The impact of women's educational and economic resources on fertility: Spanish birth cohorts 1901-1950

In this chapter we portray the effects of female education and professional achievement on fertility decline in Spain over the period 1920-1980 (birth cohorts of 1901-1950).A longitudinal econometric approach is used to test the hypothesis that the effects of women’s education in the revaluing of their time had a very significant influence on fertility decline. Although in the historical context presented here improvements in schooling were on a modest scale, they were continuous (with the interruption of the Civil War) and had a significant impact in shaping a model of low fertility in Spain. We also stress the relevance of this result in a context such as the Spanish for which liberal values were absent, fertility control practices were forbidden, and labour force participation of women was politically and socially constrained.

The Sociology of educational mismatch

This paper studies the theoretical relationships between core research lines of sociology such as intergenerational mobility, class structure, cultural capital and educational mismatches. By educational mismatch we mean two things. Firstly an individual can be horizontally mismatched whereby their field of study is inadequate for the job. Another direction of educational mismatch is the so called vertical mismatch where worker possesses more/less education than the job requires resulting in over-/under-education. While analyzing the educational mismatches I keep present the conclusions of Rational Action Theory on individuals’ rational choices in their educational careers. I arrive to conclusions where the influences between educational mismatches and social classes are bidirectional and one can establish fairly clear theoretical links between class of origins and likelihood of being educationally mismatched.

Parental investments in children: how bargaining and educational homogamy affect time allocation

This study examines parental time investment in their children, distinguishing between developmental and non-developmental care. Our analyses centre on three influential determinants: educational background, marital homogamy, and spouses' relative bargaining power. We find that the emphasis on quality care time is correlated with parents' education, and that marital homogamy reduces couple specialization, but only among the highly educated. In line with earlier research, we identify gendered parental behaviour. The presence of boys is an important condition for fathers' time dedication, but primarly among lower educated fathers. To the extent that parental stimulation is decisive for child outcomes, our findings suggest the persistence of important inequalities. This emerges through our special attention to behavioural differences across the educational distribution among households.

What lies behind the devaluation of educational credentials?

Applying fixed-effects models to EULFS data on Spain from 1998 to2006, the paper explores the effects of educational expansion on theoccupational returns to education across different levels of education.We build an indicator of the positional value of education, based on theidea that the value of a given educational credential partly depends onthe percentage of labour market entrants who have reached that level atthe time when individuals enter the labour market -- it is higher whenfewer individuals have reached it, lower otherwise. Our analysis for theSpanish case shows that the decrease in the occupational returns toeducation goes in parallel with the decrease in the positional value ofeducation, but this devaluation of credentials has been stronger ingeneral education (e.g., in humanities or social sciences universitydegrees, or in upper secondary general education) than in specializededucation (e.g., in technical fields in the university, or in uppervocational training). We argue that the reason for this is most likely thatgeneral education provides a more diffuse signal of candidates’ skillsthan specialized education. We also find that this devaluation ofcredentials has been stronger in fields accessed by women in largernumbers in last decades.

Educational policy in Spain - a federal illusion?

Education and health policy are two of the public policies, which in Spain have been assigned to the Autonomous Communities (AC). This transfer of powers could be considered a proof for the strong “self-rule” of the AC, which in turn shows that Spain could be classified as a federal state. In the following analysis the authors in some parts disagree with that conclusion, showing that considering the education area Spain is “heavy at the top”. Due to the state’s exclusive power to regulate the basic conditions guaranteeing the equality of all Spanish citizens, the important and final decisions are taken at the center through the framework legislation. The AC play a minor role in the legislation process, they have to adopt the center decisions. De-centralization and extension of the framework legislation are highly connected: The central state reacted with strong framework legislation to the stages of the educational decentralization process. In addition, the concentration of important framing powers within the central state does not make educational reforms more infrequent. However, such reforms are the results of a competition between the parties, and not between the AC or between the AC and the central state

Influence of clients' personality and individual characteristics on the effectiveness of a career counselling intervention

Clients' personality traits and individual characteristics, such as age, gender, reason for seeking counselling, and further compounding problems in their personal or academic lives, may pose risk factors that render career decision making difficult and may also impact the overall effectiveness of a career counselling intervention. Neuroticism and conscien- tiousness as well as clients' age and gender directly affected clients' satisfaction with life and certain aspects of their career indecision scores before participating in our short-term career counselling intervention. Career counsellors can use personality and career-specific and career-non-specific instruments to tailor career counselling interventions to meet clients' individual needs.

