This empirical study commemorates Durkheim's contribution to suicidology by reviewing his own and his followers' formulation of the relationship between the business cycle and suicide. Three distinctive sociological theories of suicide, including Durkheim's, were identified to link the suicide rate to the socio-economic environment of the society. A real-income hypothesis of suicide was developed to capture (a) the positive impact of the economy on suicide, (b) the curvilinear impact of the economy on suicide implied by Durkheim's proposition, and (3) the interplay of both economic and sociological variables on suicide. Another implication from the reformulation is that there may exist a positive natural rate of suicide for any society. These two hypotheses were tested using the 1990 census data for the continental states of the United States. Some conclusions and suggestions were drawn for future research.

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Abstract. The rapid growth since 1970, and especially in the 1980s, of part‐time and temporary employment was attributed to the transition of the economy from manufacturing to service production and to labor demand side factors. Since part‐timers are predominantly women and the majority of the female labor force are married women, the association between the female labor force participation rate and the part‐time employment of married women across the 48 continental states of America in 1980 are explored. The empirical study supports the positive association between the two variables, but fails to support the role of the service sector in explaining part‐time employment of married women across the states of America.

Vanagunas (1984) found a significant association between the unemployment rate of minority males and both motor vehicle theft and the commercial robbery rate. However, he presented no theoretical framework with which to explain these results. This paper attempts to provide a microeconomic foundation for the link between property crime and unemployment. The model is based on a cost-benefit analysis. It is unique in that the behaviour is viewed from the perspective of criminals rather than non-criminals. The empirical findings supported the hypothesis with some qualifications. Only the association between the unemployment rate and the larceny rate was positive and significant for the property crimes of the USA for the period of 1960-90.

An attempt is made in this article to redefine underemployment and unemployment without making reference to an excess supply of labor or any causal mechanism of unemployment. Instead, underemployment and unemployment are defined in terms of equity which draws upon the individual's preferences. A specific proposal is that underemployment be defined by the presence of contribution inequity relative to at least half the persons employed in a field that the underemployed person might prefer to move into. Empirically, most recent survey data on preferences for contingent and other nontraditional employment are used to illustrate the application of the concept. The major finding is that nearly 10 million Americans in the nontraditional workforce are underemployed.Underemployment, Unemployment, Contingent Employment, Consumption Inequity, Contribution Inequity, Superfairness,