an article by Jason Dean (Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada) published in IZA Journal of Development and Migration Volume 8 Article 7 (2018)
Abstract
A common finding throughout the Canadian immigration literature is that, despite having high levels of education, recent immigrants endure substantial earnings disadvantages upon arrival that persist throughout their working career.
This paper investigates the role of “qualitative” education-job matches in explaining these poor labor market outcomes.
Using a self-reported match measure, available in the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), the incidence and wage penalties associated with being mismatched are found to be higher among immigrants relative to Canadian-born workers. As a consequence, mismatches on the part of immigrants are a mechanism behind the immigrant wage disadvantages reported throughout the literature.
Successful matching is also found to significantly improve the return to pre-migration education and work experience.
JEL Classification: I2, J3
Full text (PDF 42pp)
Monday, 30 April 2018
Whatever Is Taken for Granted Will Eventually Be Taken Away
a post by Mai Pham for the Tiny Buddha blog
“They say ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ The truth is, you knew exactly what you had. You just didn’t think that you were going to lose it.” ~Unknown
She was a mother of eight children. She lived with her family in a small village in the countryside.
Living in a poor family, with eight mouths to feed, she worked every possible job from dawn till dusk, from working in her family’s own rice field to accepting gigs from anyone who’d hire her.
Many people told her not to put her children in school so she could have some help with work. But she insisted on letting her children be educated so that they could have a shot to live a better life than hers. It meant working ten times extra, but she did it anyway.
She lived more strictly than a monk. She didn’t eat enough, because the less she ate, the more her children could eat.
Fast forward nearly forty years later, she suffered from heart disease, blood pressure problem, and many serious illnesses. According to the doctor, the main reason was that she’d neglected herself for so long.
In the last couple months of her life, she couldn't walk or talk. She became paralyzed and she forgot her children and grandchildren. Later she died in the arms of her family.
Continue reading
“They say ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ The truth is, you knew exactly what you had. You just didn’t think that you were going to lose it.” ~Unknown
She was a mother of eight children. She lived with her family in a small village in the countryside.
Living in a poor family, with eight mouths to feed, she worked every possible job from dawn till dusk, from working in her family’s own rice field to accepting gigs from anyone who’d hire her.
Many people told her not to put her children in school so she could have some help with work. But she insisted on letting her children be educated so that they could have a shot to live a better life than hers. It meant working ten times extra, but she did it anyway.
She lived more strictly than a monk. She didn’t eat enough, because the less she ate, the more her children could eat.
Fast forward nearly forty years later, she suffered from heart disease, blood pressure problem, and many serious illnesses. According to the doctor, the main reason was that she’d neglected herself for so long.
In the last couple months of her life, she couldn't walk or talk. She became paralyzed and she forgot her children and grandchildren. Later she died in the arms of her family.
Continue reading
Managing Motherhood: Job Context and Employer Bias
an article by Christy Glass (Utah State University, Logan, USA) and Eva Fodor (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary) published in Work and Occupations Volume 45 Issue 2 (May 2018)
Abstract
How does job context influence employers’ views of mothers as workers?
Drawing on 51 in-depth interviews with employers in the finance and business service sectors of Hungary, the authors find that finance employers rely on a variety of strategies aimed at excluding mothers from entry-level professional jobs, while business services employers invest significant resources aimed at recruiting and accommodating mothers.
To explain this variation, the authors suggest that employers’ views of mothers are dependent on their perception of skill requirements and knowledge/skill dynamism.
Abstract
How does job context influence employers’ views of mothers as workers?
Drawing on 51 in-depth interviews with employers in the finance and business service sectors of Hungary, the authors find that finance employers rely on a variety of strategies aimed at excluding mothers from entry-level professional jobs, while business services employers invest significant resources aimed at recruiting and accommodating mothers.
To explain this variation, the authors suggest that employers’ views of mothers are dependent on their perception of skill requirements and knowledge/skill dynamism.
Change is an emotional state of mind: Behavioral responses to online petitions
an article by Abby Koenig and Bryan McLaughlin (Texas Tech University, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 4 (April 2018)
Abstract
Scholars are increasingly concerned about the rising level of negativity in social media sites. This negativity has found its way into sites that are supposedly intended for prosocial civic engagement.
To examine how hostility impacts behavior in a user-generated, prosocial context, an experimental study was conducted using an online petition modeled after those posted to the website Change.org.
This study examines whether negativity causes a contagion effect leading to more negativity and the different types of negativity that may occur. Results suggest that when users read negative-toned petitions, a contagion effect increases both anger and anxiety.
However, our findings are not consistent with previous literature that argues anger leads to increased proactive behavior. Instead, we find that while anxiety leads to an increase in petition-related action, anger does not.
These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for scholars and those looking to participate in social justice via online platforms.
Full text (PDF 18pp)
Abstract
Scholars are increasingly concerned about the rising level of negativity in social media sites. This negativity has found its way into sites that are supposedly intended for prosocial civic engagement.
To examine how hostility impacts behavior in a user-generated, prosocial context, an experimental study was conducted using an online petition modeled after those posted to the website Change.org.
This study examines whether negativity causes a contagion effect leading to more negativity and the different types of negativity that may occur. Results suggest that when users read negative-toned petitions, a contagion effect increases both anger and anxiety.
However, our findings are not consistent with previous literature that argues anger leads to increased proactive behavior. Instead, we find that while anxiety leads to an increase in petition-related action, anger does not.
These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for scholars and those looking to participate in social justice via online platforms.
Full text (PDF 18pp)
Sunday, 29 April 2018
Learning to share: Pedagogy, open learning, and the sharing economy
an article by Lindsey ‘Luka’ Carfagna (Thomas Edison State University, USA) published in The Sociological Review Volume 66 Issue 2 (March 2018)
Abstract
The sharing economy is fertile sociological ground for studying important themes like labor, exchange, consumption, and inequality, as well as larger political-economic trends that are reflective of this post-recession era.
The multifaceted research agenda of the sharing economy can provide lessons around many themes relevant to sociologists, but what does the sharing economy teach to those who participate in it? What is learned from the sharing economy and how do participants learn it?
In this article, the author explores the pedagogic elements of one case study within the sharing economy: open learning. Drawing from 51 interviews with 34 participants and roughly 300 hours of participant observation, the study uses Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse to ask how open learners learn to share.
The author argues that an ethos of communalism and cooperativism dominated moral discourse for learners and regulated social order. Entrepreneurialism was learned through a flexible sociality, where participants contributed to each other’s learning as a means of validating and legitimizing that learning.
The need to contribute or give back was taken for granted by participants, who felt compelled to give their own expertise or labor to the commons after taking something from it.
This study depicts a tension between a neoliberal entrepreneurial frame and a communalist, cooperativist frame that is also present within the larger sharing economy. The author suggests that a similar pedagogic approach that asks how participants learn to share could be developed in the larger sharing economy in order to better understand learning and economic relations as two sides of the same coin in contemporary capitalism.
Full text (PDF 19pp)
Abstract
The sharing economy is fertile sociological ground for studying important themes like labor, exchange, consumption, and inequality, as well as larger political-economic trends that are reflective of this post-recession era.
The multifaceted research agenda of the sharing economy can provide lessons around many themes relevant to sociologists, but what does the sharing economy teach to those who participate in it? What is learned from the sharing economy and how do participants learn it?
In this article, the author explores the pedagogic elements of one case study within the sharing economy: open learning. Drawing from 51 interviews with 34 participants and roughly 300 hours of participant observation, the study uses Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse to ask how open learners learn to share.
The author argues that an ethos of communalism and cooperativism dominated moral discourse for learners and regulated social order. Entrepreneurialism was learned through a flexible sociality, where participants contributed to each other’s learning as a means of validating and legitimizing that learning.
The need to contribute or give back was taken for granted by participants, who felt compelled to give their own expertise or labor to the commons after taking something from it.
This study depicts a tension between a neoliberal entrepreneurial frame and a communalist, cooperativist frame that is also present within the larger sharing economy. The author suggests that a similar pedagogic approach that asks how participants learn to share could be developed in the larger sharing economy in order to better understand learning and economic relations as two sides of the same coin in contemporary capitalism.
Full text (PDF 19pp)
Public ignorance about “drunk/drugged up losers” is expensive and deadly
a post by Maureen Herman for the Boing Boing blog
Opioid overdoses now kill more Americans every year than guns, breast cancer, or car accidents. 20 million Americans suffer from addiction to alcohol, illicit, or prescription drugs. On the second anniversary of Prince’s death from fentanyl overdose last weekend, the President of the United States demonstrated a deep ignorance of this medical epidemic, calling someone he considers an alcoholic and addict a “drunk/drugged up loser.”
Days later we learn that Dr. Ronny Jackson, the physician Trump nominated to lead the country’s largest healthcare system, the Veterans Administration, is known to have a drinking problem and is nicknamed “The Candyman” because of his reputation for freely distributing controlled substances to White House staff. With 1 in 10 soldiers seen by the VA for problems with alcohol or drugs – the majority as an outgrowth of being treated for chronic pain – Jackson was a dangerously ignorant choice.
Both the president’s regressive drug policy and his impulsive social media outbursts are conflicting, misinformed, and poorly executed, so his recent post about addicts being “losers” must seem pedestrian to most. In the same tweet he also managed to insult a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and engage in thinly veiled witness tampering before taking off for a round of golf while his wife attended Barbara Bush’s funeral. Numbed and spotty outcries ensued, and we moved along to the next week’s insults. It became just more white noise.
Continue reading
Opioid overdoses now kill more Americans every year than guns, breast cancer, or car accidents. 20 million Americans suffer from addiction to alcohol, illicit, or prescription drugs. On the second anniversary of Prince’s death from fentanyl overdose last weekend, the President of the United States demonstrated a deep ignorance of this medical epidemic, calling someone he considers an alcoholic and addict a “drunk/drugged up loser.”
Days later we learn that Dr. Ronny Jackson, the physician Trump nominated to lead the country’s largest healthcare system, the Veterans Administration, is known to have a drinking problem and is nicknamed “The Candyman” because of his reputation for freely distributing controlled substances to White House staff. With 1 in 10 soldiers seen by the VA for problems with alcohol or drugs – the majority as an outgrowth of being treated for chronic pain – Jackson was a dangerously ignorant choice.
Both the president’s regressive drug policy and his impulsive social media outbursts are conflicting, misinformed, and poorly executed, so his recent post about addicts being “losers” must seem pedestrian to most. In the same tweet he also managed to insult a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and engage in thinly veiled witness tampering before taking off for a round of golf while his wife attended Barbara Bush’s funeral. Numbed and spotty outcries ensued, and we moved along to the next week’s insults. It became just more white noise.
Continue reading
Communism, religion, and unhappiness
a column by Simeon Djankov and Elena Nikolova for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
While the existing scholarship has explained long-run institutional development across countries with a variety of different factors, the literature remains largely silent on the role of religion.
Using survey data, this column shows that deep-rooted theological differences between Orthodoxy, and Catholicism and Protestantism affect life satisfaction and other attitudes and values in large parts of Europe today.
Although totalitarian governments suppressed religious activities, they preserved those aspects of Orthodoxy – such as tradition and communitarianism – which were helpful for advancing the communist doctrine.
Continue reading
While the existing scholarship has explained long-run institutional development across countries with a variety of different factors, the literature remains largely silent on the role of religion.
Using survey data, this column shows that deep-rooted theological differences between Orthodoxy, and Catholicism and Protestantism affect life satisfaction and other attitudes and values in large parts of Europe today.
Although totalitarian governments suppressed religious activities, they preserved those aspects of Orthodoxy – such as tradition and communitarianism – which were helpful for advancing the communist doctrine.
Continue reading
The Best Way to Effect Change
a post by Suzanne Kane for the World of Psychology blog
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Wayne Dyer
When something’s not right and you want it to change, there are several ways to go about it. No doubt you want to tailor your actions, so they reflect the best way to effect change. While taking the initiative and acting may be the quickest and most efficient approach, there are some caveats to consider. You might not have all the facts, for example, or what you do know may be distorted by perception or long-held belief. It is also quite possible that your viewpoint is skewed, thus leading to erroneous conclusions and poor judgment.
Considering that there are always going to be situations and instances where change is desirable, as well as times when only you can do something about what needs changing, perhaps the best way to effect personal and situational change is by changing the way you look at things.
Granted, this isn’t easy to do, especially if you grew up in an atmosphere of rigid compliance where any testing of authority was not tolerated, and you were constrained to act within certain boundaries. Questioning the status quo may feel like anathema now that you’re an adult may feel like an impossible task, one that you’re loathe to entertain. A little-known yet very powerful way to begin to assert your independence is by thinking outside the box you were put in when growing up.
Suppose you were always called stupid and told you’d never amount to anything. Many well-meaning parents fall into the trap of being overly critical of their children, perhaps projecting their own insecurities while wanting in good faith to ensure their offspring have a better life. That their thoughtless remarks and labels have the opposite effect may never occur to them, at least without parenting counseling. That kind of cruelty on the part of parents, siblings or others is enough to stunt anyone’s growth. Finding your own path under such circumstances was likely difficult because you believed the criticism was right. Difficult, but not impossible.
Maybe you’ve attempted to change things in your life and failed repeatedly. This also tends to put a damper on any motivation to seek further change. Again, the prospects for self-change are difficult, yet not impossible.
It is important to note that there is no directive of human behavior that requires any individual to steadfastly accept their circumstance. You have the power to effect change for yourself above all else. It doesn’t matter if you grew up impoverished, in a dysfunctional family, with no support system, suffering childhood illness, mental health disorder or some other condition. Nor does an upbringing in an affluent household guarantee the ability to enact change, even if such changed is steadfastly desired. What is necessary, however, no matter the circumstances or conditions under which you grew up, is the willingness to put aside old beliefs and negativity and look at the world around you with open eyes and an unbiased heart.
