Unwanted children are carried, born, and reluctantly raised each year; they are prone to abortion, abandonment, neglect, and abuse. Meanwhile, many developed societies are suffering from depopulation. To address these two issues concurrently, I propose that governments should grant pregnant women and mothers an irreversible and unconditional one-time chance to relinquish all their legal rights and obligations associated with each of their children under a specific age to a National Rearing Institute that adopts the children and rears (...) them to the age when they can fully exercise their rights as adult citizens. I call this set of policy arrangements “Project New Republicans.” This project aims to (1) protect and support the best interests of unwanted children, (2) maximize the health outcomes of the mothers who gave birth to these children and help the mothers to achieve self-realization, and (3) preserve an influx to the population from procreation against depopulation. The project is primarily grounded on both the utilitarian and intra- / inter-generational accounts of justice. It also ameliorates the oppression and domination of women by unjust social structures in alignment with the human rights-based approach. (shrink)

Demographic Analysis - Selected Concepts, Tools, and Applications presents basic definitions, practical techniques, and methods, as well as examples of studies based on the usage of demographic analysis in various institutions and economic entities. The volume covers studies related to population distribution, urbanization, migration, population change and dynamics, aging, longevity, population theories, and population projections. It is an asset to academic and professional communities interested in advancing knowledge on diverse populations in various contexts such as public (...) policies, public services, education, and labor markets. The book aims to help students of demography as well as practitioners of other fields of social sciences and people in government, business, and nonprofit organizations. (shrink)

SummaryThis report describes a family planning KAP survey conducted in 2000 households in rural Ghana between April and October, 1972, as one of the Danfa Project’s baseline studies. Subsequent re-surveys were done in 1975 and 1977 to assess changes related to project health education and family planning programmes.Reported knowledge about family planning was three times that reported in previous studies in rural Ghana. About 70% of the respondents approve of family planning, but most want a large family, with over six (...) children. At all ages, males wanted two or three more children than did women.The current 3% population growth rate in Ghana may increase due to continued early age of marriage, the rising size of the reproductive age group and improved pregnancy outcome.Although the expected relationships between knowledge and use of family planning and age and education were present, these differentials were typically only 10–15%. In the project area it appears that women will be most important in making the decision to practise family planning, although motivation of males is being stressed.Most villagers hear about family planning through informal, word-of-mouth channels with relatively little use of news media, family planning workers or clinic health personnel. To improve the practice of family planning, village-based health educators are working with volunteers including traditional birth attendants, community leaders, teachers and church groups. (shrink)

Population aging is becoming an inevitable phenomenon in Albanian post-socialist society, posing multi-faceted challenges to its individuals, families and society as a whole. Since 1991, the Albanian population has been exposed to intensive demographic changes caused by unintended aspects of socio-economic transition from a planned socialist economy to a market-oriented capitalist one. Ongoing processes of re-organization of social institutions increased its socio-economic insecurity leading to the application of various coping mechanisms. While adjusting themselves to other aspects of life, (...) people changed their decisions of having children and leaving the country. On the other hand, replacement of former traditional extended family forms with diverse living arrangements and family structures has been the outcome of the combination of three factors: falling fertility, increasing life expectancy and increasing migration. However, family remains the basic social unit that provides support, care and protection for its old members even though its capacities are diminishing. Family Life Cycle Theory views family development as a series of stages where family members deal with various developmental tasks and play different roles as they move from one stage to another. This paper examines population aging in Albanian post-socialist society. Based on Family Life Cycle Theory and Family Development Theory, it reviews literature and uses secondary data to discuss its implications for elderly care and family life. It concludes that population aging requires better understanding of this process in order to facilitate a series of family adaptations to respond to the changing needs of its elderly members. (shrink)

The classical models of epidemics dynamics by Ross and McKendrick have to be revisited in order to incorporate elements coming from the demography (fecundity, mortality and migration) both of host and vector populations and from the diffusion and mutation of infectious agents. The classical approach is indeed dealing with populations supposed to be constant during the epidemic wave, but the presently observed pandemics show duration of their spread during years imposing to take into account the host and vector population (...) changes as well as the transient or permanent migration and diffusion of hosts (susceptible or infected), as well as vectors and infectious agents. Two examples are presented, one concerning the malaria in Mali and the other the plague at the middle-age. (shrink)

The dismantling of the welfare state across the United Kingdom (and indeed a number of other Western industrialised democracies, such as Canada and the United States) and the reductions to welfare provisions and entitlements are having a detrimental impact on women's equality and safety. Towers and Walby argue that the recent cuts to welfare provision in the United Kingdom, particularly for women's services, could lead to increased levels of violence for women and girls. This paper makes the argument that female (...) victims of domestic abuse experience violence on two levels: first, at the intimate/personal level through their relationship with an abuser and, second, at a structural level, through the state failing to provide adequate protection and provision for women who have experienced violence in intimate relationships. Using a specific example of post-violence community services delivered to both the children of women who have experienced domestic violence and the women themselves, this paper draws on empirical research carried out in 2010–2011 with London-based third-sector and public sector organisations delivering the Against Violence and Abuse Project ‘Community Group Programme’. We argue that the lack of services for women involved in, or exiting, a violent relationship can amount to state-sanctioned violence, if funding is withheld, or indeed, stretched to breaking point. (shrink)

With the further growth of the world population and the further intensification of the processes of interaction between countries and increasing movements of the masses of people, the role of Political Demography becomes more and more important. Issues of global ageing, migration, low fertility in developed countries (or very high fertility in some African countries), high mortality in many developing states (including deaths from AIDS); rapid change in the ethnic composition in Europe and in several other regions and many (...) other pressing issues are in the focus of this discipline. Some of these problems are analyzed in this yearbook. However, among those issues, the issue of global ageing becomes more and more pressing every year. It is sufficient to take into account the point that within two forthcoming decades a rapid global increase in the number of retirement-age persons will lead to its doubling within this fairly small historical period. The concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In the next decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and directions of technological development. (shrink)

The increase in ethnically and linguistically diverse older adults in Canada necessitates attention to their experiences and needs for healthy ageing. Arab immigrant women often report challenges in maintaining health, but little is known about their ageing experiences. This interpretive descriptive study uses a transnational life course framework to understand Arab Muslim immigrant women's experiences of engaging in health‐promoting practices as they age in Canada. Women's stories highlight social dimensions of health such social connectedness, social roles and social support that (...) are constructed and maintained within different migration contexts across the life course. Barriers and facilitators to healthy ageing in this population centred around five themes: (i) the necessity of staying strong, (ii) caring for self while caring for others, (iii) double jeopardy of chronic illnesses and loneliness, (iv) inadequate support within large social networks and (v) navigating access to health‐supporting resources. The findings point to transnational connections and post‐migration social support as major influencers in creating facilitators and barriers to healthy ageing for Arab Muslim immigrant women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial CultureSpencer Hawkins (bio)Mufti, Aamir. Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture. Princeton UP, NJ: Princeton, 2007. xv + 325 pp.Mufti’s comparison of the Jewish question and the Indian Partition invites readers to join building projects that delineate and then endanger minorities within nations. Literature about minorities speaks a language deliberately (...) distant from the national one. Minority status has little to do with population numbers for Aamir Mufti; instead it signifies [End Page 61] tential victimization through disproportional rights, since “minority is always potentially exile” (Mufti 13). This definition of minority suits his two examples—Jews in Germany and Muslims in India—since in the twentieth century both fledgling nations adopted forms of nationalism that regarded the lives of these minorities as contaminants to the purity of the emergent national body. The prologue catalogues the brutality in India that prompted Mufti to write this book. Among the horrors listed were the destruction of Babri Mosque at Ayodhya in 1992 and the videotaped gang rapes of Muslim women that became a widespread form of entertainment in India. While Mufti reads violence toward minorities as correlative with the rise of nationstates, he considers similarities and differences between nation building in the West and in the subcontinent. In both cases, the new establishment of political equality for citizens came along with the desire to pare down the number of officially recognized citizens. Muslim and Jewish minorities migrated to “minority” nations in the collapsing British Empire, in present-day Pakistan and Israel, respectively, during the respective formations of India and Germany. By founding nations on formerly British-occupied territory, minorities potentially would enjoy the role of nationalist majorities. This solution strikes Mufti as spreading the nationalist contagion onto the minority.The whole book lets literature mark broad cultural attitudes and phenomena. The first chapter observes incipient Jewish nationalism in a work by a British author, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, who spent time in Germany and grew fascinated with the Jewish question while abroad. Her Britishness reinforces a pattern in Mufti’s schema: British powers facilitate the rise of nationalism among minorities in India and in Germany. Daniel Deronda comes at the tail end of a long discourse on Jews’ relation to Europe. The first of Mufti’s cases within canonical literature is the hope for tolerance and a dialogue of cultures, which G. E. Lessing allegorizes through a drama about Saladin, the Muslim sultan of Egypt and Syria, who learns to trust the eponymous Jewish merchant in Nathan the Wise. “Muslim” stands in for “Christian” since Nathan’s alienation is allegorical for the alienation of Jews in Lutheran Germany. Heinrich Heine weighs in on the advantages to assimilation in this period with his fragmentary novel The Rabbi from Bacherach, where religiously raised Jewish children feel comforted when they hear the Tale of the Nibelungen from Father Rhein, the personification of a river that figures generally for German national myth and, in Heine’s story, as a possible source of comfort for partially assimilated minorities. If we read literature as a barometer of cultural pressures, then the appeal of assimilation for European Jews declines in the late colonial nineteenth century when George Eliot inscribed religion into the “secular” discourse of national citizenship.Since the Israeli state is outside of the range of his argument, we leave the Jewish Question with George Eliot’s philo-Semitism in Daniel Deronda, where the only hope for European Jews is to become a nation and to occupy the Palestinian territory. Mufti compares the concerns of early Zionism and Pakistani nationalism side by side in chapter 2. Pakistani issues dominate chapters 3 to 5. In chapter 2, he launches the comparison with the parallel between Hebrew’s development as a national language to identify [End Page 62] Jews secularly and culturally, not just religiously, and Urdu’s transition from a vernacular language to a national language with the secular goal of creating a Pakistani culture freed from Hindi’s erstwhile predominance. When he depicts language choice as mimetic of specific cultural trends, Mufti indicates the shape of... (shrink)

