Saturday 31 March 2018

Turns Out Spies Are Above the Law

an article by Theodore Stone for Rights Info (Human Rights News, Views & Info)



If there’s one thing we know about human rights and the law, it’s that no one is above it, right? Turns out, that’s not quite true.

The government has recently revealed that agents of The Security Service, more famously known as MI5, are allowed to carry out criminal activity within the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, has published a previously secret order on the governance of crimes committed by the Service. The order, known as the ‘Third Direction’, which dates back to 2014, instructs the Investigatory Powers Commission to oversee “security service participation in criminality”.

This is the first time the government has acknowledged that guidance exists to regulate this form of activity within the UK. However, the guidance concerning when British spies can commit crimes, and how far they can go, remains confidential.

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There are many links to further information.



With a drop in the number of suicides in prison, are prisons becoming safer?

an article by Graham Duncan for the Centre for Mental Health’s February Newsletter

In 2016 there were 120 apparent suicides in English and Welsh prisons, the highest number ever recorded. Suicides had been rising year on year up to this point, with 84 in 2014 and 95 in 2015. So the news in 2017 that the number of prisoners who had apparently died by suicide had dropped to 77 was good news and welcomed.

Seemingly, something was happening in the prison estate to address the dramatic rise in suicide deaths and one hopes that this can be sustained and further reduce the tragedy of prison suicide. Does this reduction in suicide amongst prisons mean that prisons are becoming safer places? Possibly, but not all the news is good news.

Any suicide is one too many and therefore unacceptable. We should work towards achieving zero suicides. But suicides in prison are, and I use this phrase guardedly, relatively rare events. They are of course ‘a’ barometer of prison safety, but as relatively rare events they are probably not the best barometer. In the region of two thirds of English and Welsh prisons had no recorded suicide deaths in 2017. One prison (HMP Nottingham) is reported as having had six.

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Attitudes towards immigration in an ageing society: Demographic evidence from Japan

a column by Hiroyuki Nakata for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Many advanced economies are facing the twin challenges of an ageing population and public hostility towards immigration. This column studies the impact of demographics on attitudes towards immigration in Japan, and the effectiveness of information campaigns explaining the benefits of immigration. It finds that information campaigns are effective in improving attitudes towards immigration, especially amongst women. Deep generational gaps in attitudes towards immigration may be caused by younger men in particular viewing immigrants as potential competitors.

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You Can Help People Without Trying to ‘Fix’ Them

a post by Kathryn Brown Ramsperger for YourTango.com [via World of Psychology]

You can be helpful, without being a “fixer”

If I had a title, it would be “The Fixer.”

It’s why I write and coach, and it’s probably what most people would say if you asked them to describe me. Even my communication business had the motto, “Creative solutions to the world’s communication challenges.”

I prided myself on helping people solve their problems. Most of the time I could help. I even helped people solve their problems while I was in deep grief or anxiety myself. Even coaches have their moments of deep emotion. I’m human just like you, in addition to being a coach, mom, entrepreneur, and award-winning novelist.

Yet when I reached a certain age and career level, I started juggling too many plates. I had to begin to pay more attention to myself for a little while – or my physical body would fail. I had to create boundaries. I had to say ‘no.’ I had to stop answering every cry for help.

Recently, I had a setback, and I went about researching my fixing addiction.

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Council tax is a farce – it’s time for a real property tax

a post by Laura Gardiner for the Resolution Foundation blog

It’s an open secret that council tax is a dog’s dinner. It was conjured up in the early 1990s as a half-way house between the hated ‘poll tax’ and the old domestic rates system, meaning those in top-band properties have much lower tax rates than those in cheaper homes. In England and Scotland, it is based on valuations that are 27 years out of date. And it allows local authorities with the highest property wealth to charge the lowest rates of all.

The result is that council tax only weakly relates to property values, and is therefore highly regressive. On average those living in £100,000 homes pay around five times the tax rate of those living in £1 million mansions. And a fifteen-minute walk in South London can take you from a £2.1 million flat with a £700 council tax bill to a £400,000 flat with a council tax bill 66 per cent higher. The ‘property tax’ label council tax gets given is a farce – it looks far more like the poll tax it replaced.

So why isn’t council tax a major political battleground? Politicians may be wary of touching it given it is used to finance local government. Or they may be scarred by botched revaluation attempts. Or maybe it reflects the national mood where wealth – of which property is a major part – is much less often discussed than incomes despite being huge and much more unequal.

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Life Is Better When We Focus on What We Appreciate, Not What’s Lacking

a post by Nicole Hind for the Tiny Buddha blog


    “Wisdom is merely the movement from fighting life to embracing it.” ~Rasheed Ogunlaru

Recently a friend told me a story about taking her seven-year-old to the circus. It was a wonderful mother-daughter outing. Just the two of them, no pesky brothers or dad tagging along and getting in the way.

They had the best time. They watched acrobats and clowns and all manner of brand new delights, gasping at one another gleefully at every new feat. They bathed in each other’s company without interruption, laughing and having fun. Literally all the things.

After this magical afternoon, as the two of them were leaving, my friend’s daughter spied the merchandise stand and wanted her mum to buy her a plastic fairy wand. My friend gently but firmly said no.

In the car on the way home, her daughter was quiet.

“What did you like the most? What was your favorite thing today?” my friend asked her.

She was sulking. “I’m just thinking about the wand I didn’t get.”

I’m just thinking about the wand I didn’t get.

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I still think, sometimes, of the exam that I didn’t pass.


Friday 30 March 2018

Talking heresy about ‘quality’ early childhood education and care for children in poverty

an article by Donald Simpson (Teeside University, UK), Sandra Loughran (no affiliation given), Eunice Lumsden (University of Northampton, UK), Philip Mazzocco (The Ohio University at Mansfield, USA), Rory McDowall Clarke (University of Worcester, UK) and Christian Winterbottom (University of North Florida, USA) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 26 Number 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

This paper considers the socially progressive function of a model of ‘quality’ early childhood education and care widely prescribed to address child poverty across England and the USA.

Ubiquitous, it is imbued with a sense of objectivity, secureness and practicality.

We question these foundations.

Then using data from practitioners in both countries, we contrast expectations about this model of ECEC as an unmitigated good building resilience to ‘break cycles of disadvantage’, with the everyday experiences and frustrations of practitioners pursuing it.

Their data suggest this model of ‘quality’ has limitations and some heresy is required about this policy orthodoxy.


Incentivising Specific Combinations of Subjects – Does It Make Any Difference to University Access?

an article by Jake Anders, Morag Henderson, Vanessa Moulton, Alice Sullivan (UCL Institute of Education, London, UK) published in National Institute Economic Review Volume 243 Issue 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

A major part of the 2010–15 UK government’s education reforms in England was a focus on the curriculum that pupils study from ages 14–16. Most high profile was the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure for schools, incentivising study of “subjects the Russell Group identifies as key for university study” (Gibb, 2011).

However, there does not appear to be good quantitative evidence about the importance of studying such a set of subjects, per se.

This paper sets out to analyse this question, considering whether otherwise similar young people who study specific sets of subjects (full set for EBacc-eligibility, two or more sciences, foreign languages, applied subjects) to age 16 have different probabilities of entering university, and specifically a high-status university.

It compares results from regression modelling and propensity score matching, taking advantage of rich survey data from a recent cohort of young people in England.

We find that conditional differences in university entry attributable to subject choice are, at most, small.

Full text (PDF 16pp)


8 Tips For Dealing With Painful Emotions

a post by Rachel Fintzy for the Contentment & Happiness blog [via World of Psychology]



Into every life some rain must fall.

As smug as this cliché may sound, it’s true. Even if we’ve been blessed with the “happy” gene, we cannot avoid feeling emotionally uncomfortable from time to time.

We feel things for a reason. Our emotional pain carries a message.

If someone close to us passes away, it’s natural for us to grieve and feel sad.

