Surviving the Holocaust: Socio-demographic Differences Among Amsterdam Jews

This study determined the victimisation rate among Amsterdam Jews and socio-demographic differences in surviving the Holocaust. After linking a registration list of over 77,000 Jewish inhabitants in 1941 to post-war lists of Jewish victims and survivors, the victimisation rate lies between 74.3 and 75.3 %. Differences in survival chances and risk of being killed are examined by using multivariable logistic and Cox regression analyses. While male Jews had a reduced risk of death, in the end their survival chances hardly differed from females. Though Jews aged 6–14 and 31–50 initially had a lower risk of death, in the end compared with Jews aged 15–30 they had lower survival chances, just as Jews aged 50+. For Jews aged 0–5, it was the other way around. Immigrants showed better survival chances than native Jews. German Jews showed better survival chances than Dutch Jews, but Polish and other Jewish nationals showed highest survival chances. Jews who had abandoned Judaism had better survival chances than Jews belonging to an Israelite congregation. Divorced, widowed and unmarried adult Jews had better survival chances than married Jews and their children; Jews married to non-Jews, however, had one of the highest survival chances. Jews in the two highest social classes had better survival chances than jobless Jews. These findings indicate that survival was not random but related to socio-demographic characteristics. This sheds light on demographic consequences of conflict and violence: Nazi persecution reduced the Amsterdam Jewish community drastically, and socio-demographic differences in survival impacted the post-war Jewish population structure.     

Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process,Decision‐maker and Context

Evidence‐based management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over‐privileges rationality as a basis for decision‐making; ‘scientific’ evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is limited; and, although ideas were originally taken from evidence‐based medicine, individual‐situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, the authors adopted an approach of ‘opening up’ the decision process, the decision‐maker and the context (Langley et al. ( 1995 ). ‘Opening up decision making: the view from the black stool’, Organization Science, 6, pp. 260–279). The empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emergency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, it describes how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. It identifies the role of ‘fit’ between the decision‐maker and the organizational context in enabling an evidence‐based process and develops insights for EBM theory and practice.     

Occupational Attainment and Earnings: The Case of the Disabled

Abstract. This paper offers, for the first time, an investigation of wage differentials between disabled and non‐disabled workers in Sweden. It extends the traditional wage decomposition by incorporating explained and unexplained differences in occupational attainment. Data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey for 1981 and for 1991 have been used. The results show that in both years the disabled worked in low‐level occupations to a greater extent relative to the non‐disabled. This is due to the fact that disabled workers have lower qualifications. The unexplained component due to differences in returns on wage determinants is insignificant in the 1981 case but is highly significant in 1991, constituting around 50–60 per cent of the average log wage differential.     

A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand1

ABSTRACT This paper uses themes from political ecology to develop insights into the billion dollar shrimp aquaculture sector in Thailand. We find that corporations can exercise only limited control over shrimp production and that there is no clear trend toward larger operations. We explain the continued viability of small owner-operated farms by looking at how shrimp farming is located in physical and social space, and at the ability of owner-operators to work within the highly unstable socio-ecological processes of shrimp production. We also find that shrimp farming has induced a spatially-uneven increase in state territorial regulation. The spatial distribution of regulation is shaped by differences in how landscapes become politicized, and the degree of jurisdictional clarity. We conclude that industry self-regulation has limited prospects for containing the social and environmental problems of shrimp farming in Thailand, but that expanded state regulation that mobilizes the participation of local people might be effective.     

TRANSIENCE AND THE POSTMODERN SELF

The occupational community of resort workers offers a glimpse into the global postmodern workforce: individuals who relocate around the world, impelled by their career aspirations or their search for the intense experience of the beauty, exotic nature, and extreme recreation in various international destinations. These people have abandoned the conventional lifestyle anchored in security, continuity, and tradition and embarked upon a lifestyle of transience. Drawing on four years of participant observation and depth interviews in a luxury Hawaiian resort as well as supplemental interviews with resort workers around the United States, we articulate the four dimensions of these workers' lives that primarily engage their transience: work, ideology, family, and friendships. From these patterns we draw conclusions about the nature of the global postmodern workforce and community, and about the social psychological nature of the postmodern self.