BackgroundThe proper and ethical inclusion of PWLHIV and their young children in research is paramount to ensure valid evidence is generated to optimize treatment and care. Little empirical data exists to inform ethical considerations deemed most critical to these populations. Our study aimed to systematically review the empiric literature regarding ethical considerations for research participation of PWLHIV and their young children.MethodsWe conducted this systematic review in partnership with a medical librarian. A search strategy was designed and performed within (...) the following electronic databases: Ovid MEDLINE, Embase and CINAHL. We screened titles and abstracts using the following inclusion criteria: (1) a study population of PWLHIV or children under 5 years of age; and (2) collection of qualitative or quantitative data regarding ethics of research participation. Excluded were reviews, commentaries, policy statements, clinical care-related ethics concerns, abstracts, case studies, or studies unrelated to HIV research. Studies were appraised for quality, data were extracted, and studies were qualitatively analyzed using a principle-based ethical framework within the Belmont Report.ResultsOf the 7470 titles identified, 538 full-text articles were reviewed for eligibility and only three articles met full criteria for inclusion within this review. While we allowed for inclusion of studies involving young children born to mothers with HIV, only articles focused on PWLHIV were identified. Within the results of these studies, four themes emerged: (1) adequacy of informed consent; (2) consideration of paternal involvement; (3) balancing risks; and (4) access to research and treatment. A strength of this review is that it included perspectives of international research investigators, community leaders, and male partners. However, only two studies collected empiric data from PWLHIV regarding their experiences participating in researchConclusionResearchers and funding agencies should be aware of these considerations and appreciate the value of and critical need for formative research to ensure clinical trials involving PWLHIV promote ethical, well-informed research participation and, ultimately, improve care outcomes. More research is needed to create a comprehensive ethical framework for researchers when conducting studies with PWLHIV. (shrink)

Assessing physical fitness has emerged as a proxy of the health status of children and adolescents and therefore as relevant from a public health point of view. DAFIS is a project included in Plan Galicia Saudable of the regional government of Galicia. DAFIS consists of an on-line software devoted to record the results of a standard physical fitness protocol carried out as a part of the physical education curriculum. The aims of this study were: to obtain normative values of (...) physical fitness of the Galician school population evaluated in the DAFIS project, and to identify a reduced number of components and tests able to capture a significant amount of the variability in the physical fitness of children and adolescents. From an initial sample of 27784 records, 15287 cases were considered after filtering. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape were used for obtaining percentile curves and tables for each sex. Furthermore, a principal components analysis was performed, selecting the number of components by applying the Kaiser’s rule and selecting a subset of variables considering the correlation between each variable and the components. Percentile curves and normative values are reported for each test and sex. Physical fitness was better in boys than in girls throughout age groups, except for flexibility that was consistently higher in girls. Two main components were detected throughout age groups: the first one representing body composition and partially cardiorespiratory fitness and the second one muscular fitness. For boys and girls, waist to height ratio had the highest correlations with the first component in four out of six age groups. The highest correlation with the second component, was most frequently observed for the handgrip test both in boys and girls. This study provides evidence about the utility of school community actions like DAFIS aimed to track the health-related fitness of children and adolescents. The results suggest that fat mass distribution and muscular performance concentrate a high proportion physical fitness variance. (shrink)

Conflicts regarding family and workplace obligations often lead to frustration, dissatisfaction and lower levels of happiness. Taking into account the current low fertility rates in many European countries, the subjective well-being of women seems to be a crucial factor in population growth strategy. The rather low reproduction level underlies the analysis of women’s subjective well-being in respect to their employment and maternity status in Europe. How much do the European countries differ in terms of females’ subjective well-being? Does employment (...) protection legislation explain these differences through mothers’ employment patterns? This paper shows a significant negative association between the subjective well-being of women aged 17–54 and the rigidity of labor protection regulations. The conclusion stems from a multilevel model based on the European Value Study of 2008. The results showed that the subjective well-being of working mothers is higher in countries with liberal labor legislation while it is significantly lower in countries with strict employment protection legislation. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a project to describe and analyse historically and anthropologically nomadic pastoralism. It reflects on mobility, its forms and scale, and more especially on the critique of predominant classical, even banal ideas which assimilate nomadism to mobility. Nomadic pastoral mobility occurs in a context that separates it radically from migratory movement. In fact, nomadic mobility constitutes a strategy that stabilizes resources and populations and whose basic foundation is the appropriation of a territorial base that is established (...) as durably as possible. Just as, and following sedentary settlement, nomadic pastoralism puts an end to migratory mobility. Thus it seems that a single idea of mobility is inappropriate to describe the two fundamentally independent phenomena represented by transcontinental migration, partly arising from the effects of the ice age, and nomadic pastoralism. (shrink)

Reproduced with the kind permission of the author. Currently available in the collection I Looked Alive . © 2010 The Brooklyn Rail/Black Square Editions | ISBN 978-1934029-07-7 Originally published 2003 Four Walls Eight Windows. continent. 1.1 (2011): 43-51. Introduction Ben Segal What interests me is instigated language, language dishabituated from its ordinary doings, language startled by itself. I don't know where that sort of interest locates me, or leaves me, but a lot of the books I see in the stores (...) seem to lack language entirely. Gary Lutz (2006). This issue of continent.'s fiction section features a reprint of “This Is Nice of You” from the first edition of Gary Lutz's collection I Looked Alive . That book was originally released by Four Walls Eight Windows in 2003 and has since been reissued in 2010 by The Brooklyn Rail/Black Square Editions. Calamari Press has also reissued Lutz's Stories in the Worst Way (originally published by Knopf, largely forgotten and dismissed, and then re-issued by the too-short-lived 3rd Bed). “This Is Nice of You” was edited for the re-issue of I Looked Alive and, as the original book is out of print, the earlier version of the story has been hard to come by for some time. This initial version is a bit longer than the new version—Lutz is a master of tightening down his texts to their most linguistically intensified cores—but it is in no way sloppy. It is a great privilege for continent. to be able to make available rare texts of (first) aesthetic and (second) scholarly value. For those readers unfamiliar with Gary Lutz, I believe this story will serve as a worthy introduction. Like Raymond Carver, Diane Williams, Christine Schutt, and so many other important twentieth century and contemporary short story writers, Lutz studied with and was edited by Gordon Lish. This connection is apparent in his attention to sound and the sentence as compositional unit, but Lutz's is a unique voice. “This Is Nice of You” bears Lutz's trademark torqued and turning syntax, his sexed-but-nameless characters, his rendering of the human body and its emissions as utterly discomfiting. Lutz's preoccupations with the mundane raise ordinariness, via startling language and observation, to grandiosity and grotesquery. In the fall of 2008, Lutz delivered a lecture entitled “The Sentence is a Lonely Place” to writing students at Columbia University. The lecture was later printed in The Believer (and is linked below). In it, he spoke about the importance of the sentence as a compositional unit, as even the distinguishing formal characteristic of prose. Specifically, Lutz explained that, from Lish, he had developed a "poetics of the sentence." Accordingly, Lutz constructs his stories at the level of the sentence, paying extreme attention to the material of words- their letters and their sounds- and the way they abut one another and interact on this material level even before they are employed in the service of traditional aims of fiction like meaning or story. Lutz often uses a(n almost constraint-related) technique called consecution. Letters or sounds from one word are carried forward into the following, producing drama and movement in the language itself at a level entirely apart from that of plot. For example, you can see how the 't's in the first sentence of “This Is Nice of You” repeat fast and hard through met and then soften into the 'th's of brothers and they. This close attention to the specific material and characteristic conditions of prose means that Gary Lutz's work always involves both a happening in language and of language. “This Is Nice of You” has a richness and depth that is hidden not in symbolism or obscure reference but on the surface of the page, in the language of every sentence. FURTHER READING Lutz, Gary. “ The Sentence Is a Lonely Place. ” The Believer January, 2009. Web. Short stories and excerpts at Web del Sol . Web. Taylor, Justin. “ An Interview with Gary Lutz .” Bookslut. July, 2006. Web. THIS IS NICE OF YOU [156] [1] I was a man dropping already well through my forties, filthy with myself, when, taking a turn at the toilets one afternoon, I met two brothers-they said they were brothers-who swore they had a sister, a schoolteacher, an officer of instruction at the county college, a whirlwind midlife turmoil of everything already put to ruin, who had gone off from a new marriage in an old car, an upkept and ennobling sedan, but had returned now to the apartment and [157] was living there alone with the little runoff there was from the marriage-some outcurved appliances, apparently, and low-posted furniture promoting its own mystery but becoming figurable in certain concentrations of TV light-and, above all, a telephone (on a pedestal, they insisted), the handpiece of which she gripped in lieu of exercise, or in fury, and I thus let out my little, reliable cry that I was in fact a student of the telephone, that it was a debasing apparatus in the main, with its meager economy of bells and tones, and the intimacy of the mouthpiece that sent your breath, tiny aftervapors of it, back toward your lips, so that regardless of the party accepting the outgoing products of your voice, you were, at most, in a further, rivaling exchange with yourself alone, and this is what must have brought the two of them around, the men who proclaimed brotherhood with the woman, because they offered me her phone number, put it at my disposal on a piece of paper one of them had already committed it to, a tearing from a menu, and the looks the men were now giving me had deletions in them, already, of my exact, beanpole shape and size. So off I went to a pay phone, the nearest canopied one I could find. The woman answered after the second ring and said she needed a lift right that very moment into the little, unlevel city close by. She was idling in the doorway of the building when I pulled up in front, and I helped her into the car, then got back in myself. I had always had a way of not having to look at people that nonetheless brought them to me in full, and so I still am certain of the susceptive and impressible comp-[158]lexion, the shimmer on the mouth, a lipstick of low brilliance, a difficulty around the eyes, the hair short and rayed out exclamation ally, skin bagged up over the elbow bone, conflict even in how her arms stayed at her sides—in sum, a spinal loveliness for me, an off-blonde quantity with shadowed, thumbworn hollows that put me out of as much as I might have ever known of women before. I set the two of us into the narrow traffic, and I remember telling her, by way of explaining the little burden which I had shifted, by now, from the shelf of the dashboard and onto my lap, that when you lived in filth, as I then did, a daily newspaper came to count for a lot, although instead of the thick-supplemented local paper I bought a trimmer one from a backlying town—not, of course, for any affluences of native data it carried, but as an article of house ware: a rough immaculacy in four lank sections, a set of fresh, hygienic surfaces to come between the table, say, and whatever I had going for me at the table, if the table was where I was going forward—because what else so cheap comes so clean and far-spreading? The woman told me that her own trouble with paper was that through a modest hole, no larger than a quarter, that had been drilled a foot or so above the floor (the standard height, she had reasoned, of legitimate electrical outlets), and by means of which her faculty office had at last gained communication with the roomier but unoccupied office next door, more and more often shot a single sheet of paper, plain copier paper she had rolled just barely into a tube, [159] so that after landing on the floor of the neighboring office the paper would preserve little if any of the curl, and there would be nothing written or typed on it, of course, and it was always a blank sheet that had been ageing on her desk for some time and had already been moved around, or advanced, from station to station on the desktop, coming into further creaselets and crimps and other infirmities—paper, in short, still too bare and unfraught to be thrown responsibly and forgettably away, and yet too seasoned and beset with irritations of the surface (a molelike blemish, say, or what looked like a tiny hair, an eyelash, sunk into it, or frecklings, or notational pressings of a fingernail), too wrought, in sum, for the paper to be appointed to any secure curricular purpose. Her office, she claimed, was in fact full of such paper, much-handled and singularized sheets of it by the loose, functionless hundred. I had to get it across to the woman that I myself no longer had an office, or any other place to divide me reliably from everybody else, and that for much of the daylight I thus appeared to be among people because I kept putting myself where people came together into even closer-fitting assortments, the viewing areas and showrooms and rotundas and such: I took in the lean-to look of the women, the tongues coming and going in what the men kept thinking of to say—whole families of low knees for me to bark my shins against during the crowded and involving way out. At home afterward, in the one room where my life was packed down, I would keep my nose stuck in the safehold of the phone [160] book, where the names of people suffered reduction to mere episodes of the alphabet and underwent humbling declensions down every column (Lail, Lain, Laine, Lainerd), and he names of streets, of the towns and townships, got docked in crude, heedless abbreviations (the vowels almost always the first to get poked out), and I would run my eyes over the telephone numbers themselves, each sequence of digits another fallible run of the infinite. I thus corrected my feelings for people and assembled myself emotionally into whatever else I had at hand—the obligating arms of the clothes hangers, usually, or the keen-angled understructure, the guardian legginess, of the ironing board. The woman said that in her case, though, it was more a matter of making slow circuits of the classroom where she had to put across the Emporial Sciences, retail theory and methods, to heat-giving and suggestive young women, some of them world cruelties already. There was the cooing of empty stomachs in the hour just before lunch, and the braying and fizzle of loaded stomachs in the low hours of the afternoon. She would recite her notes in a voice barely loyal to anyone octave, a tiny alluvium of slaver hardening at the corners of her mouth on the days she gave the glassy lozenges a slow, warming suck, and she would take lowering notice of how whatever she said succumbed at once to freak spellings and razzing paraphrase in the big, dividered notebooks; and because in midafternoon light the world looked as thorough, as filled in, as it was ever going to get, a better way to set about ruining her eyes was to review how hair had [161] established itself on the arms of the young women, because almost every arm had brought across itself a welcome and diversifying shadow. On one girl it would be a fine, driftless haze afloat above the white of the arm, never seeming to touch down on the skin itself. (An atmosphere, at most, of chestnut brown.) On another, it was as if copper wire, the narrowmost lengthlets of it, had been stuck into the fleshy batter of the thick, freckled forearms. On a third: a field of it–wheat-colored, thin-spun. On a fourth; a differencing, darkish updrift that shaded off as it approached the inner bend of the elbow, then re-emerged at the base of the upper arm as whiskery fringe. On others it was a brassy or rust-colored frizz, or it was as coarse as cornsilk, or it looked fussed on, as if the arm had been slowly stroked with charcoal. But here the woman broke off, or I may well have made an interruption of my own—I think I must have asked whether she was hungry, and she said if I was, and so on one of the lesser streets I parked the car and led her down into a belowstairs eating house I still remembered. Sandwiches were presently lowered in front of us. I watched her remove the festooned toothpick from hers and then play her fingers over the toasted planes before she took a fond first bite. "This is nice of you," she said. I must have looked at her in the way I then had of getting people to speak so they would not seem to be dwelling any longer on my features, because if on the well-set face the mouth and eyes are said to seem frozen in elegant orbit about the til) of the nose, then mine was a face that behold-[162]ers, regarders, could not help trying to round off with greater success, to goad the particulars of it back into the arcs they had wandered away from—the mouth, for instance, having been pursed and pinched suchwise that it seemed resident more on one side of the face than the other—and there were other signs of original strife to be busied with (slapdash eyebrows unbunched, it appeared, from reserves of hair elsewhere on my person; a showing of adult acne, a shrivelly little relevance of it, confined to the declivity of my nose); and so to be polite, the woman thus sank her gaze into her sandwich, and told me, in a voice lowered accordingly, that, one late-childhood summer, she had devoted herself to collecting postage stamps: it was a tongue-involving sideline to early-arriving puberty, and she liked having to lick the pale, gummed hinges instead of the sticky backs of the stamps themselves before entering everything into the hosting album; and once, during some foul weather between her and a brother (the older, thrown-over one, who had already made a habit of fooling the underside of his arm across the top of hers and calling her "pussified"), she reached for the shoe box in which she had let duplicate stamps accumulate—Spanish ones, mostly, of a fading orange—and sent the box slooshing through the lower air so that the stamps showered onto the brother's bare legs with a full, delicate harm. The woman was now touching up the surface of her iced tea with tiny activities, initiatives, of the longspun spoon. I myself was good at getting my touch onto things, although in a way that seemed to mix up the motive atoms inside [163] them, but I was satisfied that for the moment my sandwich, the unbitten-at half of it, was displayable and fit and local to my plate. The woman went on to say that, as a child, she had been bundled off, many an afternoon, to the slope-ceilinged quarters of a bachelor uncle who, when speaking of anybody not immediately present, could not bring himself to use the person's name but instead would say "an acquaintance of mine in ..." and then mention the name of some lapsed homeland, or little-loved rural orchestra, or backset building about to come down; and it was never a riddle, this device of his (not once could the girl have been expected to identify any of the subjects), and no matter how often and aloud he insisted that particularizing persons any further—bringing even a first name down upon anyone of them—would have been indecent, he claimed, much like doing things to people while they slept, the girl accepted all of the uncle's prim and extravagant evasion for what he surely must have intended it to be: a neat, protective trick to space the world out a little further in her favor, to scatter the population so that