If we receive a dire medical diagnosis, we’re likely to feel anxiety.

When something important to us doesn’t go our way, we may feel disappointed or angry.

To try and push down our feelings in such (and many other) instances would be akin to taking the battery out of our home’s fire alarm if it goes off, rather than checking out the reason why the alarm is blaring.

Dealing with emotional pain often entails that we weather the painful feelings. Sometimes the intensity or duration of our emotions can become detrimental. In other cases, what we’re feeling is just par for the course. In any event, tolerating an upsetting emotion can teach us a lot about ourselves while also giving us a chance to practice healthy self-care.

No matter how loving our family and friends may be, we are the only person who has been, is, and will be with us 24/7, for our entire life. So, it behooves us to learn effective self-nurturing skills in preparation for an emotional storm.

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Thursday 29 March 2018

Housing policy: Learning from the past and looking to the future

a column by David Miles for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

The housing market faces major challenges in both the short and long run in terms of affordability, price variability, ownership structures, financing, and their impacts upon wider macroeconomic stability. This column summarises a conference on lessons for the future of housing, jointly organised by the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis at Imperial College Business School and CEPR.

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Wednesday 28 March 2018

Not quite pay growth party-time yet

a post by Stephen Clarke for the Resolution Foundation blog

11 Symptoms That Show You May Be Depressed | Robert ...

Today [21 March 2018] the ONS published the latest pay growth figures covering the year to January. These, along with yesterday’s inflation data, suggest that the squeeze which has dragged down real pay for twelve months is finally over.

However, at the risk of sounding Eeyore-ish, pay growth is likely to remain subdued for the rest of the year, if not longer. Nominal pay growth is currently running at 2.6 per cent and, although inflation is falling, if it settles at 2 per cent then the best we can look forward to is pay growth of around 0.6 per cent this year.

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Forced migration, human trafficking, and human security

an article by Farhan Navid Yousaf (International Islamic University, Pakistan) Current Sociology Volume 66 Issue 2 (March 2018)

Abstract

This article situates forced migration amid intersections of burgeoning human insecurities that force increasing numbers of people to leave their homes and become susceptible to exploitation.

Drawing upon data on trafficking in Pakistan, the author argues that marginalized groups often go through multiple migrations that can include episodes of trafficking for sex, labor, or other purposes.

The disjuncture between policies and realities on the ground, and the trend of current interventions do little to address the human security of these migrants.

The article emphasizes that the human security frame provides a more nuanced human rights-based approach to analyze this form of migration and address the root causes and risks associated with the forced displacement of people.


Can Artificial Intelligence Predict Success with OCD Treatment?

a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology blog

getting to know your three brains

In some interesting research on obsessive-compulsive disorder, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles have developed an artificial intelligence system that predicts whether patients with OCD will benefit from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).

The February 2018 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used a functional MRI machine, or fMRI, to scan the brains of 42 people with OCD before and after four weeks of intensive, daily cognitive behavioral therapy. Researchers specifically analyzed how different areas of the brain activate in sync with each other – a property called functional connectivity – during a period of rest.

The researchers then fed the participants’ fMRI data and symptom scores into a computer and used machine learning (that’s where the artificial intelligence comes in) to predict which people would respond well to treatment. The machine-learning program demonstrated 70 percent accuracy. It also correctly predicted participants’ final scores on a symptoms assessment within a small margin of error, regardless of how they responded to the treatment.

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Addressing international law in action

a post by Jo Wojtkowski fof the OUP [Oxford University Press] blog


New Zealand Representatives at the International Court of Justice in the Hague’ by Archives New Zealand from New Zealand. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not”
Albert Einstein

The 112th American Society of International Law’s annual meeting (4th-7th April 2018) will focus on the constitutive and often contentious nature of ‘International Law in Practice’. Practice not only reifies the law, but how it is understood, applied, and enforced in practice shapes its meaning and impacts the generation of future international rules.

In preparation for this year’s meeting, we have asked some key authors to share their thoughts on international law in action.

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Job substitution does not equal job disappearance: Employment and education policies in the era of AI and robotics

a column by Keisuke Kondo for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Technological innovations, while providing many efficiencies, have started to substitute some jobs. This column discusses how individuals, firms, and policymakers can interact in order to best utilise human capital for valuable work, while AI and robots are used to automate those jobs that are less desirable or where labour shortages currently exist.

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Tuesday 27 March 2018

We Can’t Do Everything, But We Can Do More Than We Think

a post by Colleen Haggerty for the Tiny Buddha blog


“There are plenty of obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.” ~Ralph Marston

I was sitting in a self-improvement course listening to the facilitator’s instructions. “I want you to come up with a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal,” she announced. “This needs to be a stretch, something where you really put skin in the game. You have seven weeks to reach this goal.”

The rest of her instructions trailed off as I thought about which area of my life I wanted to improve. I overheard a few of my classmates talking to each other about their lofty physical goals. My body contracted when I heard them talking. I shrunk into my shame.

I couldn’t even run a 5k, I thought. I had lost my leg in a car accident thirty years previous and while there were many things I could do, running was not one of them. These days just walking was hard.

During our break, I found a place to be alone and take counsel with myself. I felt myself resisting the obvious goal. I sat down and shut my eyes. Can I do it? Can I walk a mile?

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Are active labour market policies effective in activating and integrating low-skilled individuals? An international comparison

an article by Verónica Escudero (International Labour Organization (ILO), Switzerland; Paris School of Economics (PSE), France) published in IZA Journal of Labor Policy Volume 7 Article 4 (March 2018)

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in improving labour market outcomes, especially of low-skilled individuals, by means of a pooled cross-country and time series database for 31 advanced countries during the period 1985–2010.

The analysis includes aspects of the delivery system to see how the performance of ALMPs is affected by different implementation characteristics. Among the notable results, the paper finds that ALMPs matter at the aggregate level, but mostly through an appropriate management and implementation.

In this regard, sufficient allocation of resources to programme administration and policy continuity appear to be particularly important.

Moreover, start-up incentives and measures aimed at vulnerable populations are more effective than other ALMPs in terms of reducing unemployment and increasing employment.

Interestingly, the positive effects of these policies seem to be particularly beneficial for the low skilled.

JEL Classification: J08, E24, H5, J68, D78

Full text (PDF 26pp)


Why Emotional Growth is Scary: 3 Ways To Defeat Your Fear Of Change

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [via World of Psychology’s Best of Our Blogs]




Emotional growth does not come easily to most of us.

Some growth actually happens naturally in response to the passage of time, the development of our brain or challenging life events. But in most cases, we do have to fight for our forward steps.

Truth be told, real emotional growth is quite similar to building physical muscles. First, we must decide to purposely build ourself up, and then we must engage in an activity that’s challenging and uncomfortable for us in order to grow.

There are all kinds of ways in which being challenged or uncomfortable makes us naturally want to pull back and take comfort in the familiar (our old ways), even if it means giving up or going backward.

Part of the discomfort we experience as we grow comes from the fact that the more emotionally strong we get, and the more we begin to feel differently and act differently, the more it can upset the important people in our life. They may react with surprise or resentment when we do or say something unexpected, even if it’s a sign of increased strength and health.

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How I’ve Learned to Deal With Anger

a post by Billy Burgess for the Happy People blog

How I’ve Learned to Deal With Anger

I’ve always been fond of the precept “Do unto others as you’d have them do to you.” Being phrased so simply, it sounds pretty easy to achieve. I’d be a liar, though, to claim pious adherence to this bit of sage advice.

Nevertheless, “Do unto others…” has often been helpful when working through personal conflicts or moral dilemmas – for example, in my dealings with anger.

Growing up, a few people close to me were particularly prone to angry outbursts. What triggered the anger wasn’t always obvious and sometimes the content of the aggression didn’t seem to have that much to do with me. But these sorts of observations were never very comforting in the heat of the moment.

