Way Of Life Research Articles

The fall and rise of parental financial investments during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractObjectiveThis research note investigates changes in American parents' financial investments in children during the COVID‐19 pandemic, as well as whether and how changes in parents' spending varied based on parental education.BackgroundParents purchase goods, experiences, and services that shape children's human capital and life chances. Socioeconomic differences in parental expenditures on children represent an important pathway for perpetuating inequality across generations. The COVID‐19 pandemic disrupted children's lives in ways that may have changed these levels of investment.MethodThe 2015–2022 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) is used to describe spending on five key categories of investments in children's human capital (educational spending, extracurricular activities and lessons, computers and tablets, formal childcare, informal childcare) overall and by parental education. Mediation analysis assesses the extent school closures explain these changes.ResultsChildcare and extracurricular expenditures initially decreased significantly and then gradually recovered to pre‐pandemic levels by the end of 2021. Cutbacks were primarily among more educated families. However, spending on schooling increased in 2021 and computer and tablet purchases spiked in 2020, particularly among more educated families. Mediation analysis suggests that when expenditures were most affected by the pandemic (in 2020), school closures explained 50%–70% of those changes.ConclusionThis note provides evidence that during the pandemic socioeconomic inequalities in child‐related spending decreased in some categories of spending (e.g., childcare and extracurriculars) and increased in others (e.g., computers and tablets). Many changes appeared short‐term, but changes in education point to possible longer‐term shifts in parents' preferences about children's educational environments.

Entrepreneurial Competencies for Managing Business in Informal Economy: A Study of B40 Women Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Globally, the lack of participation among women in entrepreneurship is credited to a series of factors, including a lack of education, inadequate competencies, gender stereotypes, and inadequate access to resources. This study aims to assess the current competencies level of women entrepreneurs in the informal economy in Malaysia. The informal economy—also referred to as the shadow economy- is far more significant than the formal economy and a way of livelihood for many people in most developing countries. Second, this study aims to discover the skills and knowledge required by women entrepreneurs. This study employed a qualitative research approach and purposive sampling technique where 20 women entrepreneurs were selected as key informants. This study only focuses on women entrepreneurs from B40 groups in Kuala Lumpur with more than one year of business experience and involved in informal businesses such as street vendors, hawkers, and home-based businesses. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The study first found that most informants have limited business management competencies. The findings also have categorized the main competencies needed into seven main themes, namely, 1) communication, 2) strategic management, 3) financial management, 4) product innovation, 5) ICT skills, 6) time management, and 7) customer relationship management.

The Link Between Disability Adaptation and Subjective Well-Being (Empirical Evidence from Indonesia)

Persons with disabilities will experience life in ways that are not typical because they perceive the detrimental effects of declining or nonexistent material well-being as they become older. As there is not much socioeconomic literature on the subject, this study looks at the different types of disabilities and how they affect people's subjective well-being in a certain period of time. This study accommodates disabilities such as hearing loss, impaired hand and foot movement, difficulty communicating, and incapacity to care for oneself. We use household and individual data to collect disability and subjective well-being information, apply an adaptation model, and empirically examine the link between the two. Our findings show that the well-being of households with disabled members is lower, although they can adapt over time to the negative effects of disability on well-being. With the exception of people who suffer from vision and hearing impairments, material well-being is not usually positively correlated with disability. As a result, stronger adaptation may help the household welfare level to recover prior to disability (pre-disability). This indicates that if adaptation exists, the negative impacts of disability will tend to decrease with time. We suggest that the government needs to give their daily activities more consideration.

