Coping with Vulnerabilities in Old Age and Retirement: Cross-border Mobility,Family Relations and Social Networks of German Retirees in Alanya

ABSTRACT

Reduced income upon retirement is a vulnerability threat, which increases dependency on public provisions, familial, and/or social (community) support. Many German retirees, in addition to lifestyle motivations, move to low-cost destinations in order to maintain an autonomous and independent life while minimizing the risks of financial worsening. In this article, I discuss the vulnerability patterns of German retirees in the Mediterranean coastal town of Alanya, Turkey, and the role of social networks, with a particular focus on intergenerational family relations. I argue that, despite increased life satisfaction, relocation to a new destination abroad results in new emerging threats. German retirees in Alanya experience difficulties in terms of a lack of intergenerational family support and the double jeopardy of being framed by the legal regulations of two nation states. Based on the findings of the empirical research conducted in Alanya in 2017, I will demonstrate new threats emerged after relocation and how retirees respond to those with new coping strategies.     

GIS‐Based Integration of Social Vulnerability and Level 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment to Advance Emergency Preparedness,Planning, and Response for Severe Nuclear Power Plant Accidents

In the nuclear power industry, Level 3 probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is used to estimate damage to public health and the environment if a severe accident leads to large radiological release. Current Level 3 PRA does not have an explicit inclusion of social factors and, therefore, it is not possible to perform importance ranking of social factors for risk‐informing emergency preparedness, planning, and response (EPPR). This article offers a methodology for adapting the concept of social vulnerability, commonly used in natural hazard research, in the context of a severe nuclear power plant accident. The methodology has four steps: (1) calculating a hazard‐independent social vulnerability index for the local population; (2) developing a location‐specific representation of the maximum radiological hazard estimated from current Level 3 PRA, in a geographic information system (GIS) environment; (3) developing a GIS‐based socio‐technical risk map by combining the social vulnerability index and the location‐specific radiological hazard; and (4) conducting a risk importance measure analysis to rank the criticality of social factors based on their contribution to the socio‐technical risk. The methodology is applied using results from the 2012 Surry Power Station state‐of‐the‐art reactor consequence analysis. A radiological hazard model is generated from MELCOR accident consequence code system, translated into a GIS environment, and combined with the Center for Disease Control social vulnerability index (SVI). This research creates an opportunity to explicitly consider and rank the criticality of location‐specific SVI themes based on their influence on risk, providing input for EPPR.     

Vulnerable relational knowing that matters

This paper explores vulnerable relational knowing, and in it we open up our own embodied habits and experiences as feminist academics. We discuss how displaying our academic bodies as naked, both symbolically and physically, enhances and appreciates—instead of hiding—vulnerability. We also discuss how our academic bodies entangle with a range of more-than-human creatures and material surroundings to highlight the multispecies and material nature of vulnerable relational knowing. Two detailed stories, “Intimate sharing of academic knowledge: A recumbent study circle” and “Keropirtti: A place and space to work differently” provide unique examples of the enactment of alternative ways of working in academia, and their analysis demonstrates the potential of vulnerability for embodied relational knowing in academia, which has, to date, been commonly analyzed in the context of writing.     

Assessing the Performance of a Classification‐Based Vulnerability Analysis Model

In this article, a classification model based on the majority rule sorting (MR‐Sort) method is employed to evaluate the vulnerability of safety‐critical systems with respect to malevolent intentional acts. The model is built on the basis of a (limited‐size) set of data representing (a priori known) vulnerability classification examples. The empirical construction of the classification model introduces a source of uncertainty into the vulnerability analysis process: a quantitative assessment of the performance of the classification model (in terms of accuracy and confidence in the assignments) is thus in order. Three different app oaches are here considered to this aim: (i) a model–retrieval‐based approach, (ii) the bootstrap method, and (iii) the leave‐one‐out cross‐validation technique. The analyses are presented with reference to an exemplificative case study involving the vulnerability assessment of nuclear power plants.     

Did the escalation of the financial crisis of 2008 affect the perception of immigration-related threats? A natural experiment

In this paper, we apply a natural experiment approach, comparing specific data from the European Values Study prior to and after the escalation of the financial crisis in 2008. The aim is to disentangle the short-term effect of the crisis on the relationship between social vulnerability and immigrant-related threat perceptions for the residents of Luxembourg (natives and foreign nationals). Propensity score matching is used to ensure the balanced composition of the control group and treated group with regard to the observed covariates. The results reveal that vulnerable foreign nationals demonstrated lower perceptions of immigration-related threats after the escalation of the crisis than their pre-crisis counterparts. No significant effect of the escalation of the crisis was found among Luxembourg nationals.     

