Carsey Perspectives: Children in United States, Both White and Black, Are Growing Up in Dramatically Smaller Families

In this perspectives brief, author Tony Fahey presents novel findings on how much smaller family sizes are among children in the United States today, particularly African American children, than they were fifty years ago. Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from the U.S. Census and the Current Population Survey, he reports that the average African American child was one of 6.53 siblings in 1960 and today is one of 3.18. Because smaller families may enable parents to devote more resources to each child, these trends raise the so-far unrecognized possibility that the fall in children’s family size, especially among the less well-off, may have been a positive and egalitarian transformation in their lives. The trend toward smaller families potentially offsets some of the negative effects on children of the transition from two-parent families to single-parent families. The loss of family resources caused by the absence of one parent is paired with a smaller number of siblings who need support. To better understand how family change has affected children’s well-being, the hidden story of children’s family size and how it relates to other aspects of children\u27s changing family circumstances needs to be recognized and explore

The Case for an EU-wide Measure of Poverty

Income poverty in the EU is normally measured by reference to income thresholds defined at the level of each member state, independently of any consideration of inequalities in income between member states. This approach has come under strain as a consequence of the recent enlargement of the EU: income differences between member states are now so wide that what is defined as the poverty threshold in the richer member states would count as an above-average income in the poorer member states. This paper proposes that, in order to cope with this new situation, measures of poverty based on EU-wide thresholds need to be utilised alongside existing measures. Quality of life indicators from the European Quality of Life Survey 2003 are used to show that the very high poverty rates in poorer member states that an EU-wide poverty measure would produce are a realistic reflection of the low living standards, strong sense of deprivation and impaired quality of life experienced by the majority of the population in those states. The policy implication drawn is that anti-poverty policy in the EU should be set as much in the context of the EU's convergence project as of social policy in the usual sense. Key words: poverty, European Union, qualitypoverty, European Union, quality of life, EU convergence policy, social policy

Trends in Irish Fertility Rates in Comparative Perspective

This paper examines trends in Irish fertility rates over the past four decades in the context of fertility trends in developed countries generally. Irish fertility rates have stabilised at the upper edge of the European range in the 1990s. This seems surprising, since the level of direct and opportunity costs of children would seem to be no more favourable to childbearing in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe. However, while Irish fertility rates are still reasonably high by European standards they are not particularly high by the standards of the “new world” countries – fertility rates in the US and New Zealand have been higher than in Ireland for much of the 1990s. The present paper explores the historical background and significance of these similarities and differences. It interprets trends in fertility rates in Ireland by reference to changes in supply and demand constraints and in the shifting balance between the two since the 1960s.

Social and Economic Value of Sport in Ireland

The purpose of this report is to enhance our knowledge of the social dimensions of sport in Ireland and highlight their significance for public policy.

Family Formation in Ireland Trends, Data Needs and Implications. ESRI Policy Series No. 43. December 2001

This study provides an overview of the knowledge and information base for policy analysis in certain areas connected with the family in Ireland. It takes place in the context of considerable policy interest in various aspects of family behaviour combined with a poor record of research and data collection in the field. The study aims to summarise the main outlines of what can be said on the basis of present knowledge about major trends in family formation in Ireland, identify the main gaps in the data which need to be filled, and draw implications. In considering trends in family formation, it focuses on three major issues: decline in fertility, the growth and pattern of lone parenthood, and changes in household and family size, with particular reference to the persistence of large family households

BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2007

1. DISABILITY BENEFIT – CONTROLLED OR UNDER-CONTROLLED? Brenda Gannon p. 3 2. CHILD POVERTY AND CHILD INCOME SUPPORTS: IRELAND IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Tim Callan, Kieran Coleman, Brian Nolan and John Walsh p. 23 3. STATE FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HORSE RACING IN IRELAND Tony Fahey and Liam Delaney p. 3

Inequalities' Impacts: State of the Art Review

By way of introduction This report provides the fi rm foundation for anchoring the research that will be performed by the GINI project. It subsequently considers the fi elds covered by each of the main work packages: ● inequalities of income, wealth and education, ● social impacts, ● political and cultural impacts, and ● policy effects on and of inequality. Though extensive this review does not pretend to be exhaustive. The review may be “light” in some respects and can be expanded when the analysis evolves. In each of the four fi elds a signifi cant number of discussion papers will be produced, in total well over 100. These will add to the state of the art while also covering new round and generating results that will be incorporated in the Analysis Reports to be prepared for the work packages. In that sense, the current review provides the starting point. At the same time, the existing body of knowledge is broader or deeper depending on the particular fi eld and its tradition of research. The very motivation of GINI’s focused study of the impacts of inequalities is that a systematic study is lacking and relatively little is known about those impacts. This also holds for the complex collection of, the effects that inequality can have on policy making and the contributions that policies can make to mitigating inequalities but also to enhancing them. By contrast, analyses of inequality itself are many, not least because there is a wide array of inequalities; inequalities have become more easily studied comparatively and much of that analysis has a signifi cant descriptive fl avour that includes an extensive discussion of measurement issues. @GINI hopes to go beyond that and cover the impacts of inequalities at the same time

Intelligence within BAOR and NATO's Northern Army Group

During the Cold War the UK's principal military role was its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) through the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), together with wartime command of NATO's Northern Army Group. The possibility of a surprise attack by the numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces ensured that great importance was attached to intelligence, warning and rapid mobilisation. As yet we know very little about the intelligence dimension of BAOR and its interface with NATO allies. This article attempts to address these neglected issues, ending with the impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War upon NATO thinking about warning and surprise in the mid-1970s. It concludes that the arrangements made by Whitehall for support to BAOR from national assets during crisis or transition to war were - at best - improbable. Accordingly, over the years, BAOR developed its own unique assets in the realm of both intelligence collection and special operations in order to prepare for the possible outbreak of conflict

Dielectric disorder in two-dimensional materials

Understanding and controlling disorder is key to nanotechnology and materials science. Traditionally, disorder is attributed to local fluctuations of inherent material properties such as chemical and structural composition, doping or strain. Here, we present a fundamentally new source of disorder in nanoscale systems that is based entirely on the local changes of the Coulomb interaction due to fluctuations of the external dielectric environment. Using two-dimensional semiconductors as prototypes, we experimentally monitor dielectric disorder by probing the statistics and correlations of the exciton resonances, and theoretically analyse the influence of external screening and phonon scattering. Even moderate fluctuations of the dielectric environment are shown to induce large variations of the bandgap and exciton binding energies up to the 100 meV range, often making it a dominant source of inhomogeneities. As a consequence, dielectric disorder has strong implications for both the optical and transport properties of nanoscale materials and their heterostructures