Like a member of the family: including and excluding paid caregivers in performances of family

Abstract

We explore the construction of family in contemporary families that employ professional providers of childcare and elder care. We find that families and caregivers at times construct family together, including the caregiver as a family member, while at other times, consumers construct family in ways that exclude the caregiver. Through our exploration of these various ways of constructing family, we offer three theoretical contributions. First, we challenge traditional distinctions between consumers and producers and highlight the fluid, contextualised nature of family by demonstrating that some contemporary constructions of family include paid service providers. Second, we elucidate the ways in which the provision and consumption of a service, everyday care, produces a liminal position for some service providers. Finally, we develop a broader understanding of the ways in which performances of family protect cultural values.     

Am I intruding? Developing a conceptualisation of advertising intrusiveness

This study develops a conceptual framework of advertising intrusiveness that extends previous research on the topic by examining both drivers and consequences. To achieve this, the work draws on in-depth interviews with 29 adult consumers who report experiencing intrusive advertising in their daily lives. Three drivers of advertising intrusiveness are identified – temporal disruption, visual disruption and flow disruption – along with three consequences – emotional response, behavioural response and cognitive response. From these drivers and consequences, a conceptual framework of advertising intrusiveness is developed based on ideas about psychological reactance. Based on this framework it is proposed that, while all advertisements might ultimately be perceived as intrusive, an advertisement’s characteristics, which are the identified subcomponents of the drivers of intrusiveness, exacerbate the resultant consequences.     

What Holds Back the Second Generation? The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants

In 2000 Census microdata, various outcomes of second-generation immigrants are related to their parents' age at arrival to the United States, and in particular whether that age fell within the "critical period" of language acquisition. We interpret this as an effect of the parent's English-language skills and construct an instrumental variable for parental English proficiency. Estimates of the effect of parent's English-speaking proficiency using two-stage least squares yield significant, positive results for children's English-speaking proficiency and preschool attendance, and significant, negative results for dropping out of high school and being below age-appropriate grade. (JEL J13, J24, J62).     

Leisure,Stress, and Coping: The Sport Participation of Collegiate Student-Athletes

Research has indicated that there is a relationship between stress and participation in leisure (Caltabiano, 1995; Chalip, Thomas, & Voyle, 1992; Reich & Zautra, 1981; Strauss-Blasche, Ekmekcioglu, & Marktl, 2002; Warner-Smith & Brown, 2002; Wheeler & Frank, 1988). It has been suggested that leisure buffers or mediates stress, thereby enhancing individual health and well-being, because of the self-determination and social support that are experienced in leisure (Coleman & Iso-Ahola, 1993). However, a number of issues have been raised by the recent research, including whether or not the leisure, stress, and health relationship varies by type of leisure activity (Iwasaki & Mannell, 2000), exactly why and how leisure (or any given leisure activity) interacts with stress (Iwasaki & Mannell, 1999-2000; Kleiber, Hutchinson, & Williams, 2002), and the possibility that leisure itself could be a stressor (Iwasaki & Mannell, 2000; Iwasaki & Smale, 1998). The interpretive study reported here examined a particular leisure activity--collegiate sport--and individuals' experiences of stress because of their participation in this type of leisure. Results indicate that collegiate sport is perceived to be both a buffer and experience of stress. Results also reveal that race and gender are important in shaping collegiate athletes' experiences of stress. Support was found for the ideas that (a) stress is a transactional process (Lazarus, 1998) and (b) research approaches that allow the dynamic experience and contextualization of the personal meanings of stress and leisure to emerge are needed (Iwasaki & Smale, 1998; Kleiber et al., 2002).     

The redistributive effects of political reservation for minorities: Evidence from India

We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India generated by national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which revised reservations are implemented. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-2000, we find that increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes significantly reduces poverty while increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes has no impact on poverty. Political reservation for Scheduled Tribes has a greater effect on rural poverty than urban poverty, and appears to benefit people near the poverty line as well as those far below it.     

Have IFRS made a difference to intra-country financial reporting diversity?

According to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are intended to provide a common set of globally applicable accounting standards, having the ultimate aim of reducing international financial reporting diversity. Much previous research on standards harmonisation has been conducted on relatively small samples and in periods which pre-date the introduction of mandatory IFRS in the EU and Australia. Most of these studies have also relied on some form of indexing technique to measure harmonisation (such as the modified C-index) which have since been challenged in the literature. Based on a sample of 81,560 firm years, this study examines whether the mandatory IFRS regime has led to any significant reductions in overall financial reporting diversity by companies within the EU and Australia. Financial reporting diversity is proxied by the variability of several balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement ratios measured over the pre-IFRS and post-IFRS periods. Variability is measured by the coefficient of variation (CV), a scale neutral measure of dispersion of a probability distribution. This measure avoids many of the methodological problems associated with index techniques. Notwithstanding some mixed findings, the group mean comparisons and multiple regression results indicate some statistically significant reductions in the variability of ratio measures in the post-IFRS period, even after controlling for factors such as firm size, industry and adoption status (whether a country is an IFRS adopter or not). While the results should be viewed as preliminary, they provide some tentative support for IASB’s current policy direction towards global accounting standards convergence (for instance, the IASB-FASB convergence project). The results also have implications for other countries contemplating a shift to IFRS, such as the United States and several Asian nations, including Japan and India. A useful direction for future research is to determine whether the same results hold using a more extensive post-IFRS sample.