Swedish fathers choosing part-time work

In Sweden, both parents have a legal right to reduce their working hours to 30 hours per week. Quantitative analysis of 20,000 Swedish parents with children aged between 2 and 7, however, shows mothers to be 14 times more likely to work part time than fathers. Gender imbalance in parents’ part-time employment is thus even more pronounced than in their parental leave take-up, at least in Sweden. An analysis of 14 in-depth interviews with Swedish fathers who have chosen parental part-time work reveals that part-time work represents for them a way to reconcile their separate identities as professionals and as involved fathers. Nevertheless, this study revealed that certain difficulties of a more structural nature complicated this solution for these men; these issues included, in the first place, a strong full-time norm prevailing in male-dominated workplaces, and traditional ideals of masculinity centred on men's breadwinning role. Furthermore, ideals of gender equality and involved fatherhood also showed themselves as having an impact, enabling new masculine positions for part-time working fathers to emerge.     

Young African American Males: Barriers to Access to Health Care

African American males continue to experience an unacceptable and disproportionate number of health disparities when compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Young African American males can expect to live the least amount of time when compared to any other ethnic minority or racial sub-group. Understanding the obstacles and barriers that impede access to health care and wellness services among young African American males is essential to begin the process of decreasing health disparities. The goal of this qualitative study was to explore and identify the barriers experienced by young African American males in accessing health care services while also creating a rare opportunity to give voice to young African American males. The study results indicate that young African American males have multiple perceptions of barriers to health care services. Their perceptions fell into three categories: the negative impact of environment or community, lack of finances or no insurance, and distrust of medical practices associated with race history resulting in accessing healthcare as a last resort. Additional research is needed to craft community-based programs to: a) educate young African American males on the importance of preventative strategies to maintain wellness; and b) ensure that the appropriate medical and wellness services are available and reaching young African American males in need.     

Development of a Spiritual Support Scale for Use with Older Adults

SUMMARY

This study reports the development and empirical test of a measure of spiritual supports used by older adults in managing life challenge. The Spiritual Strategies Scale (SSS) consists of 18 items. Cronbach's coefficient alpha reliability for the measure was .86. The sample, gathered from interviews at four sites, consisted of 79 older adults who were predominantly Jewish European American and African American. Concurrent validity analyses suggest that this measure warrants further testing. This scale also has potential for clinical use in social work practice by counselors for older adults.     

From vocational to knowledge-based education - an account of Swedish social work education

This article outlines the historical trajectory of Swedish social work education. Important stages and developmental changes in educational programs are described. As well overall structure of Swedish social work education and training is presented. A number of important issues not only specific to Swedish circumstances but also pertinent to social work education around the world are described and their role is analysed. More specifically, the author focuses on issues of social work as a research discipline, identity of the social work discipline, cleavage and relationship between social work research and social work practice. Social work education, social work practice and social work research are seen in a holistic perspective. The author describes and argues that Swedish social work education has gone from being a non-academic vocational training program to a knowledge-based package of academic discipline.     

Gender,work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.     

Priorities and determinants of priorities of Swedish social workers

Priority setting is an integrated part of social work, in Sweden as well as internationally. In this article we explore Swedish social services and how social workers make priorities and what these priorities involve. By use of regression analysis we also study what circumstances are of importance for allocative precedence and what impact different distributive principles have. One primary result is that priorities are made frequently by social workers—mostly on what cases to work with next and how much time to spend on every client. Another somewhat expected result is a manifest area bias, suggesting that respondents tend to see to the interests of their own professional domain. The principle of need proved to be the most important of the distributive principles studied, while principles of capacity to benefit and economy were more endorsed by officials working with elderly and disabled than those in other sectors.     

