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For approximately a century and a half after their dramatic deflation, the South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles of 1710–1720 had discredited finance. With the exception of government bond markets and a few chartered companies, the rapid rise and fall of fortunes associated with the South Sea Company, in Britain, and the Mississippi Company in France, had made the joint stock system of corporate finance almost synonymous with fraud and financial debauchery. (The most authoritative account of these schemes is given in Murphy, 1997.) The joint stock system of finance was seen as seriously flawed, and an indictment of the theories on credit money of the schemes’ instigator, John Law. During those one hundred and fifty years, classical political economy rose and flowered. Not surprisingly finance then came to be considered for its fiscal and monetary consequences. This pre-occupation left its mark on twentieth-century economics in an attitude that the fiscal and monetary implications of finance, eventually its influence on consumption, are more important than its balance sheet effects in the corporate sector. This attitude is apparent even in the work of perhaps the pre-eminent twentieth century critical finance theorist, John Maynard Keynes.

The literature on marriage formation neglects different pathways to marriage. This study focuses on arranged marriage, introduced marriage, and self-initiated marriage as three main marriage pathways in East Asia and examines how people’s marriage pathway choices are associated with education and change over time in mainland China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Using data from the East Asian Social Survey, this study finds that education is associated with fewer arranged marriages and more self-initiated marriages and that more recent marriage cohorts also witness a decline in arranged marriages and an increase in self-initiated marriages. However, how introduced marriage is associated with education and change over time varies in four East Asian societies. The findings support the “developmentalism-marriage” framework that developmental idealism leads to modern marital practices.

This chapter analyzes characteristics and changing patterns of marriage formation in Vietnam over the past 50 years, from various aspects including the motives underpinning marriage decision-making, the process of mate acquaintance, the criteria for mate selection, and marriage decision-making rights. The chapter is based on a review of data derived from the Vietnam Family Survey 2006 (MOCST et al., 2008) and the Vietnam Marriage Survey 2017 (Minh, 2021). It shows that the pattern of marriage formation in Vietnam has changed significantly in the past decades under the influence of various socio-economic and legal factors. Marriage is increasingly associated with the value of personal happiness. People today have many more opportunities to meet and get to know each other before marriage than older generations in the past. Adolescents spend more time getting to know their future spouse and have more options when choosing future partners before marriage. Marriage based on a partner’s individual qualities is preferred, gradually replacing mate selection based on family background. Parents’ power over their children’s marriage has decreased, while young people are becoming more and more independent in making decisions about their lives. In other words, today, it is the interests of the people involved in the marriage that matters, not only the interests of the family and kinship that determines marriages. However, despite these new marriage formation patterns, the belief that children’s marriage is an important affair for the whole family is still maintained. The general pattern is that there is a mix of personal factors and family circumstances regarding the marriage choices.

This paper aims to explore how couples reflect gender role–related attitudes in their family formation process and whether these processes could be described through the lens of ambivalence. Using qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews with Estonian married and cohabiting couples were conducted (all together 24 interviewees). Analysis revealed themes of ambivalence toward gender roles among married and cohabiting couples. The present study could be classified as exploratory in identifying ambivalence, with open-ended and emergent analysis.

It is known that Estonians have adopted Western values and their family behavior resembles that of Nordic countries. However, our interviews showed that on the level of the individual, gender role–related attitudes in relationships have remained traditional. The reason for this might lie in the rapid change of values that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Western lifestyle was seen as an ideal, and copied in behavior before the actual family or gender role values could undergo the transformation needed to support egalitarian family values.

Our study reveals that the societal context of a rapid change in values and norms might create confusion and ambivalence in attitudes. Therefore, a high proportion of cohabiting couples might not be the product of egalitarian gender role–related attitudes but a product of ambivalent couple relations where the couple has not discussed thoroughly the vision and expectations they have for each other and their relationship.

The relationship between religious belief and spousal choice in Nepal is examined, looking at how the importance that individuals place on their own religious faith influences their decision either to allow their parents and other relatives to arrange a marriage for them or to initiate their own love marriage. How the importance attached to religious faith within the individual’s family and neighborhood affects this decision, and how education modifies the relationship between religion and spousal choice are also looked at.

Ordinary least squares regression models are used to examine the relationship between spousal choice and key independent variables. Interaction terms are used to examine how education may moderate the relationship between personal, family, and neighborhood religious salience and spousal choice.

It is found that the effect of one’s neighbors’ faith operates differently based on one’s own level of education. The “moral communities” thesis is used to theorize that in neighborhoods where religion is regarded as very important, individuals need to expend more effort to maintain respectability, adhering to tradition by having arranged marriages. In neighborhoods where religion is less important, the weaker demands made by the “moral community” render individuals more free to choose their own spouses. For highly educated individuals, the effect of their neighbors’ religious belief is considerably reduced.

As Nepalis become more educated, they not only move out of the sphere of family influence, as discussed in previous research, but also away from being influenced by their neighbors.

This paper looks at “dance” or “rave”, a phenomenon usually associated with youth culture. It suggests that there is a hidden consumer who falls into the 30‐40 age group. The paper examines the emergence of dance/rave, and the process of commodification of a sub‐cultural movement. It suggests that youth‐related activities are migrating up the age scale and draws on the results of a phenomenological study to support this. The findings suggest that the experience is closely related to cognitive age and the dimensions of “felt” age, “look” age, “do” age, and “interest” age.