Not many of us are able to be blasé in the face of anger, especially if the angry person is someone we see all the time or whose respect we hold dear. Throughout childhood and adolescence, I usually handled the frequent run-ins with anger by making myself small and sheepish – crying, apologising and hoping for the quickest path to resolution. Then, once the emotional tornado calmed down, I’d never mention it again.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to realise this isn’t the healthiest response to anger, but I doubt things would have turned out much better had I instead fought fire with fire – and being attacked certainly incited feelings of annoyance, displeasure and hostility in me (which, according the Oxford Dictionary, are the three core elements of anger).

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Please note that the blog post ends with a short advert for training in anger management at Happy (www.happy.co.uk). I have not done any of the psychological/emotional learning at Happy but I was more than happy about the software training I did with the company some years ago.


The crisis in modern masculinity

an article by Pankaj Mishra published in the Guardian


Luridly retro ideas of what it means to be a man have caused a dangerous rush of testosterone around the world – from Modi’s Hindu supremacism to Trump’s nuclear brinkmanship

On the evening of 30 January 1948, five months after the independence and partition of India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was walking to a prayer meeting at his temporary home in New Delhi when he was shot three times, at point-blank range. He collapsed and died instantly. His assassin, originally feared to be Muslim, turned out to be Nathuram Godse, a Hindu Brahmin from western India. Godse, who made no attempt to escape, said in court that he felt compelled to kill Gandhi since the leader with his womanly politics was emasculating the Hindu nation – in particular, with his generosity to Muslims. Godse is a hero today in an India utterly transformed by Hindu chauvinists – an India in which Mein Kampf is a bestseller, a political movement inspired by European fascists dominates politics and culture, and Narendra Modi, a Hindu supremacist accused of mass murder, is prime minister. For all his talk of Hindu genius, Godse flagrantly plagiarised the fictions of European ethnic-racial chauvinists and imperialists. For the first years of his life he was raised as a girl, with a nose ring, and later tried to gain a hard-edged masculine identity through Hindu supremacism. Yet for many struggling young Indians today Godse represents, along with Adolf Hitler, a triumphantly realised individual and national manhood.

The moral prestige of Gandhi’s murderer is only one sign among many of what seems to be a global crisis of masculinity. Luridly retro ideas of what it means to be a strong man have gone mainstream even in so-called advanced nations. In January Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian self-help writer who laments that “the west has lost faith in masculinity” and denounces the “murderous equity doctrine” espoused by women, was hailed in the New York Times as “the most influential public intellectual in the western world right now”.

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Monday 26 March 2018

Oil prices do not affect inflation expectations after all

a column by Cristina Conflitti and Riccardo Cristadoro for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

A recent strand of literature suggests that the decline of long-term inflation expectations observed between 2014 and 2016 was partly due to the fall in oil prices. Using euro area data, this column argues that this presumed relationship is false. Lower global demand prompted a positive correlation between oil prices and the real economy, while perceived constraints on monetary policy action resulted in a positive correlation between short- and long-term inflation expectations. These two phenomena explain the emergence of the apparent direct relationship.

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The role of trade unions in supporting victims of domestic violence in the workplace

an article by Gemma Wibberley, Carol Jones and Alison Hollinrake (University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK) and Tony Bennett (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) published in Industrial Relations Journal Volume 49 Issue 1 (January 2018)

Abstract

This article explores the effects that domestic violence has on victims in their workplace and how trade unions respond. Focusing on the experiences of union representatives, the research highlights the support offered to victims, the barriers representatives face and the under‐acknowledged personal impact that these cases can have upon representatives.

Full text (PDF 17pp)


The Wounds of Rejection Heal With Self-Love and Self-Awareness

a post by Vironika Tugaleva for the Tiny Bhudda blog


“There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.” 
~Laurie Halse Anderson

It began in elementary school. I was a chubby immigrant with a thick accent and hand-me-down clothes. I so badly wanted the other kids to like me, and I had no idea why everything I said and did seemed to push them away.

My jokes and comments would trigger awkward silences or ridicule – especially in groups. Those moments were traumatizing, but they were also confusing. How could I make them like me?

As I learned English, I found some company in the schoolyard, but I continued to be bullied for my weight, my clothes, my face that turned red so easily. It didn’t help when I started going through puberty at age nine, younger than every other girl in my class.


Loss of skill and labor market fluctuations

an article by Etienne Lalé (University of Bristol, UK; IZA, Germany) published in Labour Economics Volume 50 (March 2018)

Highlights
  • We build a stochastic search-matching model with skill accumulation and skill loss.
  • Agents have perfect foresight over the dynamics of the cross-sectional skill distribution.
  • Skill heterogeneity dampens the fluctuations of labor market variables.
  • Pro-cyclical increases in the rate of skill loss amplify labor market fluctuations.
  • Compositional changes in the unemployment pool play little role in these results.
Abstract

In this paper, we examine how skill loss can contribute to aggregate labor market fluctuations in the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model. We develop a computationally tractable stochastic version of that model wherein workers accumulate skills on the job and face a risk of skill loss after job destruction.

We find that skill heterogeneity dampens the fluctuations of labor market variables, and that introducing skill loss offsets this effect and generates additional amplification.

The main forces driving this result are pro-cyclical increases in the probability of skill loss during unemployment: these provide incentives to post proportionally more vacancies during upturns by raising the surplus from employing high-skill workers.

Compositional changes in the unemployment pool, on the other hand, play a negligible role for empirically plausible rates of skill depreciation, which imply a relatively slow process compared to the duration of unemployment spells.

JEL classification: E24, E32, J24, J63, J64

Full text (HTML)


Socialization resources theory and newcomers’ work engagement: A new pathway to newcomer socialization

an article by Alan M. Saks (University of Toronto, Canada) and Jamie A. Gruman (University of Guelph, Canada) published in Career Development International Volume 23 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
Although work engagement has become an important topic in management, relatively little attention has been given to newcomers’ work engagement in the socialization literature. The purpose of this paper is to explain how newcomers’ work engagement can fluctuate during the first year of organizational entry and the role of organizational socialization in developing and maintaining high levels of newcomers’ work engagement.

Design/methodology/approach
A review of the socialization literature indicates that uncertainty reduction theory has been the basis of research on socialization tactics and newcomer information-seeking both of which function by providing newcomers with information to reduce uncertainty. Socialization resources theory is used to develop a new pathway to newcomer socialization which focuses on providing newcomers with resources during the first year of organizational entry and socialization.

Findings
The uncertainty reduction pathway to newcomer socialization is narrow and limited because it primarily focuses on minimizing and reducing the negative effects of job demands rather than on providing newcomers with resources that are necessary to facilitate work engagement and socialization.

Practical implications
Organizations can use newcomers’ work engagement maintenance curves to map and track fluctuations in newcomers’ work engagement during the first year of organizational entry and they can conduct an audit of socialization resources to determine what resources are required to develop and maintain high levels of newcomers’ work engagement.

Originality/value
This paper describes newcomer work engagement maintenance curves and explains how socialization resources can be used to develop and maintain high levels of newcomers’ work engagement. A model of a new pathway to newcomer socialization is developed in which socialization resources, personal resources, and job demands influence newcomers’ work engagement and socialization outcomes.


Playing the Victim: How the Victim Mentality is Hindering Your Sobriety

a post by Kelsey Brown for the World of Psychology blog

upset businessman

Do you often feel hopeless, like you’ve failed so many times that it’s not even worth trying anymore? Do you frequently dwell on all the mistakes you’ve made and all the relationships you’ve lost? Maybe you just feel like your life will never be meaningful so there’s no use trying to be anything or do anything.

If thoughts like this are controlling your life, you may be using self-victimization to cope with issues you feel unable to manage.

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To be a mother and a scientist

a post by Magdolna Hargittai for the OUP (Oxford University Press) blog


Laboratory by jarmoluk. Public domain via Pixabay.      

