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SOCIAL SERVICES & CONDITIONS
THE FUTURE OF LONG-TERM CARE: WHAT IS ITS PLACE IN THE HEALTH REFORM DEBATE? Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Howard Gleckman. June 15, 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 16 pages]
More than 10 million Americans require long-term care supports and services. Yet the system for delivering and paying for this assistance is deeply flawed. While most of the frail elderly and those with disabilities prefer assistance at home, many must live in nursing homes to receive Medicaid benefits, care coordination for those with multiple chronic illnesses is poor, and the system for financing care impoverishes many middle-income families. The national health reform debate allows policymakers to reconsider long-term care as well. The paper assesses proposals to restructure the delivery and financing of long-term care services. [Note: contains copyright material].
PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY THROUGH STIMULUS PACKAGES AND PUBLIC JOB CREATION. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Rania Antonopoulos. June 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 12 pages]
Beyond loss of income, joblessness is associated with greater poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion; the current global crisis is clearly not helping. The author explores the impact of both joblessness and employment expansion on poverty, paying particular attention to the gender aspects of poverty and poverty-reducing public employment schemes targeting poor women. The author presents the results of a Levy Institute study that examines the macroeconomic consequences of scaling up South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme by adding to it a new sector for social service delivery in health and education. [Note: contains copyright material].
REBUILDING GAZA: PUTTING PEOPLE BEFORE POLITICS. Oxfam International. June 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 12 pages]
In June 2009 the blockade on the Gaza Strip enters its third year. The intense closure policy, coupled with the government of Israel’s recent military operation ‘Cast Lead’, has had a devastating impact on the lives and livelihoods of one and a half million Gazans, pushing them further into poverty and aid dependency. Parties to the conflict and the international community have, to varying degrees, prioritized their own political objectives over people’s rights and needs, leaving Gazans sitting on the ruins of their homes, according to the report.[Note: contains copyright material].
HEALTH DISPARITIES: A CASE FOR CLOSING THE GAP. Healthreform.GOV. June 9, 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 5 pages]
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a report on health disparities in America and participated in a White House Health Care Stakeholder Discussion on the importance of reform that reduces disparities that exist in our current health care system. The report also notes that 40 percent of low-income Americans do not have health insurance. About one-third of the uninsured have a chronic disease, and they are six times less likely to receive care for a health problem than the insured. In contrast, only 6 percent of high-income Americans lack insurance.
[Note: contains copyright material].
AA09198
Gregory, Sean ARE SHOPPERS FED UP WITH THE RECESSION? (Time, June 1, 2009)
Currently available online
“Recession fatigue” may have set in, and consumers are out shopping again, according to this report; recent surveys done by WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting firm, show that fewer consumers are reporting that they are cutting purchases. WSL’s CEO Wendy Liebmann reports that people seem to have cut back as much as they can. They’re “tired of watching every little penny and are ready to break out a little,” she said. But Liebmann stresses that her data doesn’t predict a recovery. Unemployment is still high, and job anxiety remains a powerful brake on consumer spending.
AA09189
Mahbubani, Kishore CAN AMERICA FAIL? (Wilson Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2, Spring 2009, 48-54)
Currently available online
The author, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, believes that the massive crises that the U.S. is now experiencing are partly the product of three systemic failures. First, American society is afflicted with “groupthink,” having accepted the proclamations of economic gurus such as Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin that unregulated financial markets would naturally deliver economic growth and serve the public good. Second is the erosion of the notion of individual responsibility, as Americans cannot see how their individual actions have undermined, rather than strengthened, their society. Third is the inability of American society to see how the abuse of power has created many of the problems the U.S. now confronts abroad. The author sees the American people losing confidence in their ability to compete with Chinese and Indian workers. At the moment of their country's greatest economic vulnerability in many decades, few Americans dare to speak the truth and say that the U.S. cannot retreat from globalization; both the American people and the world would be worse off. However, as globalization and global capitalism create new forces of "creative destruction," America will have to restructure its economy and society in order to compete.
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER SERVICE: A SMART WAY TO BUILD BRIDGES. Brookings Institute. David Caprara et al. June 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 10 pages]
President Obama has proposed expanding the Peace Corps and building a global network of volunteers, “so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.” The authors examine alternative service models, both domestic and foreign, and offer recommendations to the Obama Administration for harnessing the energy and skills of Americans eager to engage in volunteer work in foreign countries as part of a multilateral mobilization effort and smart power diplomacy. [Note: contains copyright material].
DEMOGRAPHICS & POPULATION ISSUES
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Eberstadt, Nicholas DRUNKEN NATION: RUSSIA’S DEPOPULATION BOMB (World Affairs, Vol. 171, no. 4, Spring 2009, pp. 51-62)
Currently available online
The relentless depopulation of Russia amounts to an ethnic self-cleansing, says the author, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The process threatens to reshape life and society, diminish the prospects for economic development, and affect country’s potential influence on the international stage. This trend, which began in 1992, constitutes the longest period of population decline in modern Russian history. With the collapse of Soviet rule, Russia has seen a drastic change in childbearing patterns and living arrangements described by Eberstadt as “withering away” of the family itself that has produced low levels of fertility. In addition, high premature mortality rates are of a scale akin to results of a devastating war, he says. The high death rates are a result of serious epidemics of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as with an upsurge of cardiovascular disease and fatal injuries from alcohol abuse. As Russian authorities have mainly ignored the nation’s human resources crisis in their strategic plans, the country’s economic and democratic future is in jeopardy.
