Ethnicizatlon and racialization of welfare‐state politics in Germany and the USA

Welfare‐state retrenchment, transnational migration and the integration of immigrants have been accompanied by a growing ethnicization and racialization of welfare‐state politics in the United States and Germany. Although ethnicization and racialization may have other, deeper causes, immigration and its effects on social policies and provisions has become one of the main targets of dissent in the politics of West European and North American welfare states. While in the United States these developments have reinforced race‐class cleavages that have existed since the emergence of her welfare state, German welfare‐state politics has evolved from being primarily class‐based to class‐ethnicity divides in recent years. These cleavages have disadvan‐taged social democratic positions that tried to bridge protection of native workers and humanitarian obligations towards refugees but have supported nationalist‐populist trends. Cosmopolitan‐liberal positions face the formidable task of developing institutional mechanisms for handling conflicts in ethnically pluralist'welfare states.     

God and the Welfare State - Substitutes or Complements? An Experimental Test of the Effect of Belief in God's Control

Belief in God’s control of the world is common to many of the world’s religions, but there are conflicting predictions regarding its role in shaping attitudes toward the welfare state. While the devout are expected to support pro-social values like helping others, and thus might be supportive of the welfare state, the possibility of taking action is undermined by the belief in God’s absolute control over world affairs and in a morally perfect providence, who is responsible for the fates of individuals. As the literature provides mixed results on this question, this study examines the role of belief in God’s control on welfare attitudes using three priming experiments and two priming tasks, carried out with a design that is both cross-cultural (US vs. Israel) and cross-religious tradition (Judaism vs. Catholicism). We find evidence that, largely, belief in God’s control increases support for income redistribution among Israeli Jews (study 1), American Jews (study 2), and American Catholics (study 3). The findings suggest that the traditional and common political gap between the economic left and the religious, based on the evaluation that religious beliefs lead to conservative economic preferences, may be overstated.     

The paradoxes of failure in post-welfare: an auto-ethnography of caregiver labour for disabled persons in New York State

In conditions of post-welfare, failure takes a variety of forms. I offer an auto-ethnographic account of state-funded caregiving for people diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York State, where both caregiver labour and its management have been subjected to greater discipline as post-welfare initiatives seek to re-educate recipients of benefits and careworkers to be simultaneously more autonomous from and more accountable to the state. Placing these changes within the specific history of failed disability care in the United States, I explain how new disciplinary devices for reporting further alienate caregiver labour and complicate welfare management in practice.     

Female coital orgasm and male attractiveness

Female coital orgasm may be an adaptation for preferentially retaining the sperm of males with “good genes.” One indicator of good genes may be physical attractiveness. Accordingly, R. Thornhill, S. W. Gangestad, and R. Comer (1995) found that women mated to more attractive men reported an orgasm during a greater proportion of copulations than did women mated to less attractive men. The current research replicates this finding, with several design variations. We collected self-report data from 388 women residing in the United States or in Germany. Results support the hypothesis that women mated to more attractive men are more likely to report an orgasm at the most recent copulation than are women mated to less attractive men, after statistically controlling for several key variables. Discussion addresses (a) the inability of the present research to specify the causal link between female orgasm and male attractiveness and (b) the proactive nature of female sexuality documented in recent research guided by an evolutionary perspective.     

Redescription of the phytosaurs Paleorhinus (‘Francosuchus’) angustifrons and Ebrachosuchus neukami from Germany,with implications for Late Triassic biochronology