Sibling rivalry and vocal negotiation in the barn owl Tyto alba

Chez les animaux, les jeunes dépendant des parents durant leur développement sont en compétition pour obtenir la nourriture, qu'ils quémandent par des cris et postures ostentatoires et se disputent physiquement. Les frères et soeurs n'ont pas la même compétitivité, en particulier s'ils diffèrent en âge, et leur niveau de faim fluctue dans le temps. Comme dans tout type de compétition, chacun doit ajuster son investissement aux rivaux, c'est à dire aux besoins et comportements de ses frères et soeurs. Dans le contexte de la famille, selon la théorie de sélection de parentèle, les jeunes bénéficient de leur survie mutuelle et donc de la propagation de la part de gènes qu'ils ont en commun. L'hypothèse de la « négociation frères-soeurs » prédit que, sous certaines conditions, les jeunes négocient entre eux la nourriture, ce qui réduit les coûts de compétition et permet de favoriser les frères et soeurs les plus affamés. La littérature actuelle se focalise sur les signaux de quémande entre enfants et parents et les interactions compétitives frères-soeurs sont étudiées principalement au sein de paires, alors que les nichées ou portées en comprennent souvent de nombreux. Cette thèse vise à mieux comprendre comment et jusqu'à quel point plusieurs jeunes ajustent mutuellement leurs signaux de besoin. C'est une question importante, étant donné que cela influence la répartition de nourriture entre eux, donc la résolution du conflit qui les oppose et à terme leur valeur évolutive. Le modèle d'étude est la chouette effraie (Tyto alba), chez laquelle jusqu'à neufs poussins émettent des milliers de cris chacun par nuit. Ils négocieraient entre eux la prochaine proie indivisible rapportée au nid avant que les parents ne reviennent : un poussin affamé crie plus qu'un autre moins affamé, ce qui dissuade ce dernier de crier en retour et par la suite de quémander la nourriture aux parents. L'investissement optimal correspondrait donc à écarter son frère en permanence vu que l'arrivée des parents est imprévisible, mais à moindre coût. Dans un premier axe, nous avons exploré au sein de dyades les mécanismes acoustiques permettant aux poussins de doser leur effort vocal durant les heures de compétition où ils sont laissés seuls au nid. Nous avons trouvé que les poussins évitent de crier simultanément, ce qui optimiserait la discrimination du nombre et de la durée de leurs cris, lesquels reflètent de façon honnête leur niveau de faim et donc leur motivation. L'alternance des cris paraît particulièrement adaptée au fait que les poussins se fient à des variations temporelles subtiles dans le rythme et la durée de leurs vocalisations pour prendre la parole. En particulier, allonger ses cris tout en criant moins dissuade efficacement le rival de répondre, ce qui permet de monopoliser la parole dans de longs « monologues ». Ces règles seraient universelles puisqu'elles ne dépendent pas de la séniorité, de la faim, ni de la parenté et les poussins répondent à un playback de façon similaire à un vrai frère. Tous ces résultats apportent la première preuve expérimentale que les juvéniles communiquent de façon honnête sur leurs besoins, ajustent activement le rythme de leurs cris et utilisent des composantes multiples de leurs vocalisations d'une façon qui réduit le coût de la compétition. De plus, il s'agit de la première démonstration que des règles de conversation régissent de longs échanges vocaux chez les animaux de façon comparable aux règles basiques observées chez l'Homme. Dans un second axe, nous avons exploré les stratégies comportementales que les poussins adoptent pour rivaliser avec plusieurs frères et soeurs, par le biais d'expériences de playback. Nous avons trouvé que les poussins mémorisent des asymétries de compétitivité entre deux individus qui dialoguent et répondent plus agressivement au moins compétitif une fois qu'ils sont confrontés à chacun isolément. Dans la même ligne, quand ils entendent un nombre variable d'individus criant à un taux variable, les poussins investissent le plus contre des rivaux moins nombreux et moins motivés. En accord avec les prédictions des modèles théoriques, les poussins de chouette effraie escaladent donc les conflits pour lesquels leur chance de gagner contrebalance le plus l'énergie dépensée. Nous révélons ainsi que 1) les jeunes frères et soeurs 'espionnent' les interactions de leurs rivaux pour évaluer leur compétitivité relative, ce qui est sans doute moins coûteux qu'une confrontation directe avec chacun, et 2) dosent leur investissement vocal en fonction du nombre de rivaux actuellement en compétition et de leur motivation de façon concomitante. Ces résultats montrent que les interactions entre frères et soeurs au nid reposent sur des mécanismes similaires à ceux observés, mais encore de façon anecdotique, chez les adultes non apparentés qui se disputent les territoires et partenaires sexuels. Cette thèse souligne donc combien il est crucial de considérer dorénavant la famille comme un réseau de communication à part entière