This article presents results of a Dutch randomised experiment, challenging the ‘workfare’ paradigm, which is dominant in many countries. We study whether social assistance (SA) schemes with fewer conditions and more autonomy for recipients stimulate valuable but often overlooked unpaid socio-economic activities (USEA), which are not classified as work. In the qualitative part of the mixed method study, we generated new hypotheses stating that particularly recipients who are older, higher educated, have a migration background, have relatively poor health, or have young children, will spend more time on USEA in less conditional and more autonomous regimes. The quantitative part of the study, where two experimental conditions are compared with the usual treatment of SA recipients, does not show convincing average treatment effects, but does reveal that a less conditional and more autonomy-oriented SA scheme translates into more USEA for older people, people with a migration background and people with relatively poor mental health.

This article brings together labour relations, sociological and political perspectives on precarious employment in Australia, identifying local contexts of insecurity and setting them within the economics of regional supply chains involving the use of migrant labour. In developing the concept of precarious work-societies, it argues that precarity is a source of individual and social vulnerability and distress, affecting family, housing and communal security. The concept of depoliticisation is used to describe the processes of displacement, whereby the social consequences of precarious work come to be seen as beyond the reach of agency. Using evidence from social attitudes surveys, we explore links between the resulting sense of political marginalisation and hostility to immigrants. Re-politicisation strategies will need to lay bare the common basis of shared experiences of insecurity and explore ways of integrating precarious workers into new community and global alliances.

Following reunification in Germany in 1990 the new states in the Federal Republic faced the task of restructuring and rebuilding the structures of complementary care for the chronically mentally ill. First and foremost, residential facilities had to be established that would correspond to and meet the currently high need for de-hospitalization by making different types of care and care concepts available. Five groups of patients with chronic schizophrenic psychoses (N = 245 patients) who live in different types of psychiatric care facilities (psychiatric nursing home, social therapeutic hostel, sheltered community residence) or at home, either with or without a family network, were studied. In addition to the sociodemographic data, the psychopathology and the extent of social disabilities were also surveyed, as well as data on the living situation and the subjective quality of life with an emphasis on ‘social relationships’, ‘recreation/leisure activities’, and ‘general independence’.

The five groups differed with regard to various sociodemographic and disorder-related variables, particularly with regard to the extent of social disabilities. Especially relevant, however, are the differences among the patient groups in the extent of daily social life and recreational/leisure activities that are partially reflected in their statements on the subjective quality of life. Primarily for the two groups of home residents, but also in part for the patients living in sheltered community care, social contacts are more or less limited to the residential situation and patients are more or less otherwise socially isolated. This is due among other things to the fact that patients who have been hospitalized for long periods do not as a rule return to their prior area of residence; thus, the available compensatory mediation of relationships with the social environment does not suffice. Demands for the further development of complementary systems of psychiatric care derive from these findings.

The paper describes the construction and validation of a brief self-rating scale for social integration in the elderly: the 17-item Social Integration and Independence Questionnaire (SIIQ). The questionnaire was tested on a sample of 160 individuals over the age of 65. Principle component analysis elicited four factors accounting for 48.8% of the cumulative variance: ‘Independence’, ‘Social Integration’, ‘Familial’ and ‘Depression’ (20.7, 10.6, 9.0 and 8.4% of the cumulative variance). The four factors measure the adjustment of elderly people in the community.

Nous avons documenté et comparé les caractéristiques environnementales potentiellement associées à la participation sociale de Québécois âgés, selon le niveau de ruralité. Une enquête a été réalisée auprès de Québécois âgés de 65 ans et plus recrutés par différents regroupements d’aînés et les réseaux sociaux. Les répondants ont rempli le Questionnaire du potentiel de participation sociale, développé à partir d’une recension systématique des écrits. Selon les 515 aînés, âgés en moyenne de 71,5 ans, les caractéristiques environnementales liées à la participation sociale, ainsi que la convivialité des villes et des quartiers, sont perçues plus favorablement dans les milieux métropolitains et urbains que dans les milieux ruraux. Toutefois, l’accès à l’autobus ainsi que l’accueil et l’ouverture des gens du quartier sont davantage appréciés par les aînés ruraux. Ces résultats témoignent de la présence d’inégalités de participation sociale selon le niveau de ruralité et permettent d’envisager de nouvelles pistes d’action.

