Sample selection in a model of female labour supply : an alternative approach

Suggests an alternative and computationally simpler approach of non-random sampling of labour economics and represents an observed outcome of an individual female′s choice of whether or not to participate in the labour market. Concludes that there is an alternative to the Heckman two-step estimator.

Imputation of female labour market experience : some Australian evidence on the Zabalza and Arrufat method

Recent empirical studies of gender discrimination point to the importance of accurately controlling for accumulated labour market experience. Unfortunately in Australia, most data sets do not include information on actual experience. The current paper using data from the National Social Science Survey 1984, examines the efficacy of imputing female labour market experience via the Zabalza and Arrufat (1985) method. The results suggest that the method provides a more accurate measure of experience than that provided by the traditional Mincer proxy. However, the imputation method is sensitive to the choice of identification restrictions. We suggest a novel alternative to a choice between arbitrary restrictions.

Digital storytelling as everyday activism : Queer identity, voice and networked publics

This thesis investigates the role of personal Digital Stories shared in public spaces as catalysts for social change. By analysing the influence of workshop facilitators, organisations, digital platforms and networked publics on voice and self-representation, it sheds light on shifting meanings of publicness and privacy, both face to face and online. This thesis argues that, despite numerous obstacles, the cumulative influence of diverse voices dispersed among networked publics shape new cultural norms, thereby contributing to gradual social change.

Challenging the female underperformance hypothesis

Purpose – The question of whether female-owned firms underperform male-owned firms has triggered much research and discussion. Klapper and Parker's review concluded that the majority of prior research suggests that female-owned firms underperform relative to male-owned firms. However, using performance measures that control for size and risk (and after controlling for demographic differences such as industry, experience and hours worked) Robb and Watson found no gender performance difference in their sample of newly established US firms. The aim of this study, therefore, is to replicate Robb and Watson's study to determine whether their findings can be generalized to another geographical location, Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The authors test the female underperformance hypothesis using data from the CAUSEE project, a panel study which follows young firms over four years. They use three outcome variables: survival rates, return on assets and the Sharpe ratio. Findings – Consistent with Robb and Watson the results indicate that female-owned firms do not underperform male-owned firms. Originality/value – While replication studies are rare in entrepreneurship, they are an important tool for accumulating generalizable knowledge. The results suggest that while female-owned firms differ from male-owned firms in terms of many control variables (such as industry, owners' previous experience and hours worked) they are no less successful. This outcome should help dispel the female underperformance myth; which if left unchallenged could result in inappropriate policy decisions and, more importantly, could discourage women from establishing new ventures.

Communication and the casualisation of nursing : a critical ethnography

The contemporary working environment is being rapidly reshaped by technological, industrial and political forces. Increased global competitiveness and an emphasis on productivity have led to the appearance of alternative methods of employment, such as part-time, casual and itinerant work, allowing greater flexibility. This allows for the development of a core permanent staff and the simultaneous utilisation of casual staff according to business needs. Flexible workers across industries are generally referred to as the non-standard workforce and full-time permanent workers as the standard workforce. Even though labour flexibility favours the employer, increased opportunity for flexible work has been embraced by women for many reasons, including the gender struggle for greater economic independence and social equality. Consequently, the largely female nursing industry, both nationally and internationally, has been caught up in this wave of change. This ageing workforce has been at the forefront of the push for flexibility with recent figures showing almost half the nursing workforce is employed in non-standard capacity. In part, this has allowed women to fulfil caring roles outside their work, to ease off nearing retirement and to supplement the family income. More significantly, however, flexibility has developed as an economic management initiative, as a strategy for cost constraint. The result has been the development of a dual workforce and as suggested by Pocock, Buchanan and Campbell (2004), associated deep-seated resentment and the marginalisation of part-time and casual workers by their full-time colleagues and managers. Additionally, as nursing currently faces serious recruitment and retention problems there is urgent need to understand the factors which are underlying present discontent in the nursing profession. There is an identified gap in nursing knowledge surrounding the issues relating to recruitment and retention. Communication involves speaking, listening, reading and writing and is an interactive process which is central to the lives of humans. Workplace communication refers to human interaction, information technology, and multimedia and print. It is the means to relationship building between workers, management, and their external environment and is critical to organisational effectiveness. Communication and language are integral to nursing performance (Hall, 2005), in twenty-four hour service however increasing fragmentation due to part-time and casual work in the nursing industry means that effective communication management has become increasingly difficult. More broadly it is known that disruption to communication systems impacts negatively on consumer outcomes. Because of this gap in understanding how nurses view their contemporary nursing world, an interpretative ethnographic study which progressed to a critical ethnographic study, based on the conceptual framework of constructionism and interpretativism was used. The study site was a division within an acute health care facility, and the relationship between increasing casualisation of the nursing workforce and the experiences of communication of standard and non-standard nurses was explored. For this study, full-time standard nurses were those employed to work in a specific unit for forty hours per week. Non-standard nurses were those employed part-time in specific units or those nurses employed to work as relief pool nurses for shift short falls where needed. Nurses employed by external agencies, but required to fill in for shifts at the facility were excluded from this research. This study involved an analysis of observational, interview and focus group data of standard and non-standard nurses within this facility. Three analytical findings - the organisation of nursing work; constructing the casual nurse as other; and the function of space, situate communication within a broader discussion about non-standard work and organisational culture. The study results suggest that a significant culture of marginalisation exists for nurses who work in a non-standard capacity and that this affects communication for nurses and has implications for the quality of patient care. The discussion draws on the seven elements of marginalisation described by Hall, Stephen and Melius (1994). The arguments propose that these elements underpin a culture which supports remnants of the historically gendered stereotype "the good nurse" and these cultural values contribute to practices and behaviour which marginalise all nurses, particularly those who work less than full-time. Gender inequality is argued to be at the heart of marginalising practices because of long standing subordination of nurses by the powerful medical profession, paralleling historical subordination of women in society. This has denied nurses adequate representation and voice in decision making. The new knowledge emanating from this study extends current knowledge of factors surrounding recruitment and retention and as such contributes to an understanding of the current and complex nursing environment.

