Financial Satisfaction and (in)formal Sector in a Transition Country

This paper examines the relationship between working in the formal or informal sector and self-reported individual financial satisfaction in a country in transition. It does so by allowing for individual heterogeneity in terms of perceived financial insecurity and tax morale. The empirical analysis uses a dataset for Albania, a country in transition. The method applied is the ‘self-administered questionnaire’, which combines personal contacts with written questionnaire. The results indicate that, for most individuals, working in the informal sector has negative effects on their self reported financial satisfaction. For some individuals, however, this effect is positive. The characteristic defining these two groups of individuals is their attitude towards the perceived financial insecurity related to not paying taxes. These findings have important implications, in particular for transition countries with large informal sectors. Given the involuntary participation in the informal sector in these countries, the majority of individuals working in this sector will remain financially dissatisfied as long as they have no other social safety net

Community planning and urban design in contested places. Some insights from Belfast

Although social conflict due to the presence of different groups divided by cultural, religious or ethnic issues plagues many contemporary cities, community and participatory planning methods still pay little attention to segregation in contested spaces as a specific matter of concern. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap through the development of a novel tool to be implemented during community planning processes in contested cities, particularly in (visual) mapping processes. The pilot area for developing the lexicon has been selected within the city of Belfast, which has been struggling for years with problems related to inter-religious sectarian conflicts. The material effects on the urban structure of the long process of defensive planning during the socalled Troubles and within the post-conflicts peace programmes have been investigated by analysing urban artefacts including edges, borders, barriers, doors, visual control points. The paper suggests that a simple, recognizable lexicon may contribute to honing community planning methods in contested places by integrating the traditional methodology of visual mapping with a tailored taxonomy of elements of urban conflict, which may be used at many stages of the planning process, including developing a visual map, design and planning, and developing and implementing an action plan

Gender Inequality in a Globalizing World

Emphasis on market-friendly macroeconomic and development strategies in recent years has resulted in deleterious effects on growth and well-being, and has done little to promote greater gender equality. This paper argues that the example of East Asia states, which recognized their position as late industrializers, relied on a managed-market approach with the state that employed a wide variety of policy instruments to promote industrialization. Nevertheless, while Asian growth was rapid, it was not enough to produce greater gender equality. A concentration of women in mobile export industries that face severe competition from other low-wage countries reduces their bargaining power and inhibits closure of gender-wage gaps. Gender-equitable macroeconomic and development policies are thus required, including financial market regulation, regulation of trade and investment flows, and gender-sensitive public sector spending

The Right to a Job, the Right Types of Projects: Employment Guarantee Policies from a Gender Perspective

There is now widespread recognition that in most countries, private-sector investment has not been able to absorb surplus labor. This is all the more the case for poor unskilled people. Public works programs and employment guarantee schemes in South Africa, India, and other countries provide jobs while creating public assets. In addition to physical infrastructure, an area that has immense potential to create much-needed jobs is that of social service delivery and social infrastructure. While unemployment and enforced idleness persist, existing time-use survey data reveal that people around the worldespecially women and childrenspend long hours performing unpaid work. This work includes not only household maintenance and care provisioning for family members and communities, but also time spent that helps fill public infrastructural gapsfor example, in the energy, health, and education sectors. This paper suggests that, by bringing together public job creation, on the one hand, and unpaid work, on the other, well-designed employment guarantee policies can promote job creation, gender equality, and pro-poor development

Predicting and preventing adverse drug reactions in the very old.

International audienc

Inappropriate medications in the elderly

ERMAInternational audienceThe aging of the world population is a new medical challenge for the 21st century. There has been a striking increase in the proportion of elderly people, especially the very old, over the past decades. The elderly are living longer due, in part, to improved standards of living and the availability of social aid and medical care. Although some people reach a very old age completely free of physical ailments, most elderly people have several chronic diseases. Modern pharmacotherapy can slow down and delay the consequences of these ailments up to the eighth decade of life, but thereafter the complications of these diseases will usually become clinically significant. This often results in the administration of several drugs simultaneously

Families, labor and farms

International audienceThe rural worlds in the South have changed dramatically in recent decades. In addition to transformations brought about by globalization (Losch et al. 2012), they have also been affected, from near or far, by the major trends which have taken place in most contemporary societies: demographic transition (in Latin America and Asia), family reconstructions, individualization of spouses’ professional activities, questioning of patriarchal authority and the emancipation of the “dependents” (the youth, women). Even if rural societies are not all affected to the same degree, the social relationships existing in the South have evolved, resulting in profound and lasting changes in the conditions of production and reproduction of family farming

[Age and management decisions in patients with primary lung cancer].

ERMAInternational audienceINTRODUCTION: Therapeutic decisions are difficult in elderly patients because of the heterogeneity of this population. Our objective was to evaluate the role of age in the management of patients suffering from primary lung cancer seen in the department of respiratory diseases of the Limoges regional teaching hospital between 2002 and 2004. METHODS: A cross sectional study analysed the management of 363 patients suffering from primary lung cancer. The patients were divided into two groups according to their age (less than seventy or seventy and over). A comparison was made between the management of the two groups. RESULTS: The comparisons according to age produced evidence of reduced activity, greater dependence, an increased Charlson score, less frequently administered radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and more frequent symptomatic treatment in the elderly group (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The geriatric assessment of patients suffering from primary lung cancer should make allowance for the physiological age of the patient and adapt the management to ensure the best quality of life