A Multigroup Structural Equation Modeling Approach for Analyzing Differences Among Sexually Diverse Youth

ABSTRACT High rates of negative behavioral health outcomes among sexually diverse (SD) youth are consistently documented, but population-level trends obscure within-group differences. Social dynamics intersect in youths’ lives in ways that cannot be accounted for by summing their independent effects. An intersectional perspective is essential to understanding the behavioral health outcomes of SD youth. We performed multigroup structural equation modeling using an SD subset of New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (N = 10,037) respondents to examine the moderating role of supportive adult relationships for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth across 12 intersecting (sexual orientation by race/ethnicity by sex) identity categories. Standardized estimates show that supportive relationships are associated with moderate reductions in psychological distress among lesbians (β = –0.459 for Native, β = –0.303 for Hispanic, and β = –0.421 for white) and female bisexual youth (β = –0.352 for Native, β = –0.376 for Hispanic, and β = –0.393 for white). Among male youth, supportive relationships are associated with reduced likelihood of substance use for gay (β = –0.330 for Native, β = –0.464 for Latinx and β = –0.591 for white) and bisexual youth (β = –0.442 for Native, β = –0.306 for Latinx and β = –0.290 for white). This study challenges monolithic characterizations of SD youth, illustrating that the health-promotive benefits of support differ based on sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and sex.

Loneliness dynamics and physical health symptomology among midlife adults in daily life.

The current study examined how average daily loneliness (between-persons [BPs]), intraindividual variability in loneliness across days (within-persons [WPs]), and loneliness stability informed physical health symptomatology. We utilized daily diary data from a national sample of 1,538 middle-aged adults (Mage = 51.02; 57.61% women) who completed eight end-of-day telephone interviews about daily experiences, including loneliness and physical health symptoms (e.g., headaches, nausea). Via multilevel modeling, we examined average daily loneliness (BPs), intraindividual variability in loneliness (WPs), stability in loneliness (individual mean-squared successive difference) in association with the number and average severity of daily physical health symptoms. When participants were less lonely on average, and on days when loneliness was lower than a person's average, they had fewer and less severe physical health symptoms. Additionally, participants who were more stable in loneliness across 8 days had less severe physical health symptoms. Further, there was a stronger association between instability in loneliness and more physical health symptoms for people who were lonelier on average. Finally, the increase in physical health symptom severity associated with WP loneliness was strongest for participants with low variability in loneliness. Loneliness is associated with physical health symptoms on a day-to-day basis, especially for people who are highly variable in loneliness. Considerations of multiple sources of variation in daily loneliness may be necessary to adequately address loneliness and promote health. Public health interventions addressing loneliness may be most effective if they support social connectedness in people's everyday lives in ways that promote stable, low levels of loneliness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Utilization of Way of Life (WOL) Animation Video as a Learning Media for Islamic Cultural History (SKI) Fourth Grade Students at MI Nurul Islam

Abstract: This study examines the utilization of video as a medium for teaching the history of Islamic culture in grade 4 MI Nurul Islam. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method, the data collection method used in this research is the survey method. This research was conducted through a survey using a Google-like tool targeting 30 fourth-grade students of MI Nurul Islam. Data analysis shows that 100% answered yes that learning the history of Islamic culture through animated videos is easy to understand. The results showed that all fourth-grade students of MI Nurul Islam responded positively to animated video learning according to their wishes. The conclusion of the research revealed that the animated video learning was fun, easy to understand, and by the wishes of the students and they gave a positive response to the fun animated video learning. The contribution of this research is as a source of scientific information in Islamic religious education about the use of way of life (wool) animation videos as a medium for learning Islamic cultural history (ski) at school.Abstrak: Penelitian ini mengkaji pemanfaatan video sebagai media pengajaran sejarah budayaan Islam di kelas 4 MI Nurul Islam. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif, metode pengumpulan data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode survei. Penelitian ini dilakukan melalui survei menggunakan alat sejenis Google yang menyasar 30 siswa kelas IV MI Nurul Islam. Analisis data menunjukkan 100% menjawab ya bahwa mempelajari sejarah kebudayaan Islam melalui video animasi itu mudah. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa seluruh siswa kelas IV MI Nurul Islam memberikan respon positif terhadap pembelajaran video animasi sesuai dengan keinginannya. Kesimpulkan penelitian mengungkap bahwa pembelajaran video animasi itu menyenangkan, mudah dipahami dan sesuai dengan keinginan para siswa dan mereka memberikan respon positif terhadap pembelajaran video animasi menyenangkan. Kontribusi penelitian ini sebagai sumber informasi ilmu pengetahuan di bidang pendidikan agama islam tentang pemanfaatan video animasi way of life (wol) sebagai media pembelajaran sejarah kebudayaan islam (ski) di sekolah.

