Normative climates of parenthood across Europe : judging voluntary childlessness and working parents

Erworben im Rahmen der Schweizer Nationallizenzen (http://www.nationallizenzen.ch)Past research on gender role attitudes has often focused on individual- rather than country-level explanations. Drawing on European Social Survey data from 21 countries, we examine the effect of societal normative climates (i.e., shared perceptions of others’ attitudes) on personal attitudes towards two non-traditional gender roles: Voluntary childlessness and working full-time while children are young. To detect potential gender differences, we analyse disapproval of men and women separately. Findings reveal that there are strong differences in normative climates across countries, and that people generally perceive more disapproval of women than of men for both behaviours. Most importantly, in countries where a higher share of respondents perceives disapproval of these behaviours, respondents themselves disapprove more strongly – even if they do not believe that others disapprove, and even after controlling for other relevant individual- and country-level characteristics. What is more, the independent effect of normative climate explains most of the differences between countries. This robust finding demonstrates the power of country-level normative climates in explaining individuals’ attitudes and between-country differences in attitudes toward gender roles

Refinement of the critical region for MCKD1 by detection of transcontinental haplotype sharing

Refinement of the critical region for MCKD1 by detection of transcontinental haplotype sharing.BackgroundAutosomal-dominant medullary cystic kidney disease type 1 (MCKD1) [OMIM 174000] is a hereditary nephropathy that leads to renal salt wasting and end-stage renal failure at a median age of 62 years. In a Welsh MCKD1 kindred we have recently demonstrated linkage to the MCKD1 locus on chromosome 1q23.1 and refined the critical MCKD1 region to <3.3Mb.MethodsIn order to refine the candidate gene region for MCKD1, high-resolution haplotype analysis in three large kindreds with MCKD1 was performed.ResultsWe report here on high-resolution haplotype analysis in this Welsh kindred, as well as in the Arizona kindred, which was used for the first definition of MCKD as a disease entity, and in a kindred from the Dutch/German border. We detected extensive haplotype sharing among all affected individuals of all three kindreds. Scrutinization of the genealogy of the Arizona kindred revealed an origin from Germany in the 17th century, thereby providing historical data for haplotype sharing by descent at the MCKD1 locus.ConclusionUnder the hypothesis of haplotype sharing by descent, we refined the critical genetic interval to <650kb, thus enabling candidate gene analysis

Normative climates of parenthood across Europe: Judging voluntary childlessness and working parents

Past research on gender role attitudes has often focused on individual- rather than country-level explanations. Drawing on European Social Survey data from 21 countries, we examine the effect of societal normative climates (i.e., shared perceptions of others’ attitudes) on personal attitudes towards two non-traditional gender roles: Voluntary childlessness and working full-time while children are young. To detect potential gender differences, we analyse disapproval of men and women separately. Findings reveal that there are strong differences in normative climates across countries, and that people generally perceive more disapproval of women than of men for both behaviours. Most importantly, in countries where a higher share of respondents perceives disapproval of these behaviours, respondents themselves disapprove more strongly—even if they do not believe that others disapprove, and even after controlling for other relevant individual- and country-level characteristics. What is more, the independent effect of normative climate explains most of the differences between countries. This robust finding demonstrates the power of country-level normative climates in explaining individuals’ attitudes and between-country differences in attitudes toward gender roles