Levels and patterns of internal migration in Europe: A cohort perspective

Europe displays important variations in the level of internal migration, with a clear spatial gradient of high mobility in northern and western Europe but lower mobility in the south and east. However, cross-national variation in levels of internal migration remains poorly understood, because it is analysed almost exclusively using cross-sectional data and period measures. This paper seeks to advance understanding of cross-national variation in migration levels in 14 European countries by drawing on a recently proposed suite of migration cohort measures, coupled with internationally comparable retrospective residential histories. It shows that differences in migration levels are mainly attributable to variation in the extent of repeat movement, which is underpinned by the differences in mean ages at first and last move that together delineate the average length of migration careers. Cohort analysis provides a robust foundation for exploring the demographic mechanisms underpinning variation in migration levels across countries and over time.     

Ties,sites and irregularities: pitfalls and benefits in using respondent-driven sampling for surveying a homeless population

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a survey method for hidden populations and, as such, it offers a suitable approach for sampling the homeless. Surprisingly, the practical use of RDS in surveying homeless populations has only sporadically been described in the professional literature so far, and the specifics of using RDS for sampling this group have not been reflected in depth. The goal of the article is to investigate how three specific concerns, namely the transitional character of social ties among the homeless, problems with locating the interview site, and the irregular use of coupons, affect the sampling process. The findings of the article are based on experience using RDS for creating two independent samples of homeless persons in two Czech cities. Worries of poor referral effectiveness were disproved, but poor validity of the network size indicator, tendency towards irregular use of coupons, and negative effects arising from selecting service centres for the homeless as survey sites were confirmed.     

The Nature and Correlates of Sibling Influence in Two‐Parent African American Families

Guided by research and theory on sibling similarities and differences, this study explored the nature and correlates of 2 processes of sibling influence—social learning and sibling differentiation—during adolescence. Participants included 2 adolescent‐age siblings (M = 16.29 years for older siblings and M = 12.59 years for younger siblings, respectively) from 166 two‐parent African American families. Significant nonlinear associations between these two influence dynamics and some sibling relationship qualities were discovered. For sibling differentiation, but not social learning, these links were further moderated by gender composition of the sibling dyad. Additional analyses revealed that youths' reports of social learning were generally linked to smaller differences between siblings, whereas differentiation processes were linked to greater differences in siblings' individual characteristics.     

EMPLOYER CHOICES IN EAP DESIGN AND WORKSITE SERVICES

In today's complex private healthcare market, employers have varied preferences for particular features of behavioral health products such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). Factors which may influence these preferences include: establishment size, type of organization, industry, workplace substance abuse regulations, and structure of health insurance benefits. This study of 103 large employer purchasers from a single managed behavioral healthcare organization investigated the impact of such variables on the EAP features that employers select to provide to workers and their families. Our findings indicate that for this group of employers, preferences for the type and delivery mode of EAP counseling services are fairly universal, while number of sessions provided and choices for EAP-provided worksite activities are much more varied, and may be more reflective of the diverse characteristics, organizational missions and workplace culture found among larger employers in the US.     

Les usages épistémiques des réseaux de communication électronique : Le cas de l’Open-Source

The concept of “distributed cognition” is applied to analyzing communication networks on Internet in order to better understand the role of electronic communications in acquiring and producing knowledge. This case study has as its basis a mailing list to the users of the free software “Debian.user.french”. The communication networks that emerged out of discussions on “threads” determined how knowledge was distributed among persons on the list. The structure of these threads limits the transmission of knowledge and gives rise to two types of epistemic networks: advice networks and discussion networks. Electronic communication networks facilitate the coexistence of these two types in a single community. Procedures that lead to a discussion of advices serve to select informants with a reputation and to develop cooperative structures out of the relationships formed while giving advice. This coexistence of various epistemic uses characterizes open-source communities, since it combines the cooperative production of a body of knowledge and the transmission of instructions to learners.     

Le temps de l'activité de la caissière : entre logique productive et logique de service

At first sight, the worktime put in by cashiers at checkout counters seems homogeneous, continuous and repetitive. An empirical study of hypermarket cashiers in France shows, on the contrary, that the time spent working is relatively discontinuous and diversified. It is similar to the time on the job put in by semiskilled workers in industry. What characterizes cashiers' work is their having to manage flows of both products and customers. Their worktime can, therefore, be understood as a compromise that comes out of balancing productivity with human relations, a compromise that sometimes causes conflict. By acquiring an “incorporated know-how”, cashiers manage to fill their assignment.     

Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment outputs from Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and the Strain Index for tasks in automotive assembly plants

This paper compares the ergonomic risk assessment of a task for the upper extremities as determined by Rapid Upper Extremity Assessment (RULA) and the Strain Index (SI). The ergonomic risk to the upper extremities of 244 automotive assembly plant tasks were evaluated using RULA and SI. The outcomes of each tool were compared for each task. Results from this study provide practical insight into the methods used in each tool. This study compared only the ergonomic risk outputs from each tool; it does not pursue the question of which tool best predicts injury. The kappa score was 0.11, indicating little agreement between the outputs of the two tools. This is supported by the lack of monotonicity with a gamma score of 0.1. These results indicate that the risk assessment outcome of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree.