Non-standard work and fertility: a comparison of the US and Japan

Using General Social Survey data from Japan and the US (N?=?5101), we examine the effect of non-standard or non-regular work status on men’s fertility. We employ a cross-national comparative approach to explore how this relationship differs both within and across the two countries. Consistent with features of the Japanese context which make it challenging for non-regular workers to realise the breadwinner role we find a negative effect of non-standard work status on men’s fertility in Japan, but not the US. Specifically, Japanese men employed as non-regular workers have the lowest chances of having a child. Non-regular work status has no such effect on men’s fertility in the US. We also find that the difference in the non-standard work effect between the two countries can be accounted for by differences in the effect of marriage, which illustrates the close connection between marriage and fertility in Japan.     

A Conflicted Nation. Storia dell’Italia nella Guerra Fredda (1943–1978)

This roundtable assesses the arguments and importance of Guido Formigoni’s book Storia dell’Italia nella Guerra Fredda (1943–1978). This book is essentially composed of seven 70–80-page broadly chronological chapters, each of which might almost be expanded into a short book in its own right. The chapters perform the difficult feat of shifting constantly between the foreign policy of the Italian state (which was so often driven by domestic political considerations) and the political consequences of international events on the debates (or polemics) taking place in the Italian polity. There can be few works of international history in which the linkage between the domestic and foreign policy ‘levels’ is so clearly demonstrated. Indeed, one of the key objectives of the book plainly is to show that although there may be countries where foreign policy is carried on with blithe indifference to domestic politics, Italy is certainly not one of them, or was not during the Cold War years. Mark Gilbert introduces the book on which Federico Romero, Maud Bracke and Michele Marchi engage in a detailed commentary, to which the author replies.     

Saeters in the Norse eastern settlement of østerbygden in southwest Greenland

Sammendrag

Artiklen indledes med en kort gennemgang af Østerbygdens udforskning (Tabel I). Frem til 1986 er der påvist 408 lokaliteter med een eller flere norrøne ruiner, hoved‐sagelig beliggende i relativt let tilgængeligt terræn fra 0–200 m.o.h.

I 1974 påbegyndtes et nordisk arkæologisk projekt med henblik på en systematisk udforskning af Østerbygdens udvikling. Som projektområde valgtes Qodlortoqdalen i det indre af Tunugdliarfikfjorden. Undersøgelserne i årene 1974–79 resulterede i, at antallet af registrerede norrøne ruiner i projektområdet blev mere end en fordoblet; blandt andet blev der fundet en række nye lokaliteter i højlandet (op til 400 m.o.h.), der af forfatteren tolkes som sætre.

Med udgangspunkt i det norske materiale defineres tre typer sætre: Helsætre, mælkesætre og høsletsætre. De nyfundne lokaliteter forsøges sat i relation til disse sætertyper (Tabel II).

Ved en nyvurdering af tilgængeligt arkivmateriale udskilles yderligere 44 lokaliteter i Østerbygden som sandsynlige sætre, hvor helsætrene hovedsagelig findes i de tættest bebyggede områder omkring Tunugdliark‐fik‐ og Igalikqfforden, mælkesætre i knap så tæt bebyggede områder, medens høsletsætre ikke uventet navnlig findes i de marginale områder.

Et væsentligt problem i forbindelse med denne nytolkning er imidlertid, at der mangler arkæologiske og naturvidenskabelige undersøgelser af de behandlede lokaliteter. Tolkningen som sætre bygger således udelukkende på en vurdering af de enkelte lokaliteters beliggenhed i terrænet, udformning og ressourcemuligheder.

Fremtidige undersøgelser må afklare problemerne omkring datering og de enkelte ruiners funktion.     

Dendrochronology on material from medieval Oslo

The dendrochronological material from Oslo discussed here was collected through archaeological excavations in the period 1970–6 on the sites ‘Mindets tomt’ (Lidén 1977) and ‘S?ndre felt’ (Schia 1987).     

The dhow as cultural icon: heritage and regional identity in the western Indian Ocean

Dhows, the traditional sailing ships of the western Indian Ocean, are currently used in museums, heritage sites and popular culture as a symbol of a regional culture in the western Indian Ocean. While scholars have embraced the notion of seas as cultural or historical units, this type of ‘basin thinking’ is a recent phenomenon in the Indian Ocean. Over the last 150 years the dhow has gone from being a despised symbol of the slave trade and economic underdevelopment to representing a romanticized past and a regional identity. This article traces the parallel development of the idea of the dhow as a symbol of regional identity and changing perceptions of both the vessels and the region it is taken to represent. It argues that recent representations of dhows as cultural heritage represent a new and developing notion of regional identity within the western Indian Ocean.     

Italy's third fall

Abstract

The collapse of the Italian political system in 1992–3 provoked enormous discussion among students of Italian politics and history on the character and causes of the crisis. Through a reading of some of the most important scholarly works on the subject, this article underlines that the end of the former regime in Italy is increasingly being explained as the outcome of a complex combination of political misjudgements and structural socioeconomic factors, and not just as a secondary consequence of the end of the Cold War.