Information and discrimination in the rental housing market: evidence from a field experiment

This paper investigates the effect of disclosing information on the discriminatory behaviour against immigrants in the Spanish rental market. We conduct a field experiment where emails are sent showing interest on vacant rental apartments. Fictitious applicants whose names represent different ethnic groups send emails with different amount of information about their ability to pay the rent. Our results show that applicants with a Moroccan sounding name are 15 percentage points less likely to be contacted by the property owner than those with a Spanish name. We also find that revealing positive information about the socioeconomic status of the Moroccan candidate increases the probability of being contacted by 8 percentage points. However, the information revealed does not completely eliminate discriminatory behavior, suggesting the presence of negative attitudes towards immigrants.Discrimination, migration, rental market, field experiment

Rental housing discrimination and the persistence of ethnic enclaves

We conduct a field experiment to show that discrimination in the rental market represents a significant obstacle for the geographical assimilation process by immigrants. We employ the Internet platform to identify vacant rental apartments in different areas of the two largest Spanish cities, Madrid and Barcelona. We send emails showing interest in the apartments and signal the applicants’ ethnicity by using native and foreign-sounding names. We find that, in line with previous studies, immigrants face a differential treatment when trying to rent an apartment. Our results also indicate that this negative treatment varies considerably with the concentration of immigrants in the area. In neighbourhoods with a low presence of immigrants the response rate is 30 percentage points lower for immigrants than for natives, while this differential disappears when the immigration share reaches 50%. We conclude that discriminatory practices in the rental housing market contribute to perpetuate the ethnic spatial segregation observed in large cities.immigration, discrimination, spatial segregation.

Solving Large-Scale Markov Decision Processes on Low-Power Heterogeneous Platforms

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) provide a framework for a machine to act autonomously and intelligently in environments where the effects of its actions are not deterministic. MDPs have numerous applications. We focus on practical applications for decision making, such as autonomous driving and service robotics, that have to run on mobile platforms with scarce computing and power resources. In our study, we use Value Iteration to solve MDPs, a core method of the paradigm to find optimal sequences of actions, which is well known for its high computational cost. In order to solve these computationally complex problems efficiently in platforms with stringent power consumption constraints, high-performance accelerator hardware and parallelised software come to the rescue. We introduce a generalisable approach to implement practical applications for decision making, such as autonomous driving on mobile and embedded low-power heterogeneous SoC platforms that integrate an accelerator (GPU) with a multicore. We evaluate three scheduling strategies that enable concurrent execution and efficient use of resources on a variety of SoCs embedding a multicore CPU and integrated GPU, namely Oracle, Dynamic, and LogFit. We compare these strategies for solving an MDP modelling the use-case of autonomous robot navigation in indoor environments on four representative platforms for mobile decision-making applications with a power use ranging from 4 to 65 Watts. We provide a rigorous analysis of the results to better understand their behaviour depending on the MDP size and the computing platform. Our experimental results show that by using CPU-GPU heterogeneous strategies, the computation time and energy required are considerably reduced with respect to multicore implementation, regardless of the computational platform.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This work was partially supported by the Spanish project TIN 2016-80920-R

El largo camino que lleva a España: secuencia de las migraciones femeninas marroquíes

We assist from the 80's to an increasing Moroccan migrant women flow. This migration constitues an original flow in the migrant history in Morocco: these women come in Spain out of family linkages. In other words, they come in for working, like traditionally men used tod do. In search of the antecedents of this kind of flow in the Moroccan migration, the author looks over different female migrations in Morocco from the beginning of the century. Bnef, there are new conditions in the origin of new Moroccan female migrations. These conditions are created by the change of cultural restrictions to female mobility, and they work as the major difference between the former and the current migrations.Partiendo de que desde los años 80 en España existe un movimiento migratorio novedoso de mujeres marroquíes, consistente en una emigración de mujeres marroquíes no vinculada a la emigración familiar, este artículo indaga en los antecedentes de este tipo de emigración en Marruecos. Esta búsqueda se convierte en una excusa para analizar los diferentes movimientos migratorios femeninos marroquíes. En el recomdo, que comienza a principios de siglo, aparecen algunos movimientos femeninos que parecen vincularse a la inserción en un empleo remunerado. Sin embargo, lo que distingue a los viejos movimientos de los nuevos, es el levantamiento de las restricciones culturales a la emigración, y ello conforma nuevos movimientos migratorios femeninos, de los que la emigración hacia España es uno de los ejemplos más significativos

Burnout, work engagement and life satisfaction among Spanish teachers: The unique contribution of core self-evaluations

The aim of this study was to examine burnout and engagement dimensions as predictors of life satisfaction in a sample of 531 Spanish teachers. We also aimed to examine the additional contribution of core self-evaluations on life satisfaction, above and beyond socio-demographic variables and burnout and engagement dimensions. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that core self-evaluations explained a substantial and unique amount of variance in life satisfaction beyond and above that accounted for age, one burnout dimension (i.e., personal accomplishment) and one engagement dimension (i.e., dedication). Additional analysis found that personal accomplishment and dedication mediated the link between core self-evaluations and life satisfaction. Some practical implications of the current findings for educational context are discussed.This research has been funded in part by research projects from the University of Málaga and Junta de Andalucía/FEDER (UMA18-FEDERJA-147), funded projects by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-117006RB-I00) and PAIDI Group CTS-1048 (Junta de Andalucía). The second author is supported by the University of Málaga. Funding for open access charge: University of Málaga / CBUA

How does emotional intelligence buffer the relationship between social media addiction and symptoms of eating disorders? Cross validation of two moderated mediation models.

Although it is well documented the influence of social media addiction on both thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction with the subsequent consequences on eating disorders (ED) symptomatology, no prior studies have yet tested the potential moderator role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the links between thin ideal internalization and ED symptoms, and body dissatisfaction and ED symptoms. To bridge these gaps, this study tested two moderated mediation models explaining ED symptomatology. We hypothesised that EI buffers the effect of social media addiction on ED symptoms through thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction. A sample composed of 407 Spanish graduate students and community adults completed measures of EI, social media addiction, thin ideal internalization, body appreciation scale, and ED symptomatology. EI moderated the relationship between thin ideal internalization and ED symptoms and between body dissatisfaction and ED symptoms. The findings suggest that EI has specific buffering effects of the influence of social media addiction on thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction reducing ED symptomatology. We discuss the implications of these findings for efforts to deal with the detrimental effects of social media addiction on ED symptomatology.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech