. "The Effect of Child Benefit Policies on Fertility and Female Labor Force Participation in Canada." Review of Economics of the Household 2, no. 3 (2004): 237 - 54.
Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of the effects of Canadian child benefit policies on fertility and female labor supply. Canada has adopted a variety of child benefit policies since 1918 that are incorporated into an economic model of fertility. This model is estimated and tested with time series data on fertility, female labor force participation, female wages, male incomes, female education, and child benefits. Cointegration methods are employed to accommodate problems of nonstationarity and endogeneity that characterize time series models of fertility and female labor supply. Two cointegrating relations are found, and these are identified as a fertility relation and a female labor supply function. All economic variables, including child benefits, have statistically significant and appropriately signed coefficients. The estimates are used to evaluate the effects of policy and other economic changes on fertility.
This research was funded by grant # SES-9910662 from the National Science Foundation. The authors appreciate the comments of three anonymous referees and those of James Alm, Editor of this special issue.
Rogers, Richard G., Robert A. Hummer, and Patrick M. Krueger. "Adult Mortality." In Handbook of Population, edited by Dudley Poston and Mike Micklin. NY: Springer Publishers, 2005.
Abstract: This handbook provides a comprehensive inventory of the current state of demography, and updates and expands The Study of Population, edited by Philip M. Hauser and Otis Dudley Duncan and published in 1959.
The chapter "Adult Mortality" underscores the significance of demographic research on adult mortality for understanding the health consequences of social inequality, human behavior, biological factors, and various other forces in human populations. The chapter outlines the general substantive concerns that guide demographers who conduct research on adult mortality, discusses the data and methods that are commonly used to conduct research in this area, summarizes findings of specific influences on adult mortality, and reveals variations in mortality across a number of demographic, social, and behavioral factors, and provides some ideas for ongoing research in this area.
The chapter authors are among the leading contributors to demographic scholarship over the past four decades. They represent a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives as well as interests in both basic and applied research.
The Handbook was showcased at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) meetings in France, July 2005. Reaction to the Handbook was so positive that some individuals are calling the book "The Harry Potter of Demography."
Rogers, Richard G., Robert A. Hummer, Patrick M. Krueger, and Fred C. Pampel. "Mortality Attributable to Cigarette Smoking in the United States." Population and Development Review 31, no. 2 (2005): 259-92.
Abstract: Cigarette smoking is an especially pernicious behavior because of its high prevalence and mortality risk. We use the powerful methodology of life tables with covariates and employ the National Health Interview Survey-Multiple Cause of Death file to illuminate the interrelationships of smoking with other risk factors and the combined influences of smoking prevalence and population size on mortality attributable to smoking. We find that the relationship between smoking and mortality is only modestly affected by controlling for other risk factors. Excess deaths attributable to smoking among adults in the United States in the year 2000 were as high as 340,000. Better knowledge of the prevalence and mortality risk associated with different cigarette smoking statuses can enhance the future health and longevity prospects of the population.
Pampel, Fred C. "Patterns of Tobacco Use in the Early Epidemic Stages: Malawi and Zambia, 2000-2002." American Journal of Public Health 95, no. 6 (2005): 1009-15.
Abstract: Objectives. I examined demographic and socioeconomic patterns of tobacco use in 2 African nations in the early stages of epidemic.
Methods. I used population-based data from the Demographic Health Surveys of men aged 15-59 years (N=5111) and women aged 15-49 years (N=20809) in Malawi (2000) and Zambia (2001/2002) and multinomial logistic regression models to examine tobacco use (nonsmoker, light cigarette smoker, heavy cigarette smoker, and user of other tobacco) as a function of age, residence, education, occupation, marital status, and religion.
Results. Male tobacco users tend to be less educated, urban, household service or manual workers, formerly married, and non-Christian and non-Muslim. Although tobacco use is less common among women, it relates inversely to their education and occupational status. Tobacco users more often reported drinking, getting drunk, and, among men, paying for sex.
Conclusions. Tobacco use patterns in 2 African nations at the early stages of epidemic suggest the need for public health officials to focus on disadvantaged groups to prevent the worldwide spread of tobacco.
Downey, Liam. "The Unintended Significance of Race: Environmental Racial Equality in Detroit." Social Forces 83, no. 3 (2005): 971-1007.
Abstract: This article addresses shortcomings in the environmental inequality literature by a) setting forth and testing four models of environmental inequality and b) explicitly linking environmental inequality research to the declining significance of race debate and spatial mismatch theory. The explanatory models ask whether the distribution of blacks and whites around environmental hazards is the result of black/white income inequality, racist siting practices, or residential segregation. They are tested using manufacturing facility and census data from the Detroit metropolitan area. It turns out that the distribution of blacks and whites around this region's polluting manufacturing facilities is largely the product of residential segregation which, paradoxically, has reduced black proximity to manufacturing facility pollution.