Is there a wrong you seek to make amends for? What about an injustice you believe came about as the result of your actions? What avenues can you take to create a better life for yourself than that which you came into the world to? Can you find the path to follow to achieve greater success? Is it possible to mend your ways, repair your reputation, begin to love again, heal damaged relationships, find a way to balance work and home, explore your true potential and achieve almost any goal?
You bet there is.
If you are willing to cast aside the barriers and suspend judgment so that you can take in the reality that is now, you may be surprised that what you thought was so, what seemed impossible to change, is false. What is available to you, what you can change, will not only astound but also invigorate you.
Continue reading
You will find a number of good ideas to try.
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Wayne Dyer
When something’s not right and you want it to change, there are several ways to go about it. No doubt you want to tailor your actions, so they reflect the best way to effect change. While taking the initiative and acting may be the quickest and most efficient approach, there are some caveats to consider. You might not have all the facts, for example, or what you do know may be distorted by perception or long-held belief. It is also quite possible that your viewpoint is skewed, thus leading to erroneous conclusions and poor judgment.
Considering that there are always going to be situations and instances where change is desirable, as well as times when only you can do something about what needs changing, perhaps the best way to effect personal and situational change is by changing the way you look at things.
Granted, this isn’t easy to do, especially if you grew up in an atmosphere of rigid compliance where any testing of authority was not tolerated, and you were constrained to act within certain boundaries. Questioning the status quo may feel like anathema now that you’re an adult may feel like an impossible task, one that you’re loathe to entertain. A little-known yet very powerful way to begin to assert your independence is by thinking outside the box you were put in when growing up.
Suppose you were always called stupid and told you’d never amount to anything. Many well-meaning parents fall into the trap of being overly critical of their children, perhaps projecting their own insecurities while wanting in good faith to ensure their offspring have a better life. That their thoughtless remarks and labels have the opposite effect may never occur to them, at least without parenting counseling. That kind of cruelty on the part of parents, siblings or others is enough to stunt anyone’s growth. Finding your own path under such circumstances was likely difficult because you believed the criticism was right. Difficult, but not impossible.
Maybe you’ve attempted to change things in your life and failed repeatedly. This also tends to put a damper on any motivation to seek further change. Again, the prospects for self-change are difficult, yet not impossible.
It is important to note that there is no directive of human behavior that requires any individual to steadfastly accept their circumstance. You have the power to effect change for yourself above all else. It doesn’t matter if you grew up impoverished, in a dysfunctional family, with no support system, suffering childhood illness, mental health disorder or some other condition. Nor does an upbringing in an affluent household guarantee the ability to enact change, even if such changed is steadfastly desired. What is necessary, however, no matter the circumstances or conditions under which you grew up, is the willingness to put aside old beliefs and negativity and look at the world around you with open eyes and an unbiased heart.
Is there a wrong you seek to make amends for? What about an injustice you believe came about as the result of your actions? What avenues can you take to create a better life for yourself than that which you came into the world to? Can you find the path to follow to achieve greater success? Is it possible to mend your ways, repair your reputation, begin to love again, heal damaged relationships, find a way to balance work and home, explore your true potential and achieve almost any goal?
You bet there is.
If you are willing to cast aside the barriers and suspend judgment so that you can take in the reality that is now, you may be surprised that what you thought was so, what seemed impossible to change, is false. What is available to you, what you can change, will not only astound but also invigorate you.
Continue reading
You will find a number of good ideas to try.
Counting the cost: BME women and gender‐based violence in the UK
an article by Hannana Siddiqui (Freelance consultant) published in IPPR Progressive Review Volume 24 Issue 4 (Spring 2018)
Abstract
Gender‐based violence is worryingly prevalent across all parts of the UK but it is among BME women and girls where its rates are highest. Hannana Siddiqui explores the impact of intersectional discrimination which is failing to support and protect these women.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
Abstract
Gender‐based violence is worryingly prevalent across all parts of the UK but it is among BME women and girls where its rates are highest. Hannana Siddiqui explores the impact of intersectional discrimination which is failing to support and protect these women.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
Why we should stop panicking about robots stealing our jobs
an article by John Naughton published in the Guardian
Cherry harvesting in Russia. Research across OECD countries shows wide variation in the number of jobs at risk of automation. Photograph: Valery Matytsin/Tass
Predictions about an unstoppable growth of automation in the workplace ignore a multitude of variable factors
Ideology is what determines how you think when you don’t know you’re thinking. Neoliberalism is a prime example. Less well-known but equally insidious is technological determinism, which is a theory about how technology affects development. It comes in two flavours. One says that there is an inexorable internal logic in how technologies evolve. So, for example, when we got to the point where massive processing power and large quantities of data became easily available, machine-learning was an inevitable next step.
The second flavour of determinism – the most influential one – takes the form of an unshakable conviction that technology is what really drives history. And it turns out that most of us are infected with this version.
It manifests itself in many ways. A prime example is the way the political earthquakes of 2016 – Brexit and Trump’s election – are being attributed to technology: if only Cambridge Analytica and other dubious actors hadn’t weaponised social media, normal life would have continued. Hillary Clinton would be bombing Syria, David Cameron would still be prime minister and Jacob Rees-Mogg would just be muttering into his Veuve Clicquot.
While there’s no doubt that social media played some – as yet unquantified – role in the upheavals of 2016, it seems implausible that the technology was the key element. Far more important were populist rage against the 2008 banking crisis – in which the wages of bankers’ sin were paid for by austerity imposed on ordinary citizens – and the social carnage wrought in some regions of western societies by decades of neoliberal economic policies, globalisation and outsourcing.
Continue reading
Cherry harvesting in Russia. Research across OECD countries shows wide variation in the number of jobs at risk of automation. Photograph: Valery Matytsin/Tass
Predictions about an unstoppable growth of automation in the workplace ignore a multitude of variable factors
Ideology is what determines how you think when you don’t know you’re thinking. Neoliberalism is a prime example. Less well-known but equally insidious is technological determinism, which is a theory about how technology affects development. It comes in two flavours. One says that there is an inexorable internal logic in how technologies evolve. So, for example, when we got to the point where massive processing power and large quantities of data became easily available, machine-learning was an inevitable next step.
The second flavour of determinism – the most influential one – takes the form of an unshakable conviction that technology is what really drives history. And it turns out that most of us are infected with this version.
It manifests itself in many ways. A prime example is the way the political earthquakes of 2016 – Brexit and Trump’s election – are being attributed to technology: if only Cambridge Analytica and other dubious actors hadn’t weaponised social media, normal life would have continued. Hillary Clinton would be bombing Syria, David Cameron would still be prime minister and Jacob Rees-Mogg would just be muttering into his Veuve Clicquot.
While there’s no doubt that social media played some – as yet unquantified – role in the upheavals of 2016, it seems implausible that the technology was the key element. Far more important were populist rage against the 2008 banking crisis – in which the wages of bankers’ sin were paid for by austerity imposed on ordinary citizens – and the social carnage wrought in some regions of western societies by decades of neoliberal economic policies, globalisation and outsourcing.
Continue reading
Saturday, 28 April 2018
Youth minimum wages and youth employment
an article by Maria Marimpi (Geneva School of Business Administration, Carouge, Switzerland) and Pierre Koning (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Leiden University, The Netherlands; Tinbergen Instute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; IZA, Bonn, Germany) published in IZA Journal of Labor Policy Volume 7 (2018 Article 5)
Abstract
This paper performs a cross-country level analysis on the impact of the level of specific youth minimum wages on the labor market performance of young individuals. We use information on the use and level of youth minimum wages, as compared to the level of adult minimum wages as well as to the median wage (i.e., the Kaitz index).
We complement these data with variables on the employment, labor force participation, and unemployment rates of 5-year age interval categories – all derived from the official OECD database. We distinguish between countries without minimum wages, countries with uniform minimum wages for all age groups, and countries with separate youth and adult minimum wages.
Our results indicate that the relative employment rates of young individuals below the age of 25 – as compared to the older workers – in countries with youth minimum wages are close to those in countries without minimum wages at all.
Turning to the smaller sample of countries with minimum wages, increases in the level of (youth) minimum wages exert a substantial negative impact on the employment rate for young individuals.
JEL Classification: J21, J23, J31
Full text (PDF 18pp)
Abstract
This paper performs a cross-country level analysis on the impact of the level of specific youth minimum wages on the labor market performance of young individuals. We use information on the use and level of youth minimum wages, as compared to the level of adult minimum wages as well as to the median wage (i.e., the Kaitz index).
We complement these data with variables on the employment, labor force participation, and unemployment rates of 5-year age interval categories – all derived from the official OECD database. We distinguish between countries without minimum wages, countries with uniform minimum wages for all age groups, and countries with separate youth and adult minimum wages.
Our results indicate that the relative employment rates of young individuals below the age of 25 – as compared to the older workers – in countries with youth minimum wages are close to those in countries without minimum wages at all.
Turning to the smaller sample of countries with minimum wages, increases in the level of (youth) minimum wages exert a substantial negative impact on the employment rate for young individuals.
JEL Classification: J21, J23, J31
Full text (PDF 18pp)
Does Social Media Cause Depression?
a post by Christian Waldemar for the World of Psychology blog
Social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and more have become an icon of modern times alongside the internet itself, Facebook being the largest social media platform in the world with nearly a third of the world’s population having profiles on the website.
As the popularity of the internet grew, depression and mood disorders among adolescents have steadily risen, becoming the most lethal affliction to young people in the developed world. Research on social media use has concluded over and over again that as social media use rises, so does the number of cases of depression and mood disorders.
The correlation is clear, however the unanswered question remains: Why?
Does excessive social media use cause depression, or do depressed people tend to use social media excessively? In order to attempt to answer these questions, we must look at how social media applications hijack human psychology.
Continue reading
I was taught that statistical correlation did not necessarily mean causation.
Social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and more have become an icon of modern times alongside the internet itself, Facebook being the largest social media platform in the world with nearly a third of the world’s population having profiles on the website.
As the popularity of the internet grew, depression and mood disorders among adolescents have steadily risen, becoming the most lethal affliction to young people in the developed world. Research on social media use has concluded over and over again that as social media use rises, so does the number of cases of depression and mood disorders.
The correlation is clear, however the unanswered question remains: Why?
Does excessive social media use cause depression, or do depressed people tend to use social media excessively? In order to attempt to answer these questions, we must look at how social media applications hijack human psychology.
Continue reading
I was taught that statistical correlation did not necessarily mean causation.
How will population ageing affect future end of life care?
a post by Anna Bone for the OUP [Oxford University Press] blog
Image 12419. CC0 via pxhere.
Increasing population ageing means that deaths worldwide are expected to rise by 13 million to 70 million per year in the next 15 years. As a result, there is an urgent need to plan ahead to ensure we meet the growing end of life care needs of our population in the future.
Understanding where people die, and how this could change in the future, is vital to ensuring that health services are equipped to support people’s needs and preferences at the end of life. As researchers at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London, we investigated trends in place of death in England and Wales, and found that deaths occurring in care homes could more than double in the next 25 years if recent trends continue.
Using official records on over five and a half million deaths, as well as population forecasts, we estimated the number of people who will die in a range of different settings in years to come. The intention behind this study is that it will help to guide future planning of health and social care. From 2004 to 2014, the proportion of deaths occurring in care homes increased from 17% to 21%, with numbers rising from 85,000 to 106,000 per year. If this trend continues, the number of people dying in care homes will double to over 220,000 per year by 2040, and care homes will overtake hospitals as the most common place to die. Home deaths are also projected to increase over this period to over 216,000 deaths a year. Together, this means that deaths in the community are expected to account for over two-thirds of all deaths by 2040.
Continue reading
Image 12419. CC0 via pxhere.
Increasing population ageing means that deaths worldwide are expected to rise by 13 million to 70 million per year in the next 15 years. As a result, there is an urgent need to plan ahead to ensure we meet the growing end of life care needs of our population in the future.
Understanding where people die, and how this could change in the future, is vital to ensuring that health services are equipped to support people’s needs and preferences at the end of life. As researchers at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London, we investigated trends in place of death in England and Wales, and found that deaths occurring in care homes could more than double in the next 25 years if recent trends continue.
Using official records on over five and a half million deaths, as well as population forecasts, we estimated the number of people who will die in a range of different settings in years to come. The intention behind this study is that it will help to guide future planning of health and social care. From 2004 to 2014, the proportion of deaths occurring in care homes increased from 17% to 21%, with numbers rising from 85,000 to 106,000 per year. If this trend continues, the number of people dying in care homes will double to over 220,000 per year by 2040, and care homes will overtake hospitals as the most common place to die. Home deaths are also projected to increase over this period to over 216,000 deaths a year. Together, this means that deaths in the community are expected to account for over two-thirds of all deaths by 2040.
Continue reading
The road to safe drugs
a post by Muhammad H. Zaman for the OUP [Oxford University Press] blog
Apothecary by Stevepb. Public domain via Pixabay.
Healthcare is expensive, and not just in high income countries. Those who are suffering or struck by illness in resource limited countries are often unable to afford services that can provide them the care they need. Inequitable access to health services continues to be among the greatest public health challenges of our time.
Since becoming the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Geberyasus has made universal healthcare a corner stone of his agenda. The idea is that all people, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what they earn, deserve access to healthcare. The idea is both noble and timely. However, implicit in the goal of universal health care is not just access to a healthcare center and a provider, but access to medicines that are of the desired quality. This assumption, that medicines provided to the sick will be effective and not cause harm, is unfortunately not true in large parts of the world.
In Pakistan, where I grew up, poor quality medicines given at a public hospital in Lahore led to over 200 deaths in 2011. In Nigeria in 2007, 84 babies died when a teething syrup was contaminated. Panama was hit hard in 2006 by a Chinese manufactured cough syrup which had an anti-freeze as a poor-quality substitute for glycerine.
Continue reading
Apothecary by Stevepb. Public domain via Pixabay.