Years ago, while researching my book Women Scientists I asked famous women scientists to name the greatest challenge in their life. Almost without exception, they noted the difficulty of adjusting their family obligations and their work. Chemist Rita Cornforth, wife and colleague of the Nobel laureate John W. Cornforth, said: “I found it easier to put chemistry out of my mind when I was at home than to put our children out of my mind when I was in the lab.” The famous MIT professor Mildred Dresselhaus, often called “the queen of carbon science,” complained that with four children, it was impossible to get to work before 8:30 a.m., but her supervisor wanted her to be at work by 8 a.m. “The people who were judging me were all bachelors.” Similar examples in my interviews abound. I am not unfamiliar with this issue myself, having been a practicing scientist and mother of two (now adult) children.

It bothered me that so few women make it to the top of their profession in most STEM fields, so I have worked to spotlight these women and to provide role models for those young women who are considering science as a profession for themselves, but who are apprehensive about the potential sacrifices they might have to make in their family lives. When I talked about the difficulties with the first female full professor of chemistry of the University of Tokyo, I asked her if she could wish for anything—like in a fairy tale—what it would be? She hesitated, but after clarifying that she could ask for anything, however outrageous, she revealed her dream of having a family to accompany her (most brilliant) career in science.


Sunday 25 March 2018

Histories of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century immigration and our time

an article by Ranabir Samaddar (Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, India) published in Current Sociology Volume 66 Issue 2 (March 2018)

Abstract

Recent studies on welfare state and schemes suggest a different way of understanding modern governance in which the study of the nation is not at the centre of political understanding. Instead, of significance in such studies is the inadequately explored history of governing a mobile, unruly world of population flows.

These works have given us a sense of the hidden histories of conflicts, desperate survivals, and new and old networks. Studies of hunger in the nineteenth century, of itinerant movements, transportations of coolies, spread of famines, shipping of children and adult women, trafficking in sex and labour, and pieces of welfare legislation to cope with this great infamy tell us how actually we have arrived at our own time of subject formation.

This is certainly different from conventional nation-centred histories.

Working within this new strand of history writing, labour historians have tried to recognise the political significance of labour migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Their works suggest a different way of writing the history of the nation form in the last two centuries, where the extra-nationalist narrative of mobile labour constitutes a different universe.

Through all these studies two issues have come closer as marks of modern time – on one hand mixed up, messy, population flows, provoking desperate governmental responses, on the other hand innovations at a furious pace in humanitarian methods, functions, institutions and principles.

Modern humanitarianism had to combine the old techniques with new ones of care, protection, information gathering, interference, intervention and invention of a skewed theory of sovereignty, a one-sided theory of responsibility, and the gigantic humanitarian machines which would be likened to the transnational corporations (TNCs).

In practical terms this means today managing the societies which produce the obdurate refugees and migrants to stop them from leaving the shores, to keep them within the national territorial confines, and eventually to manage societies in ‘an enlightened way’. Managing moving population groups became the deus ex machina of modern governmentality.

This will not be a straightforward history, as national, gender-related, race, and several other factors contributed to the making of a hugely heterogeneous labour market. The subjectivities produced in that process have contributed to the contentious history of our time.


10 Health Benefits of Daily Exercise

a post by Suzanne Kane for the World of Psychology blog


“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.” – A. A. Milne

You don’t need to knock yourself out at the gym each day to reap the many health benefits of daily exercise. With simple planning and a determination to engage in a healthier lifestyle, you can add easy stints of exercise to your schedule without breaking too much of a sweat. Best of all, you may realize some of these 10 health benefits of daily exercise.

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Hazel&rsquo's comment
If you are anything like me you will have read the above paragraph and thought “yes, but” and not gone on to read anything more.
It’s all good stuff but if someone would send me a bucket of motivation I might, just might, start doing something tomorrow. Not today.


We fear robots at work, but robotic jobs for humans are awful too

an article by Gaby Hinsliff published in the Guardian

It’s not just the crummy jobs. Even in workplaces where judgment used to count, people are treated like machines

Employees standing under clocks in Canary Whaef
Autonomy or automatons – the dividing line in the modern workplace.
Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Imagine being allowed to take as much paid holiday from work as you liked. All the time in the world, or at least as much as your guilty conscience will allow. A friend has just been offered this juicy-sounding perk by her company, and we mused over just how far it was reasonable to push it. A whole August off sounds tempting, but maybe it would be smarter to spin things out over a succession of long weekends. Or even to keep it as a get-out-of-jail-free card, deployed in case of burnout or rainy Mondays when you just can’t face getting out of bed.

Except none of that will happen, of course. My conscientious friend won’t take a day over what she took before, if that; and the same is true for most people where unlimited holiday has been pioneered (Netflix and Virgin were early adopters). If anything, people often end up taking less time off, not more. Nobody wants to be singled out as the office slacker, so people try to take roughly what everyone else in their team seems to be taking – only the average gets dragged down, by people hungry for promotion, or lacking anyone to cover for them, or otherwise unable to drag themselves away.

In other words, peer pressure does exactly the same job that strict holiday policies used to do, except this way everyone feels slightly better about it. Sometimes, just the knowledge that they could skive if they wanted is enough to stop people wanting to skive at all. It’s nice to feel trusted, treated like a grownup.

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What to Do If You’re Not Passionate About Anything

a post by Jacky Exton for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” ~Unknown

I’ve always believed in the benefits of having a healthy, strong body.

I admit, as a young adult my healthiness was driven predominantly by fear. Fear of being fat. Fear of being sick. Fear of missing out at events (aka FOMO).

So, I went to the gym, I ran, I dieted, I had strict rules, and if I followed them I’d be okay… or so believed.

From my daughter’s perspective, I wasn’t much fun to live with. She preferred reading and dabbled in ballet and horse riding. But the gym? Definitely not. Running? Hell no!

So, I did what any fear-driven mom would do. I exerted my will. I forced her to participate. Because I knew better! Didn’t I?

I coerced, cajoled, and even threatened.

In my limited view, she was simply being lazy. Nothing that a bit of “discipline” couldn’t fix, right?

She’d eventually do it. Begrudgingly. Just to get me off her back. And, no surprise, she hated it (and, probably, me too).

Continue reading PLEASE

Although being passionate about anything in that breath-taking way went out of the door with the mood-levelling medication I realised only on Friday last that when I haven't done any painting for a while I get really frustrated with life. And it was only helping children paint some wooden crosses for Easter!


What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?

an article by Damian Carrington published in the Guardian

The air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all rely on biodiversity, but right now it is in crisis – because of us. What does this mean for our future and can we stop it?

 Bugs illustration
            Bugs are the base of the many wild food chains
that support ecosystems. Illustration: Frances Marriott

What is biodiversity?

It is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions. If that sounds bewilderingly broad, that’s because it is. Biodiversity is the most complex feature of our planet and it is the most vital. “Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity,” says Prof David Macdonald, at Oxford University.

The term was coined in 1985 – a contraction of “biological diversity” – but the huge global biodiversity losses now becoming apparent represent a crisis equalling – or quite possibly surpassing – climate change.

More formally, biodiversity is comprised of several levels, starting with genes, then individual species, then communities of creatures and finally entire ecosystems, such as forests or coral reefs, where life interplays with the physical environment. These myriad interactions have made Earth habitable for billions of years.

A more philosophical way of viewing biodiversity is this: it represents the knowledge learned by evolving species over millions of years about how to survive through the vastly varying environmental conditions Earth has experienced. Seen like that, experts warn, humanity is currently “burning the library of life”.

Continue reading and be terrified.


Evidence based policy making in an age of austerity

an article by Peter Wells (CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University, UK) published in People, Place and Policy Volume 11 Issue 3 (2018)

Abstract

This paper reflects on the course of evidence based policy making (EBPM) in the United Kingdom over the last ten years: from the New Labour Government through the Coalition Government to the post 2015 Conservative Governments. A central focus is how the politics of austerity have shaped EBPM.