城市废弃物资源化共生网络脆弱性影响机制——基于SCP与CAS融合的分析视角

在内外因素的交互干扰下,城市废弃物资源化共生网络表现得格外脆弱,探寻其脆弱性的理论内涵、影响因素及其作用机制是开展脆弱性治理的前提。借鉴复杂系统脆弱性理论,从能力和绩效两个角度解析其理论内涵,指出系统脆弱性在能力上可以用敏感性、适应性和恢复力予以刻画,在绩效上表现为增值性不强、共享性不足和生态性不佳。通过梳理国内外研究文献,从共生单元、网络结构、共生机制、网络氛围和环境不确定性5个维度提炼出脆弱性影响因素;以网络动态能力为结合点,将SCP（Structure Conduct Performance）和CAS（Complexity Adaptive System）两种理论有机融合,构建一个以共生单元素质、网络结构特征、共生机制属性、政策有效性为外因变量,以网络动态能力为中介变量,以网络脆弱性为结果变量,以网络氛围和环境不确定性为调节变量的理论框架。未来可利用大样本调查方法对该理论框架进行实证检验,探讨城市废弃物资源化共生网络脆弱性的形成机理。     

国际工程项目的脆弱性与政治风险的相关性研究

在分析国际工程政治风险形成机理的基础上,通过文献综述法识别22个国际工程项目的脆弱性影响因素,并采用因子分析法建立国际工程项目的脆弱性评价指标;通过问卷调查法获得134个国际工程项目的信息和政治风险损失,并采用TOPSIS法测量其工程项目的脆弱性,分析两者的相关性。结果表明:政治风险是工程项目外部干扰和系统脆弱性相互耦合的结果,在相同干扰度下,国际工程项目的脆弱性与风险损失存在显著正相关。国际承包商可以依据工程项目的脆弱评价指标以及脆弱性与政治风险的关系,不断改善和降低工程项目的脆弱性,从而更好地应对政治风险,并形成自身的竞争优势。     

自然灾害对农户贫困脆弱性影响研究——以云南禄劝县旱灾为例

农户贫困受自然灾害影响,而农户自身生计资产又能有效抵御这种灾害所带来的风险。针对西南地区2009年遭遇的60年未遇的严重旱情,在回顾相关文献基础上,以国家级民族扶贫重点县云南禄劝县为例,对自然灾害与农户贫困脆弱性的关系进行研究。从风险因素和抵御风险因素两方面对禄劝县各乡镇2009年旱情与农户贫困脆弱性进行因子分析,实证得出结论：禄劝县贫困脆弱度较高,保持水土,增加绿化面积和提高低保农户比重可以有效地抵御旱情风险、缓解贫困。     

The Social Vulnerability Scale for Older Adults: An Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analytic Study

The Social Vulnerability Scale (SVS), a 22-item informant report of vulnerability to exploitation and, in particular, financial exploitation of older adults, was administered to 266 respondents who assessed the social vulnerability of a significant other aged 50 years or over, either a person with dementia or other neurological condition (n?=?116), or a healthy adult (n?=?150). Exploratory factor analysis in the combined sample revealed a 15-item two-factor solution labeled gullibility and credulity. Stability in factor structure was established in an independent sample (n?=?123) using confirmatory factor analysis, and sound reliability (internal consistency) and validity (known-groups) were demonstrated. The SVS15 is a potentially useful instrument for assessing older adults' vulnerability to exploitation.     

Rethinking the Canon: Reflections on a Text That Ought to be Essential Reading

Abstract

The 2006 war in Lebanon that erupted between Hezbollah and Israel marked the largest evacuation of Americans abroad since World War II. This article captures the experiences of Lebanese-American women and investigates how gender identity was expressed during these evacuations. Presented from the point of view of a participant-observer and personal interviews, findings show that gender became a master identity that influenced these women's choices regarding how to escape the country and return to the United States. Some embraced dependency upon masculinist exercises of power while others claimed agency as they determined their own fate and carried out their own evacuation without waiting to be rescued by the state or male kin members. The evacuation stories in this article confirm and illuminate the complexity of ethnic citizenship and gendered agency.