Lifestyle enterprising: the ‘ambiguity work’ of Swedish horse-farmers

This article introduces the concept of ambiguity work as a specific form of work–life balancing performed when making a livelihood based on leisure interests and a personal lifestyle. The study focuses on female self-employed horse-farmers in Sweden involved in service work with and through horses. Through an analysis of narratives and practices of this service work, based on ethnographic interviews and observations, boundary negotiations of various social spheres are discernible: work and life, and the commercial and the personal. The analysis shows that the horse-farmers perform a delicate and ongoing balancing act between family interests, individual leisure and paid work. Drawing on the notion of sociological ambivalence, it is suggested that this balancing act does not strive for demarcations, but rather to stay betwixt and between social spheres. It is argued that lifestyle enterprising is enacted and confirmed through ongoing boundary negotiations, or ambiguity work, that sustain a tension between keeping and blurring social boundaries. It is further argued that ambiguity work in this type of lifestyle enterprising both reinforces and questions ideals and norms concerning small business management and professional versus nonprofessional relationships.     

Work and health in Gnosjö: a longitudinal study

This study includes women and men born between 1934 and 1953 in the municipality of Gnosj? in the south of Sweden and covers the period 1998 to 2001. Compared with the country, a large proportion of the population of the municipality of Gnosj? works in the manufacturing industry. The aim was to examine associations between physical and psychological stress factors in and outside work, sickness absence and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases, from a gender perspective. Information about working conditions and other aspect of life was collected by a questionnaire in 1998, and register data about sickness absence, cardiovascular diseases and musculoskeletal diseases 1999-2001. The impact on sickness absence consisted mainly of demand and control aspects of the psychosocial working conditions, but also temporary employment and of low sense of coherence. In relation to musculoskeletal health, demand and control was important among women, but not among men. Very few physical factors in the work environment were related to musculoskeletal diseases. Low sense of coherence had an impact also on musculoskeletal diseases. Cardiovascular diseases among women were influenced by demand and control and by life style related factors. We hope that the knowledge gained from our study makes it possible to develop better tools for both the preventive work in Gnosj? and for the rehabilitation of the people already ill. Because of our holistic approach, both public health aspects and working life aspects are covered. The municipality of Gnosj? is small, and therefore foreseeable in a way that many municipalities are not. Still, we do believe that our finding, in this longitudinal study, can be of value also in the public efforts and the efforts to develop adequate and successful rehabilitation approaches.     

Users Beware: Variable Effects of Parenthood on Happiness Within and Across International Datasets

Researchers have begun assessing differences in well-being among parents versus non-parents using a cross-national comparative approach. Given the availability of multiple major datasets, a systematic methodological study isolating the effects of data choice would be helpful. To accomplish this objective, we draw upon two major datasets (European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme) and we devise and implement a uniquely controlled method on five fronts by holding time, outcome measurement, parenthood operationalization, geographic sampling, and set of covariates constant. Our design features four distinct observations for each of 11 European countries (two from the 2006 and 2008 ESS, two from the 2007 and 2008 ISSP; 44 cross sections, N = 57,539). Employing both fixed- and random-effects approaches, we demonstrate that choice of major dataset (ISSP or ESS) and choice between contemporaneous cross-sections both contribute strikingly to the estimates of parenthood on happiness. In fact, effect variances at the cross-sectional, dataset and country levels are all significant and are not statistically different. We conclude by discussing several limitations of our analyses and implications for parenthood researchers.     

Trends in Marriage Formation in Sweden 1971–1993

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a system of annual indices of the risks of marriage and remarriage and to use the system to display such marriage risks for Swedish women over the years since 1971. Our indices are produced by applying indirect standardization to register data. The propensity to marry decreased considerably during the 1970s and it has continued to decrease also during the first half of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. The decrease in marriage risks is mostly due to a decreased propensity to marry among never-married women with no children. The decrease is not so strong for never-married women with children and for divorced women. A sharp, but only temporary, deviation from the general pattern of Swedish marriage-risk trends occurred in 1989, when the number of marriages formed increased dramatically in response to the near-abolition of the public widow's pensions for women who were not married at the beginning of 1990.     

