Postindustrial fertility ideals, intentions, and gender inequality : a comparative qualitative analysis

We are grateful for financial support from the National Science Foundation (grant no. SES1123885) to Mary Brinton for the Japanese, Spanish, and U.S. portions of the project and from the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University for additional support of the Japan portion of the project. We also appreciate the financial support from the Agency for Administration of University and Research Grants (grant # 2013-BP-A-00043) and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 657030 to Xiana Bueno for the Spanish portion of the project, and the financial support from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond/Swedish Foundation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (grant no. P11-1049:1) to Livia Oláh for the Swedish portion. An earlier draft of the paper benefited from the constructive comments of Eunsil Oh, Yun Zhou, and an anonymous reviewer.Altres ajuts: RJ/P11-1049:1Altres ajuts: NSF/SES1123885Fertility ideals remain centered on two children in most postindustrial societies, presenting a puzzle for demographers interested in very low fertility. This paper explores the conditions producing a gap between fertility ideals and intentions among young highly-educated adults in different postindustrial contexts. We employ in-depth interviews to analyze reasoning about fertility ideals and intentions in two countries with very low fertility (Japan and Spain) and two with slightly higher fertility (the U.S. and Sweden). We find that American and Swedish female interviewees are more likely than those in Japan and Spain to cite work-family conflict as a reason for their ideals-intentions gap. Our results also suggest that gender inequality is more important in generating low fertility intentions among highly-educated interviewees in Japan than Spain. Taken together, these findings suggest complexities in how gender inequality affects fertility intentions among the highly-educated in postindustrial contexts

‘You can’t stand on a corner and talk about it …’: Medicinal cannabis use, impression management and the analytical status of interviews

In this article, I examine how four medicinal cannabis users used impression management during in-depth, qualitative interviews to attend to self-presentational concerns. I examine the rhetorical strategies and narratives articulated by the participants while also attending to the role that I played in co-construction as the interviewer. Later I discuss how, although the participants’ accounts are occasioned by the interviews, they can still provide significant insights into the social worlds of the participants beyond the interviews. While discussions about whether to treat interviews as topic, resource or both are not new, I argue that we can treat interviews as both topic and resource because impression management is a product of the individual’s habitus and it and the accounts it produces are part of their social world

Reliability of MRI findings in candidates for lumbar disc prosthesis

Introduction: Limited reliability data exist for localised magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings relevant to planning of treatment with lumbar disc prosthesis and later outcomes. We assessed the reliability of such findings in chronic low back pain patients who were accepted candidates for disc prosthesis. Methods: On pretreatment MRI of 170 patients (mean age 41 years; 88 women), three experienced radiologists independently rated Modic changes, disc findings and facet arthropathy at L3/L4, L4/L5 and L5/S1. Two radiologists rerated 126 examinations. For each MRI finding at each disc level, agreement was analysed using the kappa statistic and differences in prevalence across observers using a fixed effects model. Results: All findings at L3/L4 and facet arthropathy at L5/S1 had a mean prevalence <10% across observers and were not further analysed, ensuring interpretable kappa values. Overall interobserver agreement was generally moderate or good (kappa 0.40–0.77) at L4–S1 for Modic changes, nucleus pulposus signal, disc height (subjective and measured), posterior high-intensity zone (HIZ) and disc contour, and fair (kappa 0.24) at L4/L5 for facet arthropathy. Posterior HIZ at L5/S1 and severely reduced subjective disc height at L4/L5 differed up to threefold in prevalence between observers (p< 0.0001). Intraobserver agreement was mostly good or very good (kappa 0.60–1.00). Conclusion: In candidates for disc prosthesis, mostly moderate interobserver agreement is expected for localised MRI findings

Effects of backpacking holidays in Australia on alcohol, tobacco and drug use of UK residents

BACKGROUND: Whilst alcohol and drug use among young people is known to escalate during short holidays and working breaks in international nightlife resorts, little empirical data are available on the impact of longer backpacking holidays on substance use. Here we examine changes in alcohol, tobacco and drug use when UK residents go backpacking in Australia. METHODS: Matched information on alcohol and drug use in Australia and the UK was collected through a cross sectional cohort study of 1008 UK nationals aged 18–35 years, holidaying in Sydney or Cairns, Australia, during 2005. RESULTS: The use of alcohol and other drugs by UK backpackers visiting Australia was common with use of illicit drugs being substantially higher than in peers of the same age in their home country. Individuals showed a significant increase in frequency of alcohol consumption in Australia compared to their behaviour in the UK with the proportion drinking five or more times per week rising from 20.7% (UK) to 40.3% (Australia). Relatively few individuals were recruited into drug use in Australia (3.0%, cannabis; 2.7% ecstasy; 0.7%, methamphetamine). However, over half of the sample (55.0%) used at least one illicit drug when backpacking. Risk factors for illicit drug use while backpacking were being regular club goers, being male, Sydney based, travelling without a partner or spouse, having been in Australia more than four weeks, Australia being the only destination on their vacation and drinking or smoking five or more days a week. CONCLUSION: As countries actively seek to attract more international backpacker tourists, interventions must be developed that target this population's risk behaviours. Developing messages on drunkenness and other drug use specifically for backpackers could help minimise their health risks directly (e.g. adverse drug reactions) and indirectly (e.g. accidents and violence) as well as negative impacts on the host country

Intimacy, intercourse, and adjustments: Experiences of sexual life of a group of people with physical disabilities in South Africa

There is a growing recognition of the sexual and reproductive rights of people with disabilities, and, since the World Report on Disability (WHO, 2011), increased international attention has been given to these issues. Past research, however, suggests that this group encounter barriers to sexual and reproductive rights, which are both physical and attitudinal. Against this backdrop, this paper employs a sequential mixed qualitative methodology to explore the practical and subjective experiences of 13 people with physical disabilities in South Africa, with regards to their sexual lives and experiences of sexuality. These experiences were marked by concerns about their ‘fitness’ as sexual beings, and indicated that social forces were key in shaping their expectations for their own sexual life

The sexual and reproductive rights and benefit derived from sexual and reproductive health services of people with physical disabilities in South Africa: beliefs of non-disabled people

There is a body of theoretical work, and some empirical research, which suggests that non-disabled people assume people with physical disabilities not to be suitable romantic partners, not have sexual drives or desires, or not be sexually active. Access to sexual and reproductive health services for the latter group is a challenge: it has been proposed that people with physical disabilities face barriers to sexual health care access which are structural (such as inaccessible health care provider offices) as well as social (such as health care providers suggesting that people with physical disabilities should not procreate). The present paper explores non-disabled South Africans’ beliefs concerning the degree to which individuals have sexual and reproductive rights, and benefit from sexual and reproductive healthcare, for people with physical disabilities and people without disability. Using a survey, we asked 1,989 South Africans to estimate the degree to which people with physical disabilities and people without disability have sexual rights, and benefit from sexual and reproductive healthcare services, respectively. Respondents were more likely to support the idea that the population without disability were deserving of sexual rights compared to people with physical disabilities. Respondents were also more likely to rate the degree to which people with physical disability benefit from sexual and reproductive healthcare as less than that for people without physical disabilities. These findings provide some of the first empirical support that nondisabled people perceive people with physical disabilities as having fewer sexual and reproductive rights, and deriving less benefit from sexual and reproductive health services, than the population without disability. To have diminished sexual rights, and benefit less from sexual and reproductive healthcare, we suggest, evinces a negation of the sexual and reproductive needs and capacity of people with physical disabilities