Belonging and control in population history

Several sociologists, notably Durkheim, argue that social mobility tends to bring about psychological distress. These theories are supported by recent empirical studies but the results are inconclusive. This article joins the line of research on the consequences of social mobility to examine the effect of intergenerational occupational mobility on subjective well-being in China, using data from the Chinese General Social Survey. This research extends prior studies by examining the full range of possible relationships among origins and destinations, on the one hand, and subjective well-being on the other. The results of this analysis show that the association between social mobility and subjective well-being is not linear. For those from farming and unskilled manual origins, upward mobility is associated with higher levels of happiness. For those from higher status origins, however, downward mobility is not necessarily associated with lower levels of happiness. Whereas the subjective well-being of the upwardly mobile is influenced to a greater degree by their current occupational positions, the subjective well-being of the downwardly mobile is influenced to a greater degree by their origins. While the findings indicate that social mobility has made the Chinese people as a whole psychologically better off.

Social media via Internet-enabled platforms allow youths actively consume, create and disseminate information. Without exception, services such as online social networking, micro-blogging and video-sharing have been embraced by youths in countries with widespread Internet access. Research findings suggest that youths' use of social media, be it in educational or recreational pursuits, whether with proximate peers or distant others, help to shape their sense of self. However, prior research has focused on mainstream youths rather than marginalised youth populations. To address this inadequacy, social media use of juvenile delinquents and youths-at-risk in Singapore was studied through 36 interviews with youths-at-risk, and 24 with social workers. The findings indicate that for this vulnerable youth population, social media can become a platform through which they are unwittingly drawn into criminal behaviour; and post-rehabilitation, social media may offer an insidious route to recidivism. Yet opportunities also arise for these youths’ self-determination as they can derive competence, autonomy and relatedness through their social media use. Benefits also accrue for these youths’ identity formation as they employ social media in their bid for self-discovery and self-awareness.

The tension between “universalizing” (‘globalizing’) and “relativizing” (‘localizing’) principles has been quite broadly discussed in the context of international conventions on human rights and children’s rights. The cultural relativism view in relation to child work and exploitation issues raised many debates on universal children’s rights and universal norms or standards, in the sense that how to defend the principle of universality in international conventions and debates, while at the same time promoting “openness, flexibility and sensitivity” to different culture in the implementation of its standards.
The case of commercial sexual exploitation of children in Java, Indonesia is a good example of this discussion. The area has a lot of specific characteristics and cultural backgrounds which different from other parts of the world, particularly from “the West”, where the notion of universalism emerged. This paper will describe the importance of moral/cultural consideration in the case of child prostitution phenomenon in Java, based on the relativism viewpoint, and will discuss the way to negotiate the existing contradictions between relativism and universalism in the community development point of view.

This paper draws on a sample of in-depth interviews with 42 mother-daughter dyads in Cairo, Egypt to examine how individuals make sense of rapid inter-generational change in gender roles. Women’s labor force participation has declined in Egypt over the past twenty years, yet respondents adamantly and eloquently described a variety of reasons for their nearly unanimous belief that women are more likely to work now than a generation ago. Drawing on the social demographic literature that addresses how conflicting cultural schemas frame individual actions, I argue that these two generations’ perceptions of change in women’s labor force participation reflect broader social tensions surrounding the desire for a "modern" globalized Egypt and nostalgia for a past era seen as simpler and plagued by fewer social ills. Schemas surrounding women's work capture the multiple and often contradictory models of women’s social roles that are implicated in these competing desires, as well as women’s attempts to apply these models to the course their own lives have taken.

Considering the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 5, the targets of Bangladesh is to reduce the maternal mortality rate into 143/100,000. At present, one third of pregnant women don't receive antenatal care. More than 70% of births took place at home. Only 29 percent of mothers receive postnatal care from a medically trained provider within 42 days after delivery. The aim of the study is to understand the barriers to household decision on obtaining maternal health care services. This is a qualitative study with phenomenological approach. The data collection process is guided through FGD, and in-depth interview. The findings show that careless about pregnancy, workload and the care of other children are viewed as reasons for poor adherence to ANC and delivery care. Mothers-in-law play an influential role in the uptake of ANC as well as delivery care in Bangladesh. Women prefer same sex health care professionals and there is no need to go for postnatal check-up when everything is normal. Decision-making is recognized as a complex process entwined with local belief systems and social relationships. Mothers, mothers-in-law, other female relatives, friends and neighbors are trustworthy sources of information in Bangladesh and play important role in decision making process.

