What is Meant by Freedom?

In 1955, in a neglected article in the Harvard Law Review entitled Freedom—A Suggested Analysis, Lon L. Fuller provided a framework for the basic definition of freedom. More importantly, he tendered a question about the conditions of a free society: “How can the freedom of human beings be affected or advanced by social arrangements, that is, by laws, customs, institutions, or other forms of social order that can be changed or preserved by purposive human actions?” This is the critical question this Article addresses through constructing a comprehensive definition by first, considering etymology and then establishing the various modalities in which freedom operates. These modalities include the space defined by the rule of law and various antithetical non-rule-of-law states, the role of democracy and representative government in disparate levels of society, the importance of rights as trumps on power, and the challenges posed by social justice. Finally, Fuller’s question raises the issue of “laws, customs, institutions [and] other forms of social order,” all of which luminaries such as John Stuart Mill saw as unfortunate, but necessary, evils when considering freedom. Rather than necessary evils, this article will consider the productive role ascribed to law and institutions by Scott Shapiro, who views law as a form of social planning that effectuates choices, thus enhancing freedom

The changing gender distribution of paid and unpaid work in New Zealand

This paper explores five main questions regarding the gender distribution of work, primarily in the context of couples with young children. These are: how much total paid and unpaid work is carried out in New Zealand?; how is this work shared between women and men?; how does this compare with other countries?; how might the mix of unpaid and paid work change in New Zealand in the future?; and should gender equity in paid and unpaid work be a key part of the discussion about labour market participation rates? Overall, the data on paid and unpaid work show a pattern that is universal in industrialised countries. New Zealand men undertake more paid work, while women undertake more unpaid work. But there are differences between countries in the amount of paid and unpaid work undertaken by women and men. In particular, New Zealand stands out in terms of both the long hours worked by a group of men and, despite strong growth in maternal employment in recent decades, the low employment rates of a group of women with young children. Recent attention has focused on social policies which may potentially increase maternal participation rates or their hours of work. However, less attention has been given to how this might change the distribution of paid and unpaid work both within households, and the total amount of work undertaken by individuals and households. This paper considers such issues, and also canvasses some of the reasons why as a society we might want to increase women's participation or hours of paid work. It suggests that such discussions need to be carried out within the context of debates around a wider range of issues including the impact of “overwork” on a group of individuals, families and wider society; how to support replacement fertility levels; and how to increase business productivity. The paper argues that choices made by individuals, households, employers and the government will all play a part in determining the amount of paid and unpaid work undertaken in New Zealand; how such work is distributed between women and men; and the levels of income, parental care of children and leisure that individuals and households are able to achieve.employment; labour supply; gender equity, time use; New Zealand

Missing men and unacknowledged women: Explaining gender disparities in New Zealand’s prime adult age groups 1986 – 2006

Questions concerning the widening disparity in numbers of males and females in the prime working age groups in New Zealand’s population have attracted attention from researchers and the media in recent years. This paper reviews some of the findings from research for a FRST-funded programme that has been investigating several inequalities based on gender and ethnicity in New Zealand’s population. The analysis here complements and extends that in our paper published in the New Zealand Population Review in May 2006. Our main finding is that a complex combination of issues related to the way our stock (census) and flow (arrival/departure) data are used to compile population estimates (the base for population projections), have contributed to exaggerating apparent gender disparities in the 20-49 year age groups at successive censuses. There is no single explanation for this, and the main new finding from our analysis is that gender disparities in the prime adult age groups in New Zealand’s population are as much a function of ‘unacknowledged women’ as of ‘missing men’

Changing sex ratios in New Zealand: Real change or a statistical problem?

In New Zealand, in all age groups under 20, and in key working age groups, historically there have been more men than women. Life table data suggest that, without migration, the number of males should remain greater than the number of females until around the age of 60 years. However, census data indicate that the number of New Zealand women residents relative to men in the broad 20-49 age group has been increasing since the 1980s. Given that birth ratios for New Zealand residents favour boys in common with international experience, the imbalance of women over men in the 20-49 age group has to come from four possible sources: 1) differential mortality; 2) more New Zealand born men leaving New Zealand; 3) a higher number of female immigrants; or 4) that statistical collections are undercounting men, and this undercounting has become progressively greater over the past 20 years. In this paper we focus on undercount and, through this investigation, raise some doubts about the validity of either a serious ‘man drought’ or a major 'surplus of women' in the population