Healthcare is expensive, and not just in high income countries. Those who are suffering or struck by illness in resource limited countries are often unable to afford services that can provide them the care they need. Inequitable access to health services continues to be among the greatest public health challenges of our time.
Since becoming the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Geberyasus has made universal healthcare a corner stone of his agenda. The idea is that all people, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what they earn, deserve access to healthcare. The idea is both noble and timely. However, implicit in the goal of universal health care is not just access to a healthcare center and a provider, but access to medicines that are of the desired quality. This assumption, that medicines provided to the sick will be effective and not cause harm, is unfortunately not true in large parts of the world.
In Pakistan, where I grew up, poor quality medicines given at a public hospital in Lahore led to over 200 deaths in 2011. In Nigeria in 2007, 84 babies died when a teething syrup was contaminated. Panama was hit hard in 2006 by a Chinese manufactured cough syrup which had an anti-freeze as a poor-quality substitute for glycerine.
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Residential segregation and the fertility of immigrants and their descendants
an article by Ben Wilson (Stockholm University, Sweden; London School of Economics, UK) and Jouni Kuha (London School of Economics, UK) published in Population, Space and Place Volume 24 Issue 3 (April 2018)
Abstract
Measures of community population composition, such as residential segregation, are important theoretical mechanisms that have the potential to explain differences in fertility between immigrants, their descendants, and destination natives.
However, only a handful of studies explore these mechanisms, and most are limited by the fact that they carry out cross‐sectional analysis. This study proposes a new approach, which focuses on community composition in childhood.
It uses longitudinal census data and registered births in England and Wales to investigate the relationship between completed fertility and multiple measures of community composition, including residential segregation. The results show that the fertility of immigrants is closer to native fertility if they grow up in less segregated areas. This provides evidence in support of the childhood socialisation hypothesis.
Furthermore, residential segregation explains some of the variation in completed fertility for second‐generation women from Pakistan and Bangladesh, the only second‐generation group to have significantly higher completed fertility than natives. This suggests one reason why the fertility of some South Asians in England and Wales may remain “culturally entrenched.”
All of these findings are consistent for different measures of community composition. They are also easier to interpret than the results of previous research because exposure is measured before childbearing has commenced, therefore avoiding many issues relating to selection, simultaneity, and conditioning on the future.
Full text (PDF 15pp)
Abstract
Measures of community population composition, such as residential segregation, are important theoretical mechanisms that have the potential to explain differences in fertility between immigrants, their descendants, and destination natives.
However, only a handful of studies explore these mechanisms, and most are limited by the fact that they carry out cross‐sectional analysis. This study proposes a new approach, which focuses on community composition in childhood.
It uses longitudinal census data and registered births in England and Wales to investigate the relationship between completed fertility and multiple measures of community composition, including residential segregation. The results show that the fertility of immigrants is closer to native fertility if they grow up in less segregated areas. This provides evidence in support of the childhood socialisation hypothesis.
Furthermore, residential segregation explains some of the variation in completed fertility for second‐generation women from Pakistan and Bangladesh, the only second‐generation group to have significantly higher completed fertility than natives. This suggests one reason why the fertility of some South Asians in England and Wales may remain “culturally entrenched.”
All of these findings are consistent for different measures of community composition. They are also easier to interpret than the results of previous research because exposure is measured before childbearing has commenced, therefore avoiding many issues relating to selection, simultaneity, and conditioning on the future.
Full text (PDF 15pp)
A Serious Postpartum Disorder You Probably Haven’t Heard About
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
Within 24 hours of her second daughter’s birth, Dyane Harwood felt elated. From the moment she came home from the hospital, she started writing. Furiously. She wrote while nursing her daughter and going to the bathroom. She wrote on her hands, on the bathroom mirror, inside books and on tabletops. She yearned to write down every thought she was having. She wrote so much that her wrists ached – her carpal tunnel returning – and she was in constant pain.
She also had endless energy and a newfound enthusiasm for life. She felt like she could run a long race. She couldn’t sit still, and her speech was fast and frenetic. She barely slept. Her normally low self-esteem soared. She had no appetite and was losing weight.
Six weeks later Harwood was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar disorder, which she chronicles in her powerful, information-packed memoir Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder. (Today, she’d be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, “peripartum onset,” per the DSM-5). Her compulsive urge to write is actually a condition called hypergraphia, which is associated with bipolar disorder.
When we think of postpartum conditions, we think of depression and anxiety. Rarely does bipolar disorder come to mind, and yet according to Postpartum Support International, “Many women are diagnosed for the first time with bipolar depression or mania during pregnancy or postpartum.” According to perinatal psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Verinder Sharma, “We know childbirth is perhaps the most important and most potent trigger of bipolar disorder.”
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Within 24 hours of her second daughter’s birth, Dyane Harwood felt elated. From the moment she came home from the hospital, she started writing. Furiously. She wrote while nursing her daughter and going to the bathroom. She wrote on her hands, on the bathroom mirror, inside books and on tabletops. She yearned to write down every thought she was having. She wrote so much that her wrists ached – her carpal tunnel returning – and she was in constant pain.
She also had endless energy and a newfound enthusiasm for life. She felt like she could run a long race. She couldn’t sit still, and her speech was fast and frenetic. She barely slept. Her normally low self-esteem soared. She had no appetite and was losing weight.
Six weeks later Harwood was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar disorder, which she chronicles in her powerful, information-packed memoir Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder. (Today, she’d be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, “peripartum onset,” per the DSM-5). Her compulsive urge to write is actually a condition called hypergraphia, which is associated with bipolar disorder.
When we think of postpartum conditions, we think of depression and anxiety. Rarely does bipolar disorder come to mind, and yet according to Postpartum Support International, “Many women are diagnosed for the first time with bipolar depression or mania during pregnancy or postpartum.” According to perinatal psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Verinder Sharma, “We know childbirth is perhaps the most important and most potent trigger of bipolar disorder.”
Continue reading
How Forgiving Yourself and Others Changes Your Brain
a post by Joel Almeida for the Tiny Buddha blog
People often behave in ways that we find irritating, annoying, or worse. This can happen especially with people close to us.
They can speak with little consideration for the impact of their words. They can criticize us and pounce on our mistakes. Sometimes they do unfair things that seriously disadvantage or damage us. Or they let us down when we're counting on them.
All these behaviors can lead to us feeling wounded. The scars can persist for years or even decades. The closer the offenders are to us, the greater the impact tends to be.
Most of us would like others to understand us, to act reliably, and to be approachable when things go wrong. We'd like them to be kind in dealing with our mistakes or offences. We'd like them to understand that we aren't set in stone, that we aren’t just the sum total of our mistakes.
We deserve a chance to recover and show our better side. We'd like them to be more understanding and put a more favorable interpretation on what we did or failed to do.
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“Be quick to forgive, because we’re all walking wounded.” ~Anonymous
People often behave in ways that we find irritating, annoying, or worse. This can happen especially with people close to us.
They can speak with little consideration for the impact of their words. They can criticize us and pounce on our mistakes. Sometimes they do unfair things that seriously disadvantage or damage us. Or they let us down when we're counting on them.
All these behaviors can lead to us feeling wounded. The scars can persist for years or even decades. The closer the offenders are to us, the greater the impact tends to be.
Most of us would like others to understand us, to act reliably, and to be approachable when things go wrong. We'd like them to be kind in dealing with our mistakes or offences. We'd like them to understand that we aren't set in stone, that we aren’t just the sum total of our mistakes.
We deserve a chance to recover and show our better side. We'd like them to be more understanding and put a more favorable interpretation on what we did or failed to do.
Continue reading
Friday, 27 April 2018
How to Tune Out Your Inner Critic and Enjoy More of Your Life
a post by Brynn Sauer for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Be careful how you are talking to yourself because you are listening.” ~Lisa M. Hayes
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a laser-sharp focus on achieving “success”. From the outside, it looks like I’m pretty close to it, too. But on the inside, I wasn’t allowing myself to acknowledge any of it.
I never gave myself the chance to feel like I was doing something right. I started to think that the only way to ensure I keep growing, improving, and achieving was to stop allowing myself to experience the little victories completely. Satisfaction became a dangerous word.
My self-talk turned into “Okay, that was decent, but you can do better…” or “Alright, that's over, and you need to focus on this now…”
I was giving myself no time to congratulate myself or realize my competence, and this mindset was draining.
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“Be careful how you are talking to yourself because you are listening.” ~Lisa M. Hayes
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a laser-sharp focus on achieving “success”. From the outside, it looks like I’m pretty close to it, too. But on the inside, I wasn’t allowing myself to acknowledge any of it.
I never gave myself the chance to feel like I was doing something right. I started to think that the only way to ensure I keep growing, improving, and achieving was to stop allowing myself to experience the little victories completely. Satisfaction became a dangerous word.
My self-talk turned into “Okay, that was decent, but you can do better…” or “Alright, that's over, and you need to focus on this now…”
I was giving myself no time to congratulate myself or realize my competence, and this mindset was draining.
Continue reading
Who Can Benefit from Virtual Reality CBT?
a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology blog
I have previously written about the possible benefits of using virtual reality (VR) in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Now it seems that virtual-reality based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has more wide-reaching benefits and can help reduce momentary paranoia and anxiety, as well as improve social cognition in individuals with psychotic disorders.
In a February 2018 study published in The Lancet (Psychiatry), researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial of personalized virtual-reality based cognitive-behavioral therapy in 116 patients with a DSM IV-diagnosed psychotic disorder and paranoid ideation.
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I have previously written about the possible benefits of using virtual reality (VR) in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Now it seems that virtual-reality based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has more wide-reaching benefits and can help reduce momentary paranoia and anxiety, as well as improve social cognition in individuals with psychotic disorders.
In a February 2018 study published in The Lancet (Psychiatry), researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial of personalized virtual-reality based cognitive-behavioral therapy in 116 patients with a DSM IV-diagnosed psychotic disorder and paranoid ideation.
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Sharing Culture: On definitions, values, and emergence
an article by Eleni Katrini (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) published in The Sociological Review Volume 66 Issue 2 (March 2018)
Abstract
Sharing practices have increased over the last decade as a byproduct of the economic recession and the wider use of online services, creating the hype of ‘Sharing Economy’.
However, sharing economy as defined today includes contradictory cases of renting, sharing, commoning, collaboration, solidarity, and typical businesses. This article focuses on cases that outline sharing as an act that facilitates a transition of urban communities towards places that are socially interactive and resourceful.
Those practices are defined as ‘Sharing Culture’. Sharing culture relates to social networks that grow informally within a region and have as their goal to co-produce, manage and share resources, time, services, knowledge, information, and support based on solidarity rather than economic profit.
Ultimately, sharing culture creates an alternative pathway for citizens to serve daily needs in a more sustainable, resourceful, and socially engaging manner by investing in regional and local assets. Because sharing culture is tightly related to the everyday and the local, the social construct of a region as well as the physical design influence how and where it emerges.
Through a theoretical review of sharing practices and empirical data from a short selection of sharing culture cases, this article explores what sharing culture is, how it emerges, and highlights the importance of physical space in the process of diffusion within an area.
The goal of this article is twofold:
Abstract
Sharing practices have increased over the last decade as a byproduct of the economic recession and the wider use of online services, creating the hype of ‘Sharing Economy’.
However, sharing economy as defined today includes contradictory cases of renting, sharing, commoning, collaboration, solidarity, and typical businesses. This article focuses on cases that outline sharing as an act that facilitates a transition of urban communities towards places that are socially interactive and resourceful.
Those practices are defined as ‘Sharing Culture’. Sharing culture relates to social networks that grow informally within a region and have as their goal to co-produce, manage and share resources, time, services, knowledge, information, and support based on solidarity rather than economic profit.
Ultimately, sharing culture creates an alternative pathway for citizens to serve daily needs in a more sustainable, resourceful, and socially engaging manner by investing in regional and local assets. Because sharing culture is tightly related to the everyday and the local, the social construct of a region as well as the physical design influence how and where it emerges.
Through a theoretical review of sharing practices and empirical data from a short selection of sharing culture cases, this article explores what sharing culture is, how it emerges, and highlights the importance of physical space in the process of diffusion within an area.
The goal of this article is twofold:
- first, to provide a new theoretical framework, that of the sharing culture, which enriches the current debate on sharing and collaborative practices and distances itself from economic transactions of sharing economy, while focusing on human needs and characteristics of solidarity.
- Second, the article intends to reveal the lack of systematic research on how these practices are influenced by physical space.
Here Are The Shocking Figures Behind the UK’s Homelessness Crisis
a post by Jem Collins for the Info Rights blog: Human Rights News, Views & Info
Homelessness has been one of the biggest talking points of 2018 so far, and for good reason. Hundreds of thousands of people across the UK are forced to live on the streets, sofa surf, or are stuck in dangerous rentals and unable to speak out. And more than a million people have to deal with a rogue landlord who breaks the law.
For most people, homelessness is difficult to imagine. But it isn’t as far away as we’d like to think: in fact, given how prevalent it is, you probably know someone who is, or has been, temporarily homeless.
It’s also an issue that touches on the very core of our human rights: after all, a stable home has a huge impact on our entire lives. From our education and health, to our dignity and right to a family and private life, we need to be doing more to make sure these rights are real for everyone.
Continue reading
Homelessness has been one of the biggest talking points of 2018 so far, and for good reason. Hundreds of thousands of people across the UK are forced to live on the streets, sofa surf, or are stuck in dangerous rentals and unable to speak out. And more than a million people have to deal with a rogue landlord who breaks the law.
For most people, homelessness is difficult to imagine. But it isn’t as far away as we’d like to think: in fact, given how prevalent it is, you probably know someone who is, or has been, temporarily homeless.
It’s also an issue that touches on the very core of our human rights: after all, a stable home has a huge impact on our entire lives. From our education and health, to our dignity and right to a family and private life, we need to be doing more to make sure these rights are real for everyone.
