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Abstract
Individuals typically traverse several life phases before forming a family. We analyze whether changing the duration of one of these phases, the education phase, affects the timing of marriage and childbearing. For this purpose, we exploit the introduction of short school years (SSYs) in Germany in 1966–1967, which compressed the education phase without affecting the curriculum. Based on difference-in-differences regressions and German Micro Census data, we find that SSY exposure affects the timing of marriage for individuals in all secondary school tracks and shifts forward the birth of the first child mainly for academic-track graduates. This highlights that education policies might not only affect family formation through human capital accumulation, but also through changing the duration of earlier life phases. This is important as not only age at marriage and first birth increases in many countries, but also the duration of the education phase. (JEL codes: I26, J12, J13, J24)

This paper studies the concept of the individual occurring in personal dating ads published in Serbian and German print and electronic media. The research is based upon existing studies of dominant values, but takes into account the fulfillment of an individual's expectations vis-à-vis her/his potential partner as well. The values, as abstract categories, represent the basis for the very process of creating an ad by its author, while at the same time they are indicators of the dominant social attitudes. By applying the method of contrastive, content and statistical analysis, culture-based similarities and differences, as well as the typical concepts of men and women have been determined. The results of the study show that there occur, in fact, certain differences in the concept of the individual in Serbian and German ads. These originate from different values and orientations of the two societies. On the other hand, some discrepancies are sex-related.

The political cycle and its impact of economy is usually monitored at the macroeconomic level. Nonetheless, abroad studies are emerging which analyzed the impact of the political cycle on economy on the level of territorial self-government. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of the political cycle on the financial management of municipalities on a sample of 69 district towns in Slovak Republic in time period 2007-2017. The results point that to significant heterogeneity, whether at the level of individual towns or when comparing the results for individual years. As a result of the differences observed at the level of the political cycles, we analyzed the differences between the results in each year of each political cycle through CV-TOPSIS method. The financial management of the analyzed towns are very diverse and the increase of town´s expenditures is not always linked to the political cycle.

ObjectiveWhile studies frequently examine the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court as an institution, little is known about how individual justices influence attention to their opinions. We investigate whether inherent differences in the majority opinions of individual justices result in certain justices being systematically more influential than their peers.MethodsWe advance a theory in which Supreme Court adoption of prior opinions is influenced by factors that relate to the identity of the authoring justice. To test these propositions, we explore the universe of the Supreme Court's signed majority opinions from 1986 to 2000.ResultsWe find that intricate tendencies in opinion writing vary systematically by justice in key dimensions relating to their opinions. We also discover that differences among the justices exert an asymmetric impact on citation and adherence to precedent.ConclusionThe findings offer important theoretical and normative implications toward a better understanding of the impact of Supreme Court justices on attentiveness to precedent and doctrinal development.

This article considers the extent to which Affordable Care Act state Medicaid expansions alleviated the burden of out-of-pocket costs associated with obtaining health insurance and medical care using data from the 2011 to 2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Using a difference-in-differences framework, the analysis examines effects of the Medicaid expansions on out-of-pocket expenditures for health insurance premiums and medical care, comparing expenditures across expansion and nonexpansion states before and after the expansions were implemented, performing separate analyses for individuals with family income at various eligibility cutoff levels in the first and second years of expansion implementation. The findings suggest that the expansions were associated with a relatively larger likelihood of having zero premium expenditures and of having zero nonpremium medical out-of-pocket expenditures for low-income individuals. These findings suggest that the expansions were effective in reducing medical out-of-pocket expenditures.

BackgroundAngelman syndrome (AS) leads to clinical manifestations that include intellectual impairments, developmental delay and poor motor function. Initiatives to develop therapeutics implie an urgent need to identify methods that accurately measure the motor abilities.MethodsSix children with AS (6 to 9 years old) walked on an instrumented walkway to get spatiotemporal parameters (STPs) and center of pressure (CoP). These outcomes were compared to typically developing children (TD): 44 TD 6 to 9 years old and 20 TD 4 to 5 years old.ResultsAnalysis revealed differences in all STPs and gait variability index when compared to TD individuals. When AS participants were compared to younger TD individuals, except step length, STPs were different. Analysis of the CoP pathway revealed a less consistent and efficient pathway in AS.ConclusionsWe could delineate the functional difference between children with AS and TD children. The variability of STP and the CoP were the most valuable components in gait to be considered in AS.

In the United States, marriage has been found to provide a "pay-off" for men's earnings, but there is a scarcity of comparative research to put these findings in context. For women, even less is known regarding the link between marital status and earnings. This study provides insights into whether the financial benefits associated with men's relationships are universal cross-nationally and extend to women. Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) we find that marriage and cohabitation earnings premiums for men are common, even when individual characteristics are controlled. For women, there are few differences, especially once individual characteristics are taken into account. This study uses propensity matching to adjust earnings gaps for selection into marriage and shows that selection explains most, but not all of the earnings differences. Our findings suggest a need for additional research concerning the context of marriage as a source of income inequality in comparative perspective.

This study explores gender differences in the relationship between adolescents' risky online behavior and their social context, as in family factors and the prevalence of Internet use in a country. Using the EU Kids Online dataset, including information on 8554, 14- to 16-year-old adolescents in 25 countries, and applying multilevel modeling, this study shows that social context is additionally and differentially related to adolescent boys' and girls' risky online behavior. When taking individual characteristics such as sensation seeking and digital skills into account, particularly for male adolescents, growing up in a single-parent household and lacking parental co-use increases the chance of online risk behavior. Adolescents, especially males, however, are less likely to participate in risky online behavior in societies where Internet use is widespread. Overall, this study shows that it is important to take account of individual and social factors when explaining adolescents' online risk taking and gender differences herein.

