The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self‐employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Self‐employed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self‐employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day‐to‐day work. Understanding more about the experiences of self‐employed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self‐employed. We draw on interviews from a small‐scale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).     

‘Tourists go home’: anti-tourism industry protest in Barcelona

This profile looks at the wave of at times violent protests against the economic, social and environmental consequences of mass tourism in Barcelona, which came to international attention in the summer of 2017. It outlines the leading role played by left-wing nationalist activists linked to the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP, Popular Unity Candidacy) political party in the protests. I examine CUP’s direct-action methods, targeting local business interests and foreign tourists, as well as the largely critical response this prompted from the wider anti-tourism industry movement. This profile addresses the CUP’s justifications for the action and the echo effect it had in other parts of Spain. It argues that to understand the events requires a focus on aspects of both continuity and change in urban social movement mobilisation in Barcelona, against processes of neoliberal urbanisation, in which anti-tourism industry contestation is to the fore.     

A Preliminary Qualitative Analysis on the Feasibility of Using Gaming Technology in Caregiver Assessment

This exploratory qualitative study examined the feasibility of utilizing gaming technology that will ultimately assess task performance and stress among caregivers of dementia patients. The long-term goal is to use this unobtrusive application (app) to detect caregiver burnout for the purposes of early intervention. This preliminary study examined participant interface with a specific gaming technology called CAST (Caregiver Assessment Using Serious Gaming Technology). Ten dementia caregivers participated. Participants attended a demonstration and then interacted with a preliminary version of the CAST tablet application. Social work researchers interviewed participants using open-ended questions to gauge interest, technology skill level, and comfort with the app. Participants expressed interest and identified potential ways to further develop the system in order to increase ease of use, decrease time commitment, and improve suitability for daily use. The provided feedback will be used to refine the user interface of the application, which will then be used to monitor caregivers’ stress in future development.     

Mapping IS failure factors on PRINCE2® stages: an application of Interpretive Ranking Process (IRP)

The social, political and cultural issues faced by organisations and their senior management team in the delivery and adoption of strategic projects, is highly complex and problematic. Despite a mature body of literature, increasing levels of practitioner certification, application of standards and numerous government initiatives, improvements in success have been minimal. In this study, we analyse the key underlying factors surrounding the failure of Information Systems (IS) projects and explore the merits of articulating a narrative that focuses on senior management embracing practical pessimism. Specifically, we develop a hypothesis supported by empirical study that leverages expert’s views on the dominance and interrelationships between failure factors within PRINCE2® project stages using an Interpretive Ranking Process. Our findings establish how the concept of dominance between individual failure factors can necessitate senior management to make key informed and timely decisions that could potentially influence project outcomes based on an empirical derived, interpretive predictive framework.     

WHEN SHOULD DRIVERS BE ENCOURAGED TO CARPOOL IN HOV LANES?

Policies to encourage carpooling in high‐occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes have been adopted in the United States to lower congestion and reduce air pollution. We analytically model highway congestion and other vehicle‐related externalities. Encouraging carpooling decreases total costs when congestion relief in mainline lanes outweighs increased HOV lane congestion. Importantly, entry of new drivers via induced demand can negate the benefits of increased carpooling. Using 10 years of traffic data from Los Angeles we estimate time and route‐specific marginal external costs. Because costs vary substantially across routes, hours, and days, current policies to promote carpooling will often increase social costs. (JEL R41, R48, Q53)     

LINEAR PROGRAMMING WITH DISCRETE STOCHASTIC RESOURCES: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH ACCOUNTING FOR INFEASIBILITY*

In this paper an alternative to, or extension of, the chance-constrained method of stochastic programming is presented whereby an expected cost of infeasibility is included in the objective function. The problem is to select a solution to implement before the available resources are known where the adaption of a non-feasible solution to the resources available involves a system cost. While increasing the amount of computation required, the model enables the decision maker to more effectively trade off increased payoff for decreased likelihood of feasibility.     

Organising Services for People with Mental Handicap: The Californian Experience

The organisation of services for California's mentally handicapped population is outlined and critically examined. Its distinctive features are noted: a concern for rights, rather than needs; an underlying free market philosophy; an explicit attempt to combine public and private enterprise; and an elaborate system of checks and balances designed to restrain the welfare bureaucracies and ensure that they remain responsive to the changing nature of individual need. It is argued that, despite certain limitations, the Californian system does seriously address three problems that bedevil all attempts to develop a satisfactory system of care for people with mental handicaps: the inherent powerlessness of the client group; the diversity and fragmentation of services; and bureaucratic inertia.     

The Reported Influence of Research Participation on Premarital Relationships

We examined the reported influence of participation in research on individuals in premarital relationships. Data were from a larger longitudinal study of 60 dating couples. We designed a questionnaire to evaluate the effects of participation. Responses to open‐ended questions revealed 3 major sources of influence: attention to relationship evaluation, effects on relationship activities, and indirect or no influence. Closed‐ended items yielded 2 dimensions: relationship‐defining influence and relationship‐evaluating influence. Relationship‐evaluating influence was greater the more respondents participated in the study. The higher were respondents' scores on relationship‐evaluating influence, the more their relationship satisfaction increased over the year long study. We conclude that the effects of participating in the research are primarily educational and enriching in nature, rather than therapeutic as suggested in previous research ( Rubin & Mitchell, 1976 ).