Guests on the Aegean: interactions between migrants and volunteers at Europe’s southern border

Many would-be tourists were dissuaded from vacationing on Greece’s Aegean islands in 2016, in the aftermath of 2015’s ‘migrant crisis’. However, the islands witnessed an increased arrival of atypical ‘tourists’, among them volunteers intent on helping. This study is based on research undertaken on the islands of Lesvos and Chios in Greece as a volunteer myself. I focus on the figure of the volunteer, as an emergent humanitarian actor in border regions, to highlight issues with the way hospitality is currently being extended by one group of guests to another, at Europe’s frontiers. I investigate the way in which interactions between migrants and volunteers often end up reinforcing, rather than challenging, the distinction between them, and thus contribute to the legitimization of the current European border regime.     

Betting on Life: Associations Between Significant Life Events and Gambling Trajectories Among Gamblers with the Intent to Quit

Considerable evidence has suggested that problem gambling may be transitory and episodic, with gamblers routinely moving in and out of clinical thresholds. Findings in qualitative and quantitative studies have converged on identifying preliminary evidence for the role of life events as motivators and contributing factors for gambling changes over time. The aim of this study was to conduct an exploratory analysis of the relationship between life events, their respective experience as positive or negative, and gambling trajectories among problem gamblers intending to quit. Life event occurrence and ratings as positive or negative, and changes in gambling severity were analyzed over a 12-month period for 204 adult problem gamblers intending to reduce or quit their gambling. Overall, mixed effects models revealed several relationships between life events and both the magnitude and direction of gambling change over time. In particular, gamblers who experienced a greater number of positive events or specific events such as legal events, the adoption/loss of a child, or negative changes to their social relationships, finances, work environments or social/health activities were more likely to exhibit greater gambling reductions over time. Conversely, gamblers who experienced a greater number of negative events, such as family bereavement, the dissolution of a marriage, or negative changes to their residence exhibited smaller gambling reductions or increases in gambling severity. Possible mechanisms which may explain the findings and the importance of examining the subjective experience of life events are discussed. Recommendations for future studies examining associations between life events and gambling trajectories are provided.     

Remembering Mum and Dad: Family History Making by Children of Eastern European Refugees

Abstract

This article explores the memory-making of descendants of post-war displaced persons from Eastern Europe now living in Australia. Their processes to uncover their parents’ wartime, refugee and settlement pasts are mediated through public and personal forums. Accordingly, this analysis is framed by a theory of post-memory, which considers the narrative effects of living in close proximity to (the sometimes concealed) stories of their parents’ displacement and family separation. This cohort search for a wider frame to articulate their parents’ pasts as Eastern European (mainly Polish and Latvian) refugees, which is lacking in public discussions around immigration to Australia. They complicate and in some cases undermine celebratory narratives of migration to Australia and of family settlement. On an intimate level, their parents’ experiences are deployed as a means to grapple with their alternative family structures and less-than-conventional childhoods within immigration centres or camps, which were influenced by discriminatory policy for non-British migrants, and single mothers in particular. When adopting a collective lens, these histories are projected onto wider historical understandings of the immigration scheme, which these descendants of displaced persons seek to complicate.     

Temporal and spatial trends in the sex ratio at birth in Greece, 1960–2006: exploring potential environmental factors

Numerous studies have shown that the sex ratio at birth, defined as the relative number of male and female births, may be dramatically lower for small cohorts with high chemical exposures. Meanwhile, reports from different countries have shown recent declines in male births for the general population, perhaps implicating environmental factors. The sex ratio at birth has, therefore, been suggested by some as a sentinel environmental health indicator. This paper examines variation observed in sex ratio at birth in Greece since 1960. The analysis incorporates a number of demographic parameters including the age and nationality of the mother, partnership status and birth order, as well as urbanisation level. The latter is considered an indirect indicator of potential environmental incidence. Our main finding is that the sex ratio in Greece has experienced a slight, albeit statistically significant, downward trend, especially since 1980. Further, this decline is not attributable to changing demographics. Geographical differentiations were found to be quite significant: the sex ratio is significantly higher in rural areas compared to urban centres or Greater Athens, and this difference is increasing over time. We offer a preliminary interpretation suggesting that these temporal and spatial trends may, at least partly, be attributed to chemicals’ exposure due to higher levels of indoor and outdoor air pollution and different consumption habits encountered in urban settings. We argue that such possibilities warrant further research with explicit measures of exposure.

