Employee exposure to coworker substance use and negative consequences: the moderating effects of work group membership.

The current study assesses: (1) whether the relationship between individual exposure to coworker substance use and negative consequences resulting from exposure depends on work group membership, and (2) whether group-level characteristics moderate the relationship between exposure and consequences. At the group-level, we assessed occupations involving safety risk or high mobility and social factors of drinking climate and group cohesiveness. We conducted Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) across two samples of municipal employees (ns = 650, 878; n of groups = 50, 49). Our results revealed that groups with higher proportions of jobs involving risk (e.g., machine work) and, to a lesser extent, groups with a higher level of drinking climate were those most vulnerable to consequences under conditions of exposure. Importantly, our findings controlled for individual risk factors (e.g., personal drinking, job stress). Our discussion examines the implications of this study for theory and policy related to workplace substance abuse.     

LIFESPAN AND OUTPUT

This paper develops a finite-lifetime continuous-time model of human capital acquisition. Exogenous technological progress has two aspects, a knowledge frontier and an ease-of-learning parameter. We find that as lifespan increases: (1) output per person-hour rises in a concave fashion, and (2) learning during the work-phase of life only occurs when individuals have a sufficiently long lifespan. As a result, countries that differ in the average lifespan of their inhabitants can have permanently different levels of output per person even in the presence of free trade, perfect capital markets and common production functions. ( JEL O33, J24, F43, D91)     

THE PHYSICIAN LABOR MARKET IN A MANAGED CARE-DOMINATED ENVIRONMENT

The belief that doctors respond to declining demand by treating patients more aggressively has created skepticism about relying on market forces to restructure physician supply. We argue that even if the physician labor market is dysfunctional under fee-for-service incentives, it can perform better as managed care becomes dominant. Our model implies a nonlinear effect of managed care penetration on incomes. Physicians can offset most or all of initial declines in demand, but cannot insulate themselves indefinitely. This may explain the observation that, until recently, the growth of managed care has not been accompanied by large physician income changes. ( JEL III, J31)     

Post-Fordism,union strategy and the rhetoric of restructuring: The case of Australia, 1980–1996

Theory and Society -     

The influence of religiosity on charitable behavior: A COPPS investigation

We examine the role of religion in charitable giving and find that the religious preference of both the donor and the recipient organization influence giving behavior. By exploiting a panel survey of charitable giving, we demonstrate that traditional empirical analysis on charitable giving masks important differences among donor groups. Religious giving by religious individuals is least responsive to changes in price and income, while secular giving by secular individuals has the greatest sensitivity.     

Snake parasitism in an urban old-growth forest

Urban-associated changes can have immediate or long-term consequences on animal populations. Such changes may be assessed through parasite prevalence and abundance in wildlife hosts, as urbanization can influence parasitism and disease transmission in wildlife. Snakes are widespread and diverse vertebrates that often persist in urban environments; however, parasitism of snakes in urban environments has yet to be studied, leaving the roles of snakes in parasite transmission uncharacterized. Field ecology, microscopy, molecular techniques, and geographic information science (GIS) were integrated to characterize parasitism of snakes in an urban old-growth forest park. The species, sex, mass, length, location, and prevalence of ecto-, hemo-, and fecal parasites were determined for 34 snakes of 6 species. Ectoparasites (mite), hemoparasites (Hepatozoon spp.), and fecal parasites (Entamoeba spp., Trichomonas spp., Strongloides spp., and an unidentified helminth) were detected in snakes and 64.7?% of snakes were infected by at least one of these parasites. Parasite infections were generally not related to the sex, age, or body condition of snakes. The locations of infected snakes were used to produce risk maps indicating where parasite prevalence is predicted to be greatest. The analysis of these maps indicated that snakes with fecal parasites were closer than non-infected snakes to the edge of the forest. This study confirms that snakes may be important parasite hosts or reservoirs in parasite transmission pathways in urban environments and it provides an integrative multidisciplinary approach that may be used to monitor parasitism dynamics in other urban wildlife areas.     

Sociological Research on Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Ideology,Identity, and Practice

This article provides an overview of sociological research on three aspects of feminism: feminism as an ideology; feminism as an identity; and feminism as a practice. I summarize the main contributions of sociological research in each of these areas, and highlight the overarching contributions for understanding contemporary feminism. Three contributions are key. First, sociological research highlights the existence multiple varieties of feminism –“feminisms” as opposed to a singular “feminism.” Second, this research reveals that feminist ideologies, identities, and movements are each dynamic – they have changed historically, and continue to change in response to shifting socio‐political, economic, and technological landscapes. Third, sociological research demonstrates that feminism is alive and well, and in many senses thriving, in the contemporary United States. Though some aspects of feminism are more widespread than others, sociological research challenges the notion that feminism, on the whole, has declined. As an ideology, an identity, and a practice, feminism remains strong in the contemporary United States.     

Effects of Network Approval on Accounts of Commitment Trajectories in Intraracial and Interracial Relationships

The current study used dyadic data to investigate the impact of relationship type and social support on the retrospective accounts of commitment trajectories of romantic relationships. Past research suggests that social support is a positive contributor to relationship stability and commitment, which may be especially true for partners in interracial relationships who face broader societal opposition than intraracial couples. Using multilevel modeling, we investigated the effects of sex, relationship type, and social support on reports of commitment. Results showed differences in trajectories of commitment based on couple type (interracial vs. intraracial) for both men and women. Social support was found to have an especially strong impact for women in interracial relationships compared with women in intraracial relationships, but there was no differential impact among men.     

The Representation of the Family’s Voice in Serious Case Review Reports of Child Maltreatment

Australia and the United Kingdom have mandatory systems of case reviews, which are conducted whenever a child known to welfare or health services has died or been seriously harmed due to maltreatment. In the United Kingdom those conducting case reviews are required to involve family members in their deliberations. This study employed discourse analysis to examine the representation of family voices in 41 Overview Reports of Serious Case Reviews undertaken in England and published during 2014. The findings revealed that the contributions of family members were generally relegated or their legitimacy undercut by the positivist framing of most overview reports. However, the research also identified how the framing of family contributions within an interpretivist paradigm could engender highly complex understanding of deficiencies in child protection systems and lead to crucial new learning for professionals.