Phytosaurs are a diverse and morphologically distinctive clade of superficially crocodile‐like archosauriforms that had a near global distribution during the Late Triassic. Because their remains are among the most abundant vertebrate remains recovered in many Upper Triassic terrestrial formations, phytosaurs are used extensively in long‐range biochronological and biostratigraphic correlations. The biochronologically oldest and earliest branching known phytosaurs include an array of nominal species from the early Late Triassic of the United States, Germany, Poland, Morocco, and India that have been synonymized within the genus Paleorhinus, and subsequently used to define a global ‘Paleorhinus biochron’. However, recent phylogenetic work suggested that the North American species previously referred to Paleorhinus are paraphyletic. Here, we reassess the systematics and anatomy of putative specimens of Paleorhinus from southern Germany. Two well‐preserved basal phytosaur skulls from the Blasensandstein (Carnian) of Bavaria form the holotypes of Francosuchus angustifrons and Ebrachosuchus neukami, both of which were synonymized with Paleorhinus by previous workers. We demonstrate that Francosuchus angustifrons shares unique synapomorphies with specimens referred to Paleorhinus bransoni from the Late Triassic of Texas, and thus refer the species to Paleorhinus. By contrast, the longirostrine Ebrachosuchus is highly distinctive in morphology, and our new cladistic analysis of Phytosauria demonstrates that it represents a valid taxon that is more closely related to Phytosauridae than to Paleorhinus. We provide the first autapomorphy‐based support for a monophyletic but restricted Paleorhinus (supported by a nodal row on the jugal, and low paired ridges on the squamosal) and confirm that previous broader conceptions of Paleorhinus are likely to be paraphyletic. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London     

Fisher's geometric model predicts the effects of random mutations when tested in the wild

Fisher's geometric model of adaptation (FGM) has been the conceptual foundation for studies investigating the genetic basis of adaptation since the onset of the neo Darwinian synthesis. FGM describes adaptation as the movement of a genotype toward a fitness optimum due to beneficial mutations. To date, one prediction of FGM, the probability of improvement is related to the distance from the optimum, has only been tested in microorganisms under laboratory conditions. There is reason to believe that results might differ under natural conditions where more mutations likely affect fitness, and where environmental variance may obscure the expected pattern. We chemically induced mutations into a set of 19 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions from across the native range of A. thaliana and planted them alongside the premutated founder lines in two habitats in the mid‐Atlantic region of the United States under field conditions. We show that FGM is able to predict the outcome of a set of random induced mutations on fitness in a set of A. thaliana accessions grown in the wild: mutations are more likely to be beneficial in relatively less fit genotypes. This finding suggests that FGM is an accurate approximation of the process of adaptation under more realistic ecological conditions.     

The meeting of Eastern Europe and Yemen: ‘Idealistic workers’ and ‘natural workers’ in early Zionist settlement in Palestine

This study questions the customary thesis according to which the dominant status of the ashkenazim (European Jews) over the mizrachim (Middle Eastern and North African Jews) in Israeli society is to be explained by the earlier arrival of the former in Palestine. It does so by demonstrating that an early wave of Yemenite Jews, who arrived in Palestine simultaneously with the founding fathers, remained in a subservient social position. Archival sources, memoirs, and contemporary newspapers are used to explain the low status of Yemenite Jews by reference to the broader context of the Jewish‐Arab conflict as it took shape in Palestine's labour and land markets.     

Origins of harvested American black ducks: stable isotopes support the flyover hypothesis

