Justice between Age-groups: a comment on Norman Daniels

ABSTRACT  Norman Daniels suggests that the just distribution of resources between different age-groups is determined by the choice a prudential agent would make in budgeting resources over the different temporal stages of a single life. He calls this view the "prudential lifespan account" of justice between age-groups. Daniels thinks that the view recommends a rough kind of equality in resources between age-groups. I argue that in the case of a single life prudence would choose an unequal distribution of resources. Consequently, using prudence to model distribution between age-groups might severely restrict the share of resources assigned to the elderly. If we think that extreme inequality between age-groups would be unjust, we should continue to think of justice between age-groups as a problem concerned with the relationship between different lives. But we should apply the requirement of equality to the temporal parts of lives, not just to complete lives.     

Structural predictors of problematic friendship in later life

The purpose of this study was to examine the constraining and facilitating effects of social structural position (age, sex, race, class, financial sufficiency, and number of friends) on opportunities for friendship. We hypothesized that the greater the number of people who share a given social structural location and the more access they have to situations where it is possible to meet new people, the less likely they are to have problematic friendships. The sample comprised 53 male and female community residents aged 55 to 84 years who enjoyed fairly good health. Logistic and multiple regression procedures revealed outcomes opposite to our predictions: those who were supposedly more social structurally advantaged actually reported greater numbers of problematic friendships. Potential interpretations include the possibility that these people are more critical than others of their friend relationships or more willing to acknowledge problems, that the norms regarding commitment to friends are weaker among these individuals, or that they learn to acquire friends but not to avoid and solve problems in their relationships. Apparently, people with more friends are not more likely than others to terminate problematic friendships or to redefine them as mere associations.     

THE VALIDITY OF A MEASURE OF JOB COMPATIBILITY IN THE PREDICTION OF JOB PERFORMANCE AND TURNOVER OF MOTION PICTURE THEATER PERSONNEL

The predictive validity of a measure of job compatibility was studied for theater personnel. Scores on a forced-choice instrument, developed from the Job Compatibility Questionnaire (JCQ), predicted employee performance (r = .22, p< .05), turnover (r = -.35, p< .01), and scores on a "value composite" (reflecting a combination of job performance and employee retention criteria) as defined by the research sponsor (P = .41, p< .01). Furthermore, job compatibility scores explained a statistically significant increment in turnover and value composite score variance when analyzed concomitantly with verbal and numerical ability test scores. Finally, job compatibility scores were shown to be nonredundant with hiring decisions based on an application review, reference check, and interview, whereas the cognitive ability test scores shared considerable redundancy with hiring decisions based on the current selection system.