The interplay of retirement policy and externalisation strategies towards older workers in Polish and German enterprises

Throughout the last decades, employment rates of older workers in most European countries have been falling, as has the age of exit from the labour force. This development does not only exert heavy financial pressures on social security systems but inhibits also the potential of older workers to shape their lives actively. The reasons for that trend can be found at three dimensions: the early retirement options inherent in the public retirement system, the internalisation and externalisation strategies of enterprises, and the retirement preferences of individual workers. The paper will present recent empirical data on the way enterprises utilise early retirement options created by the public retirement system for externalising older workforce. The data was collected in expert interviews with personnel managers and works council members in Polish and German enterprises. Many of the studied companies are undergoing restructuring and are cutting employment levels. This clearly dominates their personnel policy towards older workforce. Therefore, externalisation strategies outbalance any possible tendencies to integrate older workers, like considering them to a greater extent in recruitment. The paper will also discuss the possible future development of externalisation strategies in the light of pension reforms carried out in Germany and Poland. --

People’s consultation. Several comments concerning Swiss solutions

Konsultacje ludowe są jedną ze współcześnie spotykanych form partycypacji obywateli w procesach podejmowania rozstrzygnięć spraw ogólnospołecznych, w tym w procesach prawotwórczych. W czasie nasilonych dyskusji w polskiej sferze publicznej na temat kształtu modelu demokratycznego warto przedstawić, jak tego typu rozwiązanie uregulowane jest w państwie o ugruntowanej demokracji, to jest w Szwajcarii oraz jakie są konsekwencje praktyczne takich unormowań. Wnioski płynące z porównania obu systemów są następujące: choć regulacje polskie można, z pewnymi zastrzeżeniami, ocenić pozytywnie, jako potencjalnie umożliwiające współudział jednostek w procesach decyzyjnych, to realizacja tych założeń normatywnych, na tle praktyki szwajcarskiej nie wygląda okazale.People’s consultation is one of the forms of citizen participation in processes of settling national cases that can be found nowadays. These processes include legislative processes. During intensive discussions in Polish public sphere regarding the shape of democratic model, it is worth presenting, how that sort of solution is regulated in a country with well-established democracy, i.e. Switzerland, and what are practical consequences of that sort of normalization. The conclusion of comparison of both systems as follows: although the Polish regulations can be, with some objections, positively assessed as the one that can potentially enable entities’ participation in decision-making processes, realization of these legal provisions against the background of the Swiss practice does not look impressively

The interplay of retirement policy and externalisation strategies towards older workers in Polish and German enterprises

Throughout the last decades, employment rates of older workers in most European countries have been falling, as has the age of exit from the labour force. This development does not only exert heavy financial pressures on social security systems but inhibits also the potential of older workers to shape their lives actively. The reasons for that trend can be found at three dimensions: the early retirement options inherent in the public retirement system, the internalisation and externalisation strategies of enterprises, and the retirement preferences of individual workers. The paper will present recent empirical data on the way enterprises utilise early retirement options created by the public retirement system for externalising older workforce. The data was collected in expert interviews with personnel managers and works council members in Polish and German enterprises. Many of the studied companies are undergoing restructuring and are cutting employment levels. This clearly dominates their personnel policy towards older workforce. Therefore, externalisation strategies outbalance any possible tendencies to integrate older workers, like considering them to a greater extent in recruitment. The paper will also discuss the possible future development of externalisation strategies in the light of pension reforms carried out in Germany and Poland

W labiryntach gatunkowych klisz. Od Powieści dla kobiet Michala Viewegha do Mężczyzny idealnego Filipa Renča

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

How do sustainable diets fit into the climate agenda?

Food production is a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and other environmental footprints, and dietary risk factors are contributors to non-communicable diseases. A growing body of evidence has shown that changes in what and how much we eat can offer benefits for both the environment and health. However, several data gaps and complexities remain in this research area. A better understanding and increased uptake of sustainable diets will require further research, investment, and interdisciplinary collaboration

Projected health effects of realistic dietary changes to address freshwater constraints in India : a modelling study

Acknowledgements This study forms part of the Sustainable and Healthy Diets in India project supported by the Wellcome Trust's Our Planet, Our Health programme (grant number 103932). LA's PhD is funded by the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health. SA is supported by a Wellcome Trust Capacity Strengthening Strategic Award-Extension phase (grant number WT084754/Z/08/A). We would like to thank Zaid Chalabi (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) for providing valuable guidance on the modelling methods.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Dietary patterns and non-communicable disease risk in Indian adults : secondary analysis of Indian Migration Study data