Continue reading
The 1990s trade and wages debate in retrospect
a column by Adrian Wood for VOX: CEPOR’s Policy Portal
Two decades ago, the economics profession concluded that trade with developing countries was not seriously hurting unskilled workers in developed countries. This column argues that the debate from which that consensus emerged came to an end prematurely. Even now, the evidence does not permit any firm conclusion about the contribution of globalisation to the economic misfortunes of less-educated people in developed countries. Had there been less consensus among economists, more might have been done, sooner, to mitigate the social costs of globalisation.
Continue reading
Two decades ago, the economics profession concluded that trade with developing countries was not seriously hurting unskilled workers in developed countries. This column argues that the debate from which that consensus emerged came to an end prematurely. Even now, the evidence does not permit any firm conclusion about the contribution of globalisation to the economic misfortunes of less-educated people in developed countries. Had there been less consensus among economists, more might have been done, sooner, to mitigate the social costs of globalisation.
Continue reading
Hazardous, Mouldy and Unsafe – Is There A Right To A Good Home?
a post by Jam Collins for the Rights Info blog: Human Rights News, Views and Info
Image from the UCL Rent Strike. Alisdare Hickson / Flickr
Having somewhere safe to call home is one of the most fundamental aspects of our daily lives, and it has a profound reach across our human rights. From our health and education to our family lives and dignity, these are protections afforded to us all.
However, for many of us, this simply doesn’t translate into reality. From faulty appliances to dangerous living conditions, many tenants find themselves trapped in unsanitary homes, often unable to complain for fear of being kicked out.
And it’s a problem that’s getting worse. Almost three-quarters of a million people are living in unsafe or unsanitary homes, according to a new investigation by The Times. At least 375,000 of these tenants are in a home with a potentially life-threatening fault.
But what are the rules? What can tenants legally expect and who can they turn to if things go wrong? And just how bad can things get?
Continue reading
I continued and stopped when I could take no more.
One third of private rental properties fail basic health and safety checks.
Terrifying in a supposedly civilised country.
Image from the UCL Rent Strike. Alisdare Hickson / Flickr
Having somewhere safe to call home is one of the most fundamental aspects of our daily lives, and it has a profound reach across our human rights. From our health and education to our family lives and dignity, these are protections afforded to us all.
However, for many of us, this simply doesn’t translate into reality. From faulty appliances to dangerous living conditions, many tenants find themselves trapped in unsanitary homes, often unable to complain for fear of being kicked out.
And it’s a problem that’s getting worse. Almost three-quarters of a million people are living in unsafe or unsanitary homes, according to a new investigation by The Times. At least 375,000 of these tenants are in a home with a potentially life-threatening fault.
But what are the rules? What can tenants legally expect and who can they turn to if things go wrong? And just how bad can things get?
Continue reading
I continued and stopped when I could take no more.
One third of private rental properties fail basic health and safety checks.
Terrifying in a supposedly civilised country.
Thursday, 26 April 2018
3 Things That Are Helping Me Deal with Stress, Pain, and Loss
a post by Joshua Kauffman for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness; but it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.” ~Unknown
Life has not been kind lately.
My aunt passed away in October. She had been suffering from cancer, but her family kept the extent of her illness to themselves, and hence I did not have a chance to see her before she passed away. I felt bad about that.
My father followed her a month later, just after Thanksgiving. He had been ailing from Parkinson’s Disease, but his death as well was not expected when it happened.
Two weeks after him, a friend of mine who lives abroad informed me of her diagnosis with a rare form of incurable cancer. She has since passed away before I had a chance to visit her. She was not yet fifty years old.
Right after that happened, the veterinarian diagnosed my dog with heart failure, and his days too are numbered.
In mid-January, my mother, who had been depressed after my father’s death, collapsed with a seizure. A tumor was discovered in her brain. Though easily removed, it was traced back to her lung. She too has a rare form of aggressive cancer and though outwardly healthy, her life will probably be limited to months or a couple of years.
The whole ordeal until diagnosis unfolded over the course of an extremely stressful month, and the future is both frightening and terribly uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, I have needed to change my life plans—I had been ready to relocate and change jobs.
Continue reading
“Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness; but it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.” ~Unknown
Life has not been kind lately.
My aunt passed away in October. She had been suffering from cancer, but her family kept the extent of her illness to themselves, and hence I did not have a chance to see her before she passed away. I felt bad about that.
My father followed her a month later, just after Thanksgiving. He had been ailing from Parkinson’s Disease, but his death as well was not expected when it happened.
Two weeks after him, a friend of mine who lives abroad informed me of her diagnosis with a rare form of incurable cancer. She has since passed away before I had a chance to visit her. She was not yet fifty years old.
Right after that happened, the veterinarian diagnosed my dog with heart failure, and his days too are numbered.
In mid-January, my mother, who had been depressed after my father’s death, collapsed with a seizure. A tumor was discovered in her brain. Though easily removed, it was traced back to her lung. She too has a rare form of aggressive cancer and though outwardly healthy, her life will probably be limited to months or a couple of years.
The whole ordeal until diagnosis unfolded over the course of an extremely stressful month, and the future is both frightening and terribly uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, I have needed to change my life plans—I had been ready to relocate and change jobs.
Continue reading
Cognitive performance and labour market outcomes
an article by Dajun Lin (University of Virginia, USA), Randall Lutter (University of Virginia and Resources for the Future, USA) and Christopher J. Ruhm (University of Virginia and National Bureau of Economic Research, USA) published in Labour Economics Volume 51 (April 2018)
Highlights
We use the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and other sources to examine how cognitive performance near the end of secondary schooling relates to labour market outcomes through age fifty.
Our preferred estimates control for individual and family backgrounds, non-cognitive attributes, and survey years. We find that returns to cognitive skills rise with age.
Although estimated gains in lifetime incomes are close to those reported earlier, our preferred estimates make multiple offsetting improvements.
Returns to cognitive skill are greater for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, both in relative and absolute terms, with gains in work hours being more important than in hourly wages.
JEL Classification: J08, J31
Highlights
- Cognitive performance is associated with future labour market outcomes at all ages.
- The estimated return to cognitive performance rises with age.
- Associations with incomes reflect associations with wage rates and hours worked.
- Relative returns to cognitive performance vary with race, ethnicity and sex.
We use the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and other sources to examine how cognitive performance near the end of secondary schooling relates to labour market outcomes through age fifty.
Our preferred estimates control for individual and family backgrounds, non-cognitive attributes, and survey years. We find that returns to cognitive skills rise with age.
Although estimated gains in lifetime incomes are close to those reported earlier, our preferred estimates make multiple offsetting improvements.
Returns to cognitive skill are greater for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, both in relative and absolute terms, with gains in work hours being more important than in hourly wages.
JEL Classification: J08, J31
Is Buddhism a religion?
a post by Derek Beres for the Big Think blog
If you were to go by the stream of psychology and neuroscience books published over the last two decades, you’d think Buddhism is an intricate philosophical system designed by a man with a keen insight for the emergence of psychoanalysis and philosophy some 2,400 years down the road.
Indeed, Buddhism lends itself to emergent sciences in ways no other faith has. In fact, many modern thinkers, including Sam Harris and Stephen Batchelor, question if faith is even necessary to understand Buddhism. The question of faith is one Siddhartha Gotama generally avoided. As Batchelor writes:
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Buddhism lends itself to emergent sciences in ways no other faith has.
If you were to go by the stream of psychology and neuroscience books published over the last two decades, you’d think Buddhism is an intricate philosophical system designed by a man with a keen insight for the emergence of psychoanalysis and philosophy some 2,400 years down the road.
Indeed, Buddhism lends itself to emergent sciences in ways no other faith has. In fact, many modern thinkers, including Sam Harris and Stephen Batchelor, question if faith is even necessary to understand Buddhism. The question of faith is one Siddhartha Gotama generally avoided. As Batchelor writes:
Gotama’s dharma opened the door to an emergent civilization rather than the establishment of a “religion”.In an early instance of transcending tribalism, Buddha opened up his teachings to the entire world; it was not a gender- or race-dependent practice. Monks and nuns were in a co-dependent relationship with the public: the clergy offered spiritual sustenance while commoners provided them with food and money. Anyone could partake in the Three Jewels, either for a lifetime or, in some nations (such as Japan), for a season: dharma, Buddha’s teachings; sangha, the community; and the Buddha. Faith in these three aspects offers ground-floor entry into the Buddhist life.
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Marx and modern microeconomics
a column by Samuel Bowles for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Few economists doubt that Marx flunked economics, a judgement mostly based on his labour theory of value. But this column argues that Marx’s representation of the power relationship between capital and labour in the firm is an essential insight for understanding and improving modern capitalism. Indeed, this insight is incorporated into standard principal–agent models of labour and credit markets.
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Few economists doubt that Marx flunked economics, a judgement mostly based on his labour theory of value. But this column argues that Marx’s representation of the power relationship between capital and labour in the firm is an essential insight for understanding and improving modern capitalism. Indeed, this insight is incorporated into standard principal–agent models of labour and credit markets.
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Rethinking low pay and in‐work poverty
an article by Fran Bennet (University of Oxford writing in a personal capacity) published in IPPR Progressive Review Volume 24 Issue 4 (Spring 2018)
Abstract
There is frequent confusion in public debate and media stories between low pay and in‐work poverty. Fran Bennett argues that a focus on gender roles and relationships, and gendered access to resources, is essential to unpick the distinction between these two problems.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
Abstract
There is frequent confusion in public debate and media stories between low pay and in‐work poverty. Fran Bennett argues that a focus on gender roles and relationships, and gendered access to resources, is essential to unpick the distinction between these two problems.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
Insights into Loneliness
a post by Tracy Shawn for the World of Psychology blog
Experts are warning us that we are in midst of a loneliness epidemic. In fact, the U.K. has recently appointed a minister of loneliness to deal with what Prime Minister Theresa May says is a “sad reality of modern life.” Our mobile society (with people increasingly moving away from family and friends), our technologically wired culture (where people are engaging less with their real-life environment and other people in it), and the growing pressure to work more (so, in part, that people can consume more), create a kind of existential stew that contributes not only to loneliness, but also to a general loss of connectedness.
Loneliness is invading more and more people’s lives, increasing stress, depression, even affecting physical health (it’s associated with greater risk of cardiovascular disease, and research shows that it is as bad for people’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day). But what can a person do, given the modern-day barriers that can lead to these feelings of isolation? Perhaps it’s about building our own small communities within the larger context of society, making meaningful connections within the very situations and structures that may have contributed to our loneliness in the first place.
Continue reading
Experts are warning us that we are in midst of a loneliness epidemic. In fact, the U.K. has recently appointed a minister of loneliness to deal with what Prime Minister Theresa May says is a “sad reality of modern life.” Our mobile society (with people increasingly moving away from family and friends), our technologically wired culture (where people are engaging less with their real-life environment and other people in it), and the growing pressure to work more (so, in part, that people can consume more), create a kind of existential stew that contributes not only to loneliness, but also to a general loss of connectedness.
Loneliness is invading more and more people’s lives, increasing stress, depression, even affecting physical health (it’s associated with greater risk of cardiovascular disease, and research shows that it is as bad for people’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day). But what can a person do, given the modern-day barriers that can lead to these feelings of isolation? Perhaps it’s about building our own small communities within the larger context of society, making meaningful connections within the very situations and structures that may have contributed to our loneliness in the first place.
Continue reading
The Employer Who Asked to Look Inside a Job Candidate’s Purse
an article by Alison Green published in SLATE
How the weird power dynamics of job interviews can brainwash you into putting up with outrageous behavior.
Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.
One of the weirdest and most stressful parts about looking for a new job is figuring out how to navigate the power dynamics that exist between employers and job candidates. I’ve been writing the workplace advice column Ask a Manager for 10 years now, answering questions about everything from how to ask for a raise to what to do if you’re allergic to your boss’s perfume. One of the most frequent themes in my inbox has been rude and power-tripping behavior from prospective employers during the interview process. In letter after letter, people have written about feeling obligated to suck it up and deal with it because they think their interviewers hold all the cards.
Continue reading
Alison has been writing her advice blog for 10 years, and I have been reading it for about the same length of time.
BUT
I rarely share onto my blog because many of the issues discussed are specific to the USA where the employment laws are very different from those in the UK.
Job interviews are, however, universal.
Good luck!
How the weird power dynamics of job interviews can brainwash you into putting up with outrageous behavior.
Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.
One of the weirdest and most stressful parts about looking for a new job is figuring out how to navigate the power dynamics that exist between employers and job candidates. I’ve been writing the workplace advice column Ask a Manager for 10 years now, answering questions about everything from how to ask for a raise to what to do if you’re allergic to your boss’s perfume. One of the most frequent themes in my inbox has been rude and power-tripping behavior from prospective employers during the interview process. In letter after letter, people have written about feeling obligated to suck it up and deal with it because they think their interviewers hold all the cards.
Continue reading
Alison has been writing her advice blog for 10 years, and I have been reading it for about the same length of time.
BUT
I rarely share onto my blog because many of the issues discussed are specific to the USA where the employment laws are very different from those in the UK.
Job interviews are, however, universal.
Good luck!
20 Lies Addicts Say to Justify their Addiction
a post by Christine Hammond for The Exhausted Woman blog (via World of Psychology)
Angel came into counseling knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was. After being married for seven years, he noticed his wife became more secretive and distant. Money from their savings account was missing and unaccounted for, his wife would disappear frustrated and return weirdly happy, and she seemed to get angry very easily over insignificant matters.
At first, he thought she was having an affair. But after looking at her phone and locations, he ruled that out. So he sought the advice of a therapist. Oftentimes when a spouse is hiding the severity of an addiction, the only evidence of it is the way they talk about it. An addict lies to themselves and others in order to justify continuing in their addiction.
