The diffusion of modern contraception in norway and its consequences for the fertility pattern

The Norwegian Fertility Survey of 1977 shows that most of the population make adequate use of contraception. Only 7 per cent of those who did not desire to become pregnant dit not use birth control. The reduction in fertility and changes in the age-specific fertility pattern have not been as great as one would expect. The younger cohorts have not had changes in fertility as great as the changes in contraception would imply, whereas the older ones have had even greater changes. We conclude that changes in the age-specific fertility pattern have not been causally dependent on the contraceptive pattern     

Identifying Social Trust in Cross-Country Analysis: Do We Really Measure the Same?

Many see trust as an important social resource for the welfare of individuals as well as nations. It is therefore important to be able to identify trust and explain its sources. Cross-country survey analysis has been an important tool in this respect, and often one single variable is used to identify social trust understood as trust in strangers, namely: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” The question, however, is whether this variable captures the meaning of social trust equally well in all countries. This is investigated by comparing different measurements of trust across five clusters of countries in all parts of the world. The analysis shows that there are considerable problems associated with the use of the variable of “most can be trusted” as an indicator of trust in strangers, both in terms of strangers understood as “people you meet for the first time” and in terms of strangers understood as people of a different nationality and religion. These results question the validity of previous investigations of social trust based on international survey material. The analysis furthermore reveals that a new survey question about trust in people one is meeting for the first time is better suited as indicator of social trust in comparative analysis.     

Social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex

The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex among at-risk adolescents and young adults. To investigate this issue, a survey has been sent to outreach work and non-institutional offices whose work focuses on alcohol and drugs to some extent. The survey was sent to 89 workplaces distributed throughout 33 municipalities in the region of Skåne in southern Sweden. Altogether 229 responses were collected, a response rate of 60.1%. The study shows that social workers have limited opportunities to work with safer sex issues and that the organizational resources to support this work are weak. Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats was applied to the data, with the analysis indicating that knowledge and organizational resources are key to enabling work with safer sex. It is also important that the personnel are interested in the subject and that they feel comfortable working with safer sex. The factors found to have the strongest direct effect on the personnel’s work with safer sex are: having the possibility to set aside time to work with safer sex, experiencing that safer sex is discussed at the workplace and being personally interested in the subject.     

Negotiated Discretion: Redressing the Neglect of Negotiation in “Street‐Level Bureaucracy”

This article proposes an interactionist update of “street‐level bureaucracy,” one of the most influential approaches for studying how public policy is translated into street‐level practice. While the street‐level approach assumes that bureaucrats are alone in enacting policy, the present article argues for seeing “street‐level policy” as formed in negotiation between bureaucrats and clients. To demonstrate this, the article uses ethnographic data and a Straussian framework to analyze how nurses and patients negotiated access in a Norwegian emergency service. The article thus sets a new course for street‐level research, helping researchers look beyond the individual to explore inter‐individual negotiation and its influence on street‐level decision‐making.     

Public Knowledge and Attitudes to HIV: Research From Three Decades in Sweden

The overarching objective of this article is to describe the Swedish public's knowledge about HIV and attitudes toward people living with HIV during the period 1987–2011. Within the framework of this objective, the article also directs a special focus at the association between knowledge about HIV transmission and attitudes toward people who are HIV positive. The study is based on the results of a questionnaire sent to a stratified random sample on eight occasions between 1987 and 2011. The study population comprises the Swedish general public aged 16–44 and is stratified on the basis of the respondents' age, with each of five age groups (16–17, 18–19, 20–24, 25–34, and 35–44) comprising 20% of the study respondents. A total of 21,027 individuals have completed the questionnaire in the eight surveys. The survey instrument is relatively short and comprises 27 questions on knowledge, attitudes and sexual behaviour relating to HIV. The eight surveys show that the public's knowledge about HIV and its different transmission routes is high and has increased over time. Above all there has been an increase in the level of knowledge about how HIV is not transmitted between people. However, the public's knowledge about the infectiousness of individuals receiving treatment for HIV infection is low. Public attitudes toward people with HIV have also undergone a clear shift over time, toward increased tolerance and a decline in the level of fear, especially in social situations. Despite this, a residual suspicion and stigmatisation can be seen in the public's attitudes to people who are HIV positive. This is most obvious from the questions that link HIV to sexuality and here the changes are very modest over time. Public knowledge about HIV and its transmission routes has increased between 1987 and 2011. Attitudes toward people who are HIV positive have generally become more tolerant and positive, not least in relation to different social situations. The fear of becoming infected has declined. At the same time there remains a stigma, which continues to direct suspicion at people who are living with HIV and to ascribe them negative characteristics and behaviors that are based on prejudice. The results show, however, that the public's attitudes toward same-sex relationships are clearly more accepting today than they were previously, and that the symbolic association between HIV and this group is tending to become weaker.     

The Impact of Child Behaviour Problems on Maternal Employment: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

This prospective population-based study examined associations between children’s behaviour problems and maternal employment. Information on children’s behaviour problems at 3 years from 22,115 mothers employed before pregnancy and participating in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study were linked to national register data on employment and relevant social background factors, mothers’ self-reported susceptibility to anxiety/depression and mother-reports of day-care attendance and fathers’ income. Mothers reporting their child to have severe (>2 SD) internalizing or severe combined behaviour problems (5 %) had excess risk of leaving paid employment irrespective of other important characteristics generally associated with maternal employment (RR 1.24–1.31). The attributable risk percent ranged from 30.3 % (internalizing problems) to 32.4 % (combined problems). Externalizing behaviour problems were not uniquely associated with mothers leaving employment.     

Using experimental design to define boundary manikins

When evaluating human-machine interaction it is central to consider anthropometric diversity to ensure intended accommodation levels. A well-known method is the use of boundary cases where manikins with extreme but likely measurement combinations are derived by mathematical treatment of anthropometric data. The supposition by that method is that the use of these manikins will facilitate accommodation of the expected part of the total, less extreme, population. In literature sources there are differences in how many and in what way these manikins should be defined. A similar field to the boundary case method is the use of experimental design in where relationships between affecting factors of a process is studied by a systematic approach. This paper examines the possibilities to adopt methodology used in experimental design to define a group of manikins. Different experimental designs were adopted to be used together with a confidence region and its axes. The result from the study shows that it is possible to adapt the methodology of experimental design when creating groups of manikins. The size of these groups of manikins depends heavily on the number of key measurements but also on the type of chosen experimental design.