Methods for studying structural oppression in quantitative family research

AbstractResearchers have long documented the impact of social inequalities on family life. Most family research has focused on inequalities at the individual and family levels, and extant studies on macro‐level conditions have primarily examined economic conditions and specific family‐focused social policies. Yet, an emerging body of largely conceptual research suggests that structural inequities also have enormous power to shape families. Structural racism, structural sexism, and structural sexual and gender minority oppression, and other forms of structural injustice operate across various levels (macro, meso, and micro) and systems (e.g., educational, economic, political, criminal‐legal, etc.), to influence individuals' social environments and everyday lives in ways that may impact how, when, and where people form families. Structural oppression, moreover, may influence relationship quality, caregiving patterns, child outcomes, and various other aspects of family life. Yet, the consequences of these structural forces for families have not yet been thoroughly examined. In this article, we (1) develop a conceptual framework linking structural oppression to family characteristics and outcomes, (2) outline innovative approaches for conceptualizing and measuring structural oppression and describe how incorporating these approaches can move the field of family science forward, and (3) make several recommendations regarding best practices and fruitful avenues for future research.

Mourning, melancholia and machines: An applied psychoanalytic investigation of mourning in the age of griefbots*

ABSTRACT Death and mourning are being shaped by posthumous opportunities for the dead to affect current life in ways not possible in pre-digital generations. The psychological and sociological impact of the dead ‘online’ and of ‘grief tech’ is only beginning to be understood. It has not yet been explored psychoanalytically until this paper that examines one type of grief tech, namely the griefbot. This development is critically explored through a psychoanalytic reading of an episode of Black Mirror. I suggest that a psychoanalytic model of mourning provides an invaluable perspective to help us to think about this technology’s potential as well as the psychological and ethical risks it poses. I argue that the immortalisation of the dead through digital permanence works against facing the painful reality of loss and the recognition of otherness, which is fundamental to psychic growth and to the integrity of our relationships with others. Drawing on Derrida’s conceptualization of ‘originary mourning’, I suggest that mourning is an interminable process that challenges us to preserve within the self the otherness of the lost object. The tools we use for mourning need to be assessed first and foremost against this psychological and fundamentally ethical process.

“I never planned for it”—Exploration of expectations about caring for older parents

AbstractThe projected increase in older dependent adults will continue straining formal care services whilst increasing the reliance on unpaid carers, in England and internationally. While motivations and willingness to care among unpaid carers have been explored, expectations around the caregiving role remain under‐researched. This article delves into expectations of middle‐aged individuals around providing care to an older parent in the future. Data collected through six focus groups with 35 mid‐life individuals, a mix of individuals with and without caring experience, were analysed thematically, cross‐sectionally, and with reference to different phases in the caregiving trajectory. Participants showed predicted, in some cases normative, expectations about taking on the role of carer for an older parent. Such expectations were rooted in emotional and socio‐cultural factors and influenced how people self‐identified as a carer. Expectations about what the role would entail were unformed: they were described as conditional on the uncertain and changing care needs of the older parents (‘caregiving creep’). Those with caring experience highlighted that, in hindsight, their prior expectations did not match their actual experience of the role, requiring greater time commitment and impacting their life in ways they had not anticipated. When thinking about the future, participants envisaged stepped changes in care arrangements to meet increasing, albeit uncertain, care needs, but acknowledged their lack of awareness around the care options available to them. Policies aiming to improve general awareness about caregiving, support early identification of carers, and address their information need throughout their caregiving journey should be a priority.