Emergency department social work in the UK and Sweden: evaluation by older frequent emergency department attenders Kuratorsarbete på akutmottagning i förenade kungadömet Storbritannien och Sverige: en utvärdering utifrån brukarperspektivet hos äldre mångbesökare på akutmottagningen

Social work based in hospital emergency departments (EDs) in Sweden and the UK reflects a wider European social/health care policy trend. A key focus is on diverting older frequent ED attenders from ‘inappropriate’ hospital re-attendance or emergency admission, because of social care problems. However, previously there has been no evaluation of the significance of ED social work for health and well-being, from the standpoint of older frequent ED attenders themselves. In a preliminary way, our paper provides this through drawing on a small scale Swedish/UK study. Its comparative account of service user feedback underscores the importance of ED social work as a facet of European social work. It indicates that ED social work contributes to the quality of care within emergency departments, acts as a key access point to social services, and can promote both short and longer-term health. At the same time, some serious shortcomings emerge. These include under-developed referral systems, and limitations to community based services following ED social work assessment, which reflect the under-resourcing of social care provision in both countries. Moreover, service users’ experience in both Sweden and the UK reveals the risk of ED social work with older frequent ED attenders being used as a substitute for follow-up medical/nursing care when that is also required.     

Integration of Childhood Immigrants in the Short and Long Run – Swedish Evidence1

Immigrant children are often at a disadvantage at school while they adjust to their new environment. It has been found that the age at immigration of 7 or above represents a sensitive period as regards these children’s school performance for two main reasons: they have passed their prime age for language learning, and their acquisition of subject skills is less efficient while they learn to master the new language. Using Swedish administrative data, we track childhood immigrants born between 1972 and 1976 over time from adolescence (at 16) to adulthood (at 30), and study the role of age at immigration for educational and labor market outcomes. We find that immigration at a sensitive age (compared to a very young age) has a strong negative impact on compulsory school performance, but that the same individuals catch up strongly in terms of final educational attainment. In spite of this educational catching up, however, we find a considerable negative impact on earnings for men. We are able to rule out two potential mechanisms behind this puzzling result: It cannot be explained either by an impact on the chosen field of study or on completion time.     

When Too Much Is Not Enough: Actual and Preferred Work Hours in the United States and Abroad

This paper places the story of the overworked American in context by examining mismatches between preferred and actual work hours among Japanese, Swedish, West German, and U.S. workers. Although many full-timers in all four countries want to work fewer hours, mismatches come in many forms, and their distributions and determinants vary cross-nationally. The United States, for instance, has an unusually large number of full-time workers who want to work more hours, and a workforce that is especially motivated by opportunities for advancement and a desire for high incomes. Ultimately, the prevalence and determinants of hour mismatches are found to reflect cross-national differences in social, political, and economic environments.     

African American Marital Satisfaction as a Function of Work-Family Balance and Work-Family Conflict and Implications for Social Workers

African Americans are more likely than any other race/ethnic group to report lower levels of marital satisfaction. Due to numerous benefits of marriage such as better physical and mental health, it is important to identify factors that impact African American marital satisfaction. This study examines the impact of work-family conflict and work-family balance on African American marital satisfaction. The results reveal a negative relationship between work-family conflict and marital satisfaction as well as differences in work-family factors that predict husbands' verses wives' marital satisfaction. The article offers implications for social work.     

Do Neighborhood Organizational Resources Impact Recidivism?

There is a growing literature investigating how neighborhood organizations impact crime, although recidivism or reoffending has been excluded from this discussion. Combining data on recidivism and organizational availability in Chicago with the 2000 Census and the 2007–2011 American Community Survey, this study models the effect of three types of organizations important for ex‐prisoners (emergency assistance, employment, and education) and their changes on neighborhood‐level recidivism from 2001 to 2006. Results show that changes in the availability of certain types of organizations impact recidivism. Non‐trivial losses (losing two or more organizations) of educational organizations across years increase neighborhood recidivism. Also, disadvantage moderates the effect of non‐trivial gains in organizations; specifically, in low‐disadvantage neighborhoods, gains in employment organizations decrease recidivism. These results suggest that ex‐prisoners are exposed to variability in local organizational environments, and this variability has an impact on overall recidivism. Neighborhood‐based policy aimed at lowering recidivism should not only work to increase these organizations in neighborhoods, but also work to stabilize their presence.     

