Keeping Australia's Older Workers in the Labour Force. A Policy Perspective

As in other western industrialised countries the structural ageing of the Australian population has significant labour market implications. Government has responded with a range of policies to persuade older workers to abandon early retirement and/or remain in the workforce past traditional retirement ages. But whether this generation of workers will be prepared to change their retirement plans in response to policy encouragement, and whether current policy measures will translate into significant numbers of older workers extending their labour force participation is uncertain. Using the Australian Survey of Retirement Attitudes and Motivations (ASRAM) a recently completed, nationally representative survey of Australian workers aged 40 – 59 years we find that while the Government message about working longer is getting through, older workers are relatively unresponsive to current policy measures. Other policies, especially policies outside the financial realm, are needed to maximise the number of older Australians in the labour force.     

Assessment of an e-training tool for college students to improve accuracy and reduce effort associated with reading nutrition labels

Objective: Nutrition labels are often underutilized due to the time and effort required to read them. We investigated the impact of label-reading training on effort, as well as accuracy and motivation. Participants: Eighty college students (21 men and 59 women). Methods: The training consisted of a background tutorial on nutrition followed by three blocks of practice reading labels to decide which of two foods was the relatively better choice. Label-reading effort was assessed using an eye tracker and motivation was assessed using a 6-item scale of healthy food-choice empowerment. Results: Students showed increases in label-reading accuracy, decreases in label-reading effort, and increases in empowerment. Conclusions: The nutrition label e-training tool presented here, whether used alone or as part of other wellness and health programs, may be an effective way to boost students’ label-reading skills and healthy food choices, before they settle into grocery shopping habits.     

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

Since the 1970s, Tamworth has become well known as Australia's ‘country music capital’. Its annual Country and Western Music Festival has become the leading event of its type in Australia, attracting over 60,000 visitors every year. The festival, and country music more generally, have become central to the town's identity and tourism marketing strategies. This article discusses the social constructions that have surrounded Tamworth's transition to ‘country music capital’—of the ‘rural’, and of ‘country’—within the context of debates about the politics of place marketing. Textual analysis of promotional material and built landscapes reveals representations of rurality (or ‘senses of the rural’). In their most commercial form, representations of rurality converge on a dominant notion of ‘country’, quite different from the ‘countryside’ and ‘rural idyll’ in England. This dominant, or normative ‘country’ forms the basis of imagery for the festival, the Town's marketing strategy, and associated advertising campaigns by major sponsors. It is predominantly masculine, white, working class and nationalist. But links between musical style and discourses of place are complex. Colonial British histories, Celtic musical traditions and North American popular culture all inform ‘country’ in Tamworth, dissipating nationalist interpretations. Normative constructions also contrast with other, heterogeneous ruralities in Australia, that include the lived experiences of rural Australians, and on stage—in country music—where multiple ‘ruralised’ identities are performed. Even those who stand to benefit from place promotion have been uncertain about country music and ‘the country’, because of associated discourses of Tamworth as ‘hick’ and ‘redneck’. In the final section of the paper, reactions of residents to constructions of Tamworth as country music capital are discussed, via the results of a simple resident survey. In contrast to previous studies of the disempowering politics of place marketing, Tamworth residents were on the whole supportive of the new associations and images for the town, despite ‘hick’ connotations, as it has become a centre for ‘country’, and for country music. Reasons for this are explored, and resistances discussed. The result is a complex and entangled politics of national identity, gender, race and class, where meanings for place are variously interpreted and negotiated.     

“Parent Advocacy” as an Ideological Code: LGBTQ Parents Engage with Disability Services

What does the work that LGBTQ parents do to find resources for their disabled children reveal about the social organization of services? This article presents findings from an institutional ethnography study based on interviews with 15 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) parents and six key community informants in Toronto, Canada. The analysis focused on the work parents did to engage with disability service systems on behalf of their children, and the ways in which families’ social privilege and/or marginalization affected their experiences. Particular attention was paid to the ways in which “parent advocacy” was taken up, responded to, and critiqued in these interviews. “Parent advocacy” was found to operate as what Dorothy Smith has called an “ideological code” (Smith 1999), offloading systemic responsibilities onto parents, shielding inequities, and promoting individualized competition between service users. This study suggests that the systemic organization that makes “parent advocacy” necessary also renders parents’ relative privilege or marginality central to what their children receive.     