Hayek’s theory of spontaneous ordering is introduced to examine whether EBPM since 2010 has taken a distinct course linked to the wider statecraft of austerity politics, the reduction in the role of the state and the preferencing of market based solutions.

The paper finds the state or a ‘made order’ of EBPM to be resilient but under threat not just from austerity but also the rise of post-truth politics.

Full text (PDF 9pp)


OCD and Identity

a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology blog

obsessive-compulsive-disorder

I’ve previously written about some of the factors involved in recovery avoidance in OCD. Often those with the disorder are fearful of giving up rituals they believe keep them and their loved ones “safe.” Even though people with OCD usually realize their compulsions do not make sense, the terror that comes with losing what they perceive as control over their lives can be so real that they choose not to fully engage in exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. They are afraid of getting better, of living a life without the “safety net” of OCD.

There are those with obsessive-compulsive disorder who compare how they feel to Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages (those with OCD) side with their captors/abusers (the OCD). While I’d known those with OCD might find it hard to leave their disorder behind, it had never occurred to me that they might not want to rid themselves of obsessive-compulsive disorder and all it entails. To me it is so counter-intuitive that I never even considered it. Why would anyone want to live with an illness that robs them of everything they hold dear?

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Saturday 24 March 2018

Identifying Schools With High Usage and High Loss of Newly Qualified Teachers

an article by Sam Sims and Rebecca Allen (UCL Institute of Education, London, UK) published in UCL Institute of Education. Volume 243 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

In England, teacher shortages have worsened in recent years and one contributor is the declining rates of retention among newly qualified teachers (NQTs).

We employ a method developed in the health-statistics literature to identify schools that both recruit an unusually high level of NQTs and lose an unusually high level of NQTs from the profession.

We show that this small group of schools, which are likely characterised by poor working conditions, are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of attrition from the teaching profession. This has a material effect on overall teacher shortages and comes at a high cost to taxpayers.

Policy solutions, including improving the flow of information to NQTs to help them avoid such schools, are discussed.

JEL classification: I21, D82, J45, J63

Hazel’s comment
If NQTs avoid these schools will they not fall further behind? Would it not be a more viable option to improve the schools?
Please note that I have only read the abstract to this article, it is possible that school improvement is suggested in the full article.



Barrister blows whistle on 'broken legal system brought to its knees by cuts'

an article by Hannah Summers published in the Guardian

Damning book by ‘secret barrister’ tells of courts plagued by daily errors leaving them unfit for purpose

Barristers protesting against legal aid cuts, 2014.
Barristers, at a 2014 protest against legal aid cuts in Westminster. Photograph: Alamy

Courts that are like an A&E unit on a Saturday night, violent abusers walking free because evidence has gone missing, and lawyers doing hours of unpaid work to keep the system from collapse, are all part of a damning picture painted in a new book on the legal system by a barrister.

According to the anonymous author of The Secret Barrister: Stories Of The Law And How It’s Broken, the courts in England and Wales have been brought to their knees by government cuts and left so plagued by daily errors they are no longer fit for purpose.

The identity of the writer of this fly-on-the-wall account of what goes on in courtrooms across the country is a well-guarded secret – and the subject of online curiosity among a Twitter following of 87,000.

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A new way to measure growth and development

a column by Richard Samans for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Recent political developments in many countries suggest that most of their citizens lack confidence in the assumption of the standard growth model that everyone in a society benefits from GDP growth. This column proposes a multidimensional 'Inclusive Development Index', based on a dashboard of indicators in growth and development, inclusion, and intergenerational equity and sustainability. GDP per capita growth is weakly correlated with performance in many of the new index’s indicators, including those pertaining to employment, income and wealth inequality, and carbon intensity.

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Only the truly ignorant would rank universities according to graduate earnings

an article by Suzanne Moore published in the Guardian

The government thinks education can be bought and sold like a vacuum cleaner – how spectacularly stupid can you get?

University workers and students on strike.
University workers and students on strike
Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA


There ain’t half been some clever bastards, as Ian Dury once said. It is a pity none of them are involved in running our universities. Those who do appear unable to evaluate evidence, understand data or do comparative analysis. They lack in basic skills. What else could explain this “idea” that universities be ranked on the earnings of their graduates? Obviously, graduates’ earnings do not depend just on where they did their degree, but on several factors. D’oh! Do I need to spell this out? Earnings vary according to subject and career choice. Some jobs may never produce high incomes, but they enrich society, whether this be in nursing or the arts. Wages in all sectors vary according to location, with people in the south-east earning more.

The prime factor that determines the lot of graduates remains the wealth of the student’s family. Research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 2016 showed that the top 10% of highest-earning men from rich backgrounds earned 20% more than the top 10% of highest-earning men from poorer ones. Social mobility had already stalled before the introduction of tuition fees, but the monetisation of this whole sector means it is but a pipe dream.

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How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

a post by Dr Eric Tan for the Tiny Buddha blog


“There is still vitality under the snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.” ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

For as long as I can recall, I have always been a fretful and anxious person. Mine was a low-key anxiety that’s always colored the background of my life, a constant companion of ambiguous dread and imminent doom (just around the corner!)

The annoying part was that I never quite knew why the anxiety hung around. There weren’t any real situations in my life that evoked this constant, nagging fear.

I have tried various techniques to manage my anxiety. I tried deep breathing. I tried to balance out the fearful thoughts that sometimes follow the feeling of fear with logical investigation of the facts.

I tried self-hypnosis—imagining a safe place in the depths of my psyche protected by multiple layers of force fields. I tried going toward the fear instead of running from it by putting myself in fear-inducing situations, so I could learn to tolerate it better. I tried self-psycho-analysis.

All these produced various small results, but always, always there was something missing. I somehow felt like I did not go all the way to the bottom of my anxiety.

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Career Assessment and Counseling for STEM: A Critical Review

an article by Patrick J. Rottinghaus, Nikki A. Falk and Chan Jeong Park (University of Missouri-Columbia, USA) published in The Career Development Quarterly Volume 66 Issue 1 (March 2018)

Abstract

Career counselors must continually enhance their knowledge and skills to assist clients contemplating careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Therefore, the authors review STEM disciplines and theory‐driven strategies for assisting diverse individuals to explore, enter, and persist in STEM careers. Appropriate use of career assessments can contribute greatly to this effort.

To identify available measures for STEM‐focused domains and constructs, the authors conducted a journal content analysis of stand‐alone STEM‐related career assessments from 1983 to 2016, identifying 39 articles with 153 measures.

Notable results included the emergence of social cognitive theory and social cognitive career theory as prevailing frameworks for instrument development, a wide variety of disciplines and journals represented, an under-representation of minority samples, and untapped potential for cross‐discipline and researcher–practitioner collaboration.

Useful strategies and resources for counselors and recommendations for enhancing career assessments and interventions are addressed.

Full text (PDF 33pp)


Friday 23 March 2018

Where Do Our Rights Go When We Die?

a post by Harvey Slade and Ellie Collins for the Rights Info blog (Human Rights News, Views and Info)



Advances in medicine have meant that we’ve had to redefine what death is. It used to be easy – you were dead if your heart stopped working; if you couldn’t breathe. But now, we can restart hearts, and machines can breathe for you until you’re ready to take over again.

One neurologist says that “clinical death” doesn’t even have a consistent meaning. “You’re dead when your doctor says you’re dead,” apparently.

Life increasingly exists where previously it wouldn’t. The line of death is being pushed back – but what does death do to your rights?

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Learning to cope with anxiety: Long-term links from adolescence to adult career satisfaction

an article by Maddison M.Miles and David E.Szwedo (James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA) and Joseph P.Allen (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA) published in Journal of Adolescence Volume 64 (April 2018)

Abstract

This study examined the long-term effect of anxiety on career satisfaction for young adults in the United States.

