A dialogue with ‘global care chain’ analysis: nurse migration in the Irish context

This article examines the relationship between globalization, care and migration, with specific reference to the ‘global care chain’ concept. The utility of this concept is explored in the light of its current and potential contributions to research on the international division of reproductive labour and transnational care economies. The article asserts the validity of global care chain analysis but argues that its present application to migrant domestic care workers must be broadened in order that its potential may be fully realized. Accordingly, five ways in which the concept could be more broadly applied are outlined and applications of this expanded framework are illustrated through a case study of nurse migration in the Irish context. Finally, the discussion considers future directions for empirical and theoretical research into global care chains and suggests various lines of enquiry.     

Working mothers of pre-school children in an underdeveloped society

The present study attempts to understand the problems of working mothers with pre-school children. A sample of mothers who use the day care system run by the Colombian state is studied. Though this sample is not statistically representative of the female population with pre-school children, it presents similar characteristics to those of the women in the large urban centres.It was found that: (a) The living conditions of the families in the low and middle-low socio-economic positions are more limited than those observed in the families in the middle-high socio-economic position. (b) The intensity and the composition of domestic tasks also vary, not only by virtue of the different economic resources available to the family, but also by virtue of differential access to public services such as electricity, running water, public transportation and so on. (c) The very organization of the family appears to be affected by their socio-economic conditions. This is particularly evident for the single parent (mother) families which are more frequent in the middle-low and lower social positions.Although the mothers take the children to these centres looking for a service for the children and not for themselves, the centres become a very important promotion space also for the mothers. In fact, for the majority of them, this experience means a link allowing them to partly overcome the isolation that characterizes their daily life.It is concluded that the conditions of social reproduction can be substantially improved for the families from the lowest social strata, if there is an adequate state participation in this process. There is no doubt that it would be a fundamental factor advancing the circumstances of the working mothers of young children and especially those from the lower income sectors.     

生育与养育：女性农民工子女随迁的工资惩罚——基于核心家庭样本的分析

在农民工群体规模不断增长且家庭化迁移趋势日益凸显的背景下,妥善解决子女随迁带来的系列问题愈发重要。本研究聚焦子女随迁造成的女性农民工工资收入降低问题,基于母职工资惩罚理论,将女性农民工群体承担母职角色造成的工资惩罚分为生育惩罚与养育惩罚,利用2018年流动人口动态监测数据进行检验。研究发现：生育惩罚会降低女性农民工工资的2.4%,养育惩罚会显著降低女性农民工工资收入的11.0%;在一孩家庭中,幼儿园年龄段的子女随迁对新生代受教育程度较低的女性农民工造成的养育惩罚最为严重;在二孩家庭中,婴幼儿年龄段的子女随迁对新生代受过高等教育的女性农民工造成的养育惩罚最为严重,且二孩家庭婴幼儿年龄段的子女随迁对工资造成的负向影响是独生子女家庭同年龄段子女随迁的4倍多。研究建议,要加强二孩家庭的托育服务供给,如提供在农民工家庭支付能力内的日间照料、托管、家政等服务,进一步释放流动人口带来的劳动力资源,促进劳动力市场的性别平等。     

新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情下养老机构面临的挑战 —— 基于14个省份的调查分析

2019年底开始扩散的新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情,对中国公共卫生的防治提出严峻挑战。随着防控范围的扩大和防控力度的不断加强,封闭式管理的养老机构也面临更大的困境和挑战。作为老人坚实后盾和防疫屏障的养老机构也需要更多的社会支持。为了解疫情下养老机构运营困难及应对措施,对全国14个省份29家养老机构进行了问卷调查和电话访谈。在此基础上,参考欧美国家养老机构防治传染病暴发的措施,针对我国疫情下养老机构的问题,提出切实可行的政策建议。     

From Sancitity to Screening: Genetic Disabilities, Risk and Rhetorical Strategies in Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Conception Cases

