Introduction – Travail,emploi, société: que nous réserve l'avenir?

Partant de la matière de ce numéro spécial, les auteurs mettent en évidence les grands thèmes de recherche sur l'avenir du travail. Ils décrivent les mutations accélérées du monde du travail qui offrent des possibilités de croissance génératrice d'égalité, mais avec le risque de mal gérer le changement technique, les inégalités (en insistant sur le caractère intersectionnel et persistant des inégalités entre hommes et femmes), les chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales et les nouvelles possibilités de dialogue social. Partant, ils formulent des recommandations pour renforcer la protection des travailleurs et les institutions qui les représentent, revoir les cadres réglementaires et les systèmes fiscaux, et enfin assurer des transitions équitables.     

‘Country life’? Rurality,folk music and ‘Show of Hands’

This paper examines the contribution of folk music to understanding the dynamic, fluid and multi-experiential nature of the countryside. Drawing from literature on the geographies of music, it examines the work of ‘Show of Hands’, a contemporary folk band from Devon in England. Three areas are studied. First, the paper examines the musical style of Show of Hands in order to explore how hybridised, yet distinctive, styles of music emerge in particular places. Second, it demonstrates how Show of Hands’ hybrid musical style has become closely associated with the Southwest of England. Finally, within these spatial and hybrid contexts, attention is given to the ways in which their music represents the ‘everyday lives of the rural’. Taken together these themes assess the relevance of music in the understanding of rurality as hybrid space.     

WHO MAKES A GOOD LEADER? COOPERATIVENESS,OPTIMISM, AND LEADING‐BY‐EXAMPLE

We examine the characteristics of effective leaders in a simple leader‐follower voluntary contributions game. We focus on two factors: the individual's cooperativeness and the individual's beliefs about the cooperativeness of others. We find that groups perform best when led by those who are cooperatively inclined. Partly, this reflects a false consensus effect: cooperative leaders are more optimistic than noncooperators about the cooperativeness of followers. However, cooperative leaders contribute more than noncooperative leaders even after controlling for optimism. We conclude that differing leader contributions by differing types of leader in large part reflects social motivations. (JEL A13, C92, D03)     

Does Family Structure Matter? A Comparison of Adoptive,Two‐Parent Biological,Single‐Mother,Stepfather, and Stepmother Households

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we compared quality of family relationships and well‐being across five different family structures with a particular focus on adoptive households. Four theoretical perspectives, each emphasizing the importance of different factors in determining relationship quality and well‐being, guided this work and led us to compare adoptive families with families that include two biological parents, single mothers, stepfathers, and stepmothers. We found the most support for the perspective stressing the importance of family processes that occur in all types of families, rather than family structure. Specifically, there were few family structure differences based on fathers' and children's reports, and structure differences in mothers' reports were no longer significant after controlling for disagreements between family members. The implications of these results for adoption theory and policies are discussed.     

The “New” World of Prosumption: Evolution, “Return of the Same,” or Revolution?

While strong arguments can be made that prosumption today can be seen as a primal phenomenon and an evolutionary process, the strongest argument is that it involves a revolutionary set of developments producing a dramatically new world of prosumption. While those developments can be seen in both the material and digital worlds (although they augment one another), they are clearest in the digital world, especially the Internet. Among the forces that are creating this new world of consumption are new means of prosumption (e.g., IKEA, massive online open courses, automated teller machines) which are made possible by a variety of new technologies (the computer, the Internet). However, overarching these and other changes is the emergence of a new form of capitalism, “prosumer capitalism.” In addition to exploiting often low‐paid commodified workers, prosumer capitalism increasingly prioritizes the exploitation of largely uncommodified prosumers who are generally unpaid. Prosumers offer the capitalist many other advantages (e.g., no long‐term obligations such as high‐cost benefit programs). There are few, if any, obligations to prosumers with the result that they fit well with today's reigning neoliberal philosophy. The new world of prosumption could have been a more positive development had it not been usurped by capitalist interests.     

“Call to Home?” Race,Region, and Migration to the U.S. South, 1970–20001

This research examines recent migration patterns of native‐born blacks and whites to the U.S. South. Our primary research questions concern race and regional migration dynamics, and whether new insights into such can be gleaned by comparing migrants to the South with persons moving within the non‐South. Using samples of 1970–2000 census data, we focus on race differences in the tendency to choose the South as a migration destination, and whether whites and blacks differ in key selection mechanisms shaping movement to different regional destinations. We observe increasing rates of black (compared to white) migration to the South. Additionally, patterns of selectivity within this growing African‐American migration stream are especially dramatic when southern migrants are compared to persons moving within the non‐South. Our analyses also show that black migrants are targeting particular parts of the South (e.g., states where blacks are a larger share of the population), suggesting that future research should disaggregate the “Census South” region to provide a more comprehensive picture of contemporary interregional migration in the United States.