Que faut‐il voir dans les écarts de rémunération entre les travailleurs immigrés des pays du Golfe: l'effet d'a priori patronaux ou la simple conséquence de coûts d'opportunité différents?

Les auteurs s'intéressent aux disparités salariales entre les différents groupes de migrants qualifiés qui travaillent en grand nombre pour le secteur privé dans les États du Conseil de coopération du Golfe. Ils se demandent notamment si la prime salariale des Occidentaux (par rapport aux travailleurs venus d'Asie ou d'autres États arabes) découle d'éventuels a priori des employeurs. L'analyse, qui repose sur des données de 2012–2014 et sur deux méthodes de décomposition classiques, infirme l'hypothèse: les caractéristiques observables relatives à la productivité expliquent entre un tiers et trois quarts des écarts; le coût d'opportunité de la migration, supérieur pour les Occidentaux, explique la portion restante.     

Conservative linear programming with mixed multiple objectives

In an ordinary linear program a single objective vector is constructed and one attempts to choose a decision vector to optimize this objective. Often multiple criteria exist or exact estimates for the components of a single objective vector are not entirely clear. For these cases a conservative decision-maker may want to choose an alternative that maximizes the objective value under the worst foreseeable circumstances. Herein we develop a unified framework for applying the maximin criterion to problems with various degrees of uncertainty attached to the objective vector. Three cases are solved via linear programming: (1) Complete Information, (2) Partial Information, and (3) Total Ignorance. It is shown that the functional value of the maximin solution decreases in a convex manner with increasing uncertainty. In addition certain relationships between maximin and efficient solutions are provided. Finally, an extension to integer constrained decision variables is presented.     

Fossil fuel supplies simulation 1972–1979

Fossil fuels are an important source of energy for Ontario Hydro and purchases exceed $100 million per year. This paper describes a computer simulation of the inventory situation over an eight-year period, which is being used to assess the relationship between order flexibility and the target carry-over stocks at the beginning of each shipping season. A simple way of presenting the results for management evaluation is illustrated. Variations of the model are used to assess random influences, such as strikes, and to determine the economic balance between holding costs and stock-outs.     

The Importance of Social Cues for Discretionary Health Services Utilization: The Case of Infertility

Infertility is a discretionary health condition; although it carries with it important life course implications, treatment is rarely necessary for health reasons. Sociological theories of medical help‐seeking emphasize demographic factors, perceived need, and enabling conditions in health services utilization, but we find that social cues are also strongly associated with health services utilization for infertility. Adjusted for conventional predictors of medical help‐seeking, several social cue indicators have significant associations with utilization, including having friends and family with children, perceiving infertility stigma, and having a partner and/or family member who encourages treatment. Perceived need accounts for the largest portion of the variation in utilization. Enabling conditions explain less of the variance than social cues. Social cues should be especially important for discretionary health services utilization. Studies of service utilization for discretionary health conditions should explicitly incorporate a range of measures of social cues into their models.     

Race-ethnicity and medical services for infertility: stratified reproduction in a population-based sample of U.S. women

Evidence of group differences in reproductive control and access to reproductive health care suggests the continued existence of "stratified reproduction" in the United States. Women of color are overrepresented among people with infertility but are underrepresented among those who receive medical services. The authors employ path analysis to uncover mechanisms accounting for these differences among black, Hispanic, Asian, and non-Hispanic white women using a probability-based sample of 2,162 U.S. women. Black and Hispanic women are less likely to receive services than other women. The enabling conditions of income, education, and private insurance partially mediate the relationship between race-ethnicity and receipt of services but do not fully account for the association at all levels of service. For black and Hispanic women, social cues, enabling conditions, and predisposing conditions contribute to disparities in receipt of services. Most of the association between race-ethnicity and service receipt is indirect rather than direct.     

The Social Construction of Infertility

Health and illness are not objective states but socially constructed categories. We focus here on infertility, a phenomenon that has shifted from being seen as a private problem of couples to being seen as a medical condition. Studying infertility provides an ideal vantage point from which to study such features of health care as inter‐societal and cross‐cultural disparities in health care, the relationship between identity and health, gender roles, and social and cultural variations in the process of medicalization. Infertility is stratified, both globally and within Western societies. Access to care is extremely limited for many women in developing societies and also for marginalized women in some highly industrialized societies. We also discuss the ways in which responses to infertility are influenced by the process of self‐definition. The experience of infertility is profoundly shaped by varying degrees of pronatalism and patriarchy. In advanced industrial societies, where voluntary childfree status is acknowledged, many women experience infertility as a ‘secret stigma’; in other cultures, where motherhood is normative for all women, infertility may be impossible to hide. In the West, acceptance of the medical model is virtually hegemonic, but in other societies medical interpretations of infertility coexist with traditional interpretations.     

Frustrated Fertility: Infertility and Psychological Distress Among Women

Using a random sample of 580 Midwestern women, we test the hypothesis that women who have experienced infertility report higher psychological distress. Approximately one third of our sample reports having experienced infertility sometime in their lives, although the majority of the infertile now have biological children. Drawing hypotheses from identity and stress theories, we examine whether roles or resources condition the effects of infertility or whether its effects are limited to childless women. Infertility combined with involuntary childlessness (including biological and social) is associated with significantly greater distress. For women in this category, the risk of distress is substantial.