Peripheral nerve injuries of the upper extremity in a pediatric population: Outcomes and prognostic factors.

Peripheral nerve injuries of the upper limb are rare in children and poorly documented. The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze long-term sensory and motor results, and to determine predictive factors for recovery after surgery. Eleven children, with a mean age at injury of 9.7 years (5-15), operated on between 2006 and 2018, were included. Sensory perception was measured on monofilament test and static 2-point discrimination test. Grip strength was measured with a dynamometer and motor strength was assessed on the Medical Research Council scale. Quality of life was assessed on QuickDASH. The injury involved the radial (n = 1), median (n = 9), or combined median and ulnar (n = 1) nerves and was repaired by primary direct suture (n = 11). The mechanism involved glass laceration (n = 10) or a road accident (n = 1). The dominant limb was involved in 7 cases. At a mean 7.7 years' follow-up, touch sensitivity was normal or slightly deficient on monofilament test. Discrimination test was normal or adequate. Strength was complete in 10 patients. Mean QuickDASH score was 5.99 (range, 0-18.18). There was no significant difference in sensory or motor recovery according to partial or complete lesion or to injury location. There was better sensory recovery in children <12 years (p < 0.05). Sensory prognosis was also better in the absence of associated lesions (p < 0.05). Sensory, motor and functional results after surgical treatment of peripheral nerve injuries of the upper limb in children were globally satisfactory. Sensory recovery was better at an early age and in the absence of associated lesions. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: IV.

Pathways to retirement: patterns of labor force participation and labor market exit among the pre-retirement population by race, Hispanic origin, and sex.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines the pre-retirement labor force participation behavior of Black, White, and Hispanic men and women to determine how patterns of labor market exit differ among groups. METHODS: We combine data from the first and second waves of the Health and Retirement Study and apply multinomial logit regression techniques to model labor force status in the first wave of the HRS and change over time. RESULTS: Black, Hispanic, and female elderly persons experience more involuntary job separation in the years immediately prior to retirement, and the resulting periods of joblessness often eventuate in "retirement" or labor force withdrawal. Minority disadvantage in human capital, health, and employment characteristics accounts for a large part of racial and ethnic differences in labor force withdrawal. Nevertheless, Black men and Hispanic women experience more involuntary labor market exits than Whites with similar socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. DISCUSSION: Workers most vulnerable to labor market difficulties during their youth confront formidable obstacles maintaining their desired level of labor force attachment as they approach their golden years. This has significant policy implications for the contours of gender and race/ethnic inequality among elderly persons, particularly as life expectancy and the size of the minority elderly population continue to increase.

Women's roles and family formation in Venezuela: new forms of consensual unions?

This paper assesses the effects of changes in women's education and labor force participation on nuptiality patterns and their implications for fertility decline in Venezuela. Results show that together with delays in union formation, changes in women's education and labor force participation produced a different, more "modern" type of consensual union, which coexists with "traditional" consensual unions. "Traditional" consensual unions remain a substitute for formal marriage among women from rural origins with low levels of education and higher levels of work experience. "Modern" consensual unions appear to be an option for well-educated women of urban origins. As in developed countries, these unions assume the form of a trial period before marriage or an alternative to singlehood. "Modern" consensual unions are more unstable than "traditional" consensual unions and they are associated with lower fertility.

The employment and wages of legalized immigrants.

"This article analyzes the employment and wages of recently legalized immigrants [in the United States] using the Legalization Application Processing System (LAPS) file, an administrative file based on the individual records of amnesty applicants, and draws comparisons with a sample of the foreign-born population from the Current Population Surveys of 1983, 1986 and 1988. Compared to the total foreign-born population, the legalized immigrant population differs in four important respects that bear on labor market position: 1) a younger age structure; 2) a less balanced gender composition; 3) a greater representation of Latin Americans; and 4) few years of U.S. residence. LAPS data reveal high rates of labor force participation among legalized immigrants, which exceeded the rates of the foreign-born population by approximately 5 and 17 percent for men and women, respectively."

Gender, migration and social change.

"This paper provides a critical review of existing studies about how migration alters women's position in the course of social change....First, the conceptual and methodological issues that bear on the assessment of changing gender relations are distilled from the existing literature. Second, for heuristic purposes we delineate three alternative outcomes for migrant women using the distribution-redistribution analytical framework....Finally, we provide a selective review of case studies illustrating alternative outcomes for migrant women in Africa and Latin America." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

The economic consequences of immigration.

Available research supports several major conclusions about the economic consequences of immigration. (i) The aggregate impacts of foreign workers on the earnings and employment of native workers are quite small, but differ for selected population subgroups and high ethnic density labor markets. (ii) Immigrants who arrived during the 1970s are less skilled than earlier arrivals, and their earnings will remain substantially below those of natives throughout their working lives. (iii) The evidence on immigrants' receipt of public assistance income is inconclusive.

The new immigration: implications for poverty and public assistance utilization.