wherever her hand might at last come down, it would have to be on herself alone. And here I could sense that the woman wanted from my mouth an account of as much as I myself might have ever managed of attachment, so I told her I had once owned a house (a rising, really, of much-fingered, handwrought architecture that amounted to a little family of rooms above garages: a boxlike building with a rattly thorax of downspouts [164] and drainpipes and an unfolded but full-toned fire escape), and I had had for a time a boarder, a student, a high-colored, loose-packed representative of declining girlhood, hung with necklaces and barrettes, a girl of precise but shifting leanings and inclinations; and the afternoon she had come round to ask after the room, I stood in the entranceway, handshaken and asweat, and from what would later be my memory of the girl, I made off with, first, how every pore of her nose seemed to be sheltering within itself a tiny dark seedlet, a grain of something immediately, enormously valuable. And an almost lipless mouth (just a slit, practically), the teeth inside looking wet, watered-it was my life's chore, at that instant, to keep from sending the back of my thumb blotterlike across the line of them (I was later to learn she drank everything cold and through the narrowest of straws). And her hair: it was tea-colored hair she had, long and reachful, an unstopped downcome of it. Tall for a girl, but she managed to stay out of much of her height and put herself across as somebody backward, or behind. I must have told the girl, as best I could, that I of course had a wife, a full-faced, imperishable partner, though for the moment she was gone otherwhere in the marriage, and here the woman, my present companion, my tablemate, whose feet were now parked, in parallel, on the grade of my upper leg, interrupted to say that her husband, too, had been such a liar, and what could I bring up by way of reply other than that a lie is a truth struck through with other, further truth, or that a lie is the present multiplied by the past or that a lie [165] is an outcry of borrowed hope? The woman gave me an allowed look of disgust, her eyes lowered but still popular with me, and on I went with what had now become the girl of my story. For there had been a great, gainful carpet in the room I put the girl into, a matty expanse of coarse, grabby piles, an engrossing affair that took things into itself and held them tight, misered them, and I of course insisted that the girl not bother herself with its upkeep, that I enjoyed weekly access to a prestigious, upstanding vacuum cleaner; but no sooner was the girl out of the house each morning than I would withdraw from my room, where time was unportionable, and loose myself into the ticktock impertinence of the girl's room and get down on my knees, and, going after the carpet first with my fingers, then with a forceps, and finally by unspooling lengths of clear package-sealing tape and pressing them against the tufts in neat rectangles to catch what I might have missed, I brought vast tracts of the carpet to depletion, recovering not simply the girlinesses, the girleries, one would expect (buttons, straight pins, downed jewelry), but flirtier personalia in the form, say, of a stray confetto brought into the world when a page had been wrung with out caution from a spiral-bound notebook, or some pleated paper shells of the chocolates she required, or one of the bargain antihistamines she took to get her naps going, or a trash-bag tie ragged enough to show the kinked line of the wire within (this I would get wound around my finger), or a cough drop enwrapped like a bonbon (I would undo the [166] wings of the wrapper and have to decide whether to suck the drop all down or begin chewing it midway)—I became the following, the public, that these things, these off-faIlings, had come to have; but mostly there was hair, afloat above the uppermost pushings of the fabric of the carpet an almost continuous haziness of loose hairs of all lengths and sources, and I would have to set them out on a fresh sheet of paper and assort them according to the regions of the body they had taken their departure from, and in no time I had nest-like filiations of broken filaments and smaller involvements of the hairs that made me think of hooks, of barbs, of treble clefs, and each pile required a separate envelope, to be filed in a separate shoe box for every sector of the body until, I hoped, the boxes themselves would no longer be enough and I would have raised something semblable, brought up something equal in volume to the comprehensive girl herself. And her wastebasket! For every bit of rubbish, every dreariment she tossed into the thing, I would, in secret, deposit a reciprocal discard of my own, matching a spotted, confessory tissue of hers with a lurid throwaway after my own heart–the cardboard substructions of a fresh parcel of underwear, maybe, or tearings from pantyhose I now and again pressed against a span of my forearm to work onto it the complications of female shading I otherwise made do, choosily, without. I thus built the two of us up together in her trash! One afternoon-it was another of those lifeful, unsam-[167]pled days on which the world humors us each a little differently to keep us nicely on our last legs—I discovered in the wastebasket an inch-deep textbook of hers, a paperback with a celery-colored cover that had come partly unglued, and this dilapidation I paired off, naturally, with a name-your baby guide to whose pages, during my recurrent turnings of them, in bed or at table, I had contributed dried produces of my person, a chemical splendor entirely mine. This coupling sent a sudden spigoty thrill from me that forced an unbuckling and an unzipping and a cleanup with a handkerchief I then ventured responsively into the wastebasket as well. It was in the bathroom afterward that I found a suds-clouded puddle on the unlevel floor of the tub, a little undrained remainder, rimmed with offscum, of the girl's prolonged early-morning soak, and this was as much as I needed to get on my hands; I pressed them flat against the wet porcelain, then flapped them around in the air, and that was when I noticed it—in the amphitheater of the toilet bowl, an orange-yellow tint, or value, to the waters. When the girl arrived home that evening, I told her, of course, that I had discovered fresh, unforeseen trouble within the tank of thelet (a misalignment of the trip lever, a waywardness of the float ball, a ulation of the lift wires, kinks and defects, really, throughout the entire system) and that in fine it was an apparatus now operable only by means of advanced and strenuous equilibrial manipulations that it would be unseemly, inhospitable, of me to pre-[168]sume to burd to burden her with–so that from here on out, following any leak or evacuation she need merely lower the lid and then, before quitting the room, ring the handbell that had been placed on the would seeeverythinghing else. But the bell never rang, not even once, and from my window the next morning I watched the girl carry from the house a little plastic bag distended balloonishly, much like those bags you will remember having seen in the hands of children bearing homeward their solitary carnival-prize goldfish. In fact, I never ran across the likes of the girl again. The man who came to collect her things-not the father, apparently, but an advocate, an upholder-l found to be dull-eared and lax in his speech, and the better part of his face seemed to have already begun making tiny, rotational departures from whatever it was that the eyes, themselves impressively mobile, were just that moment having to take in. (Was there a lamp in the house that was not that night slopping its wattage over everything?) I guess I was waiting for the man to take a laggard, last-minute interest in me, and by now I was pushing everything out into the paired first person–it was, I said, “Our night shot,” and I began including the two of us in whatever it might be doing out, the expected sprinkles and such—but he was no friendship buff, and he paid no heed to my telling him that the only dress of hers I'd ever twidged myself into even part of the way had been the simplest of them all, a large-buttoned wonder of depthless blue, and then only on the principle that one naturally fits whatever one has into whatever somebody else [169] had first, or how else would the world keep getting any taller with people? The man just went about the removal of the girl's things without having to be reminded too noticeably, I guess, of how every dick hangs by a thread. My listener, though, had by this time brought about some becoming slowings of her arm—it was an arm inclinable to langorous diagonals and magicianly swoops through the air above the tabletop—but it no longer was involving itself with her plate, so I suggested we shove off, I made payment for the food, and on our way to the car, and then in the car as I took to following her pointings, the directional tilts of her head, she said that you naturally kept putting more and more of yourself into another person, at first wondering how much she can take, how much of you is accumulable and how much she can hold, and you're letting things out, disbursing yourself, and you've soon got things set up in her, and room is being made for even more of you, and if you bring this off with enough people, even two or three, what you've got is at first a comfort, because you can pass yourself along and move a little more widely through the world and leave it to these others to man your grievances, your disappointments; and what brought this to mind, the woman said, was a term of financial hardship she had contrived for herself a few years back, an unpaid leave of absence from scrupling letter grades onto quiz papers (propped-up As, and upended Bs made to look, rather, like fannies; all As and Bs, no Cs or anything lower, the difference between an A and a B having less to do with the accuracy of whatever facts might [170] have been impounded in provided for an answer than with anything recallable about the way the enrollee ad conformed her body to the confining perpendiculars of her chair and the navel-level writing surface that projected from it, or the way there might one day have been an unignorable blush on the instep of a once-moseying foot, disburdened of its shoe, that had got itself trapped in the grillwork of that cagelike involvement, intended for books, that was welded to, or otherwise schemed into, the underworks of the chair)—this had been a duration, in short, of controlled difficulty when the misexpenditure of even a twenty-dollar bill had set her thrilling, gloating, over everything she would miss out on, and one afternoon she had made an engagement for a haircut, just a trim, and very early in the session the haircutter, a woman ill-defined in the face but otherwise full of conspicuities of emotion, set down the prevailing scissors and pressed the flat of a lukewarm hand against the woman's cheek, held it there for a good minute or longer, while the other hand eventually found its way into a drawer, a shallow treasury of slender specialty scissors, one pair of which the cutter withdrew and began routing deductively through the woman's hair, the other hand staying put on the cheek, longer and longer, and the woman went home and for afterward the bathtub was now a more likely destination than any of the upright furniture, and it got easier to fill the tub with further clarifying volumes than to clear space on the difficult heights of the sofa, and she was hardly claiming to have become a cleaner [171] person in result—she in fact would often discover, voyaging about her body, a browned, fractionary detail of a larger crepe of toilet tissue that must have got itself stuck in some assy crevice and was impossible to get plucked out of the revolving suds—she was saying only that she spent more and more of her time thus immersed, ill off in water, and the haircutter had surely had a hand in it, the woman was doing some of the cutter's life now, coming into some of its wrong, because you sometimes have to look to somebody else's life to get dimensions set back even part of the way around your own, and it should not have to be any less your own life when it comes from somebody else, and you could surely fudge a society out of anyone available person and get this person doubling for the many, so that in the little run of things perpetuable from one person to the next, every loose moment stood to become a complete, active finality. But by now this was a new day, with only an hour or so off it already, and the place the woman had made me bring us to, the man's place, with a promise that the man was elsewhere—this was on a little offshoot of a street, a stewy efficiency apartment the color had long ago gone out of; and when, once in bed, still clothed, I found among the sheets and blankets a spoiling pair of the man's underpants, one of the leg openings of which was puckered into an avid, sloppy mouth, I held myself accountable for redisposing the fabric until I got a befitting featurelessness back onto it; but all the while, I am sure I had to make myself go over again in my mind that if the body is the porter of as many organs of affec-[172]tion as there might one day turn out to be, then the idea was to let the thing carry you to where you would otherwise never have any reason to arrive, because I listened for the unmelodiof the the thede ofthe woman's zipper, and then the woman made me put myself out of my own clothes, the attritional corduroys and overshirt, and got herself up at last onto the topic not of the man whose apartment it was (because his story was scarcely the story of how the boy who decides he is half a girl no sooner starts to worry about where the other half might than he gets careless with where he rests his eyes, or what he gives even the feeblest of fingerholds to, and anything, even a crumbly triangle of pie offered on a saucer instead of on a pie plate proper, comes in easy, ready, wronging answer), but of her husband, and how, no more than a couple of months into the marriage, he had begun snugging away in his undershorts a little source of chanc, reliable frictions to nudge him onward through the workday—anything company-keeping that could be counted on not to slide out of the elasticky leg holes: a half-dollar packet of chocolate tittles, maybe, that was barely noticeable in the baggy surround of the widecut trousers so popular at the time. For by now the woman had at last brought what is usually called the other mouth to within only inches of my lips, but it is not a mouth, obviously, although I let myself go along with the goodwill behind the comparison, the way I will remain loyal to anything deliberately and faithfully misunderstood, and I fussed my tongue against the vital trifles hung inside of her, as much of the curtailed finery as I could find, [173] and gave the whole insimplicity of it a slow-circling, examinational lick, until I was taking a sudden tepid downwash on the tongue. It was a familiar, latrine in dribble that must have tasted, no doubt, like trouble just starting out.p [1] Editor's Note: Original pagination from first edition print denoted with bracketed page numbers. (shrink)

