Eligibility Criteria and Entitlements: Defining Need for NHS Continuing Care

The 1995 guidance HSG(95)8 "NHS Responsibilities for Meeting Continuing Health Care Needs" required health authorities to develop local policies and eligibility criteria for a range of continuing care services. The role of criteria in defining health need, and the potential effect on open-ended rights to NHS care, need to be considered in light of the prior erosion of rights associated with changes in continuing care provision. This paper examines whether the development of eligibility criteria has led to a loss of entitlements to NHS care. Analysis of empirical evidence from a study of the policies and criteria of six health authorities found that criteria for fully funded care were generally well defined and restricted access to those with very intense and specialist needs, thereby constituting a loss of rights. In contrast, the criteria for community-based services left eligibility dependent on professional discretion but often failed to clarify the relationship between individual need and levels of service provision. The research found that resource limits are likely to remain a factor in the allocation of services and this will affect the status of the criteria as potential entitlements.     

劳动力流动的经济分析

在发展中国家,劳动力流动是一个普遍的经济现象。剩余劳动力由农业部门向工业部门的流动,就能提高了两部门的生产规模,促进了两部门的经济增长。对劳动力流动的经济分析,能够为政府制定经济政策提供理论依据。     

马克思早期对人的本质理解方式的变化

马克思早期通过批判利己主义,追求人的自由解放。他分析了政治解放所造成的人的二重化,进而阐明了人们的阶级差别和对立。通过研究政治经济学,马克思用人固有的社会本质来批判以货币为中介的异己交往关系,把自由自觉的劳动作为人的类本质,批判了资本主义的异化劳动,阐明黑格尔哲学中的自我是对利己主义的人的理论抽象。针对青年黑格尔派对人的孤立化理解,马克思强调,利己主义的人处于社会联系中。在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中,马克思从现实的社会实践出发,把人的本质理解为现实社会关系的总和,超越了费尔巴哈的类本质的观点。在《德意志意识形态》中,马克思从既定社会条件下的现实的个人出发,批判了施蒂纳的极端利己主义等,创立了历史唯物主义。     

Establishment of risk acceptance criteria using Life Quality Index: Application to the Indian context

The formulation of risk acceptance criteria may be coupled gainfully with a prediction of the of investment required to comply with it, an exercise which can benefit from the application of socioeconomic indicators. The Life Quality Index (LQI) is one such indicator which amalgamates human mortality and wealth creation and places an implicit economic value on reduction of life risk. While there have been a number of studies to demonstrate the application of LQI pertaining to various technological systems, the present work extends it to estimate the sectoral level investment needed to reduce public risks to within the As Low As Reasonably Predictable region for the chemical industry, with specific illustration of the methodology for India. The potential reduction in public individual risk is computed as a function of percentage increase in safety investment expressed as a fraction of the industry's contribution to the nation's GDP. In addition, using a new, more accurate expression, estimates of a related parameter, the implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF), are obtained for a number of developed economies and India. The ICAF estimates show reasonable agreement with the value of statistical life (VSL), a parameter which is integral to cost-benefit analysis of safety and environmental regulations.     

城乡经济社会一体化的理论演进

改革开放以来,中国经济实现了持续快速发展,但城乡二元结构一直是制约经济社会健康发展的瓶颈。鉴于此,中央提出了加快形成＂城乡经济社会发展一体化新格局＂的时代命题。在此,对城乡经济社会一体化战略提出的背景与过程、与＂城乡经济社会一体化＂相关的几个概念及其关系、城乡经济社会一体化的主要内容等问题进行阐述。     

社会工作质性评估研究的回顾(1990-2003)对中国社会工作的启示

在社会科学的历史中,定量和定性研究的争论持续了差不多半个世纪。随着研究者对实证主义的质疑,质性研究的数目逐渐增加。根据布瑞曼(Bryman,1988)的看法,质性研究有以下特点:(1)透过被访者的眼睛看世界;(2)描述日常生活情境的细节;(3)了解在不同社会范畴的背景中的行为及意义;(4)强调过程;(5)倾向采用文字及结构灵活的研究设计;(6)尽量避免在研究初期确立理论和观念。邓泽和林肯(Denzin & Lincoln,1998)也指出,质性研究有以下元素:(1)采用多元的研究手法;(2)涉及自然和诠译的角度;(3)在自然的情况下作出研究;(4)尝试理解和分析不同现象的…     

大学竞争力的内涵、指标与构筑

竞争力是大学获得相对优势并在竞争中生存与发展的关键。可以从价值取向与发展定位的角度来理解大学竞争力的内涵。大学竞争力是一个由制度与机制要素、文化与精神要素、物质与财力要素、学科与管理要素有机组合而成的复杂系统。其评价指标由社会竞争力、学科竞争力、服务竞争力、国际竞争力、资源效率竞争力等综合而成。应从主体与客体两方面构筑与提升大学竞争力。     

Gender Asymmetry in Family Migration: Occupational Inequality or Interspousal Comparative Advantage?

This paper examines gender inequality in the determinants of job‐related long‐distance migration among married dual‐earner couples during the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis tested the structural explanation, which attributes gender asymmetry in family migration to structural inequality in the labor market, and the comparative advantage explanation derived from relative resource theory. The analysis used individual‐ and family‐level data from 5,504 Panel Study of Income Dynamics families, occupation‐level data from the 1980–2000 U.S. Decennial Censuses Integrated Public Use Micro Samples, and discrete‐time event history models. Gender differences in the determinants of family migration were not explained by gender differences in occupational characteristics, but the results partially support the relative resource theory by illustrating the conditioning influence of interspousal comparative advantage.     

Parent Care as Unpaid Family Labor: How Do Spouses Share?

The study adapts theories of the household division of labor to the division of parent care between spouses and expands them by taking the kin relationship with the parent and the intensity of care into account. Tobit and weighted logit models are used to analyze the division of parent care in 2,214 couples from the British General Household Surveys. The models revealed patterns of parent care that are predominantly governed by the kin relationship. Time availability was strongly associated with couples' division of parent care, whereas the resource‐bargaining approach received little support except for dual‐earner couples that provided more intensive care for the husband's parents. Children‐in‐law's characteristics were hardly related to the division of high‐intensity caregiving in dual‐earner couples.     

Deliberate Trust and Intuitive Faith: A Dual‐Process Model of Reliance

Drawing on the dual process framework from social and cognitive psychology, this paper reconciles two distinct conceptualizations of trust prevalent in the literature: “rational” calculative and irrational “affective” or normative. After critically reviewing previous attempts at reconciliation between these distinctions, we argue that the notion of trust as “reliance” is the higher order category of which “deliberate trust” and “intuitive faith” are subtypes. Our revised approach problematizes the conflation of epistemic uncertainty with phenomenological uncertainty while providing sound footing for a key sociological insight: that reliance on the routine social order is both the cognitive default and based on substantial practical evidence. We develop two broad suggestions for future research from these implications: (1) sociological research should examine the role of intuitive faith—as opposed to deliberate trust—in late modern societies, and (2) analysts should challenge the role of deliberate trust as the “modal” form of reliance in contemporary research.