Nativity and older women's health: constructed reliance in the health and retirement study

Gender and nativity are known risk factors for physical and economic dependency. Immigrant women are particularly disadvantaged because of their greater lack of social and economic resources. In this study, we investigate how women immigrants coordinate and utilize various support systems as they approach retirement age, as well as how choices and constraints affect their physical wellbeing. Experiences throughout the life course play a role in the maintenance of health, but the pre-retirement years are particularly crucial to the establishment of patterns of reliance to be used in later life. We examine the effects of economic resources, social support, and family ties (as well as several exogenous variables) on women's physical health using data from the Health and Retirement Survey. For the women in this study, demographic characteristics, such as Hispanic ethnicity and low education are strong risk factors for poor health. Findings also indicate that reliance patterns across resource domains do not differ significantly by nativity and that both economic and familial resource access significantly lessens the risk of poor health for both native and foreign born women.     

What works for you may not work for (Gen)Me: Limitations of present leadership theories for the new generation

Scholars and practitioners alike have recognized that younger workers, collectively known as Millennials or GenMe, are different from workers in prior generations. Employees of this generation hold different expectations regarding the centrality of work to their lives and bring different personalities and attitudes to the workforce. As the number of Millennials in the workforce grows each year, the divide between them and their older counterparts becomes more salient, posing unique challenges for organizational leaders. In this paper, we explore how these changes may force the need for reconsideration of five of the most frequently used leadership theories in an effort to understand important boundary conditions and how leadership research must evolve to keep pace with a changing workforce.     

A MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS IN SINGLE-STAGE DECISION MAKING

This paper presents sensitivity analyses for a single-stage decision problem where an action which will maximize the expected payoff must be chosen from a finite number of actions given the states of nature, their probabilities, and the payoffs corresponding to each action and state of nature. Three types of sensitivity analysis are developed: (1) sensitivity analysis on the probabilities keeping the payoff numbers fixed, (2) sensitivity analysis on the payoffs keeping the probabilities fixed, and (3) joint sensitivity analysis on the payoffs and the probabilities. The approach is illustrated with an example. Quite often the sensitivity analysis can be conducted by solving an appropriate linear or quadratic programming problem.     

Variations in carbon dioxide fluxes within a city landscape: Identifying a vehicular influence

To date, studies examining carbon dioxide (CO₂) fluxes in urban areas have been limited compared to those in rural environments. The objectives of our study were to examine the relationship between traffic volume and CO₂ fluxes. We demonstrated that CO₂ fluxes were strongly linked with surrounding land use, specifically impervious surfaces and traffic volume. A site near downtown Syracuse in New York State (USA) had relatively constant positive fluxes (source: +39 μmol CO₂ m^?2 s^?1) throughout the year as a result of strong vehicular traffic influence from two nearby interstate highways. There was a strong positive relationship between traffic and CO₂ fluxes (r²?=?0.93, p?<?0.0001) with marked differences between the weekend days versus the workweek days. In contrast, a residential site in Syracuse was dominated by vegetative influences during the leaf-on period due to CO₂ uptake by photosynthesis, reaching a maximum negative mean diurnal flux of ?11 μmol CO₂ m^?2 s^?1 around midday (sink). The spatial variations of CO₂ fluxes identify the critical role played by local traffic volumes in affecting the CO₂ dynamics of urban environments. Understanding the dynamic fluxes of CO₂ in urban environments has important implications for local, regional and global evaluations of CO₂ budgets and inventories, and carbon cycle and climate modeling.     

Executive development: History lessons learned from Barnard

The purpose of this paper is to derive practical lessons from Barnard's less well-known contributions to our understanding of leadership, leadership development and executive education. The main contributions of this paper are the introduction of Bevir's logic to the leadership studies and revelation that Barnard might have established the early foundations of pragmatic leadership. The introduction of Bevir's logic from the history of ideas may be instrumental to overcoming biases toward historicism and presentism, which are latent, yet common in leadership studies. The recognition of Barnard's historical contributions to the conceptualization of leadership, leadership development, and executive education is significant. These contributions are not widely known because they are not a part of his well-known book The Functions of the Executive. Barnard has much to say about these issues and we should listen and heed his suggestions.     

