The rise in absenteeism: disentangling the impacts of cohort, age and time

In recent years, a number of welfare state economies, including Norway, have experienced substantial increases in sickness absence. Using longitudinal individual register data for virtually all Norwegian employees, we examine the remarkable rise since the early 1990s, with emphasis on disentangling the roles of cohort, age, and time. We show that individual age-adjusted absence propensities have risen even more than aggregate absence rates from 1993 to 2005, which casts doubt on the popular hypotheses that the rise was due to the inclusion into the workforce of young or marginal workers with weaker work-norms or poorer health.     

Genocide Reconsidered: A Pragmatist Approach

The recent literature on genocide shows signs of taking what might be called a “processual turn,” with genocide increasingly understood as a contingent process rather than a singular event. But while this second generation's turn may be clear to those within the literature, the theory guiding the change is insufficiently specified. The theory regarding process and contingency is implicit, and, as such, genocide theory does not realize its full generative potential. The primary goal of this article is to provide a more robust theoretical framework for making sense of the continually evolving dimensions of genocide. It builds on the literature's existing foundations, most notably Mann's (2005) notion of “contingent escalations.” In the spirit of the recent revival of American Pragmatism in sociology, it draws on the work of Dewey, Mills, Follett, and Addams (among others) as part of a theoretical reconstruction using pragmatist concepts such as rupture, perplexity, vocabularies of motive, and experimentation to consider examples from the Rwandan genocide and show how we might explore the potential for non‐teleological intentionality on the part of genocidal actors. The result is an enhanced theoretical framework that offers “fresh eyes” for considering one of the worst (and most under‐theorized) social problems.     

A Facet Theory Approach to Examining Overall and Life Facet Satisfaction Relationships

Multiple Discrepancies Theory – MDT – (Michalos, 1985)has been established as a leading theory of lifesatisfaction, on the basis of which numerous studieson satisfaction have been designed. Previous researchexamining overall and life facet satisfactionrelationships combined various approaches tounderstanding the interrelationships between thevariables by which individuals measure theirsatisfaction in life. Recently, Lance, Mallard andMichalos (1995) extended the scope of study byexamining the theoretical relationship between overalllife satisfaction (OLS) and satisfaction in variouslife facets (life facet satisfaction – LFS) among1,354 US college students. The present study extendsMDT one step further by applying a Facet Theory (FT)statistical approach to our understanding of the sameset of data. In this way a holistic model emerges,presenting not only the relationship between OLS andLFS, but also the interrelationships between and amongeach and every facet. Results of this analysis arepresented through the correlation matrix and SmallestSpace Analysis (SSA) diagrams. These results arecompared to Levy and Guttmans (1975) figures in theirstudy on the structure of well-being; although the twostudies examined different populations and askeddifferent questions, the final structural organizationof the data is strikingly similar.     

Impact of the Group of Co‐migrants on Strategies of Acculturation: Towards an Expansion of the Berry Model

This article proposes expanding Berry’s theory of acculturation strategies into a three‐fold model to be applied to the case of acculturation among migrants. The expanded model includes the community of co‐migrants as a distinct referent. It addresses the dynamic and multi‐directional relationship between the three referents and the individual migrant, which all interact to create the experience of acculturation among migrants. An expanded typology is presented representing positive or negative attitudes toward each referent. The typology delineates eight possible strategies of acculturation among migrants, namely positive attitudes towards all three referents, negative attitudes towards all three, and the six possible variations between these extremes. Though not previously conceptualized and formalized, examples of all eight strategies were found in the existing literature. Some examples are cited, supporting the assertion that in the socio‐psychological phenomenon of acculturation among migrants, the community of co‐migrants plays a role which may be differentiated from the home culture and the host culture referents of the Berry model. The model provides a structure for exploring expression of these acculturation strategies among various sub‐groups within a community of co‐migrants. The current article is essentially a hypothesis paper, citing support for each of the proposed strategies of acculturation from published empirical studies carried out among a wide variety of migrant populations. A preliminary testing of the typology ( Taieb, 2008 ) found that the cultures of the home, host and co‐migrant communities do play distinct roles in the acculturation process, and verified that the eight profiles may be recognized in an empirical study. Directions for further empirical verification and refining the preliminary model are suggested.     