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The final paragraph really got to me. Staging an intervention and getting help for your addict will only work if your addict wants to be helped.
I've heard most of those 20 lies and several that weren't in the list.
Angel came into counseling knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was. After being married for seven years, he noticed his wife became more secretive and distant. Money from their savings account was missing and unaccounted for, his wife would disappear frustrated and return weirdly happy, and she seemed to get angry very easily over insignificant matters.
At first, he thought she was having an affair. But after looking at her phone and locations, he ruled that out. So he sought the advice of a therapist. Oftentimes when a spouse is hiding the severity of an addiction, the only evidence of it is the way they talk about it. An addict lies to themselves and others in order to justify continuing in their addiction.
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The final paragraph really got to me. Staging an intervention and getting help for your addict will only work if your addict wants to be helped.
I've heard most of those 20 lies and several that weren't in the list.
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Extraction of potential dimensions for consumers’ psychological perceptions regarding perfume bottle form
an article by Hung-Yuan Chen and Hua-Cheng Chang (Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan City, Taiwan) published in Journal of Design Research Volume 16 Number 1 (2018)
Abstract
To create a successful perfume bottle form before the product is launched onto the market, it is essential to fully understand the consumers’ psychological perceptions regarding a perfume bottle form and to explore the potential dimensions which characterise these perceptions.
Accordingly, the present study conducts a questionnaire-based investigation to examine consumers’ psychological perceptions (CPPs) regarding 20 existing perfume bottle forms. Having confirmed the reliability and validity of the questionnaire tool, an exploratory factor analysis is performed to identify the potential dimensions of the CPPs.
Five potential dimensions are identified, namely ‘aesthetic evaluation’, ‘novelty and peculiarity’, ‘fashion and trend’, ‘personality suitability’, and ‘emotional association’.
It is shown that by using these potential dimensions in conjunction with the questionnaire, it is possible to evaluate both the satisfactory degree of the CPP induced by a particular perfume bottle form in each dimension and the global satisfactory degree of the CPP over all the dimensions.
I know this is not quite within the range of my usual topics but I became fascinated with the idea that a large amount of work goes into making perfume bottles.
Abstract
To create a successful perfume bottle form before the product is launched onto the market, it is essential to fully understand the consumers’ psychological perceptions regarding a perfume bottle form and to explore the potential dimensions which characterise these perceptions.
Accordingly, the present study conducts a questionnaire-based investigation to examine consumers’ psychological perceptions (CPPs) regarding 20 existing perfume bottle forms. Having confirmed the reliability and validity of the questionnaire tool, an exploratory factor analysis is performed to identify the potential dimensions of the CPPs.
Five potential dimensions are identified, namely ‘aesthetic evaluation’, ‘novelty and peculiarity’, ‘fashion and trend’, ‘personality suitability’, and ‘emotional association’.
It is shown that by using these potential dimensions in conjunction with the questionnaire, it is possible to evaluate both the satisfactory degree of the CPP induced by a particular perfume bottle form in each dimension and the global satisfactory degree of the CPP over all the dimensions.
I know this is not quite within the range of my usual topics but I became fascinated with the idea that a large amount of work goes into making perfume bottles.
"We're not a bottomless pit": food banks' capacity to sustainably meet increasing demand
an article by Steve Iafrati (University of Wolverhampton, UK) published in
Voluntary Sector Review Volume 9 Number 1 (March 2018)
Abstract
Based on research with 21 food banks across eight local authority areas in England, this article examines the sustainability of food banks in their attempts to balance demand and supply.
Against a background of multiple deprivation and welfare reforms in the UK, food banks are becoming increasingly important for growing numbers of people. However, at a time when food banks' ability to meet this increasing demand is close to capacity, this article examines how social purpose is a core element in food banks’ understanding of sustainability.
With food banks having little control over the level of demand, and supply being increasingly close to capacity, if demand exceeds supply, sustainability will necessitate either denying demand or expanding supply.
Full text (PDF 15pp)
Voluntary Sector Review Volume 9 Number 1 (March 2018)
Abstract
Based on research with 21 food banks across eight local authority areas in England, this article examines the sustainability of food banks in their attempts to balance demand and supply.
Against a background of multiple deprivation and welfare reforms in the UK, food banks are becoming increasingly important for growing numbers of people. However, at a time when food banks' ability to meet this increasing demand is close to capacity, this article examines how social purpose is a core element in food banks’ understanding of sustainability.
With food banks having little control over the level of demand, and supply being increasingly close to capacity, if demand exceeds supply, sustainability will necessitate either denying demand or expanding supply.
Full text (PDF 15pp)
It’s Okay to Have Feelings, So Stop Saying “I’m Fine” When You’re Not
a post by Raphaela Browne for the Tiny Buddha blog
“I'd rather be honest and authentic and disappoint some people than to exhaust myself trying to keep up the façade of perfection.” ~Crystal Paine
So many people walk around each day masking their true feelings because they are considered the “strong one,” “the upbeat, bubbly one,” or, since they give so much of themselves supporting others, they’re not seen as having any emotions other than happy. If you’ve ever felt like you had to hold it together all the time to keep up a façade for others, there’s freedom in letting people know that you have feelings too.
Keeping it together has always been my thing. You know the phrase “never let 'em see you sweat”? Well, even in my worst moments, I would keep it all in place and poised for the public, but I’d be secretly dying on the inside, because of the pain or challenges I was going through.
It can catch some people off guard to see you be real, revealing that you don’t have it all together, and at times their responses can leave you wounded. I know that feeling all too well.
A few months back, I attended an event to support a colleague and I bumped into someone I knew well. He asked me how I was doing, and I responded honestly with “I'm hanging in there, but I'm fine.”
He immediately made a face and seemed disturbed by my response. He said, “Woooooah, you gotta change that. You sound too defeated and that's not what I want to hear from you.”
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“I'd rather be honest and authentic and disappoint some people than to exhaust myself trying to keep up the façade of perfection.” ~Crystal Paine
So many people walk around each day masking their true feelings because they are considered the “strong one,” “the upbeat, bubbly one,” or, since they give so much of themselves supporting others, they’re not seen as having any emotions other than happy. If you’ve ever felt like you had to hold it together all the time to keep up a façade for others, there’s freedom in letting people know that you have feelings too.
Keeping it together has always been my thing. You know the phrase “never let 'em see you sweat”? Well, even in my worst moments, I would keep it all in place and poised for the public, but I’d be secretly dying on the inside, because of the pain or challenges I was going through.
It can catch some people off guard to see you be real, revealing that you don’t have it all together, and at times their responses can leave you wounded. I know that feeling all too well.
A few months back, I attended an event to support a colleague and I bumped into someone I knew well. He asked me how I was doing, and I responded honestly with “I'm hanging in there, but I'm fine.”
He immediately made a face and seemed disturbed by my response. He said, “Woooooah, you gotta change that. You sound too defeated and that's not what I want to hear from you.”
Continue reading
Barriers to trade in services have an impact on multinational production in the manufacturing sector
a column by Koen De Backer, Sébastien Miroudot and Davide Rigo for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Multinational enterprises that produce goods rely on services to organise their value chain, so barriers to investment in services are likely to affect their production.
The column uses a new and comprehensive OECD database to measure the share of services in the exports of multinational enterprises, and also in the output of their foreign affiliates. The results suggest that policymakers may need to focus more on the services that support manufacturing industries.
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I found the chart of “double counting” particularly interesting although I got lost in the statistical explanation.
Multinational enterprises that produce goods rely on services to organise their value chain, so barriers to investment in services are likely to affect their production.
The column uses a new and comprehensive OECD database to measure the share of services in the exports of multinational enterprises, and also in the output of their foreign affiliates. The results suggest that policymakers may need to focus more on the services that support manufacturing industries.
Continue reading
I found the chart of “double counting” particularly interesting although I got lost in the statistical explanation.
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
Easing a Broken Heart: 5 Ways to Reframe Rejection
a post by Marissa Walter for the Tiny Buddha blog
“When the wrong people leave your life, the right things start to happen.” ~Zig Ziglar
The end of a relationship triggers many grief emotions, but when a couple breaks up because one person decides that it’s over, there is a very distinct pain: the sting of rejection. It doesn’t matter whether things had been difficult for some time or if the split came out of the blue; either way, rejection feels cruel.
At the end of my marriage eight years ago, I had no idea that the breakup was coming. On top of the shock that the relationship was suddenly over, I carried the intense and overwhelming feeling of rejection; I was no longer valued, wanted, or needed.
Rejection can trigger feelings of shame, low self-esteem. and diminished confidence as well as helplessness and victimization. If you are left for another person (which was my experience) the intensity of rejection increases further. I experienced anger and resentment about betrayal; this makes healing feel much harder than in those cases where a decision to split is mutual.
When I began move through my initial grief, I found that the biggest shift in moving forward came through changing how I viewed rejection. I realized that by identifying with the feeling of rejection I was telling myself that something was wrong with me; that the marriage was over because I hadn’t come up to scratch and, therefore, needed to be let go.
Continue reading
“When the wrong people leave your life, the right things start to happen.” ~Zig Ziglar
The end of a relationship triggers many grief emotions, but when a couple breaks up because one person decides that it’s over, there is a very distinct pain: the sting of rejection. It doesn’t matter whether things had been difficult for some time or if the split came out of the blue; either way, rejection feels cruel.
At the end of my marriage eight years ago, I had no idea that the breakup was coming. On top of the shock that the relationship was suddenly over, I carried the intense and overwhelming feeling of rejection; I was no longer valued, wanted, or needed.
Rejection can trigger feelings of shame, low self-esteem. and diminished confidence as well as helplessness and victimization. If you are left for another person (which was my experience) the intensity of rejection increases further. I experienced anger and resentment about betrayal; this makes healing feel much harder than in those cases where a decision to split is mutual.
When I began move through my initial grief, I found that the biggest shift in moving forward came through changing how I viewed rejection. I realized that by identifying with the feeling of rejection I was telling myself that something was wrong with me; that the marriage was over because I hadn’t come up to scratch and, therefore, needed to be let go.
Continue reading
Information strategies and affective reactions: How citizens interact with government social media content
an article by Nic DePaula and Ersin Dincelli (University at Albany, State University of New York, USA) published in First Monday Volume 23 Number 4 (April 2018)
Abstract
As social media use grows among the general population, government organizations around the world also widely adopt the platforms.
While researchers on government use of social media first acknowledged the potential of these technologies for participatory democracy, transparency, and collaboration, we have come to learn that applications such as Facebook and Twitter are also sites for misinformation and highly driven by emotional content.
To better understand the information strategies of governments and how citizens react on social media, we ask the following research questions:
For this study, we collected Facebook posts of local government agencies and departments across the United States and categorized each post using a framework of government communication and information strategies on social media. We then analysed differences in users’ reactions in the form of likes, comments, and shares to the distinct types of content.
We wanted to capture the effects of content type on user reactions to understand what drives social media responses.
We found a number of statistically significant results, providing some evidence for how different types of information affect user interaction.
Our results highlight how users are more engaged by the affective and symbolic nature of social media content, rather than more serious and emotionally neutral government information.
We only provide generalized evidence of how users react to U.S. local government posts on Facebook. Nevertheless, we believe this study is important for scholars of government communication and government technology adoption more broadly as it provides evidence of the affective tendencies and biases within social media environments.
Full text (HTML)
Abstract
As social media use grows among the general population, government organizations around the world also widely adopt the platforms.
While researchers on government use of social media first acknowledged the potential of these technologies for participatory democracy, transparency, and collaboration, we have come to learn that applications such as Facebook and Twitter are also sites for misinformation and highly driven by emotional content.
To better understand the information strategies of governments and how citizens react on social media, we ask the following research questions:
- What do government organizations post on social media?
- How do citizens react to the content posted by government agencies?
For this study, we collected Facebook posts of local government agencies and departments across the United States and categorized each post using a framework of government communication and information strategies on social media. We then analysed differences in users’ reactions in the form of likes, comments, and shares to the distinct types of content.
We wanted to capture the effects of content type on user reactions to understand what drives social media responses.
We found a number of statistically significant results, providing some evidence for how different types of information affect user interaction.
Our results highlight how users are more engaged by the affective and symbolic nature of social media content, rather than more serious and emotionally neutral government information.
We only provide generalized evidence of how users react to U.S. local government posts on Facebook. Nevertheless, we believe this study is important for scholars of government communication and government technology adoption more broadly as it provides evidence of the affective tendencies and biases within social media environments.
Full text (HTML)
Information, communication and political consumerism: How (online) information and (online) communication influence boycotts and buycotts
an article by Ole Kelm and Marco Dohle (University of Düsseldorf, Germany) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 4 (April 2018)
Abstract
The development and diffusion of digital media is one frequently mentioned factor to explain the popularity of political consumerism; yet, to what extent (online) information and (online) communication activities influence the intensity of political consumerism has rarely been investigated.
Arguing that (online) information and (online) communication activities have impacts on various forms of political consumerism – namely, on boycotts and buycotts – two data sets collected in Germany were analysed.
Based on the citizen communication mediation model, the results indicate that (online) communication mediates the influence of (online) information on boycotts and buycotts; furthermore, the results suggest that boycotts are influenced by communication activities in a stronger way than buycotts.
Abstract
The development and diffusion of digital media is one frequently mentioned factor to explain the popularity of political consumerism; yet, to what extent (online) information and (online) communication activities influence the intensity of political consumerism has rarely been investigated.
Arguing that (online) information and (online) communication activities have impacts on various forms of political consumerism – namely, on boycotts and buycotts – two data sets collected in Germany were analysed.
Based on the citizen communication mediation model, the results indicate that (online) communication mediates the influence of (online) information on boycotts and buycotts; furthermore, the results suggest that boycotts are influenced by communication activities in a stronger way than buycotts.
How Volunteering Can Help Your Mental & Physical Health
a post by Barbara R. Edwards for the World of Psychology blog
Many recent studies that have been done on volunteer work show how it’s connected to better health. Physical effects on the body, such as lowered blood pressure can be measured and impacted through helping others.
