Feelings of dual-insecurity among European workers: A multi-level analysis

This article analyses European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We assess the relationship between feelings of employment and income insecurity (dual-insecurity) among workers and national flexicurity policies in the areas of lifelong learning, active labour market policy, modern social security systems and flexible and reliable contractual arrangements. We find that dual-insecurity feelings are lower in countries that score better on most flexicurity polices, but these effects are in all cases outweighed by levels of GDP per capita. Thus feelings of insecurity are reduced more by the affluence of a country than by its social policies. However, affluence is strongly correlated with the policy efforts designed to reduce insecurity, especially active labour market policies and life-long learning, two policy areas that are threatened with cuts as a result of austerity

Plant closures, precariousness and policy responses:revisiting MG Rover 10 years on

With automotive plants being closed in Australia and western Europe, this article reflects on the employment status of ex-MG Rover (MGR) workers following the closure of the Longbridge plant in 2005. In particular, it draws on Standing's typology of labour market insecurity and uses a mixed-methods approach including an analysis of a longitudinal survey of some 200 ex-MGR workers, and in-depth interviews with ex-workers and policy-makers. While the policy response to the closure saw significant successes in terms of the great majority of workers successfully adjusting into re-employment, and with positive findings in terms of re-training and education, the paper finds significant challenges in terms of security of employment, income, job quality and representation at work years after closure. In particular, the paper posits that the general lack of attention to employment security at the macrolevel effectively undermined elements of a positive policy response over the longer run. This in turn suggests longer-term policy measures are required to address aspects of precariousness at work

Digital health and inequalities in access to health services in Bangladesh: Mixed methods study

Background: Globally, the rapid growth of technology and its use as a development solution has generated much interest in digital health. In line with global trends, Bangladesh is also integrating technology into its health system to address disparities. Strong political endorsement and uptake of digital platforms by the government has influenced the rapid proliferation of such initiatives in the country. This paper aims to examine the implications of digital health on access to health care in Bangladesh, considering who uses electronic devices to access health information and services and why. Objective: This study aims to understand how access to health care and related information through electronic means (digital health) is affected by sociodemographic determinants (ie, age, gender, education, socioeconomic status, and personal and household ownership of mobile phones) in a semiurban community in Bangladesh. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 854 households (between October 2013 and February 2014) and 20 focus group discussions (between February 2017 and March 2017) were conducted to understand (1) who owns electronic devices; (2) who, among the owners, uses these to access health information and services and why; (3) the awareness of electronic sources of health information; and (4) the role of intermediaries (family members or peers who helped to look for health information using electronic devices). Results: A total of 90.3% (771/854) of households (471/854, 55.2% of respondents) owned electronic devices, mostly mobile phones. Among these, 7.2% (34/471) used them to access health information or services. Middle-aged (35-54 years), female, less (or not) educated, and poorer people used these devices the least (α=.05, α is the level of significance). The lack of awareness, discomfort, differences with regular care-seeking habits, lack of understanding and skills, and proximity to a health facility were the main reasons for not using devices to access digital health. Conclusions: Although influenced by sociodemographic traits, access to digital health is not merely related to device ownership and technical skill. Rather, it is a combination of general health literacy, phone ownership, material resources, and technical skill as well as social recognition of health needs and inequity. This study’s findings should serve as a basis for better integrating technology within the health system and ensuring equitable access to health care

The narratives of Hardship: : The new and the old poor in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Europe

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Hulya Dagdeviren, Matthew Donoghue, and Lars Meier, ‘The narratives of hardship: the new and the old poor in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Europe’, The Sociological Review, vol. 65 (2): 369-385, May 2017. The final, definitive version of record is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12403. Published by SAGE.This paper examines poverty and hardship in Europe after the 2008 crisis, using household interviews in nine European countries. A number of findings deserve highlighting. First, making a distinction between ‘the old poor’ (those who lived in poverty before as well as after the crisis) and ‘the new poor’ (thosewho fell into hardship after the crisis), we show that hardship is experienced quite differently by these groups. Second, the household narratives showed that while material deprivations constitute an important aspect of hardship, the themes of insecurity and dependency also emerged as fundamental dimensions. In contrast to popular political discourse in countries such as the UK, dependency on welfare or family was experienced as a source of distress and manifested as a form of hardship by participants in all countries covered in this study.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

On Visible Homelessness and the Micro-Aesthetics of Public Space

In this article, we investigate the circumstances that have produced the current municipal regulatory approach to homelessness in the City of Melbourne, Victoria, and the ways in which visibly homeless people are policed through a micro-aesthetics of their presence in public space, which involves the monitoring of their bodily demeanour and their physical possessions. Our study contributes to and draws from a range of debates, including studies of the governmental conjunction of poverty and crime, analysis of the co-implication of law and spatiality, research on the criminalisation of homelessness and homeless people, and the burgeoning criminological interest in the significance of the visual field for our understandings of crime and criminality. This article recounts how homelessness, public space and questions of aesthetics have recently coalesced in debates about the regulation of homelessness in the public space of Melbourne’s city centre. It approaches the issues through comparative consideration of genres of municipal management frameworks in other jurisdictions, detailed textual consideration of the Protocol on Homelessness in the City of Melbourne and an empirical study of visible homelessness in the public places of central Melbourne

The time of the Roma in times of crisis: Where has European neoliberal capitalism failed?