Central to the controversy over the new immigration is the worry that it has promoted an increase in the level of poverty and welfare utilization among immigrants. This study documents and explains immigrant-native trends and differentials in poverty and public assistance utilization during the period from 1960-1980. Results show that there is ample evidence that the level of poverty among immigrants, particularly recent immigrants, increased over the 1960-1980 period. However, there was little indication of a commensurate rise in the propensity of families to receive public assistance. There is also little evidence of a disproportionate and increasing burden of immigrants on public assistance coffers as the new immigration proceeds. Recent immigrants are no more likely to receive welfare than otherwise comparable natives. Regarding average annual public assistance income among welfare families, the empirical results suggest that immigrants differ little from natives in their degree of utilization. Like immigrants of previous waves, the new immigrants appear to be industrious and able to capitalize on their labor force potential to keep them out of poverty. This conclusion derives from findings that 1) in both the tabular and multivariate context, multiple earners kept a greater % of immigrant than native families out of poverty, and 2) immigrants showed a relative disinclination to use welfare as an income maintenance strategy. Still, the decline over time in ameliorative impact of multiple earners should be a source of concern. Also central to the concern over the new immigration is the increasing prevalence of nonwhites among immigrant cohorts. The sizable Hispanic component of the new immigration is particularly controversial. Among the most consistent findings of this study is the apparent deterioration in the economic status of white immigrants and the noticeable lack of any similar deterioration among Hispanic families. For example, among all the groups studied, recent white immigrants registered the largest increases in poverty over time. Poverty among recent Hispanic immigrants did not increase as sharply. Also, Hispanics became increasingly reluctant to use public assistance income whereas recent white immigrants did not, and revealed an increase in mean annual welfare receipt not nearly as great as that for white and Asian families. Admittedly, rates of poverty and public assistance receipt continue to be greater among Hispanics than whites. Still, changes over time reveal a marked deterioration among whites but no such deterioration among Hispanics.

The effects of breastfeeding and pace of childbearing on mortality at early ages.

The effects of the pace of childbearing and breastfeeding practices on infant mortality have rarely been considered together. In this paper, we design and use a set of methodological tools to test a variety of hypotheses postulating the effects of breastfeeding and pace of childbearing on mortality in infancy and early childhood, the mechanisms through which those effects operate, and the contingencies that strengthen or weaken them. The strong effects of both length of breastfeeding and the pace of childbearing on the risks of child death suggest that neither of them exerts an impact on mortality totally mediated by the other. Social and demographic factors (such as age of child, education of mother, and region of residence) also condition the impact of breastfeeding and pace of childbearing on mortality.

Household structure and labor force participation of black, hispanic, and white mothers.

This paper investigates whether the inclusion of nonnuclear adults in a household facilitates the labor force participation of single and married mothers. Results based on a sample of extended and nuclear households show that the extension mechanism facilitates the labor market entry of married mothers, but not of single mothers. Interactions between extended structure, ethnicity, and poverty, however, suggest a complex relationship. For extended family households, the gender and employment characteristics of nonnuclear adults affected the labor force participation of single mothers, but the number of nonnuclear members was inversely associated with the market activity of married mothers. Policy implications are discussed in the final section.

Community characteristics, women's education, and fertility in Peru.

Using data from the World Fertility Survey of 1977-78, this paper examines how community characteristics influence completed fertility in Peru. The analysis shows that community characteristics do not condition (interact with) the effects of mother's education in determining completed fertility. Rather, the effects of community characteristics are best described by a threshold model, which posits that below or above critical cut points, the effects on fertility of community (or individual) characteristics will diminish or increase. Empirical results showed that residence in communities with higher levels of access to the benefits of development decreased completed fertility beyond what one would have predicted on the basis of women's characteristics alone, and this effect was further amplified with increasing levels of development.

Immigration, gender and the process of occupational change in the United States, 1970-1980.

PIP: Since World War II, the industrial shifts from agriculture to services have transformed the nature of employment opportunities in the US and generally resulted in occupational upgrading. This reorganization of occupations, which continued into the 1970s, has reduced the proportion of workers employed in the least skilled manual jobs. The most important result of this trend is that immigrant women--in fact women and men-- experienced both an improvement and deterioration in their occupational position. While the national pattern involved a decrease in relative employment of native workers as laborers and farm laborers, immigrant women increased their share of these jobs. Immigrant men moved into 4 occupational categories largely being abandoned by native-born workers--jobs as operatives, service workers, laborers and farm laborers. The shift of immigrant women into laborer jobs was made possible through changes in the organization of work within industries, rather than a change in the availability of the types of employers needing them. The well-advertised promise of employment in new growth industries, such as electronics, and the expansion of jobs requiring greater skills, is not uniformly available to all groups of women. Thus, jobs requiring few skills and offering few opportunities for advancement are usually filled by migrant ethnic workers, particularly women, who also lack leverage for demanding and securing higher status positions. The combination of the relative increase in the proportion of immigrant men and women in the least skilled manual jobs left behind by native-born workers, and the apparent concentration of specific national origin groups in these jobs, renders this important segment of the labor market clearly identifiable on political and ethnic ground. It also contributes to the understanding of the on-going debate as to whether immigrant workers displace or complement native work force.^ieng

Child and spouse replacement mechanisms: a life cycle perspective on family composition in Peru.

PIP: The author assesses the patterns of family extension in Peru by examining variations in family composition over the family life cycle. The amount and type of extension among Peruvian families at successive stages of family development are examined. The relative importance of general overlap and of child and spouse replacement mechanisms as processes that help to ensure the viability of residential family units is studied. The empirical analysis is based on a 1970-1971 survey of a national sample of Peruvian households^ieng