Acknowledgements The authors thank the IMS study team members and field staff involved in the generation and processing of IMS data. Financial support: This study forms part of the Sustainable and Healthy Diets in India (SAHDI) project supported by the Wellcome Trust ‘Our Planet, Our Health’ programme (grant number 103932). The Wellcome Trust had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. The IMS was funded by Wellcome Trust (grant number GR070797MF). L.A.’s PhD studentship is funded by the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Arum-type of arbuscular mycorrhizae, dark septate endophytes and Olpidium spp. in fine roots of container-grown seedlings of Sorbus torminalis (Rosaceae)

The aim of this study was to determine the mycorrhizal status of nursery seedlings of the wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis), which belongs to the Rosaceae family. Its mycorrhizal associations are still fragmentarily known, and data from the few existing studies indicate that it forms ectomycorrhizal symbiosis (ECM). We analyzed the degree of mycorrhizal colonization of thirty 2-year-old container-grown S. torminalis nursery seedlings, which belonged to three single-tree progenies. The roots were dominated by arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM), with the morphology of the Arum-type containing arbuscules, vesicles and hyphae; however, no ECM structures were found. The degree of root colonization of the analyzed seedlings by AM fungi was 83.6% and did not differ significantly between the three single-tree progenies. In addition to AM, structures of dark septate endophytes (0.7%) and sporangia of Olpidium spp. (1.1%) were found in wild service tree roots. In agreement with previous studies, we confirmed arbuscular mycorrhizae for S. torminalis. Moreover, this is the first report that roots of this Sorbus species show the Arum-type morphology of AM and are associated with Olpidium species

Reflection on the possibility of alternative approach to the psychopathology of "functional" disorders

Functional short-term disorders provoked by extremely difficult life events are entirely different from the chronic or recurrent ones: anxiety or other "neurotic" syndromes, eating, sexual and some other disorders, not being conditioned behavioral dysfunctions. Chronic/ recurrent disorders seem to have they causes in particular personality traits and deficits. Some of them are revealed, described and could be measured by means of Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON 2006. In this approach, functional disorder is understood as a structured systems of the particular nonverbal language ("parole") in which symptoms play a role of words while syndromes the role of sentences, expressing the current state of mind - mainly the need of bond with other people and its frustration. They are messages of looking attention, attachment. The use of such language seems to be the result of personality deficits making difficult or even impossible to fulfil the need of bond in the psychosocial field using common for done culture verbal and nonverbal language, "normal" means of communication. While in the acute and conditioned reactions on stress different forms of helping people (e.g. CBT) seems to be adequate, in the chronic and recurrent functional disorders therapy is postulated to aiming rather at transformations of the communication, leading to the exchange of the messages’ language having the quality of disorder for common, mainly verbal one

Distribution of Response Time, Cortical, and Cardiac Correlates during Emotional Interference in Persons with Subclinical Psychotic Symptoms

A psychosis phenotype can be observed below the threshold of clinical detection. The study aimed to investigate whether subclinical psychotic symptoms are associated with deficits in controlling emotional interference, and whether cortical brain and cardiac correlates of these deficits can be detected using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). A data set derived from a community sample was obtained from the Zurich Program for Sustainable Development of Mental Health Services. 174 subjects (mean age 29.67 ± 6.41, 91 females) were assigned to four groups ranging from low to high levels of subclinical psychotic symptoms (derived from the Symptom Checklist-90-R). Emotional interference was assessed using the emotional Stroop task comprising neutral, positive, and negative conditions. Statistical distributional methods based on delta plots [behavioral response time (RT) data] and quantile analysis (fNIRS data) were applied to evaluate the emotional interference effects. Results showed that both interference effects and disorder-specific (i.e., group-specific) effects could be detected, based on behavioral RTs, cortical hemodynamic signals (brain correlates), and heart rate variability (cardiac correlates). Subjects with high compared to low subclinical psychotic symptoms revealed significantly reduced amplitudes in dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (interference effect, p < 0.001) and middle temporal gyrus (disorder-specific group effect, p < 0.001), supported by behavioral and heart rate results. The present findings indicate that distributional analyses methods can support the detection of emotional interference effects in the emotional Stroop. The results suggested that subjects with high subclinical psychosis exhibit enhanced emotional interference effects. Based on these observations, subclinical psychosis may therefore prove to represent a valid extension of the clinical psychosis phenotype