Police encounters among a community sample of children and youth accessing mental health services

Generally, within the Canadian context, scholarship on police encounters with persons living with mental illness has focused on the experiences of adults and not children and youth. In this article, we present preliminary work of a secondary data analysis of intake statistics collected over a 5-year period (2009–2014) and a thematic content analysis of qualitative intake notes collected over a 2-year period (2009–2011) about police involvement among a community sample of children and youth accessing mental health services. Of 8,920 intakes completed, 1,449 children and youth, birth to 24 years old, had had police involvement at the time of accessing mental health services. Over the 5 years, the average number of young people with police involvement at the time of accessing mental health services was 16%, or one in six children and youth. Analysis of the qualitative intake notes revealed two main reasons for police involvement: (1) support in the home for a distressed child, and (2) concerns about a child’s conduct and behaviors in the community. The implications for social work practice and future research are discussed.     

Educational Pairings,Motherhood, and Women’s Relative Earnings in Europe

As a consequence of the reversal of the gender gap in education, the female partner in a couple now typically has as much as or more education compared with the male partner in most Western countries. This study addresses the implications for the earnings of women relative to their male partners in 16 European countries. Using the 2007 and 2011 rounds of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (N = 58,292), we investigate the extent to which international differences in women’s relative earnings can be explained by educational pairings and their interaction with the motherhood penalty on women’s earnings, by international differences in male unemployment, or by cultural gender norms. We find that the newly emerged pattern of hypogamy is associated with higher relative earnings for women in all countries and that the motherhood penalty on relative earnings is considerably lower in hypogamous couples, but neither of these findings can explain away international country differences. Similarly, male unemployment is associated with higher relative earnings for women but cannot explain away the country differences. Against expectations, we find that the hypogamy bonus on women’s relative earnings, if anything, tends to be stronger rather than weaker in countries that exhibit more conservative gender norms.     

Exit from and re‐entry into social assistance benefit in Belgium among people with migration background and the native‐born

Whereas several studies have examined the timing of exit from social assistance, little is known about the exit destinations after social assistance and whether these entail different risks of re‐entry into social assistance. Using administrative data, we studied 13,552 people with various migration backgrounds who entered social assistance in Belgium in 2004 or 2005. We tracked their social assistance spell(s) and the income source(s) after exit on a quarterly basis over 4 years, using random‐effects hazard models. We found that one‐third of the beneficiaries exited from first‐spells to work, whereas 14% left to active labour market programmes (ALMPs) and 16% to social insurance benefits. About a third re‐entered social assistance, in particular after short work exits. Participation in ALMPs and social insurance benefit receipt was less common among beneficiaries with migration background compared with native‐born and these exits led less frequently to re‐entry than did exits to paid employment.     

Cracks in a policy paradigm – poverty reduction and social security: the case of Belgium

Poverty reduction rests on the mechanisms of horizontal and vertical solidarity and on prevention and repair of social risks. In this contribution, we argue that in contemporary welfare states the poverty-reducing capacity of existing social security systems has inherent limitations. Focusing on Belgium, we present and discuss empirical indications of a persistent (over a period of at least 30 years) decline in poverty reduction through social transfers, particularly among households who are highly dependent on such transfers. Firstly, we show that prevention and repair have failed to contribute to a reduction in the proportion of work-poor households who are highly dependent upon social security and face a high (rising even) poverty risk. Secondly, we find that given the fragmentation of social risks – in terms of both ex post poverty outcomes and ex ante social stratification – horizontal redistributive mechanisms through risk pooling have become less obvious, especially in respect of unemployment. Thirdly, it appears that the mechanisms of vertical solidarity also face inherent limitations. In a final section we summarise some important research questions for the future and potentially worthwhile policy avenues to resolve the question of how social policy-making might succeed in the future where it has failed in the past.     

Sustainability reporting patterns of companies listed on the Johannesburg securities exchange

The demand by stakeholders for information about companies’ social and environmental performance has led to sustainability reporting becoming essential. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines are the international reporting standard whereas the Johannesburg Securities Exchange Socially Responsible Investment (JSE SRI) Index guidelines are used in South Africa. Although South Africa is regarded as one of the leaders in sustainability reporting in the world, the JSE SRI Index is still a relatively new standard and its efficiency will only be proved over time. The research on which this paper is based, determined whether reporting patterns exist across specific market sectors of the sustainability reports of companies listed on the JSE in order to establish if the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting are efficient. Results indicated that all the selected market sectors reported on the environment, society and governance (ESG) categories as per requirements of the JSE SRI Index. The mining and materials sector reported more in the environment and the society categories than the other sectors, while in the governance category less reporting on indirect impacts by all the sectors was noted. The implication of this is that in general, companies find the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting easy to implement. However, less reporting of companies’ indirect impacts on their operating environments could mean that there is still a lack of completeness and transparency from the companies’ reports, which could be as a result of a lack of firmer guidelines by the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting of such issues.     

