The use of entheogenic drugs in spiritual contexts among modern Westerners remains an understudied phenomenon. In order to explore these clandestine spiritual practices, 26 anonymous members of an internet discussion fora were interviewed regarding entheogen use and asked to describe their entheogen experiences. Interviewees self-selected for…

All countries in the EU Neighbourhood and Central Asia have been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak to a greater or lesser extent, with overall lower infection numbers compared to some of the EU Member States, although issues of under-reporting may impact on the reliability of data. All countries, apart from Belarus and Turkmenistan, made similar…

This study begins to develop a way to measure the returns and benefits of education using a standard of living and quality of life approach. It sought identification of school priorities among senior level managers at postsecondary institutions in Ontario, Canada, and found that these administrators prioritized standard of living over quality of…

This report examines how the two global mega-trends of population ageing and rising inequalities have been developing and interacting, both within and across generations. Taking a life-course perspective the report shows how inequalities in education, health, employment and earnings compound, resulting in large differences in lifetime earnings…

In this paper, the authors first discuss the Neumark and Troske piece, and then compare the U.S. context to that in Europe and Korea, as described by the Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench and the Cho and Shin contributions. Although they are in basic agreement with Neumark and Troske on the extent and depth of the current employment situation, they…

United Nation's conventions exist to help facilitate and protect vulnerable people's human rights: including people with disabilities (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006) and children (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). However, for some families where a family member has a disability, there may be inherent…

Gender gaps are pervasive in all walks of economic life and imply large losses in terms of foregone productivity and living standards to the individuals concerned and the economy. This new OECD report focuses on how best to close these gender gaps under four broad headings: (1) Gender equality, social norms and public policies; and gender equality…

The aim of this article is to give an overview of the daily life stories of 23 women with disabilities in Malawi. The stories were gained through qualitative interviews that covered aspects of being a woman and living with a disability in Malawi. Recent studies from countries in southern Africa have documented how people with disabilities…

This research focused on the career decision and planning needs of a unique group of migrants: international students who are completing their studies as temporary immigrants and who are embarking on the career journey of employment and permanent immigration. A semi-structured interview employing a Critical Incident Technique was used to assess…

The quality of life is a relatively new concept, which is continually changing and for which there is not yet a wholly satisfactory definition. The quality of life involves human, social-economic and health characteristics. The manifold nature of the quality of life led to the development of various patterns for measuring it. The quality of life…

In 2007, nearly one in five or 18 percent of children in the U.S. lived in poverty (KIDS COUNT Data Center, 2009). Many of these children come from minority backgrounds. African American (35 percent), American Indian (33 percent) and Latino (27 percent) children are more likely to live in poverty than their white (11 percent) and Asian (12…

The strength or weakness of a nation and advances in the material and spiritual civilization of society as a whole are, to a large extent, determined by the quantity and quality of personnel equipped with a higher education. Also, people's need for undergoing higher education increases as the national economy develops and standards of living in…

This article examines the connection between multiple deprivations and the subjective experience of social exclusion among young German state benefit recipients in 2005. Most studies equate deprivation with social exclusion. But current German concepts refer to an experienced constraint of inclusion and participation as well: multiply-deprived…

The social development of young people is a single, continuous process, the objective of which is for young people to absorb the social experience accumulated by preceding generations and to renovate that experience in qualitative ways and transmit it to future generations. In as much as it is a component of more general processes of the reforming…

Research has established that those with higher social status have better health. Less is known about whether this relationship differs cross-nationally and whether it operates similarly across different institutional arrangements. To examine the relationship between stratification and health, two Western, industrialized societies at opposite ends…