Teaching minority students within minority schools: teachers’ conceptions of multicultural education in Swedish‐speaking schools in Finland

Finland is experiencing increased cultural diversity due to immigration and is facing challenges in developing multicultural education (ME) in schools. There is a Swedish‐speaking minority in Finland, and immigrant students entering Swedish‐speaking schools hence become a minority within a minority. In this study, using open‐ended interviews, we explore the views of Swedish‐speaking teachers of ‘minority within a minority students’ and of ME. We found that Swedish‐speaking teachers have a positive attitude towards cultural diversity. On the other hand, they consider teaching to be independent of culture and take a colour‐blind approach to their work. Being minority language speakers themselves does not necessarily affect their views and understanding of immigrant students.     

The sacred and the profane in life science work: The case of assisted reproduction laboratories

Reproductive medicine and assisted reproduction therapies have been developed over the last decades resulting in over five million babies. The handling of human reproductive materials and patients is based on the ability to combine health care work and techno-scientific expertise in both the clinic and the laboratory setting. This study of Swedish assisted reproductive technology clinics demonstrates that the active day-to-day manipulation of human reproductive materials enact both the ‘profane’, through treating the embryos as raw materials in standardized procedures enabling economies of scale, and the ‘sacred’ through enacting a separation, the potential to human life, the patients ordeals, and seriousness. The enactment of the profane and the sacred is mostly balanced but at certain points in the work procedures, their intersecting becomes particularly salient. Such points provide opportunities for the study of the sense making of professionals in organizational grey zones, during techno-scientific activities.     

Swedish welfare responses to ethnicity: the case of children and their families

This article focuses on issues of racism and ethnic discrimination in the operation of the Swedish child welfare system and the broader societal context. It draws primarily upon a qualitative study which explored discourses about ethnicity, gender and age within the Swedish child welfare system but also uses some data from several recent transnational European studies. It suggests that the Swedish welfare system may be far less benign in challenging racism and ethnic discrimination than it is when assessed along more ‘mainstream’ comparative measures associated with poverty alleviation or issues of work in the labour market and home. The article notes that very similar findings occur when gendered violence to women and children is placed in focus rather than ethnicity. Finally some tentative possible explanations for these welfare patterns are suggested as the basis for future research and elaboration.     

Parent presence and gender‐typicalness of educational choice1

Given parental influence on children's educational choices, new family constellations may impact on sex segregation in school and thus in the labour market. This paper addresses the question of what consequence father absence and stepfather presence may have for choice of the male‐dominated natural science/technology (NT) programme in Swedish upper secondary school. The data include register information on all pupils who attended the ninth grade of the Swedish compulsory school in 1998 and 1999 and their parents (n = 73,824). While children in mother‐only households are less likely to choose the NT programme compared with children residing with two original parents, this is accounted for by differences in socioeconomic conditions and in grade sum. Fathers, like mothers, also have a more direct influence on children's educational choices of field of study via their own education and occupation. However, what has not been noted in previous research is that this also applies to ‘absent’ fathers and, for boys, to stepfathers as well.     

Workplace aesthetics: impact of environments upon employee health as compared to ergonomics

Associations between self-reported needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements were studied to analyse a possible impact of aesthetic needs on job performance as compared to ergonomic needs in 11 occupational groups. Employees at Swedish broadcasting company were invited to participate in a cross sectional study. 74% (n=1961/2641) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Demographic data from company files and a pre-validated questionnaire were used. 'High rank' and 'low rank' aesthetic and ergonomic needs were compared. The perceived needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements showed significantly different distributions (p<0.001). Aesthetic needs were more frequently reported. No gender related differences were observed. Differences between occupational groups were shown (p=0.006, 0.003).'High rank' needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements were similarly associated to psychological demands, stress, pain and age. 16/24 factors showed significant differences between 'high and low rank' aesthetic needs, whereas 21/24 between ergonomic needs. Sick leave was stronger related to ergonomics. The study results show a relation between not only work place ergonomics but also work place aesthetics to health and well-being. Future work health promotion and prevention may benefit from the inclusion of workplace aesthetics.     

