Having it all overseas: Aid workers and the international division of reproductive labour

This article examines the dynamics of power and privilege at work in international development through the prism of domestic service for expat aid workers in developing countries. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork amid aid workers and their domestic staff in Dakar, Senegal, I argue that access to affordable care work greatly enhances the lives of women who work overseas in development. The postcolonial underdevelopment and poverty that aid work addresses is paradoxically critical to the aid workers' own access to affordable care, family balance and the means to do their jobs. I put this insight into the larger scholarly conversation about domestic work and global inequality, including on the Global Care Chain.     

The context of employment discrimination: interpreting the findings of a field experiment

Although field experiments have documented the contemporary relevance of discrimination in employment, theories developed to explain the dynamics of differential treatment cannot account for differences across organizational and institutional contexts. In this article, I address this shortcoming by presenting the main empirical findings from a multi‐method research project, in which a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in the Norwegian labour market was complemented with forty‐two in‐depth interviews with employers who were observed in the first stage of the study. While the experimental data support earlier findings in documenting that ethnic discrimination indeed takes place, the qualitative material suggests that theorizing in the field experiment literature have been too concerned with individual and intra‐psychic explanations. Discriminatory outcomes in employment processes seems to be more dependent on contextual factors such as the number of applications received, whether requirements are specified, and the degree to which recruitment procedures are formalized. I argue that different contexts of employment provide different opportunity structures for discrimination, a finding with important theoretical and methodological implications.     

Ethnicity, migration and health: A population-based study of 338 refugees from Latin America, 396 nonrefugee immigrants from Finland and 161 from southern Europe and 996 age-, sex- and education-matched controls from Sweden

This article shows the influence of being a refugee from Latin America or a nonrefugee immigrant from southern Europe or Finland on self-reported illness, controlling for social factors and lifestyle. The study population consisted of 338 Latin American refugees, a random sample of 396 Finnish and 161 southern European immigrants and 996 age-, sex- and education-matched Swedish controls. The data were analysed unmatched with logistic regression (multivariate analysis) in main effect models. The strongest independent risk indicator for long-term illness was being a Latin American refugee (estimated odds ratio (OR)=2.96, 95% confidence interval (CI)=2.19–3.82). There was a significant association between being a Latin American refugee and period prevalence, ill health and unsatisfied need for care. Being a southern European or Finnish immigrant was a risk indicator of ill health but was not associated with the other dependent factors. Not feeling secure in daily life was a strong risk indicator for long-term illness and ill health (estimated OR=1.89, 95% CI=1.26–2.76 and OR=3.04, 95% CI= 1.97–4.48) respectively). Being a Latin American refugee was equal in importance to traditional risk factors such as overweight and not taking regular exercise for long-term illness and ill health.     

重庆市都市区人中就业现状及变化趋势

都市区作为重庆经济的核心区域,随着经济的快速发展以及城市化进程的加快,正对人口产生巨大的聚集效应,而人口就业将成为一个十分突出的问题。因此,准确把握劳动力供求变动趋势十分重要。为此通过模型运算,对2000-2020年的都市区劳动年龄人口和劳动力的供求变动趋势进行了预测分析。     

论科学管理的生产力属性

生产力先进性的依据在于具有高效率、高效益、复合效应和可持续发展等基本属性。由于科学管理在现代生产力系统中是必不可少的重要构件,具有不可替代的五大功用,它事实上决定和促成了现代生产力四大先进特性的存在,因此笔者认为科学管理就是先进的生产力。     

Quantifying uncertainty in the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales

Summary.  A crucial issue in the current global warming debate is the effect of vegetation and soils on carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere. Vegetation can extract CO₂ through photosynthesis, but respiration, decay of soil organic matter and disturbance effects such as fire return it to the atmosphere. The balance of these processes is the net carbon flux. To estimate the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales, we address the statistical problem of inference for the sum of multiple outputs from a complex deterministic computer code whose input parameters are uncertain. The code is a process model which simulates the carbon dynamics of vegetation and soils, including the amount of carbon that is stored as a result of photosynthesis and the amount that is returned to the atmosphere through respiration. The aggregation of outputs corresponding to multiple sites and types of vegetation in a region gives an estimate of the total carbon flux for that region over a period of time. Expert prior opinions are elicited for marginal uncertainty about the relevant input parameters and for correlations of inputs between sites. A Gaussian process model is used to build emulators of the multiple code outputs and Bayesian uncertainty analysis is then used to propagate uncertainty in the input parameters through to uncertainty on the aggregated output. Numerical results are presented for England and Wales in the year 2000. It is estimated that vegetation and soils in England and Wales constituted a net sink of 7.55 Mt C (1 Mt C = 10¹² g of carbon) in 2000, with standard deviation 0.56 Mt C resulting from the sources of uncertainty that are considered.     

统筹城乡发展与完善农村土地流转制度的思考

针对中国农村土地流转不畅阻碍统筹城乡发展的现状,政府应从城乡两个方面完善土地流转制度,即建立与土地流转制度相关的制度体系,包括土地使用权市场、培育土地流转中介组织、集中使用农业补贴和以土地换保险等制度。为确保土地流转促进统筹城乡发展,实现城镇政府和进城务工农民的双赢,政府应对自身行为加以规范。     

提高我国科技成果向生产力转化的能力

运用技术经济理论,对我国科技成果转化存在障碍的原因即科技成果转化资金匮乏、企业技术市场参与度低、对技术的需求拉力不足、进口技术减少了对我国自身科技成果市场需求的空间等进行分析,并对提高我国科技成果向生产力转化的能力提出了对策建议。     

试论美术文化中的技术理性

无论从劳动产品的角度看,还是从社会的角度看,技术都是理性的表现;产品的生产过程,是一种技术展现的过程,即生产者的个性标记通过技术展现的过程,因此,技术本身也具有理性。理性的技术促进了人类社会的发展。     

河南农业经济结构调整对农业劳动力的挑战

河南是农业大省,要使河南农业进一步发展,农民收入进一步增加,河南农业经济必须进行结构调整。农业经济结构调整的主体是农业劳动力,而农业劳动力素质,特别是农业劳动力文化素质的高低则成为河南农业经济结构调整的关键。文中重点分析了河南省农业劳动力文化素质的现状及与农业经济结构调整要求的差距,最后提出了提高河南省农业劳动力文化素质的对策。