Waterfowl management is more effective when based on detailed information on population connectivity between breeding, wintering, and stopover sites. For the American black duck (Anas rubripes), a species of conservation concern, estimates for the fall age ratio at harvest differed depending on whether harvest data were derived from Canada or the United States, suggesting regional differences. Within Canada, hunters in Atlantic Canada were more likely to harvest black ducks from nearby breeding locations compared to hunters in southern Ontario and Quebec, Canada, who were more likely to harvest individuals from the Boreal Softwood and Taiga Shield of eastern Canada. Black ducks harvested in the United States are thought to originate predominantly from northern portions of the breeding range, leading to the flyover hypothesis, which postulates that black ducks produced in the Boreal Softwood and Taiga Shield region are less susceptible to harvest by hunters in Atlantic Canada and northeastern United States. To test the flyover hypothesis, we examined regional and temporal differences in the origins of harvested black ducks using feathers from wings (n = 664) submitted by hunters to the species composition and parts collection surveys across 3 hunting seasons (2017–2018, 2018–2019, 2019–2020). We used a likelihood-based assignment method that relied on feather stable-hydrogen isotopes (δ²H) and stable-carbon isotopes (δ¹³C) to determine the natal or molt origin of individuals harvested within eastern Canada and the United States. We also used a spatial clustering technique to group harvested individuals by area of origin without a priori knowledge of such regions. Adult female black ducks originated farther south compared to males and juveniles. All sexes and ages of black ducks harvested in Atlantic Canada showed predominantly southern origins, while those harvested in the United States and other Canadian provinces primarily originated farther north within the boreal, supporting the flyover hypothesis. By contrast, we found no relationship between timing of harvest or peaks of migration and individual origin. After combining band returns and stable isotopes, we inferred 2 distinct stocks: the Mississippi flyway stock and the Atlantic flyway stock. We recommend that regional demographic parameters, particularly for Atlantic Canada, be directly measured to promote more effective conservation of black ducks and optimize harvest opportunities in the United States and Canada.     

Occurrence of Passalora Leaf Spot Caused by Passalora ampelopsidis on Virginia Creeper in Korea

A previously unknown leaf spot disease was observed on Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) vines in Seoul, Korea. Affected plants exhibited leaf spots and discoloration, resulting in leaf blight and premature defoliation. The causal agent of the disease was identified as Passalora ampelopsidis by comparing morphological characteristics and analyzing the internal transcribed spacer region of the rDNA. Pathogenicity tests were conducted twice with the same results, fulfilling Koch's postulates. Passalora leaf spot on Virginia creeper vines was first recorded in the United States in 1878. Recent reports of Passalora leaf spots on Virginia creeper vines in 2005 in Germany, in 2012 in China and now in Korea indicate the prevalence of the disease.     

Reforming Women in the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Comparative Ethnography of Welfare Reform in Global Context

Historically, the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand symbolize opposite poles of an individualist-collectivist welfare state continuum. Until recently, Aotearoa/New Zealand was known as a "cradle-to-grave" welfare state, with "universal" employment and coverage in health and education. U.S. history, in contrast, is marked by an unabashed individualism and a residualist approach to welfare. Recent neoliberal reforms, however, have engendered a convergence between the two countries in the conceptualization and organization of assistance for poor single mothers. Most notable are the "workfare" provisions of legislative changes made in 1996 in the two countries, which work to reconstitute poor mothers as potential able-bodied workers. In this article we analyze welfare reform in the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand, with particular reference to how poor single mothers respond to, comply and cope with, or resist neoliberal strategies. Analysis is based on participant-observation, interviews, and focus groups conducted between 1989 and 1999. [welfare reform, neoliberalism, globalization, gender, the United States, Aotearoa/New Zealand]     

Trends in educational attainment by race/ethnicity,nativity, and sex in the United States, 1989–2005

Despite the importance of education for shaping individuals’ life chances, little research has examined trends and differences in educational attainment for detailed demographic subpopulations in the United States. We use labour market segmentation and cohort replacement theories, linear regression methods, and data from the National Health Interview Survey to understand educational attainment by race/ethnicity, nativity, birth cohort, and sex between 1989 and 2005 in the United States. There have been significant changes in educational attainment over time. In support of the cohort replacement theory, we find that across cohorts, females have enjoyed greater gains in education than men, and for some race/ethnic groups, recent cohorts of women average more years of education than comparable men. And in support of labour market segmentation theories, foreign-born Mexican Americans continue to possess relatively low levels of educational attainment. Our results can aid policymakers in identifying vulnerable populations, and form the base from which to better understand changing disparities in education.     

