Local Labour Markets,Organizations and the Distribution of Family‐responsive Benefits in the USA

Family‐responsive benefits have important consequences for workers balancing work–family demands. Previous research on the distribution of family‐responsive benefits has focused on intra‐organizational determinants or general labour market characteristics, at the expense of local labour market factors. We address this deficiency by analysing a unique random sample of US work establishments nested in their local labour markets. Specifically, we ask whether, net of establishment and local labour market characteristics, women's local labour market standing influences the prevalence of family‐responsive benefits. The results indicate that women's labour market status, measured with a composite of occupational gender integration, aggregate educational attainment and percentage of women in managerial roles, has a strong positive net effect on the prevalence of family‐responsive workplace benefits. However, no significant interaction between women's status and establishment‐level characteristics was found. Our findings highlight the importance of local labour markets in the distribution of family‐responsive benefits across organizations.     

The Low Income Gap: A New Indicator Based on a Minimum Income Standard

Social Indicators Research - A method to measure vulnerability to multidimensional poverty is proposed under a mean–risk behaviour approach. We extend the unidimensional downside...     

Ergonomic sustainability based on the ergonomic maturity level measurement

This paper aims at the application of an ergonomic maturity model (EMM), in order to assess the ergonomic sustainability outreach of ergonomic actions. This proposition was motivated by the widespread sensation that the development of the discipline, its educational devices and related practices depends on the attitude of ergonomics practitioners rather than environmental macroergonomic conditions. Maturity modeling in this paper is undertaken as a tool for ergonomic practitioners. Thus, its foundations were uprooted from diverse fields: Clinic Psychology, Quality Management and Project Management. The paper brings about a detailled explanation of this ergonomic maturity tool. The empirical part is fulfilled by the examination - using the EMM - of four emblematic cases excerpted from our research lab ergonomic portfolio.     

Randomized Controlled Trial of the Marriage Checkup: Depression Outcomes

The association between relationship functioning and depressive symptoms is well established. This study examined the effects of the Marriage Checkup, a brief two-session Assessment and Feedback relationship intervention, on depressive symptoms. Two hundred and nine married couples participated in the Marriage Checkup and were randomized into Treatment (N = 108) and Waitlist-Control Conditions (N = 101). Compared to the control condition, intervention participants reported significant improvements in depressive symptoms (d = 0.55), with an even greater effect for those who were reporting more severe baseline depression symptoms (d = 0.67). These outcomes are comparable to those within long-term individual psychotherapy, couple therapy, and pharmacology trials, making this the briefest intervention to date to demonstrate significant improvements in depressive symptoms. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age

European Journal of Population - Considering soaring wealth inequalities in older age, this research addresses the relationship between family life courses and widening wealth differences between...     

Childhood sexual abuse severity reconsidered: a factor structure of CSA characteristics

To address the lack of empirically grounded measures of childhood sexual abuse severity, a survey of self-report items was developed following a thorough review of the childhood sexual abuse literature. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted using data collected from a convenience sample of college students that included 275 females and males with a history of childhood sexual abuse. The solution produced seven factors interpreted as the following: (a) less intrusive forms of childhood sexual abuse (e.g., sexual invitations, kissing), (b) more intrusive forms of childhood sexual abuse (e.g., oral sex, intercourse), (c) humiliation/fear, (d) childhood sexual abuse involving photography, (e) familiarity with the perpetrator, (f) physical force/rape, and (g) active digital penetration. Correlations among these factors further suggested the existence of two relatively independent second-order factors, one based on the levels of physical intrusiveness and the other composed of the psychological/emotional factors. While arguably the most common measurement of severity, physical intrusiveness had little association with critical factors such as humiliation, fear, and association with the perpetrator. Consequently, physical intrusiveness appears to be an inadequate stand-alone measure of childhood sexual abuse severity. These results are proposed to lay the groundwork for an improved, more comprehensive measure of childhood sexual abuse severity.     

Sex drugs, peer connections, and HIV: Use and risk among African American, Latino, and Multiracial young men who have sex with men (YMSM) in Los Angeles and New York

African American and Latino young men who have sex with men are at high risk for HIV infection. We administered brief intercept surveys (N=416) at 18 Black and Latino gay pride events in Los Angeles and New York in 2006 and 2007. Ordinal logistic regressions were used to model the effects of substance use during sex, peer connectedness, relationship status, and homelessness on condom use. Alcohol use, crystal use, homelessness, and having a primary relationship partner were negatively associated with condom use, while peer connectedness and marijuana use during sex were positively associated with condom use. Implications for service providers and future research are discussed.     

‘Sometimes,men cannot do what women can’: Pacific labour mobility,gender norms and social reproduction

Australia's 2018 introduction of the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) broadened the scope and duration of labour mobility pathways available to Pacific Island countries. Although longer term temporary migration schemes like the PLS expand livelihood opportunities for migrant households, they also create challenges related to the maintenance of personal relationships and care practices during transnational family separation. Though pressing concerns for Pacific Island governments, these issues have received little scholarly attention. Drawing on in-depth interviews with migrants and their households in Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu, this article offers some preliminary insights into the way gender norms intersect with the reorganization of socially reproductive labour during migration. Findings indicate that women were disproportionately involved in the performance of additional unpaid care work within migrant households adjusting to transnational family life, but also suggest that women's participation in labour mobility may offer nascent opportunities to increase financial autonomy and social standing through the act of ‘remitting care’.     

Reworking Postfordism: Labor Process Versus Employment Relations

The Fordism/postfordism framework has been widely used, but also heavily criticized, in the social sciences. I outline the central points of debate over the use of this framework for analysis of work organization, including the range of models offered as successors to Fordism. I then suggest that, while some criticisms of the concept of postfordism have highlighted important problems and issues, the Fordist/postfordist framework can be elaborated as an analytically coherent, theoretically illuminating approach to the historical, institutional, and comparative analysis of work and employment. Although researchers appear to be using the concept of postfordism increasingly less frequently over the last decade, I argue that it provides a unifying framework within which to analyze work and employment relations in the current phase of capitalism, which is characterized by an apparent variety of new organizational forms within a broader context of increasing disconnectedness of economic institutions. Lean production has become established as the predominant postfordist labor process, widespread in manufacturing but also increasingly being implemented in services. However, this must be distinguished from a broader set of changes in employment relations.