The Economic Casualties of Retiring Because of Unemployment

This research reports on one aspect of a multimethod study which investigated the effect of involuntary retirement on retirement income. Using the Survey on Ageing and Independence 1991, a secondary data analysis was carried out which examined the economic effects of retiring because of unemployment. This analysis was followed by interviews with 33 men and women whose retirement was induced by unemployment. In the secondary analysis, when the respondents who retired for reasons of unemployment were compared to those who retired for other reasons, there was little doubt that the unemployment retirees were disadvantaged on human capital variables, in terms of their work history, and ultimately, in their retirement income, whether personal or household. Returning to work part-time after retirement did not appear to raise their incomes which were lower than the incomes of those who retired for other reasons. Furthermore, they were more likely to receive government transfer payments such as disability benefits or social assistance. When the factors that significantly contributed to their income in retirement were considered they were a function of personal wealth such as investments and a private pension. The public pension system did not have a significant influence on their retirement income. In the convenience sample, all respondents reported that unemployment lead to a drop in retirement income. For those most severely hit by unemployment, the transition period was extremely stressful with people reporting high levels of anger, depression, and sadness and constant worry about their straitened circumstances. People coped with their drop in income by changing their lifestyle, giving up valued assets like their homes and dipping into their savings and RRSPs. These strategies, in turn, depleted their resources for retirement and caused considerable consternation about what they saw as an uncontrollable and unforeseeable future. People also relied heavily on social assistance and disability benefits to survive until the age where they were eligible to draw down their retirement benefits. When they had to draw down their retirement pensions earlier than expected, they were frustrated because they had to accept lower pensions, a feeling that was compounded when they discovered that, if they were lucky enough to secure part-time work, this resulted in further reductions in their pensions. The incongruity of government retirement policy threats of cutbacks to pensions or raising the age of retirement -- did not escape most retirees in our sample and served to create more uncertainty and stress for an already economically distressed group of Canadians.retirement income; SAI; unemployment

The Economic Casualties of Retiring Because of Poor Health

This multimethod study investigated the effect of involuntary retirement on retirement income. Using the General Social Survey 1994, a secondary data analysis was carried out which examined the economic effects of retiring because of poor health. When the men and women who retired for reasons of poor health were compared to those who retired for other reasons, there was little doubt that the health retirees were disadvantaged on human capital variables, in terms of their work history, and ultimately, in their retirement income, whether personal or household. The men who retired because of ill health did not appear to benefit from government transfer payments and were less likely to receive income from a private pension or from interest and dividends. The women retirees suffered from the same disadvantages as the men, however, when they reached retirement they were more likely to rely on government transfer payments as a major source of income. Like the men, they were more likely to believe that their retirement income had gotten worse since the day they retired, and, over two-thirds believed that their financial situation had become much worse. In the multivariate analyses, however, any effect that poor health might have had on household income was offset by the benefits associated with marriage, and their own sociodemographic characteristics. This is further confirmed when personal income is considered, since marriage has the strong and negative influence on personal income. The interviews with the retirees indicated that retiring for reasons of poor health was seen by most people as a somewhat unpleasant transition that had long lasting and negative effects on retirement income.GSS; poor health; retirement

Seeing the Chemistry Around Me – Helping Students Identify the Relevance of Chemistry to Everyday Life

The study attempted to determine whether the use of a series of reading and response assignments decreased students’ perceptions of chemistry difficulty and enhanced students’ perceptions of the relevance of chemistry in their everyday lives. Informed consent volunteer students enrolled in General Chemistry II at a community college in the southeastern United States during the Spring 2012 semester participated in this study. Students were assigned to read a series of short articles that connect chemistry to a specific aspect of everyday life and then answer a series of questions for each article. Open-response research instruments (initial questionnaire and final questionnaire) were used. Responses for each of the research instruments were coded according to ordinal rubrics to allow for statistical analysis. A Wilcoxon Signed Ranks t-test indicated a significant difference for each of the research questions. It was found that the perception of difficulty for the subject overall decreased during the semester, indicating that the subject was either perceived to be less difficult than students feared or that, as they better understood the chemistry, the less it was disliked. Responses also indicated that students perceived greater relevance in terms of nutrition, general health, and environment, although not all to the same degree

