Family-friendly work practices: differences within and between workplaces

One of the major economic and social changes of recent decades has been the large increase in the number of mothers in paid employment. As a consequence, there has been increasing recognition by employers of the importance of family-friendly work arrangements to assist parents to balance work and family responsibilities. This research is the first large-scale analysis of the extent to which employees within organisations in Australia have differential access to a range of family-friendly work practices.

An Evaluation of Working Land and Open Space Preservation Programs in Maryland: Are They Paying Too Much?

Farmland preservation programs compensate landowners who enroll for the value lost due to the the restrictions on development applied to their land. These restrictions in principle decrease the value of the land. Yet few studies have found strong statistical evidence that preserved parcels sell for lower prices than unpreserved parcels. We use both a hedonic and a propensity score method to find that preserved parcels sell for 11.4 to 19.8% less than identical unpreserved parcels in Maryland. While significant, a decrease of less than 20% in land value is surprisingly small. If impacts to land value are small, could programs pay landowners less to enroll and thus enroll more land?Land Economics/Use,

La comisión de derecho de familia europeo y la armonización del régimen económico matrimonial: conclusiones de la 5ª conferencia "family law in europe: new developments, challenges and opportunities"

La Comisión de derecho de familia Europeo ha dado un paso más en el proceso de armonización del derecho de familia mediante la creación de los principios de derecho europeo de familia relativos a las relaciones patrimoniales entre los cónyuges, presentados en la 5ª Conferencia 'Family Law in Europe: New developments, challenges and opportunities' y cuyas conclusiones serán examinadas en el presente artículo.The Commission on European family law has taken a step forward within the process of harmonization of family law with the introduction of the principles of European family law regarding property relations between spouses, presented on the 5th Conference 'Family Law in Europe: New developments, challenges and opportunities'. This article will focus on the conclusions delivered in that conference

Trafficking in persons monitoring report: January 2009–June 2011

Since 2008, the Australian Government has increased the tempo on investigating and understanding these crimes, and the Australian Institute of Criminology’s research and monitoring program is part of this effort.  The Government has introduced new legislation to crack down on trafficking slavery and servile marriages. Human trafficking is a serious but underreported problem as victims are unwilling to come forward. Since 2004 only 14 people have been convicted of people trafficking-related offences (nine of the 14 defendants were convicted of slavery offences, three of sexual servitude, one of people trafficking and one of labour exploitation). Between January 2009 and June 2011 there were 73 police investigations in Australia and 145 trafficked people entering the government’s victim support program—slightly more than in the previous period. Victims continue to be overwhelmingly from south-east Asia, one-third from Thailand alone. Authored by Jacqueline Joudo Larsen, Lauren Renshaw, Samantha Gray-Barry, Hannah Andrevski, and Toby Corsbie

Gender Equity in Melbourne's Select Entry High School (SEHS) System

This research paper reports on findings from a comprehensive synthesis of research related to gender and Melbourne’s system of Select Entry High Schools (SEHS). The research described in this report was commissioned and funded by the Department of Education and Training, Victoria, with industry partners Portable and Huddle. This research is situated within a larger project entitled: Gender Equity - Consultation and Codesign. The report synthesises previous research in the field, alongside reflections on new data collected over 2021/2022 from students, parents and educators from both within, and in proximity to, the SEHS system, with the aim of generating original, empirically-driven recommendations for policy and practice in the area of SEHS entrance for young women. The project aimed to better understand and address the drivers of gender disparity for high performing girls at SEHS in Victoria, given the larger proportions of male-identifying students and the subsequent gender imbalance present within the system. As feminist gender scholars whose research engages with gender identities and sexuality, the authors acknowledge the complexities inherent to discussions of gender identities. Therefore, throughout the report, we use a range of socio-linguistic terms to represent gender. As the codesign workshops themselves did not explore gender identity, we cannot know how the participants understood their gender identities. To reflect this we have used the terms ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ in order to engage with gender disparity, and also the terms ‘female identifying’ and ‘male identifying’ and ‘girl identified’ and ‘boy identified’ to attempt to capture some of the nuances of contemporary gender identities (see, for example, Miller, 2016; Zimman, 2009)

