The impact of husband’s job loss on partners’ mental health

The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of job loss on family mental well-being. The negative income shock can affect the mental health status of the individual who directly experiences such displacement, as well as the psychological well-being of his partner; also, job loss may have a significantly detrimental effect on life satisfaction, self-esteem and on the individual’s perceived role in society. This analysis is based on a sample of married and cohabitating couples from the first 14 waves of the British Household Panel Survey. In order to correct for the possible endogeneity of job loss, data from employment histories is utilised and redundancies (different from dismissals) in declining industries are used as an indicator of exogenous job loss. Results show evidence that couples in which the husband experiences a job loss are more likely to experience poor mental health.     

The impact of caring on exchange choices and efficiencies: a modification of Boulding’s three social organizers

In this article, a system is developed for modeling traditional exchanges and those based, wholly or in part, on threats or interdependent utility functions (i.e., caring). This structure is used to analyze 1) the impact of interpersonal and intergroup perceptions on exchange choice and efficiency; 2) factors influencing firm decisions to accede to or resist coerced exchanges; and 3) conditions under which exchanges involving involuntary parties are rational. It is argued that, in addition to impacts on psychic returns, caring impacts on exchange efficiency through its effects on the quantity of information, due to attraction or aversion, and the quality of information processing, due to bias. Malevolence is never conducive to efficient exchange, but high levels of benevolence may also be detrimental. It also is shown that the economics of coerced exchanges bear strong similarities to analyses regarding price discrimination and using free samples for marketing. Firms are most likely to resist coerced exchanges if their marginal costs are rapidly rising or if acceding to the coerced exchange would reduce market demand. Possible trends in the importance of caring in exchange are also discussed.     

The impact of organizational culture and leadership performance on PR professionals’ job satisfaction: Testing the joint mediating effects of engagement and trust

The study examines the impact of critical organizational factors (organizational culture and excellent leader performance) on public relations professionals’ overall job satisfaction by focusing on testing the joint mediating effects work engagement and trust could generate. A national online survey of 838 public relations professionals working in a variety of organizations was used as the empirical data to test the relationships in a proposed conceptual model. Results confirmed the strong impact organizational culture and leader performance could have on public relations professionals’ work engagement, trust, and job satisfaction. More importantly, results revealed the significant joint mediating effects of engagement and trust on professionals’ job satisfaction, when supportive organizational culture and excellent leader performance were achieved. The study concludes with research and practical implications.     

Integrated or isolated? The impact of public housing redevelopment on social network homophily

Do mixed income housing programs increase the poor's social network diversity? Using unique, longitudinal, egocentric social network data, this research investigates changes in social network homophily for both Vietnamese and English-speaking original residents of a public housing redevelopment site. Changes in mixing occur for both those who return and those who moved away, but only increases in ethnic mixing were associated with returning to the new site. Thus, changes in social networks may be associated with disruption rather moving to a mixed-income site. Vietnamese residents also experienced increases in ethnic diversity compared to English-speaking respondents. The results raise questions about the social mixing intent of such programs. The high expectations for social network benefits of income mixing housing programs should be tempered.     

A field experiment on the impact of a prior donor’s social status on subsequent charitable giving

We study the effect of a prior donor on subsequent charitable giving in a natural field experiment and investigate in particular whether his social status matters for subsequent giving. To do so, we trailed a person asking for donations in Cologne’s streetcar network while (1) either implementing an initial donor or not and (2) varying the apparent social status of the initial donor. We find that other passengers are more prone to give when there is an initial donor, with this effect being amplified when he seems to have a high social status. Further analyses reveal that women tend to react stronger than men to the prior donor’s status.     

Who will be idol? The importance of social networks for winning on reality shows

This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the effect of social networks and belonging to minority groups (or race) on the probability of winning in reality television shows. We develop a theoretical model that studies viewer behavior by presenting a framework of competition between two contestants from two different groups. The results are examined empirically using unique contestant data from the highly popular reality show “A Star Is Born”, the Israeli counterpart of “American Idol”. Our main finding is that social networks and belonging to minority groups play key roles in the contestant's victory. While the effect of belonging to a minority group is positive, the social network effect is U-shaped. Beyond the world of reality TV, this paper sheds light on the general behavior of social networks as well.     