Cloud Based Ccmc Model for Application of Genetic Algorithm Based on Cloud Computing in Art Product Design

Art design has entered a new era with the integration of cloud computing technology, revolutionizing the creative process and expanding artistic possibilities. By leveraging the vast computational power and storage capabilities of cloud platforms, artists can explore innovative techniques, collaborate with peers remotely, and access a wealth of digital resources from anywhere in the world. Cloud computing enables artists to work with large-scale datasets, create complex visualizations, and render high-resolution artworks with ease. Moreover, cloud-based tools and applications offer flexibility and scalability, allowing artists to experiment freely and iterate rapidly. Whether creating digital paintings, 3D animations, or interactive installations, cloud computing empowers artists to push the boundaries of their creativity and bring their visions to life in ways previously unimaginable. This paper presents an innovative application of genetic algorithm (GA) leveraging cloud computing technology for art product design, with a focus on the Centralized Clustering Middle Chain (CCMC) framework. By harnessing the computational power and scalability of cloud platforms, GA facilitates the optimization of design parameters to generate novel and aesthetically pleasing art products. The CCMC framework streamlines the design process by centralizing data clustering and analysis, enabling efficient exploration of design space and identification of optimal solutions. Through simulated experiments and empirical evaluations, the effectiveness of the GA-based approach in art product design is assessed. Results demonstrate significant improvements in design quality and efficiency, with the GA-enabled cloud computing solution achieving a 40% reduction in design iteration time and a 30% increase in product innovation compared to traditional methods.

Temporary Workers Who Pursue the Contemporary Well-Lived, Flourishing Life: A Qualitative Study

Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia guided this investigation on a growing and essential group of professionals that seeks voluntary role transitions to meaningfully advance their careers and nonwork priorities. Using the Straussian grounded theory approach, this interview-based qualitative study: (1) discusses how participants’ work arrangement enabled them to organize their work and nonwork lives in ways that were subjectively meaningful to them; (2) highlights how participants gave meaning to their work in relation to their social ties; and (3) contributes to the communication literature on meanings of work and human flourishing in communication studies.

Just not cricket: Baseball, youth and national identity in late nineteenth-century children’s magazines

In the late nineteenth century, baseball became enshrined as America’s national sport. Across American culture, the game became imbued with a series of values and characteristics that seemed redolent of life in the Gilded Age and beyond. This article explores the ways in which this process played out in the pages of popular magazines directed at the children of the nation’s elite. These neglected resources provide us with an extraordinary lens through which to chart both the changing place of the national game within the lives of American children and the changing meaning of baseball within the life of the nation. In poems, stories, illustrations, editorials and even reader’s letters, children were newly acculturated into the sporting life in ways that had profound implications for wider questions of childhood, gender, race, class and national identity.

Perceptions around COVID-19 among patients and community members in urban areas in Cameroon: A qualitative perspective.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cameroonian government, to abide by international regulations, prescribed preventive measures, which affected many aspects of social, political, economic, and cultural life. However, there needs to be more in-depth exploration of how communities in Cameroon perceived and were impacted by COVID-19. We explored perceptions and misconceptions concerning COVID-19's impact on urban communities' daily lives in Cameroon. We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with a heterogeneous sample of 25 participants from five different social categories (health personnel, patients with a confirmed COVID-19 infection, close contacts of patients, community members, and community leaders) to assess their perceptions of the disease. Interviews and FGDs were recorded, fully transcribed, coded manually, and analyzed using a thematic analysis iterative coding process. Three main themes were identified: 1) Knowledge of COVID-19: antagonism between disease and invention, 2) Barrier measures imposed by the "dominant culture," and 3) Impact of COVID-19 on daily lives. Our study revealed perceptions around general knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting acceptance and observation of government-imposed protective measures while highlighting the significant changes endured in participants' daily lives. These findings draw attention to the need to develop flexible and appropriate response strategies for different communities. Although Cameroonian populations were not as intensely affected by the burden of the disease of COVID-19 as other regions, they were still compelled to follow static "cookie-cutter" measures that were internationally imposed, affecting their daily lives in ways that seemed disproportionate to their own experiences of the crisis. These findings have potential implications for the legitimacy of public health institutions and responses.

Music Engagement as Part of Everyday Life in Dementia Caregiving Relationships at Home.