pour mieux comprendre comment les jeunes résolvent les conflits autour du partage des ressources parentales. Plus généralement, elle révèle l'importance de la dynamique temporelle des vocalisations dans les conflits et la communication des animaux. A la lumière de nos résultats, la chouette effraie apparaît comme un modèle clé pour de futures recherches sur la résolution des conflits et la communication acoustique. - In species with parental care, offspring contest priority access to food by begging through conspicuous postures and vocalisations and by physically jockeying. Siblings differ in their competitiveness, especially in the case of age and size hierarchies, and their hunger level fluctuates in time. As in competition in general, each individual should adjust its investment to opponents that is to say to its siblings' needs and behaviours. In the particular context of family, according to kin selection theory, siblings derive extra fitness benefits from their mutual survival and hence the spreading of the genes they share. The "sibling negotiation" predicts that, under certain conditions, young would negotiate among them priority access to food, which reduces competition costs and enables promoting the most hungry siblings. To date, the literature focuses on signals of need between parents and offspring and competitive interactions (in particular among siblings) are mostly studied within pairwise interactions, yet they commonly involve more numerous rivals. This PhD aims at better understanding how and the extent to which several young siblings compete through signalling. This is important since this influences how food is allocated among them, thus the outcome of sibling rivalry and ultimately their fitness. I use the barn owl (Tyto alba) as a model, in which the one to nine nestlings emit a simple noisy call thousands of times per night. Thereby, they would negotiate among them priority access to the indivisible food next delivered prior to parents' feeding visits. A hungry nestling emits more calls than a less hungry sibling, which deters it to call in return and ultimately beg food at parents. The optimal investment thus corresponds to constantly deterring the rival to compete, given that parents' arrival is unpredictable, but at the lowest costs. In the first axis of my thesis, we explored within dyads the acoustic mechanisms by which owlets dose vocal effort when competing during the hours they are left alone. We found that owlets avoid overlapping each other's calls. This would enhance the discrimination of both call number and duration, which honestly reflect individuals' hunger level and hence motivation to compete. Such antiphony seems best adapted to the fact that siblings actually use subtle temporal variations in the rhythm and duration of their calls to take or give their turn. Owlets alternate monologs, in which lengthening calls efficiently deters the rival to respond while reducing call number. Such rules depend neither on seniority, hunger level nor kinship since nestlings responded similarly to a live sibling and an unrelated playback individual. Taken together, these findings provide the first experimental proof that dependent young honestly communicate about their need, actively adjust the timing of their calls and use multicomponent signals in a way that reduces vocal costs. Moreover, this is the first demonstration of conversational rules underlying animal long-lasting vocal exchanges comparable to the basic turn-taking signals observed in humans. In the second axis, we focused on the behavioural strategies owlets adopt to compete with more than one sibling, using playback experiments. We found that singleton bystanders memorised competitive asymmetries between two playback individuals dialoguing and responded more aggressively to the submissive one once they later faced each of both alone. Moreover, when hearing a varying number of nestlings calling at varying rates, owlets vocally invested the most towards fewer and less motivated rivals. In line with predictions from models on conflict settlement, barn owls thus escalate contests in which their chance of winning best counterbalances the energy spent. These results reveal that young socially eavesdrop on their siblings' interactions to assess their relative competitiveness at likely lower costs than direct confrontation, and dose vocal effort relative to both their number and motivation. This shows that young siblings' interactions imply mechanisms similar to those observed, yet still anecdotally, in unrelated adults that contest mates and territories. This PhD therefore highlights how crucial it is to further consider family as a communication network to better understand how siblings resolve conflicts over the share of parental resources. More generally, it provides important insights into the role of the temporal dynamics of signalling during animal contests and communication. In the light of our findings, the barn owl emerges as a key model for future research on conflict resolution and acoustic communication in animals.

