Improved Self-exclusion Program: Preliminary Results

The gambling industry has offered self-exclusion programs for quite a long time. Such measures are designed to limit access to gaming opportunities and provide problem gamblers with the help they need to cease or limit their gambling behaviour. However, few studies have empirically evaluated these programs. This study has three objectives: (1) to observe the participation in an improved self-exclusion program that includes an initial voluntary evaluation, phone support, and a mandatory meeting, (2) to evaluate satisfaction and usefulness of this service as perceived by self-excluders, (3) to measure the preliminary impact of this improved program. One hundred sixteen self-excluders completed a questionnaire about their satisfaction and their perception of the usefulness during the mandatory meeting. Among those participants, 39 attended an initial meeting. Comparisons between data collected at the initial meeting and data taken at the final meeting were made for those 39 participants. Data showed that gamblers chose the improved self-exclusion program 75% of the time; 25% preferred to sign a regular self-exclusion contract. Among those who chose the improved service, 40% wanted an initial voluntary evaluation and 37% of these individuals actually attended that meeting. Seventy percent of gamblers came to the mandatory meeting, which was a required condition to end their self-exclusion. The majority of participants were satisfied with the improved self-exclusion service and perceived it as useful. Major improvements were observed between the final and the initial evaluation on time and money spent, consequences of gambling, DSM-IV score, and psychological distress. The applicability of an improved self-exclusion program is discussed and, as shown in our study, the inclusion of a final mandatory meeting might not be so repulsive for self-excluders. Future research directives are also proposed.

Offspring of Parents with Gambling Problems: Adjustment Problems and Explanatory Mechanisms

We compared offspring of problem gamblers (n = 42) to offspring of parents without gambling problems (n = 100) to see (1) whether the two groups differed with respect to depressive feelings and conduct/antisociality problems and (2) whether ineffective parenting or the offspring’s own gambling problems played a mediating role in this context. Participants were drawn from a relatively large community-based study (N = 1,872). Parents rated their own gambling and other mental health problems when their children were in mid-adolescence. The children’s self-reports on depressive feelings and conduct/antisociality problems were assessed at two points in time: by mid-adolescence and again by early adulthood. Results showed that children of parents with gambling problems reported more depressive feelings and more conduct problems by mid-adolescence than children of parents without gambling problems. Children of problem gamblers also experienced an increase in their depressive symptoms from mid-adolescence to early adulthood. Importantly, ineffective parenting, but not children’s gambling problems, mediated almost all the links between parental problem gambling and children’s adjustment problems. These results add to a very small data base showing that children of problem gamblers are at risk for a variety of adjustment problems.

The Effect of Lead Time Uncertainty on Safety Stocks

The pressure to reduce inventory investments in supply chains has increased as competition expands and product variety grows. Managers are looking for areas they can improve to reduce inventories without hurting the level of service provided. Two areas that managers focus on are the reduction of the replenishment lead time from suppliers and the variability of this lead time. The normal approximation of lead time demand distribution indicates that both actions reduce inventories for cycle service levels above 50%. The normal approximation also indicates that reducing lead time variability tends to have a greater impact than reducing lead times, especially when lead time variability is large. We build on the work of Eppen and Martin (1988) to show that the conclusions from the normal approximation are flawed, especially in the range of service levels where most companies operate. We show the existence of a service‐level threshold greater than 50% below which reorder points increase with a decrease in lead time variability. Thus, for a firm operating just below this threshold, reducing lead times decreases reorder points, whereas reducing lead time variability increases reorder points. For firms operating at these service levels, decreasing lead time is the right lever if they want to cut inventories, not reducing lead time variability.     

Determinants of work-family balance satisfaction during the pandemic: Insights from Québec

The first wave of the COVID pandemic was the most challenging for employed parents, and more specifically for women. In Québec, research has shown a deterioration in the psychological health of parents in the early weeks of the pandemic. In this research, we investigate how Québec parents who remained employed during the lockdown in 2020 perceived their work-family balance in the stressful context of new earning and caregiving constraints, drawing on survey data collected in May 2020. Our approach integrates insights from psychological, managerial and sociological literatures. We find that most parents who remained employed found their work-family balance “easy” in the first months of the pandemic, but women felt less satisfied with their work-family balance than men as well as those whose employers were less understanding and supportive, and those whose workloads increased. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of previous studies on work-family intersections, to show that gender continues to matter when family members are faced with extraordinary circumstances such as the closing of childcare and schools, even in the egalitarian context of Québec, where fathers are perceived as legitimate caregivers.     