Emerging evidence suggests music-based interventions can improve the well-being of people living with dementia, but little is known about the ways in which music might support dementia caregiving relationships as part of everyday life at home. This study examined music engagement in the context of daily life to identify patterns of music engagement and potential targets for the design of music-based interventions to support well-being. This ethnographic, in-home study of people living with dementia and their family and professional care partners used methods from ethnomusicology, including semistructured interviews and in-home participant observation with a focus on music engagement. A total of 21 dyads were purposively recruited for diversity in terms of gender, ethnicity/race/heritage, caregiving relationship, and music experiences. Despite participants' diverse music preferences, 3 distinct music engagement patterns emerged. (a) Professional care partners intentionally integrated music listening and singing into daily life as part of providing direct care. (b) Family care partners, who had prior dementia care nursing experience or family music traditions, integrated music into daily life in ways that supported their personal relationships. (c) In contrast, family care partners, who lacked dementia care experience and had high levels of caregiver burden, disengaged from prior music-making. The distinct music engagement patterns reflect different needs on the part of dyads. It is important to continue to support dyads who engage in music daily and to consider developing music-based interventions to support well-being among dyads who have become disengaged from music.

Interference management in 5G and beyond networks: A comprehensive survey

During the last decade, wireless data services have had an incredible impact on people’s lives in ways we could never have imagined. The number of mobile devices has increased exponentially and data traffic has almost doubled every year. Undoubtedly, the rate of growth will continue to be rapid with the explosive increase in demands for data rates, latency, massive connectivity, network reliability, and energy efficiency. In order to manage this level of growth and meet these requirements, the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communications network is envisioned as a revolutionary advancement combining various improvements to previous mobile generation networks and new technologies, including the use of millimeter wavebands (mm-wave), massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) multi-beam antennas, network densification, dynamic Time Division Duplex (TDD) transmission, and new waveforms with mixed numerologies. New revolutionary features including terahertz (THz) communications and the integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) can further improve the performance and signal quality for future 6G networks. However, despite the inevitable benefits of all these key technologies, the heterogeneous and ultra-flexible structure of the 5G and beyond network brings non-orthogonality into the system and generates significant interference that needs to be handled carefully. Therefore, it is essential to design effective interference management schemes to mitigate severe and sometimes unpredictable interference in mobile networks. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of interference management in 5G and Beyond networks and discuss its future evolution. We start with a unified classification and a detailed explanation of the different types of interference and continue by presenting our taxonomy of existing interference management approaches. Then, after explaining interference measurement reports and signaling, we provide for each type of interference identified, an in-depth literature review and technical discussion of appropriate management schemes. We finish by discussing the main interference challenges that will be encountered in future 6G networks and by presenting insights on the suggested new interference management approaches, including useful guidelines for an AI-based solution. This review will provide a first-hand guide to the industry in determining the most relevant technology for interference management, and will also allow for consideration of future challenges and research directions.

HOW OFTEN AND WHY DO PEOPLE MANAGE THEIR EMOTIONS?: EMOTION REGULATION IN HEALTHY AGING AND MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

Abstract Prominent theories of adult development suggest that individuals increasingly prioritize emotional goals and social relationships as they grow older. Accordingly, older adults are expected to invest more in maintaining their emotional well-being compared to younger adults. Prior work suggests that older adults may accomplish this goal by structuring their lives in ways that reduce the need to manage unwanted emotion. We tested the hypotheses that (1) older adults regulate their emotions less often in daily life compared to younger adults, and (2) when emotion regulation occurs, older adults are relatively more motivated by pro-hedonic and social concerns. Using experience sampling (7x/day for 9 days), we assessed whether emotion regulation frequency and motives differ between younger adults (N = 70), cognitively normal older adults (N = 88), and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; N = 60). We found that older adults with and without MCI regulated their emotions less frequently than younger adults, even when controlling for mean levels of positive and negative emotional experience. However, there were largely no group differences in emotion regulation motives (i.e., why people wanted to manage their emotions). Future work is needed to explore how age-related differences in life contexts might contribute to less need for emotion regulation in relatively older adults. Less frequent regulation could be beneficial in terms of helping older adults preserve their more limited cognitive resources. The findings regarding motives add to growing research on aging which suggest maintenance or similarity in many emotion regulation processes across adulthood.

