What made him change? an individual and national analysis of men's participation in housework in 26 countries

We offer new evidence on multi-level determinants of the gender division of housework. Using data from the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS) for 26 European, we study the micro and macro-level factors which increase the likelihood of men doing an equal or greater share of housework than their female partners. A sample of 11,915 young men and women is analysed with a multi-level logistic regression in order to test at individual level the classic relative-income, time-availability and gender-role values, and a new couple conflict hypothesis. At individual level we find significant relationships between relative resources, values, couple's disagreement, and the division of housework which support more economic dependency than "doing gender" perspectives. At the macro-level, we find important composition effects and also support for gender empowerment, family model and social stratification explanations of cross-country differences.

Immigration controls and the erosion of popular sovereignty

The idea that immigration controls in Western developed states are a response to popular pressure is axiomatic in the academic literature on migration. In the academic literature and in policy circles it is also commonplace to hear that migration is eroding the sovereignty of states. This article challenges both of these ideas. We argue that both of these ideas overlook or ignore the erosion of popular sovereignty from within states. We argue that engaging with, rather than evading, public debate on migration can potentially help to reinvigorate popular sovereignty.

A saúde no cotidiano de jovens residentes em um bairro popular de Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil

Este estudo teve como objeto a saúde no cotidiano dos jovens considerando que esses não têm suas vivências cotidianas contempladas nas ações de saúde. O objetivo é analisar os modos de vida juvenis apreendendo os significados e sentidos da saúde em seu cotidiano. Trata-se de uma investigação qualitativa, fundamentada na dialética, com base na sociologia da vida cotidiana. Desenvolvida num bairro popular do município de Belo Horizonte, foi estruturada em fase exploratória e interpretativa, tendo como sujeitos dezenove jovens. Por meio da análise hermenêutica e dialética, a tese foi confirmada. As ações de cuidado presentes no cotidiano dos jovens levam em conta os recursos e os aspectos constitutivos da condição juvenil, ainda pouco contemplada nas proposições da área da saúde. No cotidiano dos jovens, tem-se a expressividade dos modos de vida e da condição juvenil na qual a saúde se revela pelo bem-estar e pelas condições básicas para o trilhar da vida. A concepção de saúde prevalente centra-se nos comportamentos e na corporeidade. Para a promoção da saúde juvenil é necessário partir dos modos de vida juvenis e interagir com eles no cotidiano. As ações de cuidado com a saúde têm um espaço de (in)visibilidade na vida dos jovens e interagem com suas prioridades na vivência da condição juvenil. Revelou-se a importância da proposição de ações cuidadoras nos microespaços e no território em que se expressa essa condição.

The politics of contaminated sites management : institutional regime change and actor's mode of participation in the environmental management of the Bonfol Chemical Waste Landfill in Switzerland

By the end of the 1970s, contaminated sites had emerged as one of the most complex and urgent environmental issues affecting industrialized countries. The authors show that small and prosperous Switzerland is no exception to the pervasive problem of sites contamination, the legacy of past practices in waste management having left some 38,000 contaminated sites throughout the country. This book outlines the problem, offering evidence that open and polycentric environmental decision-making that includes civil society actors is valuable. They propose an understanding of environmental management of contaminated sites as a political process in which institutions frame interactions between strategic actors pursuing sometimes conflicting interests. In the opening chapter, the authors describe the influences of politics and the power relationships between actors involved in decision-making in contaminated sites management, which they term a "wicked problem." Chapter Two offers a theoretical framework for understanding institutions and the environmental management of contaminated sites. The next five chapters present a detailed case study on environmental management and contaminated sites in Switzerland, focused on the Bonfol Chemical Landfill. The study and analysis covers the establishment of the landfill under the first generation of environmental regulations, its closure and early remediation efforts, and the gambling on the remediation objectives, methods and funding in the first decade of the 21st Century. The concluding chapter discusses the question of whether the strength of environmental regulations, and the type of interactions between public, private, and civil society actors can explain the environmental choices in contaminated sites management. Drawing lessons from research, the authors debate the value of institutional flexibility for dealing with environmental issues such as contaminated sites.

Participation of nurses in the execution of clinical research protocol about technological innovation

AbstractOBJECTIVETo report the nurse's experience of inclusion in interdisciplinary clinical study about technological innovation, involving people with spinal cord injury.METHODDescriptive experience report. The empirical support was based on notes about perspectives and practice of clinical research, with a multi-professional nursing, physical education, physiotherapy and engineering staff.RESULTThe qualification includes the elaboration of the document for the Ethics Committee, familiarization among the members of staff and with the studied topic, and also an immersion into English. The nurse's knowledge gave support to the uptake of participants and time adequacy for data collection, preparation and assistance of the participants during the intervention and after collection. Nursing theories and processes have contributed to reveal risky diagnoses and the plan of care. It was the nurse's role to monitor the risk of overlapping methodological strictness to the human aspect. The skills for the clinical research must be the object of learning, including students in multidisciplinary researches.CONCLUSIONTo qualify the nurse for clinical research and to potentialize its caregiver essence, some changes are needed in the educational system, professional behavior, attitude and educational assistance.

Decision-Making in Social Enterprises: Exploring the Link between Employee Participation and Organizational Commitment

This article studies the influence of the procedural justice resulting from participation in decision-making on employees' affective commitment in social enterprises. It also examines whether any potential link between participation and commitment is due to social exchange, as is the case with for-profit companies. The study is based on data from employees of French work integration social enterprises. The results confirm the positive relationship between procedural justice and affective commitment and the mediating role of perceived organizational support and leader-member exchanges. Managerial recommendations are then given to best maintain or increase employees' involvement in the decision-making processes of social enterprises.

