Government Intervention in Public Sector Industrial Relations: Lessons from the Alberta Teachers’ Association

In the public sector, Canadian governments intervene frequently in labor disputes by suspending collective bargaining and curtailing legal strikes. Previous research has focused on the contours of government intervention, such as its overall effects on collective bargaining and strikes. The discussion highlights one actor, a government, restricting the behavior of another actor, a union, using legislation and policy making. As a result, we know less about more micro-level elements and implications of the process of government intervention. I address these themes using a detailed case study of the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the strikes it coordinated in 2002.

The Experience-Earnings Profile: Productivity-Augmenting or Purely Contractual? Evidence from the UK

We test the human capital interpretation of the experience-earnings profile. Does the upward sloping portion of the experience-earnings profile reflect on-the-job training which in turn causes the experience-productivity profile to slope upwards, or do purely contractual factors determine the nature of life-cycle earnings. Herein, we provide additional evidence on the relationship between productivity and earnings by examining earnings differentials in the UK academic labor market for economists. Using a test first suggested by Mincer, we find that the empirical results are consistent with human capital theory. We find that, although the positive relationship between earnings and experience persists when individual productivity measures are included in the salary equations for lecturers and senior lecturers, the positive relationship becomes statistically insignificant when the same productivity measures are included in the salary equations for professors. For lecturers and senior lecturers, the experience-salary profile properly reflects the structure of the national pay scale rather than variations in individual research productivity. At the professor level, where individual salaries are not determined by a pay scale, the data support the human capital explanation of the positive experience-earnings profile.

Reading your Counterpart: The Benefit of Emotion Recognition Accuracy for Effectiveness in Negotiation

Using meta-analysis, we find a consistent positive correlation between emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) and goal-oriented performance. However, this existing research relies primarily on subjective perceptions of performance. The current study tested the impact of ERA on objective performance in a mixed-motive buyer-seller negotiation exercise. Greater recognition of posed facial expressions predicted better objective outcomes for participants from Singapore playing the role of seller, both in terms of creating value and claiming a greater share for themselves. The present study is distinct from past research on the effects of individual differences on negotiation outcomes in that it uses a performance-based test rather than self-reported measure. These results add to evidence for the predictive validity of emotion recognition measures on practical outcomes.

Earnings Differentials of Seafarers

I investigate the earnings differentials among union and nonunion seafarers, across seafarer occupations, and with respective to other transport operatives. The empirical results suggest that the union and nonunion weekly earnings of captains/mates are comparable, and the union earnings gap for sailors/deckhands is positive. The union (nonunion) weekly earnings of captains/mates are 14.7 (30.5) percent greater than those of sailors/deckhands; the union weekly earnings of captains/mates (sailors/deckhands) are 12.6% greater (9.5% less) than those of truck drivers; and the nonunion weekly earnings of captains/mates (sailors/deckhands) are 33.0% greater (6.2% less) than those of truck drivers. The sailor/deckhand and truck driver earnings differentials are contrary to the general belief that the earnings of truck drivers are less than those of other operative occupations involved in transporting intermodal cargo.

Virtual Interpersonal Touch and Digital Chameleons

We studied the characteristics of hand touch with a mechanical device that approximated a handshake, and we then examined the effect of handshake mimicry on assessment of a partner. Two participants interacted with a force-feedback joystick that recorded each of their hand movements individually. The two participants then greeted one another by feeling the recording of the other person’s movements via the force-feedback device. For each dyad, one of the participants actually received his or her own virtual handshake back under the guise that it was the other person’s virtual handshake. Results demonstrated three significant findings. First, for any given participant, a metric that took into account position, angle, speed, and acceleration of the hand movements correlated highly within individuals across two handshakes. Second, across participants, these metrics demonstrated specific differences by gender. Finally, there was an interaction between gender and mimicry, such that male participants liked people who mimicked their handshakes more than female participants did. We discuss the implications of these findings and relate them to theories of social interaction.

Death by survey: Estimating adult mortality without selection bias from sibling survival data

The widely used methods for estimating adult mortality rates from sample survey responses about the survival of siblings, parents, spouses, and others depend crucially on an assumption that, as we demonstrate, does not hold in real data. We show that when this assumption is violated so that the mortality rate varies with sibship size, mortality estimates can be massively biased. By using insights from work on the statistical analysis of selection bias, survey weighting, and extrapolation problems, we propose a new and relatively simple method of recovering the mortality rate with both greatly reduced potential for bias and increased clarity about the source of necessary assumptions.     

Foster Care: How We Can,and Should,Do More for Maltreated Children

Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial concerns remain about the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system. The most recent effort to reform foster care, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, attempts to both reduce the use of foster care and increase the quality of care. In this report, we review how policy has shaped the experiences and outcomes of children in foster care, where policy has succeeded, and where it falls short of achieving its goals. We then identify opportunities for federal and state policy to better support the safety, health, and well-being of children in foster care.     

The functional patterns of adolescent mothers leaving foster care: Results from a cluster analysis

Few studies have explored the outcomes of adolescent mothers leaving foster care, especially using person‐oriented methods. The current study employed a cluster analysis to identify unique patterns of functioning among adolescent mothers aged 19 (n = 777). Data from the National Youth in Transition Database and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System were utilized. Findings revealed five subpopulations characterized by distinct constellations of outcomes at age 19. The largest group (43%) exhibited competent functioning across all the domains studied—its members were connected to school and/or employment and did not experience homelessness, substance abuse referrals, or incarceration during the past 2 years (i.e., “resilient”). A relatively small group (12%) exhibited challenges across all the above‐referenced domains, whereas the remaining groups presented challenges in some domains, but not in others. Follow‐up analyses revealed that adolescent mothers classified as resilient at age 19 had the lowest rates of congregate care placements and the highest rates of nonrelative foster care placements at age 17. Moreover, they had lower placement instability and higher rates of extended foster care as compared with members of the other clusters. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

Differential Recovery Migration across the Rural–Urban Gradient: Minimal and Short-Term Population Gains for Rural Disaster-Affected Gulf Coast Counties

Places affected or threatened by extreme environmental disturbances confront a number of significant issues, including whether their populations will stay the same or change through migration. Research on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shows some displaced residents returned to their disaster-affected communities once the built environment was restored, new migrants settled in affected places as part of the rebuilding effort, and the regional migration system grew more urbanized and spatially concentrated during post-disaster years. Research also shows that not all disaster-affected places recovered their populations. Our study examines whether differential recovery is systematically patterned along the rural–urban gradient. Using U.S. Census Bureau estimates and IRS county-to-county migration data, we investigate whether the 2005 hurricane season differentially exacerbated or altered previous migration trends across a rural–urban gradient that incorporates proximity to metropolitan areas and disaster-related housing loss. We find a rural–urban differential in Gulf Coast recovery migration: The disaster boosted migration among non-metropolitan counties, yet these increases were smaller and short-lived compared to the patterns found for metropolitan counties, most especially high loss metropolitan counties. Our findings encourage theories of environmental migration to incorporate spatial differentiation and scenarios of environmental changes to account for differential impacts on settlement patterns across the rural–urban continuum.