Fathers on parental leave: an analysis of rights and take-up in 29 countries

Using information published in 2014 annual review of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research, the article analyses parental leave and benefit policies in 29 countries to identify which characteristics can potentially facilitate fathers’ take-up of parental leave. The scarce statistics that is available shows that only few countries have been successful in increasing fathers’ participation in the parental leaves, despite the fact that some recent policy schemes seem to have drawn lessons from the Nordic success. There are several countries which indeed have adopted principles similar to the Nordic countries in their leave schemes, such as fathers’ quota, generous income-related benefit or long duration of the leave. The evidence suggests that only taking over some elements of the successful policy schemes does not necessarily lead to a change in the leave-taking behaviour of fathers and families. The evidence shows reasonably high take-up of parental leave only in countries where there is a combination of fathers’ quota and high level of benefit. There is still no evidence to confirm that replicating the fathers’ quota in its Nordic designs other societies would generate similar behavioural change as it did in the Nordic countries.     

Impact of Visiting an Onsite Casino Information Centre on Perceptions about Randomness and Gambling Behaviours

At the beginning of 2000, some educational initiatives in the field of responsible gambling resulted in the implementation of Onsite Casino Information Centres (OCICs). However, no study has yet empirically evaluated the impact of visiting an OCIC. This paper includes two studies evaluating the OCIC Au Centre du Hasard, located in Montreal, Quebec. The goal of the first study was to identify the profile of the visitors and to assess their appreciation. After a visit, 336 patrons accepted to complete a pen and paper questionnaire. The goal of the second study was to evaluate the impact of a visit on the perceptions about randomness and the gambling behaviours of the visitors. For this study, 67 visitors were evaluated before, after, and 3 months following a visit and their results were compared to a control group. Data showed that most visitors were seniors, occasional slot machine gamblers, and in control of their gambling activities. The majority of guests greatly appreciated their visit. A visit to Au Centre du Hasard seemed to modify the misconceptions towards the notion of randomness but not the gambling behaviours. These gains were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Results with respect to other prevention programs are discussed, and future research avenues are suggested.

Do you believe that others are more positional than you? Results from an empirical survey on positional concerns in France

We explore empirically the relevance of positional concerns in France. Unlike previous literature, we use two types of surveys, one addressed to a convenience sample, and the other to a random sample of French households living in the metropolitan area of Montpellier. Surveys are composed of a set of hypothetical questions related to several domains (income, education, vacation time, etc.). We also investigate whether individuals consider themselves more or less positional than others in society. Moreover, a set of variables that could potentially explain why people give positional answers is considered, such as being positional on a domain in which the individual excels. In addition to more conventional findings, we show that (i) the percentage of positional answers for each domain is about the same in the random and convenience samples, (ii) people consider others as more positional than themselves, and (iii) excelling in a given domain is not necessarily a good predictor of positional preferences in this domain.     

Does self-employment contribute to national happiness?

Recent studies showed that self-employment impacts individual happiness either positively or negatively. Rather than considering the happiness effects at the individual level, we assess whether self-employment effects spread and impact the domestic happiness beyond the involved individuals. We distinguish a direct effect of self-employment on life satisfaction and an indirect effect through the impact of self-employment on per capita income and the subsequent impact of income on life satisfaction. Using panel data analysis for 15 OECD countries over a period of 18 years, we investigate empirically whether countries with higher levels of self-employment are happier, by disentangling the two previously mentioned effects. We remedy the potential endogeneity problem when estimating the indirect effect by instrumenting the self-employment rate. The main finding is a significant and negative direct effect which is larger in magnitude than the indirect effect, resulting in an overall negative effect of self-employment on the domestic happiness.