The Influence of Changing Hours of Work on Women’s Life-Satisfaction

This paper asks whether moving to part-time work makes women happy. Previous research on labour supply has assumed that as workers freely choose their optimal working hours on the basis of their innate preferences and the hourly wage rate, outcome reflects preference. This paper tests this assumption by measuring the impact of changes in working-hours on life satisfaction in two countries (the UK and Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey). We find decreases in working-hours bring about positive and significant improvement on well-being for women

Sacrificing their Careers for their Families? An Analysis of the Family Pay Penalty in Europe

This paper examines the extent of and the mechanisms behind the penalty to motherhood in six European countries. Each country provides different levels of support for maternal employment allowing us to determine institutional effects on labour market outcome. While mothers tend to earn less than non-mothers, the penalty to motherhood is considerably lower in countries with policy support for working mothers. The paper establishes the United Kingdom and West Germany to have the least policy support for working mothers as well as the largest penalties to motherhood

Three-dimensionally Ordered Macroporous Structure Enabled Nanothermite Membrane of Mn2O3/Al

Mn2O3 has been selected to realize nanothermite membrane for the first time in the literature. Mn2O3/Al nanothermite has been synthesized by magnetron sputtering a layer of Al film onto three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) Mn2O3 skeleton. The energy release is significantly enhanced owing to the unusual 3DOM structure, which ensures Al and Mn2O3 to integrate compactly in nanoscale and greatly increase effective contact area. The morphology and DSC curve of the nanothermite membrane have been investigated at various aluminizing times. At the optimized aluminizing time of 30 min, energy release reaches a maximum of 2.09 kJ∙g−1, where the Al layer thickness plays a decisive role in the total energy release. This method possesses advantages of high compatibility with MEMS and can be applied to other nanothermite systems easily, which will make great contribution to little-known nanothermite research

Cirrhosis and liver transplantation in patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis B or C: an observational cohort study

This study assessed the likelihood of referral for liver transplantation assessment in a prospective cohort of patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis B or C with complications of cirrhosis. There were 141 co-infected patients from 11 UK centres with at least one complication of cirrhosis recorded (either decompensation or hepatocellular carcinoma) out of 772 identified with cirrhosis and/or HCC. Only 23 of these 141 (16.3%) were referred for liver transplantation assessment, even though referral is recommended for co-infected patients after the first decompensation episode

Reductions in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory mortality following the national Irish smoking ban: Interrupted time-series analysis

Copyright @ 2013 Stallings-Smith et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Previous studies have shown decreases in cardiovascular mortality following the implementation of comprehensive smoking bans. It is not known whether cerebrovascular or respiratory mortality decreases post-ban. On March 29, 2004, the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to implement a national workplace smoking ban. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of this policy on all-cause and cause-specific, non-trauma mortality. Methods: A time-series epidemiologic assessment was conducted, utilizing Poisson regression to examine weekly age and gender-standardized rates for 215,878 non-trauma deaths in the Irish population, ages ≥35 years. The study period was from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, with a post-ban follow-up of 3.75 years. All models were adjusted for time trend, season, influenza, and smoking prevalence. Results: Following ban implementation, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76-0.99), a 26% reduction in ischemic heart disease (IHD) (RR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.63-0.88), a 32% reduction in stroke (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.54-0.85), and a 38% reduction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.46-0.83) mortality was observed. Post-ban reductions in IHD, stroke, and COPD mortalities were seen in ages ≥65 years, but not in ages 35-64 years. COPD mortality reductions were found only in females (RR: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.32-0.70). Post-ban annual trend reductions were not detected for any smoking-related causes of death. Unadjusted estimates indicate that 3,726 (95% CI: 2,305-4,629) smoking-related deaths were likely prevented post-ban. Mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking. Conclusions: The national Irish smoking ban was associated with immediate reductions in early mortality. Importantly, post-ban risk differences did not change with a longer follow-up period. This study corroborates previous evidence for cardiovascular causes, and is the first to demonstrate reductions in cerebrovascular and respiratory causes

‘The Partner Pay Gap – Associations between Spouses’ Relative Earnings and Life Satisfaction among Couples in the UK

Despite women’s recent gains in education and employment, husbands still tend to out-earn their wives. This article examines the relationship between the partner pay gap, i.e. the difference in earned income between married, co-resident partners, and life satisfaction. Contrary to previous studies, we investigate the effects of recent changes in relative earningswithin couples as well as labour market transitions. Using several waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study, we reveal that men exhibit an increase in life satisfaction in response to a recent increase in their proportional earnings relative to their wives’ earnings. For women, changes in proportional earnings had no effect on life satisfaction. We also find secondary-earning husbands report lower average life satisfaction than majority-earning and equal-earning men, while such differences were not found for women. The analysis offers compelling evidence of the ongoing role of gendered norms in the sustenance of the partner pay gap

HAPEX-Sahel : a large-scale study of land-atmosphere interactions in the semi-arid tropics

The Hydrologic Atmospheric Pilot EXperiment in the Sahel (HAPEX-Sahel) was carried out in Niger, West Africa, during 1991 - 1992, with an intensive observation period (IOP) in August - October 1992. It aims at improving the parameterization of land surface atmosphere interactions at the Global Circulation Model (GCM) gridbox scale. The experiment combines remote sensing and ground based measurements with hydrological and meteorological modelling to develop aggregation techniques for use in large scale estimates of the hydrological and meteorological behaviour of large areas in the Sahel. The experimental strategy consisted of a period of intensive measurements during the transition period of the rainy to the dry season, backed up by a series of long term measurements in a 1° by 1° square in Niger. Three "supersites" were instrumented with a variety of hydrological and (micro) meteorological equipment to provide detailed information on the surface energy exchange at the local scale. Boundary layer measurements and aircraft measurements were used to provide information at scales of 100 - 500 km2. All relevant remote sensing images were obtained for this period. This programme of measurements is now being analyzed and an extensive modelling programme is under way to aggregate the information at all scales up to the GCM grid box scale. The experimental strategy and some preliminary results of the IOP are described