Associationism and electoral participation: A multilevel study of 2000 Spanish general election

This work presents an application of the multilevel analysis techniques tothe study of the abstention in the 2000 Spanish general election. Theinterest of the study is both, substantive and methodological. From thesubstantive point of view the article intends to explain the causes ofabstention and analyze the impact of associationism on it. From themethodological point of view it is intended to analyze the interaction betweenindividual and context with a modelisation that takes into account thehierarchical structure of data. The multilevel study of this paper validatesthe one level results obtained in previous analysis of the abstention andshows that only a fraction of the differences in abstention are explained bythe individual characteristics of the electors. Another important fraction ofthese differences is due to the political and social characteristics of thecontext. Relating to associationism, the data suggest that individualparticipation in associations decrease the probability of abstention. However,better indicators are needed in order to catch more properly the effect ofassociationism in electoral behaviour.

Targeting fertility and female participation through the income tax

We evaluate the effect of a 2003 reform in the Spanish income tax on fertility and the employment of mothers with small children. The reform introduced a tax credit for working mothers with children under the age of three, while also increasing child deductions for all households with children. Theoretically, given the interplay of these two components, the expected effect of the reform is ambiguous on both outcomes. We find that the combined reforms significantly increased both fertility (by almost five percent) and the employment rate of mothers with children under three (by two percent). These effects were more pronounced among less-educated women. In addition, to disentangle the impact of the two reform components, we use an earlier reform that increased child deductions in 1999. We find that the child deductions affect mothers employment negatively, which implies that the 2003 tax credit would have increased employment even more (up to five percent) in the absence of the change in child deductions.

Active civic participation of immigrants in Portugal

Portugal’s historical past strongly influences the composition of the country’s immigrant population. The main third-country foreign nationals in Portugal originate traditionally from Portuguese-speaking African countries (namely Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea Bissau, and S. Tomé e Príncipe) and Brazil. In 2001, a newly created immigrant status entitled “permanence” authorization uncovered a quantitative and a qualitative change in the structure of immigrant population in Portugal. First, there was a quantitative jump from 223.602 foreigners in 2001 to 364.203 regularized foreigners in 2003. Secondly, there was a substantial qualitative shift in the composition of immigrants. The majority of the new immigrants began coming from Eastern European countries, such as Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, and the Russian Federation. Thus, European countries outside the E.U. zone now rank second (after African countries) in their contribution of individuals to the stocks of immigrant population in Portugal. The differences between the new and traditional immigration flows are visible in the geographical distribution of immigrants and in their insertion into the labour market. While the traditional flows would congregate around the metropolitan area of Lisbon and in the Algarve, the new migratory flows tend to be more geographically dispersed and present in less urbanized areas of Portugal. In terms of insertion in the labour market, although the construction sector is still the most important industry for immigrant labour, Eastern European workers may also be found in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. The institutional conditions that encourage immigrants’ civic participation are divided at three different levels: the state, the local, and the civil society levels. At the state level, the High Commissioner for Migrations and Ethnic Minorities is the main organizational structure along with a set of interrelated initiatives operating under specific regulatory frameworks, which act as mediators between state officials and the Portuguese civil society, and more specifically, immigrant communities. At the local level, some municipalities created consultative councils and municipal departments aiming at encouraging the participation and representation of interests from immigrant groups and association in local policies. In the civil society sphere, the main actors in Portugal spurring immigrants civic participation are immigrant associations, mainstream associations directed toward immigration topics, and unions. The legal conditions framing immigrants’ access to social housing, education, health, and social security in Portugal are also considered to be positive. Conditions restricting immigrants’ civic participation are mainly normative and include the Portuguese nationality law, the regulations shaping the political participation of immigrants, namely in what concerns their right to vote, and employment regulations restricting immigrants’ access to public administration positions. Part II of the report focuses on the active civic participation of third country immigrants. First, reasons for the lack of research on this issue in Portugal are explained. On the one hand, the recent immigration history and the more urgent needs regarding school and economic integration kept this issue out of the research spotlight. On the other hand, it was just in the beginning of the 1990s that immigrants took the very first steps toward collective mobilisation. Secondly, the literature review of Portuguese bibliography covers research on third country immigrants’ associative movement, research on local authorities’ policies and discussion about ethnic politics and political mobilisation of immigrants in Portugal. As political mobilisation of these groups has been made mainly through ethnic and/or migrant organisations, a brief history of immigrants' associative movement is given. Immigrant associations develop multiple roles, covering the social, the cultural, the economic and the political domains. Political claiming for the regularisation of illegal immigrants has been a permanent and important field of intervention since the mid-1990s. Research results reveal the com5 plex relations between ethnic mobilisation and the set of legal and institutional frameworks developed by local and national governmental authorities targeted to the incorporation of minority groups. Case studies on the Oeiras district and on the Amadora district are then presented. Conclusions underline that the most active immigrant groups are those from Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, since these groups have constituted a higher number of ethnic associations, give priority to political claiming and present a more politicised discourse. Reflecting on the future of research on civic participation of third country immigrants in Portugal, the authors state that it would be interesting and relevant to compare the Portuguese situation with those of other European countries, with an older immigration history, and analyse how the Portuguese immigrants’ associative movement will be affected by a changing legal framework and the emergence of new opportunities within the set of structures regarding the political participation of minority groups.