Family relations, adjustment and well-being in a longitudinal study of children in care

The article reports on a longitudinal study of children placed in a children's home during the first two years of the 1980s. The 26 children placed when younger than 4 years of age and staying more than 4 weeks were followed up 3 and 9 months after leaving the children's home and 5, 10, 15 and 20 years later. The children's family relations, including early attachments and later parental relationships and the perception of who is their family, have been one of the predominant themes in the recurrent studies. None of them had lived with both parents after leaving the children's home and 20 of them had been in foster care for periods or permanently. At the time of the last study the children were young adults, aged 20–25. They are categorized in three rather distinct categories, one for those with a ‘good’ and one for those with a ‘moderate’ social adjustment and well‐being and one for those with a ‘bad’ social adjustment and well‐being insofar as involvement with drugs, criminal behaviour and legal sanctions are concerned. Their contacts and relationships with birth parents and foster parents and the perception of who is their family are analysed by use of attachment theory and developmental psychopathology.     

Well-Being in an Adult Swedish Population

Objectives: The aim of this study was to see if earlier findings about factors associated with well-being could be replicated in a large population-based sample in Sweden. To the best of our knowledge, no research on well-being has been conducted on such a large population in a country, which by most standards is regarded as one of the most fortunate in the world. With its economic wealth and highly developed social welfare and health care system, Sweden is a country where the conditions for a high level of well-being would appear to be met. Methods: 10,441 randomly selected Swedish citizens, aged between 20 and 64 years, living in Stockholm County, completed a questionnaire covering issues such as demographics, social network and psychological well-being. The data were collected during the years 1998–2000. Results: Male gender, greater age, cohabiting, good childhood conditions, support from friends, sound financial situation and absence of negative life events were positively associated with well-being and explained 20% of the variance. Conclusion: The findings replicated earlier studies. Factors associated with well-being seem to remain the same, and are still explaining only a small part of the total variance, despite different measurements, time, sample sizes or country of origin. Therefore, research on well-being needs to take a new turn, by placing less focus on external factors and more focus on the internal factors, such as a person’s personality and coping strategies.     

Child protection under Swedish law—legal duality and uncertainty

Society's responsibility to protect children from harm as prescribed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child raises complex questions about the fundamental rights of both children and parents, as well as when and how authorities are to intervene in order to protect children from maltreatment. Many child protection systems around the world attract considerable criticism, due in part to how the law responds to child protection matters. This article examines the Swedish child protection system from a critical legal perspective with the ideas conveyed within Therapeutic Jurisprudence as a theoretical starting point. The aim is to describe and analyze the legal challenges and dilemmas that meet this system. A legal ambiguity about when and how responsible authorities are to intervene, leading to significant uncertainty for both children and parents, is identified. Furthermore, the strong focus by Swedish authorities on voluntary measures to resolve child protection matters can lead to vulnerable children not receiving the protection to which they are entitled. Certain of the challenges and dilemmas described here are specific to the Swedish system due to its legal context and family support approach. However, other aspects resonate across legal systems and, therefore, may be of a more general interest.     

Consequences of Eye Color,Positioning, and Head Movement for Eye‐Tracking Data Quality in Infant Research

Eye tracking has become a valuable tool for investigating infant looking behavior over the last decades. However, where eye‐tracking methodology and achieving high data quality have received a much attention for adult participants, it is unclear how these results generalize to infant research. This is particularly important as infants behave different from adults in front of the eye tracker. In this study, we investigated whether eye physiology, positioning, and infant behavior affect measures of eye‐tracking data quality: accuracy, precision, and data loss. We report that accuracy and precision are lower, and more data loss occurs for infants with bluish eye color compared to infants with brownish eye color. Moreover, accuracy was lower for infants positioned in a high chair or in the parents' lap compared to infants positioned in a baby seat. Finally, precision decreased and data loss increased as a function of time. We highlight the importance of data quality when comparing multiple groups, as differences in data quality can affect eye‐tracking measures. In addition, we investigate how two different measures to quantify infant movement influence eye‐tracker data quality. These findings might help researchers with data collection and help manufacturers develop better eye‐tracking systems for infants.     

RISK AVERSION RELATES TO COGNITIVE ABILITY: PREFERENCES OR NOISE?

Recent experimental studies suggest that risk aversion is negatively related to cognitive ability. In this paper we report evidence that this relation may be spurious. We recruit a large subject pool drawn from the general Danish population for our experiment. By presenting subjects with choice tasks that vary the bias induced by random choices, we are able to generate both negative and positive correlations between risk aversion and cognitive ability. Our results suggest that cognitive ability is related to random decision making rather than to risk preferences. (JEL: C81, C91, D12, D81)