Making the Global City: Urban Citizenship at the Margins of Delhi

There is a growing scholarly interest in the spatialisation of class relations in post-industrial cities. Gentrified suburbs exclude the poor and re-work notions of public property and urban citizenship to the advantage of the rich. My study moves beyond the sanitised places of the inner city and shows how the cleaning mission affects life in the new spaces of deprivation. I analyse home making in a resettlement colony of Delhi. After being removed from the hubs of the labour market and with little state support, resettled slum dwellers struggle under harsh conditions for survival. Those who can afford this expensive venture embrace home ownership at high personal risks und by exploiting the channels of the informal economy, hoping that possessing a legal dwelling will root them more firmly in the city. In practice, the new status is an often uneasy fusion of a formal and informal status and thus remains essentially precarious in an environment that criminalises informality.     

MULTIVARIATE ADAPTATION BUT NO INCREASE IN COMPETITIVE ABILITY IN INVASIVE GERANIUM CAROLINIANUM L. (GERANIACEAE)

Adaptive evolution can affect the successful establishment of invasive species, but changes in selective pressures, loss of genetic variation in relevant traits, and/or altered trait correlations can make adaptation difficult to predict. We used a common‐garden experiment to assess trait correlations and patterns of adaptation in the invasive plant, Geranium carolinianum, sampled across 20 populations in its native (United States) and invasive (China) ranges. We used multivariate Q_ST – F_ST tests to determine if phenotypic differences between countries are attributable to adaptation. We also compared population‐level variation within each country to assess whether local adaptation resulted in similar multivariate phenotypes in the United States and China. Between countries, most phenotypic differences are indistinguishable from genetic drift, although we detected a signature of adaptation to the colder, drier winters in China. There was no evidence for increases in invasive traits in China. Within countries, strong multivariate adaptation appears to be driven by latitudinal climatic variation in the United States, but not in China. Additionally, adaptive trait combinations as well as their underlying correlations differ between the two countries, indicating that adaptation in invasive populations does not parallel patterns in native populations due to differences in selection pressures, genetic constraints, or both.     

The Agency of Welfare Workers: Negotiating Devolution, Privatization, and the Meaning of Self-Sufficiency

In this article I examine how the neoliberal agenda of downsizing the state and minimizing its role in regulating the market has shaped welfare policy and the work of welfare provision. Using a study of welfare reform in Oregon, I explore how the enactment of welfare-to-work policies positions workers to negotiate the ideological terrain of welfare reform and the conflicts that privatization and devolution generate in a social welfare context. Self-sufficiency, the professed goal of welfareto- work programs, is a complex concept, saturated with ideological meaning. Examination of the work of welfare provision provides an opportunity to analyze how workers give meaning to self-sufficiency and construct their work as positive for the families they serve. However, high caseloads, unrealistic agency expectations, and conflicting mandates bear down hard on workers, creating disenchantment with agency policy and undermining workers' ability to meet clients' needs, [welfare, ideology, work, the United States, neoliberalism]     

Socioeconomic and seasonal variations in births: A replication

Many studies, but not all, suggest that immigrant health worsens with duration of residence in the United States. Cohort effects may explain the inconsistent findings; not only are cohort effects confounded with duration, but the timing of entry into the United States may also create qualitatively different migration experiences. The present study tests for duration and cohort patterns among Asian immigrants to the United States across six year-of-entry cohorts (pre-1980, 1981–85, 1986–90, 1991–95, 1996–2000, 2001–05). Data come from the Asian American sample (n = 44,002) of the 1994–2009 waves of the National Health Interview Survey. The data show cohort differences for self-rated health, such that more recent cohorts showed improved baseline health compared to older cohorts. After accounting for cohorts, there was no significant change in self-rated health by duration of residence. Older cohorts actually showed improving self-rated health with longer duration. Obesity showed the opposite pattern; there were no differences across cohorts, but duration in the United States correlated with higher obesity. These results imply that immigrant health is not simply an issue of duration and adaptation; instead, they underscore the utility of considering cohorts as broader contexts of migration. Collectively, the results encourage future research that more carefully examines the etiological mechanisms that drive immigrant health.     