The people of the Union of South Africa have established on a sound and satisfactory basis the beginnings of what we hope and believe will develop in due course into a very great industry of fruit canning. The industry already meets the demands of the home market, but the people of South Africa are not great eaters of canned fruit, and about 60 per cent. of the total production is at present exported mainly to this country. The growth of the canned and bottled fruit industry has been exceedingly rapid, the output having steadily risen from about 1,500,000 lbs. in 1916–17 to over 7½ million lbs. in 1929–30. The fruit has attained a deservedly high reputation. The Fruit Export Control Acts of 1914, 1925, and 1929 are concerned in maintaining the high standard for fresh fruit, and cooperation among fruit growers themselves is a second important factor. Both of these exert an indirect but favourable influence on the fruit canning industry. It is hardly necessary to mention the physical influences which so greatly aid production of first‐class fruit. In the south‐west of the Cape Province, for example, rains are distributed. Excellent soil and bright sunlight does the rest. In spite of what has just been said, the development of the canned fruit industry has not proceeded as rapidly as might have been expected. An increase of five hundred per cent. in production in the course of fifteen years is excellent, but the value of the last figure quoted is but 156 thousand pounds sterling. It would be unfair perhaps to point out that this is but one‐tenth of the value of fresh fruit exported from the Union during the same period. Fresh fruit is the staple article of the export trade, and is likely to remain so. It is, however, but half the value of the dried fruits and two‐fifths that of the jam production of the Union. Perhaps the reasons for this relatively lower development of the canned fruit industry in South Africa at the present time is to be found in the fact that the people of South Africa are not great eaters of canned fruits, nor are they ever likely to be. In so saying, not the slightest reflection of an unfavourable kind is thrown on the canned fruit of South Africa, but the fact remains and will ever do so that so long as people are able to readily obtain an abundant supply of cheap and good fresh fruit—and the people of South Africa are in this happy position—they will turn to the orchard rather than the tin. It appears then that South Africa's market for canned fruit is the overseas market, and this as the canned fruit trade develops will claim an ever greater proportion of the canned fruit. However, the drop in prices and drop in demand in the world's markets has unfavourably affected every commodity, and canned fruit is no exception. Fruit canneries have already been established at Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town—this last‐named port being the outlet for the wonderfully rich fruit grounds of the south‐west district of the Cape Province—at Paarl, Worcester, and other places. Last autumn a new cannery was established at Belleville, Cape Colony, with a present daily capacity it has been stated of 30,000 cans and a future possible output of 150,000 per day. Some five hundred fruit growers in the district are interested. It has been officially stated that over‐production and insufficient means of transport and distribution has led to great wastage of raw fruits in certain districts, so much so in fact that in many cases the fruit was not even gathered but left to rot on the ground, as transport costs were prohibitive. This is where the cannery “comes in.” Assuming an excess of the right kinds of fruit, existing markets can be supplied and new markets — for example, the Far Eastern markets—developed. The United States has at present a very considerable proportion of the world's markets. In 1931 the total imports of canned fruit into Great Britain amounted to 2,198,000 cases, and out of these the United States sent 1,888,000, Canada 25,000, Australia 109,000, and South Africa 5,000, or about quarter per cent. There seem to be no special regulations governing the trade. The Acts already referred to control the fresh fruit market. The Weights and Measures Act states that the name and address of the manufacturer and the nett weight of the contents shall be stated on the label of can or package, but the elaborated regulations of the United States and Canada have, at present at least, no counterpart in South Africa. The reason for this may be that the overseas trade in canned fruit is at present comparatively small when compared with that of certain other countries, and trade competition has not at present become particularly acute. This and the home market would seem to be controlled so far as the purity of the products is concerned by the Act, No. 13, of 1929, and the Regulations framed under sections 13, 14, 19, 33 and 44 of this Act.

An astute and dedicated follower of The New York Times Book Review “Bestsellers” column may have noted an unusual entry in the hardcover bestseller list on September 11, 1983. The nonfiction title popped up, in fifth place no less, and just as quickly went off the list in the next issue of NYTBR; but that is not what made the title unusual. What did is the fact that it was published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, a religious publishing house which claims to be the “world's leading Bible publisher,” and produces such giants for the bible‐buying world as The Open Bible, The New King James Version, and The Good News Bible, huge sellers all. The book which made the list in The New York Times Book Review, however, was not a bible, but a self‐help book called Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do, by Robert H. Schuller, a radio/TV evangelist whose weekly programs claim a listening/viewing audience in the millions.

This study analyzes empirically the extent to which women’s employment affects the duration of first birth intervals among married women in Taiwan during the rapidly growing period. By employing the data from the 1989 Taiwan Women and Family Survey, our estimation results suggest that women’s employment strongly affects the duration of first birth intervals, and that various aspects of women’s employment affect first birth intervals differently. In terms of the number of working hours, women who work more than 30 hours per week tend to have an earlier first birth. On the other hand, work experience, as indicated by women’s labor force participation surrounding the first birth as well as their job tenure, is found to positively affect women’s first birth intervals. When the model is estimated on the basis of age cohorts, these implications remain the same. Given that the impact of labor market experiences and working hours act in opposite directions on the first birth interval, their effects may offset each other. Therefore, our findings provide an explanation to the earlier research result, which indicates that female employment is only weakly related to fertility behavior in Taiwan.

The acquisition of periodicals is one of the more neglected areas of practical librarianship. There is a strong tendency among library managers to leave the handling of periodicals to junior staff once the initial decision‐making on the choice of agent has been made. The manager then only hears how the system is operating when something goes drastically wrong — by which time it is usually too late.