We investigate whether age profiles of ethnobiological knowledge development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Life history models predict complementary knowledge profiles developing across the lifespan for women and men as they experience changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring. We evaluate these predictions using an ethnobiological knowledge assessment tool developed for an off-grid pastoralist population known as Choyeros, from Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results indicate (...) that while individuals acquire knowledge of most dangerous items and edible resources by early adulthood, knowledge of plants and animals relevant to the age and sex divided labor domains and ecologies (e.g., women’s house gardens, men’s herding activities in the wilderness) continues to develop into middle adulthood but to different degrees and at different rates for men and women. As the demands of offspring on parents accumulate with age, reproductive-aged adults continue to develop their knowledge to meet their children’s needs. After controlling for vision, our analysis indicates that many post-reproductive adults show the greatest ethnobiological knowledge. These findings extend our understanding of the evolved human life history by illustrating how changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring predict the development of men’s and women’s ethnobiological knowledge across the lifespan. (shrink)

One of the main objections to life extension is that life extension will cause severe overpopulation. This objection presents both moral and demographic issues. To explore the demographic issue, we present an updated and improved version of the formula in chapter six of _New Methuselahs_ for projecting the demographic impact of life extension. The new version includes additional demographical factors such as non-aging related causes of death. According to projections generated with this revised formula, moderate life extension (a life expectancy (...) of 120 years) will not significantly increase population at the fertility rates current in the developed world, but radical life expectancy (halting aging completely, leading to an average life expectancy of 1000 years) can lead to severe overpopulation even at very low fertility rates. This formula also enables us to ascertain what fertility rate and birth spacing will prevent life extension from causing severe overpopulation. The moral issues arise if radical life extension causes overpopulation severe enough to outweigh the benefits it brings. _New Methuselahs_ proposed a reproductive policy for avoiding severe overpopulation by limiting reproduction for those who use life extension. We then consider a moral objection to this policy that was not discussed in _New Methuselahs_: it is not likely that society will succeed in imposing limits to reproduction, therefore, it is likely that radical life extension is morally wrong. We respond to this objection and defend our response against two further objections. (shrink)

The balance between births and deaths in an age-structured population is strongly influenced by the spatial distribution of sub-populations. Our aim was to describe the demographic process of a fish population in an hierarchical dendritic river network, by taking into account the possible movements of individuals. We tried also to quantify the effect of river network changes (damming or channelling) on the global fish population dynamics. The Salmo trutta life pattern was taken as an example for.We proposed (...) a model which includes the demographic and the migration processes, considering migration fast compared to demography. The population was divided into three age-classes and subdivided into fifteen spatial patches, thus having 45 state variables. Both processes were described by means of constant transfer coefficients, so we were dealing with a linear system of difference equations. The discrete case of the variable aggregation method allowed the study of the system through the dominant elements of a much simpler linear system with only three global variables: the total number of individuals in each age-class. (shrink)

There is a growing trend in European countries for childbearing to occur later in women’s lives. The recent increase in the use of ART, together with the long-term trend towards later childbearing, raises questions as to the acceptable age of childbearing in contemporary society. ART legislation varies considerably across Europe and age limits for access to fertility treatment are rarely defined. The legislation takes into account the preferences of potential parents; children’s preferences, however, are not ascertained. The article discusses (...) a research method used in a survey of older children and young adults. The objective of the survey was to answer the following questions: What age would children prefer their parents to be if they could choose? What are their reasons? Respondents were asked the following question: “How old would you like your mother and father to be when you are 20 (version for respondents younger than 16) or 25 (version for those older than 16) if you could wave a magic wand?” Furthermore, their reasons for wishing a change were identified through an open question, “Why would you like to change the age of your parents?”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World ed. by Beatriz Ilari, Susan YoungAmy Christine BeegleBeatriz Ilari and Susan Young, eds., Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016)Historically, most studies of children’s musical learning have been informed by stage theories of developmental psychology and focused on school music or private instrumental lesson contexts. Over the past few decades, scholars have (...) conducted research that increasingly explores children’s involvement with music in contexts outside of formal learning settings, utilizing methods and models from ethnomusicology, sociology, social psychology, and/or cultural psychology. Nine individually authored chapters in the volume, Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World, edited by Beatriz Ilari and Susan Young, convey results, applications, and extensions of one such project that reaches beyond the conventional ethnographic music education study.The bulk of this collection contains findings and interpretations from a collaborative project called MyPlace, MyMusic, followed by several additional chapters that provide descriptions and narratives from subsequent related projects. The original project included fourteen scholars from the International Society of Music Education-Early Childhood Commission, who conducted in-home observations and interviews with parents and children in order to examine the nature of, influences on, and meaning of musical activities that took place in the homes of middle-class seven-year-olds in diverse locations, including Brazil, Denmark, [End Page 105] Greece, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, the U.K., and the United States.Importantly, the project’s designers attempted to avoid complications of transcultural developments by asking each researcher to select children whose families had not recently migrated to their country/locality. The seventeen participating children from twelve countries were also of the same ethnicity and lived in the same “locality” as each researcher in order to ease communication during in-home observations and interviews. Results shed light on issues of children’s family life, schooling, identity, gender, and social class.This project presents a unique contribution to the field of music education in a number of ways. First, most previous studies of music in the homes of children have centered around preschoolers, toddlers, and infants, whereas the present project focuses on seven-year-old children, whose age places them on the cusp of crossing from early to middle childhood. Second, most previous music education researchers have considered issues of social class, ethnicity, and race as independent variables, but the methodology for this project calls for observation and description of each child in his or her home first, followed by comparison of the “cases” to each other. Third, the researchers utilize a Wiki platform to share and collaboratively interpret data collected from home lives of children (photographs, video and audio recordings, texts, and pdf files) among researchers from different countries.The volume is organized into three major sections. Susan Young and Jèssica Pérez-Moreno set the scene in the first two chapters by describing the theoretical underpinnings and methodology for the MyPlace, MyMusic project. The second section of the book includes four chapters in which several individual researchers interpret the project’s data based upon the themes of children’s private musical worlds; belonging/identity/gendered meanings of children’s music making; perspectives and influences of parents; and the role of social class on children’s musical lives. The last three chapters of the book provide detailed descriptions of projects and extensions that developed after the MyPlace, MyMusic project.Following the introductory chapter, in which Ilari and Young explain the background, rationale, goals, and methods of the MyPlace, MyMusic project and provide a reader-friendly table that presents the cultural background and “sources of musical stimulation in the home” for each participating child,1 Susan Young outlines the theoretical and analytical frameworks for the project in the first chapter. Rather than viewing children’s learning as developing and socializing into adulthood, the project researchers were encouraged to look at children as being instead of becoming, as subjects, rather than objects of research, and as having opportunities for agency that are contextual. This theoretical framework stems from the field of Childhood Studies (as cultivated in Scandinavia [End Page 106] and... (shrink)

Cross-cultural studies have revealed broad quantitative associations between subsistence practice and demographic parameters for preindustrial populations. One explanation is that variationin the availability of suitable weaning foods influenced the frequency and duration of breastfeeding and thus the length of interbirth intervals and the probability of child survival (the “weaning food availability” hypothesis). We examine the available data on weaning age variation in preindustrial populations and report results of a cross-cultural test of the predictions that weaning occurred earlier in agricultural and (...) pastoral populations because dairy and cereal production increased the availability of easily digestible, nutrientrich foods appropriate for weaning. We found that, contrary to predictions, supplementation with liquid foods other than breast milk was delayed in agricultural populations relative to less agriculturally dependent ones and complementary feeding with solid foods was delayed in pastoral populations relative to those less dependent on herding. Although the duration of breastfeeding was longer in populations dependent on hunting, there was no qualitative evidence that such populations lacked foods appropriate for weaning. The patterns observed suggest that the relationships between demography and subsistence observed among preindustrial societies cannot be explained by the “weaning food availability” hypothesis. We discuss the implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying prehistoric human demography, subsistence shifts, allocation to parenting and mating effort, and the evolutionary implications of tradeoffs between diet and disease. (shrink)

In this work we study the behavior of a time discrete multiregional stochastic model for a population structured in age classes and spread out in different spatial patches between which individuals can migrate. The dynamics of the population is controlled both by reproduction-survival and by migration. These processes take place at different time scales in the sense of the latter being much faster than the former. We incorporate the effect of demographic stochasticity into the population, which results (...) in both dynamics being modelled by multitype Bienaymé–Galton–Watson branching processes. We present a multitype global model that incorporates the effect of both processes and, making use of the existence of different time scales for demography and migration, build a reduced model in which the variables correspond to the total population in each age class. We extend previous results that relate the behavior of the original and the reduced model showing that, given a large enough separation of time scales between demography and migration, we can obtain information about the behavior of the multitype global model through the study of the simpler reduced model. We concentrate on the case where the two systems are supercritical and therefore the expected number of individuals grows to infinity, and show that we can approximate the asymptotic structure of the population vector and the asymptotic population size of the original system through the study of the reduced model. (shrink)

Demography is typically defined as the study of human populations and the changes in their quantity associated with migration, fertility, and mortality. The term demography comes from Greek word and means “describing people.” Thus, this discipline deals with the characteristics of the population, taking into account features such as, sex ratio, age structure, composition, spatial distribution, and population density. In addition, sometimes a distinction is made between “formal demography” or “demographic analysis,” which includes the statistical analysis of (...) class='Hi'>population parameters and their dynamics, and “population studies,” that is, the analysis of the causes and effects of changes in the structure of the population in a broader context and in connection with other phenomena and processes. (shrink)

Background: Shortage of donor organs is one of the major problems for liver transplant programmes. Living liver donation is a possible alternative, which could increase the amount of donor organs available in the short term.Objective: To assess the attitude towards living organ donation in the general population to have an overview of the overall attitude within Germany.Methods: A representative quota of people was evaluated by a mail questionnaire . This questionnaire had 24 questions assessing the willingness to be a (...) living liver donor for different potential recipients. Factors for and against living liver donation were assessed.Results: Donating a part of the liver was almost as accepted as donating a kidney. The readiness to donate was highest when participants were asked to donate for children. In an urgent life-threatening situation the will to donate was especially high, whereas it was lower in the case of recipient substance misuse. More women than men expressed a higher disposition to donate for their children. Sex, religion, state of health and age of the donor, however, did not influence other questions on the readiness to consider living organ donation. The will for postmortem organ donation positively correlated with the will to be a living organ donor.Conclusions: The motivation in different demographic subgroups to participate in living liver transplantation is described. Differences in donation readiness resulting from the situation of every donor and recipient are thoroughly outlined. The acceptance for a living liver donation was found to be high – and comparable to that of living kidney donation. (shrink)

Background: The transition to child care is a challenging time in a child’s life and leads to elevated levels of cortisol. These elevations may be influenced by the quality of the mother-child-relationship. However, remarkably little is known about cortisol production in response to the beginning of child care among children-at-risk such as children with an immigrant background. However, attending kindergarten or any other child day-care institution can for example have a compensating effect on potential language deficits thus improving (...) the educational opportunities of these children. Method: Data of a subsample of N = 24 “hard-to-reach” mother-child dyads was collected in the context of the psychoanalytic early prevention project “First Steps”. The project focuses on the earliest integration of children with an immigrant background by supporting parenting capacities in the critical phase of migration and early parenthood. Children’s hair cortisol concentration (HCC) was assessed one week before (mean age = 38.77 months) and three months after kindergarten entry (mean age = 42.26 months). Hair analysis was conducted for both times of measurement, reflecting the first 3 months after kindergarten entry and 3 months prior. Furthermore, the emotional quality of the mother-child-relationship was assessed with the help of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) shortly before kindergarten entry when the children were about three years old (mean age = 37.2). Results and Conclusion: Children’s mean cumulated HCC was higher after kindergarten entry than before. The increase correlated negatively with several dimensions of the EAS. Repeated measures ANCOVA revealed that particularly responsive children and children who had experienced less intrusive mother-child-relationships demonstrated lower elevations in HCC after kindergarten entry. Furthermore, a decreased EA score was found in all EA dimensions, besides the dimension “mother’s non-hostility”, indicating problematic EA within the mother-child-relationships of the sample. The results suggest that children with an immigrant background who experience more emotional available mother-child-relationships seem to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry more effectively, indicated by lower cortisol elevations after entry. This implicates that supporting early mother-child-relationships by intervention may have a positive effect on the children’s ability to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry thus promoting child development. (shrink)

Parenthood is a highly valued life goal, independent of one’s sexual orientation. However, the majority of studies exploring young adults’ parenthood plans have relied exclusively on samples of heterosexual individuals. This study aimed (i) to explore differences in parenthood intentions as a function of sexual orientation, (ii) to investigate to what extent sociodemographic and psychological characteristics predict parenthood intentions of lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and heterosexual individuals, (iii) to test the mediating effect of stigma between sexual orientation and parenthood intentions, (...) and (iv) to identify and characterize profiles of prospective parenthood (through cluster analysis). Data were gathered using an online survey from 375 self-identified LGB and heterosexual young adults without children in Portugal, with a mean age of 25.83 years old (SD = 4.49). Findings indicated that LGB individuals were less likely to intend to have children than heterosexual individuals; furthermore, among LGB individuals, lesbian women expressed stronger intentions to have children than did gay men. Similarities between heterosexual and LGB young adults were observed concerning the psychological determinants of parenthood intentions. Four distinctive profiles of prospective parenthood were identified: aspiring parents not anticipating stigma, aspiring parents anticipating stigma, childfree intent, and childfree ambivalent. Lesbian and bisexual women mostly populated the childfree ambivalent cluster, in contrast the aspiring parents anticipating stigma cluster contained an overrepresentation of men, including sexual minority men. Professionals may want to attend to communalities and specificities of prospective parenthood as a function of sexual orientation, in order to provide unbiased and culturally competent support to sexual minority individuals. (shrink)

The advent of the Italian Second Republic coincides with a phase of uncertainty about national identity. The 1990s was the decade in which Italy was no longer a country of emigration but became a land of immigration. Italian cinema registered this right away, and films on the topic of immigration continue to grow steadily. Paola Randi’s Into Paradiso is a rare comedy about immigration; this article shows how the film presents migratory dynamics and a ‘post-national’ feeling of identity. The analysis (...) focuses on the representation of space and stereotypes of masculinity, as well as the representation of those ‘Italian vices’ which have been, throughout the ages, an integral component of the Italian national identity project. (shrink)

Evolutionary discussions regarding the relationship between social status and fertility in the contemporary U.S. typically claim that the relationship is either negative or absent entirely. The published data on recent generations of Americans upon which such statements rest, however, are solid with respect to women but sparse and equivocal for men. In the current study, we investigate education and income in relation to age at first child, childlessness, and number of children for men and women in two samples—one of (...) the general American population and one of graduates of an elite American university. We find that increased education is strongly associated with delayed childbearing in both sexes and is also moderately associated with decreased completed or near-completed fertility. Women in the general population with higher adult income have fewer children, but this relationship does not hold within all educational groups, including our sample with elite educations. Higher-income men, however, do not have fewer children in the general population and in fact have lower childlessness rates. Further, higher income in men is positively associated with fertility among our sample with elite educations as well as within the general population among those with college educations. Such findings undermine simple statements on the relationship between status and fertility. (shrink)

Over 50,000 youth, mostly between the ages of 13 and 17 years, migrated to the United States without familial accompaniment in the fiscal year 2018. The tripartite process of pre-flight, flight, and resettlement exposes these unaccompanied immigrant children to multiple, and often ongoing, traumatic events that can significantly and adversely impact their mental health into adulthood. However, the ethical considerations for psychologists working with this growing population, with limited exceptions, remain largely unaddressed. As more and more UIC flee (...) their home countries due to violence, abuse, and economic instability only to experience further stressors during the processes of detainment, custodial placement, and acculturative adjustment in the US, there is an increasing need for psychological services; thus, the importance of preparation of mental health providers is increasingly significant. Psychologists must have the requisite skills and knowledge of the complex experiences of UIC, and of how these intersect with salient cultural, developmental, and systemic factors, as a means of providing competent and ethical mental health treatment. The present article highlights several ethical issues that arise when providing psychological services to UIC, with particular consideration paid to the embeddedness of UIC in various organizational entities with which psychologists will likely need to interface when working with this population. Implications and recommendations for practicing psychologists and training programs are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethics and the Elderly: The Challenge of Long-Term Care by Sarah M. Moses, and: Loving Later Life: An Ethics of Aging by Frits de LangeDolores L. ChristieEthics and the Elderly: The Challenge of Long-Term Care Sarah M. Moses maryknoll, ny: orbis, 2015. 206 pp. $38.00Loving Later Life: An Ethics of Aging Frits de Lange grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2015. 169 pp. $19.00Today many women and men live beyond (...) the so-called third age of life and enter their eighties, the "fourth age," during which the toll of time and the growing incidence of life-limiting conditions wear down even the best-preserved of the human species. Debilitating disease and normal ebbing of human function become more concentrated in this demographic bubble. As people enter their eighties, their world tends to narrow both physically and mentally, creating a need for increasing care. Often the elderly are rendered passive and dependent, forced to cede both autonomy and dignity. They become objects with little voice, requiring greater care and increasing cash. Likewise, as the baby boom generation enters this group, those living in the fourth age make up an increasing percentage of the population. Additionally, modern models of care for the elderly, often based on efficiency and cost-effectiveness, tend to erode their human dignity. Together these factors demonstrate a growing moral problem.What to do? These two books provide valuable road maps for how to proceed. They detail the reality and moral urgency of the situation. Both offer principles from philosophical and religious traditions that outline a good moral model: one of care, compassion, dignity, and community. They draw insights from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among [End Page 214] others. Both reference the Western biblical tradition, which honors the elderly even in the face of their limitations.Although the authors offer wise and thoughtful suggestions to address this growing moral crisis, they approach the serious moral issue very differently. Sarah Moses outlines a compelling case for a new interventional model for elderly living. While her book plays some muted chords that hint at "dissertation," the melody it conveys is strikingly forte and well worth the read.She presents two concrete examples of what good interaction with the elderly might look like. One draws from the international intentional outreach and residential community (the Community of Sant'Egidio), the other is a brick-and-mortar model (the Green House Project). Using both biblical paradigms and church teaching over the centuries, Moses makes the case for treating all persons with dignity and promoting their involvement in decision making as much as possible. The scriptural message she highlights—both our duty to the elderly and the "disappointment and depression" (105) of growing old—is particularly compelling.In her examples of good long-term care, community development is important. In the Sant'Egidio model, volunteers share a common life "through gathering for prayer and various outreach services to the poor" (39). There is motivation to support elderly in their own homes, but the project promotes small, family-like resident facilities when this is not possible. The physical place is less emphasized than the relationship among various age and economic groups.The Green House Project is based in a new vision of homes for the challenged elderly. Results of the project show that not only did staff remain in their jobs longer (nursing home employment turnover is extensive) but visitation by family members increased. Even such a simple thing as a different physical model for the actual building—replacing long halls and routinization with a more home-like environment—has positive results.Moses calls on leadership in church and community to educate, to designate funds for elder care, and to look beyond the caring and the construction of good facilities. She notes how important it is to work politically to change attitudes and actions.She sees care for all dependent people as a responsibility of both the church community and society in general. This includes fostering awareness, encouraging ongoing participation of the elderly in life—including church life—and allocating public resources. Bottom line: she calls for smaller institutions, meaningful opportunities for the... (shrink)

