"It's your badge of inclusion": The Red Hat Society as a gendered subculture of aging

Although studies document the health-enhancing effects of social engagement, they reveal little about the underlying mechanisms operating within specific organizational contexts. Limited attention is given to the role of inequality - particularly age and gender - in shaping either the organizations to which we belong or their consequences for our well-being. We address this issue by examining the Red Hat Society, a social organization for middle-aged and older women. Interviews with members (n=52) illustrate how age and gender inequality interact to shape the organization, which can be viewed as a gendered subculture of aging. Drawing on this framework, we discuss four processes through which participation generates benefits for older women involved in age- and gender-segregated organizations: enhancing social networks, countering invisibility, creating positive frames for aging experiences, and promoting youthful identities.     

A quantification of lobbying benefits with an application to the common agricultural policy

We employ an empirical general equilibrium model of the CAP to determine which factors and countries would be expected to be opposed to or support reform of the CAP. The objective is to determine who are the “friends” and “enemies” of the CAP. The analysis studies the extent to which lobbying activity by these interested parties could be expected to encourage or discourage internal EU reform of the CAP. Several alternative policies to reform the CAP are evaluated in this manner in order to determine if one or another set of policies has a greater chance of being accepted. Specifically, we study the Uruguay Round Agreement, as well as a number of stated negotiating positions presented during the Round. The result will be a summary assessment of the relative politico-economic acceptability of these reform proposals within the EU. Our results lead to a very simple policy conclusion. Given the set of policy packages considered here, there is little doubt that the EU was most inclined to adopt a proposal incorporating compensation payments. Without further disaggregation of the analysis to identify the United States or Japan, we can only note that such a proposal is also the best as far as overall welfare goes for the rest of the world. Our results confirm the importance of sidepayments in the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement.     

Child poverty and child rights: Edging towards a definition

The purpose of this paper is to consider how one might develop a definition of child poverty that is based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (and the human rights treaties with which it is associated), but also draws on the development of poverty research in the social sciences. It focuses in particular on Article 27(1) of the Convention because of the Article's dual emphasis on an adequate standard of living as an input and a child's development as an outcome. Three perspectives in the social sciences – economic welfare, capabilities, and social exclusion – are compared in order to determine what they can contribute to this input- and outcome-based definition of child poverty. All are found to have advantages and disadvantages. The paper concludes that there are two challenges faced by researchers and policymakers: first, the construction of conversion factors used in the capability approach to link inputs to outcomes; and second, the adoption of national inequality-based standards for assessing indicators of child poverty, thus placing the onus on states to reduce child poverty through redistribution.     

How high is infant mortality in central and eastern Europe and the commonwealth of independent states?

This paper examines the measurement of infant mortality in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). There are worrying indications that official infant mortality counts, based on administrative data, may understate the true gravity of the problem in 15 countries in the region, including 11 out of 12 CIS countries, and 4 countries in South Eastern Europe. In the case of eight CIS countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia plus Romania, the evidence is strongest, not least because surveys that allow independent estimation of infant mortality have been carried out there. In the case of the remaining six countries, the evidence is more circumstantial, and based on inconsistencies within the official data themselves, combined with information on how live births are defined. However, we find also that surveys are rather blunt instruments, and that the confidence intervals that surround estimates from these surveys are often large.     

Preparing for the drug free years: session-specific effects of a universal parent-training intervention with rural families

Like their urban counterparts, adolescents from rural areas are at risk for health and behavior problems, including alcohol and other drug use. This study tested the effects on parenting practices of specific sessions of a parent-training intervention, Preparing for the Drug Free Years, designed to prevent adolescent substance abuse and other problem behaviors. Two hundred and nine rural families were randomly assigned to an intervention or a wait-list control condition. Analyses of covariance comparing adjusted posttest scores revealed that parents in the intervention condition reported significant improvements in parenting behaviors targeted by specific intervention sessions when compared with controls. Effects were most pronounced among mothers. No significant effects were found for nontargeted parenting behaviors, and targeted behaviors were most improved among parents attending relevant program sessions. These results strengthen the internal validity of the study and increase the plausibility that reported improvements were due to the intervention.     

