Crossover Effects of Education on Health within Married Couples

Although empirical work has shown that personal and spousal education are both related to health, the nature of these associations has been harder to establish. People select into marriages on the basis of observed and hard-to-observe characteristics, complicating the job of the researcher who wishes to make causal inferences. In this article, we implement a within-sibling-pair design that exploits variation within pairs in spousal education to generate estimates of spousal crossover effects. Results—based on a long-term study of siblings and their spouses—suggest that spousal education is positively related to health, but to a greater degree for women than men. Sensitivity analyses show that these patterns are unlikely to derive from measured differences between individuals or unmeasured characteristics that sort them into unions. These results are consistent with network-based theories of social capital, which view education as a resource that can be mobilized by network ties to enhance health.

All in the Family? Age, Period, and Cohort Differences in Kinship Ties Among Older U.S. Adults

In general, older adults’ social networks—characteristics of which (e.g., size, type, frequency) have been linked to important health and well-being outcomes--tend to be kin-centered, although this has changed over time. Disentangling these changes, however, is difficult given typical mobility decline and shrinking networks in old age (age), the rapid social and demographic changes that occurred during the 20th century (cohort), and, in recent decades, the 2008 Recession and technological advances (period). This study uses data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative sample of older adults (ages 57-85; 2005-2016), to examine patterns in older adults’ social networks, with particular emphasis on the role that family plays. Specifically, we ask: 1) Have older adults’ social networks become less kin-centered over the past decade (2005-2016)? 2) Are they less kin-centered among younger cohorts? And 3) Does the recession explain part of these period effects? We find that, between 2005 and 2016, family still comprises the majority of older adults’ social networks, although their network size and range have grown larger and become less family-centric. They also report fewer close family members and friends, living with fewer family members, and less frequent interaction with network ties. Results from multi-level regression models suggest that age, and to a much lesser extent, cohort, plays a key role in many of these changes, although this varies between the first and second 5-year intervals of data collection, underscoring older adults’ adaptivity to current social and economic circumstances.

STRUCTURAL SOCIAL CAPITAL OF PARENTS HAVING PERSONS WITH DISABILITY IN CHANDIGARH

Structural social capital is understood as maintenance of connections, immense trust, following of certain rules and fulfilling certain commitments. It is pertinent to improve quality of life. The present research aimed to study the structural social capital of parents having persons with disability living in Chandigarh. The descriptive survey method with convenient sampling technique was employed. Twenty-five parents of persons with disability (N=25) having age group 20 to 55 years were in the sample. The questionnaire comprised of six statements and each statement had sub-items with the options of yes and no. Results showed that parents having persons with disabilities hadgood network ties with relatives, neighbours and friends but a few parents having persons with disabilities did not have good bondings. Besides, majority did not participate in the activities such as social and cultural clubs, religious organisation, government schemes, local community function and political organisation.The authors recommend that support from government, non-government organisation and community to provide financial, moral and psychologicalhelp to families of PWD is important for healthy development of all individuals of society.

Resting together, foraging apart: Network structure of foraging bats is not explained by energy expenditure or foraging efficiency

Group foraging animals may change their spatial relationships in response to the resource landscape. The strength of social network ties across foraging groups could then reflect the energy balance of individual group members through their effect on foraging efficiency. To test this, we tracked individuals in three social groups of Phyllostomus hastatus (greater spear-nosed bats) in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Phyllostomus hastatus seasonally feed on balsa flowers, and group-specific social calls are hypothesized to coordinate social foraging. We found that bats commuted alone but then joined group members in small foraging patches with high densities of flowering balsas, approximately 25 km from their roost. Their estimated energy expenditure was not related to their proximity social network, and network strength did not predict foraging efficiency. Bats in the same foraging patch did not coordinate foraging movement, but close proximity among individuals increased resting bout duration and synchrony. Bats across all social groups used the same resting areas, potentially due to the resting site's physical characteristics, proximity to abundant food resources or predation avoidance. These results indicate that factors other than increased feeding efficiency may structure network relationship of group members while foraging.

Politically Motivated Avoidance in Social Networks: A Study of Facebook and the 2020 Presidential Election

This study considers politically motivated unfriending/unfollowing on Facebook in the lead up to the 2020 Presidential election. As social media has grown more central to public discourse, it has been suggested that these types of avoidance behaviors might contribute to the formation of partisan echo chambers, whereby users may limit their exposure to competing viewpoints and corrective information by eliminating the network ties that transmit it. Building on prior research, this study explores the relationship between politically motivated avoidance and user perceptions of social media’s credibility as a source of political information. A pre-election survey of voting age adults in the state of Florida is analyzed to identify both the frequency and predictors of politically motivated avoidance. The results suggest that avoidance is a function of both individual political characteristics and user perceptions of information credibility. The findings are considered in the context of previous literature, and important avenues for future research are discussed.

The Impact of Socio-Economic Position on Perceived Oppression: Using Social Support as a Mediator

Within the continuing economic downturn, our society has been facing rapid dichotomization and bi-polarization between groups which reinforces social inequality. Young (2011) states that social inequality should be viewed as a concept of oppression, not by the distribution of resources, which has been considered as a general indicator of social inequality. Following her argument, she suggests exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence as sub-concepts of oppression. In this sense, this study uses the distribution of resources as an independent variable and the ‘perceived oppression’ presented by Young as a dependent variable to identify the role of social support as a factor that makes the difference between social-structural inequality and contextual inequality. Through hierarchical regression analyses and bootstrapping methods this paper looks at how the two different perspectives on inequality are related, and how the social support mediates the relationship between socio-economic position and perceived oppression. By shedding light on the meaning of socio-economic isolation of individuals, this study will contribute to the academia in searching for the alternatives to strengthen the stability of our society where the new paradigm of communication is being used to form network ties and corresponding sense of supports.