Regulations,policies and practices concerning work stress in five European countries

Abstract

A comparative inventory of regulations, policies and practices in The Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Germany and France with regard to the prevention of work stress was carried out. In each country data were collected by means of interviews with key informants and through exploring relevant documents and literature. It was found that Sweden, The Netherlands and the UK—those countries with framework legislation in the field of health and safety—recognize stress as an important health and safety topic, whereas Germany and France do not yet recognize stress as an important policy issue. However, even in the first group of countries less attention is being paid towards psychosocial work characteristics when compared with traditional health and safety issues, such as noise, machine safety and toxic agents. There is a clear lack of well-documented (national) ‘examples of good preventive practice’, even in Sweden and The Netherlands. Recommendations are being formulated concerning type of legislation, guidance and information, monitoring and risk assessment, costs and benefits, examples of good practice and European networking.     

Physicians’ Labour Supply: The Wage Impact on Hours and Practice Combinations

Abstract. It is a stated aim to improve physician services in underserved sectors and areas. Increased wages is one instrument for boosting the hours provided by the personnel to the prioritized sub‐markets. This study applies an econometric framework that allows for non‐convex budget sets, non‐linear labour supply curves and imperfect markets with institutional constraints. The labour supply decision is viewed as a choice from a set of discrete alternatives (job packages) in a structural labour supply model estimated on Norwegian micro data. An out‐of‐sample prediction is also presented and evaluated by means of a natural experiment.     

Expert Views on Their Role as Policy Advisor: Pilot Study for the Cases of Electromagnetic Fields,Particulate Matter,and Antimicrobial Resistance

This perspective presents empirical data to demonstrate the existence of different expert views on scientific policy advice on complex environmental health issues. These views are partly research‐field specific. According to scientific literature, experts differ in the way they provide policy advice on complex issues such as electromagnetic fields (EMF), particulate matter (PM), and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Where some experts feel their primary task is to carry out fundamental research, others actively engage in the policy dialogue. Although the literature provides ideas about expert roles, there exists little empirical underpinning. Our aim is to gather empirical evidence about expert roles. The results of an international study indicated that experts on EMF, PM, and AMR differ in the way they view their role in the policy dialogue. For example, experts differed in their views on the need for precaution and their motivation to initiate stakeholder cooperation. Besides, most experts thought that their views on the risks of EMF/PM/AMR did not differ from those of colleagues. Great dissensus was found in views on the best ways of managing risks and uncertainties. In conclusion, the theoretical ideal–typical roles from the literature can be identified to a certain extent.     

Infant‐Directed Speech Facilitates Word Segmentation

There are reasons to believe that infant‐directed (ID) speech may make language acquisition easier for infants. However, the effects of ID speech on infants' learning remain poorly understood. The experiments reported here assess whether ID speech facilitates word segmentation from fluent speech. One group of infants heard a set of nonsense sentences spoken with intonation contours characteristic of adult‐directed (AD) speech, and the other group heard the same sentences spoken with intonation contours characteristic of ID speech. In both cases, the only cue to word boundaries was the statistical structure of the speech. Infants were able to distinguish words from syllable sequences spanning word boundaries after exposure to ID speech but not after hearing AD speech. These results suggest that ID speech facilitates word segmentation and may be useful for other aspects of language acquisition as well. Issues of direction of preference in preferential listening paradigms are also considered.     

The role of voluntary social welfare organisations in Norway: a democratic alternative to a bureaucratic welfare state?

Taking as a point of departure the postulated political-ideological and fiscal ‘crisis of the welfare state’, this article emphasises recent changes in the relationship between the four sectors of welfare providers: the informal sector of the family or community; the for-profit sector — where social goods are offered by profit-seeking institutions; the formalised sector of voluntary organisations; and the public sector of statutory bodies. Discussion is concentrated on the changing relationship between the voluntary and public sectors. Are voluntary organisations able to cope with new and extensive welfare problems within a more decentralised welfare state? Do they express the values, and do they possess the resources that both governmental agencies and the organisations themselves take for granted?     

The Cognitive Domain of the Quality of Life of University Students: A Re-Analyses of an Instrument

This paper presents the re-analysis of a previouslypublished instrument, based on Bloom's taxonomy,developed to measure the cognitive domain of thequality of life of university students. The items inthis instrument were assessed using Guttman's SmallestSpace Analysis. The findings generally supportBloom's conceptualization, identifying 5 of 6dimensions in the taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension,Application, Analysis, and Evaluation. The findingsprovide support for the enduring utility of Bloom'staxonomy, and reinforce the ongoing need to testtheoretically informed instruments using sophisticatedstatistical techniques.