Poverty of children and older adults: Taiwan's case in an international perspective

Using 1999-2001 Luxembourg Income Study data, we examine cross-national patterns of age-specific poverty rates. Relative to 12 Western countries, Taiwan has a moderate child poverty rate but a much higher elderly poverty rate, leading to the largest elder-child poverty gap. We show that Taiwan significantly differs from the other countries in three factors - social welfare efficiency, market income inequality, and household composition - and document poverty differences across household type. Relative to other countries, Taiwan has a low rate of single-parent headed households, a high rate of older adults who live with family members, and fairly inefficient social welfare. Standardization and decomposition analyses systematically test effects of these factors across countries. Results indicate that Taiwan's low welfare efficiency makes the largest contribution to both child and elder poverty rates, but has a much more negative effect on elderly poverty. Older adults' higher rates of co-residence with family members has a strong ameliorating impact on elderly poverty. Implications in light of recent demographic and economic trends in Taiwan and similar East Asian countries are discussed

The happy husband? Working wives, homemakers, and life satisfaction

Competing theoretical perspectives lead to alternative hypotheses as to whether the husbands of homemakers or men with employed wives are happier. All things considered, multi-level models using ISSP data from 29 countries find that homemakers’ husbands are modestly happier than husbands whose wives are full-time workers. This finding is robust to controls for the economic and family life variables which are hypothesized to mediate the relationship between wife’s work status and husband’s happiness. Cross-level interactions between country characteristics and wife’s work status suggest that public child care may narrow this gap in husband’s happiness

International Comparative Survey on Lifestyle and Values : A Report on the Taiwan Survey

MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities (2014-2018)Forming a Social Well-being Research Consortium in AsiaThis paper provides a brief report by the Taiwan survey team of the project of International Comparative Survey on Lifestyle and Values. There are two main folds in this report. First, the details of research design and field operation are specified, including sampling design, quota sampling frame, implementation of online survey conducted in 2017. Second, the findings of a number of key variables are presented to show the level and patterns of well-being, social trust, neighborhood relationship, perceived fairness and equality in Taiwan society. While the level of happiness is high in Taiwan, social interactions with people living in the neighborhood appear to be infrequent. Social trust is diffuse among family members, friends and coworkers (except toward strangers), but the respondents also perceive a wide social inequality. This dataset offers rich materials for understanding social values, life styles and well-being of the Taiwan

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

A Genome-Wide Association Study of Diabetic Kidney Disease in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes

dentification of sequence variants robustly associated with predisposition to diabetic kidney disease (DKD) has the potential to provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of DKD in type 2 diabetes (T2D) using eight complementary dichotomous and quantitative DKD phenotypes: the principal dichotomous analysis involved 5,717 T2D subjects, 3,345 with DKD. Promising association signals were evaluated in up to 26,827 subjects with T2D (12,710 with DKD). A combined T1D+T2D GWAS was performed using complementary data available for subjects with T1D, which, with replication samples, involved up to 40,340 subjects with diabetes (18,582 with DKD). Analysis of specific DKD phenotypes identified a novel signal near GABRR1 (rs9942471, P = 4.5 x 10(-8)) associated with microalbuminuria in European T2D case subjects. However, no replication of this signal was observed in Asian subjects with T2D or in the equivalent T1D analysis. There was only limited support, in this substantially enlarged analysis, for association at previously reported DKD signals, except for those at UMOD and PRKAG2, both associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate. We conclude that, despite challenges in addressing phenotypic heterogeneity, access to increased sample sizes will continue to provide more robust inference regarding risk variant discovery for DKD.Peer reviewe

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms