How Biology Became Social and What It Means for Social Theory

In this paper I first offer a systematic outline of a series of conceptual novelties in the life-sciences that have favoured, over the last three decades, the emergence of a more social view of biology. I focus in particular on three areas of investigation: (1) technical changes in evolutionary literature that have provoked a rethinking of the possibility of altruism, morality and prosocial behaviours in evolution; (2) changes in neuroscience, from an understanding of the brain as an isolated data processor to the ultrasocial and multiply connected social brain of contemporary neuroscience; and (3) changes in molecular biology, from the view of the gene as an autonomous master of development to the ‘reactive genome’ of the new emerging field of molecular epigenetics. In the second section I reflect on the possible implications for the social sciences of this novel biosocial terrain and argue that the postgenomic language of extended epigenetic inheritance and blurring of the nature/nurture boundaries will be as provocative for neo-Darwinism as it is for the social sciences as we have known them. Signs of a new biosocial language are emerging in several social-science disciplines and this may represent an exciting theoretical novelty for twenty-first social theory

Social Science and Neuroscience beyond Interdisciplinarity: Experimental Entanglements

This article is an account of the dynamics of interaction across the social sciences and neurosciences. Against an arid rhetoric of ‘interdisciplinarity’, it calls for a more expansive imaginary of what experiment – as practice and ethos – might offer in this space. Arguing that opportunities for collaboration between social scientists and neuroscientists need to be taken seriously, the article situates itself against existing conceptualizations of these dynamics, grouping them under three rubrics: ‘critique’, ‘ebullience’ and ‘interaction’. Despite their differences, each insists on a distinction between sociocultural and neurobiological knowledge, or does not show how a more entangled field might be realized. The article links this absence to the ‘regime of the inter-’, an ethic of interdisciplinarity that guides interaction between disciplines on the understanding of their pre-existing separateness. The argument of the paper is thus twofold: (1) that, contra the ‘regime of the inter-’, it is no longer practicable to maintain a hygienic separation between sociocultural webs and neurobiological architecture; (2) that the cognitive neuroscientific experiment, as a space of epistemological and ontological excess, offers an opportunity to researchers, from all disciplines, to explore and register this realization

Timing, Fragmentation of Work and Income Inequality - An Earnings Treatment Effects Approach

Traditional welfare analyses based on money income needs to be broadened by its time dimension. In the course of time the traditional full-time work is diminishing and new labour arrangements are discussed (keyword: flexible labour markets). Our study is contributing to economic well-being by adding insights into particular work effort characteristics - the daily timing of work and its fragmentation - and its resulting income distribution. With our focus on ‘who is working when within a day with which earnings consequences’ we go beyond traditional labour market analyses with its working time division into aggregated full and part time work, working hours spread across a week and weekend, life time working etc. Whereas the first part of our study is describing the distribution of timing and fragmentation of daily work time and its resulting income based on more than 35.000 diaries of the recent German Time Budget Survey 2001/2002, the second part of our study quantifies determinants of arrangement specific earnings functions detecting significant explanatory pattern of what is behind. The economic theory behind is a human capital approach in a market and non-market context, extended by non-market time use, the partner’s working condition, social networking as well as household and regional characteristics. The econometrics use a treatment effects type interdependent estimation of endogenous participation (selection) in a daily working hour pattern (self-selection)and pattern specific earnings function explanation. The overall result: Individual earnings in Germany are dependent on and significant different with regard to the daily working hour arrangement capturing timing and fragmentation of work time. Market and non-market factors are important and significant in explaining earnings

Start-up success of freelancers New microeconometric evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

