Unpaid work and access to science professions.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Fournier AMV
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6583997 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:BackgroundThe open science movement is transforming scientific practice with the goal of enhancing the transparency, productivity, and reproducibility of research. Nevertheless, transparency is a complex concept, and efforts to promote some forms of transparency may do relatively little to advance other important forms of transparency.ObjectivesDrawing from the literature in history, philosophy, and sociology of science, we aim to distinguish between different forms of scientific transparency. Our goal is to identify strategies for achieving forms of transparency that are relevant not only to scientists but also to decision makers and members of the public.DiscussionWe draw a distinction between "scientifically relevant transparency" and "socially relevant transparency." Most of the prominent strategies associated with the open science movement (e.g., making data publicly available and registering studies) are designed primarily to promote scientifically relevant transparency. To achieve socially relevant transparency, which is particularly important in fields like environmental health, further steps are needed to provide scientific information in ways that are relevant to decision makers and members of the public.ConclusionsPromoting socially relevant transparency will require a range of activities by many different individuals and institutions. We propose an array of strategies that can be pursued by scientists and other scholars, journals, universities, funders, government agencies, and members of the public. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP4808.
| S-EPMC6792383 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Amid growing concern regarding the potential added burden of care due to population aging, we have very little understanding of what is the burden of care in aging populations. To answer this question, we introduce a novel metric that encompasses demographic complexity and social context to summarize unpaid family care work provided to children, elderly, and other family members across the life cycle at a population level. The measure (Care Life Expectancy), an application of the Sullivan method, estimates the number of years and proportion of adult life that people spend in an unpaid caregiving role. We demonstrate the value of the metric by using it to describe gender differences in unpaid care work in 23 European aging countries. We find that at age 15, women and men are expected to be in an unpaid caregiving role for over half of their remaining life. For women in most of the countries, over half of those years will involve high-level caregiving for a family member. We also find that men lag in caregiving across most countries, even when using the lowest threshold of caregiving. As we show here, demographic techniques can be used to enhance our understanding of the gendered implications of population aging, particularly as they relate to policy research and public debate.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-021-09640-z.
| S-EPMC7882465 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Implementation science approaches the challenges of translating evidence into practice as a matter of scientific inquiry. This conceptual paper uses an implementation science lens to examine the ways in which evidence from health professions education research is brought to bear on decision-making. The authors describe different decision-making contexts and the kinds of evidence they consider, and from this, they outline ways in which research findings might be better presented to support their translation into policy and practice. Reflecting on the nature of decision-making in health professions education and how decisions are made and then implemented in different health professions education contexts, the authors argue that researchers should align their work with the decision-making contexts that are most likely to make use of them. These recommendations reflect implementation science principles of packaging and disseminating evidence in ways that are meaningful for key stakeholders, that stem from co-creation of knowledge, that require or result in meaningful partnerships, and that are context specific and relevant.
| S-EPMC8633355 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A key role of allied health (AH) professional regulatory and professional bodies is to ensure that AH education programs provide work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities for students. The requirements are outlined via the respective profession's educational accreditation standards. Although a significant component of the AH professional degrees, researchers have not explored how standards specific to WIL are developed, nor how WIL might be conceptualised through the standards. This study explored how WIL is conceptualised through comparing the WIL education standards across Australian AH professions. Using a non-experimental explanatory mixed-methods research design, a document analysis of Australian education program accreditation standards (and associated documents) for 15 AH professions was undertaken. Data analysis included inductive textual and thematic analyses to compare AH professionals' conceptualisation of WIL. This study found a high degree of variation in how AH professions describe WIL. While there was a common requirement for students to demonstrate competency in WIL, requirements for WIL quantity, assessment and supervision varied. Four key themes were identified regarding the contribution of WIL to curriculum and student learning: (1) the relationship between WIL and the program curriculum; (2) WIL as a learning process; (3) learning from diverse WIL contexts; and (4) developing competence through WIL. Overall, the diversity in the standards reflected differing understandings of what WIL is. Thus, in the absence of frameworks for designing accreditation standards, the risk is that some AH professions will continue to perpetuate the myth that the primary purpose of WIL is to provide a bridge between theory and practice.
| S-EPMC10418477 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveTo describe how men and women divided childcare and housework demands during the height of the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK, and whether these divisions were associated with worsening mental health during the pandemic.BackgroundSchool closures and homeworking during the Covid-19 crisis have resulted in an immediate increase in unpaid care work, which draws new attention to gender inequality in divisions of unpaid care work.MethodsData come from the wave 9 (2017-19) of Understanding Society and the following April (n = 15,426) and May (n = 14,150) waves of Understanding Society Covid-19 study. Psychological distress was measured using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) at both before and during the lockdown, and unpaid care work was measured during the lockdown. Linear regression models were used.ResultsWomen spent much more time on unpaid care work than men during lockdown, and it was more likely to be the mother than the father who reduced working hours or changed employment schedules due to increased time on childcare. Women who spent long hours on housework and childcare were more likely to report increased levels of psychological distress. Working parents who adapted their work patterns increased more psychological distress than those who did not. This association was much stronger if he or she was the only member in the household who adapted their work patterns, or if she was a lone mother. Fathers increased more psychological distress if they reduced work hours but she did not, compared to neither reducing work hours.ConclusionThere are continued gender inequalities in divisions of unpaid care work. Juggling home working with homeschooling and childcare as well as extra housework is likely to lead to poor mental health for people with families, particularly for lone mothers.
