New Forms of Employment

Societal and economic developments, such as the need for increased flexibility by both employers and workers, have resulted in the emergence of new forms of employment across Europe. These have transformed the traditional one-to-one relationship between employer and employee. They are also characterised by unconventional work patterns and places of work, or by the irregular provision of work. However, little is known about these ‘new forms of employment’, their distinctive features and the implications they have for working conditions and the labour market. To fill this knowledge gap, Eurofound conducted a Europe-wide mapping exercise to identify the emerging trends. This resulted in the categorisation of nine broad types of new employment forms. On the basis of this, the available literature and data were analysed; 66 case studies were also conducted and analysed to illustrate how these new employment forms operate in Member States and their effects on working conditions and the labour market

Using cultural probes to inform the design of assistive technologies

This paper discusses the practical implications of applying cultural probes to drive the design of assistive technologies. Specifically we describe a study in which a probe was deployed with home-based carers of people with dementia in order to capture critical data and gain insights of integrating the technologies into this sensitive and socially complex design space. To represent and utilise the insights gained from the cultural probes, we created narratives based on the probe data to enhance the design of assistive technologies.This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/K00266X/1) and RCUK through the Horizon Digital Economy Research grant (EP/G065802/1)

Aging Gracefully: The PACE Approach to Caring for Frail Elders in the Community

Mountain Empire is one of the newest of more than 100 independent PACE organizations across the nation that serve both as health plans and as medical and long-term service providers to elders—offering meals, checkups, rehabilitation services, home visits, and many other supports that enable enrollees to preserve their independence. The model for PACE dates back to 1971, when a public health dentist and social worker from the San Francisco Public Health Department working in Chinatown-North Beach noticed that as their clients aged, many needed extra support but dreaded moving into nursing homes. They founded On Lok Senior Health Services as an alternative to institutional care that would allow elders to "age in place" in their homes; on lokis Cantonese for "peaceful, happy abode."On Lok's founders were particularly concerned about elderly clients who suffered when their various clinicians failed to work together, sometimes leading to complications that necessitated moves into institutional care. They designed On Lok to promote what was then an innovative approach: coordinating care from an interdisciplinary team of professionals who provide all primary care services and oversee specialists' services.A Medicare-funded demonstration spanning 1979 to 1983 found this approach had many benefits. Care teams were able to prevent or quickly address problems, resulting in better health and quality of life and producing 15 percent lower costs than traditional Medicare. In the decades since, the model has spread slowly, though enrollment has grown nearly 40 percent in the past three years. As of January 2016, there were 118 PACE organizations in 31 states serving some 39,000 elders

Developing the scales on evaluation beliefs of student teachers

The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the validity and the reliability of a newly developed questionnaire named ‘Teacher Evaluation Beliefs’ (TEB). The framework for developing items was provided by the two models. The first model focuses on Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered beliefs about evaluation while the other centers on five dimensions (what/ who/ when/ why/ how). The validity and reliability of the new instrument was investigated using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis study (n=446). Overall results indicate that the two-factor structure is more reasonable than the five-factor one. Further research needs additional items about the latent dimensions “what” ”who” ”when” ”why” “how” for each existing factor based on Student-centered and Teacher-centered approaches

The 2008 Newsletter of the International Association of Labour Inspection

: The IALI newsletter reflects on the organization’s activities in 2008, which included involvement in a number of conferences and reports addressing workplace monitoring, forced labor and human trafficking, workplace stress, migrant workers, and health and safety issues. The newsletter gives a summary plan for the organizations 2009 goals

How many days? A comparison of the quality of time-use data from 2-day and 7-day diaries

Time budget studies differ in the number of diary days. The ‘Guidelines on Harmonized European Time-Use Surveys (HETUS)’ issued by EUROSTAT recommend a two-day diary with both one weekday and one weekend day. In this contribution we examine whether the number of diary days has an effect on the quality of timeuse indicators. A lot of time-use researchers plead for a longer period of observation; some of them even argue that one- or two-day diaries are not very valuable since the high demands of scientific research cannot be accomplished unless multi-day cycles are captured. Longer periods of observation offer better prospects for analyses, especially for the study of rhythms and activity patterns which typically follow cycles of multi-day duration, and which are part of daily life. Other authors however point out that longer periods of observation cause fatigue or diminished motivation and thus will lead to more inaccuracies. In this contribution we use the pooled Flemish time budget data from 1999 and 2004 to compare 7-day diaries with the 2-day diaries as recommended by the EUROSTAT-guidelines. The respondents of the Flemish time use surveys all filled in diaries for 7 consecutive days. To simulate the 2-day registration, we randomly selected one weekday and one weekend day for each respondent. The 2-day selection was compared with the original 7-day registration. The aim of this comparison is to inventory the advantages and disadvantages of the 2-day and 7-day registration method. To do that, we compare different indicators, such as the averages and the standard deviations of the duration of several activities. We further examine whether certain types of activities are more affected by the method of registration than others. Finally we examine whether a longer period of registration negatively affects the quality of the data (less detail and less accurate).Time-budget studies, time-use indicators, methodology

Timing and fragmentation of daily working hours arrangements and income inequality – An earnings treatment effects approach with German time use diary data

Traditional well-being analyses based on money income needs to be broadened by its time dimension. In the course of time the traditional full-time work is diminishing and new labour arrangements are discussed (keyword: flexible labour markets) with consequences on the daily work arrangements. Our study is contributing to the research on economic well-being and working hours arrangements by adding insights into particular daily work effort characteristics and its resulting income distribution. The work effort characteristics we regard is about labour market flexibility with focus on relations between the daily timing of work and its fragmentation, and its consequences on the income distribution. Whereas the first part of our study is describing the distribution of timing and fragmentation of daily work time and its resulting income based on more than 35.000 diaries of the most recent German Time Budget Survey 2001/2002, the second part of our study quantifies determinants of arrangement specific earnings functions detecting significant explanatory patterns of what is behind. The related economic theory is a human capital approach in a market and non-market context, extended by non-market time use, the partner’s working condition, social networking as well as household and regional characteristics. The econometrics use a treatment effects type interdependent estimation of endogenous participation in a daily working hour pattern (self-selection) and pattern specific earnings function explanation. The overall result: Individual earnings in Germany are dependent on and significant different with regard to the daily working hours arrangement capturing timing and fragmentation of work. Market and non-market factors are important and significant in explaining participation and earnings thereof.Time use and inequality, timing and fragmentation of daily work time, daily working hours arrangements, earnings explanation, human capital, market and non-market time use, German Time Budget Survey 2001/2002, time use diary data, treatment effects modelling, selfselection with endogenous selection

Senioritis in repose

Media and other accounts of life after retirement suggest it to be “The Golden Years” of life, when the elderly have true leisure in the classic sense of freedom from responsibilities of work. However, like earlier time-diary studies, data from the 2003-07 Americans Time Use Project (ATUS) indicate that the great majority of seniors’ extra 20+ hours of free time is concentrated on three activities – TV, reading and rest. Only a few more hours are spent on sleep. Despite reports of increased work time among seniors, relatively few of those in Andy’s new age bracket remain in the labor force and they work fewer hours.Time use, elderly, retirement, free time, TV, aging