Family values and labor force participation: Ireland in international perspective

The large-scale entry of married women into the workforce has been a striking feature of the post-war period, particularly in the United States, Britain, and other Anglo-Celtic nations. Theory implies that this should happen in all developed nations. But there is a counter-example: Ireland. To discover whether this is truly an exception, we analyze data from large, representative samples of Ireland, the USA, Britain, and Australia (pooled n=8,240). We find that Irish are not especially traditional; they are especially devout, but the difference persists when this is controlled. Strikingly, the behavior of Irish immigrants is indistinguishable from other Anglo-Celts in their new societies. Thus it seems that Irish exceptionalism arises from an institutional setting uniquely hostile to women’s employment. She is currently coordinating a multi-national research project assessing the extent of ethnic discrimination in different societies. She and Jonathan Kelley are continuing their long-run international, comparative project on economic culture with special reference to inequality. He and M.D.R. Evans conduct their omnibus International Social Science Surveys, which include as their International Survey of Economic Attitudes, their Bioethics surveys, the Australian National Social Science Survey, and others. They are completing a book on time use and subjective well-being in later life. She researches intergenerational social mobility and occupational careers with special reference to gender, and also studies socio-political attitudes and their sources, particularly using International Social Survey Program data.     

Older Professional Women's Views on Work: A Qualitative Analysis

This qualitative study reports on the career experiences of older professional women using consensual qualitative research. Thirteen women over age 50 were interviewed regarding the influences of gender and age on work. In general, all participants reported career adaptability, and many participants also reported specific subthemes of career adaptability (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) as resources. These subthemes denote participants' future orientation, self‐discipline as evidenced by their conscientiousness in career decisions, active information seeking, and certitude that they have the ability to solve career‐related problems. Relationships with colleagues were also considered critical, and participants acknowledged the benefits and drawbacks of being a woman and being older. These women were able to achieve flexibility and autonomy in their work and spoke about the importance of work–family balance and boundaries. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how career adaptability is manifested within the interplay between gender and age, because this can influence career counseling with older women.     

Bayesian inference in two‐arm trials using relative belief ratios

Various methodologies proposed for some inference problems associated with two‐arm trails are known to suffer from difficulties, as documented in Senn (2001). We propose an alternative Bayesian approach to these problems that deals with these difficulties through providing an explicit measure of statistical evidence and the strength of this evidence. Bayesian methods are often criticized for their intrinsic subjectivity. We show how these concerns can be dealt with through assessing the bias induced by a prior model checking and checking for prior‐data conflict. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inflammatory effects and immune system correlates of rape

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of measuring stress hormones and immunity following rape. The long-term goal is to evaluate the predictive value of stress-immune-inflammatory responses to later health outcomes. Fifteen women reporting rape were compared with 16 control participants. Serum stress hormones, proinflammatory cytokines, acute phase proteins, functional assays, and lymphocyte subsets were measured in blood samples. Women reporting rape had higher cytotoxic cells, lower B lymphocyte counts, higher proinflammatory biomarkers, and decreased lymphocyte proliferation compared to the control group. This finding suggests that rape produces activation of the innate immunity and suppression of some aspects of adaptive immunity. If these immune changes persist, they may contribute to the pathophysiology of long-term health sequelae by provoking chronic inflammation and decreased cellular immunocompetence.     

Social enterprises as enabling workplaces for people with psychiatric disabilities

In recent years, western governments influenced by neoliberalism have emphasized paid work as a key route to social inclusion and community participation for people with psychiatric disabilities. Although paid work can offer many rewards, access to mainstream employment for people with psychiatric disabilities is difficult as they continue to encounter discrimination and a lack of workplace accommodation. One response to these challenges has been the creation of social enterprises as ‘alternative spaces’ of employment for people with psychiatric disabilities. On the basis of interviews with key informants from 21 different social enterprises across Ontario, Canada, this paper critically analyzes the strategies used by organizations to create jobs that are both accommodating for people, but also conducive to the ongoing success of the business.     

Making the case for youth participatory action research opportunities to enhance social developmental scholarship

Youth are capable agents with the capacity to engage with and shape issues pertinent to their lives. In the field of social development, we are witnessing an exciting increase in children and adolescent involvement in the research process. Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is one such method, encompassing youth participation in identifying pressing issues within their own communities, collectively gathering, and systematically analyzing data to understand the root causes of such issues, and organizing for social change informed by rigorous empirical evidence. YPAR provides an opportunity to strengthen our understanding of social development processes. Using three illustrative case studies from YPAR projects engaging elementary, high school, and college-age children and adolescents, I discuss the connections between YPAR as a mechanism for enhancing social developmental research designs, an intervention in and of itself fostering key social-emotional competencies, and a process for facilitating more equity-oriented scholarship. The paper concludes with strategies for how researchers new to YPAR may incorporate this practice into their research and key training considerations.     

More than self-interest: Why different classes have different attitudes to income inequality

The connection between social class and political preferences is among the most well established in the social sciences. This association is typically taken as prima facie evidence of economic self-interest: Classes hold different attitudes, values, and party preferences because they have different economic interests. However, this assumption has rarely been tested empirically. In this article, we use survey data from 18 West European countries to examine why classes differ on a central aspect of political preferences, namely their views on the desirability of income inequality. We find that only a moderate proportion of differences between employee classes in support for redistribution can be accounted for by contemporary differences in resources and risks; differences in economic interests to some degree account for the anti-redistributive preferences of the professional middle classes compared with the working class. However, the preferences of the self-employed have a different explanation; autonomy is a better explanation of the right-wing preferences of the self-employed compared with the working class.