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Articles 691 - 720 of 1128

Full-Text Articles in Sociology

Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap Jan 2017

Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Theorising of negative ties has focused on simplex negative tie networks or multiplex signed tie networks. We examine the fundamental differences between positive and negative tie networks measured on the same set of actors. We test six mechanisms of tie formation on face-to-face positive (affect/esteem) and negative (dislike/disesteem) networks of 282 university students. While popularity, activity, and entrainment are present in both networks, closure, reciprocity, and homophily are largely absent from negative tie networks. We argue this arises because avoidance is inherent to negative sentiments. Avoidance reduces information transfer through negative ties and short-circuits cumulative causation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. …

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Longitudinal Research: A Panel Discussion On Conceptual Issues, Research Design, And Statistical Techniques, Mo Wang, Daniel J. Beal, David Chan, Daniel A. Newman, Jeffrey B. Vancouver, Robert J. Vandenberg Jan 2017

Longitudinal Research: A Panel Discussion On Conceptual Issues, Research Design, And Statistical Techniques, Mo Wang, Daniel J. Beal, David Chan, Daniel A. Newman, Jeffrey B. Vancouver, Robert J. Vandenberg

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The goal of this article is to clarify the conceptual, methodological, and practical issues that frequently emerge when conducting longitudinal research, as well as in the journal review process. Using a panel discussion format, the current authors address 13 questions associated with 3 aspects of longitudinal research: conceptual issues, research design, and statistical techniques. These questions are intentionally framed at a general level so that the authors could address them from their diverse perspectives. The authors’ perspectives and recommendations provide a useful guide for conducting and reviewing longitudinal studies in work, aging, and retirement research.

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Contesting Urban Citizenship: The Urban Poor’S Strategies Of State Engagement In Chennai, India, Subadevan Mahadevan, Ijlal Naqvi Jan 2017

Contesting Urban Citizenship: The Urban Poor’S Strategies Of State Engagement In Chennai, India, Subadevan Mahadevan, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Existing accounts of how the urban poor in the global south engage with the state fall short on two fronts. Firstly, the literature lacks an overarching framework articulating the urban poor’s strategies for engaging the state. Secondly, these accounts typically capture singular instances of state engagement pursued by the urban poor and theorise on that basis. Using Partha Chatterjee’s distinction between civil and political society as our theoretical point of departure, we draw on ethnographic evidence from Chennai’s informal settlements to demonstrate how and when the urban poor deploy different strategies of state engagement to advance their claims to urban …

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Political Dynamics In Land Commodification: Commodifying Rural Land Development Rights In Chengdu, China, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu Jan 2017

Political Dynamics In Land Commodification: Commodifying Rural Land Development Rights In Chengdu, China, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Commodification of land is at the forefront of the re-casting of rural China by the spread of capitalism. This study examines a market-based program of land development rights trading in Chengdu, China. The program was made possible by a change in the central government’s land-use regulation that shifted the policy goal from ‘no net loss’ of farmland to ‘no net gain’ of construction land. We detail how local governments at multiple levels work together to construct land development rights as a commodity and build market institutions to foster its trading, illustrating land commodification as an inherently political process. A unique …

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Youth And Social Media: Power To Empower?, Sujith Kumar Prankumar Jan 2017

Youth And Social Media: Power To Empower?, Sujith Kumar Prankumar

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Much has been written on social media and how it has positively revolutionised communication and information transmission. The infl uence of social media is indubitable—it reaches anyone with an Internet connection, no matter their geographic location or socioeconomic status. This means information that was previously out of reach for isolated and less well-off communities is now accessible by more people than ever before. For example, University College London’s “Why We Post” social media anthropology project—conducted by nine researchers in nine different communities over 15 months—found that communities that have traditionally received comparatively lower levels of schooling now have access to …

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Changes In Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Role Of Positive And Negative Social Supports, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Hongmei Zhang Jan 2017

Changes In Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Role Of Positive And Negative Social Supports, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Hongmei Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Depression severely affects older adults in the United States. As part of the social environment, significant social support was suggested to ameliorate depression among older adults. We investigate how varying forms of social support moderate depressive symptomatology among older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCC). Data were analyzed using a sample of 11,400 adults, aged 65 years or older, from the 2006–2012 Health and Retirement Study. The current study investigated the moderating effects of positive or negative social support from spouse, children, other family, and friends on the association between MCC and depression. A linear mixed model with repeated measures …