Families and Patterns of Work: Paid and Unpaid Parental Leave in Two Parent Families

In a two parent family the birth of a child often results in one parent moving out of paid work for some period of time. This absence from paid work can come about through the use of formal parental leave, resignation from a job, or because the parent already may not be in paid work through unemployment or alternatively because they are already at home looking after older children. Using 1991 census data this paper examines the paid work patterns of parents in the first five years of a child's life with a particular emphasis on the first 24 months. The paper analyses these patterns using a range of parental characteristics including gender, education, occupation and ethnicity. The paper then examines the effect the introduction of paid parental leave may have on some of these patterns using the experience of Sweden. In particular, there is a focus on whether paid leave increases the number of men in the role of primary caregiver in the early years of a child's life

Lost in Transition? Employment and Family Change for Mid-Life Men

Under the provocative title ‘Useless, jobless men – the social blight of our age’?, a May 2010 British newspaper article posed the question as to whether the UK benefits system has produced an ‘emasculated’ generation of men who can find neither work nor a wife. Informed by a review of international literature, we use census, HLFS and benefit data to explore these issues within a New Zealand context. We demonstrate how a group of mid life males on the margins of work and family life have emerged in New Zealand and show how this has been drivenbyanumberofchangesinlabourmarkets,particularlyinrelationtothelowskilled; inmarriagemarkets;andthroughtheworkingsof the benefit system. Although our research suggests that the size of this marginalised group is relatively small, the men we are concerned about are at the heart of a number of difficult contemporary policy issues such as the rise in disability benefit receipt and incarceration. Historically, low skilled males were a major focus of policy ­ the breadwinner model ­ which focussed on reinforcing the social expectation that men’s role was in work and married. We suggest there now needs to be a renewed policy focus on this group. However rather than attempting to return the world to the 1950s, the task for policy makers is to consider how best to create policy settings that are effective for the contemporary structure of work and family life

Education: A Key Factor in Economic and Social Exclusion?

Recently emergent in both research and popular literature is the notion that a significant group of people in the industrialised societies are excluded from economic and social life. Education is often seen as a key factor in this process. Research shows that people with low levels of formal education are disproportionately represented among those excluded from participation in the labour market. Other research, in turn, suggests the loss of paid work can lead to exclusion from family and community life. These ideas are explored in a New Zealand context using data from the 1996 census

Changes in Working Hours for Couples, 1986 to 2001

In New Zealand, the weekly hours worked by individuals have generally not been considered in the context of hours of work of other adults who may live in the same household. Using census data between 1986 and 200 I, this study focuses on total hours of work for couples. The research shows that, for individual workers, while average hours of work have not changed much there has been growth in both short and long weekly hours of paid work. The increase in working hours shows up more strongly in couple data than in individual data. This reflects both an added worker effect and changes in hours worked by individuals living in couples. The data also show that individuals and couples who work the longest hours also tend to have the highest incomes. Finally, international comparative data indicates that New Zealand stands out in terms of the proportion of individuals and couples working long hours

Law and Heidegger's Question Concerning Technology: A Prolegomenon to Future Law Librarianship

Includes bibliographic references.Following World War II, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger offered one of the most potent criticisms of technology and modern life. His nightmare is a world whose essence has been reduced to the functional equivalent of a giant gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry. "This relation of man to the world [is] in principle a technical one . . . [It is] altogether alien to former ages and histories. For Heidegger, the problem is not technology itself, but the technical mode of thinking that has accompanied it." Such a viewpoint of the world is a useful paradigm to consider humanity's relationship to law in the current information environment, which is increasingly technical in Heidegger's sense of the term. Heidegger's warning that a technical approach to thinking about the world obscures its true essence is directly applicable to the effects of current (as well as former) information technologies that provide access to law. While technology enhances accessibility and utility of law, technology also obscures law's fundamental grounding in experience and language, thereby eviscerating its transformative power. The paper explains the nature of Heidegger's criticisms of technology and modern life and examines the appropriateness of their application to the current information environment, especially in light of Heidegger's early affiliation with Nazism and his subsequent denunciation of technologicism and technological thinking. The paper applies Heidegger's criticisms to the modern legal information environment with particular reference to application of technology to subjugate the law to the status of an information resource devoted to various ends. Finally, the paper considers the implications for law librarianship in the current information environment