Climate change-induced migration: a bibliometric review.

BACKGROUND: This paper has reviewed the international research on the terms "climate change" and "human migration" from 1999 to 2019. To this end, a bibliometric and a cluster analysis by fractional accounting have been carried out using two of the most important databases: Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. The research found and studied 140 documents from WoS Core Collection and 193 from Scopus. RESULTS: The results show a continual increase in the number of articles published and citations received during the whole period studied. The U.S., U.K., Germany and China have been shown to be the most productive countries and there is a predominance of North American organizations supporting and fostering research on these topics. CONCLUSIONS: The main contribution of this article is the analysis of new tendencies. The trend shows a transition from concepts such as vulnerability, climate change, land degradation, refugees and security to others such as concepts such as international migration, climate justice, sustainability, human rights and disaster risk reduction. Future research in this field should address the comparison of results from research focused on human beings to a focus on other living beings.

Mapping green infrastructure and socioeconomic indicators as a public management tool: the case of the municipalities of Andalusia (Spain).

BACKGROUND: Green Infrastructure (GI) is defined as a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural spaces that provide society, in both rural and urban areas, with a large number of goods and services of great value and economic importance such as clean air and water, carbon storage, pollination or protection against the effects of climate change. Traditionally, municipalities, like other territorial units, are characterized by a series of social and economic indicators that determine their degree of local development. The objective of this article is to identify and assess, through a system of indicators, what role urban and rural municipalities in Andalusia (Spain) play in the provision and reception of ecosystem services. To this end, Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques are used and a cluster analysis is carried out to contrast the results. RESULTS: Rural municipalities show the largest portion of GI area in the whole region. However, they show a low socioeconomic level, with high unemployment rates. CONCLUSIONS: It can be said that the municipalities in rural areas are "ecologically" financing the entire Andalusian population. Faced with this situation, the decisions, and actions of policymakers in this region should aim at promoting measures that can restore and conserve GIs, addressing the demographic and/or socioeconomic imbalances of the region.

The Relative Importance of Globalization and Public Expenditure on Life Expectancy in Europe: An Approach Based on MARS Methodology.

BACKGROUND: There has been a widespread debate about the overall impact of globalization on population, not just economically, but also in terms of health status. Moreover, the current health crisis is going to force governments to review the structure of the public budget to most effectively alleviate the negative economic and health effects on the population. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to analyze the relative importance of globalization and the public budget composition-specifically the participation of public expenditure on healthcare, social services and environment in gross domestic product (GDP)-on life expectancy at birth in European countries during the period 1995-2017. METHODS: The Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) methodology was applied to analyze the socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy at birth. RESULTS: Our findings show that globalization has no relative importance as an explanatory variable of life expectancy in European countries, while government expenditure on social protection is the most relevant followed by public expenditure on health, gross national income per capita, education level of the population and public expenditure on environmental protection. CONCLUSION: European strategies intended to impact on health outcome should spend more attention to the composition of public budget.

The impact of the introduction of bilingual learning on sixth grade educational achievement levels.

Bilingualism was implemented in the Community of Madrid (Spain) more than ten years ago, through the incorporation of the English language in the teaching methods of certain schools. Since that time, various research projects have been carried out, with the objective of comparing the academic performance of students in bilingual schools with those in non-bilingual schools. The present paper makes use of primary education data from the Department of Education and Research for the Community of Madrid in an effort to analyze whether or not bilingualism results in the relative improvement of educational outcomes achieved in primary schools in the Region of Madrid, in Spain. More specifically, the data used is from sixth grade classrooms, given that, generally speaking, in this grade all schools give a standardized test which measures academic performance in Math, Science and Technology, Spanish Language Arts and English Language Arts. Our assessment makes use of a multinomial logit model, and includes the most common variables found in the research on the determination of educational outcomes (variables related to whether or not schools are bilingual, which is the main focus of this paper), as well as other less common variables considered to be relevant. These include absenteeism, satisfaction levels among families and students, and the percentage of students in second chance programs. The results show that bilingualism does not lower children performance in the subjects taught in English or in the subjects taught in Spanish. Academic performance in Mathematics, Science and Technology, and Spanish Language Arts is similar with respect to those schools which are not bilingual. However, results in English are significantly higher in bilingual schools when compared to non-bilingual schools.

A Causal Analysis of Life Expectancy at Birth. Evidence from Spain.

BACKGROUND: From a causal point of view, there exists a set of socioeconomic indicators concerning life expectancy. The objective of this paper is to determine the indicators which exhibit a relation of causality with life expectancy at birth. METHODS: Our analysis applies the Granger causality test, more specifically its version by Dumitrescu-Hurlin, starting from the information concerning life expectancy at birth and a set of socioeconomic variables corresponding to 17 Spanish regions, throughout the period 2006-2016. To do this, we used the panel data involving the information provided by the Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare (MHCSW) and the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). RESULTS: Per capita income, and the rate of hospital beds, medical staff and nurses Granger-cause the variable "life expectancy at birth", according to the Granger causality test applied to panel data (Dumitrescu-Hurlin's version). CONCLUSIONS: Life expectancy at birth has become one of the main indicators able to measure the performance of a country's health system. This analysis facilitates the identification of those factors which exhibit a unidirectional Granger-causality relationship with life expectancy at birth. Therefore, this paper provides useful information for the management of public health resources from the point of view of the maximization of social benefits.