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Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins Jan 2017

Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins

Research Collection School Of Economics

In the last decade, the Singapore resident population has grown older with more elderly and fewer younger people. As Singapore Department of Statistics noted, the proportion of residents aged 65 years and over has increased from 9% to 13% over the past ten years. There are now fewer working-age adults to support each resident aged 65 years and over as indicated by the falling resident old-age support ratio from 7.7 in 2007 to 5.1 in 2017. The support ratio is expected to halve to 2.5 by 2030. As Singaporeans are both living and working longer, it is vital for the …

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Estimating And Decomposing Changes In The White-Black Homeownership Gap From 2005 To 2011, Kiat Ying Seah, Eric Fesselmeyer, Kien Le Jan 2017

Estimating And Decomposing Changes In The White-Black Homeownership Gap From 2005 To 2011, Kiat Ying Seah, Eric Fesselmeyer, Kien Le

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study evaluates the effects of the recent US housing bust on the White-Black homeownership gap by estimating and decomposing the changes in the distribution of the gap between 2005 and 2011. Our analysis shows that the housing bust did not affect the homeownership gap uniformly. In fact, we find that the gap decreased for households that were the least likely to own and remained unchanged for households that were the most likely to own, and that Black households with around a 50% probability of homeownership were especially vulnerable to the crisis. We also find that the contribution of the …

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Sensor-Driven Detection Of Social Isolation In Community-Dwelling Elderly, W K P Neranjana Nadee Rodrigo Goonawardene, Xiaoping Toh, Hwee-Pink Tan Jan 2017

Sensor-Driven Detection Of Social Isolation In Community-Dwelling Elderly, W K P Neranjana Nadee Rodrigo Goonawardene, Xiaoping Toh, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Ageing-in-place, the ability to age holistically in the community, is increasingly gaining recognition as a solution to address resource limitations in the elderly care sector. Effective elderly care models require a personalised and all-encompassing approach to caregiving. In this regard, sensor technologies have gained attention as an effective means to monitor the wellbeing of elderly living alone. In this study, we seek to investigate the potential of non-intrusive sensor systems to detect socially isolated community dwelling elderly. Using a mixed method approach, our results showed that sensor-derived features such as going-out behavior, daytime napping and time spent in the living …

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All In The Family: Economies Of Scale In Retail And Institutional Investment Management, Darwin Choi, Xi Li, Tong Yao, Zhe Zhang Dec 2016

All In The Family: Economies Of Scale In Retail And Institutional Investment Management, Darwin Choi, Xi Li, Tong Yao, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the (dis)economies of scale related to the joint management of retail mutual funds and institutional funds (i.e., investment portfolios catering to institutional clients). Similar to well-known observations for mutual funds, the performance of institutional funds is negatively related to fund size but positively related to fund family size, suggesting diseconomies of scale at individual fund level and economies of scale at fund family level. More importantly, there is spillover of the family size effect -- the performance of mutual funds (institutional funds) is positively related to the total institutional assets (mutual fund assets) managed by the same …

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Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu Dec 2016

Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Zhang and Wu offer a detailed account of the innovative local policies in Chengdu, China, where a national land-use policy that has created widespread problems in other trial areas has been turned into a positive, transformative force in rural reconstruction. There are three key innovations in this so-called ‘Chengdu model’: First, leveraging on the most important resource in rural area, land, and through the commodification of land development rights, creating a financial source that can fund rural public services provision; second, transforming traditional rural residential patterns and concentrating the rural population in newly built residential communities; and, finally, using both …

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Violation Of Long-Term Mate Preferences, M. L. W. Long, Norman P. Li Dec 2016

Violation Of Long-Term Mate Preferences, M. L. W. Long, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Violations of short-term mate preferences refer to instances in which a person in a short-term, casual sexual relationship has mate preferences that were in place when the relationship commenced but subsequently are not being met.

