Algorithms are increasingly used in different domains of public policy. They help humans to profile unemployed, support administrations to detect tax fraud and give recidivism risk scores that judges ...or criminal justice managers take into account when they make bail decisions. In recent years, critics have increasingly pointed to ethical challenges of these tools and emphasized problems of discrimination, opaqueness or accountability, and computer scientists have proposed technical solutions to these issues. In contrast to these important debates, the literature on how these tools are implemented in the actual everyday decision-making process has remained cursory. This is problematic because the consequences of ADM systems are at least as dependent on the implementation in an actual decision-making context as on their technical features. In this study, we show how the introduction of risk assessment tools in the criminal justice sector on the local level in the USA has deeply transformed the decision-making process. We argue that this is mainly due to the fact that the evidence generated by the algorithm introduces a notion of statistical prediction to a situation which was dominated by fundamental uncertainty about the outcome before. While this expectation is supported by the case study evidence, the possibility to shift blame to the algorithm does seem much less important to the criminal justice actors.
Studies on overeducation and unemployment show that migrants are worse off in the labour market. In this study we focus on university of applied science graduates and compare second generation ...migrants and Dutch natives in order to look at a homogenous group. We furthermore extent the definition of educational mismatches by including horizontal mismatches. We find that migrants, and in particular non-western migrants, experience ethnic penalties in employment. Non-western migrants are more likely to experience a double mismatch, i.e. a horizontal as well as a vertical mismatch. Furthermore, western migrants are more likely to experience horizontal mismatches than natives. Analyses on whether ethnic penalties persist across the non-western minority show that Antillean migrants have relatively good labour market outcomes whereas Moroccan migrants are the worst off. Furthermore, we find a gender dimension in the educational mismatches for western migrants. While western male migrants only show slight differences in labour market outcomes, western female migrants are less likely to be correctly matched and more likely to be unemployed than their native counterparts. Comparing educational mismatches before and during the recent economic crisis shows that in times of economic downturns, the labour market position of non-western migrants is disproportionally negatively affected.
This article explores the politics produced by civilian community policing groups in the urban margins of Mozambique and Swaziland. By taking over those streets that no one else could control, young ...unemployed men established themselves as alternative police forces and vectors of power in the neighborhoods. This made them politically significant to local leaders, politicians, and state police officers who both saw them as competitors and enrolled them in their own political agendas. By expanding upon the concept of “street politics,” I argue that the community policing groups developed into what I conceptualize as “street authorities.” Street authority involves a style of politics that relies on the capacity for swift, direct actions, often through violent means, to order the streets, but it is also characterized by momentariness that prevents the formation of stable organizations. Such politics emerge in urban contexts where poor urban citizens mistrust the state and where there is a preference for immediate outcomes because livelihood uncertainties are high, security is low, and it is difficult to express grievances through official political channels.
•Alcohol binge drinking associated with several socio-demographic factors in Ontario.•Binge drinking rates differ between males and females by immigration status.•Identify and support at-risk binge ...drinkers to promote healthy outcomes.
Alcohol consumption has been linked to harmful health short and long-term outcomes. An analysis of socio-demographic factors related to binge drinking may help to identify groups at risk and provide primary health care providers an opportunity to assist members of those groups. In this study, we examined socio-demographic factors associated with binge drinking in Ontario, Canada.
This analysis used data from a cross-sectional survey of Ontario adults (ages 19 and older) for the 2015–2017 period. Bivariate and multivariate adjusted analyses examined the association between binge drinking and socio-demographic factors. These analyses were also stratified by sex.
Increased alcohol binge drinking was associated with several socio-demographic factors including younger age groups, lower educational attainment, lower household income quintile, having immigrated to Canada within past 10 years, being male, reporting poorer mental health, being single, living in rural areas, and being unemployed. No differences were noted by households with or without children or by sexual orientation. Many of the factors associated with binge drinking remained significant when stratified by sex.
These findings suggest that several socio-demographic factors are associated with binge drinking. These can be helpful indicators for decision makers responsible for programs and policies aimed at reducing alcohol binge drinking, and for primary care providers, who in a brief intervention can screen for binge drinking and support those individuals by connecting them with local resources to reduce their harmful alcohol consumption habits.
The present paper is concerned with the effects of incongruence between a person's level of employment commitment (measured with scales of work involvement, Protestant work ethic or similar concepts) ...and his or her current employment situation (employed or not employed). We hypothesize that this kind of incongruence (a) is a typical characteristic of the unemployment situation and (b) is systematically associated with diminished well‐being and mental health. Meta‐analyses of empirical data endorse both hypotheses. (a) Employed people show only marginally stronger levels of employment commitment than unemployed people (d = 0.11, equivalent to r = .05). Both groups are characterized by high mean levels of employment commitment. Therefore, unemployed people are in an incongruent situation, while employed people are not. (b) Incongruent levels of employment commitment, that is, high levels among the unemployed and low levels among the employed, are significantly associated with psychological distress (mixed symptoms of distress: r = .19; depression: r = .19; anxiety: r = .14; subjective well‐being/life satisfaction: r = .13; self‐esteem: r = .08). In sum, available cross‐sectional data clearly endorse the incongruence model. Meta‐analyses of longitudinal data, although based on small sample sizes, are also consistent with the model.
