Fred C. Pampel

Welfare Spending in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950-1980

This paper addresses long-standing debates over the role of demographic structure, class power, class-based political parties, and democraphic political participation in the growth of the welfare state in advance industrial democracies from 1950 to 1980. It distinguishes four theories-industrialism, monopoly capitalism, social democratic, and interest-group politics-and tests them using pooled, cross-sectional, time-series data for 18 nations and seven time points. Total social welfare spending, composed primarily of social insurance benefits, is dominated by the size of the aged population, smaller but important effect of nonclass political variables such as voting participation and electoral competition, and interaction of age with political and other variables. Public assistance, means-tested programs, however, are dominated by class variables. Although evaluation of the theories must consider the domain of programs to which each best applies, the results generally favor an interest-group-politics theory, which posits the dominant influence of demographic and political factors.

Changes in the propensity to live alone: Evidence from consecutive cross-sectional surveys, 1960–1976

The rise in the proportion of single persons living alone in the United States over the last several decades has been explained in two ways. A consumer demand explanation suggests that increases in income and the ability of persons to afford the desired privacy and autonomy of single person households account for the rise. An alternative explanation suggests that norms, residence rules, and tastes have become more supportive of nonfamilial living arrangements in post-industrial societies and that the proportion of persons living alone would have increased substantially even if income had not risen. Previous evidence for these explanations comes from cross-sectional or aggregate data; this paper tests alternative predictions of the explanations using individual-level survey data from three time points—1960, 1970, and 1976. In contrast to predictions of the consumer demand explanation, the results show that major increases in the proportion of single persons living alone are unexplained by increases in income and other individual-level characteristics of respondents. Although the effect of income on living alone has been constant over time, the existence of significant additive effects of time is consistent with alternative explanations of structural changes in propensity to live alone.

Tobacco use in sub-Sahara Africa: Estimates from the demographic health surveys

Despite the growing problem of global tobacco use, accurate information on the prevalence and patterns in the worlds poorest nations remains sparse. For sub-Sahara Africa, in particular, a weak knowledge base limits the targeting of strategies to combat the potential growth of tobacco use and its harmful effect on future mortality. To describe the prevalence and social patterns of the use of cigarettes and other tobacco in Africa, this study examines population-based data from 16 Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) of men aged 15-54 years and women aged 15-49 years in 14 nations. Descriptive statistics show the highest cigarette use among men in several nations of east central Africa and Madagascar, lowest use in nations of west central Africa, and medium use in nations of southern Africa. Multinomial logistic regression results for men show highest cigarette use among urban, less educated, and lower status workers. Results for women show much lower prevalence than men but similar social patterns of use. The DHS results thus give new and comparable information about tobacco use in low-income nations, disadvantaged social groups, and an understudied region of the world.

Socioeconomic Status, Smoking, and Health: A Test of Competing Theories of Cumulative Advantage∗

Although both low socioeconomic status and cigarette smoking increase health problems and mortality, their possible combined or interactive influence is less clear. On one hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed least by unhealthy behavior such as smoking because, given the substantial health risks produced by limited resources, they have less to lose from damaging lifestyles. On the other hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed most by smoking because lifestyle choices exacerbate the health problems created by deprived material conditions. Alternatively, the harm of low status and smoking may accumulate additively rather than multiplicatively. We test these arguments with data from the 1990 U.S. National Health Interview Survey, and with measures of morbidity and mortality. For ascribed statuses such as gender, race, and ethnicity, and for the outcome measure of mortality, the results favor the additive argument, whereas for achieved status and morbidity, the results support the vulnerability hypothesis—that smoking inflicts greater harm among disadvantaged groups.

The Enduring Association between Education and Mortality The Role of Widening and Narrowing Disparities

This article examines how educational disparities in mortality emerge, grow, decline, and disappear across causes of death in the United States, and how these changes contribute to the enduring association between education and mortality over time. Focusing on adults age 40 to 64 years, we first examine the extent to which educational disparities in mortality persisted from 1989 to 2007. We then test the fundamental cause prediction that educational disparities in mortality persist, in part, by shifting to new health outcomes over time. We focus on the period from 1999 to 2007, when all causes of death were coded to the same classification system. Results indicate (1) substantial widening and narrowing of educational disparities in mortality across causes of death, (2) almost all causes of death with increasing mortality rates also had widening educational disparities, and (3) the total educational disparity in mortality would be about 25 percent smaller today if not for newly emergent and growing educational disparities since 1999. These results point to the theoretical and policy importance of identifying social forces that cause health disparities to widen over time.

