Thursday 28 March 2019
Where is the best place in the world to be a mother ?- some academic research!
Just for mother's day
some useful links to key statistical data on motherhood
Where is the best place in the world to be a mother ?
find out in the State of the World's Mothers report from Save the Children USA. It complied data on maternal and child health and prospects (economic/ educational/ political) and ranks 170 nations. In 2015 Norway came top. Download the full report to find out why
Health Data
Number of children - use the fertility data from the World Bank to find out in which countries mothers have the most children.
For information and data on maternal health, pregnancy and childbirth see the WHO website
Data indicates that a woman's education is a key factor in determining a child's survival.
from the Education Counts (EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, 2011)A child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past age 5. Working mothers.
Working mothers
The ILO produce women at work reports on trends. The 2016 report includes a section on the motherhood wage gap which is the decline in salary often experienced by mothers who return to work. This is further explored in this 2015 working paper.
Women spend 4.1 times more time in Asia and the Pacific in unpaid care work than men. According to the ILO report on Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work many of those are working mothers
Wednesday 27 March 2019
What is your favourite crisp? Get some academic research on all things crisp related!
A TV programme recently revealed a poll of the nation's favourite crisp. Look at this infographic from the BBC to see where your favourites score!
How many crisps do we eat?
Statista has some interesting data on crisps consumption and markets.It recorded that Walkers ranked first with its sales volume amounting to approximately 77 million kilograms of sold crisps in 2017.
The average household purchase per person per week of crisps and potato snacks in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2006 to 2016/17 remained fairly steady with an average of 55 grams of crisps per person per week consumed.
Data for this was taken from Family Food Surveys conducted by the UK government. Original datasets can be downloaded form the 1970s onwards tracking amount consumed and average household expenditure.These include data by region and socio economic position. Interestingly these show in the early 1970s average 20gs were consumed per person per week, rising to 69g in the mid 1990s and falling back since to 50 gs
Does advertising effect consumption?
Interesting analysis from NHS of a series of surveys
Sustain has produced publications which have focussed on the marketing practices of junk food manufacturers to school children
Another factor is increasing size of packets. This Cochrane review from the University of Cambridge found using data from 72 studies and over 6,700 participants, showed that people consume more food and non-alcoholic drink when offered bigger portions, bigger packaging, or bigger tableware rather than smaller sizes,
The location of crisps in the shops also effects consumption. This 2018 study from the University of Cambridge found that if packets were located near the checkout people bought and ate more chocolate and crisps
Locate more medical research on crisps, junk food consumption and health using PubMed
and NHS evidence . This has abstracts of articles, plus NHS guidelines and analysis
Friday 22 March 2019
Social science sites of the week
Here is the latest round up of new and interesting sites for social scientists
In the news this week
If you were expecting Brexit.
Just go to our blog posting for key moments!
International Happiness Day
International Day of Happiness is celebrated on the 20th March
Research happiness using our free resources
French Language Day
Find out more on the official website
and on the UN website
find out how many people speak French Worldwide in this 2018 report by the Observatoire Francophonie. Lots more great data and infographics on this from the main website
Our favourite French Language resources -all these are free!
Banned Books in France and the United States, 17th-20th Centuries
Find out more on the official website
and on the UN website
find out how many people speak French Worldwide in this 2018 report by the Observatoire Francophonie. Lots more great data and infographics on this from the main website
Our favourite French Language resources -all these are free!
Banned Books in France and the United States, 17th-20th Centuries
Works from the Kinsey Institute and the Lilly Library
fascinating and shocking online exhibition from special collections based at the University of Indiana. Covers a selection of books legally banned for political, religious and ‘moral’ reasons from 17th-20th century. Includes explanations, excerpts of text and related court cases. Links to images and full text is provided wherever possible and there is a bibliography to guide further reading.
Attitudes to Domestic Violence in Low and Middle Income Countries: A multi-level approach to primary prevention
For those thinking this is a thing of the past review the “Frequently Challenged Books” established by the American Library Association which lists books removed from library shelves in the USA.
New Suffrage Papers Online
The papers of suffragist and political strategist Carrie Chapman Catt, including her time as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress.
