The Importance of Considering Debt and Young Children in Activation: A Survival Analysis of Return to Welfare

While there has been much research on welfare exit and entry into employment, less research has looked at return to government assistance. Applying survival analysis on data from a national government assistance programme in Singapore, we found two important factors of welfare return to which activation programmes need to pay greater attention. First, return was more likely if former beneficiaries accumulated a higher number of types of arrears rather than higher dollar values of arrears. This new finding contributes to the emerging literature on bandwidth tax, and suggests the importance of designing programmes that relieve mental accounting due to debt and poverty. Second, return was more likely if respondents had an infant or toddler child. This points to the importance of a range of support policies including affordable and accessible childcare, exemption from work requirement in receipt of welfare, and family leave for low-wage workers.

The Implementation of Offshore Safety Program OSP in Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry- A Performance Assessment

The Offshore Safety Permit (OSP) Program is the Personnel Accountability System, being utilized by the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Regulator, in line with global best practices to manage the details of over 40,000 oil workers registered to work on offshore and swamp facilities and track their movements to-and-fro such facilities. The Program was introduced in 2012 to standardize requirement for personnel travel to offshore and swamp locations and to eliminate issues such as: non-compliance with mandatory competency and safety training; non-compliance with medical fitness to work requirement; unauthorized extended stay on facilities at offshore/remote location; inaccurate documentation of personnel movement to-and-fro facilities at offshore/remote location leading to delayed/wrong incident reporting. This paper examines, through the review of the OSP policy, Guidelines and database, the value addition of the program since its inception., detailed and insightful discussions are made on the importance and potentials of the OSP program as a simple but integral policy and planning tool in managing risks, enhancing collaboration and improving safety and emergency services in Nigeria's oil and gas industry.

Institutional injustice: Implications for system transformation emerging from the mental health recovery narratives of people experiencing marginalisation

Background Institutional injustice refers to structures that create disparities in resources, opportunities and representation. Marginalised people experience institutional injustice, inequalities and discrimination through intersecting personal characteristics and social circumstances. This study aimed to investigate sources of institutional injustice and their effects on marginalised people with experience of mental health problems. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 77 individuals from marginalised groups with experience of mental health problems, including psychosis, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) populations, complex needs and lived experience as a work requirement. These were analysed inductively enabling sensitising concepts to emerge. Findings Three processes of institutional injustice were identified: not being believed because of social status and personal backgrounds; not being heard where narratives did not align with dominant discourses, and not being acknowledged where aspects of identity were disregarded. Harmful outcomes included disengagement from formal institutions through fear and mistrust, tensions and reduced affiliation with informal institutions when trying to consolidate new ways of being, and damaging impacts on mental health and wellbeing through multiple oppression. Conclusions Institutional injustice perpetuates health inequalities and marginalised status. Master status, arising from dominant discourses and heuristic bias, overshadow the narratives and experiences of marginalised people. Cultural competency has the potential to improve heuristic availability through social understandings of narrative and experience, whilst coproduction and narrative development through approaches such as communities of practice might offer meaningful avenues for authentic expression.

Routine pre-employment echocardiography assessment in young adults: cost and benefits

