Measuring policy entitlements at the micro-level: maternity and parental leave in Europe

Comparative social policy analysis has been shaped by the measurement of policy as a macro phenomenon. However, social policy theories have consistently asserted that policy entitlements vary across class, gender, ethnicity and the life-course. This paper synthesises a number of innovations to produce an approach which allows researchers to explore the policy heterogeneity within populations, across populations and over time. Using the example of maternity and parental leave, policy entitlements are identified through the calculation of financial support an individual would receive if they were to have a child, using a combination of legislative rules with representative survey sample. The results reveal far greater heterogeneity in policy entitlements than existing indicators suggest, with considerable implications for research on maternity and parental leave. This approach is not limited to maternity and parental leave benefits and demonstrates a way to explore comparative social policy in greater depth and detail.     

Transactional activism without transactions: network perspective on anti-corruption activism in the Czech Republic

In 2007, Petrova and Tarrow coined the term transactional activism, arguing that, despite weak individual-level political participation, civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe were surprisingly strong due to their capacity to establish transactional links. Yet the research which followed, relying mostly on quantitative data, has not uncovered much evidence of how transactional activism works. To make advances here, we take a more qualitative approach and focus on transactional ties among NGOs, developing a more fine-grained conceptualization. Specifically, we distinguish associative ties of loosely defined cooperation and interlocking ties based on the division of labour. We utilize this new conceptualization through a successful anti-corruption initiative known as ‘Reconstruction of the State’. The initiative presented itself largely in transactional terms (plurality of participating actors) and was extremely successful in the run-up to the Parliamentary elections in 2013 in the Czech Republic, inspiring similar initiatives abroad. We use social network analysis and qualitative interviews to test our concept of interlocking transactional ties. In contrast to our expectations, we find limited division of labour in the initiative, with just one organization, in the main, shouldering most of the important tasks. We use our findings to question the previously claimed importance of transactional activism in Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, we call for more robust evidence describing how cooperation among organizations empowers civil society.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Procedures to Teach Children with Autism to Report Past Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Deficits in reporting past behavior may have implications for a child’s social development and safety. Behavioral interpretations of memory and research on...     

Asking the Question: Childhood Sexual Abuse in Adults with Mental Illness

Enquiry about childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is not routine practice for mental health practitioners undertaking client assessment. This study audited 100 patient charts to determine rates of enquiry and response by mental practitioners around CSA. Fifty-seven mental health staff also completed a subsequent questionnaire exploring factors that influence practice in regard to sexual abuse. Staff lacked confidence in how to ask and effectively respond to sexual abuse disclosure. Mandatory training focusing on trauma informed care could improve staff confidence and capacity to identify and effectively address not only sexual abuse, but childhood trauma and abuse more generally.     

Humanizing the homeless: Does contact erode stereotypes?

This paper employs a field experiment to assess whether interpersonal contact changes domiciled individuals’ attitudes of the homeless. Volunteers for Project Homeless Connect—a one-day event that provides social services to the homeless—were asked to complete a pre- and post-survey. The results provide mixed support for the contact hypothesis. After volunteering, respondents were far less likely to see homelessness as the result of individual characteristics, such as substance abuse or work aversion. However, opinion was remarkably stable when it came to policy preferences. The results cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that individuals’ perceptions of the causes of homelessness track closely with their preferences for governmental policy.     

A discrete choice model for labor supply and childcare

A discrete choice model for labor supply and childcare for mothers of preschoolers is presented. The mothers are assumed to make choices from a finite set of job possibilities and from a finite set of childcare options. Options in the markets for childcare are characterized by opening hours, fees and quality attributes. Similarly, jobs are characterized by a fixed wage rate, working hours and a number of variables related to job satisfaction. In the estimation of the model, we take into account that the number of options available might vary across work/care combinations and that some mothers are rationed in the market for care at day care centers. The model is employed to simulate the female labor supply effects of the Norwegian home care allowance reform.

Maternal Regulation of Daughters' Emotion During Conflicts From Early to Mid‐Adolescence

Primary caregivers play an important role in emotion socialization. Real‐time mother–daughter emotion socialization was examined in 45 mother–daughter dyads with early‐adolescent daughters (age M = 11.80, SD = .27) at the first observation point. Maternal supportive emotion regulation and daughters' emotions were coded during two conflict discussions, 2 years apart. With multilevel survival analysis, the likelihood of maternal supportiveness was predicted both over time, between early and mid‐adolescence, and by daughters' pubertal status. Mothers were more likely to respond to daughters' negative and positive emotions with supportiveness for daughters whose pubertal maturation occurred relatively early. Results suggest that mothers adjust their socialization of daughters' emotions according to their daughters' pubertal development.     

The Impact of Child Behaviour Problems on Maternal Employment: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

This prospective population-based study examined associations between children’s behaviour problems and maternal employment. Information on children’s behaviour problems at 3 years from 22,115 mothers employed before pregnancy and participating in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study were linked to national register data on employment and relevant social background factors, mothers’ self-reported susceptibility to anxiety/depression and mother-reports of day-care attendance and fathers’ income. Mothers reporting their child to have severe (>2 SD) internalizing or severe combined behaviour problems (5 %) had excess risk of leaving paid employment irrespective of other important characteristics generally associated with maternal employment (RR 1.24–1.31). The attributable risk percent ranged from 30.3 % (internalizing problems) to 32.4 % (combined problems). Externalizing behaviour problems were not uniquely associated with mothers leaving employment.