The structural roots of food insecurity: How racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity

Rates of food insecurity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, doubling overall and tripling among households with children. Even before the pandemic, the rate of food insecurity in the United States was “unusually high” compared to other rich democracies, and rates have not improved substantially over the last 25 years. What explains the lack of progress in addressing food insecurity? This article maps out an overview of the experiences, causes, and consequences of food insecurity in the United States. We demonstrate that racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity, both because racism contributes to racial disparities in income and wealth, and because racism is linked to food insecurity independent of poverty and socioeconomic status. For example, people of color are more likely to experience racial discrimination, which is associated with food insecurity, and to live in states where stricter regulations and harsher punishments are tied to social assistance programs, including food assistance programs. Because racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity, eliminating it requires going beyond “just” eliminating poverty. Instead, the fundamental cause must be tackled directly: racism itself, which is built into the structure of American society and entrenched in its institutions.     

Job insecurity in temporary versus permanent workers: Associations with attitudes, well-being, and behaviour

Recent research suggests that the relationship between job insecurity and psychological outcomes is more negative among permanent compared with temporary workers. We investigate possible interaction effects between job insecurity and type of contract (temporary versus permanent) for various psychological outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, and self-rated performance), some of which have received little attention. We aim to explain these interaction effects, while taking into account the heterogeneous nature of temporary workers in terms of tenure, employment prospects, and wish to do temporary employment. We argue that permanent workers expect higher levels of job security; job insecurity breaches permanent workers' but not temporary workers' expectations. This may relate to unfavourable outcomes. Similarly, the heterogeneous nature of temporary workers may relate to job security expectations and thus to reactions to job insecurity. This study was conducted on a sample of 477 temporary and permanent workers from various occupational sectors in Belgium. The results suggested that the interaction effect between job insecurity and contract type may be limited to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Furthermore, permanent workers had higher expectations about job security. Breach of these expectations furthermore mediated the relationship between job insecurity and all outcomes, except for self-rated performance. However, the heterogeneity indicators were found to be unrelated to job security expectations.     

企业员工工作不安全感与组织承诺—— 领导——部属交换关系的调节效应研究

工作不安全感是工作中的一项重要压力来源,将导致员工一系列消极的组织态度与行为,因此对调节工作不安全感影响效应的相关变量的探索是近期该领域的研究热点。本文运用问卷调查法和调节层级回归分析方法,着重考察了领导—部属交换关系在工作不安全感与组织承诺之间的调节效应。研究结果表明:在质量性工作不安全感对情感承诺的消极影响中以及数量性工作不安全感对继续承诺的积极影响中,领导—部属交换关系均起到了正向的调节作用。     

Labor market influences on Women's fertility decisions: Longitudinal evidence from Canada

While fertility theories suggest that insecure labor market experiences encourage women to postpone having children, few have examined whether job insecurity perceptions influence fertility in the North American context—an omission we address in the current study. Findings from event history analyses of a panel dataset of Canadian workers (Canadian Work, Stress and Health Study) reveal that perceived job insecurity is salient for women's first birth decisions but not subsequent births. Further subgroup analyses show that the association between perceived job insecurity and likelihood of a first birth is limited to college-educated women and those in low unemployment labor market regions. Among women with less than a college degree and those in high-unemployment regions, the likelihood of a first birth does not vary by respondents' perceptions of insecurity. Results suggest a more nuanced relationship between insecure work and women's childbearing decisions than predicted by traditional pro-cyclical accounts of the economy-fertility association.     

Back to the future: A continuity of dialogue on work and technology at the ILO

Concerns about technological unemployment are not new. Specifically, policy debates surrounding automation processes in the 1960s reflected both optimism and concerns about the job-destroying potential of technology. Studying the archives, and in particular the information collected by the Bureau of Automation, shows that many of today's policy proposals were originally raised at the ILO during that period, even though they were never translated into regulatory policy. This article thus suggests that reopening this past dialogue may reveal useful insights for addressing current challenges, and enable us to achieve the world of work we wish to see in the future.     

Evidence of the Effectiveness of Child Support and Visitation: Examining Food Insecurity among Children with Nonresident Fathers

Over six million children who reside with a single mother and have a father who lives elsewhere are food insecure. This study examines the effectiveness of two aspects of nonresident father involvement, in-person visitation and financial contributions, in reducing food acquisition problems using data from the National Survey of America’s Families. We find that frequent visits by nonresident fathers are related to a reduced likelihood that the resident mother’s household will experience indicators of food insecurity. The effects of child support receipt on reducing food acquisition problems, however, are less consistent. Our results support policies designed to recognize and encourage nonresidential parents to make both monetary and nonmonetary contributions to the lives of their children.

中国石油战略储备策略研究

近年来世界石油市场异常动荡,石油价格变化不断.基于对现实情况的分析,认为是石油需求膨胀而非供给中断引发了石油价格的剧烈波动.文章着眼于石油战略储备策略的设计,以解决潜在的并有可能愈演愈烈的石油安全问题.引入了一个旨在使国家经济损失最小化的多期随机模型,并运用递归的方法寻求每一期石油存储量的最优路径.结果表明,最优储备策略是在第一年以每天3.25百万桶的购买率购买石油,购买率逐年增加,到第32年达到峰值--每天8.73百万桶石油,随后购买率又逐年递减.     

Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risks of Financial Insecurity and Coping

During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM Study. Poorer family well-being was linked to prepandemic psychosocial and financial adversity and was associated with pandemic-related material hardship and social disruptions to routines. Parental alcohol use increased risk for worsening of family relationships, while a greater endorsement of coping strategies was mainly associated with overall better family well-being. Financial and mental health support may be critical for family well-being during and after a widespread crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Problematic Domains of Romantic Relationships as a Function of Attachment Insecurity and Gender

Theoretically, securely attached adults view the world as safe and see their romantic partners as emotionally available, supportive, and non-threatening. Little is known, however, about which relationship domains are most problematic for securely (versus insecurely) attached adults. To fill this gap, we asked 62 adults in committed relationships to complete the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R; Snyder, 1997), a measure of the frequency and severity of 10 kinds of couple problems, and the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000), a measure of attachment insecurity. High Avoidance and Anxiety were associated with numerous relationship problems being rated as frequent and severe. A canonical correlation showed that 26.5% of the variance in the set of relational problem areas was accounted for by attachment insecurity and gender. While greater attachment security was associated with fewer perceived difficulties in affective communication, irrespective of gender, greater Avoidance and Anxiety were associated with more difficulties in this area. Female participants with high Anxiety (and low Avoidance) reported more global relationship and family-of-origin distress, but fewer financial disagreements and less difficult problem-solving communication; conversely, male participants with high Avoidance (and low Anxiety) reported more financial disagreements and difficult problem-solving communication, but less global relationship and family-of-origin distress. These results have implications for practice by suggesting ways in which couples’ attachment dynamics can become manifested in specific kinds of relational difficulties.