Retaining female postgraduates in academia : the role of gender and prospective parenthood

Women remain under-represented in almost all academic levels at universities internationally, and previous evidence has suggested that women move out of the university system in increasing numbers as they progress from postgraduate study to an academic career. The current study aimed to explore the role of gender in the reports of study experiences and future career plans of Australian postgraduate research students (n = 249). Questionnaire data indicated women were significantly less likely than men to rate an academic career as appealing. In particular, female postgraduate students without dependent children were least likely to want to pursue an academic career. On the basis of qualitative analysis, we attribute this finding, at least in part, to a perceived incompatibility between motherhood and an academic career and discuss the implications for gender equity in higher education.

Female students’ interactions in a middle school engineering project : a case study

Targeting females at high school or earlier may be a key towards engaging them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. This ethnographic study, part of a three-year longitudinal research project, investigated Year 8 female students’ learning about engineering concepts associated with designing, constructing, testing, and evaluating a catapult. There was a series of lead-up lessons and four lessons for the catapult challenge (total of 18 x 45-minute lessons) over a nine-week period. Data from two girls within a focus group showed that they needed to: (1) receive clarification on engineering terms to facilitate more fluent discourse, (2) question and debate conceptual understandings without peers being judgemental, and (3) have multiple opportunities for engaging with materials towards designing, constructing and explaining key concepts learnt. There are implications for teachers facilitating STEM education, such as: clarifying STEM terms, articulating how students can interact in non-judgmental ways, and providing multiple opportunities for interacting within engineering education.

Developmental lessons from the Capricornia Arts Mob : ‘learning to speak with one voice’

The Capricornia Arts Mob also known as CAM is a collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual artists, sculptors, photographers, carvers and writers based in the Rockhampton Region. Its members are eclectic and include an 18 year old through to Elders. CAM has already had a major exhibition in Rockhampton and is submitting work to a range of arts festivals, events and exhibitions. While their achievements are steadily growing and they have been meeting for 18 months, they have been reluctant to incorporate or implement a formalised structure. In learning how to work together there have been tensions and struggles, there has also been the exhilaration of working collaboratively as artists from diverse Indigenous cultures who utilise different mediums. This has resulted in an incredible vibrancy in creative praxis. Members will share some of CAM’s learnings of the developmental process to date and thoughts and dreams about the future.

Female concentration and the gender wage differential in the United Kingdom

The paper utilizes the methodology proposed by Johnson and Solon (American Economic Review, 76 (5), 1117-1125, 1986) to examine the impact of job segregation on the gender wage gap in the UK in 1991. The results suggest that despite implementation of the UK 1983 Equal Pay Amendment there remains clear evidence that male/female workers in female dominated jobs continue to earn less for work of ‘similar worth’ than their counterparts in male dominated jobs within the same firm. This conclusion is insensitive to whether one adopts an occupation or firm based measure of gender concentration.

Girls and violence : the case for a feminist theory of female violence

Rises recorded for girls’ violence in countries like Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States have been hotly contested. One view is these rising rates of violence are an artefact of new forms of policy, policing, criminalisation and social control over young women. Another view is that young women may indeed have become more violent as they have increasingly participated in youth subcultural activities involving gangs and drugs, and cyber‐cultural activities that incite and reward girls’ violence. Any comprehensive explanation will need to address how a complex interplay of cultural, social, behavioural, and policy responses contribute to these rises. This article argues that there is no singular cause, explanation or theory that accounts for the rises in adolescent female violence, and that many of the simple explanations circulating in popular culture are driven by an anti‐feminist ideology. By concentrating on females as victims of violence and very rarely as perpetrators, feminist criminology has for the most part ducked the thorny issue of female violence, leaving a discursive space for anti‐feminist sentiment to reign. The article concludes by arguing the case for developing a feminist theory of female violence.

