In December 2005, the Belgian government adopted the law on the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact (ISP) aimed at increasing the employment rate of older workers. The main policies of the ISP consist of a pension bonus, reductions in employers' social security contributions and measures discouraging early retirement while encouraging working time reductions at the end of the career. We aim at evaluating the overall effectiveness of the ISP in raising the employment rate of older workers. To that purpose, we compare the actual evolution of the employment rate after the implementation of the policies to its predicted (counterfactual) evolution based on the estimation of a macro-econometric model in a period prior to the ISP. The results suggest a slight positive impact of the ISP on the employment rate of older workers but to the detriment of the younger workers. However, there is a lack of statistical power to draw firm conclusions on the overall effect of the ISP. JEL classification: J21, J26, H53, E32
Research on absenteeism has led to the development of models that emphasize individual-level variables of satisfaction and job involvement but fail to recognize the social framework of absenteeism. Most studies investigate chiefly blue-collar workers in fairly routinized jobs; few studies cross industrial and occupational lines to white-collar or professional work. Our social model examines absenteeism in terms of alternatives available to employees each day and the consequences of absenteeism for workers and for employers. Beyond psychological and aggregated demographic variables, we consider the role of occupational and organizational processes and point to needs for cross-industry and cross-occupational studies of absenteeism.
Do communities recognize and respond to deprofessionalized models of police service? This study tracks newspaper coverage of police and safety issues during an experimental foot patrol program. Content analysis of nonnews items confirms that police are evaluated more positively, depicted as more active but not made more visible overall after the first full year of program operation. The need for more community-level evidence of police impact is considered.H ow can police and communities best deal with community concerns about crime and safety? Strategies necessary for community support may conflict with police professional judgment. I suggest that, irrespective of crime-rate statistics or the sentiments of individual residents, the initiation of programs that are neighborhood-based, focused on safety and prevention, and shaped by community concerns rather than solely police professional dicta will lead to a more positive community perception of police. Such community-wide impact is of pragmatic importance to police, since targeting resources on particular areas of crime could lead to competition and conflict of interest in the community on such questions as whose neighborhood is served or whose problems are addressed.
The study examined the importance of different bases of legitimacy of authority upon conformity and performance of temporary employees engaged in a realistic technical task. Task supervisors varied in apparent technical and administrative expertise. The contingency of rewards upon performance was systematically varied to separate the impact of expected reward contingency from variations in bases of legitimacy. Subjects were hired as temporary workers in a laboratory experiment to test these propositions, and to build upon an earlier laboratory study by Evan and Zelditch.
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