An International Comparative Study on Women's Pension Rights and Their Economic Risks

This article examined the theoretical meanings of pension rights and analyzed their effects on women's economic risks in developed countries. First, based on the status of a citizen, worker, parent, and spouse, this study investigated how pension benefits are guaranteed as a citizen regardless of work history, the degree to which women's disadvantageous situations in the labor market and unpaid work are compensated by public pension as workers and parents, and how marital status is treated in the different pension systems. Second, analysis of the effect of pension rights showed that individual rights is a significant factor to prevent economic risks of elderly women. Derived rights did not seem to secure the economic welfare of elderly women, at least in a comparative context. This finding suggested that developing individual rights, rather than derived rights, is the way to guarantee long‐term elderly women's economic welfare.     

Normalizing Denominational Statistics with Demographic Data: The Case of the United Church of Canada

In the Canadian context, one type of data has been underutilized in the study of contemporary religious trends: church collected statistics. The present article explores the advantages and limitations of such data by analyzing the evolution of key church indicators of the United Church of Canada over the past four decades. Figures regarding church membership, child baptisms, and funerals are examined and compared with demographic data from four Canadian regions. Results show that virtually all United Church statistics are in decline with regard to larger society since the 1970s. However, there are regional variations, most notably in the Atlantic provinces, which show later and lesser rates of decline.     

Farmers' Contribution to Agricultural Social Capital: Evidence from Southern Spain

Social capital is the whole set of shared norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs that promote cooperation among individuals within the community and that has proved to be a key factor in explaining development processes. This article aims to provide an analytically reliable notion of social capital within the farming sector and a methodological tool for empirically measuring how social capital is accumulated at the farmer level. The theoretical framework proposed is based on the multidimensionality of the complex concept of social capital. Thus, to develop a comprehensive index for social capital, we identify three dimensions of the concept, structural, relational, and cognitive social capital, each one also comprising several subdimensions. This integrative approach permits creation of a composite indicator of the agricultural social capital accumulated at the farmer level, further identifying socioeconomic factors that influence its accumulation at that level. We empirically apply this methodological approach to farmers in Andalusia in southern Spain as a case study. This research provides an interesting starting point for informing policymakers about social capital and helping them implement the necessary programs to facilitate sustainable development in the agricultural sector.     

‘Dirty Work?’ Gender,Race and the Union in Industrial Cleaning

The study uses an eclectic framework and through an intersectional analysis and use of narratives explores the meaning of janitorial work, the gender division of labour (GDL), the unions and organizing for janitors engaged in industrial cleaning for a big cleaning company, Pluto, in Toronto. Pluto was organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 2006. The study is based on the organizing drive for Pluto and uses participant observation and interview methods. Intersectional analysis is useful in understanding the worker's perceptions of the racialized, gendered and classed constitution of cleaning work as ‘dirty’ and their resistance to these constructs. We explore GDL in industrial cleaning and the construction of women's work as ‘light duty’ and men's work as ‘heavy duty’. We conclude that union membership is important not only for material benefits of the janitors but also for their alternative identity construction. However, there is a persistence of GDL and gender pay equity is not addressed seriously in the organizing drive or upon organizing.     

苏州民营快递的用户满意度调查分析

近年来,随着网络购物的迅速发展,快递行业已成为人们日常生活中的重要组成部分.面对激增的快递压力,快件的准确性以及良好服务成为社会关注的重点.运用统计分析方法对苏州民营快递用户满意度影响因子进行分析,结果表明,快递用户满意度最高的四个因素依次是“价格水平”、“服务周期”、“收费标准”和“用户体验”；最重视的四个因素依次是“配送效率”、“服务水平”、“物品安全”和“品牌建设”；而对“信息系统”、“投递服务”、“管理制度”和“网点覆盖”四个因素则感到不满意.苏州民营快递企业需要改进完善的环节主要集中在服务质量、企业品牌、用户感知和基础设施等方面.     

Close encounters: Exclusion and marginalization as an intersubjective experience

The following paper will review current writings in intersubjective literature in order to examine how the issues of race and ethnicity color the therapeutic encounter in relation to paradigms of power and authority, transference, and countertransference and the “ethnic third.” It will then use two case vignettes to illustrate that therapists and clients coming from different cultural and ethnic groups can find ways to bridge their differences around race and culture through mutual experiences of exclusion and marginalization. The vignettes will illustrate some of the intersubjective interplays that are possible through the use of cultural rituals and symbols, both in order to form an empathie connection and in order to examine how race and culture shape the therapeutic relationship.     

Gaps in social protection for health care and long‐term care in Europe: Are the elderly faced with financial ruin?

While public expenditure on health care and long‐term care (LTC) has been monitored for many years in European countries, far less attention has been paid to the financial consequences for older people of private out‐of‐pocket (OOP) expenditure necessary to access such care. Employing representative cross‐sectional data on the elderly populations of 11 European countries in 2004 from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we find that OOP payments for health care and LTC are very common among the elderly across European countries and such expenditures impact significantly on disposable income: up to 95 per cent of the elderly make OOP payments for health care and 5 per cent for LTC, resulting in income reductions of between 5 and 10 per cent, respectively. Failure to prevent financial ruin, as a consequence of excessive OOP payments, is evident in 0.7 per cent of elderly households utilizing health care and 0.5 per cent of elderly households utilizing LTC. Those particularly concerned are the poor, women and the very old.     

MATERIALISTIC VALUES IN HONG KONG AND GUANGZHOU: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO CHINESE SOCIETIES

This article integrates two competing perspectives on value orientation. Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis stresses the permanent effects of childhood experience in which economic deprivation leads to materialism in adult life. The human development perspective, in contrast, emphasizes the evolution of a person's value system as life-cycle development unfolds new circumstances and possibilities. We adopt a developmental framework to test claims from these two perspectives. On the basis of micro-level data, we compare the materialistic values of two historically and culturally different Chinese societies, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Findings support Inglehart's assertions that childhood experience has lasting effects and that rapid social changes create birth cohort differences in materialistic concerns. But life-cycle developments, such as education, marriage, and current social status, are equally important in influencing a person's value orientation. Both perspectives see only part of the picture, and an integrated approach is needed to better understand how people construct and maintain their value system.     

Young Infants Match Facial and Vocal Emotional Expressions of Other Infants

Research has demonstrated that infants recognize emotional expressions of adults in the first half year of life. We extended this research to a new domain, infant perception of the expressions of other infants. In an intermodal matching procedure, 3.5‐ and 5‐month‐old infants heard a series of infant vocal expressions (positive and negative affect) along with side‐by‐side dynamic videos in which one infant conveyed positive facial affect and another infant conveyed negative facial affect. Results demonstrated that 5‐month‐olds matched the vocal expressions with the affectively congruent facial expressions, whereas 3.5‐month‐olds showed no evidence of matching. These findings indicate that by 5 months of age, infants detect, discriminate, and match the facial and vocal affective displays of other infants. Further, because the facial and vocal expressions were portrayed by different infants and shared no face–voice synchrony, temporal, or intensity patterning, matching was likely based on detection of a more general affective valence common to the face and voice.     

The Boston Vocation Bureau's First Counseling Staff

Although much has been written about Frank Parsons, the founder of the vocational guidance movement, little is known about the 1st counseling staff of the Vocation Bureau. Lucinda Wyman Prince, Ralph Albertson, and Philip Davis each deserve recognition for their role in founding vocation guidance as well as their civic contributions. This article describes the roles and contribution of the profession's 1st counselors.