Gender differences in surgency: A study among children in Sweden

The temperament factor of surgency has a biological basis, however it can also be influenced by the external environment. Sweden is an interesting environment to study gender differences in surgency since it is an individualistic society characterized as fostering gender equality. The study explored gender differences in surgency in 62 children (36 boys, 26 girls) at the age of 9 years old (M= 9 years, 5 months). The study took place in the southern part of Sweden and the children were tested using a caregiver report (TMCQ) and a performance task (ARB-C). Independent sample t-tests were conducted on a total of 8 variables measuring surgency. No statistically significant gender differences were found at p <.05, however some discrete tendencies for differences between boys and girls were present. The results were viewed in regards to important features in the Swedish environment that could be influencing the lack of gender differences. Due to limitations and issues of power the study does not draw any final conclusions or make generalizations, rather it stresses the need for additional work

Elite or middling? International students and migrant diversification

Student migrants from former sending regions now form a substantial share of non-EU migration flows to Europe. These flows represent the convergence of extensive internationalisation of higher education with increasing restrictions on family and labour migration. This paper provides the first examination of student migrants’ early socio-cultural and structural integration by following recently arrived Pakistani students in London over an 18 month period. We use latent class analysis to identify both elite and two ‘middling’ types – middle class and network-driven – within our student sample. We then ask whether these types experience different early sociocultural and structural integration trajectories in the ways that the elite and middling transnational literatures would suggest. We find differences in structural, but less in socio-cultural outcomes. We conclude that to understand the implications of expanding third country student migration across the EU, it is important to recognize both the distinctiveness of this flow and its heterogeneity

Are UK immigrants selected on education, skills, health and social networks?

Prime Ministers past and present argue the UK wants to recruit migrants who are ‘the brightest and best’. It is usually assumed that more restrictive migration regimes will ensure not only those with higher levels of educational qualifications, but also those who are more motivated, driven and likely to succeed. In one of the first papers to address whether this is actually the case, Renee Luthra and Lucinda Platt find that it is not. Contrary to received wisdom, they show that migrants being relatively high-qualified compared to others in their country of origin does not come with additional economically beneficial skills, characteristics or networks. Moreover, this is particularly the case for those who face a more restrictive migration regime

Who Benefits Most from a University Degree?: A Cross-National Comparison of Selection and Wage Returns in the US, UK, and Germany

Recent research on economic returns to higher education in the United States suggests that those with the highest wage returns to a college degree are least likely to obtain one. We extend the study of heterogeneous returns to tertiary education across multiple institutional contexts, investigating how the relationship between wage returns and the propensity to complete a degree varies by the level of expansion, differentiation, and cost of higher education. Drawing on panel data and matching techniques, we compare findings from the US with selection into degree completion in Germany and the UK. Contrary to previous studies, we find little evidence for population level heterogeneity in economic returns to higher education

Do immigrants benefit from selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health

Recent scholarship suggests that immigrant selectivity – the degree to which immigrants differ from non-migrants in their sending countries – can help us understand their labour market outcomes in the receiving country. The selectivity hypothesis rests on three assumptions: first, that immigrants differ from non-migrants in their observed characteristics, such as education; second, that there is an association between such observed selection and (usually) unobserved characteristics, and third that this association drives positive relationships between observed selection and immigrant outcomes. While there is some evidence for a relationship between the degree of immigrants’ selectivity and their children’s outcomes, a comprehensive assessment of these assumptions for immigrants’ own labour market outcomes remains lacking. We use high-quality, nationally representative data for the UK, with large numbers of immigrants from a wide range of different origins and with a rich set of measures of networks, traits and characteristics, as well as economic outcomes, not typically found in surveys of immigrants. This enables us to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the selectivity hypothesis and its assumptions. We find that immigrants to the UK are on average positively selected on educational attainment. However, counter to theoretical assumptions, educational selection has little association with labour market outcomes: it is not or negatively associated with employment; and it is only associated with pay for those with tertiary qualifications and with occupational position for women. We show that the general lack of economic benefits from selection is consistent with an absence of association between educational selectivity and (typically unobserved) mechanisms assumed to link selection and labour market outcomes: social networks, cognitive and non-cognitive skills, and mental and physical health. We contextualise our findings with heterogeneity analysis by migration regime, sending country characteristics, level of absolute education and location of credential

From parent to child? Transmission of educational attainment within immigrant families: methodological considerations.

