Immigrants' Relative Earnings in Sweden — A Cohort Analysis

Abstract. This paper examines the earnings assimilation of immigrants in Sweden by applying a quantile regression approach on pooled data during the period 1990–99. Immigrants from Nordic and Western European countries have a smaller entry earnings disadvantage and slower rate of assimilation than other groups of immigrants. For some cohorts of immigrants from European countries the initial earnings disadvantage disappears after 15–20 years in Sweden, but as non‐European immigrants suffered from very large entry earnings disadvantages, their earnings will not catch up with the earnings of natives during their first 20 years in Sweden. More recent non‐European immigrant cohorts had a larger entry earnings disadvantage than previous ones. The immigration policy, discrimination, and the economic conditions may have contributed to the decline in the earnings assimilation of non‐European immigrants.     

Urban order and the preventive restructuring of space: the operation of border controls in micro space

This paper is about a specific aspect of the present restructuring of space: the cumulative, but unintended, effects on the public urban order, by a growing, and more intense, deployment of border controls. Border controls are recognized to operate both in public space, and at the entrances to those organized activities that directly face public space. Their working is understood as actuarial practices. Two preventive impetuses are identified, one specific, police‐related, one general, related to the on‐going socio‐economic changes. To try to follow the aggregate effects of such a preventive spatial restructuring, an analytic thought experiment is made. Its focus is the public order in a square, or a segment of a street, located centrally in a relatively large Western European city and the effects of the following variations. To begin with, the targets of border controls: the volume and the composition of, first, the passers by, and second, the direct visitors of this public space, and third, different visitors to the organized activities adjoining this space. Then, of course, the variations in the deployment of border controls by both public and private police. Thus, it is possible to delineate how the preventive restructuring of space works upon the urban order. Perhaps surprisingly, there is a certain robustness in the urban order since many agents of the preventive restructuring do not work in concert.     

Transmission of self-employment across immigrant generations: the importance of ethnic background and gender

This paper studies the intergenerational transmissions of self-employment abilities among immigrants in Sweden. The results show that second-generation immigrants are over-represented in self-employment compared to natives. Male immigrants from countries neighbouring to Sweden and natives alike seem to use both mothers and fathers as role models in their self-employment decision, but the father is the stronger role model among male immigrants from more geographically distant regions. Female immigrants use both their father and their mother as role models in their self-employment decision. Furthermore, male immigrants and male natives tend to become self-employed in the same business sector as their fathers; female immigrants and female natives with self-employed parents are over-represented in self-employment but not necessarily in the same business sector as their parents.     

Sexual orientation and full-time monthly earnings, by public and private sector: evidence from Swedish register data

In this paper we explore annual earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings differentials resulting from sexual orientation. We observe that gay males are at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals regardless of which earnings measure we use. This earnings disadvantage is found to be larger when we compare gay and heterosexual males who are working full-time. In addition, the disadvantage is larger in the private than in the public sector. Lesbians, however, earn more than heterosexual females. This earnings advantage is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly rather than annual earnings but an earnings advantage for lesbians at the top of the earnings distribution is documented regardless of which earnings measure we use. In addition, lesbians are doing better than female heterosexuals in the public sector. To sum up, the results indicate that gay males face obstacles on the labor market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings. The earnings advantage observed for lesbians is likely to stem from the fact that lesbians devote more time to market work than heterosexual females do.     