PAKISTAN’S IDP CRISIS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES. International Crisis Group. June 3, 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 16 pages]
In the wake of a conceptually flawed peace agreement, the Taliban takeover of large parts of Malakand division, subsequent military action in the area, almost three million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled to camps, homes, schools and other places of shelter across Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). The challenge for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led government and international actors is to make relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts responsive to needs and empower local communities in Malakand Division. Failure to do so will reverse any gains on the battlefield and boost radical Islamist groups, according to the report. [Note: contains copyright material].
AGE GROUPS
THE MEANING OF HAPPINESS. Stanford Graduate School of Business. Sep Kamvar et al. May 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 16 pages]
An examination of emotions reported on 12 million personal blogs along with the results of three experiments reveal that the meaning of happiness is not fixed; instead, it shifts as people age. Whereas younger people are more likely to associate happiness with excitement, older people are more likely to associate happiness with feeling peaceful. This change is driven by increased feelings of connectedness, to others and to the present moment, as one ages, according to the study. [Note: contains copyright material].
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Wolfshenk, Joshua WHAT MAKES US HAPPY (Atlantic Monthly, June 2009)
Currently available online
For more than 70 years, Harvard University researchers have been collecting data on a group of its male students to gain some insights into the keys to “successful living.” The collected data of what is known as the Grant Study, passed from one generation of researchers to another, amounts to a rare kind of longitudinal study. Wolfshenk is the first journalist to comb through the accumulated files and draw some conclusions about whether the data does what it set out to do. The primary researcher on the study for more than forty years says the lives of the 268 subjects, half of whom are now deceased, “were too human for science, too beautiful for numbers, too sad for diagnosis and too immortal for bound journals.” On a more tangible level, researcher George Vaillant did identify a number of factors that seemed to mark a healthy transition from middle age to a healthy old age: education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of those who had most of these factors in their favor at age 50, half arrived at the age of 80 as happy and well.
GENERATION Y. Deloitte. June 2, 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 10 pages]
The results of the survey reveal both similarities and differences between Gen Yers in government and their peers in private industry. Respondents to the survey who currently work in government agencies report being motivated by non-monitory factors, most notably the opportunity for growth and development, location and job responsibilities. Yet, they also aren’t likely to stay with their employers for long and reported being less satisfied with their careers than their private sector peers. State governments have a unique opportunity to tap Gen Y talent to help make significant strides in their transformation and modernization initiatives. [Note: contains copyright material].
ETHNIC GROUPS & RACE RELATIONS
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Dempsey, Jason; Shapiro, Robert THE ARMY’S HISPANIC FUTURE (Armed Forces & Society, vol. 35, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 526-561)
Available on request
Using data from the CITIZENSHIP & SERVICE: 2004 SURVEY OF ARMY PERSONNEL, a probability sample of active duty soldiers and officers, this study examines key questions concerning success in the military for racial and ethnic minorities. It focuses on the degree to which Hispanics are integrated into the Army and compares the experiences of Hispanics to the experiences of whites and blacks. After assessing why Hispanics join the Army and choose their occupational specialties, the study looks at how Hispanics perceive Army life, their personal experiences with discrimination, and the progress of the Army in the area of racial and ethnic integration. By comparing the attitudes of Hispanics to those of whites and blacks, it explores the degree to which race and ethnicity influence life in the Army and the implication of this for the military's future.
50+ HISPANIC WORKERS: A GROWING SEGMENT OF THE U.S. WORKFORCE. AARP and Urban Institute. June 2009.
Full Text: [PDF format, 79 pages]
Hispanics represent one of the fastest growing segments of the older population, and thus could be an important target for employer efforts to attract and retain older workers. The report examines older Hispanic workers and the contributions they make to employers and the economy. It describes the older Hispanic population and documents the work experiences of older Hispanics, the number and share that are employed, where they work, and how much they earn, and their attitudes toward work. [Note: contains copyright material].
REPUBLICANS BASE HEAVILY WHITE, CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS. Gallup. Frank Newport. June 1, 2009.
Full Text: [HTML format, various paging]
More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, or are blacks or members of other races. By contrast, only 12% of Democrats are white conservatives, while about half are white moderates or liberals and a third are nonwhite. [Note: contains copyright material].
URBAN PLANNING & HOUSING
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Bender, Kristin LITTLE BOXES: THE NEW MOVEMENT TO SERIOUSLY DOWNSIZE OUR HOMES (E Magazine, Vol. 20, no. 3, May-June 2009, pp. 35-39)
Currently available online
Bender describes how the environmental movement, rising energy prices, and the financial crisis of 2008 have affected Americans’ attitudes about housing. Now, about forty percent of new construction is “green” because it is less expensive for homeowners over the long term and creates less construction waste. As Baby Boomers are reaching retirement years and their children are no longer living with them, the family home is too large and too expensive to maintain. The article lists a number of construction projects and companies that are focused on building small, environmentally-friendly apartments, mobile homes, and detached houses.