Trailblazing women in academia: Representation of women in senior faculty and the gender gap in junior faculty's salaries in higher educational institutions

This study examines how women's representation at different levels of an organizational hierarchy predicts gender equity in assistant professors’ salaries at four-year universities. This study suggests that women's proportion at the full professor rank is positively associated with improved gender equity in assistant professors’ salaries, while women's proportion at the associate and assistant ranks is not significantly associated with improved gender equity. Institutions with a female president, however, have a greater wage gap. Overall, the results imply that the presence of women who blazed the trail of tenure and promotion contributes to the improved gender equity for their junior colleagues.     

Gender equity and women's contraception use

Gender equity describes the distribution between men and women of social and material resources and decision‐making powers. Women's experiences of gender equity are likely to influence their contraceptive use. Multilevel analysis of two databases: the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles from the United Kingdom and the United Nations' Fertility and Family Surveys, was undertaken to explore the association between gender equity measured at two spatial scales (small areas and countries) and women's contraception use. Results suggest that the spatial scale at which gender equity is considered is important. Gender equity was associated with contraception use at a local level, but not at the country level. Further, gender equity (at a local level) benefited women with less education in terms of increasing their likelihood of contraception use compared with more highly educated women. Results suggest gender equity is a potential pathway to reducing socio‐economic inequalities in health in developed settings.     

Alternative funding mechanisms for workers' compensation: An international comparison

Countries vary greatly with respect to how they fund workers' compensation systems in terms of the sources of funds, the mechanisms used, and the allocation of system costs among employers and others. These different funding approaches can have significant implications for system performance, including employers' incentives to promote workplace safety. Government officials and other stakeholders have a strong interest in systems in other jurisdictions as they consider improvements to their own schemes. This paper examines the major alternative approaches to funding compensation for work‐related injuries and illnesses, their rationales, and their administrative and behavioural consequences. We discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of different systems and the trends toward more refined, actuarially based approaches intended to promote greater equity and efficiency.     

Coalmining and the National Scheme for Disabled Ex-Servicemen after the First World War

After the First World War, disabled British veterans returned home to an uncertain future of work. In addition to voluntary efforts, the government’s response to the national employment crisis – the National Scheme for Disabled Ex-Servicemen (commonly known as the King’s Roll) – was established in 1919 to encourage employers to hire a five per cent quota of disabled ex-servicemen. Historians have recently revisited the scheme, noting that in many cases the process was slow and fraught, with many disabled veterans facing the prospect of unemployment, yet few have paid attention to soldiers’ pre-war working backgrounds and the specific requests of British industries. This article focuses on British coalminers returning from war. What role was there in this national situation for an industry known for its own high rate of accident and injury? Although the King’s Roll made some attempt to find veterans specifically targeted jobs above and below ground according to their impairments, it proved unable to incorporate coalmining. Instead, many disabled ex-servicemen returned to the workplace and utilized their existing identities as miners to navigate the process. With the industry beginning to decline, many faced potential regression in job status, exploitation or unemployment. By shifting to an industry-specific focus, this case study explores the contested nature of work for disabled people after the First World War, and highlights the interrelation and importance of workplace identity for the returning disabled veteran.     

On risk aversion,classical demand theory,and KM preferences

Building on Kihlstrom and Mirman (Journal of Economic Theory, 8(3), 361–388, 1974)’s formulation of risk aversion in the case of multidimensional utility functions, we study the effect of risk aversion on optimal behavior in a general consumer’s maximization problem under uncertainty. We completely characterize the relationship between changes in risk aversion and classical demand theory. We show that the effect of risk aversion on optimal behavior depends on the income and substitution effects. Moreover, the effect of risk aversion is determined not by the riskiness of the risky good, but rather the riskiness of the utility gamble associated with each decision.     

Eating Its Own: The Whistleblower's Organization in Vendetta Mode

This paper reports on Australia's largest whistleblower study. Specifically it focuses on the experiences of whistleblowers in the Queensland public sector during the Goss Labor government's first term. Rather than being affirmed as good citizen-workers when they took disclosures of wrongdoing to their supervisors within the units in which they worked, the whistleblowers encountered obstruction and vilification. Their experiences offer a rare check-up on the state of workplace dissent.     

Difficulties in making implicit government risk-bearing partnerships explicit

This article explains how lobbying pressure intensifies tax-transfer inefficiencies in disaster prevention and relief. The social-welfare tradeoff in the government's joint provision of safety regulation and disaster relief is distorted by disinformational lobbying activity by disaster-exposed households and by conflict between principles of horizontal and vertical equity. Horizontal equity presupposes that no group of taxpayers wants to transfer wealth ex ante to equally wealthy disaster-exposed parties. But vertical equity implies that, when disaster strikes, households that were previously able to hide the mitigability of their exposure to a ratable hazard can nevertheless extract sizable transfers from other taxpayers ex post.     

