Factors Motivating Individuals to Take Precautionary Action for an Expected Earthquake in Istanbul

Istanbul is expected to experience an earthquake in the near future, but individuals show limited interest in preparing for it. This study aims to identify the factors associated with taking action to prepare for an earthquake and mitigate its effects at the individual level. A field survey was carried out in 2007 in two districts of Istanbul with different levels of earthquake risk. Within these districts, three socioeconomic levels were considered. A total of 1,123 people were interviewed face to face. Analysis indicated that the educational level of the respondents was the leading factor associated with taking at least three measures, followed by living in a higher earthquake risk area, having participated in rescue and solidarity activities in previous earthquakes, a higher level of knowledge about earthquakes, home ownership, a higher score for action‐stimulating attitudes, being younger, and a higher general safety score, in that order. The findings pointed to the role of knowledge about earthquakes and possible mitigation/preparedness measures, and thus the importance of developing effective awareness programs. Such programs should also consider the characteristics of different groups in the population. Motivated individuals, such as those who have participated in rescue and solidarity activities in previous earthquakes, could be involved in reaching other people.     

Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players

A unique data set of post‐war English trained soccer players is used to study the impact of the youth training program they attended on their career and spell duration. Duration models in the spirit of Abbring and van den Berg are employed to estimate local treatment effects of different training programs on players — survival in the top European leagues. The results indicate that the duration patterns of players are dependent on the youth academy they attended. Certain clubs, with a well‐established reputation in developing youth talent, outperform others in terms of producing and evaluating the ability of their youth players to succeed in top European leagues. The spell analysis outlines the nature of the competitive environment in which smaller clubs have a chance to keep up with the larger ones in terms of producing and holding on to homegrown talent. Finally, the results of both analyses addressed unobserved heterogeneity, allowed for nonlinearity of covariates using the cubic spline methodology, and were tested for endogeneity bias using a split sample test.     

Job Insecurity Perceptions and Media Coverage of Labor Market Policy

This study employs a panel data set that combines information obtained from media content analysis, micro-level survey data, and macroeconomic variables to investigate the impact of media coverage on individual perceptions of job insecurity in Germany. Estimates indicate that these perceptions increase in years with greater quantity of news reporting. This volume effect is larger for socio-demographic groups with a generally low incidence of insecurity perceptions (e.g., highly educated and remunerated employees), which implies that unequally distributed perceptions converge when media coverage is strong. Moreover, the results suggest that information processing is subject to an optimism bias.     

Immigrants’ support for social spending,self‐interest and the role of the group: A comparative study of immigrants in The Netherlands

This study examined immigrants’ support for social spending. We tested the dominant self‐interest hypothesis for a number of immigrant groups in the Netherlands with highly varying socio‐economic positions. We additionally examined the effect of immigrants’ group interest by testing the relevance of in‐group immigrant benefit participation rates and their effect on support for social spending. In this article, we discuss how immigrants’ sense of belonging to a group affects the association between immigrants’ self‐ and group interests in welfare and their support for social spending. We found that self‐interest has explanatory relevance, but that this is strongly correlated with level of income. Results showed weak support for the effect of group interest. Instead of the expected moderation effects of sense of belonging on the self‐ and group‐interest explanations of support for social spending, the results showed a direct effect of sense of belonging on support for social spending.     

Benefit Dependency and the Dynamics of the Welfare State: Comparing Sweden and the Netherlands

In this article we analyse the dynamics of the welfare state, focusing on the Netherlands and Sweden. The basic question is whether the different social systems of these countries result in differences in persistency of benefit dependency. We conclude that although benefit dependency at a macroeconomic level is more or less the same, patterns of mobility of individuals between benefits and jobs are different. These different patterns are partly explained by overrepresentation of benefits with a high degree of persistency in the Netherlands. This overrepresentation is, however, not sufficient to account for the large differences observed in dynamics. Characteristics of the welfare state account for that.     

Die individuellen Erträge ehrenamtlicher Arbeit

In the recent debate on the future of voluntary work and honorary appointments the question of the individual benefits of volunteering is of special interest. In a dynamic perspective it is obvious that an unpaid voluntary activity has to be regarded as work because of the individual’s expectation to yield a personal gain. Combining a sociological and a micro-economical perspective, volunteering is shown to be part of the production process within the private household. Volunteers gain returns by reducing transaction costs and by deriving benefits from economies of scale and economies of scope.     

Short‐Term Reciprocity in Late Parent‐Child Relationships

Long‐term concepts of parent‐child reciprocity assume that the amount of support given and received is only balanced in a generalized fashion over the life course. We argue that reciprocity in parent‐child relationships also operates in the short term. Our analysis of short‐term reciprocity focuses on concurrent exchange in its main upward and downward currencies, time and money. Fixed‐effects models with data from SHARE (N = 8,816 dyads) revealed that within a family, parents gave financial transfers to those children who supported them with time transfers of help and care. Reciprocal patterns emerged most clearly if parents were highly dependent, received intense support, and had sufficient financial opportunities to reciprocate. We conclude that short‐term reciprocity eases the burden of late parent‐child relationships.     

A Retrospective Analysis of Employment Duration: Evidence from the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Popular perception holds that average employment durations have declined in recent decades. However, most studies conclude that the proportion of long‐term employment relationships has remained remarkably stable over time. To shed light on this discrepancy we use distribution analysis to systematically track changes in Canadian employment durations over the second half of the 20th century. The analysis reveals that earlier cohorts were more likely to have longer employment durations than later cohorts and that there are shifts in proportions between longer and shorter work episodes with employment durations declining sharply for men and mixed results for women.