What part does envy play in the apparently spiralling stock of personal debt in the UK, which last year passed the £1 trillion mark? New research by Stephen McKay, published in ESRC’s new report Seven Deadly Sins, indicates that people who are envious of what others have, and dissatisfied with their own incomes, do tend to have higher levels of credit and greater difficulties making repayments. But the size of this effect is small compared with the effects of age, income and changes i
The general elections of 2001 and 2005 had the second and third worst turnouts since 1900, falling from 71% in 1997 to under 60% in 2001 and only just above 61% this May. In ESRC’s new report Seven Deadly Sins, published to launch Social Science Week 2005, Professor Charlie Jeffery uses the British Election Study and other surveys of political participation to understand this growing voter apathy.
He argues that the real problem lies not in the voters’ sloth but in the failure
An extraordinary amount of media attention focuses on alcohol consumption and its impact on public order and health. But as Professor Dick Hobbs shows in ESRC’s new report Seven Deadly Sins, while ‘binge drinking’ youths dominate the headlines, it is older drinkers that are most likely to succumb to alcohol-related death.
What’s more, Professor Hobbs argues, it is the logic of the market and not the logic derived from careful data analysis that informs government policy on alc
The Molucca Islands are still suffering from the after-effects of the violence of 1999. That violence between Muslims and Christians started on Ambon in January 1999 and spread to the North Molucca Islands in December 1999. Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta analysed this Moluccan conflict within the broader framework of the changes that the Indonesian district Galela has recently undergone.
She focused on the role of rituals as powerful mechanisms for both creating solidarity and for increas
Absenteeism for sickness is exceptionally high in Sweden, in both historical and international comparisons. Several studies have already been carried out in the field, but many pieces of the puzzle are still missing. In a new dissertation from Växjö University, the economist Maria Nilsson examines some fundamental mechanisms behind this absenteeism.
“Our attendance at work is influenced both by the possibility of being there and the motivation to be there or, more simply put: every
Most people in the UK believe lone parents with children should be first in line for government subsidies for childcare and wages, according to research published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). However, the public also supports measures to encourage single mothers with school age children to take jobs by placing conditions on their benefits.
The chapter on public attitudes by Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent, is pa
At a time when the Government is aiming to increase the number of students in higher education (HE), a new book offers an analysis of the impact of higher tuition fees for students from low-income families and looks at how HE is organised in terms of progression for students from “alternative” entry routes.
Closing the Equity Gap: the impact of widening participation strategies in the UK and the USA – published by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and edited by
Poor education may be linked to bad health, but simply putting more of us through university will not ensure adults are fit and well, according to new research sponsored by the ESRC.
Though highly educated men and women are generally healthier, what happens in childhood and beyond is key to our well-being later in life, says the study led by Dr. Tarani Chandola, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL).
And his report found no evid
Consumers use prior knowledge to judge purchasing decisions
Imagine a shiny new BMW sitting in your driveway. Now, imagine a shiny new Hyundai. Now, come up with one reason why you should drive that BMW. How about ten reasons? What about the Hyundai? A little bit harder isn’t it? An article in the June 2005 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores how and why consumers use prior information to decide to buy a BMW or a Hyundai.
According to the research of
(Can social factors explain sex differences in insomnia? Findings from a National Survey in Taiwan J Epidemiol Community Health 2005; 59: 488-94)
Women have higher rates of insomnia than men, but the better educated a woman is, the more likely she is to sleep through the night, finds a large study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Conversely, the better educated a man is, the less likely he is to get a good night’s sleep, the research shows.
The
Successful treatment of heroin abusers
The Kurage Program in Karlstad, Sweden, is a successful program for treating heroin abusers. This is shown in an assessment carried out by the Institute for Quality and Developmental Work, IKU, at Karlstad University.
The Kurage Program is a method of treatment in which heroin abusers receive help in gradually creating a new existence without drugs. The program includes the use of the drug Subutex in combination with well-developed s
At the same time as many urban economies are developing into 24-hour societies, it is becoming increasingly popular amongst shift workers to compress their working hours. This is done by working longer shifts and/or restricting free time in-between shifts. The advantage is longer consecutive periods of days off. The disadvantage is lack of recovery during work periods.
John Axelsson has in his thesis at the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University and at the Institute of
Researchers delving into today’s complicated range of family set-ups must recognise that ‘brother and sister’ relationships are now about far more than blood ties and living in the same home, warns a new study sponsored by the ESRC.
As 21st Century children and young people create their own, complex understandings of who and what is a sibling, the important social implications need to be taken on board, says a working paper from a team led by Professor Rosalind Edwards of th
Maku is a family of languages spoken by Indians in the Amazon rainforest. Dutch-funded researcher Valteir Martins has reconstructed the sound structure of an ancestral Maku language and has demonstrated that the Maku languages are genetically related to the Arawak languages.
Martins compared the results of existing studies into the Maku languages and for many years he also worked with speakers of these various languages. The Brazilian researcher established that the modern M
A fresh report that assessed the treatment at three youth homes run by the National Board of Institutional Care, abbreviated SiS in Swedish, shows that two thirds of the boys do fairly well. On the other hand, the choice of methods used does not appear to be crucial. The key factor is the competence and commitment of the staff and the boys’ relationship with their contact persons.
SiS has 35 specialized youth homes. The adolescents who are placed there often have serious pr
While some psychologists still argue that people perform better when they do something because they want to – rather than for some kind of reward, such as money — Steven Reiss suggests we shouldn’t even make that distinction.
Reiss, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University , argues that a diverse range of human motivations can’t be forced into these categories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Psycholgists say intrinsic motivations are those that ar
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