Background Conventional echocardiography is a safe, available, and accurate tool for cardiac structural and functional evaluation, but it should not cancel clinical assessment and history tacking, and indeed both are complementary. A pre-employment assessment is important for employees and community safety and suitability for a specific work requirement. Results Aiming to assess the value of routine pre-employment echocardiography for the detection of cardiac abnormalities, we examined seven hundred ninety-five persons who were routinely referred to us for pre-employment conventional echocardiography. Only 9 persons had structural cardiac abnormalities (1.3%) and distributed as follows: two had bicuspid aortic valve with isolated aortic regurgitation, one of them had mild AR, and the other had moderate AR. Two cases had mitral valve prolapse, one of them had trivial MR, while the other had a flail anterior leaflet with severe MR. One patient had atrial septal defect 1.5 cm with mild pulmonary hypertension and right-sided chambers dilatation. One patient had dextrocardia (situs inversus totalis) without other cardiac problems. One had moderate pulmonary hypertension and modest right-sided chambers dilation. Two patients had left ventricular hypertrophy. Surprisingly, we did not detect rheumatic valvular heart disease. The money cost of echocardiography tests for those 795 persons was 198,750 Egyptian pounds (LE); their transportation cost was about 19.800LE. The total group time cost of the tests was 265 h, total time lost at the waiting room was 1590 h, total transportation time lose was 2385 h, so the total time cost was about 4000 h. Using psychological stress questionnaire, 33 participants (4.2%) had results suggestive of a low sense of psychological pressure due to echocardiography examination, 221 participants (27.8%) had results suggestive of a moderate feeling of stress, while 541 participants (68%) had results suggestive of a high sense of stress. Conclusion We recommend against routine echocardiography for cardiac assessment in pre-employment assessment and to do it only for persons with abnormal clinical or ECG findings.

“Truth,” Lies, and Deception in Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes

The popularity of alternative online investment platforms has become worrisome in recent times. Adopting explorative methodology, this chapter examines the discursive practices of truth, lies and deception inherent in Ponzi and Pyramid schemes through their method of operation, recruitment strategies, products/services and reward system via Bitconnect, OneCoin, and Zarfund – three online-based Ponzi schemes. The study reveals that the greatest deception of Ponzi schemes lies in the high returns they promise to potential investors and the low work requirement. These claims make it difficult for potential investors to make rational decisions before investing. This study recommends that proper evaluation and due diligence – basic financial literacy – be conducted before investing in any AFIP. Alternatively, expert advice may be sort before any financial commitment.

Teacher's emotional labor: conceptualization of the idea and research approaches

The article describes the notion of teacher’s emotional labor, which is an important and often neglected subject in didactics and pedeutology. The thesis is that the manner in which a teacher's emotional labor is being conceptualized affects test method and interpretation. The article presents three different manners in which emotional labor may be conceptualized: (1) emotional labor as process of emotion regulation (psychological approach); (2) emotional labor as a work requirement (sociological approach); (3) emotional labor as a transformation and development tool/as a byproductive labor (critical approach). Each approach is assigned to a different methodological perspective which may be used by educational researchers: (1) quantitative research; (2) qualitative research; (3) “new'' qualitative studies.

Who is counted as in-work poor? Testing five different definitions when measuring in-work poverty in Sweden 1987–2017

PurposeThere is ongoing debate amongst in-work poverty researchers as to how to answer the question “who is counted as in-work poor?” and how to define the minimum size of work that should be used to determine a “working threshold”. The purpose of this paper aims to contribute to this debate by testing five different definitions of a “working threshold” and discussing their implications when testing the different measurement outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use data from Statistics Sweden (SCB), including the total population registered as living in Sweden for each year from 1987 to 2017. All calculations are on a yearly basis and in fixed prices (2017). The data set used is based on linked administrative data retrieved from Statistics Sweden and the software used is SAS 9.4.FindingsResults show how in-work poverty trends differ by measurement approach. The two definitions with the lowest income thresholds are found to include a very heterogenic group of individuals. The development of in-work poverty in Sweden over 30 years show decreasing in-work poverty during the first decade followed by an increase to almost the same levels at the end of the period. In-work poverty in Sweden has transformed from being female-dominated in 1987 and the typical person in in-work poverty 2017 is a male immigrant, aged 26–55 years.Practical implicationsThis methodological discussion might lead to a new definition of who is a worker amongst the in-work poor, which could consequently affect who is counted as being in in-work poverty and lead to new social policy measures.Originality/valueThis is, to the authors' knowledge, the first time different definitions of work requirement used to define in-work poverty have been tested on a data set including the total population and over a period of 30 years.