This analysis scrutinises the rhetorical strategies used by judges in wrongful life and wrongful birth actions as evidence for the assertion that the judicial reading of public policy in such cases has undergone a significant shift which is likely to accelerate as genetic knowledge grows and health care resources shrink. The implications of the predicted move towards increased genetic testing of prospective parents are traversed in relation to feminist analyses of the impact of genetics on reproductive technology. These are viewed as forming a nexus with the current social constructions of disability and the contemporary cultural preoccupation with risk, in a context of the increasing commercial importance of genetic information. It is argued that women cannot make free and informed choices about genetic testing and pregnancy unless legal and social mechanisms which protect those choices are in place. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Constructing the self in mental health practice: identity,individualism and the feminization of deficiency

The discursive production of the ‘self’ in the context of mental health care has potential implications for how the subjects of intervention come to understand and experience themselves. Eating disorders provide an illustrative example of the ways in which conceptualizations of the self that structure mental health practices can be gendered, because they are mainly diagnosed in women and dominant explanations of their origins are feminized. This discourse analytic study examines the gendered nature of mental health workers' constructions of the eating-disordered self through the psychological construct of ‘identity’, examining the dominant discourses implicated in the feminization of deficient identity, and addressing the implications of this construction for mental health practice.     

Are Stressful Developmental Processes of Youths Leading to Health Problems Amplified by Genetic Polymorphisms? The Case of Body Mass Index

Although previous research has documented the adverse influence of early socioeconomic disadvantage on youths’ physical health outcomes and the increase in health inequalities over the early life course, little is known about genetically informed sequential life course developmental processes leading to health outcomes. Consistent with the life course-stress process perspective, we hypothesized that early socioeconomic adversity initiates a stress process over the early life course. This process involves the disrupted transition from adolescence to young adulthood, which increases the risk of health problems during young adulthood. Behavioral, psychosocial, and genetic data were collected from 12,424 adolescents (53 % female) over a period of 13 years participating in the nationally representative National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Early cumulative socioeconomic adversity and the polygenic influence were measured using composite indices. The study provided evidence for stressful developmental processes of adolescents, involving parental rejection, depressive symptoms, and adolescents’ precocious transition. This longitudinal process was initiated by early cumulative socioeconomic adversity and eventuated with young adults’ increased body mass index (BMI). Furthermore, the study provided evidence for the influence of life context–gene interactions (G × E) on adolescents’ precocious development and young adult BMI (after controlling for the lagged measure) amplifying the stress process over the early life course. These findings emphasize the need for incorporating individual genetic characteristics in a longitudinal context into life course stress research. Furthermore, policies focused on eradicating childhood/adolescent adversities are necessary as well as youth programs and policies that promote youth competencies that aid in their successful transition to young adulthood.     

Black Women and Mental Health: Working Towards Inclusive Mental Health Services

The position concerning the mental health of black and minority ethnic women in Britain is closely linked to that of their respective communities in general. Issues concerning inappropriate care and treatment; lack of access to services; and service delivery based on assumptions and stereotypes govern the way in which black women and men experience mental health care and treatment. This article discusses the specific nature of black women's position, within the wider context of black communities' experience as a whole. While the term ‘black and minority ethnic communities’ covers a range of differing communities, the focus here is on the experiences of women from African, African-Caribbean and Asian communities. In relation to women in these communities, reference is made to issues concerning: (1) older women; (2) women of mixed heritage; (3) women's roles as care-givers; and (4) the position of refugees and asylum seekers. The article also explores and outlines the importance of self-help strategies including, e.g. befriending and counselling and the role of religion and spirituality in enabling many black people to manage their mental distress.     

关于职工医疗保险制度改革的调查与思考

调查表明,职工拥护医疗保险制度改革,但对具体方案意见较大,主要是职工自负比例过大等几项原因.解决改革中出现的问题,最大限度地化解职工疾病风险,保障职工的医疗和保健水平,是医疗保险制度不断完善的目标.     

