Brief case: managing inputs

Jane Carmichael's views on Managing Inputs provide a further interesting contribution on a topic, strategic control, that we have covered on several occasions in this column. Carmichael's approach is to dig back behind the results being achieved to the 'inputs' on which they depend. But, while this may unearth causes of performance that can often be missed by a bottom-line orientation, results must ultimately remain vital; a business that is on track with all its input measures, but is missing its output goal is still in trouble. We continue to be interested in hearing from readers with views on strategic control processes, particularly those who have found productive ways of setting input and output targets.     

Career Pathways into Retirement in the UK: Linking Older Women's Pasts to the Present

Understanding of how women's experiences in retirement are shaped by their pre‐retirement lives is limited. In this paper we utilize an innovative mix of measures to examine the link between career histories and expectations and experiences of retirement. Analysis of timeline data capturing the long working lives of a sample of older women identifies five different pathways into retirement. We explore these trajectories in detail to determine how they are shaped and their links to different outcomes in later life. The analysis shows how different career histories unfold and how they shape expectations and experiences of retirement. Long, professional career pathways leave women feeling enabled in retirement, women following more fragmented pathways are more constrained, and some trajectories, including pathways involving transitions into professional careers in later life, can leave older women financially and emotionally vulnerable in older age.     

Dispensing Charity: The Deficiencies of an All-or-Nothing Fiscal Concept

In deciding the means, levels, and targets of taxation and spending across third-sector organizations, governments seeking to increase social welfare should use fiscal concepts and indicators that can detect and grade the welfare consequences of their decisions. On these terms, charity, as its meaning has originated and evolved in common law, is a deficient fiscal concept: it is neither teleological nor gradational, and therefore can offer no guidance on how to design and differentiate the fiscal treatment of third-sector organizations in ways that could increase social welfare. In general, the national governments of Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, and Singapore treat uniformly the third-sector organizations whose purposes comply with the legal meaning of charity. In order to reform and differentiate that treatment with the prospect of increasing social welfare thereby, governments should start by dispensing with charity as a fiscal concept.     

Municipal Law Enforcement Policy on Illegal Immigration Stops: Do Social Factors Determine How Aggressively Local Police Respond to Unauthorized Immigrants?

The devolution of immigration law has increased local police involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration law. But only some departments have responded by implementing policies that restrict their officers' involvement in order to protect residents from overzealous policing. We test theories of economic and ethnic threat to explore the structural characteristics of cities that explain this variation. Multiple regression results show that the most unequal cities that have large Hispanic populations are less likely to have a policy. Hispanic white segregation and high unemployment also reduce the likelihood of policy implementation. We discuss theoretical and policy implications.     

贤人之治的当代民主嬗变

从本质上看,贤人之治是一种“精英专政”,在历史进程中衍生出政治的宗法化、道德化倾向,展露了其政治哲学的工具化、实用化特征,反映了传统儒学社会“公”领域的缺陷,因此与当代民主行政的核心价值相异。目前我国的民主治道变革面临双重任务：一方面,从贤人之治的传统德治主义向理性官僚制的范式变迁是民主转型的前提。另一方面,面对“后官僚时代”的挑战,治理者还须积极回应公民参与、理性行政、多元治理、公共利益等民主治理的诉求,只有这样,适合我国民主行政发育的道德生态才能孕育而生,儒学政治文明也才能在全球化时代焕发新的生命力。     

Displacement and local linguistic practices: R‐lessness in post‐Katrina Greater New Orleans

Variable r‐lessness in New Orleans English is a salient linguistic feature tied to local place‐based identity. In this study, I examine rates of r‐lessness in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which caused large‐scale displacement in the region. Participants come from the linguistically conservative suburb of Chalmette, where r‐lessness is more robust than in New Orleans proper. Participants’ connections to Chalmette were measured in two ways: (1) post‐Katrina location status, i.e. whether participants returned or relocated after the storm; (2) place orientation, captured via an ethnographically informed, multifaceted measure of stance and exposure to places outside of Chalmette. Analysis revealed that place orientation better predicts rates of r‐lessness than post‐Katrina location. I argue that the marked quality of r‐lessness makes it available for identity‐driven use to express a connection to Chalmette. This study demonstrates one way to account for the linguistic implications of individuals’ shifting allegiances to places they live(d).     

Consensual partnering in Australia: A review and 1991 census profile

This paper is the first part of a two-part examination of consensual partnering in Australia. It reviews the Australian literature on consensual partnering, summarizing evidence of its proliferation since the mid-1960s and also the findings of investigations into its nature and the personal attributes that predispose some people more than others to adopt it. It then discusses the shortcomings of Australian census data as a source for studying consensual unions, before using data from the 1991 Census to present the first elements in a comprehensive profile of the cohabiting population. These cover the basic demography of consensual partnering: the ages, marital statuses and family type distributions of those involved. The second author contributed to this paper while a student of Graduate Studies in Demography, The Australian National University. Views expressed are those of the authors, and are not necessarily those of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.     

Choice and circumstance: Qualitative insights into contemporary childlessness in Australia

Using data from in-depth interviews with 115 women, men and couples in eastern Australia for whom family formation was a recent, current or imminent future issue, this article explores contemporary childlessness among those physically able to have children. It differentiates between those childless by choice and by circumstance, and among other themes highlights (i) the role preservation of lifestyle appears to play as a motive for deliberate childlessness following development of a life course through early adulthood that both generates lifestyle aspirations and often places parenthood on the backburner until after age 30, and (ii) the roles difficulty forming suitable relationships, women’s desire for meaningful careers, and male involvement in family formation decisions play in bringing about childlessness by circumstance.     

Remarriage Among Divorced Persons in New Zealand

Trends in the remarriage of divorced persons in New Zealand since World War Two are examined with special attention to the period since 1968 during which the divorce rate has risen rapidly. While remarrying divorcees have formed increasing proportions of marriage cohorts since the late 1960s the remarriage rate, especially for females, has risen only because the divorced population has become more youthful. Comparison of the remarriage experience of synthetic divorce cohorts for 1961 and 1976 suggests that the likelihood of remarriage has fallen for both sexes where divorce occurs at ages below forty, but in particular for females divorced in their thirties.