scholarly journals Russian Pro-Natalist Policy and Its Hidden Dilemma

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-402
Author(s):  
Y.V. Latov ◽  
◽  
N.V. Latova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Birth Rate ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Middle Class Families

The demographic policy of the Russian government, which aims to ‘preserve and increase the people’, combines two qualitatively different approaches to understanding the problem of population decline. Most often, the emphasis is placed on stimulating fertility, although there is also an understanding that it is important to raise the quality of their upbringing and education. While the focus on increasing human capital is economically justified, the desire to increase the birth rate has no such justification. The theory of demographic transition proves that stimulating the birth rate is an erroneous goal. The ‘cash for babies’ policy applied in Russia is based on the conviction that children, even those born in poor and dysfunctional families, inevitably ‘pass’ through the education system and become qualified workers. On the basis of this stereotype, the system of pro-natalist incentives is built in such a way that, in accordance with the law of diminishing marginal utility, it creates stronger incentives for poorer families and is therefore actually aimed at increasing the birth rate primarily in the poor strata, having little effect on middle-class families. Meanwhile, modern theories of social capital and labor market signals prove the limited ability of schools and universities to play the role of social elevators. International studies (in particular, in the USA) shows that state benefits for children of poor and disadvantaged families contribute to the reproduction of a culture of poverty. Therefore, when the Russian authorities provide assistance primarily to low-income and single-parent families with children, they create problems for the future. The study proposes to replace the current policy based on the principle ‘more babies but cheaper’ with a policy aimed at middle-class families and based on the principle ‘less is more’. Thus, an orientation towards stimulating population growth is replaced by an orientation towards fostering human capital.

Historic preservation in declining city neighbourhoods: Analysing rehabilitation tax credit investments in six US cities

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1673-1691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Ryberg-Webster ◽  
Kelly L Kinahan
Keyword(s):  
Historic Preservation ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Tax Credit ◽  
Market Rate ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Us Cities

Historic preservation is common practice across the world, including in US cities. At the same time, population decline, economic distress and vacancy prevalent in declining cities, also known as legacy, shrinking or post-industrial cities, creates a pressing threat to a vast array of urban historic buildings. In the USA, recent planning and policy emphasises strategic demolition and/or targeting resources in potentially viable neighbourhoods, with little attention paid to historic preservation. To fill this gap, we use a comparative case study of federal historic rehabilitation tax credit (RTC) investments from 2000 to 2010 across the neighbourhoods of six legacy cities: Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Providence, Richmond and St. Louis. This is the first study to use disaggregated, longitudinal RTC data to analyse investment at the neighbourhood scale. We use the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index to evaluate investment concentration and US Census 2000 data to characterise neighbourhoods where developers chose to undertake RTC projects. The findings show that RTC investments occurred across a wide range of places, including very low- and low-income neighbourhoods, and produced both market-rate and affordable housing across each city’s neighbourhoods. The findings indicate that preservation occurs across a wide range of legacy city neighbourhoods and inform urban planners and policymakers about locations where the private sector is willing to invest with favourable financing.

scholarly journals A Critical Review of Bilingual Education in the United States: From Basements and Pride to Boutiques and Profit

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 14-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Flores ◽  
Ofelia García
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Immersion Programs ◽  
Middle Class Families

ABSTRACTIn this article we connect the institutionalization of bilingual education to a post–Civil Rights racial formation that located the root of educational inequalities in the psychological condition of people of color in ways that obscured the structural barriers confronting communities of color. Within this context, bilingual education was institutionalized with the goal of instilling cultural pride in Latinx students in ways that would remediate their perceived linguistic deficiencies. This left bilingual educators struggling to develop affirmative spaces for Latinx children within a context where these students continued to be devalued by the broader school and societal context. More recent years have witnessed the dismantling of these affirmative spaces and their replacement with two-way immersion programs that seek to cater to White middle-class families. While these programs have offered new spaces for the affirmation of the bilingualism of Latinx children, they do little to address the power hierarchies between the low-income Latinx communities and White middle-class communities that are being served by these programs. We end with a call to situate struggles for bilingual education within broader efforts to combat the racialization of Latinx and other minoritized communities.

“Living in Each Other's Pockets”: The Navigation of Social Distances by Middle Class Families in Los Angeles

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alesia F. Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Spatial Mobility ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
Post Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class Families

In Hollywood movies and dystopian critiques, Los Angeles is two cities: one wealthy, white, and gated, the other impoverished, dark, and carceral. This depiction verges on caricature, eliding the diversity and maneuvers of the region's middle class. Drawing upon ethnographies of middle class families (black, white, Latino, Asian) in affluent areas of West Los Angeles and the Valley and in the low‐income areas that are located south and east of downtown Los Angeles, I explore how and why, and at what costs, parents engage in daily maneuvers to place their children in beneficial settings across the region's vast sprawl. I describe these maneuvers that resemble a game of “musical chairs” as selective flight. In contrast to middle class flight to the suburbs, selective flight involves diurnal rather than residential shifts. Enabling middle‐class families who reside amidst the crumbling infrastructure of the urban core to chase cultural capital and physical safety in ever‐receding advantaged areas, the post‐Civil Rights State expands spatial mobility yet does not close racial distances. The pursuit of ever‐receding spaces of advantage is particularly paradoxical and burdensome for black middle‐class parents.