Psychological predictors of deterrence from travel due to terrorist action

Research has shown that terrorism is associated with a decline in tourism to targeted countries (Enders & Sandler, 1991). The existing studies are based on a retrospective analysis of tourism statistics in relation to occurrences of terrorism. The present research moves beyond these earlier studies by identifying in realtime the duration and extent of the psychological impact of an act of terrorism on deterrence from travelling. It is evident that there are individual differences in this variable, with some people being easily deterred, whilst others continue to visit countries that have been terrorist targets. Other research that has sought to identify factors associated with people's travel decisions in the light of terrorism have used the concept of terrorism in the abstract, rather than with reference to a real-world event (Sonmez & Graefe, 1998). The present research identifies the utility of risk perception, sensation-seeking personality, attitude and socialisation variables as predictors of deterrence from travelling due to the threat of terrorism. The measure of deterrence from travelling was again assessed with reference to realworld terrorist events. Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), Sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1994) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988) provide the theoretical bases for this research. The research also investigates these factors as predictors of the intention to travel by air, and the role of travel motive in relation to travel intentions. It was found that attitude to international travel, risk perception for the threat of terrorism and level of thrill and adventure seeking were the strongest predictors of deterrence from travelling. The relationship between the predictor variables and the intention to travel by air was found to alter depending upon the destination and reason for which the travel was intended. The implications of the findings are discussed, both in relation to how they develop the theoretical approaches and for the application of these in understanding and limiting the negative consequences of terrorism on the public

Women and Girls in Outdoor Education: Scoping the Research Literature and Exploring Prospects for Future Body Image Enquiry

Research into women\u27s and girls\u27 outdoor programs and their influence on perceived body image has gained scholarly attention in recent decades. A systematic review of research from 1980 – 2017 identifies key trends and themes revealing opportunities to advance understandings in the field. In particular, while there has been extensive research conducted on women\u27s and girls\u27 outdoor education programs from various perspectives, there is a shortage of robust research examining the impact of outdoor education on body image. While identifying some trends, the broad scope of the enquiry highlights the scarcity of this empirical data, and calls for heightened emphasis and scholarly debate in the area of body image and outdoor education

Paediatric euthanasia : do terminally ill mature minors have the right to die?

Master of Law. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.Euthanasia is a highly controversial and topical issue in South Africa at the moment. Following recent developments in common law, the need for euthanasia legislation in South Africa needs to be considered and further whether such legislation should allow for a mature minor to request euthanasia provided they are considered sufficiently mature to make such a decision. The purpose of this dissertation is to show the need for implementation of euthanasia legislation which would also permit terminally ill mature minors to request euthanasia. This research will involve a rights-based analysis in order to show that a terminally ill mature minor can successfully rely on his or her Constitutional rights to dignity, bodily integrity, privacy, equality, healthcare and freedom to request active euthanasia. There is a duty on the state to protect and promote the rights of terminally ill minors and it can be shown that it does such a minor more harm than good to force him or her to suffer unbearable pain until their natural death occurs. Having shown that minors can rely on the rights above, this dissertation will conduct an investigation of a child’s right to autonomy and bodily integrity in order to show that to limit a child’s right to make decisions about his or her own body is an overextension of legal paternalism. In all matters concerning a child, the child’s best interests are always of paramount importance. The purpose of this research is to show that it cannot be in the child’s best interests to force a terminally ill child to continue to suffer until their natural death despite the child requesting otherwise. In the discussion of paediatric euthanasia, the concept of competence to make a decision will also be considered. It is essential that should a child be permitted to request euthanasia, that child must be sufficiently competent and mature to make the decision to die. Methods of assessing competency and maturity will be analysed in addition to existing legislation, such as the Children’s Act,¹ which specifically provides instances in which a child can make a decision regarding their own body, showing an acknowledgement by the legislature of the need to promote and protect a child’s right to autonomy. The final section of this dissertation considers the foreign jurisdictions of Belgium and the Netherlands in order to critically assess how euthanasia legislation can be implemented with the inclusion of children. These are the only two jurisdictions worldwide which allow for a child to request euthanasia. The South African Law Commission’s report on euthanasia is also considered to contemplate the need for safeguards in respect of euthanasia that will ensure minimal abuse. ² The research is concluded by suggesting safeguards for implementation in legislation which permits terminally ill adults and mature minors to request euthanasia