Commercial sex between men: A prospective diary‐based study

This paper describes the results of a self‐reporting dairy completed by 186 male sex workers (MSWs) over a 2‐week period in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia. The diary was completed following each commercial sex encounter by the MSW. The results reveal that MSWs reported 2088 commercial sex encounters during the study period, with an average of 11.2 encounters per MSW. The majority of sex encounters took place in either the client's or the MSW's residence, with significant variations by city. The average sexual encounter lasted 70 minutes, and comprised two sexual acts, masturbation and oral sex. Condom use was reported in 67.4% of all the encounters. Using the AIDS Council safe‐sex classification system, the majority of the commercial sex encounters fell in the “safer sex” category; however, there were significant differences by source of clients and place of the encounter. Use of drugs and alcohol reveal interesting patterns: Clients were more likely to use alcohol, while MSWs had significant differences of usage of the different drugs. This study demonstrates that the majority of MSWs are offering and practicing safe sex behaviours, however, MSWs working in the street setting are still likely to be practising unsafe sex. Male sex work is becoming an organised business and this provides opportunities to implement further public health interventions.     

Migration and climate change: examining thresholds of change to guide effective adaptation decision-making

The implications of environmental change for migration are little understood. Migration as a response to climate change could be seen as a failure of in situ adaptation methods, or migration could be alternatively perceived as a rational component of creative adaptation to environmental risk. This paper frames migration as part of an adaptation response to climate change impacts to natural resource condition and environmental hazards. Thresholds will be reached by communities after which migration will become a vital component of an effective adaptation response. Such changes to migration patterns have the potential to undermine migration policy unless appropriate preparations are undertaken. This paper describes an approach to assist researchers to frame how climate change will influence migration by critically analysing how thresholds of fundamental change to migration patterns could be identified, primarily in relation to two case studies in Nepal and Thailand. Future policy for internal and international migration could be guided by the analysis of such thresholds of non-linear migration and resourced effectively to ensure that socio-economic and humanitarian outcomes are maximised.     

Temporary Skilled Migration to Australia: Employers' Perspectives1

With the 1996 introduction of a new visa making it easier for employers to sponsor skilled foreign workers, temporary skilled migration has become a significant component of international migration flows to Australia. This paper examines employers' reasons for sponsoring skilled workers from abroad, their modes of recruitment, the occupational skills they require, and their industry profile. We also discuss issues relating to the perception of a shortage of skilled workers, the extent that sponsoring foreign workers substitutes for investing in local training, and the role of networks in recruiting overseas workers. Many employers' now have a global view of labour recruitment. While this is understandable for multinational companies with global operations, many small businesses and public sector institutions are adopting the same strategy to obtain skilled labour which they say is in short supply in Australia. With the internationalization of the Australian economy, there is also an increasing demand for people with specialized skills and knowledge that is not available in Australia's relatively small labour market. An understanding of the demand factors motivating temporary skilled migration is crucial to effectively managing Australia's migration and labour trends.     

Going on tilt: Frequent poker players and control

This paper is based on three years of participant observation in California's legal commercial card parlors and one year observation at an open meeting of Gamblers Anonymous (G.A.). The grounded concept, tilt, is advanced to describe the process of losing control in the gambling situation. Although some problem gamblers and most compulsive gamblers (members of G.A.) did not use this term, they, nonetheless, described the same process. Tilt is defined and broken down into its various components. Paths to, or ways of going on tilt and the means used to avoid tilt are spelt out. Hochschild's concept, emotion work, is used to describe how successful professionals stay off tilt. The major contention of the paper is that all gamblers experience tilt, and their reactions to tilt and to tilt-inducing situations partly determine whether or not gambling becomes a major problem. The implications of tilt are also discussed.I would like to thank Bob Yamashita, Ernie Fong, and Professor Troy Duster for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I, however, am responsible for the final product. This is a revision of a paper presented at theSeventh International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking in Reno, Nevada, August 1987. Requests for reprints should be sent to the author at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, 2420 Bowditch Street, Berkeley, CA 94720.     

Child effects in socialization research: Some conceptual and data analysis issues

This paper examines issues associated with the conceptualization of child effects in socialization research and outlines possible data analysis strategies that may be used with contemporaneous correlational data from parents and children. The paper begins with an outline of some recognized prohlems in the studv of child effects. The role of cognitive factors, which complicate efforts to disentangle child effects, is emphasized, in an attempt to clarify further the meaning of child effect, three different types of effect are outlined and then a distinction is made between moderator and mediator variables. In general, a moderator variable specifies when certain outcomes will hold (e.g. for one type of child but not another), whereas a mediator variable indicates how or why the outcome occurs. The distinction between moderator-mediator variables provides the main focus of the paper. It assists in the conceptualization of child effects, as well as having direct implications for data analysis strategies. The relevance of the distinction is illustrated via data from a study of family relationships. The use of correlations, multiple regressions with interaction terms, and latent variable path analysis are examined as ways of investigating moderator and then mediator variables. Conclusions are reached about conceptual and data analysis difficulties associated with attempts to determine child effects.