Marriage and the crisis of peasant society in Gujarat,India

ABSTRACT

This contribution takes marriage as the example of a crisis of production and reproduction in rural India. Through the juxtaposition of ethnography separated by six decades, we detail a shift away from land and agriculture as the primary markers of status among the Patidars of central Gujarat, western India, in favour of a hierarchical understanding of international migration. The paper discusses the disconnect between a cultural revolution in favour of migration, and the failure of many to live up to their own cultural standards. More broadly, we reflect on the forces that simultaneously strengthen and dissolve caste inequality in the context of India's uneven growth.     

Frances gillam holden and the children's hospital dispute, 1887: woman's sphere,feminism and nursing

This paper examines the confrontations of a late nineteenth-century ‘lady superintendent’ with men and masculinity. It analyses the problematical links between femininity, feminism and ‘reformed’ nursing, in a period when the latter two were emerging from the first. A central focus is the extent to which the discourse of ‘woman's sphere’ was meaningful for such single, employed, middle-class women as the subject of this paper, Frances Gillam Holden, in the specific context of hospitals and professional health care. This paper argues that such a discourse informed her challenges to male/medical professional power and her bids for authority and recognition in her workplace. Ultimately this challenge failed, in that male/medical power was vigorously reasserted. However, such attempts suggest the gradual shifts in late nineteenth-century constructions of femininity and domesticity towards the possibility of feminism, not only in the familiar suffrage struggles, but also in such obscure locations as the Children's Hospital in Sydney     

Chapter 7. Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Group Care

Abstract

Group care centers are established to provide a range of living, learning, treatment, and supervisory opportunities for children and young people who, for a variety of reasons, need alternative, supplementary, or substitute care. It is important, therefore, that group care centres establish an organizational climate, ethos, or culture of caring that is consistent with these objectives. This is achieved through internal organizational design, administrative routines, maintaining the physical environment, and support for staff team functioning, including attention to Specific work methods.     

Migration and modes of exploitation: Social origins of immobility and mobility

Migration has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, much of it conducted by economists. This paper is an attempt to provide the basis of a general, materialist framework for research on population mobility. As such it pays particular attention to changing mechanisms of exploitation, which are typically ignored in conventional studies of migration. This article focuses on pre‐capitalist relations of production restricting population mobility, the factors that make those controls increasingly unstable and the different implications for migration of different forms of the transition to capitalist relations of production. Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence it then considers the various functions of migration in transitions to capitalist production.     

Health Literacy in High-Risk Youth: A Descriptive Study of Children in Residential Care

Although previous studies have demonstrated that children in out-of-home care present with elevated levels of mental and physical health, educational, and behavioral problems, little is known about youth's ability to manage health care needs or access health information and support. This study evaluates the health literacy skills of 229 youth served in a residential setting. Results revealed that the majority of youth demonstrated some level of risk, and anywhere from one-quarter to one-third demonstrated significant health literacy deficits suggesting a need for additional research and treatment intervention. Implications, study limitations, and recommendations for practice and future research are discussed.     

The satisfaction with life scale: Psychometrics properties in an adolescent sample

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was developed in the United States as a multiitem scale for the overall assessment of life satisfaction as cognitive-judgmental process, rather as a measurement of specific satisfaction areas (e.g., health, energy). The present study attempted to extend the applicability of the SWLS by investigating specific aspects of reliability and validity in a different cultural context (Portugal) with adolescents. In line with previous American findings, reliability figures were found to be favourable. SWLS scores were affected by sex and sociocultural level. In addition, SWLS scores showed to be predictably associated with psychological measures: loneliness, social anxiety, shyness, self- concept, and physical attractiveness. The variables that best predicted satisfaction were overall self-concept, loneliness, and physical attractiveness.Received a Ph.D. in normal and abnormal anthropology from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Faculty of Psychology (Porto) and an Aggregation in Psychology from Faculty of Psychology (Coimbra) in 1990. Research interests include migration and cross-cultural social migration.The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Youth status and national development: A global assessment in the 1980s