The abilities to positively cope with stress and function competently as an adult were examined as potential moderators of this link, and adolescent developmental precursors of these abilities were also investigated.

Analyses revealed a negative association between anxiety at age 21 and career satisfaction at age 27. However, this association was ameliorated for youth with better coping skills and functional competence at age 24.

Autonomy and relatedness behaviors with best friends and mothers were examined as potential predictors of these moderators, with positive autonomy and relatedness from friends at age 13 emerging as the sole predictor of these skills.

Results suggest that although anxiety may inhibit career satisfaction for many youth, positive coping and adult functional competence skills may allow anxious individuals to achieve career satisfaction. Moreover, these skills may be promoted through peer relationships in early adolescence.


The convergence in emerging market inflation

a column by Kevin Daly and Loughlan O'Doherty for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Recent years have seen emerging market economy inflation rates converge towards developed economy rates, as well as convergence between emerging markets. The sustained improved inflation performance in emerging markets has occurred even as unemployment in many of these economies has fallen to record lows. This column attributes the improved performance to two factors: increases in monetary policy credibility following the widespread introduction of inflation targeting, and a reduction in the frequency of emerging market currency crises, reflecting a secular improvement in their balance sheets.

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Scientists discover hundreds of new genes that may affect cognitive ability

a post by Andrea James for the Boing Boing blog



Scientists analyzed almost a quarter million DNA samples in the UK Biobank and found 538 new genes that appear to have a role in intellectual capabilities.

Polygenic traits like brain function have previously been determined to have a significant heritable component, although it’s still unclear exactly how much. The study also found that people with more of the polygenic intelligence genes also had parents who tended to live longer:
We find a novel genetic correlation between intelligence and parental longevity... This indicates that the polygenic load for greater intelligence is associated with greater longevity, using parental longevity as a proxy phenotype.
There’s some unfortunate dumbed-down coverage of this that overstates the findings, but it is a remarkable breakthrough nonetheless.

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Take Back Your Power: Let Go of Blame and Focus on the Lesson

a post by Christine Rodriguez for the Tiny Buddha blog


“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Robert Anthony    

Blame is seductive because it makes us right and them wrong. For a moment, it feels good to say, “It was their fault,” but in the long run holding on to blame only hurts us and does absolutely nothing to help our evolution. In fact, it keeps us stuck.

But, I get it. When we feel wronged, upset, and angry, that person is the only one to blame.

I understand that some things are so egregious and so unforgivable that it seems impossible to not default to blame. It’s almost instinctual. We are hard wired to blame.

But I have come to learn the hard way that when we blame others, we avoid seeing the truth about ourselves. When we focus on what someone else did wrong, we’re not able to see our part and learn about what we need to do differently going forward.

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Changes to taxation of payments in lieu of notice

I was reading a recent blog post from Mondaq which advised employers that as from April 2018 all payments in lieu of notice will be taxable.

I am not able to copy any part of Mondaq’s post but decided that it would be good to visit some more open sources to see what information I could glean.

Understanding PILON: Payment in lieu of notice (from ACAS) does what it says – explains what the payment is, when it can/should be paid but does not mention tax.

Proposed Changes to UK Law on the Taxation of Payments In Lieu Of Notice from the National Law Review sets the proposed changes out in language I can understand. I like that it is not written in legalese.

PS. The search term I finally used in DuckDuckGo, "changes to UK taxation on PILONs" brought up a lot of sources so you may like to try for yourself if the above two are not sufficiently explanatory.


Thursday 22 March 2018

Passive leadership and sexual harassment: Roles of observed hostility and workplace gender ratio

an article by Junghyun Lee (University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA) published in Personnel Review Volume 47 Issue 3 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether observed hostility mediates the link between passive leadership and sexual harassment. The study also investigates how workplace gender ratio might moderate this mediated relationship.

Design/methodology/approach
This study used online survey data by recruiting full-time working employees in various US organisations and industries.

Findings
Results suggest that when working under a passive leader, both men and women are more likely to experience sexual harassment. Furthermore, the positive association between hostility and sexual harassment is stronger for female employees who work in a male-dominated organisation (low gender ratio). However, the moderating effects of workplace gender ratio were not significant for male employees.

Practical implications
Organisations seeking to reduce or prevent sexual harassment should monitor and screen out managers who display passive leadership behaviour and create a work environment where collegial and civil interactions are encouraged and valued.

Originality/value
This research advances our knowledge regarding the organisational factors of sexual harassment by examining passive leadership, hostile work context, and workplace gender ratio. Theoretically, the study contributes to the sexual harassment literature by incorporating evidence on passive leadership from a broader field of workplace aggression into sexual harassment research. Practically, the study offers important implications for organisations that seek to minimise sexual harassment.




It’s poverty, not worklessness

an article by Jonathan Bradshaw, Oleksandr Movshuk and Gwyther Rees (Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, UK) published in Poverty Issue 158 (Autumn 2018)

For the last 20 years there has been a mantra among the UK political classes that work is the best solution to poverty. It was the background to the welfare-to-work New Deal programmes in the 2000s. Since 2010, it has been reinforced with more benefit conditionality and punitive sanctions and it has been used to justify many of the austerity measures: the freezing of working-age benefits, the benefit cap, the two-child policy, cuts to employment and support allowance, the bedroom tax and rent limits in housing benefit. And perhaps it reached its apotheosis (or nadir) in the 2017 Department for Work and Pensions paper Improving Lives: helping workless families. The authors unpick the data to reveal that all these work-related measures have instead contributed to undermining living standards and increasing poverty, and have distracted us from the bigger problem of in-work poverty.

Hazel’s comment
There was I, sitting in the British Library, reading this article and becoming more and more incensed. I must find a copy of the whole article somewhere but when I am angry I cannot do a sensible search!
One cup of tea later and I found it.

Full text (PDF 4pp)


Childhood of Dreams. If You Build It…

a post by Will Meecham for the Guideposts to Happiness blog [via World of Psychology]

You grew up with the happiest childhood imaginable. You did! You really did! Or at least you might have. And you know the bumper sticker that says, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood”? I’ve learned it speaks the truth, though not in the way I always thought.

A few months ago I devised for myself a new and helpful meditation. It probably isn’t my creation, but if I heard of it before I’m not sure where. Meditation may be too strong a word; visualization or fantasy might fit better. The basic technique involves imagining a better childhood and family life than I actually experienced.

On my older, less visited blog, I’ve written often about my dismal childhood. It’s tempting to outline it here, but in essence all unhappy childhoods are the same. The details are not important to my current topic. What’s more, in the course of my life I’ve spent far too much time reliving the tragic drama of my upbringing. As a result, my bereaved and abused childhood has become a kind of background legend to explain my life and personality. Although it is an unflattering trait, I admit to building a story of myself as a Ruined Child. My aunt tells me that at my youngest ages I was an exceedingly affectionate and happy toddler. But in my mind, at least, bad luck and cruelty crushed that innate sweetness.

So what is my visualization? I picture a completely different upbringing. The destruction of my childhood was set in motion when my father insisted on moving to Los Angeles, where he had discovered ‘swinging’ and ‘free love.’

My mother, a proper midwestern girl, hated the place and the lifestyle for which my dad yearned, and refused to go along. In real life, they divorced. In my ‘meditation’, they reached a compromise and moved to Berkeley instead.

Continue reading

Some interesting thoughts there. Personally I think I would worry about living only in my imagination and not coping with the real things in life. But that’s my problem – there are no unpaid bills hiding underneath the coffee table because I have imagined them away! Try telling that to the bailiff when he comes for the money.


Digital revolutions in public finance

a column by Sanjeev Gupta, Michael Keen, Alpa Shah and Geneviève Verdier for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Digitalisation has vastly increased our ability to collect and exploit the information that governments use to implement macroeconomic policy. The column argues that the ability of governments to use the vast amounts of information held in the private sector on financial transactions are already making fiscal policy more efficient and effective. Problems of access to digital technology, cybersecurity risks, and the difficulty of organisational change in the public sector may slow the pace at which these opportunities are exploited.

