Labour Force Participation of Women Over 45

This Productivity Commission staff working paper (by Geoff Gilfillan and Les Andrews) was released in January 2011. The contribution of mature aged women (aged 45 to 64 years) to total hours worked in the economy by people of working age has increased from 6 to 15 per cent over the past three decades. Over 40 per cent of this growth has resulted from an increase in the share of mature aged women in the working age population; the rest is due mainly to a steady increase in the labour force participation rate. Work intensity has hardly changed. The share in employment accounted for by mature aged women has increased across nearly all industries, including those where they have traditionally not been employed in large numbers. Younger women today have both higher levels of education and labour force participation than mature aged women had when they were younger. It is likely, therefore, that participation rates for mature aged women will continue to rise as these younger women enter older age groups. A woman's health status and caring responsibilities also influence her likelihood of participating in the labour force in later life. A mature aged woman is more likely to be in the labour force the longer her previous period of labour force engagement. Currently, proportionately fewer mature aged women participate in the labour force than either mature aged men in Australia or mature aged women in similar OECD countries. However, the gaps in participation have narrowed considerably over the past three decades. Over the next couple of decades, the contribution of mature aged women to total hours worked will continue to rise steadily. However, the potential for additional growth in participation and average hours worked for the current cohort of mature aged women appears limited. The views expressed in this paper are those of the staff involved and do not necessarily reflect those of the Productivity Commission.matured aged women; labour force; labour force participation; employment

Effects of aircraft noise on human activities

The effects of aircrft noise on human activities was investigated by developing a battery of tasks (1) representative of a range of human activities and (2) sensitive to the disruptive effects of noise. The noise used were recordings of jet aircraft and helicopter sounds at three lvels of loudness--60, 70, and 80 dB(A). Experiment 1 investigated 12 different cognitive tasks, along with two intelligibility tasks included to validate that the noises were being effective. Interference with intelligibility was essentially the same as found in the research literature, but only inconsistent effects were found on either accuracy or latency of performance on the cognitive tasks. When the tasks were grouped into four categories (Intelligibility, Matching, Verbal, and Arithmetic), reliable differences in rated annoyingness of the noises were related to the task category and to the type of noise (jet or helicopter)

Noise levels and hearing conservation in a water treatment facility

This paper describes a study assessing the sound levels and noise exposures of a municipal water treatment plant to determine the level of employee noise exposure dosages and to make any necessary recommendations regarding reducing the risk of noise induced hearing loss in employees

Cell cycle analysis of lck and fyn

The aim of this Ph.D was to investigate cell cycle-dependent roles of the src-family members, p56lck and p59fyn, in the T cell line, Jurkat. The SH3 and SH2 domains were analysed with respect to substrate binding and specificity, in cells blocked in S phase and mitosis. Cellular substrates were isolated by affinity precipitation using p56lck and p59fyn domains expressed as GST fusion proteins. Although quantitative differences in substrate binding were seen between the SH2 and SH3 domains, no cell cycle-dependent protein interactions were detected. To identify these constitutively interacting proteins, Coomassie Blue stained proteins were excised from the acrylamide gel and subjected to peptide sequencing. This revealed the following interacting proteins for the fynSH3 domain; vimentin, hnRNPK, p54nrb, Sam68 and BF-1/HFK1. FynSH2-binding proteins included HSP70, nucleolin, KU-70kDa subunit and KU-84kDa subunit. These interactions, excluding hnRNPK and Sam68, are novel. Sequence from a 40kDa peptide associating with the fynSH2 domain did not correspond to any known protein. Sam68 was shown to associate with the SH3 and SH3SH2 domains of p56lck and p59fyn and with the SH2 domain of p59fyn. An immunologically related 57kDa protein associated with the SH3 and SH2 domains of p59fyn in asynchronous and mitotic cells but with the SH2 domain of p56lck in asynchronous cells only. A 57/58kDa doublet was found in association with the SH2 and SH3 domains of p59fyn in mitotic cells with the mitotic band exhibiting a retarded mobility. The association of Sam68 and the 57kD protein with fynSH3 was inhibited by poly-proline. Sam68 association was constitutive and independent of anti-CD3 stimulation or position in the cell cycle. Evidence is also reported, suggesting the presence of a family of Sams in a range of cell types

