Implicit debt in public‐sector pension plans: An international comparison

Most countries have separate pension plans for public‐sector employees. The future fiscal burden of these plans can be substantial as the government usually is the largest employer, pension promises in the public sector tend to be relatively generous, and future payments have to be paid out directly from government revenues (pay‐as‐you‐go) or by funded plans (pension funds) which tend to be underfunded. The valuation and disclosure of these promises in some countries lacks transparency, which may hide potentially huge fiscal liabilities to be passed on to future generations of workers. In order to arrive at a fair comparison between countries regarding the fiscal burden of their public‐sector pension plans, this article recommends that unfunded pension liabilities should be measured and reported according to a standard approach for reasons of fiscal transparency and better policy‐making. From a sample of Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, the size of the net unfunded liabilities as of the end of 2008 is estimated in fair value terms. This fiscal burden can also be interpreted as the implicit pension debt in fair value terms.     

On the Solution Approach for Bayesian Modeling of Initiating Event Frequencies and Failure Rates

There is a need for plant-specific distributions of incidence and failure rates rather than distributions from pooled data which are based on the "common incidence rate" assumption. The so-called superpopulation model satisfies this need through a practically appealing approach that accounts for the variability over the population of plants. Unfortunately, the chosen order in which the integrals with respect to the individual plant rates λ_i, ( i = 0, 1…, m ) and the parameters a , β of the Γ-population distribution are solved seems to drive the solution close to the common incidence rate distribution. It is shown that the solution obtained from interchanging the order and solving the integrals with respect to the individual plant rates by Monte Carlo simulation very quickly provides the plant specific distribution. This differing solution behaviour may be due to the lack of uniform convergence over (α, β, λ_I, ( i = 1,…, m ))-space. Examples illustrate the difference that may be observed.     

Mostly Heterosexual and Lesbian/Gay Young Adults: Differences in Mental Health and Substance Use and the Role of Minority Stress

Individuals mostly attracted to other-sex but also to same-sex partners are a distinct and common sexual orientation group with possibly increased levels of health problems. The current study examined whether mostly heterosexual individuals differed in mental health and substance use from lesbian/gay individuals and whether sexual minority risk and protective factors offer an explanation in a sample of 528 Dutch young adults (16 to 25 years old, M = 21.2 years). Mostly heterosexual participants reported higher levels of psychological distress, suicidality, drug use, and smoking than lesbian/gay participants and equal levels of binge drinking. They also reported higher levels of internalized negativity to same-sex attractions, less openness to family members and others, less community involvement, and lower numbers of lesbian/gay/bisexual friends. However, bootstrapped mediation analysis showed that the differences in minority stress risk and protective factors did not mediate most of the differences in mental health and substance use with one exception: higher levels of psychological distress were mediated by the higher levels of internalized negativity to same-sex attractions. The limited explanatory power of the minority stress factors combined with the elevated level of problems of mostly heterosexual individuals call for future studies examining other risk and protective factors.     

‘They didn't tell me anything; they just sent me home’: children's participation in the return home

The reality of child protection systems typically demonstrates a lack of attention to the voices of children. There are studies that confirm this fact and offer evidence of the benefits of participation, but gaps remain regarding the elements and processes that favour it. This qualitative study attempts to contribute to knowledge in this area through a detailed analysis of the perspectives of the actors involved and the role that children play in the return home. This article analyses the elements involved in the participation of the children when a return home is proposed after a period of family or residential foster care. As part of the study, 18 semi‐structured interviews were conducted and 22 discussion groups were created with a total of 135 participants (63 child protection services workers, 42 parents and 30 children and adolescents). The data were analysed using a content analysis process and underwent a peer review process in Atlas.ti. The results indicate that the participation of children and adolescents in the return home centres around (i) understanding the return home, (ii) strategies and emotional processes and (iii) social support.     

Military Occupations: Methodological Approaches and the Military–Academy Research Nexus

Military occupations are continually evolving in relation to the geopolitical changes of societies, their conflicts and conflict management strategies, and technological developments in military hardware and software. Military occupations studies undertaken by the academy have been key to informing government strategy towards the maintenance of functioning armed forces. Since the 1950s, such studies have prioritised ‘top‐down’ quantitative sociological methodologies. This paper reviews these studies and the role of the dominant Institutional/Occupational model. The paper then considers less influential ‘bottom up’ interpretive methodological studies of military occupations. It is suggested that the reliance on ‘top down’ modelling approaches has led to the paucity of studies describing the range and experiential detail of military occupations. The Military–Academy nexus, and the priorities of the discipline of sociology are suggested as reasons for this emphasis.     

TANF child-only cases in California: Barriers to self-sufficiency and well-being

Since the United States implemented Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), or ‘welfare reform,’ the number of assistance cases without an adult receiving aid has risen dramatically. In states like California, these child-only cases now constitute the majority of all TANF cases. Despite this increase, existing research sheds little light on the composition of child-only caseloads and the status of the adults and children in such cases. Drawing on county administrative data and interviews with 143 parents associated with child-only cases in five California counties, this paper identifies both the demographics of the child-only caseload in these sites and the major barriers to employment that parents in sanctioned and timed-out child-only cases face. These include human capital, health, and family issues, in addition to other obstacles. The data suggest that, despite functioning as one administrative entity, CalWORKs, California's TANF program, has transformed into two separate programs: a welfare-to-work program and a subsistence-level cash assistance program for some members of child-only families. Given this transformation, the paper closes by suggesting a research agenda for future child-only scholarship and argues for policy innovations to meet the needs of the expanding child-only caseload.     

The Conclusions and Recommendations of the Commission on the Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools

ABSTRACT

How can teachers effectively use documentary film to teach history, and toward what goals? This article addresses these important questions by: (1) exploring what we know about secondary teachers' practices with documentary film and secondary students' beliefs about documentary film as a source of knowledge about the past, (2) proposing a rationale for the use of documentary film that supports the goals of history education, and (3) discussing examples of documentaries that can be shown to further the rationale presented. Although there are numerous suitable purposes and methods for using documentary film, we argue that two of the most powerful and appropriate are as a way to explore multiple perspectives and as a way to teach about controversial issues.