Cristina Bradatan

History, Population Policies, and Fertility Decline in Eastern Europe A Case Study

Why does Eastern Europe have the lowest fertility in the world? Most explanations focus on the consequences of upheaval in that region during the 1990s. These so-called “transition” explanations miss a major part of the story. For the Romanian case, we show that the decline in fertility over the 1990s represents the continuation of a longstanding trend that was only interrupted by the extremely efficient pro-natalist policies inaugurated in the 1960s. We conclude that the conventional transition explanations of the 1990s fertility decline in Eastern Europe are incomplete because they fail to give due weight to the effect of population policies.

Transnationality as a fluid social identity

How does the concept of transnationalism fit within the framework of social identity? What is the relationship between ‘diaspora’ and ‘transnationalism’? Do transnational migrants define themselves as such, or are they labelled by others (researchers of simply ‘others’)? These are some of the questions we will try to answer in this paper by discussing the concept of ‘transnationalism’ through the lenses of several perspectives drawn from sociology, anthropology, psychology and political science. We want to highlight what is characteristic of ‘transnationalism’ as a concept by integrating it within the larger perspective of social identity and by comparing and contrasting it with nation/nationalism and diaspora. While belonging to one group implies exclusions from other comparable groups, we see transnationalism as fitting well within the postmodern idea of fluid identity, where defining ones self depends on the audiences without affecting the ‘true’ meaning of self.

Before Crisis: Gender and Economic Outcomes of the Two Largest Immigrant Communities in Spain

In this study, we compare labor force outcomes of the two largest immigrant communities in Spain (Moroccans and Romanians) before the economic crisis hit. We are interested in understanding if and how gender influences the labor force outcomes (wage per hour, labor force participation, and unemployment rate) of these two immigrant groups. Our analyses show that, overall, gender is an important variable on Spanish labor market, but it affects differently the two groups. There is a male job market and a female job market for both Romanian and Moroccan immigrants, with men earning significantly higher wages than women. However, while for Moroccans, working women differ significantly from men in terms of demographic characteristics, Romanian women and men have similar demographic characteristics and comparable levels of labor force participation, but differ in terms of wage levels.

About Some 19th-Century Theories of Suicide Interpreting Suicide in an East European Country

In this article I compare the suicide theories advanced by two 19th-century thinkers, Masaryk and Durkheim, and test their conclusions using data from an East European country, Romania, before and after the 1989 fall of communism. Using data from various sources (censuses, vital statistical publications, European databases), I follow two main directions in my discussion: a) differences and similarities between the two theories of suicide and b) what can still be used from these theories to explain suicide as a social phenomenon.

Emigration and The Stable Population Model: Migration Effects on the Demographic Structure of the Sending Country

This chapter aims to extend the stable population model by analyzing emigration from a below replacement fertility population. After presenting the mathematical model of a stable population with constant age-specific rates of emigration, I apply this model to a population with below replacement fertility, Romania and its emigration to Spain. The dependency ratios as well as the number in the staying and emigrant population are calculated at two future points in time (100 and 150 years). The analysis finds two rather unexpected results: (1) constant age-specific emigration rates slightly improve the dependency ratio of the aging sending population, and (2) the difference in size between the population with and without emigration is rather small.

Where do we go from here? Climate change as a human affair

Although climate change has slowly emerged in academic, media and political debates as an important social issue, it might be too slow for something to change significantly before it is too late. As such, it is probably a good time for social scientists to get more involved in understanding and explaining how this entirely human affair can be tackled and how it will affect our lives. The three books reviewed here address the sociology of climate change from different perspectives.

How Are ‘the Others’ Doing? Highly Skilled Latin American Immigrants and Economic Crisis in the US and Spain

There is a tendency in the media to portray immigrants as a group of poor, low skilled people with little knowledge of the receiving country’s language or customs. While this general image might increase the natives’ awareness of the plight and problems of immigrants, it also leads to fear that immigrants profit from the financial resources of a country rather than contributing to the general wellbeing of the host society. One problem with this narrative is that it leaves aside an important part of the immigrant group, namely the highly skilled, a group that hardly can be described as using the resources rather than contributing to the welfare of the receiving country. In this chapter, we analyze the effects the 2008 economic crisis had on a subgroup of the highly skilled immigrants, namely Latin Americans in the United States and Spain. The general question that we want to answer is: what happens with this specific group of foreign born, with high human capital, during times of economic downturn? How affected are their unemployment and labor force participation rates by the Great Recession? Does the recession lead to marginalization or further marginalization of these immigrants? This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, we introduce the topic and review the literature, focusing on the two dimensions of interest: human capital and context of reception. We use Iredale’s (2001) definition of high-skilled immigrants as those having at least a bachelor degree The second part presents and discusses the data on the labor force characteristics in the US and Spain and the third part includes the conclusion.

Comparing Immigrant Education Levels and Resultant Labor Market Outcomes: The European Versus the Native Born Experience in the United States

In this paper we study the effects that education level has on the labor force participation and income of European immigrants in the United States. Although there are five million European- born persons currently living in the United States, they are a rather understudied group, most probably because of the assumption of their unproblematic assimilation in to the mainstream. Using secondary data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and New Immigrants Survey, we compare the labor market outcomes of the native White American and immigrant European population before the 2008 economic crisis, focusing on the differences that education makes in the lives of these immigrants.