Though some of us are introverts, humans need social connection in order to survive and thrive. Helping others not only makes you feel good about yourself, but your actions have lasting effects on those you serve, which can be just as rewarding as knowing you’re contributing to your own self-improvement.
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Many recent studies that have been done on volunteer work show how it’s connected to better health. Physical effects on the body, such as lowered blood pressure can be measured and impacted through helping others.
Though some of us are introverts, humans need social connection in order to survive and thrive. Helping others not only makes you feel good about yourself, but your actions have lasting effects on those you serve, which can be just as rewarding as knowing you’re contributing to your own self-improvement.
Continue reading
Does everyone really need a job? Why we should question full employment
a post by Scotty Hendricks for the Big Think blog
Photo by Mike Kononov and Solomon Hsu on Unsplash
The idea that diligence is a virtue and that a person who doesn’t work full time is morally suspect is a common one. Phrases like “idle hands are the tools of the devil” suggest to us that work is inherently good and that if we don't work full-time then we have somehow failed. For many people, unemployment is as much something to be ashamed of as it is an economic problem.
It is no surprise then that we rarely ask – “do we all need to work?”
Think about it. The advance of technology over the last century and the increasing threat of automation have made many jobs obsolete. We have more wealth than at any other point in human history, we've created machines by which we can be more productive than any other point in human history, and have more things to do in our spare time than ever before. Why should we all work full-time jobs if we can afford to work part-time for the same economic output?
This is the question Andrew Taggart has asked for years. Taggart, a practical philosopher, understands that people have a need to contribute and often find meaning in work, but questions if our society can offer jobs that fulfill these needs to everybody. He points out that full employment schemes have historically focused on short-term, unskilled and labor-intensive employment that often fail to satisfy our need to contribute meaningfully to the world.
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Photo by Mike Kononov and Solomon Hsu on Unsplash
The idea that diligence is a virtue and that a person who doesn’t work full time is morally suspect is a common one. Phrases like “idle hands are the tools of the devil” suggest to us that work is inherently good and that if we don't work full-time then we have somehow failed. For many people, unemployment is as much something to be ashamed of as it is an economic problem.
It is no surprise then that we rarely ask – “do we all need to work?”
Think about it. The advance of technology over the last century and the increasing threat of automation have made many jobs obsolete. We have more wealth than at any other point in human history, we've created machines by which we can be more productive than any other point in human history, and have more things to do in our spare time than ever before. Why should we all work full-time jobs if we can afford to work part-time for the same economic output?
This is the question Andrew Taggart has asked for years. Taggart, a practical philosopher, understands that people have a need to contribute and often find meaning in work, but questions if our society can offer jobs that fulfill these needs to everybody. He points out that full employment schemes have historically focused on short-term, unskilled and labor-intensive employment that often fail to satisfy our need to contribute meaningfully to the world.
Continue reading
Rehabilitation as a Disability Equality Issue: A Conceptual Shift for Disability Studies?
an article by Tom Shakespeare, Harriet Cooper and Fiona Poland (University of East Anglia, UK) and Dikmen Bezmez (Koç University, Turkey) published in Social Inclusion Volume 6 Number 1 (2018)
Abstract
Rehabilitation is a controversial subject in disability studies, often discussed in terms of oppression, normalisation, and unwanted intrusion. While there may be good reasons for positioning rehabilitation in this way, this has also meant that, as a lived experience, it is under-researched and neglected in disabilities literature, as we show by surveying leading disability studies journals.
With some notable exceptions, rehabilitation research has remained the preserve of the rehabilitation sciences, and such studies have rarely included the voices of disabled people themselves, as we also demonstrate by surveying a cross-section of rehabilitation science literature.
Next, drawing on new research, we argue for reframing access to rehabilitation as a disability equality issue.
Through in-depth discussion of two case studies, we demonstrate that rehabilitation can be a tool for inclusion and for supporting an equal life.
Indeed, we contend that rehabilitation merits disability researchers’ sustained engagement, precisely to ensure that a ‘right-based rehabilitation’ policy and practice can be developed, which is not oppressive, but reflects the views and experiences of the disabled people who rehabilitation should serve.
Full text (PDF 12pp)
Abstract
Rehabilitation is a controversial subject in disability studies, often discussed in terms of oppression, normalisation, and unwanted intrusion. While there may be good reasons for positioning rehabilitation in this way, this has also meant that, as a lived experience, it is under-researched and neglected in disabilities literature, as we show by surveying leading disability studies journals.
With some notable exceptions, rehabilitation research has remained the preserve of the rehabilitation sciences, and such studies have rarely included the voices of disabled people themselves, as we also demonstrate by surveying a cross-section of rehabilitation science literature.
Next, drawing on new research, we argue for reframing access to rehabilitation as a disability equality issue.
Through in-depth discussion of two case studies, we demonstrate that rehabilitation can be a tool for inclusion and for supporting an equal life.
Indeed, we contend that rehabilitation merits disability researchers’ sustained engagement, precisely to ensure that a ‘right-based rehabilitation’ policy and practice can be developed, which is not oppressive, but reflects the views and experiences of the disabled people who rehabilitation should serve.
Full text (PDF 12pp)
Quantifying the power and consequences of social media protest
an article by Deen Freelon (American University, USA), Charlton McIlwain (New York University, USA) and Meredith Clark (University of North Texas, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 3 (March 2018)
Abstract
The exercise of power has been an implicit theme in research on the use of social media for political protest, but few studies have attempted to measure social media power and its consequences directly.
This study develops and measures three theoretically grounded metrics of social media power – unity, numbers, and commitment – as wielded on Twitter by a social movement (Black Lives Matter [BLM]), a counter-movement (political conservatives), and an unaligned party (mainstream news outlets) over nearly 10 months.
We find evidence of a model of social media efficacy in which BLM predicts mainstream news coverage of police brutality, which in turn is the strongest driver of attention to the issue from political elites.
Critically, the metric that best predicts elite response across all parties is commitment.
Abstract
The exercise of power has been an implicit theme in research on the use of social media for political protest, but few studies have attempted to measure social media power and its consequences directly.
This study develops and measures three theoretically grounded metrics of social media power – unity, numbers, and commitment – as wielded on Twitter by a social movement (Black Lives Matter [BLM]), a counter-movement (political conservatives), and an unaligned party (mainstream news outlets) over nearly 10 months.
We find evidence of a model of social media efficacy in which BLM predicts mainstream news coverage of police brutality, which in turn is the strongest driver of attention to the issue from political elites.
Critically, the metric that best predicts elite response across all parties is commitment.
Monday, 23 April 2018
There’s More to Life Than Being Busy: Why I Took a Pressure-Free Pause
a post by Will Aylward for the Tiny Buddha blog
It was a Monday a few weeks ago, 6:00am, and I was taking a morning walk. The only light in sight was the neon yellow glare of the street lamps.
My heart was heavy. It was as if someone had cut my chest open while I was asleep and slipped a cannonball inside.
My alarm had awoken me at 5:00am, as it had every morning since the start of the year.
My shoes crunch-crunched in the snow as I trudged along, ignoring this dull ache in my chest, telling myself “It's just resistance to being up so early. Keep pushing through; gotta get those 12,000 steps today, Will.”
I got to the end of the road, a mere eighty or so meters from my house, and WHOOSH, a wild wave of emotions washed over me, forcing me—jolting me—to stop walking and stand still and silent in the snow.
I stood and stood as if I'd fallen asleep upright and frozen to death.
This whooshing wave felt like a panic attack. Except it wasn't.
It was this feeling coming from my chest, the one I had tried to ignore. If its first attempt to get my attention was a whisper, this was a shout.
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“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield
My heart was heavy. It was as if someone had cut my chest open while I was asleep and slipped a cannonball inside.
My alarm had awoken me at 5:00am, as it had every morning since the start of the year.
My shoes crunch-crunched in the snow as I trudged along, ignoring this dull ache in my chest, telling myself “It's just resistance to being up so early. Keep pushing through; gotta get those 12,000 steps today, Will.”
I got to the end of the road, a mere eighty or so meters from my house, and WHOOSH, a wild wave of emotions washed over me, forcing me—jolting me—to stop walking and stand still and silent in the snow.
I stood and stood as if I'd fallen asleep upright and frozen to death.
This whooshing wave felt like a panic attack. Except it wasn't.
It was this feeling coming from my chest, the one I had tried to ignore. If its first attempt to get my attention was a whisper, this was a shout.
Continue reading
Disentangling goods, labor, and credit market frictions in three European economies
an article by Thomas Brzustowski (London School of Economics, UK), Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, USA) and Etienne Wasmer (Department of Economics and LIEPP, Sciences Po, Paris, France) published in Labour Economics Volume 50 (March 2018)
Highlights
Abstract
We build a flexible model with search frictions in three markets: credit, labor, and goods markets.
We then apply this model (called CLG) to three different economies: a flexible, finance-driven economy (the UK), an economy with wage moderation (Germany), and an economy with structural rigidities (Spain).
In these three countries, goods and credit market frictions play a dominant role in entry costs and account for 75% to 85% of the total entry costs.
In the goods market, adverse supply shocks are amplified through their propagation to the demand side, as they also imply income losses for consumers.
This adds up to, at most, an additional 15% to 25% to the impact of the shocks.
Finally, the speed of matching in the goods market and the credit market accounts for a small fraction of unemployment: most variation in unemployment comes from the speed of matching in the labor market.
Full text (PDF 17pp)
I tried reading it but admit that I am too far from using my maths/statistical knowledge in earnest to be able to make a lot of sense of the equations.
Highlights
- We build a flexible model with search frictions in three markets: credit, labor, and goods market. We then apply this model (called CLG) to three different economies: a flexible, finance-driven economy (the UK), an economy with wage moderation (Germany), and finally an economy with structural rigidities (Spain).
- Goods and credit market frictions play a dominant role in entry costs and account for up to 75% to 85% of total entry costs.
- The demand side amplification effects of adverse supply shocks (through income losses of consumers) remains limited to a range of 15% to 25% of the total impact of these supply shocks.
- Finally, the speed of matching in the goods market and in credit market accounts for a small fraction of unemployment: most of the variation in unemployment comes from the speed of matching in the labor market.
Abstract
We build a flexible model with search frictions in three markets: credit, labor, and goods markets.
We then apply this model (called CLG) to three different economies: a flexible, finance-driven economy (the UK), an economy with wage moderation (Germany), and an economy with structural rigidities (Spain).
In these three countries, goods and credit market frictions play a dominant role in entry costs and account for 75% to 85% of the total entry costs.
In the goods market, adverse supply shocks are amplified through their propagation to the demand side, as they also imply income losses for consumers.
This adds up to, at most, an additional 15% to 25% to the impact of the shocks.
Finally, the speed of matching in the goods market and the credit market accounts for a small fraction of unemployment: most variation in unemployment comes from the speed of matching in the labor market.
Full text (PDF 17pp)
I tried reading it but admit that I am too far from using my maths/statistical knowledge in earnest to be able to make a lot of sense of the equations.
Occupational specificity: A new measurement based on training curricula and its effect on labor market outcomes
an article by Christian Eggenberger and Uschi Backes-Gellner (University of Zurich, Switzerland) and Miriam Rinawi (Swiss National Bank, Zurich, Switzerland) published in Labour Economics Volume 51 (April 2018)
Highlights
Abstract
This paper proposes a new measurement for the specificity of occupations based on a content analysis of training curricula that we link to labor market demands. We apply Lazear's (2009) skill weights approach and test predictions on labor market outcomes derived from his theory.
We find clear evidence of a trade-off between earning higher returns with more specific training and higher occupational mobility with less specific training.
Our measure improves the micro-foundation of human capital specificity and provides an evidence-based approach to evaluate the specificity of training curricula.
JEL Classification: I20, J24, J62
Oh how I wish that I was still involved with classification and specificity of occupations etc. Ah well, I can still read the full article in the British Library and enjoy myself.
Highlights
- We introduce a new empirical measure for the specificity of human capital.
- It uses single skills within occupational training curricula and their bundling.
- We investigate labor market returns of more or less specific training occupations.
- We find a trade-off between occupations with higher returns vs higher flexibility.
Abstract
This paper proposes a new measurement for the specificity of occupations based on a content analysis of training curricula that we link to labor market demands. We apply Lazear's (2009) skill weights approach and test predictions on labor market outcomes derived from his theory.
We find clear evidence of a trade-off between earning higher returns with more specific training and higher occupational mobility with less specific training.
Our measure improves the micro-foundation of human capital specificity and provides an evidence-based approach to evaluate the specificity of training curricula.
JEL Classification: I20, J24, J62
Oh how I wish that I was still involved with classification and specificity of occupations etc. Ah well, I can still read the full article in the British Library and enjoy myself.
Kindness Counts
a post by Edie Weinstein for the World of Psychology blog
“My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” – the Dalai Lama
Kindness is: “a behavior marked by ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and a concern for others,” according to Wikipedia. It implies that other people matter as much as we do to ourselves. It indicates that we are not alone on the Big Blue Marble and that what affects one of us, impacts all of us.
Kindness is both energetic and interactive. A verb and adjective. We can send kind thoughts to anyone at every moment. It can be as simple as opening a door for someone else or as labor intensive as painting a room for a stranger.
It begins in the home and expands into the community. Multi-generational lessons about consideration have shaped my values. I witnessed my parents engaging in caring activities, such as going grocery shopping for neighbors, delivering meals for people in our congregation when they were ill or someone close to them had died. I marveled at the various volunteering gigs they had at our local hospital and fire house. Even in their waning years, they helped at their community center. My father (plumped up with pillows under a red suit) was a fine Jewish Santa and both helped at the Easter egg hunt. Religion mattered not in those cases.
Continue reading PLEASE this is one of the most uplifting posts I have read for a while. I hope that it lifts you as much as it did me.
