Population Dynamics: Poverty,Inequality, and Self-Regulating Fertility Rates

Population growth without a parallel increase in capital impoverishes any society and tends to deepen inequality. The system is dynamic because people who perceive or foresee contracting economic opportunity usually restrict family size. Worsening poverty feeds back into the loop to slow, then stop further population growth.     

Do Temporary Contracts Increase Work Accidents? A Microeconometric Comparison between Italy and Spain

Abstract. This paper analyses the effect of contract type on the rate of work‐related accidents in Italy and Spain, using the 1999 Labour Force Survey ‘ad hoc module’. We find that, once personal and job characteristics of workers are controlled for, the differences in the probability of suffering a work accident between open‐ended and temporary workers vanish. Furthermore, following a novel decomposition analysis by Yun, we obtain that personal and job characteristics tend to increase the probability of having an accident for temporary workers, but the specific influence of contract type favours the latter, who show a lower probability on this account.     

Helping parents by working with their children in individual child therapy

The paper describes a small scale pilot process and outcome study that was undertaken at the University of York. The study is based on accounts of treatment interventions with children conducted by trainee play therapists studying on the University's programme in non‐directive play therapy. These are being used to develop a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of non‐directive play therapy as an intervention for distressed and maltreated children. The focus of this paper is on one finding of the study, namely that play therapy undertaken with individual children, in addition to bringing about improvements in the children's problems, may improve their parents’ parenting behaviour if they are appropriately involved in the therapy. The paper describes the cases and their outcomes at a 6‐month follow‐up. It illustrates the finding of changes in parenting behaviour through three case studies, and discusses the kinds of changes, possible reasons for them, and necessary practice requirements if these changes are to take place. The paper concludes that engaging parents in a broadly collaborative effort may be facilitated by a primary initial focus on their children.     

HIV diffusion patterns and mobility: Gender differences among drug users

Researchers have recently expanded the scope of study of transmission patterns of AIDS to incorporate spatial and geographical questions. United States diffusion patterns of this disease appear to indicate that it may emanate from urban area epicenters to areas of low and moderate prevalence. The travel patterns of injecting drug users (IDUs) and the extent to which they engage in high risk drug and sexual activities was examined as an explanation of diffusion of the HIV virus from one community to another. The study population of 49,621 was comprised of subjects recruited from approximately 60 sites nationwide from 1988–1991. While the data are limited in some ways, they partially support a diffusion explanation of HIV transmission for males and females. The analysis demonstrates that low prevalence cities were significantly more likely to have been the destinations of both men and women who engaged in high risk drug and sexual activities. In addition, HIV seropositive drug users who engaged in high risk drug and sexual behaviors in destination cities were more likely than seronegatives to travel to high or low seroprevalence areas than to moderate prevalence areas. The findings suggest a need for effective HIV prevention educational messages about the risks of traveling and participating in high risk activities.