Girls’ Jobs for the Boys? Men,Masculinity and Non‐Traditional Occupations

Occupational segregation by sex remains the most pervasive aspect of the labour market. In the past, most research on this topic has concentrated on explanations of women’s segregation into low paid and low status occupations, or investigations of women who have crossed gender boundaries into men’s jobs, and the potential impact on them and the occupations. In contrast, this article reports on a small‐scale, qualitative study of ten men who have crossed into what are generally defined as ‘women’s jobs’. In doing so, one of the impacts on them has been that they have experienced challenges to their masculine identity from various sources and in a variety of ways. The men’s reactions to these challenges, and their strategies for developing and accommodating their masculinity in light of these challenges, are illuminating. They either attempted to maintain a traditional masculinity by distancing themselves from female colleagues, and/or partially (re)constructed a different masculinity by identifying with their non‐traditional occupations. This they did as often as they deemed necessary as a response to different forms of challenge to their gender identities from both men and women. Finally, the article argues that these responses work to maintain the men as the dominant gender, even in these traditionally defined ‘women’s jobs’.     

Children Living Away from Home

SUMMARY. Millions of children across the world live away from home; many because of wars, famines, dictatorships and poverty. Children live away from home in Britain because of family breakdown, neglect, abuse and other disadvantages, but also through parental choice and educational need. There is inadequate information about numbers, reasons and outcomes. Three main alternatives to living at home in Britain are boarding schools, residential homes and foster care. Traditional barriers between education and welfare and policies of care placements based on inadequate data have resulted in damaging gaps in services and poor placement decisions for many children living away from home. The early 1990s have brought about a national consensus based on new legislation and a group of Inquiries which provides the opportunity for major changes and improvements in services. International deliberations and action could and should be part of these changes.     

The validity of survey responses on abortion: Evidence from Estonia

This paper presents results of a validation survey of abortion conducted in Tallinn, Estonia in April and May 1992. The sample was drawn from patient records in a maternity hospital. Women who had an abortion in that hospital in 1991 were asked about recent abortions as part of a survey about women’s health. More than 80% of the respondents reported having a recent abortion. Some respondents misreported their abortion as a miscarriage. Moreover, some variation in reporting was associated with respondents’ characteristics. Ethnic Estonians were less likely to report their abortion than were Russians, women over age 40 were less likely to report the abortion than younger women, and women who had the abortion late in the first trimester were less likely to report that abortion. There was some evidence that unmarried women were less likely than married women to report their abortion, and that women who had borne three or more children were less likely to report their abortion than women who had borne fewer children. These differences probably stem from the extent to which pregnancy or abortion is considered stigmatizing for women in different situations.     

Consistencies and Inconsistencies: Mental Health, Compulsory Treatment and Community Capacity Building in England, Wales and Australia

In relation to mental health, it is clear that medicalized underpinnings,the provision of a clinically orientated evidence base for practiceand the need to contain ‘risk’ continue to be prioritized,particularly when compulsory intervention is considered. Thisis despite the increasing influence of a citizenship and socialjustice agenda which is being promoted by psychiatrists involvedin the development of ‘postpsychiatry’, as wellas by service users/survivors. These drivers are not mutuallyexclusive, but in the context of compulsory treatment, thereare clear tensions. In this article, the policy surroundingmental health and compulsory intervention in Australia and inEngland and Wales is explored. In the context of this discussion,three ways in which current government policy can be interpretedare examined and links made between these interpretations anddifferent ways of viewing the relationship between mental healthand community capacity building. With regard to social workpractice, it is argued that a response to mental ill healthwhich concentrates on an individualized ‘diagnose andtreat’ approach, which particularly comes to the foreat times of compulsory intervention, has limited capacity tofacilitate community engagement, foster social inclusion andgenerate reciprocal dynamics between positive mental healthand community capacity building.     

African Americans and municipal employment: A test of two perspectives

A survey of the extant literature addressing the factors that drive African American municipal employment offers two broad types of explanations: (1) Black political power and (2) institutional. A comparative assessment of the performance of each of these explanations fills a gap in the literature by illuminating the differences of these distinct perspectives when it comes to employment of Blacks in the public sector. Focusing on six Florida cities from 1960 to 2000, this study tests the predictive power of each of these explanations comparatively for four city departments. The findings indicate that the Black political power explanation performs better than the institutional explanation as a predictor of Black employment.     

Violations of dominance in pricing judgments

The dominance principle states that the judged price of gamble A should be equal to or greater than the judged price of gamble B whenever A's outcomes are equal to or better than the corresponding outcomes of B, holding everything else constant. Subjects often violate the dominance principle by assigning a higher price to a gamble with some probability of winning a positive amount, Y, otherwise zero, than to a superior gamble with the same chances of winning Y, otherwise winning X. Violations also occur with losses. Results are consistent with a configural-weight theory in which the decision weight for each outcome depends on the rank of the outcome with respect to the other outcomes in the lottery and the value of the outcome (zero vs. nonzero).The authors thank Shi-jie Chang, Duncan Luce, and Lisa Ordóñez for comments on an earlier draft. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant to the first author (BNS-8451368). Requests for reprints should be sent to Barbara Mellers, Dept. of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.     

Work/Care Regimes: Institutions,Culture and Behaviour and the Australian Case

Increasingly around the industrialized world, labour markets rely upon the paid work of women, many of whom have dependents. Such changing patterns of paid work by women — and by men — are located within work/care regimes that are more or less hostile to the needs of paid workers who care for others. This article sets out a model of work/care regimes and locates the Australian case within international and historical contexts. In Australia, the unchanging normative male worker archetype dominates institutions of work and care, while the cultures of motherhood and fatherhood remain stoically resistant to renovation. In the meantime, the behaviour of working women runs ahead of these unchanging cultures and institutions, creating a policy interest in ‘reconciling’ work and care, but a failure to provide it. The reasons for this failure are outlined.