The majority legal status of women in southern Africa: implications for women and families

Women in many countries of southern Africa do not have majority status or have only recently gained this right. Majority status grants individuals adult legal status and the right to bring matters to court, own and administer property, have legal custody of children, and contract for marriage. This article summarizes the legal status of women in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Lack of majority status contributes to the ongoing risk of poverty for women and makes them overly dependent on men. Compounding the situation in these countries is the presence of a dual legal system. Improving the situation of women and their families involves targeting changes in the legal system, influencing implementation of laws, educating women about their rights, and giving women needed support to seek their legal rights. The legal status of women must be viewed in the context of historical changes in the economic, educational, political, and cultural developments of society.The research for this paper was conducted during her previous faculty affiliation with the University of Michigan, School of Social Work. Her research interests include the impact of social change on women and families, rural mental health services, and health and mental health linkages. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University and her M.S.W. from the Columbia University School of Social Work.Her research interests are gender, work and family, culture and power, social transformations in rural and peri-urban communities, critical education, women and community politics, history of women, family and kinship issues, and community-based program development and evaluation. She received her M.S.W. from Dalhousie University, Halifax.     

An Exploration of the Meaning and Consequences of Workaholism

Although much has been written aboutworkaholism, rigorous research andtheoretical development on the topic is in its infancy.We integrate literature from multiple disciplines andoffer a definition of workaholic behavior. We identify three types ofworkaholic behavior patterns: compulsive-dependent,perfectionist, and achievement-oriented workaholism. Apreliminary model is proposed; it identifies potential linkages between each type of workaholismpattern and important outcomes such as performance, joband life satisfaction, and turnover. Specificpropositions for future research are articulated. Weconclude that, depending on the type of workaholicbehavior pattern, workaholism can be good or bad, andits consequences may be experienced or evaluateddifferently by individuals, organizations, and societyat large. Researchers and managers should avoidmaking judgments about the positive or negative effectsof workaholism until more carefully controlled researchhas been published.     

Trends in health insurance coverage

This Issue Brief presents data on trends in health insurance coverage between 1987-1995. In 1995, 70.7 percent of the nonelderly population had private health insurance coverage, compared with 75.9 percent in 1987. During this period, the percentage of the nonelderly population with employment-based health insurance declined from 69.2 percent to 63.8 percent, while the percentage covered by Medicaid program increased from 8.6 percent to 12.5 percent. The percentage of the nonelderly population without any form of health insurance increased from 14.8 percent in 1987 to 17.4 percent, or 40.3 million individuals, in 1995. The percentage of nonelderly Americans with employment-based coverage fell for both individuals with coverage in their own name and those with coverage as dependents. In 1995, 32.7 percent of the nonelderly population had coverage in their own name, compared with 33.8 percent in 1987. Similarly, 31.1 percent of the nonelderly population had employment-based health insurance as dependents in 1995, compared with 35.4 percent in 1987. One of the most important determinants of health insurance coverage is work status and hours of work. While employment-based health insurance received directly from worker's employer decreased between 1987 and 1995 from 66.2 percent of 63.2 percent among full-time workers, the percentage of part-time workers with employment-based health insurance coverage in their own name increased from 17.2 percent to 20.1 percent. The percentage of workers with dependent coverage fell for both full-time and part-time workers, as did the percentage of nonworkers with dependent coverage. Workers in the manufacturing industry are most likely to have employment-based health insurance; they are also the workers most likely to have experienced a decrease in employment-based coverage between 1987 and 1995. In contrast, workers employed in most of the service sectors, experienced an increase in employment-based health insurance, self-employed workers experienced a decrease, and government workers experienced a slight increase. Cost is one of the primary factors contributing to the decline in employment-based health insurance coverage. While health insurance premium cost increases have slowed during the past three years, many health care analysts are predicting an increase in health insurance premiums during the next few years. Inflationary pressure may come from health care providers, health insurers, consumers, and/or policymakers. If inflationary pressure increases health insurance premiums, we are likely to see a continued decline in employment-based health insurance and a subsequent increase in both Medicaid and uninsured populations.     

Sources of health insurance and characteristics of the uninsured: analysis of the March 1997 Current Population Survey

