Labor and Love: Wives' Employment and Divorce Risk in its Socio-political Context

We theorize how social policy affects marital stability vis-à-vis macro and micro effects of wives' employment on divorce risk in 11 Western countries. Correlations among 1990s aggregate data on marriage, divorce, and wives' employment rates, along with attitudinal and social policy information, seem to support specialization hypotheses that divorce rates are higher where more wives are employed and where policies support that employment. This is an ecological fallacy, however, because of the nature of the changes in specific countries. At the micro level, we harmonize national longitudinal data on the most recent cohort of wives marrying for the first time and find that the stabilizing effects of a gendered division of labor have ebbed. In the United States with its lack of policy support, a wife's employment still significantly increases the risk of divorce. A wife's employment has no significant effect on divorce risk in Australia, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, wives' employment predicts a significantly lower risk of divorce when compared with wives who are out of the labor force. The results indicate that greater policy support for equality reduces and may even reverse the relative divorce risk associated with a wife's employment.This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Social Policy following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version "Labor and Love: Wives' Employment and Divorce Risk in Its Socio-political Context / Lynn Prince Cooke, Jani Erola, Marie Evertsson, Michael Gähler, Juho Härkönen, Belinda Hewitt, Marika Jalovaara, Man-Yee Kan, Torkild Hovde Lyngstad, Letizia Mencarini, Jean-Francois Mignot, Dimitri Mortelmans, Anne-Rigt Poortman, Christian Schmitt, Heike Trappe. In: Social Politics 20 (2013), 4, pp. 482-509" is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxt01

Increased extracellular vesicles mediate inflammatory signalling in cystic fibrosis

Rationale Mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) gene form the basis of cystic fibrosis (CF). There remains an important knowledge gap in CF as to how diminished CFTR activity leads to the dominant inflammatory response within CF airways. Objectives To investigate if extracellular vesicles (EVs) contribute to inflammatory signalling in CF. Methods EVs released from CFBE41o-, CuFi-5, 16HBE14o- and NuLi-1 cells were characterised by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA). EVs isolated from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from 30 people with CF (PWCF) were analysed by NTA and mass spectrometry and compared with controls. Neutrophils were isolated from the blood of 8 PWCF to examine neutrophil migration in the presence of CFBE41o- EVs. Results A significantly higher level of EVs were released from CFBE41o- (p<0.0001) and CuFi-5 (p=0.0209) relative to control cell lines. A significantly higher level of EVs were detected in BALF of PWCF, in three different age groups relative to controls (p=0.01, 0.001, 0.002). A significantly lower level of EVs were released from CFBE41o- (p<0.001) and CuFi-5 (p=0.0002) cell lines treated with CFTR modulators. Significant changes in the protein expression of 126 unique proteins was determined in EVs obtained from the BALF of PWCF of different age groups (p<0.001-0.05). A significant increase in chemotaxis of neutrophils derived from PWCF was observed in the presence of CFBE41o EVs (p=0.0024) compared with controls. Conclusion This study demonstrates that EVs are produced in CF airway cells, have differential protein expression at different ages and drive neutrophil recruitment in CF.European Commission Horizon 2020The National Children’s Research Centr

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among children and staff in German daycare centres

In daycare centres, the close contact of children with other children and employees favours the transmission of infections. The majority of children <6 years attend daycare programmes in Germany, but the role of daycare centres in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is unclear. We investigated the transmission risk in daycare centres and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to associated households. 30 daycare groups with at least one recent laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 case were enrolled in the study (10/2020–06/2021). Close contact persons within daycare and households were examined over a 12-day period (repeated SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests, genetic sequencing of viruses, symptom diary). Households were interviewed to gain comprehensive information on each outbreak. We determined primary cases for all daycare groups. The number of secondary cases varied considerably between daycare groups. The pooled secondary attack rate (SAR) across all 30 daycare centres was 9.6%. The SAR tended to be higher when the Alpha variant was detected (15.9% vs. 5.1% with evidence of wild type). The household SAR was 53.3%. Exposed daycare children were less likely to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 than employees (7.7% vs. 15.5%). Containment measures in daycare programmes are critical to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, especially to avoid spread to associated households.Peer Reviewe

One Germany, Two Worlds of Housework? Examining Single and Partnered Women in the Decade after Unification

Despite much recent changes in gender relations, housework remains an area where women bear primary responsibility. This paper examines the role of policy and employment context on housework, not only for women who live with partners, but also for single women. I study German women's housework in the decade after unification, which allows me to simultaneously assess the impact of the ideological legacies of the FRG and the GDR, while also studying the role of different levels of labor market participation. I find that women with partners do more housework than singles, and that part-time employees do more housework than those working full-time. The results show no regional differences in singles' housework performance. However, among women with partners, West German women do significantly more housework. The analyses reveal that differences in the housework levels of full-time and part-time workers can be explained by the differences in mechanisms for the two groups. Full-time workers reduce their housework in response to their paid labor involvement to a lesser extent than part-time workers, in particular in East Germany, where women's full-time employment has long been normative

Physiological Adaptations to Progressive Endurance Exercise Training in Adult and Aged Rats: Insights from the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC)