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The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito Dec 2016

The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent decades, research on ‘political apology’, wherein the state apologizes to victims of its past wrongs, has multiplied, as redress movements based on human rights have proliferated around the world. Since most of this research has been conducted by political philosophers, however, analyses of political apologies tend to adopt formal and normative perspectives. To propose an alternative, empirically-grounded approach, in this paper, I develop the ‘cultural pragmatics’ of political apology. To this end, I first conceptualize political apology as a social performance aimed to ‘re-fuse’ an impaired relationship between the perpetrator state and the victim individual. This conceptual move …

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The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito Dec 2016

The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Seventy years have passed since the end of the Asia-Pacific War, yet Japan remains embroiled in controversy with its neighbors over the war’s commemoration. Among the many points of contention between Japan, China, and South Korea are interpretations of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, apologies and compensation for foreign victims of Japanese aggression, prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and the war’s portrayal in textbooks. Collectively, these controversies have come to be called the “history problem.” But why has the problem become so intractable? Can it ever be resolved, and if so, how? To answer these questions, the author …

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Differential Parental Investment, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li Dec 2016

Differential Parental Investment, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Differences in minimum obligatory parental investment contributed by men and women lead the sexes to diverge in their sexual strategies and affective experiences, although under certain conditions, men’s mating preferences converge with women’s. This chapter first describes necessary or obligatory parental investment, examines the origins of sex differences in obligatory parental investment, describes examples of such differences across a range of species, and highlights the consequences of these differences in terms of human sexual strategies, conflicts, and affective experiences.

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Addressing Asean's Manpower Challenge, Singapore Management University Nov 2016

Addressing Asean's Manpower Challenge, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Governments must work closely with the private sector to produce relevant skilled labour

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Governing For Happiness, Singapore Management University Nov 2016

Governing For Happiness, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

A fair and just society should be the aim for creating maximum societal happiness

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Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao Nov 2016

Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the ways educated urban Chinese youths engage American television fiction as part of their identity work. Drawing on theories of modern reflexive identity, and based on 29 interviews with US TV fans among university students in Beijing, I found these youths are drawn to this television primarily because they perceive the American way of life portrayed on it as more ‘authentic’. This perception of authenticity must be examined within the socio-cultural milieu these students inhabit. Specifically, torn between China’s ingrained collectivist culture and its recent neoliberal emphasis on the individual self, my respondents glean from US TV …

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Validating A Measure Of Beliefs In Health Prevention Screenings Among Old Adults In China, H. Xu, Paulin Tay Straughan, W. Pan, Z. Zhen, B. Wu Nov 2016

Validating A Measure Of Beliefs In Health Prevention Screenings Among Old Adults In China, H. Xu, Paulin Tay Straughan, W. Pan, Z. Zhen, B. Wu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We aimed to examine the psychometric properties of a modified 16-item Attitudinal Index (AI), a measure of health beliefs in health prevention screenings among Chinese older adults. We used the 2013 Shanghai Longitudinal Survey of Elderly Life and Opinion data including 3418 respondents aged 60 and above. We examined the validity and reliability of the modified AI. Psychometric evaluation of the modified AI revealed good response patterns. The overall scale had good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.835) with four distinct dimensions: barriers, fatalism, unnecessary, and detects (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.815 to 0.908). Confirmatory factor analysis of the modified AI’s factor …

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’A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian Associations, Social Capital And Strategic Identification In A New Era Of China Indonesia Relations, Charlotte Setijadi Nov 2016

’A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian Associations, Social Capital And Strategic Identification In A New Era Of China Indonesia Relations, Charlotte Setijadi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In Indonesia, Chinese voluntary associations took on a new level of importance after the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998 that ushered in a revival of Chinese identity politics. At the same time, Sino-Indonesian relations are blossoming, and the rise of China as a global power means that Indonesia can only benefit from stronger ties with China in the future. In this new atmosphere of cooperation, I argue that Chinese Indonesian individuals and voluntary organizations play a crucial function as trade and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on both empirical and qualitative fieldwork data, in this paper, I examine how …

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Family Inc., Singapore Management University Oct 2016

Family Inc., Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

It is a tough act to strike a delicate balance between family and business, says a fifth-generation business owner

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Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong Oct 2016

Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The importance placed on education and, relatedly, examinations, in many Asian societies is well known. The means adopted to cope with the stresses that come along with such intensity are myriad. It is in such contexts that the emergence of a “Bell Curve God” in Singapore must be understood.

