Quality of work and job satisfaction: comparing female part-time work in four European countries

Adding to the debate on the integrative or marginalizing nature of female part-time work, this article provides a comparative analysis of the implications of female part-time work for different intrinsic job quality dimensions and job satisfaction. Drawing on national micro-data from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, our multivariate analyses show cross-national similarities in terms of lower job learning opportunities for female part-timers. We found a significantly higher incidence of repetitiveness only among Swedish female part-timers and lower degrees of task discretion among British, Dutch, and Swedish women working part-time hours. Female part-timers were either equally satisfied with their work as female full-timers or even more satisfied. This held true also after accounting for the lower intrinsic job quality of part-time work. While women working part-time hours were as affected by their job quality characteristics as were full-timers, we conclude that the shorter hours of work per se provide an important additional source of job satisfaction.     

The Symptom of Insomnia in University Students

Abstract

The treatment of insomnia in a university health setting is discussed. Transient, stress-related insomnia is distinguished from chronic insomnia, and methods of treatment for each condition are presented. The causes of chronic insomnia include depression, conditioned-arousal insomnia, anxiety, chronic overwork or stress, the Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. The author reviews medications used for the treatment of insomnia, emphasizing the importance of communicating to the patient that medication use is to be short term and that the aim of treatment is to restore the ability to sleep without drugs. A list of suggestions designed to help patients encourage normal sleep is included.     

Assessment of the Regional Economic Impacts of Catastrophic Events: CGE Analysis of Resource Loss and Behavioral Effects of an RDD Attack Scenario

We investigate the regional economic consequences of a hypothetical catastrophic event—attack via radiological dispersal device (RDD)—centered on the downtown Los Angeles area. We distinguish two routes via which such an event might affect regional economic activity: (i) reduction in effective resource supply (the resource loss effect) and (ii) shifts in the perceptions of economic agents (the behavioral effect). The resource loss effect relates to the physical destructiveness of the event, while the behavioral effect relates to changes in fear and risk perception. Both affect the size of the regional economy. RDD detonation causes little capital damage and few casualties, but generates substantial short‐run resource loss via business interruption. Changes in fear and risk perception increase the supply cost of resources to the affected region, while simultaneously reducing demand for goods produced in the region. We use results from a nationwide survey, tailored to our RDD scenario, to inform our model values for behavioral effects. Survey results, supplemented by findings from previous research on stigmatized asset values, suggest that in the region affected by the RDD, households may require higher wages, investors may require higher returns, and customers may require price discounts. We show that because behavioral effects may have lingering long‐term deleterious impacts on both the supply‐cost of resources to a region and willingness to pay for regional output, they can generate changes in regional gross domestic product (GDP) much greater than those generated by resource loss effects. Implications for policies that have the potential to mitigate these effects are discussed.     

Goethes italienische Reisekur – eine Seelentherapie und Karriereplanung 1786–1788

The essay clarifies the prerequisites for the success of the combined self-help and career planning J.W. von Goethes: Models about the personality, her change and crises, the unusual setting of the trip without professional adviser and the programs (semi-incognito, regression, writing therapy and therapeutic exercises etc.). Non-human and non-verbal media act as mirrors of the self and substitute the counselor.     

Destabilisierung und Destandardisierung, aber für wen? Die Entwicklung der westdeutschen Arbeitsplatzmobilität seit 1984

We contribute to the long-standing debate about an alleged “destabilization” and “destandardization” of employment biographies by analyzing how the job-shift patterns of West German workers have changed between 1984 and 2008. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we study changes in the rates of (upward) within- and between-firm mobility as well as the risk of employment exit, analyzing trends separately by gender, education, labour force experience, firm size, and sector. We document a considerable and pervasive reduction in the rate of (upward) within-firm moves. The decline is stronger for men and particularly steep for the employees of large companies and for those with limited labour force experience. We interpret these findings as evidence for a decline of internal labour markets and for increasing difficulties among labour market entrants. A second major result of our analysis is that rates of between-firm mobility and employment exit have risen primarily for low-educated men and women.     

Befristete Beschäftigung: Chance oder Risiko?

The paper investigates whether increased labor market flexibility leads to a reinforcement of the existing segmentation of the labor market or whether it is dismantling the barriers in the labor market. Using spell data (employment and unemployment periods) from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP, time period: 1984–1999) both determinants of fixed-term contracts and their consequences (renewed temporary employment, unemployment) are investigated with the help of random-effects logit-models. The results show that respondents’ characteristics (amount and type of human capital, formerly experienced periods of unemployment), structural variables (branch, firm size), and occupational characteristics (position, marginal employment) are influencing the risk of getting a temporary job. Furthermore it becomes evident that fixed-term contracts are increasing the risk of getting a temporary job again or of becoming unemployed after termination of the temporary job. These results show that fixed-term contracts above all are part of the secondary labor market, and that they especially have negative consequences for the employees in this segment. On the other hand fixed-term contracts can be seen as a chance in the way that they offer at least an alternative to unemployment. Hence, a too narrow evaluation of temporary employment would be too simplistic.     

Protokoll der Auszählung der Wahlen zum Vorsitz,zum Vorstand und zum Konzil der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2006/2007

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Protokoll der Auszählung der Wahlen zum Vorsitz,zum Vorstand und zum Konzil der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2005

Ohne Zusammenfassung