Noise Exposures Of Recreational Snowmobilers

Noise exposure measurements, snowmobiler riding habits, and surveys addressing the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) were collected on 10 recreational snowmobilers. Participants included two females and eight males with the mean age of 53.9 (+14.07) years old, and ages ranging from 28-70 years. Noise exposure measurements were collected on a typical riding day with QuietDose™ noise dosimetry microphones placed under the helmet of the snowmobiler (Howard Leigh [QuietDose™], 2011). The snowmobilers traveled an average of 51.34 miles (± 10.62 miles) per day during data collection. Riding times ranged from 3 hours and 38 minutes to 8 hours and 50 minutes per day, including breaks. Seventy percent of participants (n = 7) exceeded the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) action level (AL) of 85 dBA time weighted average (TWA) (50% dose). The OSHA permissible exposure level (PEL) protocol samples reveal a mean noise dose of 63.6% (+.2%) with a TWA of 86.17 (+3.1) dBA. One participant (10%) exceeded 100% dose (90 dBA TWA) for the OSHA PEL protocol. The mean noise dose for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) protocol was 472.3% (+2.2%) and a mean TWA of 91.17 (+2.3) dBA. All participants were over-exposed when referencing the NIOSH REL. The health communication survey results suggest that 50% of the riders felt a helmet was protective from hazardous noise and that hearing protectors may be underutilized due to the cost, communication and comfort barriers. Results suggest a need for more educational information on hearing loss from hazardous noise levels and how participants can protect themselves from the risk of NIHL. It is recommended that recreational snowmobilers be enrolled in a HLPP that provides for noise exposure measurement, audiometric monitoring, hearing protection device selection, fitting and verification as well as educational content specific to the sport

Leveraging Maternal Rhetoric, Space, and Experience: La Leche League\u27s Emergence as a Counterpublic

For over six decades, the international, mother-to-mother breastfeeding support organization La Leche League (LLL) has been helping women breastfeed successfully. LLL was formed at a time when the dominant ideology of scientific motherhood framed mothers as obedient adherents to physicians’ strict guidelines, which encouraged bottle-feeding and discouraged close mother-child bonds. LLL has been credited with challenging scientific motherhood, transforming medical discourse and practices surrounding infant feeding, and prompting the medical professional to accept mothers’ active involvement in decision-making; yet, paradoxically, it has also constrained mothers by reducing women to their maternal biology, discouraging mothers from participating in the public sphere, and alienating economically challenged, working, minority, and lesbian mothers. While scholars have studied the paradoxical nature of the organization, there has been no in-depth study of the rhetorical strategies that LLL employed in order to gain a dispersed audience of dedicated supporters and affect significant change. This dissertation traces the early history of LLL, with a focus on the period between 1956 and 1963, to argue that LLL’s maternal rhetoric was the key to its development into a significant counterpublic that would transform the medical profession’s views on breastfeeding and the role of mothers. I argue that LLL subversively reclaimed the domestic space of the home to create a maternal space which would operate as a “parallel discursive arena” (Fraser 68) in which the organization would develop its counter discourse and its philosophy of natural motherhood. I suggest that LLL’s employment of maternal rhetoric to craft an organizational ethos framed mothers as the natural authorities on childcare and infant feeding. This maternal rhetoric led to its success in building a counterpublic made up of an army of breastfeeding mothers who were able to create their own maternal spaces that would allow them to effectively resist the status quo. Finally, I assert that in offering a rhetorical education to help mothers employ maternal rhetoric in their individual acts of resistance, LLL’s counterpublic underwent a project of collective ethos formation that would prompt the medical profession to reevaluate its understanding of infant feeding and its view of the role of mothers in decision making regarding healthcare. LLL thus increased mothers’ options, autonomy, and authority, outcomes which I contend are feminist in nature

Izzy\u27s Blueberry Wish: A National Guard Deployment Story of Family Resiliency

In 2019 I walked along a Florida beach, worried about my son’s upcoming third deployment. Although I laughed when sea gulls stole chips left on a swimmer’s blanket, thoughts of saying goodbye shrouded the sun. During previous deployments, I had never cried when I hugged him goodbye. But that day on the beach tears stung my eyes as I recalled the uncertainty and fear that gripped my heart with each deployment. I wiped away my tears and watched children play in the surf and fill buckets of sand, and I wondered how children cope when their parents are deployed. My son once told me about a fellow officer who skyped with his toddler during a yearlong absence in Iraq. Whenever her father’s face appeared on the computer screen, his daughter waved and smiled and blew kisses. She knew her daddy’s face and voice, yet when her father returned home and stood in the living room, she didn’t run to embrace him. Instead in bewilderment, she turned toward the computer screen. The soldier’s story inspired me to write Izzy’s Blueberry Wish. By writing the story and researching organizations devoted to assisting military families, I learned that military children face unique challenges, both educational and emotional. Separation from a parent is wrenching, but with family and community support, children also find unwavering courage. Izzy’s Blueberry Wish is fiction. The gravel road Izzy runs down to her home doesn’t exist. But Izzy is very much in my heart

Institutional development work in the World Bank : a review of 84 bank projects

Institutional weakness is a critical constraint to economic development. The goal of this paper is to review the design of recent Bank projects to assess the quality of their institutional development (ID) components and the factors that may affect that quality. A major focus is Bank staffing and organization, and the following issues are addressed: (a) the quality of institutional analysis and ID components in the design of current Bank project; (b) the ID work that is being done in Bank projects; (c) qualifications needed for effective ID work; (d) the impact the Bank's organizational structure has on ID work; and (e) suggestions that can be made to broaden and strengthen the ID work in Bank projects.Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Municipal Financial Management,Rural Portfolio Improvement