Flexicurity in Belgium: A reform proposal based on economic principles

Belgium's systems of unemployment insurance and employment protection legislation were set up in the context of typically enduring and stable relationships between workers and firms. Economic globalization and rapid technological and organizational change, however, are now demanding more flexibility of both workers and firms. As a result, current labour market institutions are in urgent need of reform to reconcile such increased flexibility with adequate security for workers. Though the call for a “flexicurity” approach is not new, there is no single view of what institutional model the latter implies. This paper proposes a reform explicitly guided by economic principles.     

Homosexual role separation: Implications for analyzing and modeling the spread of HIV

The analysis of the spread of HIV in homosexual populations must be based on knowledge of all factors which promote or inhibit transmission. Recently, data were reported from the Amsterdam cohort study that imply that sexual role separation and the changes therein should be taken into account in analyzing and modeling the spread of HIV. In this paper, a role separation mixing model is described and linked to data from the Amsterdam cohort. The model allows one to study the impact of homosexual role separation on the spread of HIV. The homosexual men are classified into four sexual subgroups based on the preference for: 1) no anal intercourse; 2) anal insertive only; 3) anal receptive only; 4) both insertive and receptive. The analysis accounts for variability and change in homosexual role behavior and loss to follow up. The results support the conjecture that there are large differences between the risks of receptive and insertive anal intercourse, with the latter carrying only minimal risk. The analysis indicates that the spread of HIV is mostly restricted to subgroup 4, the largest and sexually most active subgroup. In this subgroup, the estimated probability of HIV transmission from an infected insertive partner (in subgroup 2 or 4) to a receptive susceptible (in subgroup 4) is between 1 and 5 percent (assuming a closed cohort).     

Perturbation Analysis of Indices of Lifespan Variability

A number of indices exist to calculate lifespan variation, each with different underlying properties. Here, we present new formulae for the response of seven of these indices to changes in the underlying mortality schedule (life disparity, Gini coefficient, standard deviation, variance, Theil’s index, mean logarithmic deviation, and interquartile range). We derive each of these indices from an absorbing Markov chain formulation of the life table, and use matrix calculus to obtain the sensitivity and the elasticity (i.e., the proportional sensitivity) to changes in age-specific mortality. Using empirical French and Russian male data, we compare the underlying sensitivities to mortality change under different mortality regimes to determine the conditions under which the indices might differ in their conclusions about the magnitude of lifespan variation. Finally, we demonstrate how the sensitivities can be used to decompose temporal changes in the indices into contributions of age-specific mortality changes. The result is an easily computable method for calculating the properties of this important class of longevity indices.     

Communication in Care and Coercion: Institutional Interactions between Family Supervisors and Parents

Summary In this study the interaction of 51 videotaped professionalcommunications between Dutch family supervisors and parentsof children under family supervision were analysed. Family supervisionlies at the interface of care and control. This is evident inthe communication of professional child welfare workers withtheir clients for whom they have to clarify their rights. Theanalysis shows some of the strategies used by Dutch family supervisorsin cases of formal decisions and other interactions where theyanticipate confrontation with the client. In this way, familysupervisors separate their caring from their repressive functions.Nevertheless care and control were found to be successfullyintegrated in some communications.     

Evaluating a project on Roma education

This research note is based on the evaluation of the Comenius project Teacher‐IN‐SErvice‐Training‐for‐Roma‐inclusion (INSETRom). The project represented an international effort that was undertaken to bridge the gap between Roma and non‐Roma communities and to improve the educational attainment of Roma children in the mainstream educational system. The evaluation of the project showed that such projects can impact a teacher's confidence and attitudes, but that implementing new insights poses many challenges.     

The Gandhi Secondary School: an experiment in Roma education

The Gandhi Secondary School, located in Pécs, Hungary, was, until recently, the only secondary school in Europe devoted to preparing young Roma for higher education. This article discusses the school's origins and philosophy, its curriculum, and its teaching models. There is also a discussion of the reality of life at the school and the various challenges faced by teachers and students.     

Institutional Shifts In Inter-Municipal Service Delivery

Comparative research on inter-municipal cooperation in eight European countries shows that there is a great variety of institutional arrangements for cooperation across the different countries. Also, these arrangements tend to change over time in terms of the scope of cooperation among partners, their composition and the degree of organizational integration. This article describes and analyzes the variety of and shifts in institutional arrangements for a specific class of inter-municipal cooperation arrangements: those that are set up to provide for the joint delivery of public services. It is argued that specific arrangements are typically the outcomes of interaction between national institutional contexts, environmental factors and local preferences.     

The duration of unemployment in Russia

This paper uses longitudinal survey data to assess factors affecting the duration of unemployment in Russia. We examine four types of marginalised labour force participants, according to ILO guidelines and survey responses, and we estimate duration models for each type. It turns out that the sets of characteristics with the strongest effects on the duration are remarkably similar across the different unemployment definitions and model specifications. Therefore, despite the formidable practical measurement problems, problematic groups of individuals can actually be identified. Received: 27 January 1999/Accepted: 27 January 2000     

Socially Anxious Children at Risk for Victimization: The Role of Personality

This study examines whether Big Five personality traits affect the extent to which a socially anxious child will be victimized. A total of 1814 children participated in the study (mean age = 11.99 years). Children completed self‐reports and peer reports of victimization, which were aggregated, and self‐reports of social anxiety and Big Five personality traits. A regression analysis was performed to study the moderating effect of personality traits on the relation between social anxiety and victimization. Socially anxious children scoring high on extraversion are less at risk for victimization than socially anxious children scoring low on extraversion. In addition, socially anxious boys scoring high on agreeableness were less at risk for victimization than socially anxious boys scoring low on agreeableness. Conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience did not moderate the relation between social anxiety and victimization.