“Isn’t it time you were finishing?”: Women’s Labor Force Participation and Childbearing in England, 1860–1920

This contribution examines the relationship between women’s labor force participation (LFP) and fertility in three industrial towns of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England from a feminist economic perspective. The study augments existing, statistical, approaches to demographic history by discussing women’s motivations. Women’s LFP influenced their likelihood of family limitation (via effects on both age at marriage and marital fertility). Where women were most likely to be in paid work, they were most likely to limit family size. It is further argued that the diversity of LFP patterns is the principal explanation for the varied patterns of fertility decline in different parts of Britain

The fiscal impact of population change: discussion

Ronald Lee and Ryan Edwards have provided a comprehensive analysis of the prospective budgetary implications of the aging of the U. S. population over the period to 2100. They cover a lot of ground but two major points stand out: Their analysis suggests that the budget pressures that aging will imply will be intense and very possibly greater than many other analyses would suggest; and the most important pressure is less likely to come from Social Security payments of old-age pensions than from demand for medical care. Their most important policy message relates to the need for policymakers and the wider public to be educated to the realities aging will imply, in order to facilitate the difficult decisions that will be needed. I can only endorse this message and note that the necessary decisions become more difficult as they are delayed.Demography ; Economic conditions

Use of synchrotron tomographic techniques in the assessment of diffusion parameters for solute transport in groundwater flow

This technical note describes the use of time-resolved synchrotron radiation tomographic energy dispersive diffraction imaging (TEDDI) and tomographic X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) for examining ion diffusion in porous media. The technique is capable of tracking the diffusion of several ion species simultaneously. This is illustrated by results which compare the movement of Cs+, Ba2+ and La3+ ions from solution into a typical sample of English chalk. The results exhibited somewhat anomalous (non-Fickian) behaviour and revealed heterogeneities (in 1D) on the scale of a few millimetres

The Result of 11 Plus Selection: An Investigation into Opportunities and Outcomes for Pupils in Selective LEAs

This paper assesses the impact of academic selection at age 11 on children in the minority of areas that still operate such a system. The answers are very clear. Overall there is little or no impact on attainment, but those educated in grammar schools do substantially better (around four grade points more than pupils with the same Key Stage 2 (KS2) points in similar, but non-selective, areas). This is equivalent to raising four GCSEs from a grade ‘C’ to a ‘B’. Other children within selective areas who do not gain a place in a grammar school are disadvantaged by a little under one grade point. In part these effects stem from the substantive under representation of poorer and special needs children in grammar schools. Only 32% of high ability children eligible for free school meals (FSM) attend grammar schools compared with 60% of non-FSM pupils. So whilst the net effect of selection is not substantive it does result in gains for those attending the grammar schools and a slight disadvantage for the rest. The paradox is that grammar schools bestow greater advantages to poor children than more affluent children, but very few make the cut.grammar schools, selective education

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men : the evolution of the computer mouse

This paper explores the notion of social constructionism as it pertains to the process of product development – how within any group of designed objects intended to perform a similar function, a process of selection occurs by users for reasons that do not necessarily align with those expected by the designers. Through interviews with designers involved in the development of the first production mouse, and an analysis of the representation of the mouse in popular media, this paper shows how the mouse has evolved from being a physical object into a visual sign. The creation of the computer mouse is a well documented story. Developed by Doug Engelbart in the early 1960s, the mouse repeatedly proved in ergonomic tests to be the most effective and accurate device to interact with a computer screen. Yet for a variety of socio-economic and cultural reasons, it took two decades to appear as a publicly available mass-produced item as part of the first Apple Macintosh in 1984. When the mouse finally appeared on the market, its function was so unclear to users that large sections of instruction manuals were devoted to explaining it, and simple games were developed purely to help people master its use. Despite its appearance and form being so far removed from more ‘natural’ or ‘accepted’ input devices such as keyboards or pens, the mouse was fairly quickly selected by users as an essential part of computing technology. The level of this acceptance of the mouse can be gauged by its representation in popular media - the image of the mouse quickly came to signify any form of interaction with computer software or a CD-Rom. However, this paper argues that the acceptance of the mouse by computer users is a more complex story than a technologically deterministic account of ergonomic tests might suggest. The introduction of the graphical user interface and computer mouse radically altered the public perception of computers themselves, and in effect created a completely new type of machine which was suddenly a world away from what had previously been represented as merely an advanced electronic typewriter. This paradigm shift allowed male users, particularly those in authority, to display their superiority by adopting computers as tools of managerial control rather than work production, as they could clearly disassociate themselves from what was then perceived as the subordinate activity of typing. In recent years, as computing technology has progressed, and infiltrated our lives to a far wider extent, the mouse as a sign has come to represent far more than merely a link to computer technology. With the wide scale adoption of the internet, the mouse has evolved into a signifier of a less tangible yet far more significant link to the whole of the world outside

Cultures, classifications, counsel and the value of design research

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A clean, white world

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Design for non-designers

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Hairy guys in sheds: the rough and ready world of DIY cigar box guitar makers

The cigar box guitar has a long history in the USA, where it formed part of the culture of traditional blues music and became a popular DIY project. Despite the growth in popularity of the blues in the UK, the penchant for constructing cigar box guitars did not travel with it. This article explores the recent appearance of the instrument and the culture surrounding it in the UK as a particular form of cultural DIY activity combining individual design and production with collective performance, which has in some cases grown far beyond an amateur hobby into a professional business. Keywords: do-it-yourself, amateur making, professional making, musical instruments, DIY culture, authenticity, cigar box guitar

Get it in perspective

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