Leisure in Japan, 1986–2006: A Revival?

Japan is famous for long working hours. For decades the Japanese government has tried to influence how people spend their free time. In 5-yearly surveys since 1986 the government has surveyed ??quality of life,?? gauging how much time people spend daily in various activities, including ??leisure.?? Analyzing results from these time use surveys, from 2006 back to 1986, and controlling for labor market conditions, this study determines whether time spent on leisure activities has actually changed. Gains in some types of leisure have been fleeting. Yet in other respects leisure has been enhanced, with significant increases occurring in active recreational pastimes. Nevertheless, leisure remains elusive for mid-career employees. Moreover, there is a pronounced gender gap for leisure time.     

Narratives from the neighbourhood: The discursive construction of integration problems in talkback radio1

This paper examines how speakers deploy narrative devices in talking about Sudanese refugees. Particularly, we show how narrative constructions form an important basis for the advancement of accounts about integration problems into the local polity. We analyse talkback ‘phone‐in’ calls to a local Adelaide radio station that provide callers an opportunity to give accounts of events and social phenomena that concern them in their local settings. Analysis shows that speakers regularly deployed narrative constructions, first‐hand ‘witnessing’ devices that functioned to legitimate accounts as veridical versions of events, and contrast devices to explicate the moral and behavioural aberrance of Sudanese refugees. The analysis illustrates how these discursive devices function rhetorically in interaction, in ways that differentiate Sudanese refugees as problematic. Through this analysis, we contend that narrative devices precipitate and bolster socio‐political policies that have serious, negative consequences for Sudanese refugees.     

Empirical issues in lifetime poverty measurement

Recently there has been increased interest in developing methods for measuring poverty in a way that takes into account the lifetime experience of individuals. We analyze some specific proposals that take the so-called spells approach and consider how they differ in the manner in which they address issues of lifetime poverty, most notably the measurement of chronic poverty. Comparing these specific measures by applying them to a US panel data set, we provide important insights for further research in conceptualizing and measuring lifetime poverty.     

Unemployment,Reemployment, and Health Insurance Status Among Older Workers in the Flexible Labor Market

As employment becomes more precarious, and spells of displacement become more common across the labor market, many individuals are forced to make decisions about the speed at which they seek reemployment and the types of employment they will seek. Using repeated cross‐sectional data from various years of the Displaced Worker Supplement of the Current Population Survey, we examine the degree to which employer‐provided health insurance and organizational provision of advanced layoff warning helped workers—particularly those from earlier birth cohorts—navigate the labor market during a period of growing employment flexibility. Our results indicate that workers from older cohorts, rather than older chronological ages, suffered more from displacement in terms of longer unemployment spells and declines in job quality upon reemployment. Workers able to obtain a job with health insurance had shorter unemployment durations, while those displaced from jobs with health insurance remained unemployed for longer periods of time. Advance notice appears to reduce some of the disproportionately negative effects of displacement for older workers, perhaps by easing the shock of a psychological contract breach. Our findings point to the importance of historical and cultural factors in shaping labor market outcomes.     

Race,Supervisorial Change,and Job Outcomes: Employability Resilience in NCAA Division I College Basketball Coaching

We examine how race affects the employment status of subordinates following a job change by their immediate supervisors. We test whether racial homophily between a subordinate and a supervisor affects the odds of being let go. We also consider whether a racial match between an incoming head coach and assistant affects whether assistants retain their assistant coaching position. Data for these analyses come from a unique data set that explores what happens to 704 NCAA Division I college basketball assistant coaches after the head coach leaves the school. Logistic regression analyses confirm the benefit of working for a white head coach as this decreases the likelihood of being let go, compared to more positive outcomes such as following the coach to a new school, being internally promoted or retained after the head coach's departure. Furthermore, racial homophily with incoming head coaches insulates subordinates from having to search for new employment by increasing the likelihood of assistants being retained.     

Stories of Non‐Becoming: Non‐Issues,Non‐Events and Non‐Identities in Asexual Lives

In contrast to conventional models of positively “becoming” an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of “non‐becoming,” whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non‐progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non‐awareness, communicative negation and non‐consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non‐issues, non‐events, and non‐identities) are constituted through social interaction.     

Self-Reported Personal Well-Being of Youth Accessing Intensive Mental Health Treatment

Normative samples have been shown to rate their personal wellbeing (PWB) as positively high and high PWB is associated with many enduring benefits. Cummins (J Happiness Stud 10(6):1–17, 2009) has suggested that PWB has an equilibrium that is set at a rather high positive state and maintained through psychological mechanisms he termed homeostatic protected mood (HPM). Investigators who have explored PWB and mental health disorders have often focused on schizophrenia in adult populations, with varied results, and scant attention has been paid to clinical samples of youth with emotional and/or behavioral disorders. The purpose for this report was to explore the level of PWB reported by a subsample of youth who accessed residential treatment (n = 30) and intensive home based treatment (n = 33) at 12–18 months post-discharge, and explore whether clinical variables could predict PWB. Many youth reported high PWB despite experiencing continued challenges in symptoms and psychosocial functioning. Demographic and clinical characteristics did not predict participants’ PWB scores, lending support for the HPM theory with this sample of youth with emotional and behavioral disorder.     

Pressure to Attend Therapy,Dyadic Adjustment,and Adverse Childhood Experiences: Direct and Indirect Effects on the Therapeutic Alliance in Couples Therapy

In this study we examine the role that pressure to attend therapy, dyadic adjustment, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) play in developing the therapeutic alliance. A total of 351 couples received treatment as usual at three family therapy training clinics. Participants rated predictor variables at intake and alliance at the fourth session. Results of a path analysis indicate that each partner's dyadic adjustment is directly associated with the quality of her or his own alliance. In addition, when male partners report more ACEs and pressure to attend treatment, their own alliance scores decrease. Additionally, when one partner reports feeling pressure to attend therapy, the other partner's alliance decreases. Finally, for males, there is an indirect effect of dyadic adjustment on alliance through pressure to attend therapy. These results suggest that clinicians should routinely assess relationship adjustment, how pressured each partner is feeling to attend treatment, and ACEs; as these may impact alliance quality.     

An Introduction and Illustration of Bayesian Modeling in Couple and Family Therapy Research

Bayesian modeling is becoming increasing popular as a method for data analyses in the social sciences and can move couple, marriage, and family therapy (C/MFT) research forward. Bayesian modeling helps researchers better understand the uncertainty of findings and incorporate previous research into analyses. Other benefits of Bayesian modeling are the straightforward interpretation of findings, high-quality inferences even with small samples (in combination with an informative prior), and the ability to work with complex data structures (observations nested in relationships and time points) which are common in C/MFT research. This article introduces the benefits of Bayesian modeling and provides an example of an Actor–Partner Interdependence Model using R. Information on how to conduct the same analyses using Stata and MPlus is provided in the Supplemental Information.     

An Exploratory Study of the Role of Infidelity Typologies in Predicting Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance

Extradyadic involvement (EDI) is one of the greatest challenges that couples and couples therapists face. Many clinicians and researchers attempt to understand motivations for EDI; however, there is a lack of theory-driven research to support claims of infidelity typologies. The current study explored the relationship between adult attachment dimensions of avoidance and anxiety and the attachment-based typology proposed by Woolley (2010). Results indicate significant differences in attachment anxiety in high anxiety affair types versus low anxiety affair types. Results confirmed significant differences in mean attachment anxiety for participants endorsing multiple affairs.