Influence of a lifestyle intervention in preschool children on physiological and psychological parameters (Ballabeina): study design of a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Childhood obesity and physical inactivity are increasing dramatically worldwide. Children of low socioeconomic status and/or children of migrant background are especially at risk. In general, the overall effectiveness of school-based programs on health-related outcomes has been disappointing. A special gap exists for younger children and in high risk groups. This paper describes the rationale, design, curriculum, and evaluation of a multicenter preschool randomized intervention study conducted in areas with a high migrant population in two out of 26 Swiss cantons. Twenty preschool classes in the German (canton St. Gallen) and another 20 in the French (canton Vaud) part of Switzerland were separately selected and randomized to an intervention and a control arm by the use of opaque envelopes. The multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention aimed to increase physical activity and sleep duration, to reinforce healthy nutrition and eating behaviour, and to reduce media use. According to the ecological model, it included children, their parents and the teachers. The regular teachers performed the majority of the intervention and were supported by a local health promoter. The intervention included physical activity lessons, adaptation of the built infrastructure; promotion of regional extracurricular physical activity; playful lessons about nutrition, media use and sleep, funny homework cards and information materials for teachers and parents. It lasted one school year. Baseline and post-intervention evaluations were performed in both arms. Primary outcome measures included BMI and aerobic fitness (20 m shuttle run test). Secondary outcomes included total (skinfolds, bioelectrical impedance) and central (waist circumference) body fat, motor abilities (obstacle course, static and dynamic balance), physical activity and sleep duration (accelerometry and questionnaires), nutritional behaviour and food intake, media use, quality of life and signs of hyperactivity (questionnaires), attention and spatial working memory ability (two validated tests). Researchers were blinded to group allocation. The purpose of this paper is to outline the design of a school-based multicenter cluster randomized, controlled trial aiming to reduce body mass index and to increase aerobic fitness in preschool children in culturally different parts of Switzerland with a high migrant population. Trial Registration: (clinicaltrials.gov) NCT00674544.

Motive-oriented therapeutic relationship in brief psychodynamic intervention for patients with depression and personality disorders.

Motive-Oriented Therapeutic Relationship (MOTR, also called Complementary Therapeutic Relationship) has already shown itself to be related to therapeutic outcome in several studies. The present study aims to test MOTR in a 4-session Brief Psychodynamic Intervention for patients presenting with major depressive disorder (MDD) and comorbid personality disorder (PD). In total, N = 20 patients were selected; n = 10 had MDD, n = 10 had MDD with comorbid PD. The first therapy session was videotaped and analyzed by means of Plan Analysis and the MOTR scale. Results suggest a differential effect on outcome: only the nonverbal component of MOTR is related to symptomatic change in patients presenting with MDD and comorbid PD; no such effect was found for patients with MDD alone. These results are discussed in line with the generalization and refinement of the conclusions of previous findings on the MOTR. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 67:1-11, 2011.

Iowa EHDI News, Spring 2006

The purpose of the newsletter is to communicate with parents and professionals about newborn hearing screening in Iowa. We will share information about: Hearing screenings Intervention Resources available for parents and professionals “Best practices” by hospitals, AEAs (Area Education Agencies), or private practive audiology offices System goals Family stories Highlights from the EHDI Advisory Committee Updates on Iowa’s EHDI program It is important to point out that we are a diverse team of individuals working together to ensure that all newborns and toddlers with hearing loss are identified as early as possible and provided with timely and appropriate audiological, educational and medical intervention. Each newsletter will introduce you to various team members of the EHDI system in Iowa.