Ample research links mothers’ postpartum depression (PPD) to adverse interactions with their infants. However, most studies relied on general population samples, whereas a substantial number of women are at elevated depression risk. The purpose of this study was to describe mothers’ interactions with their 6- and 12-month-old infants among women at elevated risk, although with a range of symptom severity. We also identified higher-order factors that best characterized the interactions and tested longitudinal consistency of these factors from 6 to (...) 12 months of infant age. We leveraged data from eight projects across the United States (n = 647), using standardized depression measures and an adaptation of the NICHD Mother-Infant Interaction Scales. Overall, these depression-vulnerable mothers showed high levels of sensitivity and positive regard and low levels of intrusiveness, detachment, and negative regard with their infants. Factor analyses of maternal behaviors identified two overarching factors—“positive engagement” and “negative intrusiveness” that were comparable at 6 and 12 months of infant age. Mothers’ ability to regulate depressed mood was a key behavior that defined “positive engagement” in factor loadings. An exceptionally strong loading of intrusiveness on the second factor suggested its central importance for women at elevated depression risk. Mothers with severe depressive symptoms had significantly more “negative intrusiveness” and less “positive engagement” with their 6-month-old infants than women with moderate or fewer depressive symptoms, suggesting a potential tipping point at which symptoms may interfere with the quality of care. Results provide the foundation for further research into predictors and moderators of women’s interactions with their infant among women at elevated risk for PPD. They also indicate a need for evidence-based interventions that can support more severely depressed women in providing optimal care. (shrink)

This study investigated the importance of socioeconomic factors such as education, income, religion, family structure and residence in explaining the increased risk of mortality among vulnerable populations aged less than 20 years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Data used were from the 1991 Brazilian Demographic Census and comprised 121,060 women aged 15–49 residing in Rio de Janeiro. Two alternative statistical methods were used to calculate the risk of death: the widely used Brass method (an indirect estimate which assesses population (...) risks) and a case-control study (which assesses individual risks). The study also focused on the importance of indicators of human and social capital, the lack of which may explain the higher risk of death among children and adolescents. Lack of education was found to be a major determinant of mortality at young ages. Residence in a favela (shantytown), families in which mothers were the head of the family, and a lower median level of income were found to be significant determinants of mortality among vulnerable populations in Brazil. However, religion was not found to be as important a predictor of high mortality. (shrink)

The focus of this article is on how Finnish young women construct their transitions to adulthood and how they imagine their futures as women. Tensions in this process are analysed: many young women want to accelerate their shifts towards independent adult status. At the same time, some of them attempt to postpone the point of being locked into the lives of adult women. They look forward to acquiring the legal status of an adult citizen and to moving to homes of (...) their own. But they want to stay young, which means time for relationships, studying, work and travel, and definitely not children at an early age. Being an adult woman does not seem to be a very tempting position for some young women; being a girl is considered by them to open more possibilities. Those young women who are keener to embrace female adulthood are also discussed, focusing on ways in which they envisage their futures, and what contradictions they experience. These tensions are explored drawing from the research project ‘Tracing Transitions — Follow-Up Study of Post-16 Students’. In the study, 40 young women and 23 young men aged around 18 years were interviewed individually, in paris or in groups of three. The project is grounded on ethnographic research in which the same young people were followed when they started secondary school at the age of 13 years. (shrink)

Several studies have observed an inverse relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -related behavior of children, as reported by parents or teachers, and the amount of green space in their residential environment. Research using other, more objective measures to determine ADHD prevalence is scarce and could strengthen the evidence base considerably. In this study, it is investigated whether a similar beneficial association will be observed if the use of ADHD-related medication is selected as an outcome measure. More specifically, registry (...) data from a health insurance company on the reimbursement of ADHD-related medication in 2011 were available for 248,270 children between 5 and 12 years of age. Amounts of green space within 250 and 500 m of the home address were calculated. Multilevel logistic regression analyses for the prevalence of use were conducted, including the following covariates: sex, age, urbanity of the neighborhood, neighborhood socioeconomic status, and percentage of people with a non-Western migration background in the neighborhood population. Results showed that the amount of green space was inversely related to the prevalence of use of ADHD medication. Moreover, the relationship was strongest among children living in the least wealthy neighborhoods and absent among those living in the wealthiest neighborhoods. Results also show that in less wealthy neighborhoods, there is, on average, less green space available nearby: children who are likely to benefit most from nearby green space tend to have the least of it. (shrink)

Proper utilization of antenatal and postnatal care services plays an important role in reducing the maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate. This paper assesses the utilization of health care services during pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery among rural women in Uttar Pradesh and examines its determinants. Data from a baseline survey of UP Community Mobilization project was utilized. A cross-sectional sample of currently married women who delivered a baby 15 months prior to the survey was included. Information was collected from (...) 2208 women spread over five districts of UP. Information on socio-demography characteristics, utilization of antenatal care, delivery and postnatal care services was collected. To examine the determinants of utilization of maternal health services, the variables included were three ANC visits, institutional delivery and PNC within 42 days of delivery. Separate multilevel random intercept logistic regressions were used to account for clustering at a block and gram panchayat level after adjusting for covariates. Eighty-three percent of women had any ANC. Of them, 61% reported three or more ANC visits. Although 68% of women delivered in a health facility, 29% stayed for at least 48 h. Any PNC within 42 days after delivery was reported by 26% of women. In the adjusted analysis, women with increasing number of contacts with the health worker during the antenatal period, women exposed to mass-media and non-marginalized women were more likely to have at least three ANC visits during pregnancy. Non-marginalized women and women with at least three ANC visits were more likely than their counterparts to deliver in an institution. Contacts with health worker during pregnancy, marginalization, at least three ANC visits and institutional delivery were the strong determinants for utilization of PNC services. Self-help group membership had no association with the utilization of maternal health services. Utilization of maternal health services was low. Contact with the health worker and marginalization emerged as important factors for utilization of services. Although not associated with the utilization, SHGs can be used for delivering health care messages within and beyond the group. (shrink)

A growing volume of research from global data demonstrates that institutional care under conditions of deprivation is profoundly damaging to children, particularly during the critical early years of development. However, how these individuals develop over a life course remains unclear. This study uses data from a survey on the health and development of 420 children mostly under the age of three, placed in 12 infant care institutions between 1958 and 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. The children exhibited significant (...) delays in cognitive, social, and motor development in the first years of life. Moreover, a follow-up of a subsample of 143 children about 10 years later revealed persistent difficulties, including depression, school related-problems, and stereotypies. Between 2019 and 2021, these formerly institutionalized study participants were located through the Swiss population registry and invited to participate once again in the research project. Now in their early sixties, they are studied for their health, further development, and life-course trajectories. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, neuropsychological assessments, and narrative biographical interviews was implemented by a multidisciplinary team. Combining prospective and retrospective data with standardized quantitative and biographical qualitative data allows a rich reconstruction of life histories. The availability of a community sample from the same geographic location, the 1954–1961 cohort of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, described in detail in a paper in this issue, enables comparison with an unaffected cohort. This article describes the study design and study participants in detail and discusses the potential and limitations of a comparison with a community sample. It outlines a set of challenges and solutions encountered in the process of a lifespan longitudinal study from early childhood into the cusp of old age with a potentially vulnerable sample and summarizes the lessons learned along the way. (shrink)

In Brazil, abortion is only allowed in cases of rape, serious risk to a woman's life or fetal anecephaly. Legal abortion services cover less than 4% of the Brazilian territory and only 1,800 procedures are performed, in average, per year. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, almost half of the already few Brazilian abortion clinics shut down and women had to travel even longer distances, reaching abortion services at later gestational ages. In this paper, we describe three bottom‐up advocacy strategies that emerged (...) from difficulties deepened during the COVID‐19 pandemic at a single abortion service in Brazil, amidst anti‐gender policies from the federal government. Telemedicine abortion, outpatient surgical abortion and the provision of abortion after 20 weeks' gestation are important strategies that may reduce inequalities that impact the most vulnerable populations, such as black and indigenous women, children, adolescents and women experiencing domestic violence. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic had a negative psychological impact on the population at scale, yet it is possible that vulnerable patient populations may experience a heavier burden with increased feelings of anxiety and distress. Cancer patients have to trade-off between the fear of exposing themselves to the virus and the need to continue life-saving medical procedures. The present study investigated the prevalence of generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms in a population of Italian cancer patients and healthy (...) participants in the months following the COVID-19 outbreak. Using standardized measures of PTSS and generalized anxiety, we found that patients experienced higher levels of adverse mental health outcomes. Several variables were found to negatively affect PTSS and anxiety in this population, including the younger age of respondents, having children, and the impossibility to attend regular medical check-ups. These findings stress the importance of maintaining a clear and regular communication with patients throughout future waves of the pandemic and ensure continuity of care in this vulnerable population. Furthermore, this study indicates the need to establish psychological interventions aimed at patients with cancer, targeting especially younger generations who are more likely to experience adverse psychological outcomes. (shrink)

