School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemAwareness and practice of patient's rights law in Lithuania.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2006-09-02)BACKGROUND: Patient's rights law is intended to secure good medical practice, but it can also serve to improve understanding between patients and medical staff if both were aware of their rights. METHODS: Awareness and practice of the new patient's rights law in Lithuanian health care institutions was explored through a survey of 255 medical staff and 451 patients in the four Kaunas city medical units in 2002. Participation rates were 74% and 66%, respectively. RESULTS: Majority of the medical staff (85%) and little over one half of the patients (56%) had heard or read about the Law on Patient's Rights (p < 0.001). Only 50% of professionals compared to 69% of patients thought information for patients about diagnosis, treatment results and alternative treatments is necessary (p < 0.001). A clear discrepancy was indicated between physicians informing the patients (80%-98% of physicians) and patients actually knowing (37%-54%) their treatment prognosis, disease complications or possible alternative treatment methods. CONCLUSION: These results suggest a need for awareness-raising among patients to improve the practical implementation of the Patient's Rights Law in Lithuania.
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ItemThe Role of Community in Restorative Justice Conferencing(RMIT Publishing, 2009-02-01)In examining the role of the community in restorative justice conferencing, this article seeks to highlight the critical aspect of conferencing which differentiates it as a mode of restorative justice: the involvement of supportive others of both victims and offenders; the engagement of a restorative community. Reflection on the nature of this community, and its role in the conferencing process, reveals both its functional and symbolic significance. Drawing on the findings of a study of conferencing for young offenders in Melbourne, Australia, between 2000 and 2003, a detailed picture of the role of the restorative community is presented, largely from the perspective of those most closely involved: young offenders and their families.
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ItemMeasuring emotional and social wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations: an analysis of a Negative Life Events Scale.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2007-11-14)Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians experience widespread socioeconomic disadvantage and health inequality. In an attempt to make Indigenous health research more culturally-appropriate, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have called for more attention to the concept of emotional and social wellbeing (ESWB). Although it has been widely recognised that ESWB is of crucial importance to the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, there is little consensus on how to measure in Indigenous populations, hampering efforts to better understand and improve the psychosocial determinants of health. This paper explores the policy and political context to this situation, and suggests ways to move forward. The second part of the paper explores how scales can be evaluated in a health research setting, including assessments of endorsement, discrimination, internal and external reliability.We then evaluate the use of a measure of stressful life events, the Negative Life Events Scale (NLES), in two samples of Aboriginal people living in remote communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. We argue that the Negative Life Events Scale is a promising assessment of psychosocial wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Evaluation of the scale and its performance in other samples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations is imperative if we hope to develop better, rather than more, scales for measuring ESWB among Indigenous Australians. Only then will it be possible to establish standardized methods of measuring ESWB and develop a body of comparable literature that can guide both a better understanding of ESWB, and evaluation of interventions designed to improve the psychosocial health of Indigenous populations and decrease health inequalities.
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ItemDecentralization, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict Management in Indonesia(Informa UK Limited, 2009-03)The impact of decentralization on conflict dynamics is as important as its impact on service delivery and growth, as violent conflict can undo development gains. This paper argues that the impact of decentralization has been twofold. It has relieved centre-periphery tensions around longstanding grievances towards nationalist agendas in Indonesia. The evidence suggests, through examining the case of conflict affected Central Sulawesi, that decentralization has also to some extent addressed long-standing inter-group tensions and horizontal inequalities at the local level, particularly where geographically concentrated ethno-religious groups have previously been marginalised from government. It has also reduced grievances by increasing local autonomy and participation in decision making through direct elections of district heads, now a hotly contested arena of local politics. However, significant structural and institutional change can result in new tensions, particularly when poorly planned for or monitored. Decentralization has stimulated changes in population demographics in some areas in Indonesia resulting in ethno-religious segregation through splitting of sub-national administrative units into increasing numbers of regions. Groups with previous minority status have found safe-haven as majorities, setting the scene for how future rights of access and representation play out. Tensions run high when high-stakes local elections are contested along sensitive identity lines, or when district governments are not inclusive of minorities in their regions. This is not to say that the demographic, structural, and institutional changes with decentralization will necessarily lead to violent conflict, but rather due attention should be given to ensuring appropriate conflict management mechanisms are in place.
