The social consequences of unemployment in hungary—a household perspective

In this article the following hypotheses are tested using the Hungarian Household Panel Survey and the SOCO data: (a) Poverty is more likely to be felt by ‘unemployed’ households (i.e. households in which one or more members are unemployed) than by ‘non‐unemployment’ households (i.e. households in which none of the members are unemployed); and (b) A household is more likely to be poor if the head of the household becomes unemployed rather than if the spouse or one of the elder children do. The analysis shows that unemployment is closely related to all aspects of poverty (e.g. income, expenditure, and subjective‐poverty), but this association is especially strong in the case of income. It also demonstrates that poverty is more likely when the head of the household, rather than any other member of the household, becomes unemployed. After controlling for all variables we see that when the head of the household becomes unemployed the probability of being poor increases only with regard to income‐ and subjective‐poverty. Wealth‐ and housing‐poverty are not influenced by unemployment in the household. By comparison, in the other Central European countries, when the head of the household becomes unemployed, the probability of being poor increases in all aspects of poverty. This finding suggests that unemployment in Hungary seems to be less devastating than in other post‐socialist countries.     

Hungary's experiment in legalizing casual employment

Hungary's 1997 Casual Employment Act was originally meant to formalize ad hoc employment relationships entered into by private individual employers through simplified administrative procedures. After being widely abused, however, this flexible regulatory framework was eventually opened up to all employers, with a higher ceiling on the number of days workable on this basis, drastically reduced social security contributions and strong tax incentives. The aim was then to reduce unemployment and the incidence of illegal work by stretching the boundaries of formal employment, but neither of these objectives was attained. Instead, the authors argue, the attempted flexicurity has greatly increased workers' vulnerability.     

Deceptive Detection Methods for Effective Security with Inadequate Budgets: The Testing Power Index

Detection of contraband depends on countermeasures, some of which involve examining cargo containers and/or their associated documents. Document screening is the least expensive, physical methods, such as gamma ray detection are more expensive, and definitive manual unpacking is most expensive. We cannot apply the full array of methods to all incoming cargoes, for budgetary reasons. We study the problem using principles of game theory, and find that best detection rates are achieved when the available budget is allocated between screening and definitive unpacking using a mixture of strategies that maximize detection rate and, further, serve to deceive opponents as to the specific tests to which contraband will be subjected. This yields increases of as much as 100% in detection, with essentially no increase in inspection cost.     

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A FAMILY PSYCHOEDUCATION PROGRAM IN THE AFTERCARE OF SCHIZOPHRENIA*

This paper describes a psychoeducation program designed for families and caregivers of patients who suffer from schizophrenia on an inpatient ward of an acute care hospital in a major metropolitan city. It is based on 10 years of experience working with over 600 relatives and caregivers. It discusses the research pertinent to developing such a program, the five elements the authors consider necessary to its success, and the stages of the actualprogram. The five elements include universal service, crisis intervention, social functioning of patient and famly, 2 years continuity of care postdischarge, and the role of the family clinician. It addresses issues raised by working as a muultidisciplinary team and problems in service delivery. A case history illustrates the process.     

On Vervaat and Vervaat-error-type processes for partial sums and renewals

We study the asymptotic behaviour of stochastic processes that are generated by sums of partial sums of i.i.d. random variables and their renewals. We conclude that these processes cannot converge weakly to any nondegenerate random element of the space D[0,1]$D[0,1]$. On the other hand, we show that their properly normalized integrals as Vervaat-type stochastic processes converge weakly to a squared Wiener process. Moreover, we also deal with the asymptotic behaviour of the deviations of these processes, the so-called Vervaat-error-type processes.     

La légalisation de l'emploi occasionnel en Hongrie

En Hongrie, à l'origine, la loi sur l'emploi occasionnel de 1997 visait à légaliser, en appliquant une procédure simplifiée, les relations d'emploi des particuliers en tant qu'employeurs. Après maintes utilisations abusives, cette forme d'emploi très souple est toutefois étendue à tous les employeurs, avec notamment une augmentation du nombre de jours de travail autorisés, une réduction drastique des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d'importants avantages fiscaux. Les objectifs étaient ainsi de réduire le chmage et l'incidence du travail illicite en repoussant les limites de l'emploi formel, mais aucun n'a été atteint. Au contraire, selon les auteurs, la tentative de flexicurité a considérablement augmenté la vulnérabilité des travailleurs.