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Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii Oct 2016

Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on sustainability behaviors has been based on the assumption that increasing personal concerns about the environment will increase proenvironmental action. We tested whether this assumption is more applicable to individualistic cultures than to collectivistic cultures. In Study 1, we compared 47 countries (N = 57,268) and found that they varied considerably in the degree to which environmental concern predicted support for proenvironmental action. National-level individualism explained the between-nation variability above and beyond the effects of other cultural values and independently of person-level individualism. In Study 2, we compared individualistic and collectivistic nations (United States vs. Japan; N = 251) …

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Chinese Christians For Trump, Justin Kh Tse Oct 2016

Chinese Christians For Trump, Justin Kh Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

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Concepts And Measurement Of Vulnerability To Poverty And Other Issues: A Review Of Literature, Tomoki Fujii Sep 2016

Concepts And Measurement Of Vulnerability To Poverty And Other Issues: A Review Of Literature, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper reviews the growing body of literature on vulnerability. We first provide a survey of existing studies on the concepts and measurements of vulnerability to poverty by classifying them into welfarist, expected poverty, and axiomatic approaches. We then review a number of empirical studies on vulnerability to poverty in Asia and elsewhere. This review shows that poverty and vulnerability are related, but different, and that key determinants of vulnerability often include education and location. We also briefly review other areas of vulnerability analysis such as vulnerability to climate change and offer various policy implications arising from vulnerability analysis.

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Human-Scale Economics: Economic Growth And Poverty Reduction In Northeastern Thailand, Joel D. Moore, John A. Donaldson Sep 2016

Human-Scale Economics: Economic Growth And Poverty Reduction In Northeastern Thailand, Joel D. Moore, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Under what conditions does economic growth benefit the poor? One way to answer this question is to identify and compare positive and negative outlier areas, those that experience greater and lesser poverty reduction, respectively, compared to what was anticipated given their levels of economic growth. The more similar these areas, the more leverage there is to unearth the factors that allow the poor to benefit from growth. In this paper, we employ an inductive approach to glean possible pathways out of poverty from two highly similar underdeveloped neighboring provinces in northeastern Thailand. Using extensive fieldwork and interviews, we explore factors …

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How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson Sep 2016

How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Can large-scale agribusiness reduce costs and obtain less-expensive food while also reducing poverty and inequality by engaging small-scale farmers? Many conclude that such an attractive outcome is unimaginable, but innovative pilot projects hold promise that such a reality is within reach and replicable.

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Sex Similarities Versus Gender Symmetry, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li Sep 2016

Sex Similarities Versus Gender Symmetry, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Men and women have similar and different mate preferences, which include preferences for type of relationship duration as well as the types of traits that are sought out within each mating duration. This entry covers some of the key similarities and differences in preferences for both mating context and partner traits within context.

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A Review Of Knowledge Ltd: Towards A Social Logic Of The Derivative, Hiro Saito Sep 2016

A Review Of Knowledge Ltd: Towards A Social Logic Of The Derivative, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

California program for paid family leave.They find that higher-wage employees aremore likely to gain such benefits and to usethem, while low-wage workers are less likelyto have them available or know about themand are less likely to use them, because theprogram does not pay enough or providejob protection.

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Addressing The Implementation Gap: An Integrated Approach To Identifying Barriers And Facilitators To Flexi Work Arrangements In Singapore, Paulin Tay Straughan, Mindy E Tadai Sep 2016

Addressing The Implementation Gap: An Integrated Approach To Identifying Barriers And Facilitators To Flexi Work Arrangements In Singapore, Paulin Tay Straughan, Mindy E Tadai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article addresses the implementation gap in the provision of work—life policies in Singapore. While both employers and government in principle endorse the ideology of flexibility in the work place, this has not yet translated into widely adopted policies. This study examines barriers and facilitators to part-time work, and highlights organisational and managerial factors contributing to the implementation gap. It is imperative in ageing societies with declining fertility rates that flexibility be mainstreamed to encourage optimum labour force participation. For both married women with childcare responsibilities and older adults, flexiwork is central to their continued economic participation. In particular, part-time …

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