Obesity, SES, and economic development: A test of the reversal hypothesis

Studies of individual countries suggest that socioeconomic status (SES) and weight are positively associated in lower-income countries but negatively associated in higher-income countries. However, this reversal in the direction of the SES-weight relationship and arguments about the underlying causes of the reversal need to be tested with comparable data for a large and diverse set of nations. This study systematically tests the reversal hypothesis using individual- and aggregate-level data for 67 nations representing all regions of the world. In support of the hypothesis, we find not only that the body mass index, being overweight, and being obese rise with national product but also that the associations of SES with these outcomes shift from positive to negative. These findings fit arguments about how health-related, SES-based resources, costs, and values differ across levels of economic development. Although economic and social development can improve health, it can also lead to increasing obesity and widening SES disparities in obesity.

Age Structure, Politics, and Cross-National Patterns of Public Pension Expenditures

This study examines the determinants of spending on public pensions. Unlike other programs, pensions benefit an easily identifiable, high voting group-the aged-and may be especially amenable to their political influence. With that in mind, we draw out predictions of industrialism and class theories for the explanation of public pension expenditures. The explanations are tested with data on 48 nations, at all levels of political and economic development, for four time points (1960, 1965, 1970, 1975). Pooling the data allows multivariate analysis of appropriate determinants both within and across different groups of nations, and detailed analysis of advanced industrial democracies. Industrialism variables such as percent aged, social insurance program experience, andfamily size have dominant effects. However, the effects of percent aged increase with political democracy, suggesting that the aged wield political power in increasing pension expenditures. Class variables, in contrast, have little or no effect on pensions, suggesting the importance of age politics over class politics in the spending for this program.

Trends in the Genetic Influences on Smoking

Using twin pairs from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, we estimate that 35 percent of the variance in regular smoking is due to additive genetic influences. When we disaggregate the sample by birth cohort we witness strong genetic influences on smoking for those born in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s, but negligible influences for those born in the 1940s and 1960s. We show that the timing of the first Surgeon General’s Report coincides with an increase in the genetic influences on regular smoking, but subsequent legislation prohibiting smoking in public places has significantly reduced these influences. These results are in line with existing gene-environment interaction theory, and we argue that variation in genetic influences across cohorts makes it difficult and potentially misleading to estimate genetic effects on health behaviors from data obtained from a single point in time.

NATIONAL CONTEXT, SOCIAL CHANGE, AND SEX DIFFERENCES IN SUICIDE RATES

Rejecting claims of either convergence or divergence in male and female suicide rates associated with changes in gender equality, I examine a hypothesis of institutional adjustment in which the sex differential in suicide rates first narrows and then widens with continued societal change. Further, I argue that among high-income nations, the degree of institutional adjustment varies with national context. Using aggregate data on age-specific suicide rates for men and women in 18 nations from 1953 to 1992, the analysis shows curvilinear effects of age, time, the female labor force participation rate, the divorce rate, and the marriage rate consistent with the institutional adjustment hypothesis. The analysis also shows that adjustment occurs more quickly among nations with collectivist rather than individualist institutions of social protection.

Climate Change and Western Public Lands: a Survey of U.S. Federal Land Managers on the Status of Adaptation Efforts

Climate change and its associated consequences pose an increasing risk to public lands in the western United States. High-level mandates currently require federal agencies to begin planning for adaptation, but the extent to which these mandates have resulted in policies being implemented that affect on the ground practices is unclear. To examine the status of adaptation efforts, we conducted an original survey and semistructured interviews with land managers from the four major federal land management agencies in the U.S. states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The survey was designed to examine current planning for adaptation on public lands and how it differs from prior planning, the major challenges facing land managers in this region, the major barriers preventing managers from planning for adaptation, and the major hurdles associated with implementing adaptation plans. Our results show that some adaptation planning is currently taking place, but that few adaptation projects have made it to the implementation phase. Overall, respondents considered lack of information at relevant scales, budget constraints, lack of specific agency direction, and lack of useful information to be the most common barriers to adaption planning. Budget constraints, lack of perceived importance to the public, and lack of public awareness or demand to take action were reported to be the biggest hurdles to implementation of adaptation projects. Agencies showed differing levels of adaptation activity, and reported different barriers to adaptation and hurdles to implementation. Reasons for the differences and implications for future research and policy are discussed.