Infrabanking: Mobilizing capital in communist Cuba

AbstractIn 2011, the Cuban government authorized banks to start offering loan credit to the country's growing number of small businesses for the first time since the beginning of the revolution. Yet in the following years, citizens have largely circumvented these services. This article draws on twenty months of fieldwork among market traders in Havana to examine why so few Cubans rely on the formal banking system to secure capital. It analyzes alternative methods people employ to organize their financial futures, by leveraging kinship ties, partnerships, friendships, property, and loan sharks, and by participating in rotating savings and credit associations. To understand the advantages these approaches offer to mobilize capital, it is crucial to grasp how people navigate their economic lives in ways that are influenced but not dictated by short‐term considerations of net profit. Nonmonetary concerns about access, time frame, and visibility lead people to raise and store wealth outside the formal banking system, constituting a domain I call infrabanking: banking practices that are too far removed from the established assumptions about banking to be perceived as part of the same phenomenon.

Imagining futures/future imaginings: creative heritage work with young people in Uganda

Drawing on research in Uganda, we describe our project in which we invited young people to think about their lives in ways that opened up creative and hopeful imaginaries of the future. We understand future imaginary work to be a significant part of memory work. An important component in the ways we think about the past is imagining the futures it ties to. We wanted the idea of the future to be something our young participants constructed together, in dialogue and iteratively, so that the project had a sense of collaboration and shared interests. To do so we developed the idea of a touring exhibition through which multiple voices, positions, understandings and values could be accommodated side by side. The article contributes to scholarly and public debates about reparations and memorialisation, particularly by showing the crucial role young people can play in articulating more just futures.

Weddings amidst War: the intimate and insurgent politics of marriage

ABSTRACT Putting insights from feminist political economy into conversation with the scholarship on legal identity, this article explores the use and effects of military marriages in reproducing the Kachin revolution. I argue that the organisation of weddings reproduces the revolution in both material and legal ways by creating new legal and political subjects with loyalties and responsibilities towards Kachin authorities. I suggest that the public nature of the weddings creates bonds of allegiance, expectations regarding the performance of particular gendered roles for men and women, and feelings of obligation towards Kachin authorities. These practices also stem from efforts by the KIO to encourage childbirth; although marriages across clan-lines are sanctioned, weddings outside the Kachin community as less acceptable to a leadership invested in reproducing a particular kind of Kachin citizen. This allows me to illustrate how the conferring of legal identity does not rely on documents alone, and turns our attention to how the practice of marriage ceremonies and their effects on everyday married life is generative of legal identity. This in turn shapes the organisation of daily lives in ways that both promote the continuance of the armed revolution and bind people to the nation-in-making.

Technological Tools for the Conservation and Dissemination of Valencian Design Archives

Design has shaped the world in which we live; it has improved our lives in ways we cannot even begin to imagine. Even if design is everywhere and is the memory of the world, collections associated with it are not usually well-known as design archives which capture spatial and temporal narratives. Saving these types of archives and making them accessible to the public, using them as cultural hubs, might improve our lives thanks to visual literacy, creativity, and innovation. The Arxiu Valencià del Disseny aims to recover, preserve, protect, and disseminate the archival cultural heritage of the Valencian designers. With a collection of more than 150,000 objects, it recovers history and evolution from the applied arts and product design, but with a markedly future-oriented character through the enhancement of the collections and their dissemination thanks to an intelligent computational system featuring cutting-edge technologies in order to prove our understanding of Valencian and European design. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, we introduce the AVD project, an interdisciplinary project that has been recently funded by the Valencian Government in order to preserve and promote the heritage of design archives; second, we introduce a set of interactive tools related to the project, such as the digitisation and cataloguing of the collection, the generation of a Design Memory Archive, advanced searching, and semantically relating the digitised collection of the Arxiu Valencià del Disseny based on data interoperability across its collections and a benchmarking tool for designers.