Latin America has tried to cope with ethnicity and race issues since the beginning of the colonization process till current days, therefore, how to collect this information is also a sensible point on census matter. Additionally, different countries build their racial and ethnical identity based on different criteria. From that we built an analysis of the criteria used by the last two Censuses round of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador in South America. For that, initially, census criteria used to represent ethnic and racial categories in those four countries were assembled into a comparative table. Following it were assessed the constitutional and law changes concerning ethnical and racial issue, alongside the social movements/civil society demands for the same period. It made possible seeking the changes on census criteria for ethnic and racial data collection within and among those countries, highlighting the differences on how each country officially deal with their population diversity, as much as the legal disposition and census criteria intertwining changes. The results lead us to the main argument of the text: racial and ethnical data are a product of constitutional disposition reviews motivated by social demands and political relations in a very controversial environment.

This study is a descriptive, qualitative type of research that examines the factors affecting the “coming out” of ten (10) Muslim male homosexuals and five (5) Muslim female homosexuals in Davao City, Philippines, its effects, and their coping mechanisms to the negative effects of “coming out”. The data for this study were gathered through in-depth interviews of ten (15) key informants who are single, generally young, with the age range 16-34 years and with mean age of 19 years. The findings in this study reveal that the informants’ concept of “coming out” is equated with the term “paglipad” (to soar) —which denotes empowerment and freedom, a stage higher than “pagladlad”. Similar to but also different from the Cass Model, an alternative model of the “coming out” process is presented in this study, according to the experiences of the informants. This alternative model presents “paglipad” (to soar) as the highest stage in the process. Internal motivations, which boil down to the desire to be happy, significantly influenced the “coming out” of the informants, thereby supporting the idea that one’s self, and his/her own acceptance of his/her homosexuality is more important than others’ acceptance. Since homosexuality is forbidden in Islam, formal and informal forms of social control exist, with social exclusion functioning both as

This paper questions whether the shift to self-choice marriage implies that the traditional cultural norms stressing family influence on spouse selection have been weakened by inroads of modern norms of greater individual autonomy in the marriage process. Using a representative sample of married young adults (aged 20-34) in Greater Jakarta, we explore the courtship processes, and the degree of parental role in spouse selection. While only 4 per cent of the respondents cited that their marriage was arranged by others; over half of the respondents reported their parents or in-laws played a major role in their marriage decision. Our multivariate analysis suggests that the tertiary educated respondents are those most likely to report their parents playing a major role. We reflect on the prevailing cultural norms to discuss the centrality of family in studying the interactions between marriage, education, and social mobility in modern Indonesia.

Food security is a topical issue discussed all over the world and it’s a phenomenon experienced especially in the less developed countries. Food security is at the forefront especially with the advent of climate variability and change which is affecting food production and distribution. Women especially their rural counterparts are the majority producers of food and cannot continue to do so, if they do not have access to land which is a strategic resource for agriculture. Culturally most women cannot be owners of land, but are mostly considered the owners of the crops. With limited access to land the food cultivated cannot meet the increasing demand especially from the urban areas causing food insecurity. The qualitative approach was used in collecting data through content analysis of books written from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century on Cameroon land property law, how land can be and is acquired by both male and female especially culturally and importance of land to women who are main producers of agricultural food crops and the phenomenon of food security. Results show that women farmers are facing increasingly insecure access to land and with the scarcity of land men have withdraw land rights that women previously held. Alternatively most rural women farmers are developing many different avenues to access land.

Cassava is a staple food of over forty million people, half of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. Cassava has gained its importance due to its ability to yield well especially under adverse environmental conditions. Cassava is a crop which is cultivated principally by women. The money gotten from the sale of cassava is mostly managed by women. It is often used in buying household needs and any spare is usually kept in njangi houses. The qualitative approach was used in collecting data through content analysis of books written from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century in Africa and Cameroon especially on the importance of cassava as a source of food security and a boost to empower women. Results show that even though female farmers are still using the traditional learning by doing approach, they are also now adopting mew innovational agricultural practices.