Women‐Centred but not Women‐Friendly: Understanding Student Attrition in the Ontario Midwifery Education Programme

In analysing the reasons for high attrition among midwifery students enrolled in the Ontario Midwifery Education Programme, we examined how the challenges of maintaining work‐life balance among practising midwives impacts students' decisions to stay or withdraw from the programme. The content analysis of the written responses from a self‐administered online delivered survey revealed that many students drawn to the profession become disillusioned during their studies. Observing the difficulties that practising midwives face in trying to combine care for their clients with care for their families, students perceive midwifery as a profession that is women‐friendly only in relation to clients and not in relation to the practising midwives themselves. We suggest that the caring dilemma of midwifery impacts the neophytes to the profession. We contend that a change in structural organization of work would likely improve retention among student midwives.     

Pre-college and college predictors of longitudinal changes in multiracial college students’ self-reported race

This longitudinal study of 1101 multiracial college students from 105 US institutions reveals the dynamic racial designation choices of participants as freshmen and as seniors, as 56% of the sample gave inconsistent responses about their race over time. Logistic regressions predicting a multiracial designation choice as seniors reveal the pre-college and college factors associated with developing or maintaining this choice over the span of college. Experiences such as living on campus, joining a racial or ethnic student organization, taking an ethnic studies course, participating in a racial awareness workshop, and discussing issues of political or personal importance were each significant predictors of the racial identification patterns examined in this study. The results of this study offer evidence of the need to consider longitudinal changes in students’ race and the ways in which students’ racial identification preferences change between the time they enter and leave college.     

Competencies and problem behaviors of children in family foster care: variations by kinship placement status and race

Formal kinship foster care is an increasingly common form of out-of-home placement, and several important distinctions between kinship care and non-relative foster care have been identified. The present study evaluated the behavior of kinship foster children in comparison to non-relative foster children and children in the general population. A geographically and ethnically diverse sample of foster children (N=240) was assessed for competence and problem behaviors using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL: Achenbach, 1991). Kinship foster children closely resembled children in the general population but differed significantly from their counterparts in non-relative foster care, who consistently scored lower on competence and higher on problem behaviors. Substantial proportions of non-relative foster children were in the clinical range on most CBCL measures, but kinship foster children were no more likely than children from the general population to score above clinical cut-offs. Differences between kinship and non-kinship foster children became less dramatic after accounting for child race and gender, which were both associated with kinship status. Child race had a strong main effect for almost all types of problem behaviors, with children of color showing significantly less problematic behavior. Discussion of these results centers on potential explanations for the observed variations in child behavior by kinship status and race.     

An empirical analysis of the time allocation of Italian couples: are they responsive?

The literature suggests that in Italy husbands contribute less to unpaid household work than in any other European country, while women have the lowest market employment rates. Here we examine the time allocation of Italian couples on which there are surprisingly few studies to date. We analyze simultaneously the time allocated by husband and wife to market work, childcare and housework, allowing for various interactions. We use data drawn from the Italian national Time Use Survey 2002–2003 for the analysis. We find that spousal time allocation is sensitive to personal and household characteristics, such as, in particular, education and children’s age. Evidence shows that men married to more highly educated women spend more time with their children. The husband’s own characteristics have less of an effect on women’s time allocation. We also find that patterns differ substantially between weekends and weekdays. The estimated correlations between the unobservable factors affecting the couple’s time allocation suggest that the time devoted by parents to childcare is complementary and that the time they devote to housework is substitutable across weekends and other weekdays.     

Russian labour culture: how it looks in comparison

Assuming that national culture should not be disregarded especially at a time of massive economic restructuring as having serious influence on labour relations and type of management, we make an attempt to reveal its features empirically and compare them with those of other national cultures, identifying whose cultural characteristics are closest to the Russian one. The article examines Russian labour culture by measuring it with the help of Hofstede's universal indices in an empirical study of employees of four industrial enterprises in different parts of Russia. The measuring tool allows a comparative perspective; we also offer interpretations of the obtained indices, enriching them by illustrations from informal interviews with the employees of those enterprises. The results brought Russia close to a number of European countries that had welfare-state orientation and strong institutional and historical connections with Russia, such as Finland, Germany, Austria and Israel. The article argues that experience in the field of labour relations and organizational models of these countries should not be discounted, although reformers often place their hopes mainly on the Anglo-Saxon or American models.     

Governmental anti-pandemic policies,vaccination, population mobility,Twitter narratives,and the spread of COVID-19: Evidence from the European Union countries

We provide large-scale empirical evidence on the effects of multiple governmental regulatory and health policies, vaccination, population mobility, and COVID-19-related Twitter narratives on the spread of a new coronavirus infection. Using multiple-level fixed effects panel data model with weekly data for 27 European Union countries in the period of March 2020–June 2021, we show that governmental response policies were effective both in reducing the number of COVID-19 infection cases and deaths from it, particularly, in the countries with higher level of rule of law. Vaccination expectedly helped to decrease the number of virus cases. Reductions in population mobility in public places and workplaces were also powerful in fighting the pandemic. Next, we identify four core pandemic-related Twitter narratives: governmental response policies, people's sad feelings during the pandemic, vaccination, and pandemic-related international politics. We find that sad feelings’ narrative helped to combat the virus spread in EU countries. Our findings also reveal that while in countries with high rule of law international politics’ narrative helped to reduce the virus spread, in countries with low rule of law the effect was strictly the opposite. The latter finding suggests that trust in politicians played an important role in confronting the pandemic.     

(New) Bulgarian Enlighteners and Ambassadors? The Reinvention of National Identity in Times of Crisis

Drawing on empirical data from 37 Bulgarian students and young professionals in the UK, this article explores the intersection of the discourses produced by the European crises and migrants' national identity. In Bulgaria, the crisis narrative is embedded in the arguably never-ending democratic transition, manifested in socio-economic instability and political volatility. Simultaneously, “Brexit Britain” is enveloped in strong Eurosceptic sentiments, propelled by a combination of austerity measures and intensified Eastern European migratory flows. Both contexts subject Bulgarian migrants to stigmatizing representations. Looking at migrants' everyday practices, the data reveals that young Bulgarians draw on the related ideas of the “new” Enlightener and Ambassador to counterbalance negative discourses. Thus, the article explores the meanings and significance attributed to the Enlighteners and the Ambassadors, arguing that the participants engage in “social creativity” and “individual mobility” strategies that lead to reinvention of national identity.     

A top-down movement with grass-roots effects? Alexei Navalny’s electoral campaign

Today’s Russia is a hostile environment for genuine political activity, and especially for movements that aim at changing the current power structure. This is due to the factually limited manoeuvre space of oppositional actors who face obstacles in the form of repression, surveillance and restricted access to the public sphere. Moreover, society is largely apolitical, with political activity often considered futile, immoral, or dangerous. In this profile, we portray the electoral campaign of the opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, who built a popular movement around his bid to participate in the 2018 presidential elections. Although the campaign failed to build up sufficient pressure for Navalny to be granted access to the elections, and despite the strong hierarchy inside his campaign, we argue that it contributed to the politicization of parts of the younger generation in the country’s provinces – which may have greater long-term effects than any concrete projects envisioned or controlled by the campaign’s strategists.