Circular economy, sharing and sustainability - Challenges for the social economy in a territory that wants to become a Smart Region

This study aims to analyse the predisposition of social economy agents to resource sharing. To achieve this, it was chosen to implement an exploratory qualitative approach directed to managers and an exploratory quantitative approach directed to employees. The results allowed to estimate that they do have a significant economic impact on number, paid work and business volume. It was shown the relationship between the interest demonstration on sharing and the appropriate qualification for the jobs of managers and employees. It was demonstrated the practice of informal and non-regulated sharing of own and third parties’ resources, among close partners, without the existence of a management model of knowledge, assets, time, use/reuse and exploitation. It is anticipated that the study could serve as scientific/methodological basis for a regional investment project, R&D and establishment of partnerships, reconciling interest in a smart region, as well as the application of circular economy principles.

Burden of disease study of overweight and obesity; the societal impact in terms of cost-of-illness and health-related quality of life

Background Little is known about the burden that overweight and obesity impose on Dutch society. The aim of this study is to examine this burden in terms of cost-of-illness and health-related quality of life. Method A bottom-up, prevalence-based burden of disease study from a societal perspective was performed. Cost-of-illness information including healthcare costs, patient and family costs, and other costs was obtained via the Treatment Inventory of Costs in Patients with psychiatric disorders (TiC-P) questionnaire. Health-related quality of life was assessed through the EuroQol (EQ-5D-5L) and the BODY-Q instruments. Non-parametric bootstrapping was applied to test for significant differences in costs. Subgroup analyses were performed on all outcomes. Results A total of 97 people with overweight and obesity completed the survey. Per respondent, mean healthcare costs were €2907, patient and family costs were €4037, and other costs were €4519, leading to a total societal cost of €11,463 per respondent per year. Total costs were significantly higher for respondents with obesity versus overweight and between low & intermediate versus highly educated respondents. The mean utility score of our population was 0.81. A significantly lower utility score was found for respondents with obesity in comparison with respondents with overweight. BODY-Q results show that respondents with obesity scored a significantly lower Rasch-score than did respondents with overweight in three scales. Respondents with a high education level and having paid work scored significantly higher Rasch-scores in two scales than did those with a low education level and without having paid work. The age group 19–29 have significantly higher Rasch-scores in three scales than respondents in the other two age categories. Conclusions Overweight and obesity have a considerable impact on the societal costs and on health-related quality of life. The results show that the impact of overweight and obesity go beyond the healthcare sector, as the other costs have the biggest share of the total costs. Another interesting finding of this study is that obesity leads to significant higher costs and lower health-related quality of life than overweight. These findings draw attention to policy making, as collective prevention and effective treatment are needed to reduce this burden.

Struggling to ‘do family’ during COVID-19: evidence from a German mixed-methods study

Applying the concept of doing family, which centres on the organisation of, and the practices in, families’ everyday lives, our research questions focus on the efforts mothers and fathers undertake to keep everyday life going during the pandemic. We analysed two-wave panel data of the project ‘Growing up in Germany’, and conducted 20 in-depth interviews with mothers and fathers in order to examine their strategies in detail. Our findings confirm gender and other important differences, and reveal three major strategies to reconcile caring obligations with demands from paid work before and during the crisis.

TIME ALLOCATION AND FEELINGS OF HAPPINESS OF SELF-EMPLOYED PERSONS – A GENDERED PERSPECTIVE

This article focuses on the division of the daily activities of self-employed persons on entrepreneurial activities, unpaid work, leisure time and other activities, and their interconnection to the feelings of happiness (as part of subjective well-being). Modified Time Use Survey (TUS) methodology was used to gather data on division of time and to identify SWB. The 13 groups of activities and 161 self-employed persons were included in the analysis. The results suggest that both self-employed men and women dedicate more than 8 hours per day for paid work. Daily activities during which the highest part of self-employed men and women feel the happiest belong to leisure activities. Unpaid work activities bring the highest feeling of happiness to 12.5 % of self-employed women. Feelings of happiness of self-employed women are more fluctuating during the paid work than feelings of happiness of self-employed men. In the evening, the feelings of happiness of the self-employed women decrease significantly, which could be caused by double burden of self-employed women.

PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF THOSE WHO PERFORM PAID WORK IN THE LIGHT OF THE ACT ON TRADE UNIONS. THE AXIOLOGICAL-PHYLOSOPHICAL-PRAXEOLOGICAL ASPECT

The feature of the Polish protection of employees is both the vertical and horizontal binding force. The vertical dimension stems from the rights and duties constituted in domestic legal norms being addressed to all of its addressees. These norms, on the other hand, may take on a horizontal dimension since their specification may be the subject of detailed regulations such as normative collective agreements being a basis for seeking redress, concluded by a trade union and an employer. They may thus be the subject of normative content of collective labour agreements, work regulations and separate collective agreements.

ON COLLECTIVE LABOR AGREEMENTS CONCLUDED FOR PERSONS PROVIDING WORK ON A BASIS DIFFERENT THAN THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP

Based on Article 21 sec. 3 Act on Trade Unions, collective labor agreements may be concluded for persons performing paid work on a basis other than an employment relationship. This paper presents the legal problems associated with concluding collective agreements for non-employees. They relate in particular to the application of the Labor Code on collective agreements for employees.

EUROPEAN AUTONOMOUS EMPLOYEE DEFINITION. A REASON FOR A DISCUSSION OVER DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS

For many years, there has been a discussion in the study of Polish labour law on the legitimacy of replacing labour law with employment law as a broader category, including also people who perform paid work on other grounds. The implementation of Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union should also cover a wider group of people performing paid work. The EU legislator, when defining the subjective scope, refers to the autonomous EU definition of an employee created by the CJEU, which is broader than many national definitions. Despite the objections raised against the concept of employment law, the implementation of the directive may be a step towards building a new field of law, just as the extension of the subjective scope of the Act on Trade Unions contributed to the creation of collective employment law.

US Parents’ Domestic Labor Over the Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic

•Objective: This study assesses changes in parents’ divisions of housework and childcare over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. •Background: Assessing the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for gender equality requires understanding how and why labor arrangements shifted as the pandemic progressed. Yet, we know little about US parents’ domestic arrangements beyond the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic or how simultaneous changes in men’s and women’s employment, earnings, telework, gender ideologies, and access to care supports may have altered domestic labor arrangements.•Method: This study assesses change in parents’ domestic labor using fixed-effects regression on data from a longitudinal panel of 700 different-sex partnered US parents collected at three time points: March 2020, April 2020, and November 2020.•Results: Partnered parents’ divisions of housework and childcare became more equal in the early days of the pandemic, but reverted toward pre-pandemic levels by the fall of 2020. Changes in parents’ divisions of domestic labor were largely driven by changes in parents’ labor force conditions, and especially by fathers’ labor force conditions. Decreases in fathers’ labor force participation and increases in telecommuting in April portended increases in partnered fathers’ shares of domestic tasks. As fathers increased time in paid work and returned to in-person work by fall, their shares of domestic labor fell.•Conclusion: Overall, results suggest that promoting full-time employment among mothers and greater time at home for fathers are key in facilitating a more equal division of domestic labor within families post-pandemic.

The World Bank in Asia: An assessment of COVID-19-related investments through a care lens. Care-responsive investments and development finance

International financial institutions (IFIs) and multilateral development banks have been playing a vital role in the response, recovery and ‘build back anew’ agenda from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially true of the World Bank Group (WBG), given its high volumes of committed investments across sectors, especially in low-income and vulnerable countries. This report presents, through case studies, how care-responsive the World Bank’s COVID-19-related investments have been in four member countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal and the Philippines. It does so by using the Care Principles and Care-Responsive Barometer for IFIs to assess the nature of the WBG’s post-COVID recovery investments in these select countries, and by building evidence through a gender- and care-responsive budget review. The foundation for care inclusion has already been laid in WBG policy. The report uses this as an entry point to urge it to bring women’s unpaid, underpaid and paid work to the centre of the IFI agenda in order to move towards rebuilding a more gender-just and equal future.