Impact of the psychosocial work environment on registered absence from work: A two-year longitudinal study using the IPAW cohort

During the Intervention Project on Absence and Well-being (IPAW), a 5-year project conducted in Denmark, we investigated psychosocial work environment factors as independent predictors of the number of absence days per year. The present two-year longitudinal study used the IPAW cohort, but was not intended to study intervention effects, which will be reported later. Data were derived from baseline questionnaires and employers' registers of absence for 1919 participants (1305 women, 614 men, mainly in low-skilled jobs) in different occupations from 52 workplaces. These workplaces included municipal care, municipal technical services and a large pharmaceutical company. Analyses were performed by Poisson regression accounting for over-dispersion. After controlling for age, family type, health behaviours and physical work environment variables, we found that high levels of decision authority predicted low absence rates in both women and men. We tested two new psychosocial constructs developed for this study: Predictability (relating to being informed on future events at work) and Meaning of Work (relating to how meaningful and useful the work is perceived to be). Higher Predictability was a significant predictor of lower absence rates in men. This study adds to the body of evidence that the psychosocial working environment influences absence and should therefore be considered to be an important target for intervention.     

Boundary and Bias Correction in Kernel Hazard Estimation

A new class of local linear hazard estimators based on weighted least square kernel estimation is considered. The class includes the kernel hazard estimator of Ramlau-Hansen (1983), which has the same boundary correction property as the local linear regression estimator (see Fan & Gijbels, 1996). It is shown that all the local linear estimators in the class have the same pointwise asymptotic properties. We derive the multiplicative bias correction of the local linear estimator. In addition we propose a new bias correction technique based on bootstrap estimation of additive bias. This latter method has excellent theoretical properties. Based on an extensive simulation study where we compare the performance of competing estimators, we also recommend the use of the additive bias correction in applied work.     

Local linear regression with adaptive orthogonal fitting for the wind power application

Short-term forecasting of wind generation requires a model of the function for the conversion of meteorological variables (mainly wind speed) to power production. Such a power curve is nonlinear and bounded, in addition to being nonstationary. Local linear regression is an appealing nonparametric approach for power curve estimation, for which the model coefficients can be tracked with recursive Least Squares (LS) methods. This may lead to an inaccurate estimate of the true power curve, owing to the assumption that a noise component is present on the response variable axis only. Therefore, this assumption is relaxed here, by describing a local linear regression with orthogonal fit. Local linear coefficients are defined as those which minimize a weighted Total Least Squares (TLS) criterion. An adaptive estimation method is introduced in order to accommodate nonstationarity. This has the additional benefit of lowering the computational costs of updating local coefficients every time new observations become available. The estimation method is based on tracking the left-most eigenvector of the augmented covariance matrix. A robustification of the estimation method is also proposed. Simulations on semi-artificial datasets (for which the true power curve is available) underline the properties of the proposed regression and related estimation methods. An important result is the significantly higher ability of local polynomial regression with orthogonal fit to accurately approximate the target regression, even though it may hardly be visible when calculating error criteria against corrupted data.     

Cognitive Cultural Intelligence and Life Satisfaction of Migrant Workers: The Roles of Career Engagement and Social Injustice

This paper examines the mediating effect of career engagement on the relationship between cognitive cultural intelligence (CQ) and life satisfaction among international migrant workers in Australia. It also examines the moderating effect of perceived social injustice on the cognitive CQ–career engagement relationship, as well as on the indirect cognitive CQ–life satisfaction relationship via career engagement. Using survey data from four hundred and sixty-two migrant workers in Australia, it was found that cognitive CQ was positively related to life satisfaction and that career engagement mediated this relationship. Social injustice moderated the impact of cognitive CQ on career engagement such that the impact was stronger among those perceiving a higher rather than a lower level of social injustice. Furthermore, the indirect effect of cognitive CQ on life satisfaction via career engagement was also stronger for those perceiving higher social injustice. These findings provide new insights regarding the antecedents of life satisfaction as well as reveal a vocationally relevant mechanism underlying the relationship between cognitive CQ and life satisfaction. The results inform potential practical strategies to enhance the career progression and life satisfaction of international migrant workers.     

Immigrant over-education: evidence from Denmark

This paper uses register-based panel data to examine over-education amongst immigrants in Denmark. Foreign-educated immigrants are found to be more prone to over-education than both native Danes and immigrants educated in Denmark. Labour market experience reduces this risk, whereas periods of unemployment make a person more likely to accept a job for which he is over-qualified. Over-educated workers earn slightly more than their adequately matched colleagues, but less than if they had been appropriately matched in a higher level job. Foreign-educated immigrants gain the least from over-education.     

Offshore but on track? Hypermobile and hyperflexible working lives

In the spring 2011, and again during summer 2012, the small coastal town of Hirtshals (approx. 6000 inhabitants) on the north-western shore of Denmark was home to two spectacular symbols of the success of an emergent offshore sector in the region, namely the upgrading and overhauling of two gigantic oil rigs. Providing temporary work for an estimated 800 persons who literally worked day and night for the 100 days each rig was at dock, these events affected the entire community. The paper presents evidence from seven biographical interviews with local men whose working lives were directly or indirectly affected by these events. As the interviews illuminate, respondents are often extremely mobile and flexible in terms of their jobs, in some cases ‘bungy jumping’ through working life in an apparent effort to retain local ties while pursuing global opportunities. The paper contributes to qualifying more general sociological discussions about the push for increased mobility and flexibility in a presumably increasingly globalising labour market reality. Ultimately, it seems that the multiple ways in which Hirtshals is marked as marginal – in terms of geography, socio-economic profile and discourse – may serve to normalise demands for flexibility and mobility, at least amongst parts of the local working population.     

Emotional labor in social workers' practice

The meeting between service users and social workers is emotional, since it is centered on significant challenges and changes in the service users' lives. Emotions are thus always at play in social work, but are managed in various ways by the professional. In an explorative qualitative case study at two Danish social services departments, we identified three types of emotional labor: (1) when the social worker shuts off emotions both during and after the meeting; (2) when the social worker defers emotions and processes them at a later time; and (3) when emotions dominate, and a case gets ‘under the skin’ of the social worker. Emotional labor can have both positive and negative effect on the work, and knowledge about different kinds of emotional labor can aid professional discussion about emotions at the work place as well as the psychosocial working environment for the social workers, factors which help improve practice. The study showed that emotional labor is a multidimensional concept, hence it is not just managed in different ways by social workers; it is always related to the specific emotion culture and the community of practice at the work place.