A new class of models for bivariate joint tails

Summary.  A fundamental issue in applied multivariate extreme value analysis is modelling dependence within joint tail regions. The primary focus of this work is to extend the classical pseudopolar treatment of multivariate extremes to develop an asymptotically motivated representation of extremal dependence that also encompasses asymptotic independence. Starting with the usual mild bivariate regular variation assumptions that underpin the coefficient of tail dependence as a measure of extremal dependence, our main result is a characterization of the limiting structure of the joint survivor function in terms of an essentially arbitrary non-negative measure that must satisfy some mild constraints. We then construct parametric models from this new class and study in detail one example that accommodates asymptotic dependence, asymptotic independence and asymmetry within a straightforward parsimonious parameterization. We provide a fast simulation algorithm for this example and detail likelihood-based inference including tests for asymptotic dependence and symmetry which are useful for submodel selection. We illustrate this model by application to both simulated and real data. In contrast with the classical multivariate extreme value approach, which concentrates on the limiting distribution of normalized componentwise maxima, our framework focuses directly on the structure of the limiting joint survivor function and provides significant extensions of both the theoretical and the practical tools that are available for joint tail modelling.     

Risk of Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Dispersion from Hog Farms: A Critical Review

The World Health Organization has declared antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest threats to global health.” Mounting evidence suggests that antibiotic use in industrial-scale hog farming is contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. To capture available evidence on these risks, we searched peer-reviewed studies published before June 2017 and conducted a meta-analysis of these studies’ estimates of the prevalence of swine-associated, antibiotic-resistant S. aureus in animals, humans, and the environment. The 166 relevant studies revealed consistent evidence of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in hog herds (55.3%) raised with antibiotics. MRSA prevalence was also substantial in slaughterhouse pigs (30.4%), industrial hog operation workers (24.4%), and veterinarians (16.8%). The prevalence of swine-associated, multidrug-resistant S. aureus (MDRSA)—with resistance to three or more antibiotics—is not as well documented. Nonetheless, sufficient studies were available to estimate MDRSA pooled prevalence in conventional hog operation workers (15.0%), workers’ household members (13.0%), and community members (5.37%). Evidence also suggests that antibiotic-resistant S. aureus can be present in air, soil, water, and household surface samples gathered in or near high-intensity hog operations. An important caveat is that prevalence estimates for humans reflect colonization, not active infection, and the health risks of colonization remain poorly understood. In addition, these pooled results may not represent risks in specific locations, due to wide geographic variation. Nonetheless, these results underscore the need for additional preventive action to stem the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens from livestock operations and a streamlined reporting system to track this risk.     

A Primer for the Use of Multilevel Models in Couple and Family Therapy Research

This article serves as a primer for understanding how to use multilevel modeling (MLM) techniques in couple and family therapy outcome and process research. It outlines the use of HLM and Mplus—two of many software programs that can perform multilevel modeling—and provides an applied example of using MLM to investigate the use of postsession feedback on couple satisfaction and change, as well as the influence of trauma on the use of postsession feedback. Two graduate students in COAMFTE accredited PhD programs read the primer and provided questions to the first author that arose. Answers to these questions have been incorporated throughout the explanation of this methodological approach in hopes of addressing common stuck points for those using MLM.     

Variations of the same? A sectoral analysis of the gender pay gap in Germany and Austria

Germany and Austria are two countries with a comparably and persistently high gender pay gap. Further, both countries are classified as conservative welfare states where the male breadwinner model has been only partly modernized and strong corporatist structures shape working conditions. At the same time, welfare policy and provision are not only based on but also shape gender‐related norms, beliefs and assumptions that are virulent for job valuation and collective bargaining. Against this background the article analyses similarities and differences regarding the gender pay gap in Germany and Austria. While both countries show significant similarities regarding the causes for the gender pay gap, there are some differences regarding legislation and further policies with which the gender pay gap could be reduced. Arguing that the institutional framework strongly influences income opportunities for women and men, the article provides a sectoral analysis of the financial and insurance sector and the human health sector in both countries. Using qualitative data from a recent research project, it is argued that in the classification of a sector as ‘female’, the sectoral income level combined with different wage‐setting mechanisms have a crucial impact on wage inequalities between women and men.