Kindness is: “a behavior marked by ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and a concern for others,” according to Wikipedia. It implies that other people matter as much as we do to ourselves. It indicates that we are not alone on the Big Blue Marble and that what affects one of us, impacts all of us.
Kindness is both energetic and interactive. A verb and adjective. We can send kind thoughts to anyone at every moment. It can be as simple as opening a door for someone else or as labor intensive as painting a room for a stranger.
It begins in the home and expands into the community. Multi-generational lessons about consideration have shaped my values. I witnessed my parents engaging in caring activities, such as going grocery shopping for neighbors, delivering meals for people in our congregation when they were ill or someone close to them had died. I marveled at the various volunteering gigs they had at our local hospital and fire house. Even in their waning years, they helped at their community center. My father (plumped up with pillows under a red suit) was a fine Jewish Santa and both helped at the Easter egg hunt. Religion mattered not in those cases.
Continue reading PLEASE this is one of the most uplifting posts I have read for a while. I hope that it lifts you as much as it did me.
‘You End Up with Nothing’: The Experience of Being a Statistic of ‘In-Work Poverty’ in the UK
an article by Jo McBride (Newcastle University, UK), Andrew Smith (University of Bradford, UK) and Marcell Mbala (Community volunteer and part-time cleaner, UK) published in Work, Employment and Society Volume 32 Issue 1 (February 2018)
Abstract
Set in the context of the recent unprecedented upsurge of in-work poverty (IWP) in the UK – which currently exceeds out of work poverty – this article presents an account of the realities of experiencing poverty and being employed.
Central issues of low-pay, limited working hours, underemployment and constrained employment opportunities combine to generate severe financial complexities and challenges. This testimony, taken comparatively over a year, reveals the experiences of, not only IWP, but of deep poverty, and of having insufficient wages to fulfil the basic essentials of nourishing food and adequate clothing.
This article contributes to current academic and social policy debates around low-paid work, IWP, the use of foodbanks and underemployment.
New dimensions are offered regarding worker vulnerabilities, given the recent growth of the IWP phenomenon.
Abstract
Set in the context of the recent unprecedented upsurge of in-work poverty (IWP) in the UK – which currently exceeds out of work poverty – this article presents an account of the realities of experiencing poverty and being employed.
Central issues of low-pay, limited working hours, underemployment and constrained employment opportunities combine to generate severe financial complexities and challenges. This testimony, taken comparatively over a year, reveals the experiences of, not only IWP, but of deep poverty, and of having insufficient wages to fulfil the basic essentials of nourishing food and adequate clothing.
This article contributes to current academic and social policy debates around low-paid work, IWP, the use of foodbanks and underemployment.
New dimensions are offered regarding worker vulnerabilities, given the recent growth of the IWP phenomenon.
Testimonial rallies and the construction of memetic authenticity
an article by Limor Shifman (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) published in European Journal of Communication Volume 33 Issue 2 (April 2018)
Abstract
This article traces the role of ‘testimonial rallies’ – Internet memes in which participants post personal photos and/or written accounts as part of a coordinated political protest – in the formulation of truth-related values.
Rather than endorsing the value of truth per se, rallies such as ‘We are the 99 percent’ or ‘I never ask for it’ valorize what I term ‘memetic authenticity’. This construction of the authentic incorporates four basic components: evidence, self-orientation, affective judgement, and mimesis.
By combining ‘external authenticity’ that relates to the aggregation of factual proofs with forms of ‘internal authenticity’ that focus on emotive individual experiences, testimonial rallies serve as a grassroots weapon of the weak against those in power.
While ‘external’ and ‘internal’ forms of authenticity are happily married in this genre, I conclude with a reflection on our grim future in the case of divorce.
Abstract
This article traces the role of ‘testimonial rallies’ – Internet memes in which participants post personal photos and/or written accounts as part of a coordinated political protest – in the formulation of truth-related values.
Rather than endorsing the value of truth per se, rallies such as ‘We are the 99 percent’ or ‘I never ask for it’ valorize what I term ‘memetic authenticity’. This construction of the authentic incorporates four basic components: evidence, self-orientation, affective judgement, and mimesis.
By combining ‘external authenticity’ that relates to the aggregation of factual proofs with forms of ‘internal authenticity’ that focus on emotive individual experiences, testimonial rallies serve as a grassroots weapon of the weak against those in power.
While ‘external’ and ‘internal’ forms of authenticity are happily married in this genre, I conclude with a reflection on our grim future in the case of divorce.
Sunday, 22 April 2018
40 Classic Books & Why You Should Read Them
a post by Richard Davies for AbeBooks
Well, what makes a classic book? My eight-year-old asked this very question after spending several days with her nose buried in Charlotte’s Web. “Errr… I think it’s a very good book liked by lots people that stands the test of time,” I replied. “If people are still reading the book 50 years after it was published then it’s probably on its way to being a classic.”
Here’s the catch. For me, classic books also need to be readable because I’m not studying literature at university these days. There are many important books published decades or even centuries ago that have great significance but I’m not going to recommend them for your reading enjoyment. The prime example is Moby Dick, which I have read and I will never recommend. Life’s too short and that novel is too hard to read. The most challenging book on this list is The Seven Pillars of Wisdom because it’s epic in length and contains great detail about the Arab rebellion against the Turks.
This list covers 30 examples of fiction and 10 non-fiction books because that’s how the cookie crumbles. I actually prefer non-fiction books but I seem to focus on non-fiction published in the last 10 years, which doesn’t help for a list of this nature. As I put the list to together, I was surprised by how many ‘classics’ I had read and shocked by how many I had not. No Jane Austen. No Anthony Trollope. No Vonnegut. No Tolstoy. Sorry about that – I’ll try and cover them off in the next 40 years. I should also explain that becoming a parent opens the door to reading classics you missed as a child and rejuvenates your interest in books from the past.
Also some major examples of classic literature that make everyone else’s list did not make mine because they are not my cup of tea. I’ve tried to like F. Scott Fitzgerald but we just never got on. On the Road goes off the road for me. Holden Caulfield is a phony as far I’m concerned.
The most recent book on my list is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from 1974 and I am a bit worried that might be a little recent for the ‘classic’ tag. The oldest is Don Quixote, from 1605, which I read as a child and didn’t remotely consider as old-fashioned. Madness never goes out of fashion even if chivalry has.
This list of books includes three each from Robert Louis Stevenson and George Orwell, and two each from Charles Dickens and Ray Bradbury. The settings include two islands, an inn, a farm, a hospital and a garden. Through these books, you could visit the Yukon, Gloucestershire, Brighton, Paris, the Alps, Spain, Kansas and Cyprus, and meet pirates, smugglers, soldiers, spies and firemen.
Continue reading to discover what Richard suggests (although some you can guess from the above paragraph). It is also, in my opinion, worth looking at the comments to find which books are missing.
Please don't fall down the rabbit hole or be beguiled into spending money you do not have!
Well, what makes a classic book? My eight-year-old asked this very question after spending several days with her nose buried in Charlotte’s Web. “Errr… I think it’s a very good book liked by lots people that stands the test of time,” I replied. “If people are still reading the book 50 years after it was published then it’s probably on its way to being a classic.”
Here’s the catch. For me, classic books also need to be readable because I’m not studying literature at university these days. There are many important books published decades or even centuries ago that have great significance but I’m not going to recommend them for your reading enjoyment. The prime example is Moby Dick, which I have read and I will never recommend. Life’s too short and that novel is too hard to read. The most challenging book on this list is The Seven Pillars of Wisdom because it’s epic in length and contains great detail about the Arab rebellion against the Turks.
This list covers 30 examples of fiction and 10 non-fiction books because that’s how the cookie crumbles. I actually prefer non-fiction books but I seem to focus on non-fiction published in the last 10 years, which doesn’t help for a list of this nature. As I put the list to together, I was surprised by how many ‘classics’ I had read and shocked by how many I had not. No Jane Austen. No Anthony Trollope. No Vonnegut. No Tolstoy. Sorry about that – I’ll try and cover them off in the next 40 years. I should also explain that becoming a parent opens the door to reading classics you missed as a child and rejuvenates your interest in books from the past.
Also some major examples of classic literature that make everyone else’s list did not make mine because they are not my cup of tea. I’ve tried to like F. Scott Fitzgerald but we just never got on. On the Road goes off the road for me. Holden Caulfield is a phony as far I’m concerned.
The most recent book on my list is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from 1974 and I am a bit worried that might be a little recent for the ‘classic’ tag. The oldest is Don Quixote, from 1605, which I read as a child and didn’t remotely consider as old-fashioned. Madness never goes out of fashion even if chivalry has.
This list of books includes three each from Robert Louis Stevenson and George Orwell, and two each from Charles Dickens and Ray Bradbury. The settings include two islands, an inn, a farm, a hospital and a garden. Through these books, you could visit the Yukon, Gloucestershire, Brighton, Paris, the Alps, Spain, Kansas and Cyprus, and meet pirates, smugglers, soldiers, spies and firemen.
Continue reading to discover what Richard suggests (although some you can guess from the above paragraph). It is also, in my opinion, worth looking at the comments to find which books are missing.
Please don't fall down the rabbit hole or be beguiled into spending money you do not have!
Loving Yourself Through Addiction and Relapse: Be Patient with the Process
a post by Anya Light for the Tiny Buddha blog
It’s a cold winter day. As I plunge my hand down into the wax paper bag, I fully expect to find another bite or two. But, alas, there are only crumbs.
A distinct wave of sadness shoots through my heart. The chocolate scone is gone. And I don’t even remember eating it.
It is in this moment that I wake up. I quickly shake my head from side to side, as if rousing myself from a long night of troubled dreams.
What have I just done? What about the vow I’ve made to myself, again and again?
For years I have known that the best thing for my body’s healing process is to eat fresh, whole, organic foods (lots of leafy greens, fruits, and nuts!) and to avoid ingredients that overstimulate my endocrine and nervous systems, such as sugar and wheat flour.
And yet, today, here I am again. Eating some stupid, cheap scone I picked up on impulse at the local bakery. Full of who-knows-what ingredients.
Here I am again. Ignoring my own wisdom. Falling back into the food addiction that has plagued me since childhood.
Today I have lost control.
Continue reading
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
~Nelson Mandela
It’s a cold winter day. As I plunge my hand down into the wax paper bag, I fully expect to find another bite or two. But, alas, there are only crumbs.
A distinct wave of sadness shoots through my heart. The chocolate scone is gone. And I don’t even remember eating it.
It is in this moment that I wake up. I quickly shake my head from side to side, as if rousing myself from a long night of troubled dreams.
What have I just done? What about the vow I’ve made to myself, again and again?
For years I have known that the best thing for my body’s healing process is to eat fresh, whole, organic foods (lots of leafy greens, fruits, and nuts!) and to avoid ingredients that overstimulate my endocrine and nervous systems, such as sugar and wheat flour.
And yet, today, here I am again. Eating some stupid, cheap scone I picked up on impulse at the local bakery. Full of who-knows-what ingredients.
Here I am again. Ignoring my own wisdom. Falling back into the food addiction that has plagued me since childhood.
Today I have lost control.
Continue reading
When production went mass: how factories changed the world
an article by Donald Sassoon published in the New Statesman
Invented in Britain, perfected in America and super-sized by the Soviet Union and China, the factory has shaped modern history.
Factories are ancient, older than capitalism. Imagine a weaver in Mesopotamia who hires workers, provides them with tools and raw material (the capital). This entrepreneur would be recognised by Karl Marx himself as a “capitalist” since he derives “surplus value” from selling the cloth. Yet no one would say that Mesopotamia was capitalist, even though there were 13,200 weavers in its main city, Ur. In 15th-century Florence, over a third of the workforce produced wool for wages. The wool would be imported from England or Spain, and then sold all over Italy, the Balkans and the Levant, but no one has ever argued that the industrial revolution started in Florence.
The typical unit of production remained the small workshop run by a single artisan helped by apprentices, using simple tools. Big factories, the “behemoth”, whose history is delineated ably by Joshua Freeman in his fine book, are a recent invention. They started in Great Britain in the 18th century, although the majority were small.
The factory system grew out of a new product, cotton, at a time when Europeans wore wool or flax, and silk if they were rich. Cotton was linked to trade because it could not grow in Europe. So large factories went together with empires, colonies and slave plantations – in other words, with globalisation. Increase in production required not only innovations such as the spinning machine but also co-ordinating the activity of dozens or hundreds of workers who were expected to start at the same time, day in, day out. And since workers did not own clocks, bells announced the beginning of the shift. In this sense the new behemoths were like churches calling the workers not to prayers, but to work.
Continue reading
Invented in Britain, perfected in America and super-sized by the Soviet Union and China, the factory has shaped modern history.
Factories are ancient, older than capitalism. Imagine a weaver in Mesopotamia who hires workers, provides them with tools and raw material (the capital). This entrepreneur would be recognised by Karl Marx himself as a “capitalist” since he derives “surplus value” from selling the cloth. Yet no one would say that Mesopotamia was capitalist, even though there were 13,200 weavers in its main city, Ur. In 15th-century Florence, over a third of the workforce produced wool for wages. The wool would be imported from England or Spain, and then sold all over Italy, the Balkans and the Levant, but no one has ever argued that the industrial revolution started in Florence.
The typical unit of production remained the small workshop run by a single artisan helped by apprentices, using simple tools. Big factories, the “behemoth”, whose history is delineated ably by Joshua Freeman in his fine book, are a recent invention. They started in Great Britain in the 18th century, although the majority were small.
The factory system grew out of a new product, cotton, at a time when Europeans wore wool or flax, and silk if they were rich. Cotton was linked to trade because it could not grow in Europe. So large factories went together with empires, colonies and slave plantations – in other words, with globalisation. Increase in production required not only innovations such as the spinning machine but also co-ordinating the activity of dozens or hundreds of workers who were expected to start at the same time, day in, day out. And since workers did not own clocks, bells announced the beginning of the shift. In this sense the new behemoths were like churches calling the workers not to prayers, but to work.
