Involvement of Ministries of Health in Health Service Coverage Decisions: Is England an Aberrant Case?

This article examines the involvement of ministries of health in making health service coverage decisions in Denmark, England, France and Germany. The study aims to inform debate in England about the feasibility of reducing perceived ministerial and bureaucratic ‘interference’ in decisions affecting the National Health Service, based on interviews with senior government officials and other health system stakeholders. Ministries of health differ in their involvement in health system governance and coverage decisions (‘the benefits package’), reflecting differences in institutional arrangements. In all four countries, organizations at arm's length or independent from government are either involved in providing technical advice to the ministry of health or have been mandated to take these decisions themselves. However, ministries of health occasionally intervene in the decision‐making process or ignore the advice of these organizations. The Department of Health in England is not an aberrant case, at least in relation to coverage decisions. Indeed, ministries of health in Denmark and France play a larger role in making these decisions. Public pressure, often amplified by the media, is a shared reason for ministerial and ministry involvement in all four countries. This dynamic may thus limit the feasibility of attempts to further separate the NHS from both the Department of Health and wider political pressures.     

A Preliminary Investigation of a Telephone Administration of the Quality of Marriage Index

Follow‐up data collection presents many challenges for longitudinal research. Validating paper‐and‐pencil assessments for use via telephone may alleviate these issues. This study evaluates psychometric properties of the Quality of Marriage Index (QMI; Norton, 1983, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45, 141) when administered by telephone and compares scores with the paper‐and‐pencil version. Participants included women with major depressive disorder and dyadic discord and their male spouses (n = 24 couples). Results suggest excellent scale reliability for the verbal QMI. However, a significant mean difference was found: participants scored on average 3 points higher on the telephone‐administered QMI than on the written QMI. Recommendations for future research and clinical implications are discussed.     

The Impact of Migration on the Gendering of Service Work: The Case of a West London Hotel

This article responds to a call from Kerfoot and Korczynski to investigate the gendering of service sector employment. As a characteristic of many post‐industrial economies in the global North is the growing significance of migrant workers, this article investigates the impact of migration for work on the gendering of service work. Taking the embodied and emotional labour of workers to be fundamental to service work, it describes how these are refracted and produced through migration. The article draws on 60 interviews with workers in a west London hotel who were born abroad and the human resources staff and managers who are responsible for the recruitment and promotion of the workforce. We argue that migration is an important process in the construction of the contemporary workforce in post‐industrial service economies and that migration status should be understood as intersecting with gender in the production of a gendered performance at work.     

Household Claiming Behaviour

Social security benefits provide an essential resource for most families on low incomes. This paper examines the life cycle of claiming activities, from the initial decision to claim through to routine claiming. New empirical evidence is drawn from a study of relatively low income households in South East England carried out by the Alvey DHSS Demonstrator Project. A number of analytical stages which comprise the “claiming process” are identified for the purpose of describing the complex sequence of events associated with claiming behaviour. The paper shows how adequate explanations of the life cycle of claiming activities need to be located within a broader analysis of decision-making within relatively low income households.     

Tobacco—the importance of relevant information on risk

Summary. Although it has been widely accepted since the 1960s that smoking cigarettes carries a substantial health risk, worldwide mortality from tobacco-related diseases is increasing rapidly at the beginning of the 21st century. To provide the motivation to control this epidemic there is a continuing and pressing need for information on the risks of tobacco consumption that is accurate, up to date, locally relevant and imaginatively presented.     

The dynamics of time use: Context and meaning

In this article, earlier work on the organization of the household day is revisited to bring a sociological perspective to the study of household time. There is much to be gained from elaborating the conceptualization and measurement of time use to acknowledge and the employment of its dynamic qualities and meanings. That is, analysis of household time use must become far more than a longitudinal accounting process. In this article, no roadmap to such a destination can be provided but perhaps movement in a new direction. The practical application of insights from research on household time use requires conceptual frameworks that allow household time to be depicted as it unfolds and as participants experience it. That is, serious attention might be lent not only to studying where time is spent but also to how activities are situated and experienced in time to realize human affairs.She is the author ofThe Gender Factory: The Apportionment of Work in American Households, and in 1995 she coeditedindividual Voices, Collective Visions: 50 Years of Women in Sociology, published by Temple University Press. Her current work focuses on the theoretical articulation of race, class and gender in women's work.This paper required a good deal of reflection on a project I undertook with Richard A. Berk in 1975. I am grateful for his comments and suggestions.     

Locating difference: class, 'race' and gender, and the shaping of social inequalities

The current interest in difference has arisen in part because of its importance in recent recognition claims, and in part because of a belief that as a concept it can illuminate social diversity. Debates here have stressed the importance of the symbolic in the construction of social relations and social diversity, and have highlighted the relational underpinnings of diversity. In this paper we seek to take forward aspects of such an analysis by examining some issues in the shaping of difference and inequalities in the domains of gender, class and ‘race’. It is our argument that we can gain insights in these domains by better describing and theorising the mutuality of value and material social relations. The paper argues that issues of identity and difference need to be more firmly located within relational accounts of social practice, and in the nature of claims (to recognition and resources) which emerge out of different social locations. By exploring issues of difference in debates on class, gender and ‘race’, we argue that relational accounts must be placed within a perspective that also emphasises the content and patterned nature of (highly differentiated) social relations.