The Appropriateness of Using Laboratories and Student Participants in Gambling Research

Increased recognition of the risks associated with gambling has resulted in a greater focus on empirical research to increase the understanding of gambling and design appropriate response strategies. Laboratory studies are a popular mode of research due to their relative ease and lower costs compared to field research; however such studies may be limited in the extent to which results can be generalized to real gambling scenarios. The current research investigated the validity of a laboratory research study using 127 university students (male = 97, mean age = 20.4) investigating the impact of harm-minimisation measures by replicating the study in gambling venues with 124 club patrons (male = 89, mean age = 44.1). The main results and effects of both studies were in the same direction, but fewer significant results were found in the venue study. Venue participants provided much less information in response to survey questions than student participants and were less likely to return follow-up questionnaires. It was concluded that both laboratory and field studies provide valuable contributions to the field, but caution should be taken in interpreting results, and where possible both methodologies should be used to verify conclusions.     

Job continuity among new mothers

In the early 1990s, both state and federal governments enacted maternity-leave legislation. The key provision of that legislation is that after a leave of a limited duration, the recent mother is guaranteed the right to return to her preleave employer at the same or equivalent position. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we correlate work status after childbirth with work status before pregnancy to estimate the prevalence, before the legislation, of returns to the preleave employer. Among women working full-time before the pregnancy, return to the prepregnancy employer was quite common. Sixty percent of women who worked full-time before the birth of a child continued to work for the same employer after the child was born. Furthermore, the labor market behavior of most of the remaining 40% suggests that maternity-leave legislation is unlikely to have a major effect on job continuity. Compared with all demographically similar women, however, new mothers have an excess probability of leaving their jobs.     

Disentangling the Circularity in Sen’s Capability Approach: An Analysis of the Co-Evolution of Functioning Achievement and Resources

There is an ambiguity in Amartya Sen’s capability approach as to what constitutes an individual’s resources, conversion factors and valuable functionings. What we here call the “circularity problem” points to the fact that all three concepts seem to be mutually endogenous and interdependent. To econometrically account for this entanglement we suggest a panel vector autoregression approach. We analyze the intertemporal interplay of the above factors over a time horizon of 15 years using the BHPS data set for Great Britain, measuring individual well-being in functionings space with a set of basic functionings, comprising “being happy”, “being healthy”, “being nourished”, “moving about freely”, “being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”. We find that there are indeed functionings that are resources for many other functionings (viz. “being happy”) while other functionings (“being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”) are by and large independent, thus shedding light on a facet of the capability approach that has been neglected so far.     

The Structure of Mental Health: Higher-Order Confirmatory Factor Analyses of Psychological Distress and Well-Being Measures

Social Indicators Research - This paper addresses the question of whether psychological distress and subjective well-being are the opposite poles of the same axis of mental health or independent...     

Devolution in a ‘Stateless Nation’: Nation‐building and Social Policy in Scotland

The implications of the 2011 Scottish election and the proposed referendum on Scottish independence for the future of social policy across the devolved UK are profound but far from certain. It is crucial to understand not only the historical nature of this conjuncture but to develop an adequate conceptual understanding of the place of social policy in the dialectic between state and nation in Scotland. To this end, we critically examine theories that depict Scotland as an essentially ‘stateless nation’ in the light of recent developments. In so doing, we examine the implications for social policy of the changing character of statehood in Scotland, the nature of civil nationalism, and the problem of legitimacy in Scotland for the UK as a multinational state. As the architecture of statehood is re‐negotiated, strong centrifugal pressures are being created for a more distinct divergence of social policy in Scotland from the rest of the UK regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum. Policy‐making is ensnared in a series of tensions, not just between Westminster and Holyrood but also, more broadly, tensions between competing principles of social justice and territorial justice, and competing demands between welfare nationalism and competitive nationalism.