The time budget in socio-demographic statistics

The paper describes a Polish time budget survey conducted in 1976 on a rotation sample of the whole (non-agricultural and agricultural) adult population. Different time budget indicators are presented and their linkages with other statistical data and usefulness for social policy formulation and evaluation are discussed. Some new time indicators, not used in previous surveys, are recommended. Usefulness of time budged surveys for assessing an account of labor force and investigating of the social distribution of labor time as well as leisure time is underlined. The possibility of using time budget data for analyses of the social distribution of some welfare outlays in the field of cultural participation and consumption is also indicated. The paper is concerned with some methodological problems and the applicability of time budget research, rather than a comprehensive presentation of survey results.     

Testing the demand-control-support model among health-care professionals: A structural equation model

This paper reports a further empirical validation of the Demand-Control-Support Model (DCS model), which was developed by Johnson and colleagues (1988, 1989). Data were collected from a heterogeneous group of health-care professionals (nurses and nurses' aides; n = 249). Three major refinements were made to the validation of the DCS Model. First, all relationships in the model were estimated simultaneously by means of covariance structure modelling (LISREL 8). Second, the control dimension was refined substantially, using a psychometrically more sound assessment of the workers' autonomy. Third, the model was applied to the work of health-care professionals. The data did not confirm the assumption that both job strain and motivation are multiplicative functions of job demands, autonomy and social support. First, the results suggested that high levels of autonomy attenuate the increase of emotional exhaustion due to job demands. These results partially supported Karasek's Job Demand-Control Model (Karasek 1979). Second, high levels of social support proved to attenuate the increase of emotional exhaustion due to autonomy. Finally, the main effect of autonomy on job challenge implied that an increase in autonomy is accompanied by an increase in job challenge (and, consequently, job involvement). In addition, low job demands and a high amount of work-related support seem to reduce feelings of exhaustion and, consequently, health complaints.     

Demographic characteristics,work complexity and economic setting as social status determinants

Various aspects of social standing are significantly, though differently, determined by demographic characteristics, by employment in different economic sectors and industries, and by work complexity. Various sectors and industries influence differently status achievement, and are characterized by different configurations of status determinants of their workforces. The public (government) sector is more meritocratic than the private one, as far as income is concerned. Also, the male achievement pattern seems to be more meritocratic, while the female pattern is more sensitive to transient influences. The indicators of socio-economic status, occupational prestige and income reflect separate dimensions of social standing. The indicators of work complexity with data, people and things are good predictors of individual's social position.     

Public Concern About Industrial Hazards

In this paper we propose adopting a noncognitive perspective for the understanding of people's anxiety or, its opposite, feelings of security about living near hazardous industrial facilities. Results of our empirical investigations among residents of a heavily industrialized area indicate that at least four qualitatively different response patterns exist: the Secure, the Accepting, the Defensive, and the Vigilant response. In this order manifest anxiety increases, which increase is shown to be a function of the assessment of the threat, of the opportunities for personal control (specific), and of hope (generalized) to bring about a better environment by one's own action. As an application of the usefulness of this typology we discuss the various explanations for the often-observed male/female difference in anxiety regarding industrial threat.     

Modelling step-families

A combined marco-micro model is applied to a population similar to that forecast for 2035 in the Netherlands in order to simulate the effect on kinship networks of a mating system of serial monogamy. The importance of incorporating a parameter for the degree of concentration of childbearing over the female population is emphasized. The inputs to the model are vectors of fertility rates by age of mother, and by age of father, a matrix of first-marriage rates by age of both partners (used in the macro-analytical expressions), and two parametersH andS (used in the micro-simulation phase). The output is a data base of hypothetical individuals, whose records contain identification number, age, sex, and the identification numbers of their relatives.     

Networks in public policy: Nuclear energy in the Netherlands

The article analyses the network of interlocking directorates as a part of public policy analysis of nuclear energy policy in the Netherlands. This network represents an interorganizational communication structure on the policy decision level. An organization's position in this structure reflects its position in policy formulation and implementation. Semi-governmental bodies function as important mediators between central government and private actors, of which the engineering and electricity companies have been the most influential.     

An Obstacle Race: A Case Study of a Child's Schooling in Australia and England

This account of the struggle by a 'disabled' child to experience a normal education, to lead a normal life, is the basis for a critique of science and the professions, for her struggle has been against those specialists who shape our ideologies, the high priests of the religion of science. Her story reveals the deep-seated prejudices of our society, prejudices which derive from the increasing domination, since the sixteenth century, of a mechanistic, phallogocentric scientism which, in the name of reason, denies individuality, creativity, spirituality, variability, defining and thus condemning those suffering physical or perceptual disabilities beyond the pale. They are deemed 'unnatural', 'negative', 'abnormal' through recourse to a narrow, mechanistic and artificial view of nature. A disabled child sets out on the race through life weighed down by ruthless handicappers but in her triumph shows how ignorant the medical model is of humanity and how restrictive our schools are of creativity. Her success questions our most deeply-rooted assumptions.     

Drinking motives, alcohol expectancies, self-efficacy, and drinking patterns

The current study focused on the associations between drinking motives, alcohol expectancies, self-efficacy, and drinking behavior in a representative sample of 553 Dutch adolescents and adults. Data were gathered by means of self-report questionnaires and a 14-days drinking diary. A model was postulated in which negative expectancies and self-efficacy were directly associated with drinking, and in which drinking motives mediated the associations between positive expectancies, and drinking. The findings of multivariate analyses showed that drinking motives were related to general indicators of drinking and to drinking levels in specific situations. Furthermore, self-efficacy was moderately related to all drinking variables. Negative expectancies were related to general drinking variables but hardly to drinking in specific situations. Positive expectancies were hardly related to drinking in multivariate analyses and therefore mediation models could not be tested. No systematic moderator effects were apparent for age and gender on the associations between drinking motives, alcohol expectancies, self-efficacy, and drinking.