The human μ-opioid receptor gene polymorphism (A118G) is associated with head pain severity in a clinical cohort of female migraine with aura patients

Migraine is a painful and debilitating, neurovascular disease. Current migraine head pain treatments work with differing efficacies in migraineurs. The opioid system plays an important role in diverse biological functions including analgesia, drug response and pain reduction. The A118G single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in exon 1 of the μ-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) has been associated with elevated pain responses and decreased pain threshold in a variety of populations. The aim of the current preliminary study was to test whether genotypes of the OPRM1 A118G SNP are associated with head pain severity in a clinical cohort of female migraineurs. This was a preliminary study to determine whether genotypes of the OPRM1 A118G SNP are associated with head pain severity in a clinical cohort of female migraineurs. A total of 153 chronic migraine with aura sufferers were assessed for migraine head pain using the Migraine Disability Assessment Score instrument and classified into high and low pain severity groups. DNA was extracted and genotypes obtained for the A118G SNP. Logistic regression analysis adjusting for age effects showed the A118G SNP of the OPRM1 gene to be significantly associated with migraine pain severity in the test population (P = 0.0037). In particular, G118 allele carriers were more likely to be high pain sufferers compared to homozygous carriers of the A118 allele (OR = 3.125, 95 % CI = 1.41, 6.93, P = 0.0037). These findings suggest that A118G genotypes of the OPRM1 gene may influence migraine-associated head pain in females. Further investigations are required to fully understand the effect of this gene variant on migraine head pain including studies in males and in different migraine subtypes, as well as in response to head pain medication.

Projecting the trend in the Canadian gender wage gap 2001-2031: Will an increase in female education acquisition and commitment be enough?

The paper projects the gender wage gap for 25-64 year-olds in Canada over the period 2001-2031. The empirical analysis uses the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics together with Statistics Canada demographic projections. The methodology combines the population projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to first project the future distribution of human capital skills and, based on these projections, the future size of the gender wage gap. The projections suggest continued gender wage convergence produced by changing skills characteristics. However, a substantial pay gap will remain in 2031.

The impact of interface modality on police officers' visual behaviour when using an in-vehicle system

Background Standard operating procedures state that police officers should not drive while interacting with their mobile data terminal (MDT) which provides in-vehicle information essential to police work. Such interactions do however occur in practice and represent a potential source of driver distraction. The MDT comprises visual output with manual input via touch screen and keyboard. This study investigated the potential for alternative input and output methods to mitigate driver distraction with specific focus on eye movements. Method Nineteen experienced drivers of police vehicles (one female) from the NSW Police Force completed four simulated urban drives. Three drives included a concurrent secondary task: imitation licence plate search using an emulated MDT. Three different interface methods were examined: Visual-Manual, Visual-Voice, and Audio-Voice (“Visual” and “Audio” = output modality; “Manual” and “Voice” = input modality). During each drive, eye movements were recorded using FaceLAB™ (Seeing Machines Ltd, Canberra, ACT). Gaze direction and glances on the MDT were assessed. Results The Visual-Voice and Visual-Manual interfaces resulted in a significantly greater number of glances towards the MDT than Audio-Voice or Baseline. The Visual-Manual and Visual-Voice interfaces resulted in significantly more glances to the display than Audio-Voice or Baseline. For longer duration glances (>2s and 1-2s) the Visual-Manual interface resulted in significantly more fixations than Baseline or Audio-Voice. The short duration glances (<1s) were significantly greater for both Visual-Voice and Visual-Manual compared with Baseline and Audio-Voice. There were no significant differences between Baseline and Audio-Voice. Conclusion An Audio-Voice interface has the greatest potential to decrease visual distraction to police drivers. However, it is acknowledged that an audio output may have limitations for information presentation compared with visual output. The Visual-Voice interface offers an environment where the capacity to present information is sustained, whilst distraction to the driver is reduced (compared to Visual-Manual) by enabling adaptation of fixation behaviour.

Risky business : mapping ethical landscapes and negotiating governance tensions when researching female offending

Whilst there is an excellent and growing body of literature around female criminality underpinned by feminist methodologies, the nitty gritty of the methodological journey is nowhere as well detailed as it is in the context of the Higher Degree Research (HDR) thesis. Thus the purpose of this paper is threefold: i) to explore a range of feminist methodologies underpinning 20 Australian HDR theses focussing on female criminality; ii) to identify and map the governance/ethics tensions experienced by these researchers whilst undertaking high risk research in the area of female offending; and iii) to document strategies drawn from negotiations, resolutions and outcomes to a range of gate-keeping issues. By exploring the strategies used by these researchers, this paper aims to: promote discussion on feminist methodologies; highlight pathways that may be created when negotiating the challenging process of accessing data pertinent to this relatively understudied area; contribute to a community of practice; and provide useful insights into what Mason & Stubbs (2010:16) refer to as “the open and honest reflexivity through the research process by describing the assumptions, and hiccups” for future researchers navigating governance landscapes.