Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia

Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare conditionality’s underpinnings and its lived effects. These case studies illuminate the aspects of welfare conditionality that have not received enough attention: the role of technology, the question of mobility, the relationship with housing and the little thought given to the state’s role in mutual obligation. What is clear is that the individualisation of structural problems is not just a theoretical and political misstep ripe for critique, but leads to the formulation of policies that impact marginalised people’s capacity to shape life on their own terms. Through different empirical foci, all papers in this Special Issue demonstrate how welfare conditionality is put forward as a solution to address the consequences of structural disadvantage.     

Sept ans après le Rana Plaza: des initiatives transnationales novatrices et l'ébauche d'un nouveau traité

Après le drame du Rana Plaza, plusieurs initiatives intéressantes ont fait évoluer le droit transnational du travail. Certaines, soutenues par l'OIT, ont été plutôt efficaces, sans toutefois parvenir à transformer durablement le secteur du prêt-à-porter, où les pratiques d'achat des marques mondiales empêchent d'investir dans la sécurité et la santé au travail. Le traité sur les entreprises et les droits de l'homme en cours d'élaboration sous l'égide de l'ONU semble prometteur à cet égard, pour autant qu'il soit associé à un arsenal de mesures publiques et privées à différents niveaux et qu'il tienne compte des enseignements tirés des initiatives prises depuis la catastrophe.     

Understanding Settlement Pathways of African Immigrants in France Through a Capability Approach: Do Pre-migratory Characteristics Matter?

With the increase in asylum-related immigration since 2015, understanding how immigrants settle in a new country is at the centre of social and political debate in European countries. The objective of this study is to determine whether the necessary time to settle for Sub-Saharan Africa immigrants in France depends more on pre-migratory characteristics or on the structural features of the host society. Taking a capability approach, we define settlement as the acquisition of three basic resources: a personal dwelling, a legal permit of a least 1 year and paid work. We use data from the PARCOURS survey, a life-event history survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 that collected 513 life histories of Sub-Saharan African immigrants living in France. Situations regarding housing, legal status and activity were documented year by year since the arrival of the respondent. We use a Kaplan–Meier analysis and chronograms to describe the time needed for settlement, first for each resource (personal dwelling, legal permit and paid work) and then for the combined indicator of settlement. Discrete-time logistic regressions are used to model the determinants of this settlement process. Overall, women and men require 6 and 7 years (medians), respectively, to acquire basic resources in France. This represents a strikingly long period of time in which immigrants lack basic security. The settlement process varies according to gender, but very few sociodemographic factors influence settlement dynamics. Therefore, the length of the settlement process may be due to structural features of the host society.     

Eyes on the Block: Measuring Urban Physical Disorder Through In-Person Observation

In this paper, we present results from measuring physical disorder in Los Angeles neighborhoods. Disorder measures came from structured observations conducted by trained field interviewers. We examine inter-rater reliability of disorder measures in depth. We assess the effects of observation conditions on the reliability of reporting. Finally, we examine the relationships between disorder, other indicators of neighborhood status, and selected individual outcomes.Our results indicate that there is considerable variation in the level of agreement among independent observations across items, although overall agreement is moderate to high. Durable indicators of disorder provide the most reliable measures of neighborhood conditions. Circumstances of observation have statistically significant effects on the observers’ perceived level of disorder. Physical disorder is significantly related to other indicators of neighborhood status, and to children’s reading and behavior development.This result suggests a need for further research into the effects of neighborhood disorder on children.     

The design of a multilevel survey of children, families, and communities: The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey

In this paper, we describe the development and implementation of the multilevel sample design for the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, a study of children, adults, families, and neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. This survey was designed to support multilevel analyses on a number of topics, including child development, residential mobility, and welfare reform. We describe the design of the baseline wave, highlighting the analytical and statistical issues that shaped the study. We also present the results of an in-depth statistical investigation of the survey’s ability to support multilevel analyses that was carried out as part of the study design. The results of this study provide important guideposts for future studies of neighborhoods and their effects on adults and children.     

中国妇女的口头文化与仪式文化——南汇的哭嫁

在中国的礼仪文化中,妇女只有在男人举行祭祖仪式时,才会作为最微不足道的角色参与.妇女一生中只有两个场合可以在公共场所进行仪式上的自我表现,即由妇女表演给她们的家庭成员及当地居民看的哭嫁与哭丧,因此非常重要.在整套仪式不同阶段中,分析了四个主要的歌唱部分.     

A comparison of alternative variance estimation strategies for estimating the slope of a linear regression in sample surveys

The balanced half-sample, jackknife and linearization methods are used to estimate the variance of the slope of a linear regression under a variety of computer generated situations. The basic sampling design is one in which two PSU's are selected from each of a number of strata . The variance estimation techniques are compared with a Monte Carlo experiment. Results show that variance estimates may be highly biased and variable unless sizeable numbers of observations are available from each stratum. The jackknife and linearization estimates appear superior to the balanced half sample method - particularly when the number of strata or the number of available observations from each stratum is small.     

An Interactive Forecasting System

Time sharing computer configurations have introduced a new dimension in applying statistical and mathematical models to sequential decision problems. When the outcome of one step in the process influences subsequent decisions, then an interactive time-sharing system is of great help. Since the forecasting function involves such a sequential process, it can be handled particularly well with an appropriate time-shared computer system. This paper describes such as system which allows the user to do preliminary analysis of his data to identify the forecasting technique or class of techniques most appropriate for his situation and to apply those in developing a forecast. This interactive forecasting system has met with excellent success both in teaching the fundamentals of forecasting for business decision making and in actually applying those techniques in management situations.     

Equating Poisson and Normal Probability Functions to Derive Stirling's Formula

Often texts for introductory courses in probability or mathematical statistics make reference to Stirling's asymptotic formula (for a factorial) without presenting any proof or justification for the formula. A notable exception is Feller. In this article, we present a derivation of Stirling's formula based on the normal approximation of a Poisson probability that is considerably more accessible to the average student than Feller's approach. Besides illustrating a usage of the central limit theorem in conjunction with a continuity correction, the derivation lends itself to a mnemonic device for quickly obtaining Stirling's formula.     

Approximate mean squared errors of estimations of reliability in the two-parameter exponential case

Combining the method used i n Chao (1981) and conditional procedure, we extend our previous results for one-parameter exponential to two-parameter case, i .e. we provide simple approximation formulas for the mean squared errors of the maximum likelihood and minimum variance unbiased estimators of reliability of general k-out-of-m systems when the component lifetimes are independent and follow a two-parameter exponential distribution.