CONSUMING A PARTICIPATION POLICY: CAMBODIAN HEALTH COMMITTEES

Participatory decision making practices were introduced into the Cambodian health sector in the late 1990s by the international development community. These practices were consolidated into a government policy in 2003. The participation policy requires lay citizens and other community representatives to be involved in management committees for health centres. In this thesis I report my research to ascertain if a participation policy results in strong participation. I did an ethnographic study of seven health centres in regional Cambodia. I found that participation levels of all lay citizens and other community representatives in health centre management were very low – the committees were only established where an international NGO supported them. Where the committees were operational, they were not decision making bodies. Community representatives including lay citizens had low levels of participation partly because of poor process design and lack of policy institutionalisation. This context enabled international NGOs to dominate and manipulate the committees. They used committees as a forum to educate community leaders about health, mobilise leaders to promote health centres, and lobby the government for changes in health centre management. By drawing together and extending the work of others, I show how in Cambodia both the participation process used in the study area and the national participation policy became commodities that were consumed in the game of international development. International development actors produced, marketed, and “sold” participation policies and processes and, in return, offered an implicit promise of resources to the government. As a result, lay citizens and other community representatives in Cambodia were short-changed by the consumption of participation policies and processes, being left without meaningful involvement in government decision making

Climate change adaptation and health in Southeast Asia: What do regional organisations contribute?

Around the world climate change is already impacting on health, via more frequent and intense extreme weather events, as well as by altering the prevalence and distributions of vector- and water-borne diseases. The high and rapidly growing population in Southeast Asia is heavily reliant on agriculture for livelihoods, which makes it vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise and typhoons. In this context, regional organisations are playing an increasingly important role in climate change adaptation and health. For example, the Asian Development Bank and the Asia-Pacific Regional Forum on Health and Environment are both involved in adaptation and health initiatives. Despite this, however, there is a lack of empirical research on the value added by regional organisations to adaptation and health actions and initiatives. Prepared as a thesis by compilation, this research helps fill this gap by examining the effectiveness of regional organisations supporting national level adaptation and health in Southeast Asia. A three-step process was used for this examination. Firstly, three national case studies were conducted in Southeast Asia, focussing on adaptation and health. These individual pieces of research used an open-ended research methodology to limit researcher bias, with the goal of identifying similarities and differences in governance-related adaptation and health challenges across the case-study countries. Secondly, a systematic framework was developed for assessing regional organisations supporting climate change adaptation. So as to be applicable across sectors and geographies, the framework was developed outside of Southeast Asia and outside the health sector. Thirdly, the resultant framework was used to guide the research examining regional organisations supporting adaptation and health initiatives in Southeast Asia, to both determine their strengths and weaknesses, and to identify pathways to improve their effectiveness. The main findings of this research were that, first, coordination challenges exist between organisations, sectors and scales, as well as across sub-national boundaries. In all cases, poor coordination is limiting and constraining adaptation and health. Further, coordination challenges are limiting adaptation and health in all three case study countries, despite different levels of development and different governance arrangements. Second, regional organisations are not necessarily well-placed for direct project implementation, but maymore effectively support adaptation through creating enabling environments at the national level. This may be done through supporting national level capacity building, and acting as specialised knowledge banks, such as for climate-modelling data. Third, where there is a lack of coordination, mandate overlaps for regional organisations working in the same region have negative impacts on climate change adaptation, including adaptation and health. A final finding is that institutionalised and incentivised coordination between such regional organisations would benefit adaptation and health initiatives in two key ways. Firstly, both the administrative workload on developing country government agencies and redundancies in the work of regional organisations would be reduced. Secondly, better inter-organisation coordination would provide regional organisations with a stronger foundation for supporting countries to coordinate across scales, sectors and boundaries. The findings outlined in the paragraph above are the basis for the five primary contributions to the academic literature that this thesis makes. Firstly, coordination is a major adaptation and health constraint, regardless of governance arrangements, ideologies or scales. Secondly, a framework for assessing regional organisations coordinating climate change adaptation was developed. Thirdly, the utility of the developed framework was demonstrated across three regions, as well as across sectors. Fourth, integrating the strengths of project and governance approaches provides an avenue for improving adaptation and health results. The final theoretical contribution of this thesis is that integrating the strengths of these two approaches, by coordinating collaboratively, will enable better regional organisation support for coordination within countries. This body of work will provide insights for national governments as well as regional and international organisations on how they can improve their interactions to better support adaptation and health outcomes

