Einkommen, Gesundheit und Mortalität in Deutschland, Grossbritannien und den USA

The paper examines the effect of income on mortality with respect to different health statuses and institutional characteristics of the health care system in the USA, Great Britain and West Germany. It is hypothesized that the nature of the theoretical contribution of income in explaining mortality risks changes on whether good or poor health is considered. Taking into account that the health care systems of the countries in question vary by their degree of household out-of-pocket expenditure, we expect an association between income and mortality that differs by country. The analysis is based on the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP), the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The effect of income on mortality is found to be weakest when medical services are sought in the presence of poor health within the framework of a national health insurance that renders free primary health care (Great Britain, Germany). The effect is strongest when the provision of primary health care depends strongly on private expenditures (USA).     

Elitenselektion durch Bildung oder durch Herkunft?

Does the social origin have a direct effect on the unequal recruitment of the German business elites? Or, does the social origin have an indirect effect on the unequal recruitment only, by means of the unequal participation in the educational system as suggested by the functionalist elite theory? This question is examined with special reference to the business elite. For the 6.500 engineers, jurists, and economists, who received a doctor’s degree in the years of 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1985, the correlation between social origin, educational career, and professional career is analyzed by multivariate methods. The chances of achieving an executive position are 50% higher for individuals with a service class I background and 100% higher for those individuals with an upper class background in contrast to individuals with working class and middle class background. Therefore, the functionalist view can be regarded as incorrect. On the contrary, it holds that social origin has a strong direct effect on the social selection of the elites. Consequently, the social opening of the German educational system did not result into a social opening of the recruitment practices of the business elite. Rather, the opposite is the case: Social selection increased for the 1975 and 1985 cohorts.     

Wenn andere haben,was ich nicht habe — Die intrapsychische und interpersonelle Dynamik des Neides

Envy is an undesired and painful emotion. It’s also socially sanctioned. Envy is at the same time an emotion which is difficult to recognize because it is shown in a masked form. The article explains the genesis and the dynamic of envy in affected persons as well as in a social field. It’s clearly shown that envy has a depressive, a hostile as well as a growth encouragement dynamic.     

Wer spielt die Musik?

Media play a crucial role in the development of children and young people, together with the influence of parents, family and peer groups. Looking at an important topic in adolescents’ lives, i.e. contemporary music, this pilot study analyzes the relationship between media and interpersonal communication. Its theoretical grounds refer to the notion of a multi-step flow of communication. Based on a snowball sample of 72 pupils, aged between 14 and 16 and coming from different schools in Germany, 687 relations between respondents and their communication partners could be identified. Interviews were conducted face-to-face and by telephone in 2001. The questionnaire included a network generator based on seven items, an assessment of relationship characteristics and communication roles taken with each partner and several controls such as media use patterns or relevance and expertise in the field of music. According to our results, the concept of opinion leadership can be applied to the roles of pupils in the classroom, and the social network approach allows for a distinct view on their communication patterns. The size of pupils’ networks was between seven and 12 persons in average, most of the networks being dense and consisting of strong relationships. Due to the still important role of the parents, the homogeneity in age and education was rather low. The results also indicate the presence of opinion leaders among groups of adolescents, characterized by central positions within the communication network in class. The case study could identify several roles, e.g. stars, bridges, liaisons, structural holes and isolated persons. On the other hand, there is no evidence for a substantially different type of media use by opinion leaders, which challenges the original assumption of a multi-step-flow of communication.     

Estimating the prevalence of adolescent gambling disorders: A quantitative synthesis and guide toward standard gambling nomenclature

This article reviews the extant published and unpublished studies that estimate the prevalence of adolescent gambling problems in North America. The nine nonduplicative studies identified by our literature search included data collected from more than 7700 adolescents from five different regions of the United States and Canada. In addition to comparing the conceptual and methodological differences that exist among these studies, this article employed a meta-analytic strategy to synthesize prevalence estimates from the existing studies. This analysis revealed that within a 95 percent confidence interval, between 9.9% and 14.2% of adolescents are at risk of developing or returning to serious gambling problems. Similarly, between 4.4% and 7.4% of adolescents exhibit seriously adverse compulsive or pathological patterns of gambling activity. Finally, the discussion proposes a generic multi-level classification scheme to reconcile the divergent classification methods and data reporting strategies. This new multi-level approach to reporting gambling prevalence will facilitate interstudy comparisons among existing estimates of gambling prevalence and help to provide a general data reporting system for future research.     

Fostering transnational dialogue: Lessons learned from women peace activists

Abstract

Given the incredible diversity of the anti-globalization movement, developing inclusive and participatory spaces is an enormous challenge. Inequities in power, resources, and experience between Northern and Southern activists are of particular concern to a movement that values democratic participation. Dialogue is seen as a critical new way of addressing conflicts within the movement. For three decades, women's organizations dealt with similar issues at the UN World Conferences on Women. It was not until the 1990s that a global women's movement emerged. This paper, which is based on a qualitative study of women's peace organizations gathered at the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in 1995, addresses the development of positive coalition dynamics. The focus on individual activist stories fills in gaps left by studying organizations as units of analysis or on transnational movements as a whole. My research shows that if transnational activists use constructive approaches, conflict can assist in building coalition dynamics necessary for effective and equitable cooperation. I conclude that a commitment to respond to conflict in a constructive manner is as important for coalition building as formal processes or mechanisms that foster dialogue.     

Bewertung intertemporaler Abh?ngigkeiten zwischen IT-Projekten

Companies often decide in favour of IT investments (especially IT infrastructure investments) only because these investments build the foundation for more lucrative follow-up investments. Those intertemporal interdependencies among IT projects have to be considered within the scope of a value-based IT portfolio management. Therefore, current literature suggests the use of real options analysis??and therefore the application of option pricing models such as the binomial model or the Black-Scholes model. Both models require a complete market. However, because IT projects are characterized by project specific risks, which cannot be duplicated on a capital market, the forthright application of these models is problematic. This issue has been addressed within the scope of the discrete binomial model so far. In this paper we transfer these findings to the Black-Scholes model. Furthermore, we apply this approach to a real case and illustrate how a correct consideration of project specific risks using the Black-Scholes model can affect investment decisions.     

Abusive Supervision in Work Organizations – als Ursache für Workstress und Burnout

A growing literature explores abusive supervision as non-physical form of hostility by managers against there direct reports. However, researchers have used different terminology to explore phenomena that overlap with abusive supervision. The author therefore provides a review of literature how an US-american author, who researches some years ago about abusive supervision explains. The antecedents and consequences of abusive supervision and directions for future research are discussed.     

Christoph Deutschmann: Postindustrielle Industriesoziologie. Theoretische Grundlagen, Arbeitsverhältnisse und soziale Identitäten. Grundlagentexte Soziologie, herausgegeben von Klaus Hurrelmann

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