Australia's Changing Population Structure

The approach of equilibrium has been greeted with forebodings of labour shortages and of inability to populate growth centres or develop resources; further large scale immigration has been recommended and it is claimed that Australia can accommodate many times its present population. These forebodings are challenged. The population structure will become more normal and the workforce will continue to grow, its skills depending upon training and rewards. Growth centres are an alternative to further expansion of capital cities and imply fewer at risk of poverty and less risk to the environment.     

The Comparative Contributions of Congruence and Social Support in Career Outcomes

The authors assessed the relative contributions of social support and interest‐occupation congruence in job satisfaction and tenure. Congruence predicted 13% of the variance in job satisfaction for men, but it was not a significant predictor of job satisfaction for women. Social support accounted for 10% of the variance in job satisfaction for women but was not a significant predictor for men. Neither congruence nor social support predicted tenure. Implications for vocational counseling are discussed.     

On functional central limit theorems for dependent,heterogeneous arrays with applications to tail index and tail dependence estimation

We establish invariance principles for a large class of dependent, heterogeneous arrays. The theory equally covers conventional arrays, and inherently degenerate tail arrays popularly encountered in the extreme value theory literature including sample means and covariances of tail events and exceedances. For tail arrays we trim dependence assumptions down to a minimum leaving non-extremes and joint distributions unrestricted, covering geometrically ergodic, mixing, and mixingale processes, in particular linear and nonlinear distributed lags with long or short memory, linear and nonlinear GARCH, and stochastic volatility.     

Multi‐Leader Teams in Review: A Contingent‐Configuration Perspective of Effectiveness

Multi‐leader teams are characterized by multiple leaders exhibiting mutual influence on each other while working towards a common team goal. An unexplored assumption in this literature is that increasing the number of leaders is related to heightened team effectiveness. The authors propose that this notion is oversimplified and suggest a contingency model of multi‐leader team effectiveness. The authors suggest that the context determines the effectiveness of a particular multi‐leader team configuration, because each formation has unique internal team mechanisms. To investigate this perspective, we review the multi‐leader team literature (175 articles) by categorizing the extant theory and research as falling within nine multi‐leader configurations along two key dimensions: (1) the proportion of leaders within a team; and (2) the dispersion of leadership through role co‐enactment of team leaders. This framework enables a more coherent understanding as to the benefits and the costs of each specific multi‐leader team configuration and a clearer evaluation of the contexts in which varying configurations are most effective. Four emerging themes related to configuration–contextualization are explained and theoretical implications for interpreting leadership effectiveness in multi‐leader team settings are discussed.     

Does the marriage market sex ratio affect parental sex selection? Evidence from the Chinese census

Recent increases in the (male/female) sex ratio at birth in eastern Asia are thought to be associated with a preference for sons and to result from parental sex selection. However, males are less likely to marry and to have offspring as the ratio increases, and that decreases the expected number of grandchildren. Using data from the 2000 Chinese census, we test whether the sex ratio in the marriage market has an effect on the gender of subsequent births and hence on the sex ratio of the birth cohort. The slow population growth caused by the Great Famine in the early 1960s and the quick recovery that followed produced major changes in the sex ratio for those of marriageable age two decades later. We estimate that an increase of 1 % in the number of marriageable males relative to females, the marriage market sex ratio, would decrease the probability of having a son by 0.02 percentage points. That implies that the Great Famine, which occurred around 1960, led to an increase in the early 1980s of 5.8 extra male births per 100 females.     

Understanding Social Inequality in the Kidney Transplantation System

The degree of racial inequality in transplantation outcomes is large and surprising in light of the commitment of the administrative institutions to maximizing allocative justice and to providing universal health coverage for those with kidney failure. This article adopts a sociological perspective which situates transplant candidates as participants in an allocative system with clearly defined distributive rules, while recognizing the permeation of other social institutions into this system. Taken together, the medical literature on social disparities in kidney transplantation and the social science literature on relevant processes suggest that social inequalities in kidney transplantation are produced through a combination of preexisting differences in traits made salient for inequality by the rules of the allocation system and group differences in the tendency to maximize their advantages within that system.     

The Impact of Central-Place Theory on Wal-Mart

This study applies central-place theory to the Wal-Martization process. Central-place theory posits that there are laws determining the number, size, and distribution of cities. One of the theory's major premises is its emphasis on the size and spacing of towns that specialize in selling goods and services. The Wal-Mart blueprint has adopted the central-place model in that it follows an ordered region with snowflake-like proportion. For example, the geographic expansion of Wal-Mart stores has been one of diffusing up the urban or metropolitan hierarchy over the years. Overall, the authors of this study conclude that the effectiveness of such spatial/organizational communication has contributed to Wal-Mart's successful expansion worldwide.     

Profiles of adult survivors of severe sexual,physical and emotional institutional abuse in Ireland

Adult survivors of institutional abuse were interviewed with a comprehensive assessment protocol which included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Institutional Child Abuse Processes and Coping Inventory, the Structured Clinical Interviews for Disorders of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV axis I disorders and personality disorders, the Trauma Symptoms Inventory, a Life Problems Checklist, the Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. Profiles were identified for subgroups that described severe sexual (N = 60), physical (N = 102), or emotional (N = 85) abuse as their worst forms of maltreatment. Survivors of severe sexual abuse had the most abnormal profile, which was characterised by higher rates of all forms of child maltreatment and higher rates of post‐traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and substance abuse, antisocial personality disorder, trauma symptoms and life problems. Survivors of severe emotional abuse were better adjusted than the other two groups. The profile of survivors of severe physical abuse occupied an intermediate position between the other two groups. A thorough assessment of abuse history and current functioning should be conducted when providing services to adult survivors of institutional abuse, since this may have important implications for the intensity of services required. Survivors of severe sexual abuse may require more intensive services. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.