The impact of first-birth timing on divorce: New evidence from a longitudinal analysis based on the central population register of Norway

The association between divorce risks in first marriage and the timing of the first birth is inspected in a life-table analysis of registered birth and marriage histories from Norway. One of the main conclusions is that the high propensity to divorce among women who have had a premarital birth is not confined to those who marry someone other than the father of their child. Also, women who have had a premarital child with their husband, run a much higher risk of marital breakup than do those who had their first baby in wedlock. The relative difference between these two groups, which appears to be particularly large at the beginning of marriage, has decreased during the last two decades. It is argued that couples who postpone childbearing beyond two years of marriage may have particularly low divorce rates.     

‘He didn't mean to hit mom,I think’: positioning,agency and point in adolescents' narratives about domestic violence

This paper analyses the narratives of adolescents who have experienced domestic violence. It focuses on what we can learn about being an adolescent who experiences domestic violence, using a narrative approach. Attentive to both form and content, the paper sheds light on why the narrative is being told, who the actors in the narratives are, who are positioned in the forefront/background and what the point of the narrative is. The analysis shows that through the storytelling, the father's position as the reluctant/dangerous/weak aggressor is negotiated, the mother is positioned both in the background as a victim and in the forefront as an actor resisting his violent behaviour. The children position themselves as actors with power to alter the progress, to protect and stop the violence. The point of the narratives is to describe the father as the aggressor, and to describe the important role of the children. This picture of the father, mother and child questions the traditional understanding of the father as the aggressor, the mother as the victim and the child as a powerless bystander being exposed to the violence, and underlines the complexities of the dynamics in families living with domestic violence.     

Individual and community effects of women's education and autonomy on contraceptive use in India

This study makes use of the National Family Health Survey of 1998‐99 to investigate whether differences in women's autonomy can explain much of the relationship between education and contraceptive use among married Indian women with at least one child. The analyses show that a woman's education does not influence her contraceptive use through a strengthening of her position in relation to that of men, but that the inclusion of a simple indicator of her general knowledge reduces education effects appreciably. Further, the average educational level of other women in the census‐enumeration area has an effect on a woman's contraceptive use above and beyond that of her own education. This effect cannot be explained by the specific indicators of autonomy, but can to some extent be explained by the son preference of the community. The latter is a more general autonomy indicator that may also pick up other contextual factors.     

Education and fertility in sub-Saharan africa: Individual and community effects

Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys for 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, I show that the average educational level in a village or a community of a similar size has a significant depressing effect on a woman's birth rates, net of urbanization and her own education. According to simulations, average fertility for these countries would be 1.00 lower if education were expanded from the current level in the region to the relatively high level in Kenya. The exclusion of aggregate education from the model leaves a response of only 0.52. A considerable aggregate contribution is estimated even when several potential determinants of education are included. This finding illustrates the need to consider aggregate education in future assessments of the total impact of education.     

An appraisal of key factors in the implementation of occupational stress interventions

Empirical research on stress intervention in organizations, and experience from organizational change programmes in general, indicates that obtaining intended change is often more difficult than it had been conceived to be at the outset. In order to facilitate the accomplishment of stress prevention and effective organizational change, this paper examines the importance of the social and cognitive processes influencing the implementation of any intervention. It states that if change is to be managed skilfully, it is important (1) to create a social climate of learning from failure, (2) to provide opportunities for multi-level participation and negotiation in the design of interventions, (3) to be aware of tacit behaviours that possibly undermine the objectives of interventions, and (4) to define roles and responsibilities before and during the intervention period.     

Build-operate-transfer Outsourcing Contracts in Services – Boon or Bane to Emerging Market Vendor Firms?

Build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracting has been widely used in the engineering and construction industry and has recently spread into the service industry domains. Notably, service provider firms from emerging markets, India in particular, are now offering BOT outsourcing contracts in which the client firms are allotted call options, i.e. the right, but not the obligation, to transfer pre-specified assets from the service provider. As such, BOT outsourcing contracts seems to be an interesting contractual novelty that combines the advantages of outsourced and captive offshoring operations. In this paper we investigate under which circumstances a BOT outsourcing contract (i.e. a contract where the client firm exercises its call option) is beneficial, or the opposite, to the emerging market vendor firm. Whether BOT outsourcing contracts are boon or bane to an emerging market vendor basically hinges, we submit, on its internal diffusion of client-specific knowledge and capabilities prior to the execution of the call option.