This paper argues that the economic and financial crisis that has ensnared Europe from the late 2000s has been instrumental in reshaping employment and social relations in a detrimental way for the majority of the European people. It argues that the crisis has exacerbated the socio-economic position of most Roma people, immigrants as well as of other vulnerable groups. This development is approached here as an outcome of the widening structural inequalities that underpin the crisis within an increasingly neoliberalised Europe. Through recent policy developments and public discourses from a number of European countries I show how rising inequalities nurture racialised social tensions. My account draws on classic and contemporary theoretical propositions that have been propounded about the nature of capitalism, its contemporary re-articulation as well as its ramification for the future of Europe

A geopolitical-economy of distant water fisheries access arrangements

In recent decades, fishing fleets and effort have grown in aggregate throughout the waters of lower-income coastal countries, much of which is carried out by vessels registered in higher-income countries. Fisheries access arrangements (FAAs) underpin this key trend in ocean fisheries and have their origins in UNCLOS’s promise to establish resource ownership as a mechanism to increase benefits to newly independent coastal and island states. Coastal states use FAAs to permit a foreign state, firm, or industry association to fish within its waters. This paper provides a conceptual approach for understanding FAAs across the global ocean and for exploring their potential to deliver on the promise of UNCLOS. Illustrated with the findings from multiple case studies, we advance understanding of FAAs by developing a geopolitical-economy of access that attends to the combination of contingent and context-specific economic, ecologic, and geopolitical forces that shape the terms, conditions and practices of the FAAs shaping this persistent phenomenon of higher-income industrial fleets fishing throughout lower-income countries’ waters

Economic precariousness: A new channel in the housing market cycle

Abstract: Demographic and institutional elements, as important drivers of the housing market, should not be neglected since it is not only financial and monetary elements that matter in the case of the housing market. In this context, one relationship, which still remains unclear, is the relationship between the housing and the labour markets. Some research has been undertaken to support the hypothesis that high rates of homeownership lead to high unemployment via increases in the reservation wage. However, further research is needed to address the possible implications of the institutional settings of the labour market in the dynamics of the housing market. The aim of this paper is to bring some light on the link between both markets. In particular, this contribution explains how the housing cycle could be ‘amplified’ via a new channel, i.e. economic precariousness, which is closely related to job insecurity. Subsequently, we provide evidence in the case of five developed economies, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, over the period 1985-2013.Not appicabl

Who Should Do Replication Labor?

. Scientists, for the most part, want to get it right. However, the social structures that govern their work undermine that aim, and this leads to nonreplicable findings in many fields. Because the social structure of science is a decentralized system, it is difficult to intervene. In this article, I discuss how we might do so, focusing on self-corrective-labor schemes (i.e., ways of distributing replication efforts within the scientific community). First, I argue that we need to implement a scheme that makes replication work outcome independent, systematic, and sustainable. Second, I use these three criteria to evaluate extant proposals, which place the responsibility for replication on original researchers, consumers of their research, students, or many labs. Third, on the basis of a philosophical analysis of the reward system of science and the benefits of the division of cognitive labor, I propose a scheme that satisfies the criteria better: the professional scheme. This scheme has two main components. First, the scientific community is organized into two groups: discovery researchers, who produce new findings, and confirmation researchers, whose primary function is to do confirmation work (i.e., replication, reproduction, meta-analysis). Second, a distinct reward system is established for confirmation researchers so that their career advancement is separated from whether they obtain positive experimental results

The Trouble With Fathers: The Impact of Time and Gendered-Thinking on Working Relationships Between Fathers and Social Workers in Child Protection Practice in England

The lives of families entering the child protection arena may be shaped by a range of troubles, including material deprivation, physical and mental health problems, and substance misuse or domestic abuse. Despite the interest in whole family approaches, the issue of how professionals fail to work effectively with fathers is long-standing and resistant to change. This article illustrates challenges in building working relationships with men, including the challenge of avoiding binary thinking in the assessment of fathers as “risk” or “resource.” Drawing on our qualitative longitudinal study of men’s experiences of child protection in England, we highlight how both organizational (clashing time perspectives) and cultural (gendered-thinking) factors can trouble the potential relationship between social workers and fathers. We argue for a more gender sensitive approach to social work practice, which can respond more fully and effectively to the experiences of fathers and mothers