Substance‐dependent women becoming mothers: breaking the cycle of adverse childhood experiences

Parenting may be particularly challenging for substance‐dependent mothers who have grown up with parents who themselves had substance use disorders (SUDs). The aim of this study was to explore how substance‐dependent mothers describe their childhood experiences with substance‐abusing parents and the association between these earlier experiences and their own role as caregivers. Using purposeful sampling, mothers admitted for 1 year to a family ward at a substance abuse clinic were approached. Through in‐depth, qualitative interviews, nine substance‐dependent mothers described their lives in the form of present, past and future tense. The findings indicate that substance‐dependent women, who have experienced SUDs in their families of origin, face several major challenges when they become mothers. Some describe having lived their whole lives ‘on the edge of society'. This makes their rehabilitation process more complex. All mothers work to abstain from substances, process traumatic experiences and integrate their family into society. They need help to build supportive social networks and to establish a safe and predictable family environment for themselves and their children. The therapeutic implications of these findings will be discussed.     

Assortative Mating by Education and Postponement of Couple Formation and First Birth in Britain and Sweden

This paper focuses on postponement of couple formation and first birth. We analyze couples born 1930–1979 who have experienced both events. First, we estimate a spouse choice equation based on individual human capital and family of origin characteristics as well as marriage market indicators, using a multinomial logit model. We create nine educational categories using predicted probabilities. Secondly, we estimate the rates of union formation and first birth using Weibull hazard models with individual unobserved heterogeneity, predicted educational categories from the first step, and other fixed and time varying variables. Higher education of one of the spouses, duration of education, and unfavorable labor market conditions delay couple formation and first birth. Swedish women form their unions later than British women, but once the union has been formed, they have their first birth sooner.JEL Classification: D1, J1An earlier paper, co-authored by Eiko Kenjoh, was presented at the Scholar seminar on Education and Postponement of Maternity, University of Amsterdam. We are thankful for comments from Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman, Michael Lindahl, Adriaan Kalwij, Andrey Launov and other seminar participants at the University of Groningen, the University of Lund and ESPE 2004. We thank Howard Yourow for improving substantially our English and Sebastiene Postma and Robert Helmink for typing several versions of the paper. Further, we thank Eiko Kenjoh for giving us the country comparable education variable, which she constructed for earlier work (see Kenjoh, 2004).     

Optimal age at motherhood. Theoretical and empirical considerations on postponement of maternity in Europe

The age at which women become mothers has increased to an all time high in most European countries in the past decennia. This increase of age at first birth is the main explanatory variable for the rapid decrease in fertility in European countries which has occurred at different points of time earlier in North and West Europe than in South Europe. To understand the development of the period fertility rate it is therefore crucial to understand the determinants of optimal age at maternity. This paper reviews empirical and theoretical literature and tries to give suggestions on future research directions. The econometric so called timing and spacing literature has used current female wages and male incomes as the main explanatory variables. However, theoretical research identifies on the one hand consumption smoothing, and on the other hand career planning of the woman as the main explanations to the postponement of maternity.     

Enacting Leadership for Collaborative Advantage: Dilemmas of Ideology and Pragmatism in the Activities of Partnership Managers

Working across organizations has long been recognized as a characteristic of public management, but recent years have seen a worldwide intensification in partnership working. Rhetoric about the benefits is endemic but so are complaints about the difficulty of partnership working in practice. Understanding the way that collaborative approaches may provide value is therefore an essential element of understanding the changing roles of public-sector organizations. The particular aim of this paper is to contribute to a growing understanding of the way in which individuals enact leadership roles in such situations. The focus is on partnership managers, whose main role is to organize the activities of a collaboration. The way in which partnership managers enact leadership is explored and insight into the kinds of activities that typically occupy them, the types of challenges and dilemmas that they face and typical ways in which they respond to these is provided. We suggest that the main categories of activities split into two opposing perspectives on leadership. We propose an overarching concept which suggests that collaborative leadership involves the management of a tension between ideology and pragmatism.     

Cohort size and female labour supply

Easterlin's relative income hypothesis projects for smaller cohorts: (a) increasing wages, (b) increasing fertility and (c) decreasing female labour supply. This paper reviews the literature on the substitutability of female for male labour, on relative income changes as a result of changes in cohort size and on husband's income as a determinant of female labour supply. It is concluded that own wage is a more important determinant of female labour supply than husband's income, and that policies that increase females net wages are therefore a stimulus to female labour supply. The example of Sweden shows that pronatalist policies can be combined with policies that stimulate female labour supply.     

Farewell to Werner A. M��ller (Springer-Verlag)��reception at IZA

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Farewell to Werner A. Müller (Springer-Verlag)—reception at IZA