Health of Immigrants in European countries

The health of older immigrants can have important consequences for needed social support and demands placed on health systems. This paper examines health differences between immigrants and the native-born populations aged 50 years and older in 11 European countries. We examine differences in functional ability, disability, disease presence and behavioral risk factors, for immigrants and non-immigrants using data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) database. Among the 11 European countries, migrants generally have worse health than the native population. In these countries, there is a little evidence of the "healthy migrant" at ages 50 years and over. In general, it appears that growing numbers of immigrants may portend more health problems in the population in subsequent years.     

Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women's Employment in 18 OECD Countries, 1975–1999

This study combined demographic and institutional explanations of women's employment, describing and explaining the degree to which mothers in industrialized societies are less likely to be employed than women without children. A large number of cross‐sectional surveys were pooled, covering 18 Organisation for Economic Co‐Operation and Development countries, 192,484 observations, and 305 country‐years between 1975 and 1999. These data were merged with measures of institutional context and analyzed with multilevel logistic regression. The results indicate that, over time, women were increasingly likely to combine motherhood and employment in many, but not all, countries. Both mothers and women without children were more likely to be employed in societies with a large service sector and low unemployment. The employment of women without children was generally unaffected by family policies. Mothers were more likely to be employed in societies with extensive reconciliation policies and limited family allowances.     

The Formation of Group Affect and Team Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Identification

In the current research we use the social identity perspective to enhance our understanding of group affect (i.e. a collectively shared pattern of affective states among group members). Because higher identification (i.e. the extent to which group members define themselves in terms of their group membership) is related to higher attentiveness to fellow group members, we expected that group identification would foster affective convergence, and that the effects of group affective tone on team effectiveness would be stronger for higher identifying groups. A survey of teams (n=71 teams) confirmed our expectations. A scenario experiment (n=121 participants) added to our findings by showing that identification does indeed lead group members to affectively converge to their fellow group members and that this affective convergence, in turn, explains subsequent team‐oriented attitudes. Our study testifies to the notion that team managers may want to take notice of and manage affect in work groups, because, especially in higher identifying teams, affect may spread among team members and influence the team's effectiveness.     

The Governance Structure and Performance of Large European Corporations

This article first describes the governance structure ofgroups of large European corporations, viz. the Anglo-Saxon, theGermanic and the Latinic types of firms. It then discussesperformance criteria of which four are used: productivity or netvalue added per employee, growth, employment and total compensationto shareholders. It is found that Continental corporations have aperformance which is equal to or better than that of the Anglo-Saxongroup. Combining the structural and performance outcomes, theexplanation seems to be that the dominance of capital markets andthe market for corporate control force Anglo-Saxon managements tomaximize returns on capital, whereas Continental firms have a widerrange of options.     

Preference for Nature in Urbanized Societies: Stress, Restoration, and the Pursuit of Sustainability

Urbanicity presents a challenge for the pursuit of sustainability. High settlement density may offer some environmental, economic, and social advantages, but it can impose psychological demands that people find excessive. These demands of urban life have stimulated a desire for contact with nature through suburban residence, leading to planning and transportation practices that have profound implications for the pursuit of sustainability. Some might dismiss people's desire for contact with nature as the result of an anti-urban bias in conjunction with a romantic view of nature. However, research in environmental psychology suggests that people's desire for contact with nature serves an important adaptive function, namely, psychological restoration. Based on this insight, we offer a perspective on an underlying practical challenge: designing communities that balance settlement density with satisfactory access to nature experience. We discuss research on four issues: how people tend to believe that nature is restorative; how restoration needs and beliefs shape environmental preferences; how well people actually achieve restoration in urban and natural environments; and how contact with nature can promote health. In closing, we consider urban nature as a design option that promotes urban sustainability.