If certain start-up characteristics will indicate a business success, knowing such characteristics could generate more successful start-ups and more efficient start-up counseling. Our study will contribut e to this by quantifying individual success determinants of freelance start-ups. The data base for the microeconometric analyses of the survival of the first three years is a revised German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for 1992 until 2002, which allows to incorporate institutional, personal and family/household socio-economic variables. We describe and discuss the datawork to achieve compatible information over time within a revised GSOEP and present microeconometric rare events logit, logit and probit results. The start-up success measured as the probability to survive the first three years is first of all influenced by an active labour force participation with its acquired skills and working experiences just before the start-up period (rank 1), followed by a non-university degree as the highest general human capital indicator (rank 2), a general (non-linear) experience indicated by age (rank 3) and the business related background (rank 4) as the type of liberal profession in the group of the liberal medical professions and the liberal technical and scientific professions

The distribution and re-distribution of income of selfemployed as freelancers and entrepreneurs in Europe

The economic transformations of modern industrial societies have changed the labor markets in terms of industrial relations and occupational structure. The transformation of the traditional welfare state, the deregulation of the labor markets, the technological change and the reorganization of industrial structures influenced strongly the attitude of individuals towards their preferred labor contract. The structural change of the occupational structure was one of the results of this tendency. In particular the self-employed and freelancers have been affected and are a driving factor of labor market changings. On the one side the value of autonomy regarding industrial relations is becoming more important for employees. On the other side employers want to get rid of social security contributions. As a result the multitudinousness of these professions increased. The increasing varieties of occupations among the self-employed and freelancers influenced strongly their income distribution. Recent studies for Germany have shown a great dispersion and a heterogeneous structure of earnings in particular of freelancers (liberal professions) and self-employed. Though there are a variety of international income distribution studies, but – as to the best to our knowledge – no study focusing on the selfemployed and freelancers within the total labor force. In our study we concentrate on the income distribution of self-employed and freelancers in different European countries. Based on the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) we analyze five different European countries and the United States structured by different types of welfare states according to Esping Anderson. We analyze income distributional aspects, an occupational decomposition à la Shorrocks, and re-distributional effects of the tax and transfer systems

The Timing of Daily Demand for Goods and Services – Multivariate Probit Estimates and Microsimulation Results for an Aged Population with German Time Use Diary Data

Though consumption research provides a broad spectrum of theoretical and empirical founded results, studies based on a daily focus are missing. Knowledge about the individual timing of daily demand for goods and services, opens – beyond a genuine contribution to consumption research – interesting societal and macro economic as well as individual personal and firm perspectives: it is important for an efficient timely coordination of supply and demand in the timing perspective as well as for a targeted economic, social and societal policy for a better support of the every day coordination of life. Last not least, the individual daily public and private living situations will be visible, which are of particular importance for the social togetherness in family and society. Our study contributes to the timing of daily consumption for goods and services with an empirical founded microanalysis on the basis of more than 37.000 individual time use diaries of the nationwide Time Budget Survey of the German Federal Statistical Office 2001/02. We describe the individual timing of daily demand for goods and services for important socio-demographic groups like for women and men, the economic situation with income poverty and daily working hour arrangements. The multivariate microeconometric explanation of the daily demand for goods and services is based on a latent utility maximizing approach over a day. We estimate an eight equation Multivariate/Simultaneous Probit Model, which allows the decision for multiple consumption activities in more than one time period a day. The estimates quantify effects on the timing of daily demand by individual socio-economic variables, which encompasses, personal, household, regional characteristics as well as daily working hour arrangements within a flexible labour market. The question about individual effects of an aged society on the timing of daily demand for goods and services is analyzed with our microsimulation model ServSim and a population forecast for 2020 by the German Federal Statistical Office. Main result: There are significant differences in explaining the timing of daily demand for goods compared to services on the one hand and in particular for different daily time periods. The conclusion: without the timing aspects an important and significant dimension for understanding individual consumption behaviour and their impacts on other individual living conditions would be missing

Future Forum Public Health - a German initiative to strengthen public health on a national level

Matusall S, Dragano N, Moebus S, Razum O, Ziese T. Future Forum Public Health - a German initiative to strengthen public health on a national level. In: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. Vol 28. OXFORD UNIV PRESS; 2018: 234-235