Social Workers' Perceptions of Training Preparedness and Social Justice Norms on Workplace Empowerment

This study examined the relationship between (a) social workers' perceptions of preparedness to perform in their professional roles and perceived social justice behaviors at work and (b) workers' sense of workplace empowerment. A sample of 152 currently licensed social workers responded to web or mailed surveys. Respondents were more likely to perceive having workplace empowerment related to meaning in their work if they reported their social work program training prepared them for their professional roles. Perceived social justice behaviors at work were associated with workers' experiencing empowerment related to the impact they had at work. Social workers' sense of training preparedness and experiencing social justice at work can positively influence workers' perceived empowerment. Enforcing the importance of engaging in social justice with clients in social work education, both in class and in field placements, has the potential for long-lasting effects on empowerment in students' future workplaces. Agency-level management should ensure continuity in social justice activities to enhance feelings of workplace empowerment, which may help social workers connect with clients. Future research should examine elements of social work programs that promote feelings of empowerment in order to understand how the same approach can be used in models of continuing education and organizational management.     

The Eric Garner Case: Statewide Survey of New York Voters’ Response to Proposed Police Accountability Legislation

The Eric Garner case was unique because this police-induced death was caught on video from before the moment of physical confrontation. A mixed-methods representative household survey and Garner's arrest video were used to determine NYS voters’ opinions (n = 119) about police indictment and Governor Cuomo's request for expanded authority. Respondents were asked whether the officers should face indictment, shown the arrest video, and then asked again about indictment. Prior to the video, a majority of respondents (n = 86; 57.4%) believed involved officers should have been indicted. After viewing, the proportion increased by 13.7%. A majority supported Cuomo's call for expanded authority to appoint a special prosecutor in cases where police are involved in civilian deaths. Study limitations include prior exposure to the footage and a low response rate. NYS voters generally supported Cuomo's proposal for appointing a special prosecutor; however, a quarter of respondents disagreed with the method of reform and expressed a: 1) preference for every case to go to trial; 2) preference for a case-by-case basis; or 3) distrust in state-appointed special prosecutors. This research could inform discussions regarding proposed system reforms. Future research with a less well-circulated video is needed to determine the extent to which videos of police-induced deaths affect public opinion.     

Advocacy Coalitions and Health Politics in Korea

This article analyses the political dynamics underlying health care reform in Korea after the Asian economic crisis. The reform was a significant volte‐face in respect of the social policy paradigm, which now aims to enhance equity in National Health Insurance. The article pays special attention to the evolution of the advocacy coalition for equity in health policy and how it developed the two attributes required for successful policy change: institutional strength and the elaboration of policy rationale for reform. This process was not a simple linear development but a combination of setbacks and advances. The article also takes into consideration the structural conditions that set the policy environment over the course of the advocacy coalition's evolution since the 1960s. In short, the policy reform of 2000 was not a simple policy change in response to the economic crisis, but rather the outcome of the long‐term evolution of the advocacy coalition for equity in health policy.     

Workplace characteristics,work-to-life conflict,and psychological distress among medical workers

This study addresses whether work-to-life conflict mediates the relationships between workplace characteristics and psychological distress for workers in the medical industry who experience heightened stressors in the workplace. Drawing on data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, hypotheses are tested using stepwise OLS regression. Overall, the findings indicate that work-to-life conflict mediates the relationship between job pressure and supervisor support and psychological distress. The finding's implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

“Respect for each gender”: Gender,equity and backlash in Australia's male health policy

Australia is one of the few countries which has specific health policies for boys/men and girls/women as distinct groups. In this article I present an analysis of the discourses of gender, equity and disadvantage drawn upon in Australia's men's health policy. Through comparison with the women's health policy, I show that a dual focus on the essential differences between men and women and the ways in which the health system has failed men contribute to an adversarial gender politics, positioning men and women as rivals with competing needs. Reflecting broader debates concerning the negative impact of societal change on boys/men, I argue that, in its current form, Australia's health policy both taps into and, crucially, legitimises backlash politics, enabling it to ‘pass’ as sound public policy.     

His,hers, or ours? Work-to-family spillover,crossover, and family cohesion

Using the contagion model of spillover and crossover, this study examines gender differences in the effects of workplace characteristics (e.g., hours worked in the paid-labor force, job satisfaction, work flexibility, perception of partner's work–family spillover) on family cohesion among a random sample of dual-earner couples. Important gender differences were found among respondents: the crossover effect is stronger among men, while women's perceptions of family cohesion are more strongly influenced by work and job characteristics. Work–family policy implications are examined.     

