Studies have shown positive impact of family policies on women’s labour market participation over the last decades. How, then, does it influence the types of jobs women obtain when they (re-)enter ...the labour market? Using multi-level modelling, this study examines how different work–family balance policies (that is, leave policies, childcare services) shape gendered labour market patterns and whether or not it mitigates women’s overrepresentation among the labour market Outsiders across Europe. I use European Working Conditions Survey 2015 data and cover 30 European countries. Specifically focusing on women’s relative likelihood of being labour market Outsiders compared to men, I find that certain policies help women avoid being Outsiders, while the others may reinforce the existing gender inequality in the labour market. This resonates with the welfare state paradox and family policy trade-off literature that the policies that do not disrupt the gender norms may in turn maintain or enhance them.
We examine the role flexible working has for gender equality during the pandemic, focusing on arrangements that give workers control over when and where they work. We use a survey of dual-earning ...working parents in the United Kingdom during the peak of the first lockdown, namely, between mid-May and mid-June 2020. Results show that in most households in our survey, mothers were mainly responsible for housework and child care tasks both before and during the lockdown period, although this proportion has slightly declined during the pandemic. In households where fathers worked from home during the pandemic, respondents were less likely to say that mothers were the ones solely or mostly responsible for housework and child care. Fathers who worked from home were more likely to say that they were doing more housework and child care during the lockdown period than they were before. Finally, we explore what we expect to happen in the postpandemic times in relation to flexible working and gender equality. The large expansion of flexible working we expect to happen may help reduce some of the gender inequalities that have exacerbated during the pandemic, but only if we reflect on and change our existing work cultures and gender norms.
The aim of this paper is to examine if and how the reclassification of platform workers from self-employment status to employment status can provide them with adequate social security protection. ...Little is known about how this transition would guarantee platform workers adequate social protection within the social protection scheme for employees. National social security schemes, in particular income replacement benefit schemes, often (still) depart from the standard employment relationship, leading to lower protection for atypical work forms. Platform workers combine several of the characteristics of atypical forms of work, such as low earnings, irregular working patterns and working. Integrating platform workers into employee social security schemes faces additional challenges due to the online nature of their work, algorithmic management, high levels of unpaid labor, and employer identification difficulties. This paper focuses on unemployment protection, as EU Member States struggle to provide adequate protection for workers with irregular work patterns and income fluctuations, in the case of (short term) income replacement benefits. By constructing nine ideal work patterns reflective of diverse nature of platform work and current practices among platform work, we analyse how different types of ‘employed’ platform workers may fare within the legislation of three EU countries (Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands). This approach allows us to assess the applicability of unemployment protection to different working patterns among 'employed' platform workers, considering formal, effective, and adequate access to unemployment schemes as outlined in the Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed (2019).
Abiotic stresses, such as a drought and heat, are potential constraints limiting wheat production across the globe. This current perspective study intended to characterize the performance of exotic ...synthetic hexaploid (SH) wheat genotypes on a physiological, biochemical, and agronomic basis under field-based drought and heat conditions. The tri-replicate experiments were conducted in two seasons using two-factorial arrangements in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with stresses as one factor and genotypes as another factor. The recorded data were statistically analyzed using computer-based software statistix8.1 and R-studio. In this study, all the physiological parameters (total chlorophyll, stomatal conductance, photosynthesis rate, transpiration rate, and cell membrane stability percentage), biochemical stress markers (antioxidant enzymes, glycine betaine, and proline), and agronomic traits (flag leaf area, plant height, tillers per plant, spike length, grains per spike, and thousand grain weight) varied significantly under separate and combined regimes of drought and heat stresses. All traits varied in same direction, excluding glycine betaine and proline, which varied in the opposite direction because of stress, as explicated by correlation analysis. Furthermore, PCA and heatmap analysis confirmed that the expression of the traits varied more significantly because of combined regimes of drought and heat stresses as compared to controlled and isolated applications. Interestingly, synthetic hexaploid (SH) genotypes depicted similar responses to individual and integrated regimes of drought and heat stresses. The current study proved that deciphering the physiological, biochemical, and agronomic performance of wheat genotypes under stress can provide effective criteria for the future selection of wheat germplasm for breeding against drought and heat stresses.