They include a large collection of letters, diaries, speeches and campaign notes. Associated teaching materials on history of suffrage in the USA are also accessible. The main period covered is 1890-1920.
Where is the World’s Most Expensive City?
According to the latest EIU intelligence report. In 2019 it was shared by Singapore, Hong Kong and Paris. The methodology uses 400 individual prices across 160 categories .Free registration is required to access the full text. Annual reports from 2015 also available from the website for comparison.
Atlas of Urban Expansion
the NYU Urban Expansion Program New York University, in partnership with UN-Habitat and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, is working on the atlas which shows both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of urban growth worldwide.
It focuses on 200 cities in three main time periods. Circa 1990, circa 2000, and circa 2014. Maps include urban density, growth, infrastructure. Phase three includes land ownership, housing and affordability . Users can consult maps and data sets with more being added on a rolling basis.
Attitudes to Domestic Violence in Low and Middle Income Countries: A multi-level approach to primary prevention
This project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders Awards and led by the University of Bristol The three main aims of this studywere to examine the prevalence and distribution of women’s and men’s acceptance of Intimate Partner violence in 49 low- and middle-income countries to identify systemic country-level social, political and economic empowerment factors alongside individual-/household-level factors associated with the acceptance of domestic violence and; to examine the influence of legislation. It includes microdata from the national Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), and from UNDP, OECD, World Bank, UNESCO databases as well as topic-specific databases such as WomenStats, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) . Findings and papers can be downloaded from the website
Horizons Report - Emerging Technologies and the Mental Health Challenge
Interesting new JISC report .The first section focuses on summarising the major strategic challenges the sector is facing. These include: marketization/ metrics/cybersecurity/AI/ Internet of things/ blockchain The second section consists of a horizon scan of mental health and wellbeing and considers how technology can help and present challenges for mental health and well-being.
Finally
This week we celebrated the First Day of Spring and the UK research councils launched a new project to create a crowd sourced nature diary. Look at the hashtag shown on their site to see contributions . Alternatively Listen to
The dawn chorus from the National Sound Archive at the British Library. Where they provide free access to many wildlife sound recordings online.
Attitudes to Domestic Violence in Low and Middle Income Countries: A multi-level approach to primary prevention
For those thinking this is a thing of the past review the “Frequently Challenged Books” established by the American Library Association which lists books removed from library shelves in the USA.
New Suffrage Papers Online
The papers of suffragist and political strategist Carrie Chapman Catt, including her time as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress.
They include a large collection of letters, diaries, speeches and campaign notes. Associated teaching materials on history of suffrage in the USA are also accessible. The main period covered is 1890-1920.
Where is the World’s Most Expensive City?
According to the latest EIU intelligence report. In 2019 it was shared by Singapore, Hong Kong and Paris. The methodology uses 400 individual prices across 160 categories .Free registration is required to access the full text. Annual reports from 2015 also available from the website for comparison.
Atlas of Urban Expansion
the NYU Urban Expansion Program New York University, in partnership with UN-Habitat and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, is working on the atlas which shows both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of urban growth worldwide.
It focuses on 200 cities in three main time periods. Circa 1990, circa 2000, and circa 2014. Maps include urban density, growth, infrastructure. Phase three includes land ownership, housing and affordability . Users can consult maps and data sets with more being added on a rolling basis.
Attitudes to Domestic Violence in Low and Middle Income Countries: A multi-level approach to primary prevention
This project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders Awards and led by the University of Bristol The three main aims of this studywere to examine the prevalence and distribution of women’s and men’s acceptance of Intimate Partner violence in 49 low- and middle-income countries to identify systemic country-level social, political and economic empowerment factors alongside individual-/household-level factors associated with the acceptance of domestic violence and; to examine the influence of legislation. It includes microdata from the national Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), and from UNDP, OECD, World Bank, UNESCO databases as well as topic-specific databases such as WomenStats, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) . Findings and papers can be downloaded from the website
Horizons Report - Emerging Technologies and the Mental Health Challenge
Interesting new JISC report .The first section focuses on summarising the major strategic challenges the sector is facing. These include: marketization/ metrics/cybersecurity/AI/ Internet of things/ blockchain The second section consists of a horizon scan of mental health and wellbeing and considers how technology can help and present challenges for mental health and well-being.