| S-EPMC7932161 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Conservation science is a crisis discipline in which the results of scientific enquiry must be made available quickly to those implementing management. We assessed the extent to which scientific research published since the year 2000 in 20 conservation science journals is publicly available. Of the 19,207 papers published, 1,667 (8.68%) are freely downloadable from an official repository. Moreover, only 938 papers (4.88%) meet the standard definition of open access in which material can be freely reused providing attribution to the authors is given. This compares poorly with a comparable set of 20 evolutionary biology journals, where 31.93% of papers are freely downloadable and 7.49% are open access. Seventeen of the 20 conservation journals offer an open access option, but fewer than 5% of the papers are available through open access. The cost of accessing the full body of conservation science runs into tens of thousands of dollars per year for institutional subscribers, and many conservation practitioners cannot access pay-per-view science through their workplace. However, important initiatives such as Research4Life are making science available to organizations in developing countries. We urge authors of conservation science to pay for open access on a per-article basis or to choose publication in open access journals, taking care to ensure the license allows reuse for any purpose providing attribution is given. Currently, it would cost $51 million to make all conservation science published since 2000 freely available by paying the open access fees currently levied to authors. Publishers of conservation journals might consider more cost effective models for open access and conservation-oriented organizations running journals could consider a broader range of options for open access to nonmembers such as sponsorship of open access via membership fees.
| S-EPMC4241051 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This article analyzes the concept of "grand challenges" as part of a shift in how scientists and policymakers frame and communicate their respective agendas. The history of the grand challenges discourse helps to understand how identity work in science and science policy has been transformed in recent decades. Furthermore, the question is raised whether this discourse is only an indicator, or also a factor in this transformation. Building on conceptual history and historical semantics, the two parts of the article reconstruct two discursive shifts. First, the observation that in scientific communication references to "problems" are increasingly substituted by references to "challenges" indicates a broader cultural trend of how attitudes towards what is problematic have shifted in the last decades. Second, as the grand challenges discourse is rooted in the sphere of sports and competition, it introduces a specific new set of societal values and practices into the spheres of science and technology. The article concludes that this process can be characterized as the sportification of science, which contributes to self-mobilization and, ultimately, to self-optimization of the participating scientists, engineers, and policymakers.
| S-EPMC5948272 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study examines whether engaging in science work and work that is substantively complex (e.g. requiring independent thought and judgment) is related to interest in science, science knowledge, and confidence in the scientific community in the United States. It also examines whether the conditions of work mediate the relationship between education and these science-related outcomes. Occupation-level data from O*NET are merged with survey data from the General Social Survey. Results indicate that science work is related to interest in science and science knowledge and that work complexity is related to confidence in the scientific community. Results offer only limited evidence of mediation-science work mediates the relationship between educational attainment and science knowledge but not the relationships involving interest or confidence. In sum, results indicate that the conditions of work are associated with science attitudes, and that researchers should examine these connections in future research.
| S-EPMC10958755 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The foundation of the scientific method rests on access to data, and yet such access is often restricted or costly. We investigate how improved data access shifts the quantity, quality, and diversity of scientific research. We examine the impact of reductions in cost and sharing restrictions for satellite imagery data from NASA's Landsat program (the longest record of remote-sensing observations of the Earth) on academic science using a sample of about 24,000 Landsat publications by over 34,000 authors matched to almost 3,000 unique study locations. Analyses show that improved access had a substantial and positive effect on the quantity and quality of Landsat-enabled science. Improved data access also democratizes science by disproportionately helping scientists from the developing world and lower-ranked institutions to publish using Landsat data. This democratization in turn increases the geographic and topical diversity of Landsat-enabled research. Scientists who start using Landsat data after access is improved tend to focus on previously understudied regions close to their home location and introduce novel research topics. These findings suggest that policies that improve access to valuable scientific data may promote scientific progress, reduce inequality among scientists, and increase the diversity of scientific research.
| S-EPMC7519325 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Community health worker (CHW) programmes are currently being scaled-up in sub-Saharan Africa to improve access to healthcare. CHWs are often volunteers; from an economic perspective, this raises considerations whether reliance on an unpaid workforce is sustainable and how to appropriately cost and value the work of CHWs. Both these questions can be informed by an understanding of CHWs' workload, their opportunity costs of time and the perceived benefits of being a CHW. However, to date few studies have fully explored the methodological challenges in valuing CHW time. We examined the costs and benefits of volunteering in a sample of 45 CHWs providing integrated community case management of common childhood illnesses in rural Uganda in February 2012 using different methods. We assessed the value of CHW time using the minimum public sector salary rate and a CHW-elicited replacement wage, as well as the opportunity cost of time based on CHW-estimated annual income and alternative work opportunities, respectively. Reported monthly CHW workload, a median of 19.3?h (range 2.5-57), was valued at USD 6.9 (range 0.9-20.4) per month from the perspective of the healthcare system (applicable replacement wage) and at a median of USD 4.1 (range 0.4-169) from the perspective of the CHWs (individual opportunity cost of time). In a discrete choice experiment on preferred work characteristics, remuneration and community appreciation dominated. We find that volunteering CHWs value the opportunity to make a social contribution, but the decision to volunteer is also influenced by anticipated future rewards. Care must be taken by those costing and designing CHW programmes to acknowledge the opportunity cost of CHWs at the margin and over the long term. Failure to properly consider these issues may lead to cost estimations below the amount necessary to scale up and sustain programmes.
| S-EPMC4748129 | biostudies-literature