The stability of job and family involvement: Applying the multi-wave,multi-variable technique to longitudinal data

The main aim of the study was to examine the stability of job and family involvement, applying multi-wave, multi-variable modelling within the framework of LISREL models. The abbreviated job and family involvement scales based on Kanungo's (1979, 1982) motivational model were examined on the basis of 3-year longitudinal data. The study was carried out by means of questionnaires, which were filled in by Finnish employees (n = 109) on three occasions. The results show that both job and family involvement remained relatively stable during the follow-up period. Further, the scales showed reasonable unidimensionality across time. In addition, the item reliability of the scales was found to be adequate. Of the demographic characteristics studied (i.e. gender, age, socioeconomic status, presence of children at home, age of the youngest child) only gender had a significant effect on involvement: men were found to be more involved with their jobs than were women.     

Autonomy and Control in Everyday Life in Care of Older People in Nursing Homes

Self-control and autonomy are not guaranteed when people age and are in need of help from others, especially in institution-based housing. This occurs despite the fact that it is a generally accepted belief that care should be delivered with the greatest possible degree of independence and autonomy. This article discusses older people's experiences with and the opportunities for autonomy in institution-based housing. Through focus group interviews and observations, the daily lives of residents at two nursing homes in Sweden were studied through a comparative approach using the theoretical framework of organizational culture. Three themes emerged showing how autonomy was not a reality for the residents. The first theme revealed an ambivalent mission, indicating ambiguity as to whether the nursing home was a place to live in or a place in which to be cared for. The second theme was symbolic power, which encompassed the staff's power embedded in the organization. The third theme was the ageist approach to care, which was noted in the way staff considered the residents to be old people who were unable and unwilling to strive for autonomy. The three themes were embedded in the organizational culture and were created and recreated in the interaction between residents and staff. A key question for further research is how to change the culture to strengthen the residents’ autonomy.     

Outsourcing in the public refuse collection sector: exploiting old certainties or exploring new possibilities?

An outsourcing process in a medium-size city, by Norwegian standards, provided the background for our study. In 1996, the city council decided to contract out the refuse collection in half of its total area (the western part of the city), and to let the public refuse collection enterprise continue to collect in the other half of the area. The public enterprise also participated in the competitive tender, without success, however. The bid submitted by the public refuse collection enterprise was used as the basis for a benchmarking process performed by the chief administrative officer of the city in May 1999. The process resulted in the requirement that the public enterprise downsize its number of refuse collectors by 27 per cent. The city thus acquired a more cost-effective refuse collection system both in the western part, now run by a private company, and in the rest of the city, where the collection remained the responsibility of the public enterprise, in its newly pared-down and reorganized version. Detectable changes in the refuse collectors' health status in the three-year period immediately following the outsourcing constitute our main focus in this study. We found that the downsizing and reorganization of the public enterprise had a negative impact on the refuse collectors' health status. One year after the downsizing, six of the 27 refuse collectors remaining in the public enterprise had been diagnosed with heart problems or musculoskeletal pains that were sufficiently serious to form the basis of their individual approaches to secure a disability pension, which all six were in the process of acquiring. The registered sick leave among the refuse collectors showed a dramatic increase during the same period. We found clear indications that the refuse collectors remaining in the employment of the public enterprise had no alternatives in the labour market. Although not the focus of this study, we found that the totality of costs and benefits, not only for the enterprise in question, but also for local and national authorities, needs to be considered in any realistic assessment of the impact of public sector outsourcing of activities.     

Immigrants in Sweden's labour market during the 1980s

Using a new database, we studied the earnings of people born outside Sweden and those born in Sweden who were living in Sweden from 1978 to 1990. The results show that relative earnings of people born outside Sweden deteriorated. This is not only caused by an increasing proportion of immigrants from countries outside Europe but also by a deteriorating situation on the labour market for immigrants born in the Nordic countries or in other European countries.     

Teacher stress during an autumn term in Finland: Four types of stress processes

This Finnish study examines teachers' stress in order to clarify how stress manifests itself and to describe any observed differences in the teachers' background, personality and coping variables. The research design was longitudinal. One hundred and fifty-three teachers made repeated assessments (six in all) of the indicators of stress (subjective mood ratings) by means of questionnaires during the autumn term of 1983. The background variables were based on questionnaire responses gathered in the autumn of 1983. Four different teacher groups emerged according to the type of stress reported: (1) teachers who were exhausted throughout the term; (2) those who recovered from stress on the first weekends of the term but not later on; (3) those not at all stressed, and (4) teachers feeling tired and anxious at the beginning and at the end of the term. The four teacher groups differed with regard to their personality characteristics and coping strategies.     

Cohort size and female labour supply

Easterlin's relative income hypothesis projects for smaller cohorts: (a) increasing wages, (b) increasing fertility and (c) decreasing female labour supply. This paper reviews the literature on the substitutability of female for male labour, on relative income changes as a result of changes in cohort size and on husband's income as a determinant of female labour supply. It is concluded that own wage is a more important determinant of female labour supply than husband's income, and that policies that increase females net wages are therefore a stimulus to female labour supply. The example of Sweden shows that pronatalist policies can be combined with policies that stimulate female labour supply.     

International migration and falling into the income 'safety net': social assistance among foreign citizens in Sweden

The author focuses on public assistance payments to international immigrants in Sweden. "One object of the article is to give a statistical overview of the subject; another is to discuss reasons why international migrants receive social assistance more frequently than others. The latter leads to the formulation of econometric models and the estimation for immigrants with different backgrounds." It is found that "the number of immigrants receiving social assistance has increased since the mid-1960s. We also found that immigrants are considerably more frequent recipients of social assistance than others...." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)