Research on early life adversity and later-life cognitive function is conflicting, with little evidence from low-income settings. We investigated associations between adverse childhood experiences ...and cognitive function in an older population who grew up under racial segregation during South African apartheid. Data were from 1,871 adults aged 40-79 in the population-representative "Health and Ageing in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa" in 2015. The adverse childhood experiences were having a parent unemployed for > 6 months; having parents who argued or fought often; having a parent who drank excessively, used drugs, or had mental health problems; and physical abuse from parents. Executive function, language, visuospatial ability, and memory were assessed with the Oxford Cognitive Screen-Plus, a validated cognitive assessment designed for low-income, low-literacy settings. We estimated associations between adverse childhood experiences and latent cognitive domain z-scores using multiple-indicator, multiple-cause structural equation models. Childhood adversities were reported by 15% (parental unemployment for > 6 months), 25% (parents argued or fought often), 25% (a parent drank excessively, used drugs, or had mental health problems), and 35% (physical abuse from parent) of respondents. They were not associated with cognition, except that having a parent who drank excessively, used drugs, or had mental health problems was associated with lower memory z-scores (−0.07; 95% CI −0.13, −0.01). This is one of the first investigations into later-life cognitive outcomes associated with early adversity in a population with a historical context of pervasive trauma, and suggests that later-life memory may be vulnerable to early adversity.
Parricide is a rare type of homicide in which mental illness is often an important factor. The aims of this study were (a) to describe the characteristics of parricide offenders with a focus on ...mental illness and clinical care and (b) to examine Heide's widely used typology of parricide through a data‐driven approach. We analyzed all homicides in England and Wales between 1997 and 2014. Parricide offenders in our sample were most often male, unmarried, and unemployed, with a third of offenders diagnosed with schizophrenia; 28% had been in contact with mental health services before the offense. The latent class analysis resulted in three types of parricide offenders: middle‐aged with affective disorder, previously abused, and seriously mentally Ill, which confirmed, to an extent, Heide's typology. Health and social care services should actively engage with carers of people with mental illness and support to those caring for older relatives and victims of abuse.
This study examined the impact of unemployment on economic growth in Nigeria. And based on the literature reviewed, the identified gaps were found in the scope, appropriate control variables and ...estimation techniques for the robustness of the findings. Data was sourced from the publications of World Bank-World Development Indicator, International Labour Organisation and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN Statistical Bulletin) from 1980 – 2019 and various diagnostic tests such as Unit Roots and Bound Tests were carried out. Consequently, ARDL model was utilized to address the objective of this study. It was found out that unemployment had a positive and significant impact on economic growth both in the short run and in the long run. Furthermore, based on the findings, the paper recommended the introduction of programmes and policies that will promote enabling business environment to enable the teeming unemployed population to contribute to economic growth in Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Aims
To assess the importance of health selection in the association between unemployment and alcohol‐related mortality by comparing mortalities of those unemployed from workplaces ...experiencing different levels of downsizing. The more severe the downsizing, the less dependent unemployment would be on personal characteristics and the weaker the role of health selection.
Design
We estimated hazards models of unemployment on alcohol‐related diseases and poisonings and external causes with alcohol as a contributing cause over follow‐ups of 0–5, 6–10 and 11–20 years and at different levels of downsizing (stable, downsized or closed).
Setting
Finland, 1990 to 2009.
Participants
A register‐based random sample of employees aged 25–63 in privately owned workplaces (n = 275 738).
Measurements
The outcome was alcohol‐related death and the exposure was unemployment. We adjusted for age, sex, year, education, marital status, health status, workplace tenure, industry, region and unemployment rate.
Findings
Alcohol‐disease mortality was elevated among the unemployed throughout the follow‐up, regardless of the level of downsizing. At 11–20 years after baseline, those unemployed from stable workplaces had a 2.46 hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval CI = 2.14–2.82), those from downsized workplaces 1.94 (95% CI = 1.64–2.30) and those from closed workplaces 2.13 (95% CI = 1.75–2.59), when compared with the controls. Alcohol‐related external‐cause mortality at 0–5 years follow‐up was only associated with unemployment from stable workplaces (HR = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.22–1.58), but over time, an association emerged among those unemployed following downsizing and closure. At 11–20‐year follow‐up, the HR following downsizing was 1.83 (CI 95% = 1.37–2.45) and 1.54 (95% CI = 1.03–2.28) following closure.
Conclusions
There is some indication that alcohol‐related ill‐health may lead to unemployment in Finland. However, the persistent long‐term association between unemployment and alcohol‐related mortality even after workplace closure may imply a causal relation.
This study is the first to provide a causal estimate of the cross-spouse subjective well-being consequences of unemployment. Using German panel data on married and cohabiting partners for 1991–2015 ...and information on exogenous unemployment entry due to workplace closure, we show that one spouse’s unemployment experience reduces the life satisfaction of the other partner. The estimated spillover is at least one quarter of the effect of own unemployment and is equally pronounced among female and male partners. In addition, while wives’ life satisfaction does not recover even two years after their partners becoming unemployed, husbands only react to their wives’ joblessness during the first year of unemployment. Our results are insensitive to income controls and the couple’s position in the income distribution, thus reflecting the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment. Although the income loss hardly explains the negative spillover effects of unemployment on spousal life satisfaction, we document large declines in spousal satisfaction with household income and living standards. This finding supports the argument that the costs of unemployment borne by indirectly affected spouses extend beyond the loss of consumption opportunities and might be rather related to social values attached to market work. Being robust to a battery of sensitivity checks, our findings imply that public policy programs aimed at mitigating unemployment’s negative consequences need to target not only those directly affected but also cohabiting spouses.
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