Using a data set of 123 countries, the global status of youth is assessed by examining the relationship between national development and a youth-adult ratio, or the number of youth relative to the number of adults in a nation. First, the size of the population of youth in comparison to the size of the adult population is determined, where it becomes evident that the majority of nations have high or very high numbers of youth relative to adults. Second, the opportunities nations provide their young people are evaluated by looking at the range and average levels of economic, political, social, and educational development within the modern world system. Third, a strong relationship is found between relative size of the youth population and national development, with youth ratios most closely associated with educational and political development. The results of this study demonstrate the existence of inter-age and intra-age stratification throughout the world, which has important implications for the future well-being of youth as well as the world system of nation-states.This paper was presented at the 81st annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, New York, August 30–September 3, 1986.Ph. D. in sociology from Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include generational politics, youth movements, and political sociology.Ph. D. in psychology from Syracuse University. Research interests include aging and politics, social psychological aspects of health care, gerontology, and life-course development.     

Differentiated childhoods: impacts of rural labor migration on left-behind children in China

This article draws on data from research that includes 400 children who lived separately from their migrant parents in 10 rural communities in China, to explore the deep impacts of rural parents' migration on the care-giving and nurturing of children left behind. It shows that parent migration has brought about multiple impacts, mostly negative, on the lives of children, such as increased workloads, little study tutoring and supervision, and above all the unmet needs of parental affection. Children's basic daily care and personal safety could become problematic since surrogate caregivers, mostly elderly, are usually exhausted with livelihood maintenance. With illumination on the family dysfunction in children's development due to migration-induced family separation, this article highlights the social cost to rural families of parental migration. Urbanization in developing countries is obtained at the expense of rural migrants and their families, especially children left behind. Further attention is required to improve left-behind children's well being within split family structures and interregional migration.     

Migrating Within “the Gender-equal Nordic Region”: Icelandic Migrants in Norway and the Gendered Division of Work and Care

Migration is a gendered process that shapes the lives of men and women differently, because they generally occupy dissimilar positions within the household, the labour market, and society. This article examines gender and migration within a Nordic context, between two countries that are often presented as gender-equal in cross-national comparisons. The focus is on how the gendered division of labour is manifested in the experiences of Icelanders who migrated to Norway in the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis of October 2008. The results are based on interviews with people who migrated to Norway both with and without their families. In our analysis, we show how the gender-segregated labour market and gender norms lead to different positions and opportunities for men and women at times of economic crisis and migration. For study participants who migrated with their families, the relocation was often organized around the labour-market position and opportunities of men. Those who migrated without their families emphasized their roles as providers for their families. However, only the women described how their absence was perceived as a failure to fulfil childcare responsibilities. The findings highlight the resilience of the notions of men as providers and women as primary parents within “the gender-equal Nordic region”, and indicate how these roles may facilitate or discourage the migration of men and women.     

women,migration and precarity

This focus group took place at the Università di Napoli ‘L'Orientale’ and was structured around recent female migration patterns in the south of Italy. The discussion included academics, artists, and care workers. The condition of women migrants was seen as one of precarity in the two main contexts we discussed: work and places of encounter. In an effort to move away from the purely material dimension of migration and deal with its emotional and creative sides, many facets of the question of being away from home and creating a new home were fleshed out: expectations, defence mechanisms, nostalgia, stereotyping, racism, and multiculturalism. Participants raised a wide range of issues and proposed different perspectives which also point to larger tensions and challenges in gender and race relations.     

Differentiated childhoods: impacts of rural labor migration on left-behind children in China

This article draws on data from research that includes 400 children who lived separately from their migrant parents in 10 rural communities in China, to explore the deep impacts of rural parents' migration on the care-giving and nurturing of children left behind. It shows that parent migration has brought about multiple impacts, mostly negative, on the lives of children, such as increased workloads, little study tutoring and supervision, and above all the unmet needs of parental affection. Children's basic daily care and personal safety could become problematic since surrogate caregivers, mostly elderly, are usually exhausted with livelihood maintenance. With illumination on the family dysfunction in children's development due to migration-induced family separation, this article highlights the social cost to rural families of parental migration. Urbanization in developing countries is obtained at the expense of rural migrants and their families, especially children left behind. Further attention is required to improve left-behind children's well being within split family structures and interregional migration.