While regular physical activity is a cornerstone of health, wellness, and vitality, the impact of endurance exercise training on molecular signaling within and across tissues remains to be delineated. The Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) was established to characterize molecular networks underlying the adaptive response to exercise. Here, we describe the endurance exercise training studies undertaken by the Preclinical Animal Sites Studies component of MoTrPAC, in which we sought to develop and implement a standardized endurance exercise protocol in a large cohort of rats. To this end, Adult (6-mo) and Aged (18-mo) female (n&nbsp;=&nbsp;151) and male (n&nbsp;=&nbsp;143) Fischer 344 rats were subjected to progressive treadmill training (5 d/wk, ∼70%-75% VO2max) for 1, 2, 4, or 8 wk; sedentary rats were studied as the control group. A total of 18 solid tissues, as well as blood, plasma, and feces, were collected to establish a publicly accessible biorepository and for extensive omics-based analyses by MoTrPAC. Treadmill training was highly effective, with robust improvements in skeletal muscle citrate synthase activity in as little as 1-2 wk and improvements in maximum run speed and maximal oxygen uptake by 4-8 wk. For body mass and composition, notable age- and sex-dependent responses were observed. This work in mature, treadmill-trained rats represents the most comprehensive and publicly accessible tissue biorepository, to date, and provides an unprecedented resource for studying temporal-, sex-, and age-specific responses to endurance exercise training in a preclinical rat model

Occupational Sex Segregation and Management-Level Wages in Germany: What Role Does Firm Size Play?

The paper analyzes the gender pay gap in private-sector management positions based on German panel data and using fixed-effects models. It deals with the effect of occupational sex segregation on wages, and the extent to which wage penalties for managers in predominantly female occupations are moderated by firm size. Drawing on economic and organizational approaches and the devaluation of women's work, we find wage penalties for female occupations in management only in large firms. This indicates a pronounced devaluation of female occupations, which might be due to the longer existence, stronger formalization, or more established old-boy networks of large firms

Gender-Specific Effects of Unemployment on Family Formation: A Cross-National Perspective

This paper investigates the impact of unemployment on the propensity to start a family. Unemployment is accompanied by bad occupational prospects and impending economic deprivation, placing the well-being of a future family at risk. I analyze unemployment at the intersection of state-dependence and the reduced opportunity costs of parenthood, distinguishing between men and women across a set of welfare states. Using micro-data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), I apply event history methods to analyze longitudinal samples of first-birth transitions in France, Finland, Germany, and the UK (1994-2001). The results highlight spurious negative effects of unemployment on family formation among men, which can be attributed to the lack of breadwinner capabilities in the inability to financially support a family. Women, in contrast, show positive effects of unemployment on the propensity to have a first child in all countries except France. These effects prevail even after ontrolling for labour market and income-related factors. The findings are pronounced in Germany and the UK where work-family conflicts are the cause of high opportunity costs of motherhood, and the gender-specific division of labour is still highly traditional. Particularly among women with a moderate and low level of education, unemployment clearly increases the likelihood to have a first child

Gender-Specific Occupational Segregation, Glass Ceiling Effects, and Earnings in Managerial Positions: Results of a Fixed Effects Model

The study analyses the gender pay gap in private-sector management positions based on the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the years 2001-2008. It focuses on occupational gender segregation, and on the effects of this inequality on earnings levels and gender wage differentials in management positions. Our paper is, to our knowledge, the first in Germany to use time-constant unobserved heterogeneity and gender-specific promotion probabilities to estimate wages and wage differentials for persons in managerial positions. The results of the fixed-effects model show that working in a more female job, as opposed to a more male job, affects only women's wages negatively. This result remains stable after controlling for human capital endowments and other effects. Mechanisms of the devaluation of jobs not primarily held by men also negatively affect pay in management positions (evaluative discrimination) and are even more severe for women (allocative discrimination). However, the effect is non-linear; the wage penalties for women occur only in integrated (more equally male/female) jobs as opposed to typically male jobs, and not in typically female jobs. The devaluation of occupations that are not primarily held by men becomes even more evident when promotion probabilities are taken into account. An Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition of the wage differential between men and women in management positions shows that the full model explains 65 percent of the gender pay gap. In other words: Thirty-five percent remain unexplained; this portion reflects, for example, time-varying social and cultural conditions, such as discriminatory policies and practices in the labor market

Development and application of charge variant profiling platforms for molecular triage of candidate monoclonal antibodies.

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are highly valued biopharmaceuticals. To patients, these molecules are medicines for conditions that have previously been untreatable, improving quality of life and saving lives. To pharmaceutical companies, a successful product can be worth billions. For companies, however, the development of these therapies is a long and expensive process. The patent protected, marketable “life”, of these molecules is relatively short and so companies have only a few years to recoup the cost of development. The cost of these treatments to health services and patients alike can, therefore, be prohibitive. If the development process could be de-risked to identify molecules that will be easily manufactured early in the process, this could lead to significantly reduced costs. MAbs are complex molecules produced by living organisms. Their production process leads to inherent differences. The charge variant (CV) profile of a mAb is arguably one of the most important critical quality attributes (CQAs) monitored during manufacturing. The CV profile is constituted by mAb isoforms with heterogeneous net charge caused by enzymatic and non-enzymatic processes. Strong cation exchange (SCX) represents the predominant analytical procedure used in this project. The molecular composition of each isoform is usually determined using a multifaceted analytical strategy consisting of mass spectrometry (MS) analysis on many levels, peptide mapping and glycosylation profiling in addition to other methods to evaluate structure and function. By hyphenation of SCX to MS the main isoforms of the mAb can be identified in one analysis rather than a longer and less reliable multi-step process. To fully understand SCX in depth investigations into the fundamental absorption mechanisms of salt and pH elution modes were performed. From this investigation the optimum parameters were utilised to develop a rapid charge variant method. Finally, to investigate the equivalence of SCX-MS to traditional characterisation studies a comprehensive study of in-house produced Cetuximab was performed. These studies combined to develop a platform for the rapid and in-depth characterisation of candidate molecules by SCX-MS