One in five U.S. residents under the age of 18 has at least one foreign-born parent. Given the large proportion of immigrants with very low levels of schooling, the strength of the intergenerational transmission of education between immigrant parent and child has important repercussions for the future of social stratification in the United States. We find that the educational transmission process between parent and child is much weaker in immigrant families than in native families and, among immigrants, differs significantly across national origins. We demonstrate how this variation causes a substantial overestimation of the importance of parental education in immigrant families in studies that use aggregate data. We also show that the common practice of "controlling" for family human capital using parental years of schooling is problematic when comparing families from different origin countries and especially when comparing native and immigrant families. We link these findings to analytical and empirical distinctions between group- and individual-level processes in intergenerational transmission

What is shared care?

Shared care is becoming the most popular separation arrangement internationally. Yet, the evidence base on shared care remains thin in the UK with estimates of its prevalence varying between three and 17 per cent. Capturing a relatively new and evolving phenomenon such as shared care is a challenge for longitudinal surveys as much of their value is based on asking the same questions over time. This project explores how shared care is understood, negotiated and practiced by separated families, to assess the appropriateness of existing questions in Understanding Society in capturing the phenomenon, and to suggest changes where appropriate

The EU Referendum and Experiences and Fear of Ethnic and Racial Harassment: Variation across individuals and communities in England

This paper uses nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine experiences and fear of ethnic and racial harassment in public spaces among minorities in the UK, comparing levels of both before and after the 2016 EU Referendum. We do not find an increase in the prevalence of ethnic and racial harassment, but we do find higher levels of fear of ethnic and racial harassment in the period after the Referendum. The increase in fear following the vote was concentrated among more privileged individuals: those with higher levels of education, and those living in less socioeconomically deprived areas with lower levels of previous right-wing party support. We conclude that the Referendum exacerbated already higher levels of perceived discrimination among higher educated minorities while reducing the buffering effect of residence in “safe areas.

The mental load in separated families

Objective: This paper asks how evolving contact and gendered working lives, gendered identities, and conflict and parental relationships influence cognitive labour in separated families. Background: The fact that the often-invisible work of planning, researching, and executing decisions concerning children and household maintenance is borne by women/mothers, receives growing research attention, yet, the bulk of this research focuses on the gendered division of the mental load in intact families. Given the high prevalence of separated families with high levels of father contact, more work is needed to understand how cognitive labour is divided by parents residing in separate households. Method: This paper draws on 31 semi-structured interviews of separated parents, including 7 former couples. Interviews were sampled from a nationally representative longitudinal survey, Understanding Society, professionally transcribed and thematically analysed with Nvivo. Results: Analysing the interviews reveals both continuity and change in the division of the mental load following separation. For some families, gendered identities and working lives continue to justify an unequal division of the mental load, even when children spend large amounts of time solely with fathers. In others, conflict can reduce communication between parents, either increasing fathers cognitive labour through parallel parenting or decreasing it when fathers are excluded from decision-making altogether. Finally, separation can present a turning point where working lives and identities are re-evaluated, and the mental load can be negotiated anew. Conclusion: We provide new evidence that the mental load remains gendered even among those practicing a relatively "modern" family form of shared care post-separation, while highlighting possibilities for variation and change

Socialization Disrupted: The Intergenerational Transmission of Political Engagement in Immigrant Families

In this article, we examine the political socialization process in immigrant families based on the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). We find that international migration disrupts the intergenerational transmission of political engagement: associations between voting, political interest, and parent and child socioeconomic status are weaker in immigrant families than in families without a migration background. In particular, the voting behavior of immigrants and their children in particular is only partially explained by standard models of political socialization. In contrast, characteristics specific to the international migration process, including sending country experiences, characteristics of the migration journey, and the pathway to citizenship are critical determinants of voting for immigrant parents, and through political socialization, for their UK-raised children