The impact of the family and medical leave act

This article uses data from employer surveys and the March Current Population Survey to investigate the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on coverage, leave‐taking, employment, and earnings. The variation in state laws prior to the FMLA and the variation in coverage under the FMLA provides a “natural experiment” in which the effect of the law can be compared for treatment and con‐trol groups. Although the FMLA covers less than half of workers in the private sector (many of whom already had coverage pre‐FMLA), this article finds that leave cover‐age and usage did increase post‐FMLA. The other surprising finding is that this mandated benefit had no significant negative effects on women's employment or wages. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Effects of the IMF and World Bank on public expenditure accountability in Jamaica

This article analyses the positive and negative effects of IMF stabilization programmes and World Bank structural adjustment programmes on the accountability of public expenditure management in Jamaica in the period 1980–1992. Particular attention is given to the negative accountability effects of IMF budget deficit reduction targets imposed on a Government uncommitted to meeting such targets. Many of the arguments presented in this article relate to expenditure accountability problems more generally and it cannot be proved that IMF conditionality was the sole cause of these problems. It is argued, however, that IMF conditionality contributed. This argument is based on a large number of semi-structured interviews conducted in 1993 with Jamaican bureaucrats, politicians, donors, academics and private sector representatives, many of whom were involved in Jamaica's budget formulation process, and on analysis of the existing literature and data. The conclusion reached is that donor-guided reform programmes have complex and often conflicting impacts on the accountability of the Government's budgetary practices. A major question that arises is the relative importance that donors such as the IMF place on budget conditionality as against accountability. The conclusion based on the Jamaican experience is that the IMF placed greater emphasis on the former. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘The Synthesis is in the Machine’: An Interview with Silvia Federici

ABSTRACT

In this interview Marxist feminist theorist Silvia Federici discusses the following: the relationships between accumulation and reproduction; biotechnology; the recent resurgence of social reproduction theory as exemplified by work in Endnotes and Lies; the mystification of gendered labour; the disciplining of productive bodies; the sites and technologies of primitive accumulation in the present; and the reproduction of feminism and other social movements in the twenty-first century.     

a migrant ethic of care? negotiating care and caring among migrant workers in London's low-pay economy

A care deficit is clearly evident in global cities such as London and is attributable to an ageing population, the increased employment of native-born women, prevalent gender ideologies that continue to exempt men from much reproductive work, as well as the failure of the state to provide viable alternatives. However, while it is now acknowledged that migrant women, and to a lesser extent, migrant men, step in to provide care in cities such as London, there is less research on how this shapes the nature, politics and ethics of care. Drawing upon empirical research with low-paid migrant workers employed as domiciliary care providers in London, this paper explores the emergence of a distinct migrant ethic of care that is critically shaped by the caring work that migrant women and men perform.     

Postmortem dental radiography

Comparison of postmortem and antemortem dental radiographic films or digital images is a common procedure for establishing identity of human remains. This article describes some problems with producing postmortem dental radiographs in a medical examiner setting and gives methods for circumventing these difficulties. Resection of the jaws, when permitted, significantly simplifies the postmortem radiographic technique. When producing an actual postmortem panoramic dental radiograph (orthopantomogram) from a dry skull, stabilization of the specimen for exposure by the moving beam source may be accomplished simply by placing the specimen upside down on an anthropologist's skull ring. Image "burnout" in the anterior segment, which results from absence of the tissues of the neck, may be avoided by appropriate placement of radiodense objects such as "zippered" plastic bags filled with water or other fluid material, freezer gel packs, or a block of self-polymerizing acrylic. These methods may increase future postmortem dental radiography efficiency.     

Revisiting Kantian Retributivism to Construct a Justification of Punishment

The standard view of Kant’s retributivism, as well as its more recent reworking in the ‘limited’ or ‘partial’ retributivist reading are, it is argued here, inadequate accounts of Kant on punishment. In the case of the former, the view is too limited and superficial, and in the latter it is simply inaccurate as an interpretation of Kant. Instead, this paper argues that a more sophisticated and accurate rendering of Kant on punishment can be obtained by looking to his construction of the concept of justice. In so doing, not only is a superior account of Kant furnished, but also one up to the task of resolving the vexed issue of justifying legal punishment.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO NORTHUMBERLAND

The administrative system of England after the Norman Conquest has been described as "the adaptation of the ancient customary institutions of a decentralized system to the uses of [the Norman and Angevin kings'] highly centralized administration".¹ It was complex, adaptable, efficient to a high degree, and constantly changing. It had only a few of the features of a modern bureaucracy, as "government" to the medieval man did not imply anything resembling the modern state and its workings. It meant the practical expression of the rights owed to the king by his subjects and the duties of the king to his people. Its chief functions were the raising of finance and the administration of justice.