Economic models and having children: some evidence from Kwahu,Ghana

This discussion outlines briefly some of the main features of economic models of rational decision making with regard to fertility which focus on the perceived costs and benefits of parenthood, noting the findings of several Ghanaian studies which have tried to link changing patterns of costs and benefits involved in kin and conjugal family ties with changes in fertility and parental role expectations. Procreation and its context in a rural Kwahu town of southern Ghana in the early 1970s is then described and illustration is included of how a "cost benefit" analysis of pregnancy termination and child bearing in this society illuminates why, although induced abortion rates appeared high, there was little noticeable shift to much lower fertility values or achievements than those traditionally admired. The data on the families of Ghanaian salary earners indicated the usefulness of an economic approach, with attention given to the allocation of scarce resources through the essentially rational choices of individual parents, continually trying to avoid or alleviate the effects of role strain and conflict. They also illustrate the need for household economists' models to take more sophisticated account of variables such as the openness or closure of the conjugal family in various areas of its operation and the need to treat the degrees of jointness of the conjugal role relationship in different areas as crucial variables. The town of the research is a typical "home town," which means that it constitutes the base from which people depart, either to an urban center where they take up trading or look for other employment, or to a farming settlement where they may spend from a few months to several years clearing new land or harvesting crops. The data from Kwahu reveal that the people are struggling to improve their lot in an uncertain and changing context in which lineage support is not guaranteed, marriage is unstable and children often leave their parents at an early age, and in which educational qualifications and the ability to be mobile are critical in the search for incomes and better jobs. Early childbearing is a hindrance and is avoided where possible though it is not an impassable barrier to townward migration and upward mobility. The costs of later childbearing are frequently shelved and passed on to others, especially the child's mothers. Consequently, considerable inertia associated with poverty and insecurity remains with regard to decisions to regulate fertility. Knowledge and availability of contraceptives are restricted.     

Parental migration and the educational enrolment of left-behind children: evidence from rural Ponorogo,Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effects of parental migration on children’s educational enrolment following the recent reforms in Indonesian educational policy. We find that, in general, parental migration has a positive impact on school enrolment, although this varies by the child’s age and the gender of the migrant parent. Parental migration has an adverse impact on the school enrolment of younger children who are eligible for free education, but a positive impact on older children who are no longer able to access state educational support. The gender of the migrant parent matters, as paternal migration appears to have a more positive impact on children’s educational enrolment than maternal migration. Maternal migration is associated with a reduction of younger children’s likelihood of a being in school, while paternal migration makes no difference to their school enrolment. For older children, maternal migration has a lower positive impact compared to paternal migration. Our qualitative interviews also show mixed findings: some children appreciate their migrant mothers’ migration efforts and are motivated to persevere in continuing education, while others are weighed down by their migrant mothers’ sacrifice and develop a sense of obligation to reduce their financial burdens by leaving education early to enter paid employment.     

Household migration and the structuration of patriarchy: evidence from the USA

"The article begins by summarizing the evidence on the gender dimension of migration for married (or cohabiting) couples using material from the USA.... The article goes on to argue that there is a need to view the 'wife's sacrifice' which typically results from such migration not solely from within the household but in the context of society as a whole. The gendered experience of migration is then linked to structures of patriarchy utilizing insights derived from structuration theory. Finally, as an agenda for the future, it is argued that any sustained attack on patriarchy in the context of migration also requires a critical engagement with the normative status of residential migration more generally. This necessitates dealing with the economic logic of capitalism itself."     

Landscapes of Stone: Contextualizing Greenstone Working and Lithics from Clodgy Moor,West Penwith,Cornwall

Between 2004 and 2011 Graham Hill and Dave Edwards plotted nearly eight thousand prehistoric artefacts from ploughed fields across the Clodgy Moor area of West Penwith. In 2011 a project was carried out by the Historic Environment Service Projects team, Cornwall Council, the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Cornwall Archaeological Society to catalogue and digitize all the finds recorded from the fieldwalking.

The project demonstrated that some places within the project area were persistent locales which were occupied throughout the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The results were particularly significant because they shed light on the context of the production of greenstone axes, widely exchanged around Britain and across the Irish Sea during the Neolithic, and suggest why, despite large numbers of artefacts, no greenstone ‘axe factory’ site has been found close to the potential sources of the greenstone before.     

