Relative Earnings of Husbands and Wives in Urban China

This paper studies the relative contribution of husbands and wives to the family income in the process of economic transition by using the Chinese Urban Household Survey data from 1988 to 1999. We find that, contrary to the experience of western countries, the share of wives¡¦ labor earnings in urban China tends to decline slightly over time and the share of husbands¡¦ labor earnings is stable. This implies that the role of urban Chinese husbands as the main financial supporters of their families becomes relatively more important during economic transition. We argue that this trend may have reflected the restoration of the functions of household production and labor market in the process of economic transition. This restoration allows households to allocate time, effort and human capital investment for each household member and for each household and market activity in a more efficient way. Our further empirical analysis suggests that at least two factors have accounted for the strengthening of the relative importance of husbands in contributing to family income in urban China: 1) the enlargement of the positive effect of children on husbands and the opposite effect for wives; and 2) the shrinkage of the positive income effect on the leisure of husbands.

The Dynamics of Marriage and Divorce

We formulate and estimate a dynamic model of marriage, divorce, and remarriage using 27 years of panel data for the entire Danish cohort born in 1960. The marital surplus is identified from the probability of divorce, and the surplus shares of husbands and wives from their willingness to enter marriage. Education and marriage order are complements in generating gains from marriage. Educated men and women receive a larger share of the marital gains but this effect is mitigated when their proportion rises. Education stabilizes marriage and second marriages are less stable. As the cohort ages, uneducated men are the most likely to be single.marriage, divorce, sorting

Incremental embodied chaotic exploration of self-organized motor behaviors with proprioceptor adaptation

This paper presents a general and fully dynamic embodied artificial neural system, which incrementally explores and learns motor behaviors through an integrated combination of chaotic search and reflex learning. The former uses adaptive bifurcation to exploit the intrinsic chaotic dynamics arising from neuro-body-environment interactions, while the latter is based around proprioceptor adaptation. The overall iterative search process formed from this combination is shown to have a close relationship to evolutionary methods. The architecture developed here allows realtime goal-directed exploration and learning of the possible motor patterns (e.g., for locomotion) of embodied systems of arbitrary morphology. Examples of its successful application to a simple biomechanical model, a simulated swimming robot, and a simulated quadruped robot are given. The tractability of the biomechanical systems allows detailed analysis of the overall dynamics of the search process. This analysis sheds light on the strong parallels with evolutionary search

Chaotic exploration and learning of locomotion behaviours

We present a general and fully dynamic neural system, which exploits intrinsic chaotic dynamics, for the real-time goal-directed exploration and learning of the possible locomotion patterns of an articulated robot of an arbitrary morphology in an unknown environment. The controller is modeled as a network of neural oscillators that are initially coupled only through physical embodiment, and goal-directed exploration of coordinated motor patterns is achieved by chaotic search using adaptive bifurcation. The phase space of the indirectly coupled neural-body-environment system contains multiple transient or permanent self-organized dynamics, each of which is a candidate for a locomotion behavior. The adaptive bifurcation enables the system orbit to wander through various phase-coordinated states, using its intrinsic chaotic dynamics as a driving force, and stabilizes on to one of the states matching the given goal criteria. In order to improve the sustainability of useful transient patterns, sensory homeostasis has been introduced, which results in an increased diversity of motor outputs, thus achieving multiscale exploration. A rhythmic pattern discovered by this process is memorized and sustained by changing the wiring between initially disconnected oscillators using an adaptive synchronization method. Our results show that the novel neurorobotic system is able to create and learn multiple locomotion behaviors for a wide range of body configurations and physical environments and can readapt in realtime after sustaining damage

Evolutionary robotics and neuroscience

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Family Income Inequality and the Role of Wives Earnings in Mexico: 1988-2010

We study family income inequality in Mexico from 1988 to 2010. Female labor supply increased during this period, especially for married women. The share of wives’ income among married couples grew from 13 percent in 1988 to 23 percent in 2010. However, the correlation of husbands’ and wives’ earnings has been fairly stable with a value close to 0.28, one of the highest correlations recorded across countries. We follow Cancian and Reed’s (1999) methodology in order to analyze whether wives’ income equalizes total family income distribution. We investigate several counterfactuals and conclude that the recent increment in female employment has contributed to a decrease in family income inequality mainly through a rise in wives’ labor supply in poor families.income inequality, female employment, female earnings, Latin America, Mexico

How Parents Use Time and Money

[Excerpt] This article examines weekday resource allocation decisions of married couples with a husband employed full time and with children under 18. These decisions relate, among other things, to working for pay; doing unpaid household work; purchasing services such as childcare, laundry and drycleaning, and food away from home; and eating out. Information about spending decisions was obtained from the 2009 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and information about time use was obtained from the 2009 American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Results show that, Regardless of employment status, wives were more likely than husbands to spend time in household activities. On an average weekday, married fathers spent more time working than married mothers did, even married mothers employed full time. The proportion of families reporting childcare expenses and the average amount spent by those reporting were highest for families with full-time working wives and lowest for families with wives not employed for pay. Consistent with other research, working-wife families did not spend more on housekeeping and laundry services than did families with wives not employed for pay. Families with full-time working wives spent the greatest dollar amount on food away from home, but there was no significant difference in spending between families with part-time working wives and families with wives not employed for pay

Making Family Under A Shiftwork Schedule: Air Force Security Guards And Their Wives

Through 90 in-depth interviews with 44 rotating shiftworkers and their spouses, this study examines how couples adjust their routines in order to interact as a family unit. We suggest that their views of marital roles are a critical force shaping their practices of daily family life. Wives, even when employed, are responsible for coordinating the individual schedules of family members to match that of the shift-working husband. Wives pay a price for this adjustment work in the form of biological, and emotional symptoms similar to those previously reported only for shiftworkers. Despite their efforts to be providers, husbands pay a price in terms of guilt and anger when work demands limit their ability to fully participate in family life. Further, dual-earner couples rely on husbands ( father care ) and informal arrangements to cover child care for economical and social reasons, not simply to provide husbands with an opportunity to interact with children. Yet, despite higher levels of father care, traditional gender roles have not been altered in that working wives still retain primary responsibility for children

A Comparison of Quality of Life Measures in Husbands of Women with Breast Cancer

The Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB-SA) and Medical Outcome Study SF-36 short form (SF-36) are popular health-related quality of life (HRQOL) assessment tools; however, it is unclear whether these measures overlap enough to be interchangeable, and if not, which might be a better choice. This study examined conceptual overlap, validity, and relation with psychosocial functioning of the QWB-SA and SF-36 in a sample of partners of women undergoing adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. Partners (n = 79) of breast cancer patients, recruited in a chemotherapy infusion clinic, completed the QWB-SA and SF-36 and additional psychosocial measures. Descriptive content review shows that both instruments provide a breadth of HRQOL coverage including physical health, mental health, social functioning, role functioning and general health perceptions; however, more QWB-SA scales suffered floor effects. Subscales correlated, with the strongest correlations between the QWB-SA total score and the mental health scales of the SF-36. The QWB-SA and the SF-36 Mental Health Component Summary score, but not the SF-36 Physical Component Summary score were strongly correlated to measures of mood, satisfaction with life, burden, and social support. The QWB-SA and SF-36 measure distinct aspects of HRQOL. Each instrument presents distinct advantages and disadvantages in coverage of particular domains. Labels assigned to SF-36 scales more accurately reflect what they measure. The SF-36 appeared more sensitive to the impact that psychological health played on overall assessment of HRQOL in these partners