Child Marriage Laws around the World: Minimum Marriage Age,Legal Exceptions,and Gender Disparities

ABSTRACT

The marriage of children below 18 is widely recognized in international human rights agreements as a discriminatory global practice that hinders the development and well-being of hundreds of millions of girls. Using a new global policy database, we analyze national legislation regarding minimum marriage age, exceptions permitting marriage at earlier ages, and gender disparities in laws. While our longitudinal data indicate improvements in frequencies of countries with legal provisions that prohibit marriage below the age of 18, important gaps remain in eliminating legal exceptions and gender discrimination.     

Sickness presenteeism and sickness absence over time: A UK employee perspective

This paper examined the influence of sickness presenteeism (SP), defined here as going to work despite illness, and sickness absenteeism (SA) behaviour on employee psychological well-being, work performance and perceived organisational commitment in a sample of 552 UK workers. Self-report measures were administered on 2 occasions, separated by 1 year, to employees from 4 public sector and 2 private sector organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate simultaneous influences of SP and SA on outcomes over time. Results suggested that employees reporting SP reported lower work performance in comparison to those reporting no SP, when measured concurrently but not over time. Employees reporting any SP in the previous 3 months showed relatively reduced psychological well-being but there was no significant association over time. Six or more days SP was associated with a reduction in employee perceptions that their organisation was committed to them, concurrently and over time. There were no significant influences of SA on any outcome measure. Our results strengthen previous research and suggest that SP, but not SA, has implications for individual outcomes. The findings have implications for the way organisations manage their sickness absence systems.     

Between Enforcement and Precarity: Externalization and Migrant Deaths at Sea

Much scholarship on border enforcement and loss of life asserts the relationship between enforcement and precarity. Little research attempts to correlate the two: enforcement operations and loss of life. In this article, we statistically analyse the relationship between increased border enforcement operations at sea and migrant losses of life around the EU between 2006 and 2015, and find them to be significantly and positively correlated. We also find evidence that increased enforcement leads to rerouting of migrant journeys to ‘weak spots’ in relation to borders. These findings bring empirical support to the commonly‐asserted claim by social scientists that externalization creates greater loss of life. We argue that, although discourse about interception and externalization has shifted to humanitarian rescue narratives, offshore enforcement by any other name continues to be highly correlated with migrant deaths. We then construct two datasets documenting migrant boats lost at sea and state interdiction operations since 1980. These data serve as the basis of our statistical analysis.     

Putting practice at the heart of social work education: can practice skills be reliably graded by different markers in child and family social work contexts?

The Frontline programme is a social work qualification route, in England, which began in 2014. Students are based in statutory child and family contexts supported by an academic staff member and practice educator. The assessment strategy on the programme includes seven graded observations of students engaging in social work, marked by both staff. This paper investigates reliability of grading of direct practice between different markers on the programme. It reports findings for 30 recordings of direct observations of practice that were graded during the first cohort. These included observations graded by an academic and by a practice educator. Each was independently then graded by an academic, blind to the original score or who marked it. An acceptable level of reliability was found between the independent grader and the first mark (r = .621). In general the level of agreement was higher between the independent grader (a social work academic) and academics. In comparison, practice educators tended to give higher grades to students. Nonetheless, overall the reliability of marking suggests it is possible to agree on marks for students, which points to the potential for grading of practice to be more widely used in social work education.     

Why does the need for medication become a barrier to breastfeeding? A narrative review

Problem

The need for medication during lactation can contribute to the early cessation of breastfeeding.

Study finds ‘low‐risk’ alcohol relapsers have same brain volume as abstainers

While abstinence is an option for many, requiring it also can deter patients from seeking treatment, or doom them to failure if they relapse, according to some researchers. A study published June 17 in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research has found that gray matter brain volume is the same for people who relapse to low risk levels as it is for people who stay abstinent. Furthermore, the study, “Not All Is Lost for Relapsers: Relapsers With Low WHO Risk Drinking Levels and Complete Abstainers Have Comparable Regional Gray Matter Volumes,” found that low‐risk relapsers have better cognitive performance than high‐risk relapsers.     

Psychodynamic psychotherapy: When it helps people in recovery

You have almost never read about psychoanalysis or its less intense relative, psychodynamic psychotherapy, in these pages. It's because it doesn't work to treat active substance use disorders (SUDs). But psychodynamic psychotherapy, with all of the psychoanalytic underpinnings, can be very helpful to patients in recovery, because in fact many of these patients are self‐medicating a past trauma.     

NASADAD pushes block‐grant increase for stimulus 4 bill

The National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) last week wrote to Sen. Patty Murray (D‐ Washington) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R‐Missouri), the Senate co‐chairs of the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, asking specifically for the $1.5 billion in supplemental funding as provided by the House in the HEROES Act for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant (see “Proposed bill for HEROES Act would give $1.5 billion to SAPT block grant,” ADAW, May 18, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.32722 ).