Embedding quantitative skills into the social science curriculum: case studies from Manchester

Those aiming to respond to the recognised shortage in quantitative skills within the UK social sciences have increasingly focused on the content of undergraduate degree programmes. Problems occur when quantitative methods are generally confined to a dedicated module, detached from substantive topics. This model makes it hard for students to understand or engage with the contribution of quantitative research to their discipline and can perpetuate negative perceptions of quantitative training. We suggest a solution to this problem is ‘quantitative embedding’, in which quantitative evidence and methods are incorporated into substantive teaching in the social sciences. We illustrate quantitative embedding with case studies from an ESRC funded project based in The University of Manchester, where teaching partnerships have developed curriculum innovations in Sociology and Politics. The paper then discusses the challenges of disseminating quantitative embedding, highlighting the need to bridge separate communities of practice that can isolate quantitative specialists.     

Growth by acquisition

This article examines some of the factors behind the trend towards growth by acquisition. It examines the financial rationale of the industrial holding companies and conglomerates, suggests reasons for success and failure and indicates the importance of applying the lessons learned in sound planning related to financial objectives and targets.     

Child protection: An unreflective practice

This paper highlights the need for social work education to focus on the ideological, cultural and organisational influences that shape practitioner perspectives and determine case careers, particularly in the area of child protection. Using the findings from a case study on the processing of child abuse referrals made to a social work team in Ireland's largest health board region, this paper illustrates the dissonance between the 'official' child protection discourse and the complexities and dilemmas of everyday practice. It also highlights practitioners' apparent lack of awareness of the dynamics that determine the way in which decisions and assessments are reached. The need to encourage and facilitate social workers' use of theory as a means of addressing these complex areas is endorsed, and implications for educational programmes are discussed.     

Listen to Me! Children's experiences of domestic violence

This paper reports on a study undertaken in the Republic of Ireland during 2005 and is based on the experiences of children and young people who have lived with domestic violence. The objectives of the study were to explore the impact of domestic violence on children, identify their needs and recommend appropriate interventions to be brokered through a centrally based women's support service. Data were gathered from 70 participants, including 37 service providers/volunteers, 11 mothers and 22 children and young people who had lived in violent environments. The data indicated that children respond in unique ways to living with domestic violence, and that services to meet their needs must be tailored to suit their individual situations. The impact of domestic violence on their lives manifested itself with regard to their sense of fear and anxiety in relation to themselves, their siblings and their mothers; their self‐esteem and sense of being ‘different’, their relationships (including ambivalent relationships with their fathers); their experiences of education and their sense of a lost childhood. The final report for the study was based on the total data collection, but this paper will concentrate primarily on the material elicited from the children and young people. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global Changes and Gendered Responses: The Feminization of Migration From Georgia

While frequently discussed, the feminization of migration remains among the least understood trends in migration literature. Existing research links feminization of migration to socioeconomic change in migrant origin countries, changes in destination‐country labor markets, structural factors, and changing social attitudes. However, questions of how the feminization of migration begins and how it becomes socially institutionalized remain largely unanswered. Having experienced a recent, dramatic increase in female migration, Georgia provides an excellent case to study the emergence of women's labor migration. Our findings highlight the importance of human capital, increasing divorce rates, and an absence of local economic opportunities in motivating increasing numbers of women to migrate. Additionally, changing destination patterns and shifts in labor‐market demand toward feminized occupations act as key initial conditions enabling the growth of women's migration. As migration is feminized, cultural beliefs stigmatizing female migrants can be renegotiated to frame women's migration within normative gender approaches, providing pathways for cultural maintenance. In the early stages of the feminization of migration, we find the initial attempts to reframe migration are powerful; they can challenge, or at least delay, the expansion of women's autonomy that is often associated with migration.