scholarly journals Modigliani Meets Minsky: Inequality, Debt, and Financial Fragility in America, 1950-2016

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-77
Author(s):  
Alina K. Bartscher ◽  
Moritz Kuhn ◽  
Moritz Schularick ◽  
Ulrike I. Steins
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
House Price ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Fragility ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
Household Debt ◽  
Housing Wealth ◽  
Home Equity ◽  
Middle Class Families

This paper studies the secular increase in U.S. household debt and its relation to growing income inequality and financial fragility. We exploit a new household-level dataset that covers the joint distributions of debt, income, and wealth in the United States over the past seven decades. The data show that increased borrowing by middle-class families with low income growth played a central role in rising indebtedness. Debt-to-income ratios have risen most dramatically for households between the 50th and 90th percentiles of the income distribution. While their income growth was low, middle-class families borrowed against the sizable housing wealth gains from rising home prices. Home equity borrowing accounts for about half of the increase in U.S. household debt between the 1970s and 2007. The resulting debt increase made balance sheets more sensitive to income and house price fluctuations and turned the American middle class into the epicenter of growing financial fragility.

The Politics of Energy in a Changing Climate

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Juliann Emmons Allison ◽  
Kathleen J. Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Extractive Industries ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Energy Politics ◽  
Energy Issues

In many ways, everything once known about energy resources and technologies has been impacted by the long-standing scientific consensus on climate change and related support for renewable energy, the affordability of extraction of unconventional fuels, increasing demand for energy resources by middle- and low-income nations, new regional and global stakeholders, fossil fuel discoveries and emerging renewable technologies, awareness of (trans)local politics, and rising interest in corporate social responsibility and the need for energy justice. Research on these and related topics now appears frequently in social science academic journals, in broad-based journals, such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Review of International Political Economy, as well as those focused specifically on energy (e.g., Energy Research & Social Science and Energy Policy), the environment (Global Environmental Politics), natural resources (Resources Policy), and extractive industries (Extractive Industries and Society). The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics synthesizes and aggregates this substantively diverse literature to provide insights into, and a foundation for teaching and research on, critical energy issues primarily in the areas of international relations and comparative politics. Its primary goals are to further develop the energy politics scholarship and community and generate sophisticated new work that will benefit a variety of scholars working on energy issues.

Limits of the current implementation of incremental housing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Goran Ivo Marinovic
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Housing Policy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Specific Location ◽  
Current Implementation ◽  
Incremental Housing

In the case of conventional public housing, urban planners and policymakers design the layout of a housing project in a specific location and then estimate how many households can afford a home. This housing policy has been pursued as a legitimate solution for housing low- and middle-income households where the houses are individually financed by bank loans or mortgages raised by the occupants. John Turner criticised conventional housing solutions by affirming that ‘developing governments take the perspective of the elite and act as if the process of low-income houses were the same as in high-income countries and the same as for the small upper-middle class of their own countries’. Bruce Ferguson and Jesus Navarrete extend this argument with their critique of distributing finished houses to low-income populations and then requiring long-term payments, which are harmful to the beneficiaries. They note that ‘governments think of housing as complete units built by developers that households must purchase with a long-term loan rather than as a progressive process’.

Youth wildlife preferences and species-based conservation priorities in a low-income biodiversity hotspot region

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Michael J Liles ◽  
M Nils Peterson ◽  
Kathryn T Stevenson ◽  
Markus J Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Eretmochelys Imbricata ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
Hunting And Fishing

Summary Public preferences for wildlife protection can dictate the success or failure of conservation interventions. However, little research has focused on wildlife preferences among youth or how youth prioritize species-based conservation. We conducted a study of youth between 7 and 20 years old (n = 128) at five local schools situated near critical hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) nesting beaches in El Salvador to determine their wildlife preferences and how they prioritize species for conservation based on five attributes: endemism; use for hunting and fishing; rapid decline in population size; presence around their home; and ecological significance. These Salvadoran youth showed preferences for native over non-native species and tended to rank rapid population decline as the most important attribute for prioritizing wildlife for protection, followed by use for hunting and fishing. Participants in local environmental education activities placed greater importance on species in rapid decline than non-participants, who considered endemism as most important. Overall, these findings reveal how environmental education may successfully promote increased prioritization of imperilled species among youth. Economic payments for conserving hawksbill turtles may link the two top reasons that Salvadoran youth provided for protecting species by compensating for the reduced hunting required to facilitate population stabilization.

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