A help or a hindrance? The impact of job training on the employment status of disadvantaged women

The objective of this study is to evaluate whether welfare-sponsored, government-funded job training helps participants improve their employment status. The negligible effects found in prior studies may be due to design limitations or inherent flaws in job training programs and therefore do not necessarily contradict human capital theory. The present study uses longitudinal and representative data, dynamic modeling techniques, an appropriate counterfactual, and important contextual variables to assess the likelihood of obtaining employment for job training participants and nonparticipants. It also describes the types of jobs women obtain by examining wages, industry, occupation, and labor union membership. Whereas some of the results support prior research, the focus is on the unique contributions of this study, which include a differential training effect for full- and part-time workers and a detailed analysis of macro-structural variables, which are rarely included in studies of labor supply.     

The impact of childbirth on Spanish women’s decisions to leave the labor market

The present paper analyzes the effect of childbirth on Spanish women??s decisions to withdraw from paid work, defined here as the transition from employment to out of the labor force due to the requirements of household production. Decisions regarding fertility and labor market participation are interrelated and depend on individual and household characteristics, as well as external variables such as the availability of childcare services. We postulate that a female??s decision to leave the labor market is taken in a household context, and thus is the outcome which maximizes household welfare after taking into account the employment and earnings characteristics of all household members. We pay special attention to the effect of the male partner??s characteristics upon the female??s decision to withdraw from the labor market. Our empirical results show that in order to better define social and labor market policies on work and family reconciliation, increased attention should be paid to the job characteristics of males given their effect on the optimal assignment of tasks within the household following childbirth.     

The influence of parents’ social capital on their children’s transition to vocational training in Germany

This study investigates the up-to-now strongly underexplored role of parents’ social capital in the school-to-work transition of adolescents. We base our empirical analyses on unique longitudinal largescale data from the German National Educational Panel Study. Parents’ social capital is measured with a position generator. Results show that adolescents with lower secondary education have better chances of finding an apprenticeship in a company if their parents know many persons with lower-status occupations for which vocational training is sufficient. This is especially the case for parents’ social contacts that have occupations in which many adolescents with lower secondary education are being trained in a company. The contrary is true for adolescents whose parents know many persons with higher-status occupations. Parents’ social networks do not show any effects on the quality of these apprenticeships or on the probability of entering school-based vocational training. Overall, our results indicate that parents’ social networks are important for a smooth school-to-work transition of their children. Moreover, our analyses confirm the idea that social capital is goal and labour market segment specific.     

Future-oriented or present-focused? The role of social support and identity styles on ‘futuring’ in Italian late adolescents and emerging adults

Late adolescence and emerging adulthood are periods in the life cycle when individuals are involved in anticipating and planning for the future (futuring). However, in the last five or six years, as the effects of the recession have made themselves felt in Southern Europe, the situation that young people face has deteriorated dramatically. As a consequence, contemporary young people’s relationship with the future is strongly marked by these social difficulties, and family support becomes essential to their survival. The present study was interested in how futuring could be influenced by identity styles and perceptions of social support. Participants were 1201 Italian late adolescents and emerging adults attending the last year of high school and first years of university. We used three self-report measures: Functions of Identity Scale, Identity Style Inventory, and Social Support Scale. Findings indicate that futuring was influenced by the normative style and the diffuse-avoidant style and by the interactions between both normative identity style and diffuse/avoidant identity styles with peer support. Gender and age differences are discussed.     

Will daughters walk mom’s talk? The effects of maternal communication about sex on the sexual behavior of female adolescents

Numerous social marketing campaigns exhort parents to talk to their children about sexual abstinence, pregnancy risk, and sexually transmitted disease prevention. The effectiveness of these conversations is difficult to ascertain if parents are more likely to broach discussions related to sexual activity with adolescents who have greater propensities to engage in these risky behaviors. Our baseline empirical results indicate that female adolescents whose mothers communicate more about sex are more likely to have sexual intercourse, practice unsafe sex, and engage in casual sex. However, once we control for the adolescent’s environment and peers through the use of school fixed effects and for the daughter’s own propensity to engage in such behaviors through a rich set of adolescent-specific covariates, the effect of a mother’s talk on her daughter’s behavior is reduced dramatically indicating that mother’s talk is endogenous to the daughter’s sexual behavior. Models employing sister fixed effects to control for family-level unobservables, although imprecisely estimated, confirm this finding.     

Who is the victim anyway? The effects of bystander victim impact statements on mock juror sentencing decisions

Victim impact evidence was varied in a brief trial scenario given to 120 participants eligible for jury service. The scenario concerned the murder trial of a disgruntled employee accused of bombing his former workplace. Participants read either no victim impact evidence or one of three victim impact statements. For the victim impact statements, we varied the identity of the witness. The victim impact statement was given by either the wife of the victim, a coworker of the victim, or a firefighter called to the crime scene. Results revealed that only the victim impact evidence given by the coworker lead to harsher sentencing judgments. However, participants rated the suffering of the victim's wife as most severe, indicating that perceptions of suffering may not predict sentencing judgments in a straightforward manner. Implications for these findings for legal decisions such as Payne v. Tennessee (1991) are discussed.     

