Finding education: Stories of how young former refugees constituted strategic identities in order to access school

Educators in resettlement countries are grappling with ways to adequately engage and meet the needs of newly arrived refugee students. In this article we argue that to fully meet the needs of refugee students a deeper understanding of their educational experience as ‘a refugee’ prior to resettlement is vital. In particular we foreground the stories of three young former refugees and explore the ways in which they actively constructed new identities in order to access school in their host countries, prior to resettlement. This article discusses how the negative discursive positioning of ‘the refugee’ in the world today has limited the resources and access to education for young refugees. It concludes by arguing that as these students move into education in Australia there is a danger to quickly relabel young former refugees with deficit terms rather than opening up a discourse to include the intricate complexities of each refugee experience.     

Statistical Properties of Generalized Gini Coefficient with Application to Health Inequality Measurement

In this article, we report statistical properties of two classes of generalized Gini coefficients (G1 and G2). The theoretical results were assessed via Monte Carlo simulations. Further, we used G1 and G2 on life expectancy to measure health inequalities among the provinces of China and the states of the United States. For China, the results indicated that there was statistically significant health inequality by both G1 and G2. However, for the US, the results showed that there was significant health inequality by G1 but no statistical significance was found in health inequality by G2. Overall, from our study, China has higher health inequality than the United States.     

Which transition concept is useful for describing the process of young people leaving state care? A reflection on research and language

The transition of adolescents from state care to independent living is receiving increased research attention in many countries. Despite this interest, the concept of ‘transition’, though central, still remains relatively undeveloped. One main issue in comparative work is how we use language to define concepts as well as use them to analyse our findings and shape practice. ‘Transition’ over the last decade has become a key concept in the research and practice field of social work with adolescents, therefore we need to reflect on its use, its possibilities and its limitations. This paper examines selected research literature on the transition from state care to adulthood. The paper suggests that more theorisation needs to be done within the field.     

How extended work availability affects well-being: The mediating roles of psychological detachment and work-family-conflict

Studies have identified availability for work during non-work time as a widespread demand that is related to impaired well-being. Whereas existing research results are based on cross-sectional designs, the present study applied a three-wave longitudinal design to improve interpretations of the direction and causation of the effects of extended work availability. In addition, this study investigated mediating processes such as the reduction of psychological detachment and the increase in work-to-family conflict (WFC). A total of 416 people responded to an online survey at three measurement points, with a time lag of 2 months between each survey, to assess the organisational expectations of being available during one’s off-job time as well as psychological detachment, WFC and emotional exhaustion. The results of structural equation modelling indicated that extended work availability is associated with increases in emotional exhaustion over time. A mediation analysis revealed that WFC and psychological detachment mediated this effect. The results of this study provide strong evidence that extended work availability negatively affects employee well-being over time. Furthermore, this study contributes to an explanation of the mediating process of the detrimental effect. This finding can be used for health-related interventions in cases where extended work availability cannot be completely avoided.     

The physical activity-mediated Demand–Control (pamDC) model: Linking work characteristics,leisure time physical activity,and well-being

Only recently has research begun to investigate the interplay between work characteristics, leisure time physical activity (LTPA), health, and well-being. So far, however, this research lacks a theoretical foundation. In this article, we introduce the physical activity-mediated Demand–Control (pamDC) model as a new theoretical framework. The two key ideas of the pamDC model are (1) that job demands and job control affect LTPA and (2) that LTPA partially mediates the effects of job demands and job control on health and well-being. We present eight propositions explaining how work characteristics affect LTPA, health, and well-being. For each of these propositions, we discuss empirical evidence and theoretical foundations. We then sketch a research agenda on how to adopt the pamDC model as a new theoretical framework for future research linking work characteristics, LTPA, and health. Finally, we discuss the practical implications of our new model.     

Improving coordination in an engineer-to-order supply chain using a soft systems approach

An empirical study in the ship-building sector has been undertaken to understand the problems associated with the coordination of engineer-to-order (ETO) supply chains and to reveal insights into opportunities for improvements based on the application of soft systems methodology. A number of alternatives to improve coordination of supply chain have been proposed based on the comparison between a soft systems model and actual practice. These alternatives were summarised into seven general principles that help define the role of individual companies in coordinating ETO supply chains, highlighting the company’s structures and interdependencies that lead to project tardiness. Due to the specific nature of a project which changes according to the context, it is difficult to generalise the soft systems model. Nevertheless, future research can further explore some of the principles proposed to deal with coordination problems experienced in other types of ETO project operations, such as construction and oil and gas.     

Educational Pairings,Motherhood, and Women’s Relative Earnings in Europe

As a consequence of the reversal of the gender gap in education, the female partner in a couple now typically has as much as or more education compared with the male partner in most Western countries. This study addresses the implications for the earnings of women relative to their male partners in 16 European countries. Using the 2007 and 2011 rounds of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (N = 58,292), we investigate the extent to which international differences in women’s relative earnings can be explained by educational pairings and their interaction with the motherhood penalty on women’s earnings, by international differences in male unemployment, or by cultural gender norms. We find that the newly emerged pattern of hypogamy is associated with higher relative earnings for women in all countries and that the motherhood penalty on relative earnings is considerably lower in hypogamous couples, but neither of these findings can explain away international country differences. Similarly, male unemployment is associated with higher relative earnings for women but cannot explain away the country differences. Against expectations, we find that the hypogamy bonus on women’s relative earnings, if anything, tends to be stronger rather than weaker in countries that exhibit more conservative gender norms.     

On non parametric statistical inference for densities under long-range dependence

Statistical inference for kernel estimators of the marginal density is considered for stationary processes with long-range dependence. The asymptotic behavior is known to differ sharply between small and large bandwidths. The statistical implications of this dichotomy have not been fully explored in the literature. The optimal rate and a functional limit theorem are obtained for large bandwidths, if the long-memory parameter exceeds a certain threshold. The threshold can be lowered arbitrarily close to the lower bound of the long-memory range. This result is extended to processes with infinite variance, and the construction of simultaneous finite-sample confidence bands is considered.     

The divergent logics of labour market reforms in times of permanent austerity

In an age of ‘permanent austerity’, growing economic insecurity may increase the demand for protection against labour market risks. At the same time, economic pressures may push governments to scale down on the provision of social protection. In this article, this contradiction is examined by focusing on reforms of two labour market institutions: unemployment benefits and employment protection legislation. It is argued that the incidence of reforms of both institutions follows a different set of logics, depending on the type of economic pressures as well as the political and institutional settings. The article makes use of a new data set on labour market reforms in 14 European countries over the period of 1980–2007. Results from discrete‐time logit‐regression analysis support the main hypotheses that (1) reforming unemployment benefits (UBs) does not follow the same logic as reforming employment protection legislation (EPL), and (2) factors that contribute to expansion/regulation are not the reverse of those that lead to retrenchment/deregulation.     

On structure,family and parameter estimation of hierarchical Archimedean copulas

Research on structure determination and parameter estimation of hierarchical Archimedean copulas (HACs) has so far mostly focused on the case in which all appearing Archimedean copulas belong to the same Archimedean family. The present work addresses this issue and proposes a new approach for estimating HACs that involve different Archimedean families. It is based on employing goodness-of-fit test statistics directly into HAC estimation. The approach is summarized in a simple algorithm, its theoretical justification is given and its applicability is illustrated by several experiments, which include estimation of HACs involving up to five different Archimedean families.