Individual and Familial Determinants of Married Arab Israeli Women's Labor Force Participation: Trends of Change and Stability

Although the Arab population in Israel has undergone important economic and social changes in the past decades, the labor force participation of Arab women, particularly married women, has remained limited. This study uses census data to learn about the individual and familial factors associated with the entry into paid work of married Arab women and examines the extent to which these factors have changed over time. A major advantage is that the study distinguishes between the Muslim, Christian, and Druze populations, who markedly differ in their demographic, social, and cultural characteristics. Results from logistic regression models and standardization analyses reveal that the growth in employment experienced by Arab women was associated with the increasing education of both wives and husbands. However, the returns to education significantly decreased over time, particularly among Druze women, suggesting it has become more difficult for highly educated women to find employment. Results further show that the growth in employment experienced by Muslim and Christian women was related both to a decline in fertility and to a decrease in the negative returns to having children. Overall, findings underscore the structural barriers that limit Arab Israeli women's employment opportunities and raise concerns about their future occupational prospects.     

Combining Happines’s and Suffering in a Retrospective View of Anchor Periods in Life: A Differential Approach to Subjective Well-Being

The intersection of dimensions of subjective well-being (SWB) generates SWB types. We delineated SWB types by cross-tabulating happiness and suffering ratings that participants attributed to outstandingly meaningful periods in their life referred to as anchor periods. A sample of 499 older Israelis (age 58–94) was queried about two positive periods (the happiest, the most important) and two negative periods (the most miserable, the most difficult). A variety of variables discriminated between the more frequent congruous types of Happy (high happiness and low suffering) and Unhappy (low happiness and high suffering), but also presented the incongruous types of Inflated (high happiness and high suffering) and Deflated (low happiness and low suffering) as discriminable. Thus, women were more likely to be Inflated whereas men were more likely to be Deflated; low education related more to Happy in the happiest period and to Unhappy in the negative periods; present life satisfaction related more to Happy than to Unhappy in the positive, but not in the negative, periods; and Holocaust survivors were more likely to be Deflated and Unhappy in the negative, but not in the positive, periods. The study supported a differential perspective on SWB within people’s narratives of their lives. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Combined survival analysis of cardiac patients by a Cox PH model and a Markov chain

The control and treatment of dyslipidemia is a major public health challenge, particularly for patients with coronary heart diseases. In this paper we propose a framework for survival analysis of patients who had a major cardiac event, focusing on assessment of the effect of changing LDL-cholesterol level and statins consumption on survival. This framework includes a Cox PH model and a Markov chain, and combines their results into reinforced conclusions regarding the factors that affect survival time. We prospectively studied 2,277 cardiac patients, and the results show high congruence between the Markov model and the PH model; both evidence that diabetes, history of stroke, peripheral vascular disease and smoking significantly increase hazard rate and reduce survival time. On the other hand, statin consumption is correlated with a lower hazard rate and longer survival time in both models. The role of such a framework in understanding the therapeutic behavior of patients and implementing effective secondary and primary prevention of heart diseases is discussed here.     

Asset Building in Rural Communities: The Experience of Individual Development Accounts*

Abstract This study examines the unique experiences of low‐income rural participants in an asset building program‐the Individual Development Account. Using data from the American Dream Demonstration, this study addresses three main questions: (1) What are the individual characteristics associated with saving outcomes among rural IDA participants? (2) What are the program characteristics associated with savings among rural participants? (3) What are the policy implications for supporting asset building in rural areas? To answer these questions we conduct an Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. The results suggest that low‐income rural participants have the ability and willingness to save toward the accumulation of assets in IDAs. Looking at individual characteristics, home ownership appears to be an important predictor of savings. In addition, this study suggests that program characteristics (financial education, peer group meetings, match rate, direct deposit, and monthly saving target), not merely individual characteristics, are important in explaining saving performance for this group.     

Evaluating the Move to a Linear Tax System in Germany and Other European Countries

This paper proposes a comparison of the results of tax policy analysis obtained on the basis of unitary and collective representations of the household. We first generate labour supplies consistent with the collective rationality, by use of a model calibrated on microdata as described in Vermeulen et al. [Collective Models of Household Labor Supply with Nonconvex Budget Sets and Nonparticipation: A Calibration Approach (2006)]. A unitary model is then estimated on these collective data and unitary and collective responses to a tax reform are compared. We focus on the introduction of linear taxation in Germany. The exercise is replicated for other European countries and other topical reforms. Distortions due to the use of a unitary model turn out to be important in predicting labour supply adjustments, in the design of tax revenue neutral reforms, and in predicting a reform’s welfare implications.

What's Your Story? Listening to the Stories of Mothers from Multi-Problem Families

The use of a narrative approach in research and treatment enables a close-up view of the world of the client from his/her point of view. This approach opens a door to a differential understanding of states of distress and is particularly relevant with regard to distressed populations for whom verbal communication is the natural means of expression and much richer than any more formal means. The following article offers narrative analyses of stories of three women, mothers of multi-problem families, whose children's development is at risk. The stories were recorded during a research project which studied the responses of the participating women in an intervention program called Yachdav. The narrative analysis reveals the women's subjective perception of their situation of stress and of the methods of assistance available to them. The article examines the contribution of the narrative approach to the understanding of the point of view of the distressed segments of the population as a means of creating an alliance in assistance reception relations.     

Can't Buy Me Love: Gift-Giving Among Members of Criminal Organizations

This paper problematizes gift relations in criminal organizations. It adopts a symbolic interaction perspective to focus scholarly attention on the way in which actants skillfully maneuver within the social expectations inherent in gift-giving relations. The study is based on insights from twenty interviews with ex-convicts and ten interviews with police officers or associates, and an in-depth analysis of memoirs, police reports, and newspaper articles. Our study expands the scope of symbolic interactionism by considering how the exchange of gifts and favors is emotionally stylized to achieve both social and operative goals. We aim to carefully deconstruct the performance of gift-giving and favor exchange in Israeli crime organizations, to understand how it is orchestrated to elicit genuine feelings among givers and recipients, as well as to control the use of violence. Finally, we identify gift-giving as a double-edged sword designed to lure recruits into a network of binding obligations, only to form a durable system of credit and debt wherein any transgressions are strictly punished.     

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

This article examines current inconsistent trends in social welfare advocacy literature. Some studies show evidence of widespread engagement in advocacy by nonprofit organisations, while other studies conversely offer evidence of limited advocacy activities. Another controversial aspect stems from the question whether governmental funding undermines the extent to which nonprofits engage in advocacy. We argue that these findings reflect the contradictory impact of neoliberal governance on social welfare advocacy. The article highlights and discusses three interrelated components of neoliberalism and their impact on current social welfare advocacy: marketisation, precariousness and commodification. Neoliberalism has propelled a model of market-driven civil society that has remade the practice of social welfare advocacy in contradictory ways. With its complex rationales, neoliberalism has simultaneously undermined the ability of nonprofits to engage in advocacy but in a paradoxical way has also created conditions that induce these organisations to practice advocacy. Implications for practice and research on social welfare advocacy are discussed.