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Maternal Employment: Enabling Factors in Context

an article by Giulia M Dotti Sani (Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy) and Stefani Scherer (University of Trento, Italy) published in Work, Employment and Society Volume 32 Issue 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

Maternal employment is still below the overall EU recommended level of 60% in many European countries. Understanding the individual, household and contextual circumstances under which mothers of children of different ages are likely to be employed is crucial to develop strategies capable of increasing maternal employment.

This article takes a comparative approach to investigating the characteristics associated with maternal employment in the presence of children aged 0–2, 3–5, 6–9 and 10–12 years. We model the probability of being employed full-time, part-time or being a homemaker using EU-SILC data (2004 to 2007) from Germany, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom – four countries belonging to different gender and welfare regimes.

The results indicate that individual and household characteristics are more relevant in determining mothers’ employment in countries where the state is less supportive towards maternal employment: Italy and to a lesser extent Germany and the UK – for the period observed.


Wednesday 21 March 2018

Labor market reforms and unemployment dynamics

an article by Fabrice Murtin (OECD, Statistics Directorate, France; Sciences Po, France) and Jean-Marc Robin (Sciences Po, France; University College London, UK) published in Labour Economics Volume 50 (March 2018)

Abstract

We quantify the contribution of labor market reforms to unemployment dynamics in nine OECD countries (Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK, US).
We estimate a dynamic stochastic search-matching model with heterogeneous workers and aggregate productivity shocks. The heterogeneous-worker mechanism proposed by Robin (2011) explains unemployment volatility by productivity shocks well in all countries.

Placement and employment services, UI benefit reduction and product market deregulation are found to be the most prominent policy levers for unemployment reduction.

Business cycle shocks and LMPs explain about the same share of unemployment volatility (except for Japan, Portugal and the US).

JEL classification: E24, E32, J21

Full text (HTML)


Hysteresis: Understanding the Housing Aspirations Gap

an article by Joe Crawford and Kim McKee (University of St Andrews, UK) Sociology Volume 52 Issue 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative research on housing aspirations in Scotland, the objectives of this article are threefold.

Firstly, this article will contextualise the subject of housing aspirations within relevant research literature and situate it within wider debates which revolve around the relationship between housing and social class.

Secondly, in order to understand the implications of the research, this article uses Bourdieu’s notion of ‘sociodicy’ to help explain the ‘social’ reasons which incline people to have housing aspirations.

Thirdly, the data will be analysed to understand the differences in ‘aspirations’ between groups, concluding that the generational differences, which correspond to the epochal changes in the economy, are more important than class differences when understanding the uneven distribution of housing outcomes and housing wealth in developed societies.

The article concludes that the Bourdieusian concept of hysteresis explains the gap between the subjective expectations of young ‘professionals’ and the objective chances of their realisation.


The return of regional inequality: Europe from 1900 to today

a column by Joan Rosés and Nikolaus Wolf for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

A recent literature has explored growing personal wealth inequality in countries around the world. This column explores the widening wealth gap between regions and across states in Europe.

Using data going back to 1900, it shows that regional convergence ended around 1980 and the gap has been growing since then, with capital regions and declining industrial regions at the two extremes. This rise in regional inequality, combined with rising personal inequality, has played a significant role in the recent populist backlash.

Continue reading


Take on Your Fears: 5 Strategies that Anyone Can Employ at Home in Their Spare Time

a post by Marie Hartwell-Walker for the World of Psychology blog

Interesting Person, Boring Life

Being afraid isn’t popular.

Real men aren’t supposed to quake in their boots during a crisis. Our collective vision of the successful woman does not include her hiding in her office, hyperventilating.

Once we’re grown up, we’re supposed to be confident, competent and fearless. Right? Right. Yeah. But life doesn’t always cooperate. Life keeps handing us situations that, if we’re at all sane and paying attention, make us a little scared — or terrified.

Inability to manage fear is the stuff of situation comedies and chick flicks: We find it funny when a goofy guy awkwardly tries to look more on top of things than he really is. We find it hilarious when a nervous gal gets tongue-tied in her efforts to impress. But there is nothing funny when we find ourselves in such situations. Admitting to the fear or, worse, showing it gnaws at our self-esteem and our self-confidence.

Continue reading all good stuff, particularly “fake it until you make it”.


Social entrepreneur and gender: what’s personality got to do with it?

an article by Susana Bernardino and J. Freitas Santos (Polytechnic Institute of Oporto, Porto, Portugal) and J. Cadima Ribeiro (University of Minho, Braga, Portugal) published in International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship Volume 10 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
Research on economic entrepreneurship identifies a gender gap that is favorable to men. In the social entrepreneurship arena, the existing evidence is slightly fuzzy, as this gender gap is less preeminent. This paper aims to identify how gender differences in social entrepreneurial ventures creation are explained by different personality traits, by analyzing the extent to which female and male social entrepreneurs exhibit the same personality traits and whether potential differences are able to explain the differences in predisposition for the creation of new social entrepreneurial ventures.

Design/methodology/approach
A review of the literature on gender differences and personality traits in social entrepreneurship details the main theoretical developments and builds the hypotheses. Based on the Big Five model, the investigation uses a hypothesis testing quantitative approach. Primary data were collected through a questionnaire that was e-mailed and applied to the social entrepreneurs engaged in the creation of social ventures in Portugal.

Findings
The data gathered suggest that both female and male social entrepreneurs have personalities characterized by high levels of openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and emotional stability. Based on the analysis of variance (ANOVA) between the two groups and logistic regression, the investigation reveals that women and men who launch a new social venture only differ in one personality dimension – agreeableness – wherein women scored more highly. No significant differences are found in the other personality traits.

Research limitations/implications
The research assumes that most aspects of human personality structure are represented in the Big Five model.

Practical implications
The knowledge about whether gender differences are explained by different personality traits is critical to public entities that might design appropriate public policies to stimulate social entrepreneurship. Also, social entrepreneurs’ capacity building programs should be delineated in accordance with a deeper understanding about gender and personality traits differences.

Social implications
The knowledge of the factors that affects the creation of new social ventures has an important potential contribution on social value creation and the promotion of gender equality.

Originality/value
This paper links two important topics – gender and entrepreneurs’ personality traits – scarcely explored in the social entrepreneurship literature. Thus, the paper adds new empirical evidence to support (or not) the belief that personality and gender matter in the decision to launch a new social venture.




Tuesday 20 March 2018

A Different Kind of More: The Beauty of Living with Less Stuff

a post by Courtney Carver for the Tiny Buddha blog



She was all that mattered. I was deeper in debt, legal fees, and uncertainty than ever before, but I held on tight to my vow to give her more.

I would give her everything. I’d work harder, make more, buy her more, take her to see more, do more, and prove to her that everything would be okay. I had no idea that this new goal would be just as damaging, and just as hard on my heart.

My desire to give my daughter more wasn’t wrong, just misguided. While I could never have articulated it then, I did want more for both of us, but not more stuff and money.

What I wanted was more love, connection, laughter, and adventure, but that was too hard to measure. Instead, I made more money, worked more, spent more, and accumulated more. Living with less opened the door to a different kind of more: more space, more time, more light, more freedom, and yes … more love. It has always been about love.

Continue reading




Casting for a sovereign role: Socialising an aspirant state in the Scottish independence referendum

an article by Ryan K. Beasley (University of St Andrews, UK) and Juliet Kaarbo (University of Edinburgh, UK) published in European Journal of International Relations Volume 24 Issue 1 (March 2018)

Abstract

This article examines international reactions to Scotland’s 2014 bid for independence as an instance of socialisation of an aspirant state, what we term ‘pre-socialisation’. Building on and contributing to research on state socialisation and role theory, this study proposes a nexus between roles and sovereignty.