Cardenden 1999 : an ethnography of working class nationalism in a Scottish village

This ethnographic monograph, based upon research carried out during 1999 when the Scottish parliament was re-convened, outlines the structural and cultural logic of working class nationalism in Scotland today and grounds this reality, in particular among a younger generation, in the postindustrial village of Cardenden in central Fife. The central argument is that a politics of nationality is being driven by class realities and which frames the desire to have Nation and State congruent without recourse to metaphors of 'blood and soil' and is indifferent to appeals to civic nationalism or civil society. As an ethnography of class this research ethnographically grounds the general idea of working class structuration and class habitus developed by the late Pierre Bourdieu by specifying an original conception of the Scottish working class habitus - specifically, the "worked self." The chapters deal specifically with the crisis in the reproduction of locality, housing conditions, anti-social behaviour and eviction; ethnographically details a British and unionist identity among an older generation of locals and ethnographically and analytically details the embodied nature of work and personhood

Quality of life following haematopoietic stem cell transplant among recipients aged over 50 years: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Background: Allogeneic Haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is a potentially curative treatment for haematological cancers however it is a particularly aggressive treatment that can impact individuals’ quality of life (QOL) in multiple ways. Due to the toxicity of the transplant, adults aged over fifty years have only recently become eligible for this treatment following the development of a reduced intensity regimen. As a result, little is known regarding the experience of QOL among recipients aged over fifty years. QOL information is an essential part of assessing the success of medical treatments and can help prepare recipients for any ways in which their lives and those of their families may be impacted post-transplant. Method Potential participants were recruited through the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre (BWSCC) and a purposive sample of eight participants volunteered to take part in the study. A qualitative approach, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explore the experience of QOL among recipients. Results Four superordinate themes emerged from the data; ‘Shifting sense of self and others’, ‘Adaptation and managing the impact’, ‘A new perspective on life and living’, and ‘Changing over time’. The findings helped highlight the challenges and gains experienced by HSCT recipients as well as the process of adaptation and adjustment which mediates the impact of HSCT on QOL. Conclusions The participants in this study demonstrated that there are a number of commonalities between younger and older recipients in terms of post transplant QOL when compared to the literature on younger recipients to date. However, increased age and stage of life was also shown to have a unique impact on the subjective experience of QOL after transplant. Increased age continues to represent a significant risk factor in terms of QOL and survival post transplant. However, the findings from this study suggest that this small sample of recipients is adjusting well to the challenges of HSCT. Further research is required in this area. Limitations of this study are discussed

Catholics and the 2014 referendum

As a sociologist interested in the question whether Scottish Catholics have a preferential constitutional option for their nation, I undertook some empirical research before the 2014 Referendum among older working-class Catholics in a Fife parish within the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh to gain some answers to a series of questions. Article appeared first in Open Housediv_PaSpub4242pub25

In Perspective Gender and enterprise: The use of entrepreneurship support organisations by men and women

This In Perspective paper reflects on the use by men and women of entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs). It arose through an inquiry conducted in partnership by London South Bank University and Shared Enterprise, the latter being an ESO based in London. As part of the inquiry, a small number of other ESOs in London were interviewed, who revealed that the majority of their participants were women, although the gender imbalance is not as extreme as is the case with Shared Enterprise. On the other hand, far more enterprises in Britain are led by men than are led by women. According to the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) only 20 per cent of very small businesses (no employees) were led by women, and 60 per cent were led solely by a man. A similar proportion – 19 per cent - of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with employees were defined as led by women. A combination of interviews with Shared Enterprise participants and a desk review leads to a (tentative) solution to this seemingly puzzling paradox: women who aspire to entrepreneurship use ESOs more than men because they need them more