Intelligence differences between European and oriental Jews in Israel

A number of studies have found that Ashkenazi Jews in the United States have a high average IQ. It has been proposed by Cochran, Hardy and Harpending (2006) that this can be explained by the occupational constraints imposed on the Ashkenazi for many centuries in Europe, when they were largely confined to money-lending. They propose that this selected for the high verbal and mathematical intelligence that has several times been found in American Ashkenazim. The current study investigates how far this theory holds for European and Oriental Jews in Israel. A review of studies shows that Oriental Jews in Israel have an average IQ 14 points lower than that of European (largely Ashkenazi) Jews. It is proposed that this difference can be explained in terms of the Cochran, Hardy and Harpending theory because Oriental Jews were permitted to engage in a much wider range of occupations and hence did not come under the selection pressure to develop the high verbal and mathematical intelligence that was present for Ashkenazim.     

The relationship between legal abortion and marriage

Abstract

Tay‐Sachs disease is a recessively inherited, invariably lethal, degenerative neurological disorder caused by a lack of hexoaminidase‐A. It is a hundred times more prevalent among the American‐born descendants of the East European Ashkenazim Jews than among any other people in the world. The present retrospective study demonstrates that the currently observed increased gene frequency among these formerly endogamous, highly fecund people is most probably a result of genetic drift. Unique and drastic population contractive and expansion phases are documented to deduce the formation of numerous founder populations which were scattered throughout Eastern Europe by the nineteenth century. The subsequent mass familial migrations to the United States, coupled with the cultural practices of the immigrant generation, greatly enhanced the chances for heterozygote carriers to marry each other. Even if some form of selection were operative in the past, the concatenation of unique cultural events provides convincing evidence for the acceptance of drift as the primary cause for the differential gene frequency.     

Gm and Inv [Km] allotypes among Libyan and Ashkenazi Jews,and Armenians living in Israel

Summary Serum samples from Armenians, and from Libyan and Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel were tested for Gm (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 21, 24, 26) and for Inv(1) [Km(1)].The Gm data indicate that all three populations have Negroid and Mongoloid admixture. The minimum amount of admixture varies from 3.1% (Armenians) to 5.5% (Libyan Jews). This admixture had not been detected by the study of other polymorphisms, thus once again underlining the sensitivity of the Gm system. The haplotype frequencies among the Libyan Jews are markedly different from those among the Ashkenazi Jews. Surprisingly (coincidentally?) the haplotype frequencies among the Ashkenazi Jews and the Armenians are similar.The Libyan Jews have a significantly higher frequency of Inv ¹ than do the Ashkenazi Jews and among the latter, Inv ¹ is at least twice as frequent among Polish Jews as it is among Russian Jews.     

Genetic and morphologic variation of the Pecos assiminea,an endangered mollusk of the Rio Grande region,United States and Mexico (Caenogastropoda: Rissooidea: Assimineidae)

Assiminea pecos is an endangered species of amphibious gastropod that occupies four widely separated portions of the Rio Grande region in the southwestern United States (Pecos River basin) and northeastern Mexico (Cuatro Cienegas basin). Our statistical and discriminant function analyses of shell variation among the disjunct populations of this species indicate that Mexican specimens differ in their morphometry from those of the United States and can be diagnosed by several characters. We also analyzed variation in the mitochondrial genome by sequencing 658 bp of mitochondrial COI from populations of A. pecos, representatives of the other three North American species of Assiminea, and several outgroups. Our results indicated substantial divergence of the Mexican population of A. pecos, which was consistently depicted as a monophyletic unit nested within or sister to the shallowly structured group comprised of American members of this species. Consistent with our findings, we describe the Mexican population as a new species, which is provisionally placed in the large, worldwide genus Assiminea pending further study of the phylogentic relationships of the North American assimineids. Our molecular data suggest that the Rio Grande region assimineids, which are among the few inland members of the otherwise estuarine subfamily Assimineinae, diverged from coastal progenitors in the late Miocene, with subsequent Pleistocene vicariance of Mexican and American species perhaps associated with development of the modern, lower course of the Rio Grande. Handling editor: K. Martens