Abstract This study examines the relationship between educational and reproductive choices and aims to establish whether they compete in the lives of young Russian women born in the 1990s. The authors use longitudinal data of the ‘Trajectories in Education and Careers’ survey (2011–2021; panel sample N = 992) and successively apply sequence analysis, cluster analysis, and regression analysis. The latter shows that young women who initially have no plans for a long course of study choose early motherhood. Giving birth while studying lengthens the educational trajectory rather than interrupts it. However, the most preferred strategy of young Russian females is a long course of study and delayed childbearing. The predictors of this choice include, inter alia, a high socio-economic status of the parental family, residence in large urban centers, good grades at high school, individual plans to get tertiary education, and higher educational expectations of parents. These factors affect both educational and reproductive choices.
Abstract This article seeks a synthesis of causal and teleological explanations of social behaviour. Causal explanations assume that social phenomena are determined by factors of the past. Teleological explanations are based on the assumption that social phenomena are the result of the intentions and goals of individual or collective actors. This article proposes to distinguish between behavioural constraints that define a decision space and the utilisation of this space by social actors. The behavioural constraints can easily be explained by causal factors whereas the utilization of the resulting decision space typically depends on the intentions of the concerned actors. Thus, there is a complementarity between teleological and causal explanations. In order to illustrate this double-headed explanatory approach, the author analyses the possibilities of authoritarian governments to restrict the political and social freedom of their citizens. The governmental decision space is limited by the power and the expectations of the national civil societies and of the community of the EU governments.
Abstract This case study examines the role of merit hierarchies in the classification of historic monuments. It draws upon the classification of the sepulture of the archaeologist D. Lazarides, situated in the First cemetery of Athens. Based on archival documents and semi-directive interviews, the case study discusses the vocabularies used to defend the element’s monumental character. This reading elucidates how the funerary stele’s formal characteristics and history are put into perspective with the occupational and social status of its first concessionary. It defends a heterarchical understanding of monumentalisation, arguing that multiple hierarchies of merit are at stake during heritage selection processes.
Abstract This study analyses the justification for men’s preferential right to access paid employment over women in situations of labour scarcity. From an intersectional and cross-categorical perspective, the authors examine how various social boundaries interact to shape inequalities in the labour market. Utilising the amalgamated dataset from the World Values Survey ( WVS 7) and the European Values Study ( EVS 5), a valid sample of 139,301 participants from 88 countries was analysed. The authors employed binary logistic regression, classification trees ( CRT and CHAID ) and cluster analysis to assess the influence of gender, age, educational attainment, income and country of residence. The findings demonstrate that male-centred work priority is endorsed by 52.4 percent of the sample. The most significant predictive factors were determined to be gender and educational level. Men with low educational attainment and income were found to be the most likely to endorse this view. Wide variations were observed between countries; the highest rates of male preference were recorded in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, in contrast to marked rejection in Northern Europe. The conclusion is that the social boundaries associated with labour rights are fluid, being dependent upon sociodemographic stratification and the national context.