This nexus has three components:
  • sovereignty itself is a role casted for by an actor;
  • the sovereign role is entangled with the substantive foreign policy roles the actor might play; and
  • the sovereign role implicates the substantive foreign policy roles of other actors.
The Scottish debate on independence provides an effective laboratory to develop and explore these theoretical dimensions of pre-socialisation, revealing the contested value and meaning of sovereignty, the possible roles that an independent Scotland could play, and the projected implications for the role of the UK and other international actors.

Our analysis of the Scottish case can provide insights for other cases of pre-socialisation and is more empirically significant following the UK’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.


Holistic Tech-Assisted Rehab: The Future of Addiction Recovery

a post by Carla Clark for the World of Psychology blog



Statistically, if you know ten people in the US, at least one of them is expected to enter a near futile battle with addiction – chances of long-term recovery are low. Traditional drug rehabilitation alone isn’t working for enough people, not even slightly. Finally, the foundations for the creation of next-generation therapies have been laid that could help turn these numbers on their head.

Recent developments in our understanding of the biological and neural networks involved in substance abuse disorders and psychological theories of behavioral change, coupled with the rapid evolution of technology-assisted therapy mean that the pivotal time is now.

As we speak, over 30 of the World’s leading experts on ending addiction and facilitating life-long recovery – including expert scientists and therapists, TED speakers, thought-leaders, and international best-sellers – are speaking at the online Healing Addiction Summit.

And that is what it is going to take: The knowledge from the best minds in their respective fields, being united at the frontline in creating holistic, multipronged, therapeutic systems that adapt to the individual and their support network to effectively prevent relapse round the clock and reliably promote lifelong, successful recovery.

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Sixty years after Titmuss: New findings on occupational welfare in Europe

an article by David Natali (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy), Maarten Keune (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Emmanuele Pavolini (University of Macerata, Italy) and Martin Seeleib‐Kaiser (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany) published in Social Policy & Administration Volume 52 Issue 2 (March 2018)

Abstract

Following the seminal work of Richard Titmuss, who coined the term occupational welfare (OW) 60 years ago, the article approaches OW provision in Europe today.

We first define OW as the sum of extra‐statutory social benefits and services provided by employers and/or trade unions as a result of employment.

We then look at its recent evolution: OW expenditure and coverage have been increasing significantly in Europe since the 1990s. While pensions are still the main policy area of OW, the latter has also advanced in other social protection areas (e.g., health insurance, reconciliation).

This has led to four different ideal types of OW – defined on the base of their organizing principle (voluntarism vs. collectivism) and the level of OW scheme coverage and expenditure. By looking at the main drivers of OW, the analysis has found no evidence of a “crowding out” effect between public welfare and OW.

Collective bargaining, national political economy, and the timing of reforms prove to be important factors explaining the OW development. As for the present and future of OW, dualization is a major risk. At present, the main fault lines created by OW follow sectoral, industry, company size, and occupational group lines.

To avoid the worsening of inequalities originated by OW, even in those countries which were able in the past to avoid dualization, strong industrial relations may play a key role.

The article concludes with some suggestions on the agenda of future OW research.


Migration, migrants, and human security

an article by Bandana Purkayastha (University of Connecticut, USA) published in Current Sociology Volume 66 Issue 2 March 2018)

Abstract

This introductory article outlines a framework to bridge some of the current fragmentation and knowledge hierarchies in the sociological field of migration. The article builds on the insights – and epistemological roots – used in different parts of the world to reflect on 21st-century realities of migration and human security.

It considers international migrants, internally displaced persons, refugees and trafficked persons as part of a continuum of migrants who exhibit seasonal, temporary and long-term migration patterns.

The framework draws upon the scholarship of the Global South and North on political-economic processes that have historically influenced migration and migrants’ lives and continue to do so today. It considers the dominant approach used in studies of international migration and shows why it is necessary to go beyond the focus on nation-states and an emphasis on a particular group of migrants.

The framework weaves the insights of scholars who work on international, internal migration and forced migration, as well as the critical literatures on intersectionality and human rights to build an approach that centers questions of migrants’ human security. The framework emphasizes the glocal – i.e. intersecting global-national-local – terrains of migration and discusses human security within glocal terrains.


Monday 19 March 2018

Why Feeling “Bad” Isn’t Really So Bad

a post by Amaya Pryce for the Tiny Buddha blog


“We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

From an early age, most of us get the message that we should be happy ndash; from well-meaning parents, teachers, and even perfect strangers. “Smile!” we are told. “Why the long face?” we are asked. It’s no wonder we grow up with the idea that feeling anything less than sunny 24/7 is somehow wrong.

We’re ashamed to admit, even to ourselves, that sometimes we feel down. It seems that somehow we’ve failed, or that life is cheating us of our due. Facebook and Instagram certainly don’t provide a more balanced view: everyone else is seemingly on the constant high that has become our society’s norm.

The trouble is, life’s not really like that, and when we expect it to be we only end up feeling worse. There’s almost a sense of panic when a less-than-euphoric period lasts too long (and I’m not talking about clinical depression here, just a garden-variety restlessness or boredom). We just don’t tolerate the lows very well anymore, craving a continuous fix of what the ego calls “happiness”.

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Stemming the tide: What have European Union countries done to support low-wage workers in an era of downward wage pressures?

an article by Sarah Marchal and Ive Marx (University of Antwerp, Belgium) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 28 Issue 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

Governments across the European Union (EU) have been striving to get more people into work while at the same time acknowledging that more needs to be done to ‘make work pay’. Yet this drive comes at a time when structural economic shifts are putting pressure on wages, especially of less skilled workers.

This article focuses on trends in minimum wages, income taxes and work-related benefits within a selection of 15 EU countries, for the period 2001–2012, with three US states included as reference cases. We find evidence for eroding relative minimum wages in various EU countries, yet combined with catch-up growth in the new member states.

We also find that governments counteracted eroding minimum wages through direct income support measures, especially for lone parents. Most prevalent among these were substantial declines in income tax liabilities.


Assessing the Variance in Pupil Attainment: How Important is the School Attended?

an article by David Wilkinson (UCL and NIESR), Alex Bryson (UCL, NIESR and IZA) and Lucy Stokes (NIESR) published in National Institute Economic Review Volume 243 Issue 1 (February 2018)

Abstract

We explore the variation in pupil attainment at the end of secondary schooling in England.

The paper links data on all schools and all pupils within these schools to analyse the role of the school in accounting for this variation.

We analyse a number of different indicators of pupil attainment including value added between the end of primary and secondary schooling and attainment levels at the end of secondary schooling. We examine indicators that were the focus of the school accounting framework as well as other indicators that were not directly part of how schools were assessed.

We show that schools account for a minority of the variance in pupil attainment, and the extent of the variation accounted for by the school is sensitive to the measure of pupil attainment used.

In addition, we find that the majority of the explained school-level variance in attainment is related to school composition. However, most of the variance in attainment remains unexplained, raising questions about what other factors contribute to the variation in school performance.


Employability: a contemporary review for higher education stakeholders

an article by Lynlea Small, Kate Shacklock and Teresa Marchant (Griffith University, Southport, Australia) published in Journal of Vocational Education & Training Volume 70 Issue 1 (March 2018)

Abstract

Higher education institutions are under pressure to produce employable graduates who are required to contribute to the sustainability of strong economic growth and development. As such, the onus is on the higher education sector to present graduates to the labour market who are both work ready and have attained employability.

This article contributes to the discussion surrounding the employability of graduates by:

  • enhancing understanding and discussing contemporary evidence and debate around employability;
  • showing the genesis, influence and synthesis of the major models associated with employability;
  • summarising the boundaries and barriers to graduate employment;
  • and exploring the determinants of employability from the employer’s perspective.

Importantly, the article summarises the contemporary theoretical bases of employability in the one place. Recommendations are made regarding further research and the need for further theoretical contributions.