The current study aimed to investigate differences in theory of mind between left-behind children and non-left-behind children in rural China and to examine the potential protective role of general reasoning ability in left-behind children’s theory of mind. Participants included 213 children aged 7.10 to 13.67 years (111 boys and 102 girls, M = 10.51 years, SD = 1.33), 101 of whom were left behind in rural areas by one or both migrating parents for at least 6 (...) months. The Strange Stories task, a second-order false belief task and a faux pas task were used to measure children’s theory of mind, and Sessions B and C in Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices were used to test children’s general reasoning ability. The results showed that left-behind children scored lower on both the faux pas task and Strange Stories task. Additionally, on second-order false belief understanding, left-behind boys performed worse than non-left-behind boys, while left-behind girls scored higher than non-left behind girls. Moreover, children’s general reasoning ability moderated the relationship between parental migrant status and children’s faux pas understanding: For children with high levels of general reasoning ability, left-behind children performed similarly to non-left-behind children, while for children with low levels of general reasoning ability, left-behind children scored lower than non-left-behind children, indicating that general reasoning ability buffered the negative effect of being left behind on children’s theory of mind development. The implications of these findings for training directed at left-behind children are discussed. (shrink)

Background Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a brain stimulation technique currently being researched as an alternative or complimentary treatment for various neurological disorders. There is little knowledge about experiences of the participants of tDCS clinical research, especially from pediatric studies. Methods An interview study with typically developing minors (n = 19, mean age 13,66 years) participating in a tDCS study, and their parents (n = 18) was conducted to explore their views and experiences and inform the ethical analysis. Results (...) Children (10–13 years old) and adolescents (14–18 years old) reported good experiences with the stimulation. Next to financial incentives, main motives to participate in the study were curiosity and the possibility to help develop treatments for children affected by neurological disorders. They could also see a potential of using tDCS in a non-medical setting, especially regarding the provision of equal opportunity, e.g. in education. Parents also presented a positive attitude towards tDCS and their children participation in the basic research study. Nevertheless, their understanding of tDCS was rather poor. Even though many of them understood the techniques, they often did not see the link between the (current) lack of side effects and an absence of longitudinal studies. Parents were also cautious about using tDCS for non-medical/enhancement purposes. Conclusions The study findings show a need for more transparent information about the state of the art of tDCS, its function and what it might be able to offer, especially considering the good acceptability of tDCS. (shrink)

States and societies are increasing concerned about issues associated with population diversity. When it comes to making legislative and political decisions, one sees a constant dissociation between the use of demographic concepts, demography and health and bioethics, along with very little academic impact and awareness in this area. The vast majority of countries lack an ethical framework that guarantees non-manipulation of the human being. The objectives of population policies go against children, the elderly and the disabled; their (...) foundation is more ideological and utilitarian in nature. Opportunities for academic training and awareness on this subject are lacking. (shrink)

The coupled growth of population aging and international migration warrants attention on the methods and solutions available to adult children living overseas to provide distance caregiving for their aging parents. Despite living apart from their parents, the transnational informal care literature has indicated that first-generation immigrants remain committed to carry out their filial caregiving obligations in extensive and creative ways. With functions to remotely access health information enabled by emergency, wearable, motion, and video sensors, remote monitoring technologies (RMTs) (...) may thus also allow these international migrants to be alerted in sudden changes and remain informed of their parent’s state of health. As technological solutions for caregiving, RMTs could allow independent living for older persons while any unusual deviations from normal health patterns are detected and appropriately supported. With a vignette of a distance care arrangement, we engage with concepts such as filial piety, in-absentia caregiving distress, and the social exchange theory, as well as the upholding of shifting cultural ideals to illustrate the complex dynamic of the satisfaction and quality of the informal caregiving relationship. This paper extends the traditional ethical issues in technology-aided caregiving, such as autonomy, privacy, and justice, to be considered within the context of distance care. We also posit newer ethical considerations such as consent in power imbalances, harm to caregivers, and stigma. These known and new ethical issues aim to encourage further ethically conscious design and use of RMTs to support distance care for older persons. (shrink)

Although the category “race” fails as a postulated natural kind, racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, and other group designations might nonetheless be considered projectible insofar as they support inductive inferences in biomedicine. This article investigates what it might mean for group concepts in population genetics and genomics to be projectible and whether the projectibility of such predicates licenses the representation of their corresponding classes as natural kinds according to currently prevailing projectibility-based accounts of natural kinds. The article draws on (...) a case study from cancer genetics, specifically, breast cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jewish women. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 3, Page 226-240, July 2022. The ubiquitous use of social platforms across the globe makes them attractive options for investigating social phenomena including migration. However, the use of social media data raises several crucial ethical issues around the areas of informed consent, anonymity and profiling of individuals, which are particularly sensitive when looking at a population such as migrants, which is often considered as ‘vulnerable’. In this paper, we discuss how the opportunities and challenges (...) related to social media research in the context of migration impact on the development of large-scale scientific projects. Building on the EU-funded research project PERCEPTIONS, we explore the concrete challenges experienced in such projects regarding profiling, informed consent, bias, data sharing and ethical approval procedures, as well as the strategies used to mitigate them. We draw from lessons learned in this project to discuss implications and recommendations to researchers, funders and university ethics review panels. This paper contributes to the growing discussion on the ethical challenges associated with big social data research projects on migration by highlighting concrete aspects stakeholders should be looking for and questioning when involved in such large-scale scientific projects where collaboration, data sharing and transformation and practicalities are of importance. (shrink)

The country of Botswana currently has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Government and international aid agencies have undertaken initiatives to address the rapidly growing epidemic, but few measures address the current crisis of care as a key element in that process. In this article, the author uses case study data to highlight how women in Northern Botswana are affected by the increasing burden of caregiving to children who are orphaned as a result of the (...) HIV/aids epidemic. In particular, she describes how the role of women as caregivers in communities has been transformed as a result of the HIV/aids crisis. She suggests that the intersecting cultural patterns of migration and reproduction are central to understanding the spread of the disease in the current emerging crisis of care. (shrink)

Current local and national demographic trends have deepened the existing and formed new global demographic processes that have received a new historical reasoning that requires deep scientific research taking into account the influence of the multifactorial global dimension of the modern society development. The purpose of the article is to study the development of global demographic processes and to define the causes of their occurrence, manifestations, implications and prospects for implementation in the first half of the 21st century. The authors (...) have identified and characterized four global demographic processes, namely population growth, migration, increase of tourism, and change in population structure. It is projected that in the 30’s of the 21st century, the number and growth rates of the world population will reach the objective growth and these dynamics over the next two decades will begin to change in the direction of reducing the growth rates, which will lead to gradual stabilization, and eventually reduce the size of the world population. By the middle of the 21st century, one can observe the preservation of the growth rates of international and domestic migration, the growth of international migration flows from the South to the North and from the East to the West, the strengthening of new economically developed centers of gravity (Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the increase in migration of rural population to cities, as well as urbanization and activation of the metropolises development. The share of international tourists in comparison with the world population will be constantly increasing, and the annual growth rate of the number of international tourists will significantly depend on the world economy and may vary at the several percent level. Permanent change will occur in the age, religious-cultural and socio-economic structure of the population. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions imposed to stop its advance have affected the entire population. Children living with difficulties or in vulnerable situations prior to the pandemic might have suffered an even greater impact. This present study examines the psychological impact of quarantine on children and adolescents exposed to intimate partner violence against their mothers. Participants were 185 mothers who reported 269 children, as well as 108 children who self-reported. An emotional and behavioral checklist was (...) administered to both mothers and children throughout confinement. Results show mothers observed changes in their children’s psychological state. Children, in turn, reported an increase in different variables. Mothers reported a higher percentage of overall increase for both general and severe symptoms than their children. Differences were found by sex and age. Future research with similar population groups is necessary to establish the support and intervention children require in similar contexts, as well as to clarify possible causes of differences found by age and sex. (shrink)

Dementia accompanies aging in certain susceptible individuals. The chemical function of the brain remains normal, but certain neurotransmitter-selective diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and Alzheimer's disease occur more commonly with age.There are at least two issues troubling researchers of senile dementia at the moment. One is the contribution of cell death, as opposed to selective neuronal atrophy, to the pathology of degenerative disorders. The other is how early the onset of dementia might be detected. The resolution of such (...) issues is important for the design of therapies for the common and most serious chronic, rather than acute, neurodegenerative disease.Alzheimer's disease is one of the most devastating neurological disorders. The ethical debate is often related to when human biological life ceases or when a person ceases to exist. If the elder is still a person, he/she is no more the same person. Huntington's disease is inherited as a highly penetrant, autosomal dominant neuronal disorder. A genetic test can accurately predict a person's risk and that of the children. As the knowledge of the genetic basis is increasing and prenatal diagnosis gets easier, the possibilities to avoid child disorders will become greater, but genetic testing raises problematic ethical issues. Ethical action involves the right to know and the right not to know, it involves freedom of choice and freedom implies knowledge. It is ethical that relatives in age of procreation should be informed. In any case, efficacy and safety of the procedure, the risk-benefit ratio for a particular disease must be judged to be acceptable and understood through informed consent by the patient or the family or both. (shrink)

This article focuses on the early years of children from immigrant families in Germany. Research has documented disparities in young children’s development correlating with their family background, making clear the importance of early intervention. Institutional childcare—as an early intervention for children at risk—plays an important role in Germany, as 34.3% of children below the age of three and 93% of children above that age are in external childcare. This paper focuses on the extent to which (...) children from families with a background of migration differ in their social development when considering their age of entry into early external childcare. Data from the infant cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study is used to analyze the impact of early institutional childcare before the age of 3 years on children’s social competence at the age of 5 years, controlling for gender, siblings, temperament, home learning activities, and socioeconomic status. Results show the effects of duration of early external childcare on peer problems for children from families with a background of migration, in such a way that children who attend early external childcare for more than 1 year before the age of three show less problem behavior with peers than those who attend for less than a year. These findings have equity implications for children with a migration background living in Germany, especially as the proportion of these children is trending upwards. (shrink)