Research on party membership development commonly reports figures aggregated to the country level and/or using only a few time-points. While these choices may be appropriate for certain research questions, they nevertheless hide major differences between parties and conceal short-term fluctuations. Additionally, they are inappropriate for studying individual party trajectories. This is necessary, however, to better describe and ultimately explain the phenomenon of membership decline. The article analyses in total 1653 observations across 47 parties in six western European countries between 1960 and 2010 to test hypotheses pertaining to individual party membership development. Using multilevel modelling and time-series analyses, the results show what aggregated data with few time-points cannot: membership decline is by far not a universal phenomenon. Additionally, membership decline appears to be part of a party's life-cycle. The more consolidated parties are, the fewer members they have. Few differences between party families are observable.

ABSTRACTWe examine the influence of national culture on the judgments of Australian and Chinese tertiary accounting students when they are interpreting selected International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) that contain uncertainty expressions. To extend prior cross-cultural research, we also examine whether cultural values of individuals can change because of acculturation and accounting education, and measure their potential impact on accounting judgment. The results provide strong support for the notion that Chinese accounting students are more conservative than Australian accounting students in assigning probabilities to in-context uncertainty expressions contained in IFRSs. A unique finding of this study is that the cultural values of individuals can change because of acculturation and accounting education, and this could potentially improve the comparability of financial reports by moderating differences in the interpretation of accounting standards caused by cultural differences between accountants.Data Availability: The complete version of the research instrument is available from the second author.

ObjectivesWe analyze patterns in environmental views of Gulf Coast residents, in the wake of the 2010 oil spill. To what extent do spill‐related and other environmental views vary with individual characteristics, personal experience with the spill, or characteristics of place?MethodsAbout 2,000 residents of selected coastal regions in Louisiana and Florida were interviewed by telephone in late summer 2010.ResultsOne‐quarter of the respondents said that their environmental views had changed as a result of the spill. Despite reporting more change, more spill effects, and greater threats from climate‐induced sea‐level rise, Louisiana respondents were less likely to support a deepwater moratorium, alternative energy, or resource conservation.ConclusionsResults are consistent with real effects from the spill. Differences between Louisiana and Florida respondents are not explained by spill effects or individual characteristics, however. The patterns reflect biophysical differences of the coastlines that shaped their socioeconomic development.

With the expansion of the service sector, working conditions have changed during recent decades and it has become more relevant to highlight psychosocial factors as a complement to physical aspects of work. The main scope of this article concerns legal forms of ownership (i.e. the public sector, public enterprises, private enterprises and cooperatives), different types of operations within the service sector, and whether these organizational characteristics create differences in psychosocial working conditions for the individual employee. A total of 1384 employees in 60 workplaces within 25 establishments participated, and the data consisted of both a survey answered by the employees and structured interviews conducted with the local managers in each participating organization. Multilevel analysis showed that a rather high degree of variance in working conditions could be attributed to factors outside/above the individual level, and furthermore, that both ownership and type of operation were significant and relevant variables in order to explain differences in working conditions.

Why do women have more difficulty pursuing research careers than men? Although this topic has been extensively investigated in industrialized countries, prior studies provide little comparative evidence from less-developed areas. Based on a survey of 293 scientists in Ghana, Kenya, and the Indian state of Kerala, this article examines gender differences on a variety of individual, social, and organizational dimensions. The results show small or nonexistent differences between women and men in individual characteristics, professional resources, and the organizational conditions under which research is conducted. The article argues that a combination of educational and research localism increases the likelihood of restricted professional networks for women. Gender inequality in the research systems of the developing world may be based on systemic deficits in the acquisition of social rather than material resources. The most important implication is that educational policy for development should focus on international opportunities for women in the near future.

Many organisations are encouraging their staff to integrate work and non‐work, but a qualitative study of young professionals found that many crave greater segregation rather than more integration. Most wished to build boundaries to separate the two and simplify a complex world. Where working practices render traditional boundaries of time and space ineffective, this population seems to create new idiosyncratic boundaries to segregate work from non‐work. These idiosyncratic boundaries depended on age, culture and life‐stage though for most of this population there was no appreciable gender difference in attitudes to segregating work and non‐work. Gender differences only became noticeable for parents. A matrix defining the dimensions to these boundaries is proposed that may advance understanding of how individuals separate their work and personal lives. In turn, this may facilitate the development of policies and practices to integrate work and non‐work that meet individual as well as organisational needs.

The heath care system in the United States is based on specific cultural beliefs that are sometimes inappropriate with groups that have different belief systems. These cultural differences can be seen in various end-of-life situations. To familiarize providers with some of the ways that culture can influence end-of-life care and decisions, the authors focus on the following three individual characteristics shown to be important in the literature: age, ethnicity, and gender. The article contains a broad overview of the (a) documented differences in the cultural interpretations of the ethical meta principles (e.g., autonomy and respect), (b) provision of medical service in general and pain management in particular to different groups, and (c) attitudes toward various end-of-life interventions and the use of advance directives. Finally, the authors summarize guidelines for making end-of-life care more culturally sensitive, which emphasize that each person must be interacted with as a unique individual.