Alternative Employment Arrangements: A Gender Perspective

In this study we drew on national-level data to investigate the gendered nature of two alternative employment arrangements (independent contractors and temporary agency help), preferences for such arrangements, and the extent to which such arrangements accommodate work/family career quandaries of contemporary workers. Multivariate analyses revealed the perpetuation of gender schema and gendered structures, but this varied by type of alternative employment arrangement. Greater preference for temporary agency employment by married women than by married men derived from women not having to be the primary source of family income, rather than from an effort to balance work and child-rearing responsibilities. There were also gender differences in the tendency of married men and women to be independent contractors; women were less likely to be contractors. However, this alternative employment arrangement offers potential for both men and women to satisfy or challenge other gendered family structures and schema.     

Precedent Autonomy and Subsequent Consent

Honoring a living will typically involves treating an incompetent patient in accord with preferences she once had, but whose objects she can no longer understand. How do we respect her “precedent autonomy” by giving her what she used to want? There is a similar problem with “subsequent consent”: How can we justify interfering with someone's autonomy on the grounds that she will later consent to the interference, if she refuses now? Both problems arise on the assumption that, to respect someone's autonomy, any preferences we respect must be among that person's current preferences. I argue that this is not always true. Just as we can celebrate an event long after it happens, so can we respect someone's wishes long before or after she has that wish. In the contexts of precedent autonomy and subsequent consent, the wishes are often preferences about which of two other, conflicting preferences to satisfy. When someone has two conflicting preferences, and a third preference on how to resolve that conflict, to respect his autonomy we must respect that third preference. People with declining competence may have a resolution preference earlier, favoring the earlier conflicting preference (precedent autonomy), whereas those with rising competence may have it later, favoring the later conflicting preference (subsequent consent). To respect autonomy in such cases we must respect not a current, but a former or later preference.     

After the Terror: A Book and Further Thoughts

There are great goods desired by all of us, and the lack of themmakes for bad lives. One sample of bad African lives involves aloss of 20 million years of living time. The questions raised bythese and other facts are to be answered by the Principle ofHumanity, about bad lives and rationality. It is superior tomorality of relationship and all else, and in a way is undeniable.The principle together with other things issues in six propositions.One gives us a moral responsibility, our politicians at our head,for the terrorism of September 11. To be ordinary is not to beinnocent. Another proposition is that the Palestinians have a moralright to their terrorism. The latter proposition can be given stillmore support than in the book from which this paper derives.     

Philosophers on the "Art-of-Living"

Art-of-living is a classical notion in philosophy that is currently receiving renewed interest. Art-of-living refers to a kind of self-direction with a view to the good life. This paper surveys modern philosophical thought on this subject. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Art of Living by Dispositionally Happy People

The cognitive and motivational processes by which happy people are able to artfully sustain their happiness are examined within a subjectivist construal approach. Individuals who perceive themselves as happy respond to ordinary experiences differently than their less happy peers. Research from our laboratory has revealed these differences in a variety of contexts, including people's responses to decisions, their reactions to social comparisons, and their interpretations of life events. Our research has also shown that, after experiencing failure, happy people tend not to engage in negative self-reflection and are able to perform subsequent tasks without dwelling. Although happy people experience negative moods and negative life events similar to those of less happy people, they evaluate these events less negatively and respond to them in more positive, affirming ways. These group differences suggest a number of possible ways to sustainably enhance happiness, and current experimental interventions designed to test the effectiveness of several intentional happiness-increasing strategies are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Change and Management of Complex Services: The Ethno-narrative Form to Support Good Living and Working Together

Nowadays, managing change in complex services requires that middle management re-designs its objects and professional practices, in order to cope with new needs. It seems therefore crucial to activate training settings that allow managers to: (1) develop research and analytical skills on their own work practices and professional objects; (2) face and manage conflict, related to every change, that represents an opportunity to reflect and review one's own practices; and (3) build new and shared repertories of managerial practices, able to support a better form of living and working together within the management community. Moving from these hypotheses, inside the setting of a training intervention conducted in an educational service, the article discusses a specific tool used to generate opportunity of exchange, and reflection, within a challenging framework of change.     

When Training Becomes Incentive for Generative Living and Working Together in Organizations

This article has come about from two considerations: on one hand, living together in a work environment is becoming more and more challenging; on the other, training professionals at work represents a used and relevant action incentive in order to support and improve individual, group, and organizational development. In light of the fact that organizations are asking more and more complex questions, this work aims at developing a reflection on how adopting a certain perspective and educational method is particularly suitable to support the organization to achieve substantial outcomes, such as developing generative living and working together in organizations. In this article, we will analyze two illustrative cases, underlining evolution and learning process with a particular focus on the consequences of living and working together in organizations.     

But it still goes on: Therapeutic communities today

The work of therapeutic communities (TCs) have been said to develop from a certain ‘impulse’ or ‘attitude of mind’. The origin and definitional function of these terms are briefly traced and their meaning explored. Subsequently, eight papers submitted to the Journal are reviewed in order to give a survey picture of the theoretical and practical concerns current within European TCs. This brief survey demonstrates that, while rooted in the TC tradition, a number of projects have made interesting developments in both practice and theory. These innovations and the flare which has gone into them can be taken as evidence that the TC impulse is alive and well. What TCs require now are wider and more effective means of transmission to others because at their best TCs are self-regulating systems which can potentially obviate the harm caused by the deregulating systems of traditional health and social care.     

The factors associated with geriatric depression in rural China: stratified by household structure

Depressive symptoms and empty nest phenomenon of rural elderly people are both important public health issues, which should not be ignored. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and related factors of the empty nest elderly in rural China. We recruited 3182 eligible subjects and gathered data by face-to-face interview. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to explore the related factors of depressive symptoms. The present study showed that the prevalence of depressive symptoms significantly differed between empty nest old adults and non-empty nesters (24.1% vs. 19.0%). The elderly living alone had highest OR of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms of empty nest elderly was associated with sleep quality, economic status, pain, social support and ADL. While it was associated with gender, economic status, pain and PSMS in non-empty nest group. Number of chronic disease showed significant associations with depressive symptoms in the elderly living alone. Subjective support, support utilization and pain were positively associated with depressive symptoms in the elderly living with spouse. Sleep quality, economic status and ADL were common factors. Depressive symptoms obviously prevail among empty nest elderly than non-empty nesters. It reminded us that complementary social support from family and society is essential.