A quantification of policy reform: an application to the Uruguay Round Negotiations on Agriculture

We employ an empirical general equilibrium model to quantify the welfare effects of trade policy reformation in the Uruguay Round Negotiations on Agriculture. Our approach is two-fold: first we focus on the primary players in the agricultural negotiations: the Cairns Group, the European Union, Japan, and the United States, where the players are defined as benevolent governments whose primary objective is to maximize total welfare, measured in terms of the equivalent variation (EV). Second, we take into account the divergent objectives of different interest groups within the targeted regions, namely from the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, where different weights given to these sectors depending on their political influence. Here the decision making authorities, or governments, are no longer assumed to focus solely on the maximization of the region’s EV welfare; instead they are assumed to maximize a payoff that is defined by the utilities of the agricultural and non-agricultural interest groups. This is modeled with a Political Preference Function that has a CES functional form.The results lead to several conclusions. The greater the reduction in protection, the greater the increase in welfare for most of the regions of the world. We contend that comparatively moderate reductions were enacted however, because of the relative political power that the domestic agricultural interests possessed in each region.Though the goal of the WTO/GATT is obviously to liberalize trade, only modest gains may be expected in the area of agriculture due to the internal conditions that have been advanced in this paper.     

Attitudes,Perceptions and Concerns of Student Social Workers: First Two Years of a Longitudinal Study

A longitudinal study was initiated by the authors in September 2001 to monitor the changing attitudes, perceptions, concerns and experiences of 32 social work students during their two‐year MSW training at University College Dublin, subsequently following the students into their first three years of practice. This paper reports on the findings from the first two years of the study, exploring how much the attitudes of the respondents changed towards different areas of social work practice while they were full‐time students. Both quantitative and qualitative data have been collected by means of mixed method questionnaires, taken at four points over a two‐year period, and a focus group. Issues examined included the students' changing perceptions of stress, job satisfaction and levels of expertise in different areas of social work practice. The study also monitored their willingness to work in specific areas of social work after graduation. Statistical analysis revealed that students consistently rated social work in the areas of child protection and welfare as requiring high levels of expertise, but they associated the area with higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of job satisfaction. These attitudes remain relatively stable throughout their two‐year professional training. However, the study revealed greater changes in the students' willingness to work in different areas. For example, specialist family services such as fostering and child/adolescent became more popular choices for future work settings. This change was noted to have occurred between the start and end of the course. Also noteworthy was that general medical, probation and welfare showed the most negative change.     

Towards a conceptual model of youth leadership development

Youth leadership development is a growing area of research and practice in recent years. This paper will present a conceptual model highlighting the key components necessary in cultivating young leaders including skills development, environmental factors and commitment to action. In each of these categories, a number of aspects, supported by international literature known to be important in developing leaders, are presented. In the skills section, important factors include social and emotional intelligence, the ability to collaborate with others (including problem solving and conflict resolution), the ability to articulate a vision and finally the ability to gain insight or knowledge into the particular subject area. Environmental conditions include having authentic opportunities that enable young people to practise and hone their skills. In terms of action, both the ability to inspire and motivate followers through high expectations and role modelling pave the way to having a good team on which to build youth leadership. This, together with mastery as developed through the ability to persist and endeavour, is critical to any successful youth leader.     

Race and psychological distress: the South african stress and health study

We analyze data from the South African Stress and Health Study, a nationally representative in-person psychiatric epidemiologic survey of 4,351 adults conducted as part of the World Mental Health Survey Initiative between January 2002 and June 2004. All blacks (Africans, Coloreds, and Indians) initially report higher levels of non-specific distress and anger/hostility than whites. Access to socioeconomic resources helps explain differences in non-specific distress between Coloreds and whites and Indians and whites. However, only when social stressors are considered do we find few differences in psychological distress (i.e., non-specific distress and anger/hostility) between Africans and whites. In addition, self-esteem and mastery have independent effects on non-specific distress and anger/hostility, but differences between Coloreds and whites in feelings of anger/hostility are not completely explained by self-esteem and mastery. The findings contribute to the international body of work on social stress theory, challenge underlying assumptions of the minority status perspective, and raise a series of questions regarding mental health disparities among South Africans.