Equity and ‘No Fee’ Schools in South Africa: Challenges and Prospects

Despite almost 20 years of democratic governance in South Africa, there is growing evidence that equitable access to quality education remains elusive for the majority of its children. In 2007, the Department of Education declared 40 per cent of schools in the country to be ‘no fee’ schools and, by 2011, 60 per cent of all schools had been designated as such. This article examines the introduction and the effects to date of the no fee schools policy, and assesses the progress of South Africa's undoubtedly pro‐poor education policies towards promoting equality in education and, above all, achieving equity of access to resource allocation. It discusses the main challenges and issues relating to the implementation of the no fee policy at provincial and school levels while also considering the efficacy of existing equitable funding instruments, and concludes with suggestions for how more effective and equitable access to quality education can be realized.     

The effect of religious and sexual stigmas on programmers and trust in their work product

Research on stigmatized individuals is widespread; however, there are only a few studies on how stigma affects trust in a stigmatized person's work product. In two experiments, participants evaluate a target individual who is described as either Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Atheist-Agnostic or either heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual. Participants are asked to rate how they feel about a target and how trustworthy they feel the target individual's work product is. All religions and sexual orientations except Christian or Jewish heterosexuals are rated less positively and their work products are rated as less trustworthy compared to a neutral control. Results also show that affect plays a strong mediating role in the relationship between stigmatized conditions and trust in work product.     

Availability Crises in Insurance Markets: Optimal Contracts with Asymmetric Information and Capacity Constraints

Insurance markets sometimes exhibit "crises" in which prices rise dramatically and coverage is unavailable or is rationed at the new prices. A recent explanation for such crises is the "capacity constraint" model of Gron and Winter. Crises usually follow sudden and large depletions in insurers' equity or surplus. The capacity constraint model argues that frictional costs in replacing surplus, and limited liability, give rise to a kinked insurance supply function and that crises arise from discontinuous short term adjustments around the kink. While this model explains much about liability insurance crises, it still leaves unexplained their most prominent feature; that insurance is rationed or unavailable. We follow their insight in looking to equity shocks and capital market frictions to explain crises and combine this with a model of optimal risk sharing contracts under the information conditions characteristic of this market. We use implicit long term contracts with truth telling constraints to address information asymmetries and this allows us to model crises that exhibit rationing. Our model is tested in the market most dramatically affected by such crises in the 1980‘s, the general liability insurance market.     

中国核电安全规制的研究——理论动因、经验借鉴与改革建议

本文针对核电低常规性风险、高灾难性风险的特点,从社会性规制的视角,对核电安全规制进行了供求分析,并从核电安全的外部性和信息不对称两个方面阐述了核电安全规制的理论动因和依据。研究表明,日本核电站的泄露事故带来的危害将直接促使中国公众增加对核电安全规制的强烈需求,进而推动政府相应地增加核电安全规制供给的数量。本文在理论分析基础上,从规制机构、法规体系、规制力量三个方面分析了我国现行的核电安全规制框架,并援引核电发达国家的核电安全规制模式,对我国加强核电安全规制提出了相应的改革建议。     

Women's Experience of the Workers Compensation System

A phenomenological study was undertaken to understand women's experience of the workers compensation system. Eleven women were interviewed. They ranged in age from twenty‐five to sixty‐five years and represented diverse socio‐economic and educational backgrounds. All women were from a non‐indigenous background. The initial question to women was “Can you tell me what it is like to be involved in the workers' compensation system?” The narratives were analysed and interpreted using Hycner's (1985) phenomenological guidelines. The knowledge embedded in the interviews, expressed through core stories and themes, was essential to making women's voices visible and provide insight into service delivery based on women's experiences and needs. Four core themes were found: negative versus positive experiences, the workplace response and role in the process, women's experiences of payouts, and reasons why women may not claim workers' compensation. The women indicated that the workers compensation process was a disincentive to making a claim. WorkCover was viewed as siding with the employer, bureaucratic in nature and lacking values associated with empathy, sympathy and caring. Recommendations for improvements to the workers compensation system included to establish legal obligations and enforcement of occupational health and safety responsibilities to injured and to ill workers; adoption of occupational health and safety values by employers; change the attitudes of employers (recognising women as breadwinners and that workers are not disposable); a single case manager to advocate for injured or ill workers; recognition of mental and emotional consequences of an injury or illness; provision of rehabilitation that recognises mental and emotional factors as well as the importance of family participation; greater involvement of employers and employees in the rehabilitation process; and finally, improved service delivery that involves consistency, ethics, clarity (regarding the WorkCover process for injured workers and employers), accountability and involvement of all parties.