The deregulated global economy: women workers and strategies of resistance

This article discusses the lack of input from women in international debates about the global economy. Women in the South are the most vulnerable to exploitation and most ignored in international discussions of how to protect fair labor standards. Restructuring has led to loss of secure jobs in the public sector and the expansion of female employment in low-paid, insecure, unskilled jobs. Businesses desire a cheap and flexible workforce. Declines in social services, the elimination of subsidies on basic goods, and the introduction of user fees puts pressure on women to supplement family income. A parallel outcome is reduced employment rights, neglect of health and safety standards, and increased disregard among women for their domestic responsibilities. There is a need for alternative models of development. The Self-Employed Women's Organization in India serves as a model for resisting exploitation among self-employed and home-based employees. Female industrial strikers are demanding attention to excessive hours of work, enforced overtime, bullying, and lack of sanitary and medical facilities. There is always fear that organized resistance will lead to industrial relocation or loss of jobs. The International Labor Organization has had a code for 20 years, but the threat of exposure to the press is sometimes more effective. There must be regulation throughout subcontracting chains of transnational companies. International alliances should revolve around issues/strategies identified by workers. International alliances are needed for influencing multinational companies and national governments and lobbying global economic and financial institutions. Standards that are included in social clause discussions are minimum requirements that do not address gender-specific issues. Women Working Worldwide is developing a position statement of social clauses that incorporates a women's perspective.     

An analysis of the basic population structure of Shanghai Municipality

This paper analyzes the changes in Shanghai's population structure over the last 30 years in the 4 aspects of age structure, sex composition, urban and rural composition, and labor and employment structure. In 1953 those of the 0 to 6 age group accounted for 21.2% of the total population; in 1957 the group represented a proportion of 24.6%. Since the 1960s, especially after the 1970s, the family planning program gradually took effect, and the birthrate of the entire municipality fell drastically. The number of school-age children in 1979 was 1 1/2 times more than the same age group in 1953; there should be no worry that population control may result in a shortage of manpower to meet the needs of the work force and the armed forces either toward the end of this century or at the beginning of the next. The economy in China is underdeveloped, production and technology remain at a low level, average wages for employees are low, and for a long time the low living standard of the people has shown little sign of improvement. The problem is mainly manifest in the following areas: 1) distribution of the work force in heavy and light industries is not sufficiently rational, 2) the distribution of the work force between captial construction and transport and communications on the 1 hand and the national economy on the other is out of proportion, 3) the distribution of the work force between commerce, service trades, and public utilities on the 1 hand and the national economy on the other is disproportionated, and 4) the distribution of the work force between undertakings of culture, education, scientific research, health, and medical care on the 1 hand and economic construction on the other is improper. How to control population growth and adjust parts of the population structure to suit the national economic development poses a problem that calls for further in-depth study and analysis to resolve it step by step.     

The effect of unemployment duration on national suicide rates: a time series analysis, 1948-1982

The relationship between unemployment and suicide in the United States is examined. Data for the period 1948 to 1978, primarily from the U.S. Public Health Service, are used to examine the effect of the duration of unemployment on suicide. "The results of a Cochrane-Orcutt iterative regression analysis indicate that the greater the duration of unemployment the greater the suicide rate. Using ex post forecasting techniques it is estimated that increases in unemployment during the Reagan administration have been associated with at least 929 additional deaths from suicide."     

Age-based transition periods and the outcome of mental health treatment

Do people ever get too old to change? Studies of the influence of the age of adult patients on the outcome of mental health treatment have led to inconsistent results. Design characteristics of such studies have limited our understanding of the relationship between age and outcome. Over 300 male veterans undergoing brief inpatient psychiatric treatment were categorized according to their age-based, adult developmental period (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, &; McKee, 1978). Improvement during treatment was found to be significantly related to the patient's developmental stage (r = .25, p < .01). These results were cross-validated and replicated using three different techniques for measuring improvement. Patients treated during transition periods, whether young or old, improved most. These results were not limited to wartime veterans. Apparently, adult males are more responsive to mental health treatment during transition periods than at other times.     

Using census data for household projections: an overview of results from the HOMES Project

"This article provides an overview of the household projection model HOMES [a computer model developed to forecast the number and characteristics of households] and presents new household projections for six countries--China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. The household projections are based on recently released population projections from The World Bank and on rules governing living arrangements quantified with the latest available census or demographic survey for each country. Growth in the number of households to the year 2030 is projected along with changes in household membership and the dependency burden."     

Why nonprofit nursing homes pay higher nurses' salaries

It is generally agreed that nonprofit nursing homes pay higher wages to their employees, hire more staff per patient, and are thus more costly than for-profit nursing homes. We attempt to show that higher costs in nonprofit nursing homes are related to higher quality of care in these homes. Using the 1985 National Nursing Home Survey, we show that nurses in nonprofit nursing homes have different characteristics than nurses in for-profit homes and that these differences in characteristics account for the differences in wages, a finding consistent with our hypothesis concerning quality differences between types of homes.     

Future developments in population statistics

The author examines the development of population statistics in the USSR. The transition from past policies of secrecy to current availability of population statistics is described, and various methods of data collection and utilization are discussed. Information is included on trends in mortality, infant mortality, life expectancy at birth, and population projections to the year 2015.     

Primary health care in the context of rapid urbanization

A review of demographic trends and health and social problems in the fast growing urban areas of the world indicates that, in the future, increasing numbers of people will be living in precarious socioeconomic conditions which impede the achievement of health. It is estimated that from 4.4 billion in 1980 the world's population will increase to 6.2 billion by the year 2000. The urban population will increase from 1.8 to 3.2 billion during the same period, over 2 billion of which will be in developing countries. The rapid and often uncontrollable demographic growth of cities, especially in the developing world, stimulates the demand for resources, intensifies their utilization and creates an intolerable pressure on the urban infrastructure and physical environment. A number of action oriented projects to combat disease and contamination have been successful. Projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Hyderabad, India, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Lima, Peru, and Rio de Janeiro have been implemented under a partnership among WHO, UNICEF, the Netherlands Aid Agency, the World Bank, and other international organizationals and governments. These projects all emphasize the fundamental role of community organizations, especially that of women; low-cost technology and the need to mobilize and efficiently use locally available resources; an ecological multisectoral concept of health whereby action concerning the environment, education, income generation and the availability of food, all with a powerful disease preventive potential, carry equal if not greater weight than the efforts to provide the population with health centers or implement curative practices. All these projects are focused on marginal groups; many were initiated by imaginative individuals or groups with a considerable amount of social orientation and motivation, and often, at least in the beginning, without the support of governments, nongovernmental or international organizations. It is important to study these projects in their accomplishments and failures; to help describe them and disseminate related information when appropriate; and to promote political and technical support for those which are successful so that they can rapidly come out of the experimental/demonstration phase and be expanded to become part of routine programs.