Kuhn, Randall, and Steven Stillman. "Understanding Interhousehold Transfers in a Transition Economy: Evidence from Russia." Economic Development and Cultural Change 53, no. 1 (2004): 131-56.
Abstract: This paper uses data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to describe and model the determinants of interhousehold transfers. Russian households have experienced large reductions in income during the transition period, with a particularly severe decline occurring in the fall of 1998. Russia is experiencing a most unique pattern of aging. Sharply declining fertility, increasing mortality, and past demographic catastrophes (the two World Wars and the famine of the 1930’s) has left a population which is both young (few elderly) and old (one of the oldest working-age populations in the world). While Russia’s economic institutions and social safety net are underdeveloped, the typical household structure closely resembles that found in wealthier countries. Although it is typically assumed that the elderly in Russia are a highly vulnerable economic group, we actually find that transfers flow strongly from the elderly to their children, who are typically in the early part of the life-course and often have young children. This is especially true for the elderly in rural areas and those in extended families. While households with higher longer-term resources receive on net more transfers, we also find strong evidence that transfers respond to economic needs (i.e. transitory fluctuations in resources).
Frankenberg, Elizabeth, and Randall Kuhn. "The Role of Social Context in Shaping Intergenerational Relations in Indonesia and Bangladesh." In Intergenerational Relations across Time and Place: Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, edited by M. Silverstein. New York: Springer, 2004.
Krueger, P. M., R. G. Rogers, R. A. Hummer, and J. D. Boardman. "Body Mass, Smoking, and Overall and Cause-Specific Mortality among Older US Adults." Research on Aging 26, no. 1 (2004): 82-107.
Abstract: The authors examine the relationships between body mass, smoking, and overall and cause-specific mortality among U.S. adults aged 60 and older, using data from the National Health Interview Survey linked to the Multiple Cause of Death file and Cox proportional hazard models. The authors find that, compared to those who are normal weight, obese individuals have higher risks of overall, circulatory disease, and diabetes mortality. Furthermore, smoking status suppresses the relationships between obesity and overall, circulatory disease, and cancer mortality, and interacts with low body weight to increase mortality risks. Finally, underweight individuals initially face increased risks of death over the follow-up period, although over time their mortality risks diminish to those of normal-weight individuals, likely due to the presence of unobserved illness. Researchers and health practitioners must account for smoking status, body mass, and specific causes of death to understand and improve the health of our increasingly obese elderly population.
Denney, Justin T., Patrick M. Krueger, Richard G. Rogers, and Jason D. Boardman. "Race/Ethnic and Sex Differentials in Body Mass among US Adults." Ethnicity & Disease 14, no. 3 (2004): 389-98.
Abstract: Current research incompletely documents race/ethnic and sex disparities in body mass, especially at the national level. Data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey, Sample Adult File, are used to examine overall and sex-specific disparities in body mass for non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and Cuban Americans. Two complementary multivariate regression techniques, ordinary least squares and multinomial logistic, are employed to control for important confounding factors. We found significantly higher body masses for non-Hispanic Blacks, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican Americans, compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Among very obese individuals, these relationships were more pronounced for females. Given the known health consequences associated with overweight and obesity, and recent trends toward increasing body mass in the United States, these findings underscore the need for public health policies that target specific subpopulations, in order to close the wide disparities in body mass in the United States.
Silvey, Rachel. "A Wrench in the Global Works: Anti-Sweatshop Activism on Campus." Antipode 36, no. 2 (2004): 191-97.
Abstract: When students galvanized anti-sweatshop activism on US and Canadian university campuses in the late 1990s, their actions struck at the core of recent debates about the geographies of counter-hegemonic politics (Blunt and Wills 2000; Herod and Wright 2002; Miller 2000; Sharp et al 2000; Traub-Werner and Cravey 2002). Students staged rallies and sit-ins to challenge their universities’ complicity with the corporate exploitation and abuse of low-wage workers in factories overseas. They directed attention to the embeddedness of academic institutions in the systems that perpetuate global economic inequality, and signaled the re-emergence of students as vocal, vibrant political actors. Observers have celebrated the anti-sweatshop movement’s capacity to build transnational alliances across difference, influence the shape of labor internationalism, link distant nodes in regimes of accumulation, and in some cases even jump scale from the grassroots to international regulatory institutions. Indeed, the movement is cause for optimism among geographers who seek new approaches to the injustices wrought by neoliberal globalization.
Silvey, Rachel. "Transnational Migration and the Gender Politics of Scale: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, 1997-2000." Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25, no. 2 (2004): 141-55.
