Well-Being and Social Capital: Does Suicide Pose a Puzzle?

This paper has a double purpose: to see how well Durkheim’s [1897, Le Suicide (Paris: 1^e edition)] findings apply a century later, and to see if the beneficial effects of social capital on suicide prevention are parallel to those already found for subjective well-being (Helliwell 2003, Economic Modelling 20(2), pp. 331–360). The results show that more social capital and higher levels of trust are associated with lower national suicide rates, just as they are associated with higher levels of subjective well-being. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between national average suicide rates and measures of life satisfaction. Thus social capital does appear to improve well-being, whether measured by higher average values of life satisfaction or by lower average suicide rates. There is a slight asymmetry, since the very high Scandinavian measures of subjective well-being are not matched by equally low suicide rates. To take the Swedish case as an example, this asymmetry is explained by Sweden having particularly high values of variables that have more weight in explaining life satisfaction than suicide (especially quality of government), and less beneficial values of variables that have more influence in explaining suicide rates (Swedes have low belief in God and high divorce rates), because with the latest data and models the Swedish data fit the well-being and suicide equations with only tiny errors. If the international suicide data pose a puzzle, it is more because suicide rates, and their estimated equations, differ greatly by gender, while life satisfaction and its explanations are similar for men and women.     

性别观念、现代化与女性的家务劳动时间

通过分析2010年中国家庭追踪调查数据,本文考察了中国城乡已婚女性家务劳动时间的影响因素。研究发现,已婚女性的工作时间与绝对收入的增加可以显著地帮助她们减少家务劳动时间。此外,本文检验了女性的相对收入对家务劳动时间的影响在城乡与地区间的差异。结果表明,城镇地区女性相对收入的增加可以帮助她们持续地减少家务劳动,而农村地区的女性受到传统性别观念的影响,无法持续地利用相对收入的增加来减少其家务劳动。通过将调查数据与市级统计数据匹配,本文进一步发现,在农村地区,现代化水平的不同会造成女性相对收入对家务劳动影响的地区差异。在现代化程度较高的地区,女性相对收入对家务劳动的议价能力较强,而在现代化程度较低的地区,这种议价能力更容易受到限制。     

Household solid fuel use in the Philippines: an exploratory spatial and social analysis

Over two billion people use solid fuels for basic needs such as cooking, with consequences for the environment, human health, and social and economic development. In the Philippines, 65% of households use solid fuels for cooking. To better understand this phenomenon, this study uses spatial analysis and multilevel modeling to answer: (1) Are there spatial differences in solid fuel use for cooking in the Philippines? (2) What social characteristics are associated with such use? The study finds that both types of characteristics are significantly related to solid fuel use. Implications for social work policy, practice, and research are discussed.     

Psychosocial Correlates of Condom Use Intentions among Junior High School Students in the Bolgatanga Municipality of Ghana

ABSTRACT

Objectives: We explored sociodemographics, sexual experience, and psychosocial factors influencing condom use intentions of adolescents in Northern Ghana. Methods: Based on social cognitive theories and previous empirical studies investigating condom use, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 2,018 adolescents (M age = 15.8 years) in Bolgatanga, Ghana. Correlations and multinomial logistic regressions were performed. Results: Findings showed that attitudes toward condom availability, injunctive norms toward condom use, sex experience, perceived susceptibility towards STIs, and perceived behavioral control toward buying as well as using condoms differentiated between people with different levels of intentions to use condoms. Conclusions: Implications for intervention development are discussed.     

全球粮食价格波动的影响因素分析——以小麦为例

以1975—2012年间国际小麦价格为例,从供给、需求和金融化三个视角分析了国际粮食价格的影响因素。研究发现,人口增长和生物质能源发展是影响小麦价格长期走势的最主要需求因素;金融投机是造成小麦价格短期波动的最主要原因。研究还发现,粮食储备变化也是小麦价格短期内波动的原因之一,而能源价格、美元汇率和人口结构未产生实质性影响。     

Determinants of RFID adoption intention by SMEs: an empirical investigation

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has been considered as one of the 10 technologies that will transform firm across industries. However, the adoption and use of the technology has been slower than predicted, mainly because of technological, organisation and environment factors related to RFID. This study develops a conceptual model that explores the role that technological, organisational, environmental and managerial characteristics of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) play in their intention to adopt RFID technology. To test the model, a web-based survey was administered to 453 SME managers from the USA, the UK, Australia and India. Logistic hierarchical regression is used to test the proposed model. Implications for RFID technology research, theory and practice are discussed.     

On the Impossibility of Getting It Right the First Time: Cultural Determinants of Theory

Although our very name, social work announces that this profession is attentive to the socio-cultural surround and the ways in which environment plays its role in the shaping of our psyches, the clinicians among us have drawn extensively on psychoanalytic theory, although they were aware that until very recently its theories remained rather culture-blind. Perhaps in some measure due to the increasing proportion of social workers trained as analysts, there now exists in the analytic world an intention to integrate into its practices and theories that fourth leg, the culture (or cultures) in which we are born and live. It may be that the largely female social work profession may play an important role in enabling psychoanalysis to overcome its previous unconsciousness about that component.     

基于组织因素的高校学术不端行为影响因素的敏感性分析

从组织因素的角度出发,应用多元统计分析的手段,对我国高校学者学术不端行为的影响因子进行了研究.研究发现,学校声誉、领导者对科研重视度、学校内部监督健全度和组织内学术道德风气是影响学术不端行为的显著因素.同时发现:不同类别学校的学者在学术不端行为上存在显著差异.针对这些显著性因素提出了政策建议.     

员工非工作上网行为研究:基于组织因素的实证

从企业组织因素的角度出发,应用多元回归分析的手段,对员工非工作上网行为的影响因子进行了研究。研究发现,工作安排匹配性、企业惩戒力度、工作量、企业监控力度和企业氛围影响是导致员工非工作上网行为发生的显著因素。     

Inequalities of Gender and Health 1857–1985: A Long‐run Perspective from the Melbourne Lying‐In Hospital Birth Cohort

This paper reviews the Australian historical record in health and gender inequalities since the mid nineteenth century through to the end of the twentieth century, using survival data from an historical cohort of impoverished people born in the Melbourne Lying‐In Hospital between 1857 and 1900. This data reveals the long shadow cast by disadvantage in early life and the critical importance of secure households in supporting infancy and childhood. Above all, the income security and support of mothers, was critical to survival of infants and children, and those households trapped in the casual economy, remained the most vulnerable to premature death. Only the improvements in labour force regulation, government employment and trade education after World War II, broke the cycle of poverty that had persisted in Australia since the earliest days of European settlement.