This paper examines whether the expansion of working from home led to a more equal division of domestic work during the pandemic. We use unique data of dual-earner heterosexual couples gathered ...during the first lockdown in the UK when workers were required to work from home by law. Results reveal that mothers were likely to be carrying out a larger share of domestic work both before and during the lockdown. When fathers worked from home, compared to those going into work, a more equitable division was found for cleaning and routine childcare. Furthermore, homeworking fathers were up to 3.5 times more likely to report that they increased the time they spent on childcare during the lockdown compared to before. However, we also found evidence of homeworking mothers having increased their time spent on domestic work, and doing a larger share of routine childcare, compared to mothers going into work. Overall, the study shows that when working from home is normalised through law and practice, it may better enable men to engage more in domestic work, which can in turn better support women’s labour market participation. However, without significant changes to our work cultures and gender norms, homeworking still has the potential to enable or maintain a traditional division of labour, further exacerbating gender inequality patterns both at home and in the labour market.
Fatty acid desaturases (FADs) are involved in regulating plant fatty acid composition by adding double bonds to growing hydrocarbon chain. Apart from regulating fatty acid composition FADs are of ...great importance, and are involved in stress responsiveness, plant development, and defense mechanisms. FADs have been extensively studied in crop plants, and are broadly classed into soluble and non-soluble fatty acids. However, FADs have not yet been characterized in Brassica carinata and its progenitors.
Here we have performed comparative genome-wide identification of FADs and have identified 131 soluble and 28 non-soluble FADs in allotetraploid B. carinata and its diploid parents. Most soluble FAD proteins are predicted to be resided in endomembrane system, whereas FAB proteins were found to be localized in chloroplast. Phylogenetic analysis classed the soluble and non-soluble FAD proteins into seven and four clusters, respectively. Positive type of selection seemed to be dominant in both FADs suggesting the impact of evolution on these gene families. Upstream regions of both FADs were enriched in stress related cis-regulatory elements and among them ABRE type of elements were in abundance. Comparative transcriptomic data analysis output highlighted that FADs expression reduced gradually in mature seed and embryonic tissues. Moreover, under heat stress during seed and embryo development seven genes remained up-regulated regardless of external stress. Three FADs were only induced under elevated temperature whereas five genes were upregulated under Xanthomonas campestris stress suggesting their involvement in abiotic and biotic stress response.
The current study provides insights into the evolution of FADs and their role in B. carinata under stress conditions. Moreover, the functional characterization of stress-related genes would exploit their utilization in future breeding programs of B. carinata and its progenitors.
This article aims to empirically explore how European labour markets are segmented and who the outsiders are. The article moves beyond the dichotomous approach to understanding labour market ...division, often based solely on examining employment relationships. Taking a multi-dimensional approach to defining labour market precariousness, this study incorporates aspects such as income, job prospects and subjective insecurity. Latent Class Analysis is used on data taken from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey to extend the traditional definition of outsider-ness. Four labour market segments are found: insiders and three different types of outsiders: typical outsiders, dead-end insiders and subjective outsiders. Looking at the cross-national aspect, variations are found in the segmentation patterns, especially in terms of who the outsiders are. The findings show the need to examine various aspects of labour precariousness in order to capture the complexity of post-industrialised labour markets and identify different types of outsiders across Europe that need to be protected for building a more cohesive society.
Cotton is a precious commodity that offers raw material to the textile industry. This crop is grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Abiotic stresses exerts negative impact on ...cotton production, but water scarcity has the worst impact. It is rising due to current situation, in which global warming is producing a decrease in precipitation while an increase in evapo-transpiration is causing an agricultural drought. Thus, it is a difficult task for cotton breeders to identify cotton lines that can respond to areas with limited water supplies without lowering yields and might be utilized as suitable parents in a breeding program to produce drought-tolerant indices. The primary objective of this research was the estimation of drought tolerance indices in upland cotton under water deficit conditions. For this purpose, fifty accessions of upland cotton were assessed for their ability to tolerate the water stress under three conditions, namely control, 50% FC, and 75% FC. These genotypes showed significant variations based on morpho-physiological and biochemical characteristics. At control conditions, these genotypes exhibited enhanced growth and better performance. Whereas, the behavior of some indices under 75% FC showed less growth as compared to control, while under the 50% FC highly significant reductions were observed among genotypes. The genotypes that are resistant to drought and those that are susceptible were found using the K-means cluster and biplot analysis. In terms of performance, the genotypes namely Cyto-515, CIM-595, FH-142, and IR-3701 exhibited relatively better in all the treatments and low excised leaf water loss, high relative water contents, chlorophyll contents, free proline contents, and peroxidase activity were observed to be useful selection criteria for drought resistance. These identified genotypes namely, Cyto-515, CIM-595, FH-142, and IR-3701 may be grown in water deficit areas of the country to assess their potential, could be used in breeding programs for development of germplasm suitable for water stress conditions.