En las sociedades andinas actuales las relaciones de parentesco determinan el tipo de matrimonio y el patrón de residencia posmarital que garantizan el manejo de los recursos, la supervivencia y la estabilidad reproductiva de la población. Sin embargo, es escasa la información disponible en el Área Andina Centro-Sur (AACS) para explicar los sistemas de parentesco durante el poblamiento original del territorio y su impacto en la estructura de las poblaciones locales posteriores a la conquista y colonización europea. En el presente trabajo se investiga el patrón residencial en dos sectores del AACS a partir de datos bioarqueológicos disponibles para el Noroeste Argentino y Norte de Chile. La información necesaria pudo ser recuperada a partir de la arqueología y de la antropología física regional. La muestra proviene de 8 localidades y 44 sitios con fechados que cubren el intervalo cronológico desde 3000 aC hasta 1450 dC, desde grupos arcaicos tempranos hasta comunidades agroalfareras tardías. Se emplearon 1.897 observaciones y 27 variables craneométricas. El análisis se realizó con técnicas estadísticas multivariadas: el cálculo de la varianza generalizada (determinante de la matriz de varianzas y covarianzas) para cada sexo y la estimación de los estadísticos de distancia (D2) y divergencia fenotípica (Fst) entre grupos y sexos. Los resultados revelan el efecto de distintos flujos migratorios que determinaron la estructura de las poblaciones. En todos los casos la varianza generalizada masculina es mayor que la femenina indicando una mayor variabilidad entre sitios y una mayor actividad migratoria. Los valores de D2 y Fst femeninos son mayores entre regiones y localidades con una menor tasa migratoria. Estos resultados indican, en general, la prevalencia de una estrategia de supervivencia basada en un sistema de parentesco que favoreció un modelo de residencia matrilocal.

Objective: Individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) can experience social isolation, which is damaging to well-being and counterproductive to successful rehabilitation. It has been proposed that social cognitive deficits that commonly result from TBI may contribute to weakened social integration. However, the consequences of specific social cognitive deficits in TBI are still being delineated. The current work sought to better characterize the relationship between community integration and facial affect recognition (FAR) in TBI. Participants and Methods: A total of 27 participants with moderate to severe TBI and 30 healthy controls (HCs) completed two tests of FAR, which employed either static photographic stimuli or dynamic video stimuli (The Awareness of Social Inference Test). The Community Integration Questionnaire was also administered to participants. Results: Participants with TBI were significantly impaired on both the static and dynamic FAR measures, yet the deficits were most pronounced within the dynamic task. Furthermore, participants with TBI reported lower community integration compared with HCs. FAR was positively associated with community integration in both groups, such that participants with proficient affect recognition skills were better integrated into their communities. Conclusions: FAR deficits may contribute to the lack of community integration often observed in TBI; thus, interventions designed to improve FAR may be beneficial to this population’s ability to successfully reintegrate into society.

An inclusive neighbourhood is a key facilitator enabling older adults to age in place. Neighbourhoods have been identified as a dimension of social exclusion important to older adults, and it has been argued that older adults are particularly vulnerable to neighbourhood change. The aim of this study was to explore older adults’ experiences of neighbourhood exclusion within the context of neighbourhood change. Focus groups were undertaken in the urban and rural areas of a metropolitan borough in England involving a total of 41 older adults, with data analysed via thematic analysis. Urban areas in the borough studied have transformed following the closure of the mining industry, with a high level of deprivation in many areas, while some rural areas have undergone gentrification. Within the context of structural neighbourhood change, four themes were identified: community cohesion, political agency, feelings of safety and the physical environment. The themes were interlinked, which calls for collaboration across traditional lines of professional responsibility, and for research that encompasses different aspects of neighbourhood exclusion. This study contributes with knowledge on older adults’ experiences of exclusion, including novel findings on the importance of political agency and collective memory, and identifies actions to combat exclusion. An active involvement of older adults in the development of initiatives to tackle social exclusion is recommended.