Rural-to-urban migration and adolescent delinquent behaviors: evidence from Hunan and Guangdong in China

ABSTRACT

Analyzing data of a merged sample of two Chinese student surveys conducted in two rural counties of Hunan province and in the capital city of Guangdong province, this paper examines the impact of parental migration on rural children’s involvement in delinquent behaviors. We compare delinquency of non-migrant and left-behind children in the countryside, rural-to-urban migrant children, and urban local children. Both rural children left behind by one migrant parent and those left behind by both migrant parents are similar to rural children without parental migration in terms of delinquent involvement. The situation of rural-to-urban migrant children is noticeably worse, as they are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviors than rural children without parental migration. Nevertheless, rural-to-urban migrant children are not more prone to delinquency compared to their urban local peers. We also found an acculturation impact in the study because the odds of engaging in delinquent behaviors first increases and then decreases for rural-to-urban migrant children when they stay longer and learn some local language in the hosting city.     

Family migration decision-making,step-migration and separation: children's experiences in European migrant worker families

Intra-European family migration has extended the realm in which families live and work in Europe. This paper joins a limited number of recent attempts to analyse family migration using a children-in-families approach [Bushin, N. 2009. Researching Family Migration Decision-Making: A Children-in-Families Approach.” Population, Space and Place, 15: 429–443]. In contrast to existing studies on this theme, our focus is on children's migration decision-making, experiences of step-migration and experiences of separation from parents during processes of intra-European family migration. Little is known about children's views and experiences of step-migration and separation from their parent(s) during family migration. Such experiences have implications for the spatial and temporal construction of family and childhood in Europe, where transnational mobility is increasing. This paper discusses children's experiences of separation in two research contexts, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, to illustrate common features of the phenomena. The paper analyses family relationships relevant to migration decisions and explains their effects on children's agency, as well as on family integrity itself.     

A synthesis of macro and micro approaches to explaining migration: evidence from inter-state migration in the United States

The interrelationships between macro and micro factors in the analysis of interstate migration in the United States are explored. A synthesis between these factors is attempted "by combining objectively calibrated characteristics of states with their subjectively measured counterparts....First, the relationships between the objective variables and their subjective counterparts are analyzed. Second, both sets of variables are used to explain residential preferences and migration. Third, a series of path models are constructed to indicate how the subjective variables act as intervening variables between their objective counterparts and migration."     

Medieval village planning in northern England: some evidence from Yorkshire

A village plan comprising regular toft rows facing a street or green is common in lowland Yorkshire north of the river Aire and west of the river Hull, and many such plans are believed to have been established in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The obvious occasion for a settlement reorganisation involving the creation of regular plans was the aftermath of a phase of devastation between 1066 and 1070. Domesday Book data are used to identify the local circumstances that favoured regular plan creation. A two-stage recolonisation is hypothesised: first, local survivors were grouped into “manorial” type communities where pre-Conquest village layouts were usually revived; second, free colonists were attracted from other districts and settled in villages of regular plan. Subsequent population growth was in some cases associated with the addition of regular toft rows to existing settlements, thereby giving rise to the more widely distributed partly-regular plans.     

The accuracy of enclosure estimates: some evidence from northern England

Michael Turner's edition of Tate's Domesday draws upon the uneven estimates provided in enclosure acts and awards. For 35 sample acts and awards in Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland and Westmorland estimates of the acreages enclosed are compared with actual acreages of land allotted. Estimates in early acts are less accurate than in later acts, and estimates for parishes where only small areas were enclosed are proportionately less accurate than those for which large areas were enclosed.     

The Chang Tang Plateau: new evidence of historic migration

1.Introduction This paper will primarily focus on historical migrations to and within the Chang Tang (byang-thang) region of Tibet.Traditionally,‘Chang Tang’ refers to the enormous northern plateau of Tibet that covers more than 2.5 million km2 of land mass,more renowned globally for its wildlife than human settlements.In this article however,Chang Tang is geographically defined as Ngari (mngav-ris) and Western Nakchu (nagchu) Prefectures of Tibet.In popular imagination in the Asian region,including China,Chang Tang is conceived of as a wilderness with a sparse and recent human population.     