This Issue Brief provides summary data on the insured and uninsured populations in the nation and in each state. It discusses the characteristics most closely related to individuals' health insurance status. Based on EBRI analysis of the March 1997 Current Population Survey, it represents 1996 data--the most recent data available. In 1996, 82.3 percent of nonelderly (under age 65) Americans had private or public health insurance. Seventy-one percent had private insurance, 64 percent through an employment-based plan. Sixteen percent had public health insurance. The percentage of uninsured Americans has been increasing since at least 1987. In 1987, 14.8 percent of the nonelderly population was uninsured, compared with 17.7 percent in 1996. However, the erosion of employment-based health benefits cannot fully explain this increase since 1993. Instead, the decline in public sources of health insurance would partly explain it. It may be that, while the percentage of individuals with employment-based coverage is rising, individuals previously covered by Medicaid and CHAMPUS/CHAMPVA are not being fully absorbed into the employment-based health insurance market. Between 1995 and 1996, the percentage of nonelderly Americans without health insurance coverage increased from 17.4 percent to 17.7 percent. Further examination indicates that children completely accounted for this increase. In 1995, 13.8 percent of children and 19 percent of persons ages 18-64 were uninsured, compared with 14.8 percent of children and 18.9 percent of persons ages 18-64 in 1996. With the recent passage of legislation designed to reduce the number of uninsured children, the next focal point for health care reform could be early retirees and unemployed persons. President Clinton and some members of Congress have expressed an interest in improving access to and affordability of coverage for these groups. Currently, health care cost inflation is at its lowest point in years, but there are signals indicating that it is about to rise above current levels. The federal government's recent announcement that health insurance premiums will rise for federal employees an average of 8.5 percent in 1998 may portend higher future health care costs. Similarly, disappointing earnings announcements from several large insurers because of higher medical costs and lower-than-expected revenues may indicate that health insurance plans will increase premiums. Employment and income play a dominant role in determining an individual's likelihood of having health insurance. Age, gender, firm size, work hours, and industry are also important determinants; however, these variables are also closely linked to employment status and income. Some of the widest variations involve factors that are not always looked at in traditional demographic assessments, such as citizenship. However, variations by race, ethnicity, and citizenship are also closely linked to employment status and income.     

Employee benefits, retirement patterns, and implications for increased work life

This Issue Brief examines why policymakers are concerned about the trend toward early retirement and how it relates to Social Security, Medicare, and employee health and retirement benefits. It reviews the rationale for the effects of economic incentives on early retirement decisions and includes a summary of empirical literature on the retirement process. It presents data on how employee benefits influence workers' expected retirement patterns. Finally, it examines the implications of public policies to reverse early-retirement trends and raise the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. An employee Benefit Research Institute/Gallup survey indicates that there is a direct link between a worker's decision to retire early and the availability of retiree health benefits. In 1993, 61 percent of workers reported that they would not retire before becoming eligible for Medicare if their employer did not provide retiree health benefits. Participation in a pension plan can be an important determinant of retirement. Twenty-one percent of pension plan participants planned to stop working before age 65, compared with 12 percent among nonparticipants. Workers whose primary pension plan was a defined benefit plan were more likely to expect to stop working before age 65 (23 percent) than workers whose primary plan was a defined contribution plan (18 percent). Expected income replacement rates effect retirement patterns, indicating that as the expected replacement increases, the probability of expecting to stop working before age 65 increases. Twenty-two percent of workers with an expected income replacement rate below 60 percent expected to stop working before age 65, compared with 29 percent for those in the 60-69 percent replacement range, and 30 percent for those in the 70-79 percent replacement range. Workers expecting to receive retiree health insurance are more likely to expect to stop working before age 65 than workers who do not expect to have retiree health insurance. Twenty-one percent of workers with retiree health insurance expected to stop working before age 65, compared with 12 percent of workers not expecting to receive retiree health insurance. The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program depends on obtaining sufficient revenue from active workers' payroll taxes to fund the benefits received by retired beneficiaries. Funding the program in the past was in large part effortless because of the relatively large number of workers per retiree. Today, funding the program is a greater challenge because the ratio of workers to retirees has fallen. Policymakers have been able to agree that reform of the program is necessary for its survival; however, the debate over options to reform the program is just beginning, and it is likely to be a long time before a consensus emerges.     

Analysis approaches to community evaluation

Analysis approaches to the evaluation of community interventions must be sensitive to a wide variety of analytic contaminants that may bias the statistical assessment of changes in outcome measures. These contaminants include model misspecifications related to failures to control for community-specific time trends, temporal autocorrelated errors in equations, spatial autocorrelated errors among geographic units, and other failures of unit independence otherwise indexed by estimated intraclass correlations. Although an enormous amount of progress has been made toward the solution of many of these analytic problems over the past years, the contemporary evaluator of community interventions is left with a number of unenviable design and analysis choices; choices that inevitably force an assessment of the relative threats of different sources of error to the internal and external validity of the evaluation. This article describes the choices made for the evaluation of the Community Trial Project outcome data.     

People behaving badly

With every cigarette we smoke, every fat-filled snack we consume, and every lap we don't take around the track, we risk our health. This state-by-state look at what we do and don't do reveals poor health practices wherever you look.     

Partner patterns in the sexual behavior of unmarried,rural Thai men

"After a brief discussion of related studies of Thai youths' attitudes toward sexual activity, data from a 1988 national survey of young males (ages 15-24) about their family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices are used to document the age pattern of sexual initiation, the prevalence of youths' encounters with commercial sex workers, the prevalence of their experience with non-commercial partners...and the degree to which the two patterns--commercial and noncommercial--are 'networked' because young men engage in both types of sexual activity. Finally, background characteristics of male youths that are associated with these patterns of sexual activity are examined."