Sleepless in school? The social dimensions of young people’s bedtime rest and routines

There are increasing concerns that social pressures, such as family changes and social media, are ‘invading’ the sanctuary of the bedroom with the result that students arrive at school tired and stressed. This paper seeks to examine whether these concerns are justified and contribute to the growing literature on the social dimensions of sleep through examining the rest and routines of two cohorts of young people aged 12–13 and 14–15 years old. Our research indicates that, in general, most young people have ‘reasonable’ amounts of sleep and routines. But, a significant proportion does go to school tired, with apparent negative consequences for their well-being. The paper examines some of the within-cohort variations, in particular, the significance of volume of sleep, routines and engagement with social media and how these may reflect the material and cultural circumstances of the young people. The paper concludes by arguing for more research on the complex social causes and consequences of sleep deprivation among today’s youth.     

“It must be me” or “It could be them?”: The impact of the social network position of bullies and victims on victims’ adjustment

It was examined in this study whether the association between victimization and psychological adjustment (depression and self-esteem) is moderated by the classroom network position of bullies and victims. Multivariate multilevel regression analysis was used on a large sample representative of grades three to five in Finland (N = 7192 children from 376 classrooms). Consistent with the person-group (dis)similarity model and attributional mechanisms, it was found that victims were better adjusted in classrooms when others shared their plight and when they could attribute the blame to bullies. The results indicate that victimization consequences might be partly generated by person–environment interactions.     

The impact of expressing mixed valence emotions in organizational crisis communication on consumer’s negative word-of-mouth intention

This paper examines the impact of expressing different discrete emotions with a mixed valence (anger and hope) in organizational crisis communication on negative word-of-mouth on social media. In particular, the effects of expressing discrete emotions with a single valence (either positive or negative) versus mixed valence (expressing both positive and negative emotions) emotions are studied by means of a 4 (emotional message framing: control vs. positive emotion vs. negative emotion vs. mixed valence emotions) by 2 (crisis type: victim vs. preventable crisis) between-subjects experimental design (N?=?295). Results show that in a preventable crisis, expressing mixed valence emotions elicits higher perceived sincerity and more empathy towards the spokesperson, and subsequently less negative word-of-mouth compared to expressing either single emotions or the control condition. However, in the case of a victim crisis, expressing single emotions, and especially a negative emotion like anger, results in less negative word-of-mouth through an increase in perceived sincerity and empathy towards the spokesperson.     

The impact of parental illness on children’s schooling and labour force participation: evidence from Vietnam

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper investigates the relationship between parental illness and children’s engagement in education and labour market, using a panel data from...     

Declining inequality? The changing impact of socio‐economic background and ability on education in Australia

The paper addresses several debates surrounding the reproduction of socio-economic inequality: (i) the persistent inequality thesis, which maintains that despite the increases in educational participation socio-economic inequalities in education have not declined; (ii) the related thesis of maximally maintained inequality, which proposes that socio-economic inequalities decline only when participation levels for the most privileged socio-economic group approach saturation levels; (iii) the meritocracy debate on the importance of ability vis-à-vis socio-economic background and changes in its influence over time; and (iv) the effect of policy changes on socio-economic inequalities in education. These issues are addressed using data from six Australian youth cohorts born between 1961 and the mid-1980s.     

All roads leading to Rome? The medium term outcomes of Australian youth’s transition pathways from education

Young people’s transition from education into the labour market are diverse: sometimes direct from school to work or inactivity, sometimes characterised by stop-starts and combinations of different activities. This paper explores the association between transition pathways of Australian youth and their outcomes, in terms of earnings, perceptions of employment opportunities and debt. It builds on analysis by Fry and Boulton [2013. Prevalence of Transition Pathways in Australia. Canberra: Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper] who identified five pathways most typically taken by 15–24 year old Australians over a 10 year period, including quasi linear transitions from education to work with and without study, combinations of work and study, multiple churning between labour market statuses, and transitions into prolonged periods of inactivity. The present study adds four more years of panel data that have since become available, and compares the labour market outcomes of the different pathways at age 29–38. Earnings and employment perception converged over time, but debt did not. Socio-demographics were most strongly associated with outcomes, but earnings were also greater for churners and for young people in extended education increasingly combined with work. Transitions that combined learning and work seemingly strategically or ‘flexibly’ appeared most rewarding in the medium term, although neither compensated for socio-economic difference.