The Future Composition of the Canadian Labor Force: A Microsimulation Projection

This article charts the future transformations of the Canadian labor force population using a microsimulation projection model. The model takes into account differentials in demographic behavior and labor force participation of individuals according to their ethnocultural and educational characteristics. As a result of a rapid fall in fertility, the Canadian population is expected to age rapidly as baby boomers start to retire from the labor market in large numbers. In response to declining fertility, Canada raised its immigration intake at the end of the 1980s, and immigration is now the main driver of Canadian population growth. At the same time, immigrants to Canada are becoming more culturally diversified. Over the last half century, the main source regions have shifted from Europe to Asia. Results of the microsimulation show that Canada's labor force population will continue to increase, but at a slower rate than in the recent past. By 2031, almost one third of the country's total labor force could be foreign‐born, and almost all its future increase is expected to be among university graduates, while the less‐educated labor force is projected to decline.     

Exploring team mental model dynamics during strategic change implementation in professional service organizations. A sensemaking perspective

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper process understanding of team mental model dynamics in a context of strategic change implementation. To do so, we adopt a change recipient sensemaking perspective with the objective to identify salient determinants of team mental model dynamics. We aim to contribute to the managerial and organizational cognition literature by identifying critical micro-foundations that shape team cognition and interpretation processes during strategic change implementation. This adds to the field’s understanding of the under-researched collective dimension of strategic processes in general and strategic change implementation more specifically. Through an explorative case study conducted at a professional service organization, we identified five determinants of team mental model dynamics: coherence between ostensive and performative aspects of organizational routines, equivocality of expectations, dominance of organizational discourse, shifts in organizational identification and cross-understanding between departmental thought worlds. Case findings reveal that implementation processes of strategic change become intricate and difficult if change recipient sensemaking is not effectively acted upon. The five determinants identified require adequate managerial attention in order to avoid slipping into organizational inertia. As a consequence, professional workers are unable to ‘drop their tools’ and fail to integrate the strategic change effort in updated team mental models.     

Socioeconomic determinants of the need for personal assistance reported by community-dwelling elderly: Empirical evidence from a French national health survey

A bivariate probit model with sample selection is used to estimate the conditional probability of reporting a need for personal assistance (NPA) with at least one activity of daily living among French community-dwelling elderly. 71.8% of men and 77.3% of women reported impairments and among those who reported impairments, 7.5% of men and 10.8% of women reported NPA. NPA is associated not only with age (i.e., the oldest individuals, for women only) and health status (such as a specific type of impairment), but also with socioeconomic (living with intermediate income; living with someone, partner or other) and environmental factors (having and using assistive technologies).     

Functional Play at 2 Years of Age: Effects of Prenatal Maternal Stress

Toddler toy play evolves in a predictable manner and provides a valid, nonverbal measure of cognitive function unbiased by social behaviors. Research on prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) indicates that exposure to stress in utero results in developmental deficits. We hypothesized that children exposed to high objective PNMS from a natural disaster early in pregnancy would exhibit higher rates of stereotypical play and lower rates of mature functional play than their low‐stress counterparts would. We examined the functional play abilities of 52 2‐year‐olds exposed to low or high objective PNMS from a natural disaster within a nonstructured play session. Toddlers exposed to high objective PNMS, subjective PNMS, or both exhibited less functional and more stereotypical toy play, with less diversity, compared to toddlers exposed to low PNMS. PNMS appears to affect functional play development in toddlers negatively. These results replicate delays in language and intellectual functioning observed in these toddlers using the Bayley Scales.     

A Branch and Bound algorithm for general mixed-integer quadratic programs based on quadratic convex relaxation

Let \((MQP)\) be a general mixed-integer quadratic program that consists of minimizing a quadratic function \(f(x) = x^TQx +c^Tx\) subject to linear constraints. Our approach to solve \((MQP)\) is first to consider an equivalent general mixed-integer quadratic problem. This equivalent problem has additional variables \(y_{ij}\) , additional quadratic constraints \(y_{ij}=x_ix_j\) , a convex objective function, and a set of valid inequalities. Contrarily to the reformulation proposed in Billionnet et al. (Math Program 131(1):381–401, 2012), the equivalent problem cannot be directly solved by a standard solver. Here, we propose a new Branch and Bound process based on the relaxation of the non-convex constraints \(y_{ij}=x_ix_j\) to solve \((MQP)\) . Computational experiences are carried out on pure- and mixed-integer quadratic instances. The results show that the solution time of most of the considered instances with up to 60 variables is improved by our Branch and Bound algorithm in comparison with the approach of Billionnet et al. (2012) and with the general mixed-integer nonlinear solver BARON (Sahinidis and Tawarmalani, Global optimization of mixed-integer nonlinear programs, user’s manual, 2010).     

Gender differences in disability-free life expectancy for selected risk factors and chronic conditions in Canada

This article shows how mortality and morbidity patterns differ for women and men 45 years of age and older. The impact on disability-free life expectancy was calculated for selected risk factors and chronic conditions: low income, low education, abnormal body mass index, lack of physical activity, smoking, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis. For each factor, the expected number of years free of disability was calculated for men and women using multi-state life tables. In terms of disability-free life expectancy, the greatest impacts on affected women were for diabetes (14.1 years), arthritis (8.8 years), and physical inactivity (6.0 years), while for affected men, the greatest impacts were for diabetes (10.5 years), smoking (6.9 years), arthritis (6.5 years), and cancer (6.4 years). The implications of these results are discussed from the perspective of developing programs designed to improve population health status.     

Risk seeking with diminishing marginal utility in a non-expected utility model

The present work takes place in the framework of a non-expected utility model under risk: the RDEU theory (Rank Dependent Expected Utility, first initiated by Quiggin under the denomination of Anticipated Utility), where the decision maker's behavior is characterized by two functionsu andf. Our first result gives a condition under which the functionu characterizes the decision maker's attitude towards wealth. Then, defining a decision maker as risk averter (respectively risk seeker) when he always prefers to any random variable its expected value (weak definition of risk aversion), the second result states that a decision maker who has an increasing marginal utility of wealth (a convex functionu) can be risk averse, if his functionf issufficiently below his functionu, hence if he is sufficientlypessimistic. Obviously, he can also be risk seeking with a diminishing marginal utility of wealth. This result is noteworthy because with a stronger definition of risk aversion/risk seeking, based on mean-preserving spreads, Chew, Karni, and Safra have shown that the only way to be risk averse (in their sense) in RDEU theory is to have, simultaneously, a concave functionu and a convex functionf.     

Shall we keep the highly skilled at home? The optimal income tax perspective

We examine how allowing individuals to emigrate to pay lower taxes abroad changes the optimal non-linear income tax scheme in a Mirrleesian economy. An individual emigrates if his domestic utility is less than his utility abroad net of migration costs, utilities and costs both depending on productivity. Three average social criteria are distinguished—national, citizen and resident—according to the agents whose welfare matters. A curse of the middle-skilled occurs in the first-best, and it may be optimal to let some highly skilled leave the country under the resident criterion. In the second-best, under the Citizen and Resident criteria, preventing emigration of the highly skilled is not necessarily optimal because the interaction between the incentive-compatibility and participations constraints may cause countervailing incentives. In important cases, a Rawlsian policymaker should decrease top marginal tax rates to keep everyone at home.