Finally
This week we celebrated the First Day of Spring and the UK research councils launched a new project to create a crowd sourced nature diary. Look at the hashtag shown on their site to see contributions . Alternatively Listen to
The dawn chorus from the National Sound Archive at the British Library. Where they provide free access to many wildlife sound recordings online.
Tuesday 19 March 2019
International Francophonie Day / French language day - share our favourite resources!
International Francophonie Day (French: Journée internationale de la Francophonie) is observed within the International Organization of La Francophonie's 77 member states every March 20 to celebrate the French language and Francophone culture
Find out more on the official website
and on the UN website
find out how many people speak French Worldwide in this 2018 report by the Observatoire Francophonie. Lots more great data and infographics on this from the main website
Our favourite French Language resources - all these are free!
Gallica from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France thousands of free historic books and images
from colouring books to the social history of cooking and recipe books
Institut National de l'Audiovisuel
100,000 radio and television programmes available to download.
includes free aces to some historic adverts. and dossiers on politics, economic and society in which many individual clips are free.
Culturethèque
from the the Institut français du Royaume-Uni,register to get free acess to online books, magazines and journals including those for french language learners.
Theses.Fr Portail des thèses confié à l’ABES included theses in preparation.
Persee free ejournal articles. lUniversité de Lyon, du CNRS et de l'ENS de Lyon
International happiness day - try these free research resources
International Day of Happiness is celebrated on the 20th March
Research happiness using our free resources
Where are the world's happiest places?
World Happiness Report 2018, ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels. the 2019 report is due to be launched on the 20th March Download the data and consult the methodology on the website.
Does social media make you happy or unhappy?
This week the All-Party Group All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Media and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Inquiry: “Managing the Impact of Social Media on Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing” called for safeguards but their surveys also found that two thirds of those answering found social media useful for sourcing health information
Research scientific/ medical articles on this topic using PubMed or use PsycNET from the American Psychological Association to find references to psychology materials. If you are linked to a local/ university library remember to check if they have full text access.
How can you measure happiness?
The OECD has discussed methodology (in terms of OECD nations) in a number of its reports.
this includes the very interesting
How Was Life? Global Well-being since 1820 - which covers 25 nations.
they have also developed the Better Life Index- which compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
UK government official measures of national well being and satisfaction. See the 2018 National Well being Index
Other well known measures include:
Happy Planet Index
This index from the UK based think-tank the The New Economics Foundation measures 3 components of sustainable well-being - life expectancy, experienced well-being and ecological footprint.
Centre for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research's works on Gross National Happiness. relates to public agendas in Bhutan
World Database of Happiness research from Rotterdam University has a bibliography and searchable database of more articles and reports on all aspects of the topic of Happiness
Wednesday 13 March 2019
Today is the Spring Statement- useful places to get started
The Spring statement will be announced today TV will be made available on the parliamentary channel
Transcripts will be made available later in the day on Hansard
LSE members can watch archived materials (since 1997) via the Box of Broadcasts service
Transcripts will be made available later in the day on Hansard
LSE members can watch archived materials (since 1997) via the Box of Broadcasts service
Analysis
Financial Analysis
Thursday 7 March 2019
Will people need cash in the future?
This week the Access to Cash report was published. this independent survey found that the many people in the UK , primarily the poor, continue to rely heavily on cash . Indeed
17% of adults surveyed would find it difficult to manage. Other reports can be found on the main review website
Yet at the same time Link data from ATM shows trends in declining withdrawal of cash
British Retail Consortium showed 75% of sales in September 2018 for its surveyed members were by card
Faster Payments Statistics - which is now part of UK Payments has details on the volume of faster payments made by chaps, cheques cash etc,
Bank of England records high levels of bank notes still in circulation
the issue perhaps then is the background of the user.
In 2018 Which? summarised what it found to be the risks of cashless society
However there are still large numbers of people in the UK who dont have a bank account. in 2017 a Lords Committee report on financial exclusion and concluded that more than 1.7 million people in the UK were without a bank account. This Toynbee Hall research report from 2017 makes interesting reading on the reasons why.
For further facts and links to key agencies dealing and researching financial exclusion see this useful summary handout from the Resolution Foundation.
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