Participatory analysis of accidents and incidents as a tool for increasing safety behaviour in fishermen. A pilot intervention study

Although occupational accidents are common in fishery, safety work is often not given priority by the fishermen. The aims of this study were to test a group-based intervention for increased activity in safety work through group discussion of accident/incident experience; to study occurred incidents/accidents and how such events were managed; and to study intervention effects on activity in safety work, risk acceptance and perceived manageability of risks. A sample of men from five crews (11 men) of Swedish fishermen participated. The study had a one group pre-test-post-test design for questionnaire data. The emphasis was on qualitative information collected during the intervention and interviews. The results indicated that accident causes could be appraised as being unmanageable even when technical solutions were possible. Psychological factors may cause incidents not to be documented or discussed. Incident experience seldom leads to preventive measures. Interaction between structural, social and psychological factors seemed to explain this. Questionnaires, observations and interview data suggested that some increase in safety work took place during the intervention. After the discussions the participants perceived risks to be less manageable. The study indicated that, although sensitive to dropout, participative safety interventions in fishery are feasible and may be effective. A longer or more intensive intervention may be necessary in order to progress from problem orientation to action orientation.     

Psychological stress and muscle activity during data entry at visual display units

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether psychological stress causes increased muscle activity, especially static muscle activity, in the trapezius muscles of the neck and shoulder. A pilot and a main study were carried out with 10 males and 20 females, respectively. The subjects performed a VDU data entry task under psychologically stressful and non-stressful conditions. Stress reactions were measured by different methods: heart rate and heart rate variability, hormonal excretion, and subjective ratings of mood and body symptoms. The stress condition caused an increase in heart rate. The low-frequency variability increased and the high-frequency variability decreased. Ratings of motivation and relaxation decreased, and subjects felt more activated. Pain and discomfort from the stomach increased. Adrenaline and noradrenaline in urine were unaffected. The majority of the subjects showed moderately increased static and median EMG levels during the stress condition. The interindividual variation in muscular reactions was large. Statistically significant increases were obtained for the myoelectric activity of the left (resting) trapezius muscle when pooling the two groups. It appears that the increase in muscle activity due to this type of mental stress is small, and factors other than ‘attention-related’ load may be more important. The results indicate that some individuals may be more prone to general muscle tension, making them more likely to develop symptoms and musculoskeletal pain.     

Immigrant mothers’ preferences for children’s sexes: A register-based study of fertility behaviour in Norway

Parental sex preferences have been documented in many native populations, but much less evidence is available on immigrants’ preferences for the sexes of their children. Using high-quality longitudinal register data from Norway, a country with a recent immigration history, we estimate hazards regression models of third birth risks by the sex composition of the first two children. A central question in the extant literature is whether the sex preferences of immigrant mothers match those observed in their country of origin, or if cultural adaption to local conditions is more important. Our analyses indicate that the sex preferences of immigrants generally match those previously documented for their native population, especially in the case of son preferences. The pattern of sex preferences is unmodified by the mother’s exposure to the host society. In sum, our evidence generally supports theories emphasizing cultural persistence in preferences, rather than theories of adaption or immigrant selectivity.     

Aligning manufacturing strategy and levels of automation: A case study

Research has shown that alignment between manufacturing strategy and decisions regarding automation are often of an ad hoc nature, i.e. the support for automation decisions is poor. Support tools to find an appropriate level of automation are thus needed in order to achieve more efficient and robust production systems. The methodology presented in this paper contains five sub-processes where the chosen level of automation is aligned with the manufacturing strategy. Together they form an automation strategy, which secures a desired direction of the firm and also supports robustness and reliability of the manufacturing system due to the holistic approach chosen.     

A structured procedure for materials planning during production transfer

This paper explores materials planning procedures to ensure the materials’ availability during production transfers. The paper defines a production transfer as the preparation, physical transfer and start-up of relocated production. A structured procedure of materials planning during production transfer is developed based on theory, and then validated and refined based on the analysis of four case studies. The paper shows that there is a need for a structured procedure of materials planning during production transfers. It also explains the importance of activities that create prerequisites for the materials’ availability during production transfer, such as updating and adapting documentation, planning and control systems, and describes the activities that ensure the materials’ availability, such as preventive and corrective actions. A valid estimation of the time needed to reach a steady state and a combination of several preventive actions improves the ability to ensure that materials are available. The cases showed differences across company size, because large companies took more and farther-reaching preventive actions.