Informal Caregiving at Working Age: Effects of Job Characteristics and Family Configuration

This article addresses the relationship between employment and providing informal care for sick, disabled, or elderly people in Great Britain. Hazard rate models for taking up caring and leaving work when caring are estimated using retrospective family, employment, and caring data from the British Family and Working Lives Survey 1994 – 1995 for 9,139 British men and women. Family roles but not employment characteristics were relevant for men and women taking up caring. Being in a lower social class was, however, an important predictor of female carers leaving the labor market. Starting caring and quitting the labor market were not affected by women working part time, nor by most aspects of job flexibility that were considered.     

Professional Perspectives on Decision Making about the Long-term Care of Older People

With the increasing pressure on social and health care resources,professionals have to be more explicit in their decision makingregarding the long-term care of older people. This groundedtheory study used 19 focus groups and nine semi-structured interviews(99 staff in total) to explore professional perspectives onthis decision making. Focus group participants and intervieweescomprised care managers, social workers, consultant geriatricians,general medical practitioners, community nurses, home care managers,occupational therapists and hospital discharge support staff.The emerging themes spanned context, clients, families and services.Decisions were often prompted by a crisis, hindering professionalsseeking to make a measured assessment. Fear of burglary andassault, and the willingness and availability of family to helpwere major factors in decisions about living at home. Serviceavailability in terms of public funding for community care,the availability of home care workers and workload pressureson primary care services influenced decision ‘thresholds’regarding admission to institutional care. Assessment toolsdesigned to assist decision making about the long-term careof older people need to take into account the critical aspectsof individual fears and motivation, family support and the availabilityof publicly funded services as well as functional and medicalneeds.     

Institutional Ethnography and Experience as Data

Experience, as concept, is contested among feminists as to its epistemological status, thus its usefulness in knowledge claims. Institutional ethnography (Smith 1987) is a feminist methodology that nonetheless relies fundamentally on people's experience. Not as Truth, nor the object of inquiry, but as thepoint d'appui for sociological inquiry. This article offers a demonstration of institutional enthnography using observational and interview data that show experience as methodologically central to a trustworthy analysis. A moment in the work lives of nursing assistants in a long-term care setting is captured by a participant observer. The analysis produces two lines of argument. One is methodological; it is argued that nursing assistants' experiences are an entry into the social relations of the setting that, when mapped and disclosed, make those experiences understandable in terms of the ruling arrangements permeating both the organization and their own experiences. The other argument is substantive; the inquiry uncovers how a quality improvement' strategy in a long term care hospital in Canada is reorganizing caregivers' values and practices toward a market orientation in which care appears to be compromised. Use of experience as data in this approach holds the analysis accountable to everyday/everynight actualities in a lived world.     

Homework and domestic work

This study assesses two competing theories about the extent to which homework—paid work in the home—helps integrate work and domestic roles for men and women. Contrasting male and female homeworkers with their counterparts working outside the home, it supports some aspects of both the resource and role overload theories, but predominantly the role overload perspective. Homeworkers, especially in the working class, experience less interference between job and family life, but perform more housework and child care. They have no more leisure time nor greater marital satisfaction than those working outside the home, but receive more family assistance with their paid jobs, suggesting that they combine tasks from their first and second shifts. Working at home does not break down gender roles in domestic life. Despite time saved from commuting, male homeworkers perform no more housework than comparable men working outside the home. Thus, the gender division of unpaid household labor is not simply a matter of resources or spatial logistics.An earlier version was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Providence, Rhode Island, April 1991.     

儿童运动看护家庭嵌入支持策略探索

学龄前儿童的身体健康与家庭教育一直是国家和社会的关切焦点,通过家庭嵌入的运动看护可以更好的促进学龄前儿童身心健康发展。本文运用文献资料法及系统科学思想,提出了相应的支持策略：重视家庭教育与看护培训,构建儿童运动看护发展动力源;提供心理支持与健康监督,保障儿童运动看护整体科学性;推进家校共育与信息共享,搭建儿童运动看护家校平台;完善社区参与与家庭融合,促进儿童运动看护持续协调发展。     

Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the effects of child care costson female employment. Day-care costs are usually treated as a reduction infemale wages and are supposed to reduce a woman's propensity to participatein the labor market. In this paper we argue that an analysis of the effects ofchild care on the employment of mothers in Germany should focus on theavailability rather than the affordability of care, due to peculiarities of theGerman day-care regime. Our empirical findings cast doubt on the effectivenessof the current German day-care regime. Specifically, we question the extent towhich it enables mothers to participate in the labor market.     

扬州市邗江区乡镇预防保健体制改革两种模式的比较研究

扬州市邗江区1999年对全区21所乡镇卫生院进行了产权制度改革。改制前3年,实行“医防合一”体制,从2002年起实行“医防分设”体制。文章采用定性调查和定量调查相结合的方法,比较改革前后农村卫生体系和农村预防保键资源、组织机构、服务效率、监督执法力度、农民满意度等方面的变化。研究表明,“医防分设”是必由之路,为进一步改革和完善预防保健体系提供了依据。     

家庭托育点管理实践及启示：政策工具的视角

家庭托育点的规范化对婴幼儿健康成长至关重要。通过文献收集和访谈获得既往管理举措和当前试点政策,运用政策工具进行分析和总结,探究管理家庭托育点的背景、对象和措施。结果表明：家庭托育点因经济优势而被纳入管理,现有征求意见稿管理对象偏向小规模邻托,但试点和市场偏向较大收托规模;消防审查依托既有消防验收,师资准入要求偏低,质量监管依靠政府。管理建议：应根据收托规模区分小型和大型家庭托育点开展试点;完善三方协同的管理架构,设定专门空间环境要求,提高师资准入要求,建立综合质量监管。     

Child custody issues and co‐occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment: controversies and points of agreement amongst practitioners

The situation of families undergoing separation in a context of co‐occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment raises certain issues related to child custody. The results presented in this paper were collected and analysed within the framework of a qualitative study aiming to identify the principal points of agreement and the main controversies amongst practitioners in several different types of organizations. Focus groups were held with a total of 43 practitioners from six different settings concerned with child custody in cases of co‐occurrence of IPV and child maltreatment. Although they agreed on the importance of ensuring the safety of victims of violence, their views diverged on three points: (1) the importance of preserving the father–child relationship; (2) collaboration between voluntary organizations and semi‐voluntary or legal agencies; and (3) consideration of cultural differences.     

'I made some mistakes . . . but I love them dearly' the views of parents of children in informal kinship care

In-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 parents of children living with relatives in informal kinship care arrangements revealed the parents' views of the reasons for the informal kinship care arrangements, quality of their relationships with the children and their caregivers, their current and future roles in their children's lives, feelings experienced when with and away from the children, positive and negative aspects of kinship care, future goals and dreams for their children, and their assessments of their own strengths and challenges. Results of these interviews suggest several implications for social work practice and research.