Restructuring, gender and employment in flux: a geography of regional change in Cornwall, Ontario

For the past two decades, uneven development in general, and the changing structure of the labour market in particular, have figured prominently in geographic literature explaining the possible trajectories of restructuring events in industrial countries. This paper explores the regional nature of various socio-economic processes shaping gendered employment patterns in Cornwall, eastern Ontario. Focussing on the dimensions of workforce 'feminisation' we argue for a critical reexamination of gender-neutral regional geographies in understanding how gendered divisions of labour and local identity formation and concepts of 'class' are in flux.     

A Disgruntled Tourist in King Arthur's Court: Archaeology and Identity at Tintagel,Cornwall

Abstract

'Welcome to Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur' is a phrase often repeated at this small village on the north coast of Cornwall where legend, childhood stories and merchandise all serve to attract thousands of visitors per year. As 'a place to go', the area provides stunning coastal scenery, a romantic ruined castle and a highly commercialised village. Tintagel Island, owned by the Duchy of Cornwall but managed by English Heritage, plays centre stage as the 'birthplace' in question. On-site, the character of Arthur is largely debunked as a literary phenomenon and, furthermore, a survey of day-trippers revealed that visitors were left in an interpretive limbo — arriving with ideas of Arthur and leaving knowing little about Tintagel.

Whilst the aesthetics of the castle and scenery go some way towards mitigating against disappointment, on site encounters with kitsch representations of the past combine with more amorphous senses of pseudo-spiritual atmospheres as well as experiences of walking, eating and drinking to ultimately provide a 'grand day out'. The marketing ephemera and heritage presentation all serve to create, reinforce and suppress different identities of place which are revealed as being a fairly cohesive package of Celtic-Arthuriana. This paper questions the ways in which visitors' expectation and imagination are mediated through experience of place.     

The origin of chantries: some further Anglo-Norman evidence

It is suggested that Sir Howard Colvin's theory about the origin of the chantry as a response to liturgical overloading of the regular monastery with commemorative liturgy is not the full story. The chantry was preceded by institutions more obviously its precursors than the monasteries: secular colleges and the chapels of manorial precincts. It is suggested here that the chantry arose out of a more complex cross-fertilisation of ideas and institutions than Colvin suggests, and also that the laity had as much a part in the process as the monks. The article also points to particular moves towards the individualised mass of commemoration within the Angevin royal family in the 1170s and 1180s as an impetus to the evolution of the chantry.     

Strontium isotope evidence of migration and diet in relation to ritual tooth ablation: a case study from the Inariyama Jomon site,Japan

Ritual tooth ablation was extensively practiced among Jomon (Japanese Neolithic) societies in their final phase (ca. 3000-2300 BP). This tradition includes two different tooth ablation patterns, type 4I and type 2C, referring to extraction of the mandibular incisors and canines, respectively. However, the reason for this difference is unclear. Previous carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of human remains from the Inariyama shell mound revealed that type 4I individuals were more dependent on terrestrial resources and type 2C individuals on marine resources. To test this hypothesis, we performed strontium (Sr) isotope (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) analyses on the same skeletal remains and on modern plants around the site. Because Sr isotope ratios of plants differ according to the local geology and seawater has a consistent Sr isotope ratio, the Sr isotope ratios of tooth enamel can reveal both migration and diet. Comparing Sr isotope ratios in plants and seawater with those of tooth enamel, we identified four possible immigrants. Type 4I locals had significantly higher Sr isotope ratios than type 2C locals. The ratios of the type 4I and type 2C locals were close to those of terrestrial plants and seawater, respectively, suggesting that type 4I locals had incorporated much Sr from terrestrial resources and type 2C locals from marine resources. These results support the hypothesis that ritual tooth ablation reflects dietary differences throughout an individual’s life, and they suggest possible occupational differentiation among the Jomon people.     

Communities of kin and English landed gentry families of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

This article focuses on the kinship networks of the landed gentry of Devon, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire in the modern period. Using national census household returns, the visitors’ books of a Devon gentry family and correspondence the article reveals dense and meaningful kinship networks centred on the main country house but also woven into the wider familial world of the gentry. Whenever possible, the inheritance of landed estates passed through the male line. But kin networks were bilateral, founded on both birth and marriage, on relations both through the male and the female line. Kin relations provided a range of services within a culture of visiting, epistolary practice and affection, which generated close and cherished family ties.