THE EFFECT OF POST-HIGH SCHOOL SOCIAL CONTEXT ON SELF-ESTEEM

This study examines the effect of post-high school social context on self-concept development by assessing changes in positive self-esteem (i.e., self-confidence) in a national longitudinal sample of males who entered the full-time labor force, the active federal military, or college after high school. The data are from Bachman's Youth in Transition study of 2,213 American high school students in five data waves between 1966 and 1974. Estimation of a LISREL structural equation model shows that of the three contexts, the military has the most significant (negative) net impact on self-concept, followed by work (slightly negative), and college (no impact). It is argued that the observed negative effect of the military context (and possibly the work context) is rooted in the larger sociohistorical processes impinging on the individual, and on the workers' and servicemen's low organizational positions. College's lack of effect appears to be due to the students' relatively high prior self-esteem and the possibility that college impacts social and political values more than self-worth. The number of months in a context positively relates to later self-esteem. It is argued that duration may work through acclimation to the role demands of one's context and to an increase in feelings of mastery and control.     

Regulation and Praise in American,Estonian, and Swedish Mother--Child Interaction

This article deals with cultural influences on linguistic regulation and praise in American, Estonian, and Swedish mother-child interaction. Two-year-old children and their mothers from these different countries were videotaped during mealtime and puzzle solving. The video recordings were transcribed and coded for various forms of linguistic behavior. The results reveal both quantitative and qualitative differences among the 3 groups. All children were regulated and praised more often during puzzle solving than during mealtimes. The American mothers praised their children more often than mothers in the other 2 groups, and the Estonian mothers used more regulation than the other mothers. The American mothers regulated verbal activity more than the Estonian and Swedish mothers, and the Estonian mothers regulated attention more often than the American and Swedish mothers.     

Thinking critically about cross-cultural implementation—Swedish social workers’ experiences of testing the Kids’ Club method for helping child and mother victims of intimate partner violence

There are calls for evidence-based methods for helping children to deal with experiences of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in many countries. Therefore, it has been commonplace to implement such methods from outside of their home country. The aim of this study is to examine Swedish social workers’ experiences of testing the American Kids’ Club method for child and mother victims of IPV. After having tested leading Kids’ Club groups, seventeen social workers at four different locations were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The results indicate that the social workers generally accepted the method. This was related both to some general features of the method and to their perceiving it as somewhat flexible. According to the social workers, the method needs some cultural adaptation to better suit the Swedish social services setting, otherwise it cannot be fully accepted. Finally, they thought that successful implementation depended on an organizational structure that enabled enough children to be referred to the programme as well as either high personal commitment or an organization that prioritized the method. Based on these results, we conclude that importing an American evidence-based group method to help children exposed to IPV to Sweden demands attention to issues of cultural adaption.     

Effects of early support intervention on workplace ergonomics--a two-year followup study

The purpose of the controlled longitudinal study was to determine the effect of a tailored early support intervention method on workers' workplace ergonomics. The main areas of the early support intervention were training, guidance and support for supervisors in finding weak signals of impaired ergonomics. Supervisors were also trained to bring up these weak signals in discussion with employees and to make necessary changes at the workplace. The data consisted of 301 intervention subjects and 235 control subjects working in the field of commerce. The questionnaires were carried out in 2008 and in 2010, and the response rates among both groups were 45%. We used multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (MANOVA) to test the difference in the groups at two points of time. The main result was that in the areas of work environment, the interaction between group and time was statistically significant (p=0.0004). The work environment improved in the intervention group, but deteriorated in the control. Working methods improved due to the interventions, but physical load factors increased over time in both groups. According to the study, tailored early support intervention has a generally beneficial impact on workers' workplace ergonomics in the areas of work methods, work environment and accident factors.