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ItemOlder workers and employment: managing age relations(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2005-05-01)This article reports the findings of research into the functioning of companies' and organisations' internal labour markets. Four case studies of Australian and United Kingdom public and private sector organisations have been undertaken with two principal aims: to elucidate the challenges and barriers to the employment of older workers, and to demonstrate the benefits to business and to older workers of age-aware human resource management policies. In each of the case-study organisations, age-related assumptions affected the management of knowledge and skills and the ways in which older and younger workers were employed. Managing age relations in organisations requires an understanding of the ways in which workers of different ages are perceived and how these associate with sub-optimal deployment. The article concludes by suggesting that policies directed at older workers alone will ignore the age and age-group dynamics that pervade workplaces. To promote the better deployment of younger and older individuals in rapidly transforming organisations, there is a need for policy makers, employers and employees to be attentive to the age-group relationships that currently inform workplace practices. Organisations cannot ignore these age dynamics, but should adopt ‘age aware’ rather than ‘age free’ practices. The recommended human-resources approach would attend to individuals' capabilities and not stereotype them by age.
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ItemAge and Work: International Perspectives(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2004-04)The need to extend working life is being increasingly emphasised in policy debates in the developed economies. Recent years have seen the emergence of new policies on work on retirement aimed at closing off ‘early exit’ pathways and promoting the employment of older workers. This article summarises recent developments in selected countries, concluding that the effectiveness of policy making to date is difficult to gauge, that as yet, it lacks the necessary sophistication and that, as a consequence, it may not provide appropriate pathways for older workers or employers.
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ItemIntroduction: Themed section on Age, Employment and Policy(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2004-04)Older workers have moved up the policy agenda within the industrialised nations. In the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, policy-making in much of the European Union emphasised the virtues of early retirement, partly as a response to high levels of unemployment. Since the late 1990s, there has been an increasing emphasis on overcoming age barriers in the labour market and on extending working life. This has been driven by concerns over ageing and shrinking labour forces, the sustainability of public pension systems, evidence of age discrimination in the labour market and the potential influence of the ‘grey’ voter. By contrast in the USA, the pronounced trend towards ‘early exit’ which has characterised Europe never existed. This is even more the case in Japan.
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ItemAgeing and Learning in the European Union(Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2005)
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ItemOlder workers and the labour market: Lessons from abroad(American Society on Aging, 2007)This article is based largely on research completed recently for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, which considered recent trends in public policy toward older workers in eleven Member States of the European Union and developments in workplace policy in approximately 120 organizations, primarily larger and operating in the private sector. The article summarizes and evaluates the European public policy response to economic challenges resulting from population aging, before going on to discuss the response of businesses, particularly as they wrestle with increasing competition. The article concludes by asking questions about the future place of older workers in the labor markets of the industrialized nations, and how they will experience efforts to make them work for longer.
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ItemEmployees, employers and the institutions of work: The global competition for terrain in the ageing workforce agenda(Emerald, 2008-03-03)Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess risks and prospects for older workers and to provide a number of recommendations designed to marshal the interests of employees, business and government. Design/methodology/approach The paper examines the terrain of competing interests and dynamic complexities of workforce ageing, by elaborating on the topic of economic globalisation, the policy approaches adopted by government, the actions taken by industry and the working and life preferences of older workers. Findings In the absence of a deep understanding of the current relationship between demographic ageing, the labour market and economic globalisation, the policy aspirations of government face the prospect of limited success. The currently popular premise, that ageing populations go hand‐in‐hand with ageing workforces, appears to be contradicted by much of the available evidence, which points to rather more complex scenarios, in which outcomes are uncertain, but clearly where late career workers may not necessarily fare well. Originality/value The paper brings analysis to the area of ageing populations and the labour market in the context of globalization – a complex and important topic that is usually dealt with far too simply.