Continue reading
Crime, insecurity and corruption: Considering the growth of urban private security
an article Jeff Garmany (King’s College London, UK) and Ana Paula Galdeano
(Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning, Brazil) published in Urban Studies Volume 55 Issue 5 April 2018
Abstract
We call into question the growing presence of private security companies (PSCs) in cities throughout the world. Though PSCs have grown enormously in recent decades, there exist few academic analyses to consider their broad-reaching effects.
Researchers still have much to understand about the relationships between PSCs and changing patterns of urban development, governance and public security. PSCs are prevalent in both the Global North and South, yet their presence is perhaps most intense in emerging countries, where social inequality is high and public security is tenuous.
As such, in this article we draw on specific examples from the city of São Paulo, Brazil, where demand is soaring for private security and PSCs operate in complicated networks between the state, private capital and organised crime.
Our analysis draws attention to the paradoxes of urban private security, beginning with the fact that public insecurity is in fact good for PSC business. By reflecting on existing published resources – and making connections across several disciplines – our goals in this article are threefold:
(Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning, Brazil) published in Urban Studies Volume 55 Issue 5 April 2018
Abstract
We call into question the growing presence of private security companies (PSCs) in cities throughout the world. Though PSCs have grown enormously in recent decades, there exist few academic analyses to consider their broad-reaching effects.
Researchers still have much to understand about the relationships between PSCs and changing patterns of urban development, governance and public security. PSCs are prevalent in both the Global North and South, yet their presence is perhaps most intense in emerging countries, where social inequality is high and public security is tenuous.
As such, in this article we draw on specific examples from the city of São Paulo, Brazil, where demand is soaring for private security and PSCs operate in complicated networks between the state, private capital and organised crime.
Our analysis draws attention to the paradoxes of urban private security, beginning with the fact that public insecurity is in fact good for PSC business. By reflecting on existing published resources – and making connections across several disciplines – our goals in this article are threefold:
- to highlight the need for more research on PSCs in urban settings;
- to draw attention to the ways private security is changing urban space, and;
- to suggest that the growth of PSCs, rather than being representative of increased public security, may in some cases coincide with rising levels of urban crime and insecurity.
How to Be Kind to Yourself
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
We tend to think that we have to earn self-kindness. That is, in order to be kind to ourselves, we must meet certain conditions. We must not make mistakes. We must work out five times a week. No exceptions. We must keep a tidy, organized home. We must make “healthy” meals. We must check off everything on our to-do list. We must excel at work, and produce, produce, produce. We cannot fail. Under any circumstances.
And if we don’t meet these conditions, then we punish ourselves. We wake up earlier and earlier. We work longer hours. We don’t rest. We don’t take any time for ourselves. Because we’re convinced we don’t deserve it. We talk to ourselves in ways we’d never talk to others. Because we’re convinced we deserve it.
Being kind can be hard, especially when we’re angry with ourselves, especially when we feel disappointed due to something we did – or didn’t do.
Many of us have to teach ourselves how to be self-compassionate. It feels that foreign, that far away. And that’s OK. Because self-compassion is actually a skill we can sharpen – whether we’ve bashed ourselves for years or not. The more you practice, the more you act with kindness, the more natural it becomes.
Continue reading
We tend to think that we have to earn self-kindness. That is, in order to be kind to ourselves, we must meet certain conditions. We must not make mistakes. We must work out five times a week. No exceptions. We must keep a tidy, organized home. We must make “healthy” meals. We must check off everything on our to-do list. We must excel at work, and produce, produce, produce. We cannot fail. Under any circumstances.
And if we don’t meet these conditions, then we punish ourselves. We wake up earlier and earlier. We work longer hours. We don’t rest. We don’t take any time for ourselves. Because we’re convinced we don’t deserve it. We talk to ourselves in ways we’d never talk to others. Because we’re convinced we deserve it.
Being kind can be hard, especially when we’re angry with ourselves, especially when we feel disappointed due to something we did – or didn’t do.
Many of us have to teach ourselves how to be self-compassionate. It feels that foreign, that far away. And that’s OK. Because self-compassion is actually a skill we can sharpen – whether we’ve bashed ourselves for years or not. The more you practice, the more you act with kindness, the more natural it becomes.
Continue reading
Embodied commons: Knowledge and sharing in Delhi’s electronic bazaars
an article by Maitrayee Deka (University of Essex, UK) published in The Sociological Review Volume 66 Issue 2 (March 2018)
Abstract
The notion of the ‘sharing economy’ has recently received significant academic and non-academic attention. What the different debates have in common is an emphasis on how technologically mediated knowledge and specific social motivations enable practices of sharing.
This article discusses knowledge and sharing in popular marketplaces. Based on an ethnography of Delhi’s electronic bazaars, Lajpat Rai market, Palika Bazaar and Nehru Place, this article suggests ways to think about knowledge that are embodied and practice-based:
The article argues that bazaars combine sociality established through face-to-face bargaining with informal trade arrangements to enable co-creation and collaboration around technological products.
The resulting knowledge is tacit in nature and is mimetically transmitted between bodies. As a result, the bazaars feature a kind of sharing that is distinct from what is understood by most accounts of the sharing economy.
Abstract
The notion of the ‘sharing economy’ has recently received significant academic and non-academic attention. What the different debates have in common is an emphasis on how technologically mediated knowledge and specific social motivations enable practices of sharing.
This article discusses knowledge and sharing in popular marketplaces. Based on an ethnography of Delhi’s electronic bazaars, Lajpat Rai market, Palika Bazaar and Nehru Place, this article suggests ways to think about knowledge that are embodied and practice-based:
- What is such embodied knowledge?
- How is it created and shared?
The article argues that bazaars combine sociality established through face-to-face bargaining with informal trade arrangements to enable co-creation and collaboration around technological products.
The resulting knowledge is tacit in nature and is mimetically transmitted between bodies. As a result, the bazaars feature a kind of sharing that is distinct from what is understood by most accounts of the sharing economy.
Hello again
Just in case anyone missed me and my regular blog posts I am alive and well.
I had to hide behind my mask for a few days as the dreaded black dog was attacking me.
I had to hide behind my mask for a few days as the dreaded black dog was attacking me.
Mask is off guys – hopefully for a good long time – and once again I will be playing catch-up with journals and news feeds together with all that trivial stuff that I love to share with you.
Take care.
Image via Tiny Buddha (thank you Lori)
Take care.
Image via Tiny Buddha (thank you Lori)
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
What’s the deal with genetically modified (GM) foods? [feedly]
a post by Mary M. Landrigan and Philip J. Landrigan for the OUP [Oxford University Press] blog
CC0 Public Domain via pxhere.
It’s complicated; but here is a quick summary of what the controversy over genetically modified foods is all about.
GM engineering involves reconfiguring the genes in crop plants or adding new genes that have been created in the laboratory.
Scientific modification of plants is not something new. Since time began, nature has been modifying plants and animals through natural evolution, meaning that the plants and animals that adapt best to the changing environment survive and pass their genes on to their offspring. Those that are least fit do not survive. Farmers, too, have been helping nature improve crops for generations by saving the seeds of the best tomatoes and apples to use for next year’s crop. This is a kind of genetic selection – the most favorable plants succeed.
Continue reading
CC0 Public Domain via pxhere.
It’s complicated; but here is a quick summary of what the controversy over genetically modified foods is all about.
GM engineering involves reconfiguring the genes in crop plants or adding new genes that have been created in the laboratory.
Scientific modification of plants is not something new. Since time began, nature has been modifying plants and animals through natural evolution, meaning that the plants and animals that adapt best to the changing environment survive and pass their genes on to their offspring. Those that are least fit do not survive. Farmers, too, have been helping nature improve crops for generations by saving the seeds of the best tomatoes and apples to use for next year’s crop. This is a kind of genetic selection – the most favorable plants succeed.
Continue reading
What So Many of Us Get Wrong About Assertiveness
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
Most of us are familiar with the term “assertive.” We have a general idea of what being assertive means. But that doesn’t mean we fully understand it. And, in our society, many myths still abound, which adds another layer of confusion. Which is a problem, because these misconceptions can lead us to stay silent about our needs, stew in our resentment and let others walk all over us.
According to psychotherapist Michele Kerulis, EdD, LCPC, “Assertiveness is when people clearly communicate their positions, wants, and needs in respectful ways to others. This includes standing up for yourself, honoring your values, and being firm about your boundaries.”
Below, you’ll learn the facts behind common misconceptions, along with helpful pointers for being assertive – because it is true that being assertive is not easy.
Tell me about it! I have done TWO courses on how to be less aggressive and more assertive.
I know the theory.
I need to put it into practice more.
Most of us are familiar with the term “assertive.” We have a general idea of what being assertive means. But that doesn’t mean we fully understand it. And, in our society, many myths still abound, which adds another layer of confusion. Which is a problem, because these misconceptions can lead us to stay silent about our needs, stew in our resentment and let others walk all over us.
According to psychotherapist Michele Kerulis, EdD, LCPC, “Assertiveness is when people clearly communicate their positions, wants, and needs in respectful ways to others. This includes standing up for yourself, honoring your values, and being firm about your boundaries.”
Below, you’ll learn the facts behind common misconceptions, along with helpful pointers for being assertive – because it is true that being assertive is not easy.
Tell me about it! I have done TWO courses on how to be less aggressive and more assertive.
I know the theory.
I need to put it into practice more.
UK police train machine-learning model using Experian data that stereotypes people based on garden size, first names, and postal codes
a post by Cory Doctorow for the Boing Boing blog
The police in Durham, England bought a license to the "Mosiac" dataset from the credit bureau Experian, which includes data on 50,000,000 Britons, in order to train a machine learning system called HART ("Harm Assessment Risk Tool") that tries to predict whether someone will reoffend.
The Mosiac dataset attempts to group people based on their demographic characteristics, creating marketing categories with names like 'Disconnected Youth,' 'Asian Heritage' and 'Dependent Greys.' People are sorted into these categories based on a suite of criteria that includes their first names (people named "Chelsea" and "Liam" are likely to be classed as "Disconnected Youth"), their exam marks, the size of their gardens, messages they've posted to pregnancy advice websites, and other criteria.
Continue reading
The police in Durham, England bought a license to the "Mosiac" dataset from the credit bureau Experian, which includes data on 50,000,000 Britons, in order to train a machine learning system called HART ("Harm Assessment Risk Tool") that tries to predict whether someone will reoffend.
The Mosiac dataset attempts to group people based on their demographic characteristics, creating marketing categories with names like 'Disconnected Youth,' 'Asian Heritage' and 'Dependent Greys.' People are sorted into these categories based on a suite of criteria that includes their first names (people named "Chelsea" and "Liam" are likely to be classed as "Disconnected Youth"), their exam marks, the size of their gardens, messages they've posted to pregnancy advice websites, and other criteria.
Continue reading
Here’s Why Human Rights in Healthcare Are Needed More Than Ever
a post by Ruth Campbell for Rights Info: Human Rights News, Views & Info
Image Credit: Ken Treloar / Unsplash
My Grandpa is getting old. Last year after a particularly bad fall, he spent four months in hospital.
The tall, slim man with coal black hair who used to be able to haul a whole sheep on his back across the family steading can’t move as quickly as he used to. His memory has been getting worse and worse – although he can still recall with alarming precision all of the grammar rules he learned at school.
When he was born in 1928, it would still be two whole decades before anyone had even heard of the NHS. His mother gave birth to him at home, with no doctor present so they didn’t have to pay for it.
A Growing Impact in Healthcare
He’ll be 90 this year, and has lived through medical, technological, and social changes which have revolutionised healthcare.
He’s seen diseases eradicated, hip replacements, heart transplants, IVF, medical technology advancing at a rate unfathomable for someone born in a house without electricity.
What he might not realise – indeed he might be the first to tell you, despite my best efforts, that human rights are only for terrorists and criminals – is that he’s also been witness to the growing impact of human rights in healthcare throughout his lifetime.
Continue reading
Image Credit: Ken Treloar / Unsplash
My Grandpa is getting old. Last year after a particularly bad fall, he spent four months in hospital.
The tall, slim man with coal black hair who used to be able to haul a whole sheep on his back across the family steading can’t move as quickly as he used to. His memory has been getting worse and worse – although he can still recall with alarming precision all of the grammar rules he learned at school.
When he was born in 1928, it would still be two whole decades before anyone had even heard of the NHS. His mother gave birth to him at home, with no doctor present so they didn’t have to pay for it.
A Growing Impact in Healthcare
He’ll be 90 this year, and has lived through medical, technological, and social changes which have revolutionised healthcare.
He’s seen diseases eradicated, hip replacements, heart transplants, IVF, medical technology advancing at a rate unfathomable for someone born in a house without electricity.
What he might not realise – indeed he might be the first to tell you, despite my best efforts, that human rights are only for terrorists and criminals – is that he’s also been witness to the growing impact of human rights in healthcare throughout his lifetime.
Continue reading
What Role Does a Difficult Past Play in Your Life Now?
a post by Christiana Star for the World of Psychology blog
For many individuals, the past is not past but remains an ever-present influence in their present life. Even though the physical effects of past events often demand more attention, the psychological legacy may be much more difficult to move on from.
If past events are processed as experiences to learn from and grow as a person, pain and upset can be transformed into greater wisdom and strength. However, if not resolved, past challenges keep us hooked into the emotional charge of the time.
Continue reading
For many individuals, the past is not past but remains an ever-present influence in their present life. Even though the physical effects of past events often demand more attention, the psychological legacy may be much more difficult to move on from.
If past events are processed as experiences to learn from and grow as a person, pain and upset can be transformed into greater wisdom and strength. However, if not resolved, past challenges keep us hooked into the emotional charge of the time.
Continue reading
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