Balancing uniqueness and similarity: A content analysis of textual characteristics in Dutch corporate stories

Writing corporate stories to articulate identity is challenging because one must balance between the recognizable similarities with other companies (e.g., core activities, type of industry) and the company's own uniqueness. In the present study, we propose a conceptualization of corporate stories in terms of similarity and uniqueness, and present a scheme of six main categories of textual characteristics: general, style, structure, content, genre, and layout. The scheme is illustrated in a content analysis of 45 Dutch consumer-focused corporate stories. The results indicate that, contrary to the literature and guidelines on corporate stories, similarities in textual characteristics with other corporate stories are as typical for a corporate story as its uniqueness. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Effects of extended work shifts on employee fatigue, health, satisfaction, work/family balance, and patient safety

12-hour shifts are quickly spreading in Europe. From our multivariate analysis concerning 25,924 European nurses, including twenty explanatory variables simultaneously, we found that work schedule itself is not a major determinant factor. Nurses aim to choose or accept night shifts or 12-hour shift in order to reduce their work/home conflicts, however, at the expense of the patient's safety, as well as their own health and safety. Therefore, it is important to develop measures, such as extended child care, association of nurses to the elaboration of their rota, 9- or 10-hour shifts in the afternoon, allowing naps during night shifts, and reduction of changing shifts with short notice. Work schedules must be organized in order to allow time for shift handover, social support and team building.     

Does team lifting increase the variability in peak lumbar compression in ironworkers?

Ironworkers frequently perform heavy lifting tasks in teams of two or four workers. Team lifting could potentially lead to a higher variation in peak lumbar compression forces than lifts performed by one worker, resulting in higher maximal peak lumbar compression forces. This study compared single-worker lifts (25-kg, iron bar) to two-worker lifts (50-kg, two iron bars) and to four-worker lifts (100-kg, iron lattice). Inverse dynamics was used to calculate peak lumbar compression forces. To assess the variability in peak lumbar loading, all three lifting tasks were performed six times. Results showed that the variability in peak lumbar loading was somewhat higher in the team lifts compared to the single-worker lifts. However, despite this increased variability, team lifts did not result in larger maximum peak lumbar compression forces. Therefore, it was concluded that, from a biomechanical point of view, team lifting does not result in an additional risk for low back complaints in ironworkers.     

Modeling human-bed interaction: the predictive value of anthropometric models in choosing the correct bed support

The sleep system (i.e. the combination of mattress and bed base) is an important factor of the sleep environment since it allows physical recuperation during sleep by providing proper body support. However, various factors influence the interaction between the human body and the sleep system. Contributing factors include body dimensions, distribution of body weight and stiffness of the sleep system across the mattress surface. During the past decade, the rise of several new bedding technologies has made it increasingly difficult for the consumer to select a proper sleep system. Therefore, this study presents a method to model human-bed interaction in order to objectively predict the ideal sleep system for a particular individual. The proposed method combines a personalized anthropometric model with standardized load-deflection characteristics of mattress and bed base. Results for lateral sleep positions show a root mean square deviation of 11.9 ± 6.1 mm between modeled spine shapes and validation shapes, derived from 3D surface scans of the back surface. The method showed to be a reliable tool to individually identify the sleep system providing superior support from a variety of possible mattress-bed base combinations.     

A distribution-sensitive examination of the gender wage gap in Germany

This paper provides a new examination of the gender pay gap for Germany based on a family of distribution-sensitive indicators. Wage distributions for men and women do not only differ by a fixed constant; differences are more complex. We show that focusing on the bottom of the wage distribution reveals a larger gender gap. Our distribution-sensitive analysis can also be used to study whether the statistical disadvantage of women in average pay might be ‘offset’ by lower inequality. Over a broad range of plausible preferences over inequality, we show however that ‘inequality-adjusted’ estimates of the gap can be up to three times higher than standard inequality-neutral measures in Eastern Germany and up to fifty percent higher in Western Germany. Using preference parameters elicited from a hypothetical risky investment question in our sample, inequality-adjusted gender gap measures turn out to be close to those upper bounds.