Developing a typology of the 'duty to work', as experienced by lay persons with musculoskeletal disorders

Musculoskeletal diagnoses account for the majority of cases of reduced work capacity. This article investigates lay persons' strategies in relation to work and musculoskeletal disorders. Twenty interviews were conducted and analysed using grounded theory. A typology of self-presentations was developed. The interviewees' self-presentations revealed a strong sense of a 'duty to work'. This sense of duty took four different forms, leading us to categorise persons expressing particular forms as workaholics, work manics, workhorses or relaxed workers. Relaxed workers seem to have the best prognosis for recovery as they had a confident self-agency and worked to fulfil their own needs rather than those of others. This was in contrast to work manics, with an uncertain self-agency and driven to work by others' needs. In conclusion, awareness of such linguistic forms as self-attributions and idiomatic phrases provides an opportunity to identify and talk about individual's self-agency and driving forces in the recovery process.     

The Impact of Taking Parental Leave on Fathers’ Participation In Childcare And Relationships With Children: Lessons from Sweden

In Sweden, government-mandated paid parental leave has been available to both mothers and fathers since 1974. By 2006, each parent had two non-transferable leave months and nine additional months to share. From the beginning, parental leave was presented as a policy designed to promote gender equality, with women and men having equal opportunities and responsibilities to contribute economically to the family and care for children. Sweden thus provides a unique setting to explore whether social policy can be an important instrument for changing the gender contract. Analysing survey data from 356 fathers working in large private companies, we found that the amount of parental leave days taken had positive effects on several aspects of fathers’ participation in childcare and on their satisfaction with contact with children, controlling for other factors contributing to fathers’ participation in childcare. Our findings suggest that the full potential of Sweden's parental leave policy for degendering the division of labour for childcare will not likely be met until fathers are strongly encouraged by social policy to take a more equal portion of parental leave.     

新冠疫情下停工期无薪休假制度探究

作为一种弹性工作方式,无薪休假通常运用于企业经营困难时期,以平衡劳资利益、稳定劳动关系,部分企业在此次新冠疫情停工期间进行了无薪休假的尝试。无薪休假具体表现为“缩短工时并相应地减少工资”,其在我国是一个新兴事物。若要引入“无薪休假”有必要厘清无薪休假实施的基础,考量我国引入无薪休假的必要性,并在考察域外无薪休假经验做法的基础上,结合实际情况构建我国无薪休假制度,重点在于劳资协商、最低工资保障与劳动监察等方面的规制。     

The effect of paid maternity leave on low-income families' welfare use in the US

Despite the critical role that paid maternity leave can assume in the economic lives of low-income families, research to date has paid insufficient attention to whether paid maternity leave reduces welfare use for low-income families. Using the Current Population Survey (CPS) March Supplement 2007–2014 with the difference-in-difference (DiD) technique, this study finds a significant policy effect of paid maternity leave on reducing the probability of using Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), TANF benefit amounts and TANF participation length. This study confirms that paid maternity leave is likely to prevent low-income families from using welfare during job interruptions stemming from the birth of a child. Given that TANF is often associated with negative political and social connotations, paid maternity leave can be used as an important social policy to improve economic security as well as offer empowerment in overall social standing for low-income mothers. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings in a broader context of American welfare states.     

Child poverty and family policies across eighteen wealthy Western democracies

While a good deal has been written about the potential value of family policies in reducing child poverty in Western countries, few cross-national quantitative studies have been carried out on this topic. This article uses ordinary least squares regression analysis on panel data from 18 Western democracies from 1987 to 2007 to test the significance of family policies and other welfare policies on child poverty rates. It extends existing research on the relationship between family policies and child poverty by utilizing a broader data-set in terms of time, countries, and child poverty measures. The main finding is that all three of the main family policies studied – child cash and tax benefits, paid parenting leaves, and public support for childcare – correlate significantly with lower child poverty rates. Somewhat surprisingly, disability and sickness insurance also correlates significantly with lower child poverty in nearly every model and test. These findings provide valuable insight for future research and policy-making in the area of child poverty.     

Intention to Leave the Profession: Welfare Social Workers Compared to Health Care and Community Social Workers in Israel

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to compare specific work related-factors (personal factor: length of work experience; structural factors: personal subjection to violence and fear of being subjected to violence; and psychological factors: professional quality of life—compassion satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue) between welfare social workers (SWs) (n = 200) and health care and community SWs (n = 173). Furthermore, since the issue of turnover among SWs has important implications for the provision and programming of social services, the study also aimed to assess the relationship between these factors and SW intention to leave the profession. For the purpose of this study, online questionnaires were distributed to SWs working at social agencies and services. The findings suggest that the two categories of SWs showed a similarity with regard to the association between the personal and structural factors and intention to leave the profession. However, with regard to the psychological factors, the components of professional quality of life were found to operate differently in each category of SWs. It is suggested that future research examine other work-related factors and explore the intention to leave the profession among other social work specializations and employment sectors.     

Poking a sleeping bear: the challenge of organizational recruitment for controversial topics

ABSTRACT

Researchers often approach employers to investigate employees’ work and family experiences. Organizational willingness to grant access to employees can vary, especially when the research topic is seen as controversial or contentious for the employer. This paper explores this methodological challenge using a research example from Manitoba, Canada, which explored the use of parental leave by male employees and the impact of managerial attitudes and corporate culture on usage. Sixty large employers were recruited with only seven of those organizations agreeing to participate. In this paper, the reasons organizations gave for declining to participate and the implications of their decisions for the research are examined. Although the final sample included 905 managers and employees, participating organizations tended to be employee-focused and family-friendly employers. Organizations declined participation for a variety of reasons: avoiding raising the issue with unions, awareness that their policies unfairly benefited female leave takers, and simply not seeing the relevance of a topic relating to men’s work–family experiences. A dialogue often absent from the literature, it is important to understand how employers can limit researchers’ access to employees on controversial topics. The existence of such barriers suggests alternative avenues to recruit participants directly when topics are contentious for employers.     

Is money the main reason mothers return to work after childbearing?

Women’s reasons for returning to work after childbearing are complex, often including a mix of financial and other reasons related to their preferences, choices and constraints regarding employment; various qualitative studies have explored this decision-making process. This paper also considers how these decisions about returning to work are made, but uses quantitative techniques to analyse how reasons for return to work vary with factors such as women’s timing of return to work, what types of jobs they had previously worked in, or returned to, and what type of leave they used. This enables an examination of which women feel more constrained in their labour market options by returning to work sooner than preferred, and also their reasons for returning. Analysis is based on the 2005 Parental Leave in Australia Survey, a survey nested in the Wave 1.5 collection of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Mothers had children aged between 15 and 29 months at this time, and 56 per cent of these mothers had returned to work.     

A Qualitative Analysis of College Women's Leaving Processes in Abusive Relationships

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed the process of leaving an abusive dating relationship utilizing a qualitative design. Methods: Participants included 123 college women in abusive dating relationships who participated at the beginning and end of a 10-week academic quarter. Results: Qualitative content analyses were used to analyze the transcribed responses to an open-ended question about women's leaving processes over the interim period. A variety of categories and themes emerged for women in different stages of the leaving process, consistent with the Transtheoretical Model of Change and Investment Model. Data also underscored women's lack of acknowledgment, minimization, and normalization of abuse. Conclusions: These data demonstrate the importance of dating violence intervention and prevention programming on college campuses and offer information that may be useful to college health providers who assist women in abusive dating relationships.