Abstract: Recent research has begun to explore the dynamics of transnational migration from a feminist perspective, and studies of migrant domestic workers have played a prominent role in pushing forward this work. Emerging simultaneously, but largely separately, are explicit debates within geography about the politics of scale, the social construction of scale, and the gender dimensions of scale. This article develops an analysis of the gender politics of the production of scale, specifically, the ‘transnationalisation’ of Indonesian activist approaches to overseas migrant domestic workers' issues. Based on fieldwork in an Indonesian community in West Java that has recently become a sending area for migrants to Saudi Arabia and interviews with activists representing Indonesian migrant women, the article examines the various gender-specific ways in which migrant women's rights activists construct and deploy the scales of the body, the nation and the transnational. It argues that activist approaches to migrant domestic workers' rights and the ways in which activists mobilise migrant women's narratives represent sophisticated feminist theoretical approaches to scale. By identifying and exploring the scale theory embedded in activist strategies, the analysis highlights the imbrication of feminist theory with practice, and underscores activists' agency in producing the meanings of specific scales. In so doing, the article is aimed more broadly at elaborating the ambivalent relationship between feminist activism/theory and transnationalism.
Silvey, Rachel. "Power, Difference, and Mobility: Feminist Advances in Migration Studies." Progress in Human Geography 28, no. 4 (2004): 1-17.
Abstract: The feminist migration literature in geography has contributed to bringing several critical social theoretical themes to the forefront of migration studies. Specifically, feminists have foregrounded: the politics of scale, mobility as political process, questions of subjectivity/identity, and critical theorizations of space and place. This article provides an overview of the feminist migration literature organized around these themes. In addition, it argues that feminist migration studies can play a pivotal role in the on-going project of marrying materialist approaches to political-economy with those of critical social theorists.
Rogers, Andrei, and Lisa Jordan. "Estimating Migration Flows from Birthplace-Specific Population Stocks of Infants." Geographical Analysis 36, no. 1 (2004): 38-53.
Abstract: When adequate data on migration are unavailable, demographers infer such data indirectly, usually by turning to residual methods of estimating net migration. This paper sets out and illustrates an inferential method that uses population totals in the first age group of birthplace-specific counts of residents in each region of a multiregional system to indirectly infer the entire age schedule of directional age-specific migration flows. Specifically, it uses an estimate of infant migration that is afforded by a count of infants enumerated in a region other than their region of birth to infer all other age-specific migration flows. Since infants migrate with their parents, the migration propensities of both are correlated, and the general stability of the age profiles of migration schedules then allows the association to be extended to all other age groups.
Krueger, Patrick M., Richard G. Rogers, Cristobal Ridao-Cano, and R. A. Hummer. "To Help or to Harm? Food Stamp Receipt and Mortality Risk Prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act." Social Forces 82, no. 4 (2004): 1573-99.
Abstract: The authors use data from the National Health Interview Survey-Family Resources Supplement to examine the relationship between Food Stamp receipt and prospective adult mortality, among eligible households. They specify a switching probit model to adjust for observed and unobserved factors that correlate with selection into the Food Stamp Program and mortality, and to estimate mortality under counterfactual conditions that we do not observe. The average individual, based on observed characteristics, has higher mortality when participating than when not participating. But due to unobserved differences between participants and nonparticipants, those who self-select into participation experience lower mortality than if they did not participate. Our findings suggest that Food Stamps provide an important safety net that protects the health of those who are most likely to participate.
Silvey, Rachel. "Transnational Domestication: State Power and Indonesian Migrant Women in Saudi Arabia." Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004): 245-64.
Abstract: Recent efforts to elaborate a feminist geopolitics have centered on challenging and expanding classical spatializations of "the political." Building on this growing body of work, this article explores the gender politics of state power as refracted in struggles over women’s transnational migration and domestic labor. Specifically, it analyzes the Indonesian and Saudi states’ involvement in shaping the migration and working conditions of Indonesian domestic servants employed in Saudi Arabia. It examines key aspects of both states’ direct and indirect influences on the feminization of the migrant labor force, the limitations of their policies for protecting overseas migrant women, and the political strategies that activists are employing to broaden the states’ spaces and scales of jurisdiction. It points up gender-specific limits to the internationalization of state labor regulation, as well as possibilities that NGOs have identified for improving the protection of migrant workers in this transnational context. It thus identifies some particular ways in which contestations around women’s transnational labor migration and gendered constructions of domestic labor are interlinked with the changing geographies of state power.
Entries in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods, 2004 (Vol. 3). M. S. Lewis-Beck, A. E. Bryman, & T. F. Liao (Eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kuhn, Randall
"Stable Population Model"
Little, Jani S.
"Goodness of Fit Measures"
"Logarithms"
"Nonlinearity"
"Standard Error"
Pampel, Fred
"Exploratory Data Analysis"
Abstract: Each entry is written by a leading authority in the field, covering both quantitative and qualitative methods. This unique multi-volume reference set offers readers an all-encompassing education in the ways of social science researchers. Written to be accessible to general readers, entries do not require any advanced knowledge or experience to understand the purposes and basic principles of any of the methods. The Encyclopedia features two major types of entries: definitions, consisting of a paragraph or two, provide a quick explanation of a methodological term; and topical treatments or essays discussing the nature, history, application/example and implication of using a certain method.