Prioritizing Environmental Health Risks in the UAE

This article presents the results of a comparative environmental risk‐ranking exercise that was conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to inform a strategic planning process led by the Environment Agency‐Abu Dhabi (EAD). It represents the first national‐level application of a deliberative method for comparative risk ranking first published in this journal. The deliberative method involves a five‐stage process that includes quantitative risk assessment by experts and deliberations by groups of stakeholders. The project reported in this article considered 14 categories of environmental risks to health identified through discussions with EAD staff: ambient and indoor air pollution; drinking water contamination; coastal water pollution; soil and groundwater contamination; contamination of fruits, vegetables, and seafood; ambient noise; stratospheric ozone depletion; electromagnetic fields from power lines; health impacts from climate change; and exposure to hazardous substances in industrial, construction, and agricultural work environments. Results from workshops involving 73 stakeholders who met in five separate groups to rank these risks individually and collaboratively indicated strong consensus that outdoor and indoor air pollution are the highest priorities in the UAE. Each of the five groups rated these as being among the highest risks. All groups rated soil and groundwater contamination as being among the lowest risks. In surveys administered after the ranking exercises, participants indicated that the results of the process represented their concerns and approved of using the ranking results to inform policy decisions. The results ultimately shaped a strategic plan that is now being implemented.     

Engaging on the ‘front line’: exploring how family support teams construct meaning in their work with young mothers

This paper explores the provision of family support services for young mothers within a Sure Start Children's Centre, drawing on data collected within a larger study. It identifies how the family support team attempted to build supportive relationships with young mothers between the ages of 16 and 19 years. The findings presented here draw on narrative interviews (n = 10) and focus group interviews (n = 2) with the family support team that included early years workers, family support workers and their managers. The findings captured how the participants actively resisted the stigma (Goffman 1963) of teenage motherhood in order to support young mothers in gaining the necessary skills and knowledge to care for their child. Drawing on the findings, this paper argues that the building of a supportive relationship enables a young mother to construct positive counter‐narratives about her parenting experience. This suggests that the family \to offer informal early support to young mothers who are at risk of more formal intervention. However, the complexity of this task should not be underestimated because in doing this, the family support team must at all times ensure the well‐being and safety of the child.     

Which Champions,Which People? Public and User Involvement in Health Care as a Technology of Legitimation

This paper concerns two practices, public consultation and user involvement, whose adoption has been urged upon the UK National Health Service in recent years. Public consultation is a local attempt to seek the views of a broad constituency of persons. User involvement is a local attempt to include organized groups of service users in the planning, and occasionally the management, of such services. The paper has four objectives. First, it locates the topic in the context of several related current debates. Second, it outlines the main findings of a recent empirical study of public consultation as they relate to the above debates. Third, it summarizes the relevant findings of an empirical study of user involvement. Finally, it examines these two practices as "technologies of legitimation" which can be seen as a means by which managerial legitimacy is maintained in the context of an increasingly pluralistic policy arena.     

Crime Victimization in Latin America and Intentions to Migrate to the United States

Among the challenges faced by Latin America at the onset of the 21st century is the increase in crime and violence that began in the mid-1980s, and which, to one degree or another, has afflicted most countries in the region. In this study we explore the potential implications of the upsurge in crime on migration by testing the hypothesis that crime victimization in Latin America increases the probability that people have given serious thought to the prospect of migrating with their families to the United States. Using Latinobarometro public opinion surveys of approximately 49,000 respondents residing in 17 countries in 2002, 2003, and 2004, the results of a Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model found that, net of individual and country-level control variables, the probability of seriously considering family migration to the United States was around 30 percent higher among respondents who reported that they or a member of their family was a victim of a crime sometime during the year prior to the survey. Evidence that victimization promotes the propensity to emigrate is a finding that contributes to an understanding of the transnational consequences of the increase in crime in Latin America, and adds a new variable to the inventory of factors that encourage people to migrate to the United States.     

Remote access and care: A comparison of Queensland women's maternity care experience according to area of residence

BackgroundThis study fills a gap in the literature with a quantitative comparison of the maternity care experiences of women in different geographic locations in Queensland, Australia.MethodData from a large-scale survey were used to compare women's care experiences according to Australian Standard Geographical Classification (major city, inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote).ResultsCompared to the other groups, women from remote or very remote areas were more likely to be younger, live in an area with poorer economic resources, identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and give birth in a public facility. They were more likely to travel to another city, town or community for birth. In adjusted analyses women from remote areas were less likely to have interventions such as electronic fetal monitoring, but were more likely to give birth in an upright position and be able to move around during labour. Women from remote areas did not differ significantly from women from major cities in their satisfaction with interpersonal care. Antenatal and postpartum care was lacking for rural women. In adjusted analyses they were much less likely to have booked for maternity care by 18 weeks gestation, to be telephoned or visited by a care provider in the first 10 days after birth. Despite these differences, women from remote areas were more likely to be breastfeeding at 13 weeks and confident in caring for their baby at home.ConclusionsFindings support qualitative assertions that remote and rural women are disadvantaged in their access to antenatal and postnatal care by the need to travel for birth, however, other factors such as age were more likely to be significant barriers to high quality interpersonal care. Improvements to maternity services are needed in order to address inequalities in maternity care particularly in the postnatal period.