Juvenile Delinquency Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change

Increased juvenile delinquency can be seen as an indicator for a deteriorating social fabric under conditions of rapid social change. Criminological theories suggest, however, that such conditions do not per se produce delinquency: They force youth into prodelinquent leisure activities with peers, leading to an endorsement of delinquent behavior and offering the infrastructure for it. Resources acquired in family and public life, however, may prevent youth from drifting into such prodelinquent leisure activities and indirectly from delinquent behavior. Empirical tests of these hypotheses have to employ simultaneous analyses of societal-level and individual-level data. On the basis of an international youth study, the paper undertakes such an analysis: In the years 1992–95, data from 42 independent samples of seventh graders from East and West Germany, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czechia, and Greece were surveyed. Data on deviant school behavior, delinquent drift, nurturant parenting, and subjective feelings of justice in public were obtained from 7282 thirteen- to fourteen-year-olds. Processes of rapid social change were incorporated as data on changes in GNP in the years proceeding the surveys. Analyses show that delinquent drift is a valid predictor of deviant school behavior only on the individual level. The extent to which adolescents engage in prodelinquent peer activities depends more on the cultural context in which adolescents live than on their personal experience in the family and in public. Nurturant parenting does, however, covary negatively with deviant school behavior irrespective of level of analysis.     

Soil Nutrient Depletion and Population Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Malthusian Nexus?

Soil nutrient mining and other forms of soil degradation threaten future soil productivity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Data from 36 countries in SSA show a significant relationship at the supra-national level between soil nutrient depletion (including erosion), reduced fallow periods, and population pressure and thus illustrate the unsustainable population-agriculture-environment nexus on the continent which so far has been described in case studies only. It appears that Malthusian mechanisms are at work, despite encouraging indications of farmers' concerns and adaptation to changing conditions. It is agreed that a re-examination of the common land degradation assessments and farmers' response to changing conditions would be useful, however, this should not delay other recommended interventions.     

Housing of Seniors in the Czech Republic: Challenges for Social Services

The article focuses on the housing market, the behavior and motivations of senior households to move or to stay in place. Knowing if and why seniors decide to move at retirement is a critical factor for the establishment of social service policies in terms of their structure, location, and provision.

This study uses secondary data based on information about Czech households collected by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO). The data are annually collected via sample surveys of the income and living conditions of households (EU-SILC). The sample covers more than eight thousands of households. Analyzed data cover the period 2007–2012 when the abolishment of rent regulation in the Czech Republic took place. It is hypothesized that an impact like this might increase the willingness to move and reveal the factors which underlie the decisions of particular households.

The results indicated that most Czech households that decided to move during the study period were driven by the increased financial burden of housing. Other factors, including the availability of social services and public utilities within the current location, played only minor roles. It seems that Czech senior households act in a very pragmatic and rational manner when deciding whether to stay in place or move, with the majority of households preferring not to move. Social policies should, therefore, concentrate on providing services for the current locations rather than on the construction of new social housing.     

Comparison of the Historic Recycling Risk for BSE in Three European Countries by Calculating the Basic Reproduction Ratio R0

A deterministic model of BSE transmission is used to calculate the R(0) values for specific years of the BSE epidemics in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands (NL), and Switzerland (CH). In all three countries, the R(0) values decreased below 1 after the introduction of a ban on feeding meat and bone meal (MBM) to ruminants around the 1990s. A variety of additional measures against BSE led to further decrease of R(0) to about 0.06 in the years around 1998. The calculated R(0) values were consistent with the observations made on the surveillance results for UK, but were partially conflicting with the surveillance results for NL and CH. There was evidence for a dependency of the BSE epidemic in NL and CH from an infection source not considered in the deterministic transmission model. Imports of MBM and feed components can be an explanation for this discrepancy, and the importance of imports for these observations is discussed.     

Compulsory intergenerational family solidarity shaping choices between work and care: Perceptions of informal female carers and local policymakers in Estonia

Estonians are obliged by law to provide maintenance for family members who are unable to cope by themselves. As a result, 80% of fragile older people receive informal care. Whether this is because the carers themselves feel solidarity and choose informal caring or because they lack alternatives is the question. We applied the cultural approach for explaining the construction of compulsory family solidarity in care provision to older people through the perceptions of informal carers and policy actors. Our interest is in how filial norms framed by individual responsibilities of care provision required by law can influence (i) informal carers’ perceptions concerning their choices between work and care and (ii) impact policy actors’ perceptions concerning eldercare service provision. Analysing the empirical data produced during focus groups with female carers and interviews with policy actors, we demonstrate the triple‐fold pressure to informal caregiving as an expression of compulsory family solidarity. Key Practitioner Message: ? The article demonstrates how the national Family Law Act constitutes a compulsory requirement of family solidarity in society; ? The compulsory family solidarity norm influences local‐level policymaking and inhibits the development of formal care services for older people; ? Informal carers’ choices between work and care are shaped by their personal filial norms, familialistic policymaking, and pressure exerted by older people.     

Smuggled Versus Not Smuggled Across the Czech Border

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the spatial behavior of unauthorized migrants in their attempts to irregularly cross the Czech state's “green” border (including walking trails) into Austria and Germany, between 2005 and 2007. It demonstrates the importance of select demographic and human characteristics of the migrants, as well as the physical features of the environment, in their crossing. Our main premise concerning the importance of smuggling and the more sophisticated means and strategies employed among migrants using smugglers' services (vis‐à‐vis those without smugglers) was confirmed.     

Organisationsentwicklungsorientierte Potenzialeinsch?tzung �C Pr?missen und Gestaltungsprinzipien

While common potential assessment is perceived as a human resource task, today??s organizations need to integrate organizational and human development. The concept of organizational design suggests a conceptual framework to align strategy, structure, processes, human resources, and reward systems to help organizations be innovative and responsive to changes. However there is also a need to innovate potential assessment processes themselves. Thise paper illustrates the interactions among potential assessment and organizational development. This requires understanding the relevance of dynamic roles and distributed leadership, and their impact on the growing need of meta-competences of members of the organization to successfully profile their roles as well as to add value to the entire organizational design. A critical issue pertains to the professional use of tests, including principles of multiple diagnoses and acknowledging the psychodynamic and cultural influences on how to take a test. Thise paper provides practical guidelines on how to design assessment processes, incorporating learning for all participants in team settings, self assessment and shifting from judging towards exploring relationship among managers, participants and assessors. This way of practicing potential assessment turns out to be a powerful approach for both, potential development on the individual level as well as core competence development on organizational level.     

The Dickensian Occupational Structure

Twelve of the novels of Charles Dickens provide a sample of 349 characters whose occupational achievement and mobility are investigated. The mobility patterns indicate more inheritance than in the United States. This cannot be accounted for by education, material inheritance, or morality (being a good or bad person). A model of quasi-perfect mobility, taking all diagonal frequencies as given, more closely represents the patterns. Determinants of achievement considered are social origins, number of siblings, education, marital status, morality. The characters from large families do better occupationally than those from small. Education functions primarily to redistribute success. The married are superior to the unmarried, with marriage functioning not as a selective mechanism, but exerting causal impact of its own. The evil are rewarded in this life. The basic path model of the stratification system of Dickens is similar to that of the United States.