Soil salinity is increasing due to several factors such as climate change and areas with uneven rainfall. This increase in level of salinity compelled the cotton breeders to develop a new germplasm ...that exhibit the suitable for salty soil. This study aimed to determine the salt tolerance of 50 accessions of Gossypium hirsutum in hydroponic conditions having three levels of NaCl, i.e., 0 mM, 150 mM, and 200 mM. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design with a factorial arrangement. Morphological, physiological, and biochemical attributes were estimated in these genotypes. The Na+/K+ ratio was determined by dry digestion method. Salt-susceptible and -tolerant genotypes were identified by biplot and cluster analysis. The genotypes showed significant differences for morphophysiological and biochemical parameters. In control, Cyto-515 showed enhanced growth with shoot length (30.20 cm), root length (20.63 cm), fresh shoot weight (2.34 g), and fresh root weight (0.93 g), while under 150 mM and 200 mM salinity levels, MNH-992 had the maximum root length (15.67 cm) and shoot length (24.67 cm). At a 150 mM salinity level, maximum levels of antioxidants were found in Kehkshan and CIM-595, while at a 200 mM salinity level, AA-703, CIM-595, and Kehkshan showed maximum values of antioxidants. The highest Na+/K+ ratio was observed in VH-363 and FH-114, while Kehkshan had lowest Na+/K+ ratio. The biplot analysis revealed that Kehkshan, CIM-595, VH-330, Cyto-178, MNH-992, and Cyto-515 were widely dispersed and distant from the origin, and exhibiting variability for morphophysiological and biochemical traits under the salt stress. In terms of performance across the treatments, accessions MNH-992, Kehkshan, Cyto-515, and CIM-595 performed significantly better. Peroxidase activity, proline contents, H2O2 determination, and Na+/K+ ratio were shown to be useful for the salt tolerance selection criteria. The potential of such salt tolerant accessions (MNH-992, Kehkshan, Cyto-515, and CIM-595) could be assessed after planting in salt affected areas and could be used in breeding programs for the development of diverse salt tolerant new genotypes of upland cotton.
Populus trichocarpa (Black cottonwood) is a dominant timber-yielding tree that has become a notable model plant for genome-level insights in forest trees. The efficient transport and solubility of ...various glycoside-associated compounds is linked to Family-1 UDP-glycosyltransferase (EC 2.4.1.x; UGTs) enzymes. These glycosyltransferase enzymes play a vital role in diverse plant functions, such as regulation of hormonal homeostasis, growth and development (seed, flower, fiber, root, etc.), xenobiotic detoxification, stress response (salt, drought, and oxidative), and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. Here, we report a genome-wide analysis of the P. trichocarpa genome that identified 191 putative UGTs distributed across all chromosomes (with the exception of chromosome 20) based on 44 conserved plant secondary product glycosyltransferase (PSPG) motif amino acid sequences. Phylogenetic analysis of the 191 Populus UGTs together with 22 referenced UGTs from Arabidopsis and maize clustered the putative UGTs into 16 major groups (A–P). Whole-genome duplication events were the dominant pattern of duplication among UGTs in Populus. A well-conserved intron insertion was detected in most intron-containing UGTs across eight examined eudicots, including Populus. Most of the UGT genes were found preferentially expressed in leaf and root tissues in general. The regulation of putative UGT expression in response to drought, salt and heat stress was observed based on microarray and available RNA sequencing datasets. Up- and down-regulated UGT expression models were designed, based on transcripts per kilobase million values, confirmed their maximally varied expression under drought, salt and heat stresses. Co-expression networking of putative UGTs indicated their maximum co-expression with cytochrome P450 genes involved in triterpenoid biosynthesis. Our results provide an important resource for the identification of functional UGT genes to manipulate abiotic stress responsive glycosylation in Populus.
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