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Many European countries suspended mandatory conscription after the Cold War, and especially between 2000 and 2010. However, with the changing security situation in Europe, more and more countries are considering the re-introduction of the draft. That is why, it is important to evaluate the impact of conscription on draftees, including its effect on fertility outcomes. Additionally, fertility is of particular interest because birth rates have been below replacement levels in most European countries at least in the last two decades. This, combined with the increase in life expectancy, has contributed to aging population and raises concerns about the future economic prospects and sustainability of the continent. Military service could be related to fertility in several ways. Compulsory service for men would affect the marriage market and subsequently child-bearing outcomes. For example, men who serve in the military would have to delay higher education at least by a year, given that they plan to continue their education after high school. One possibility is that this leads to older men meeting younger women if partners meet at college. Alternatively, in case the partners know each other prior to the draft, service could delay marriage by up to a year due to the conscription, postponing planning and having children, and potentially having fewer children as women might be less able or less willing to have a child after a certain age. Finally, some men who plan and would otherwise continue their education might choose to not do so or to further postpone it once they disattach from studying during their service. For some men, this might influence their marital and subsequent fertility outcomes. In either of these scenarios, a draft or its suspension is likely to be connected to fertility.

This study examines the effect of the suspension of the draft in Spain in December 2001 on three fertility outcomes of men that would have been drafted in the absence of the suspension. The author performs the analysis in a difference-in-differences framework. Potential concerns and policy implications are also discussed.

The findings suggest that after the suspension of the draft, individuals started to have their first child earlier given that they decide to have children. Consistent with the overall time trend, they became less likely to have a child and started to have fewer children. However, the age at birth of the first child decreased while the number of children and the likelihood of having a child increased for men relative to women, after compared to before the suspension of the mandatory draft.

The author extends prior literature by investigating the effect of the abolition of compulsory military service in Spain in December 2001 on fertility. This is novel is several ways. First, to the best of the author’s knowledge, previous literature has examined the effect of this Spanish reform only on labor market outcomes prior to men's conscription. Second, even for other countries that terminated the compulsory draft, fertility has been under-studied, providing an opportunity for further exploration. Third, this analysis is based on rich Census data, representative of the population in Spain. Finally, given the inconclusive findings of previous studies for other countries and the proposed re-introduction of the draft in some parts of Europe, additional evidence of the effect of the conscription has important policy implications necessary for the evaluation of future military service policy decisions.

This article aims to relate investments in human capital to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and examine the spending levels necessary to achieve high performance in related SDG sectors for Azerbaijan.

Employing data from the World Bank, the empirical approach undertaken in this study relies on peer analysis by examining spending levels for nations exhibiting similar income levels and geographical proximity to Azerbaijan.

This study estimates that total spending in education would need to increase by 0.4 percentage points of GDP by 2030, while total spending in health would need to increase by 5.9 percentage points of GDP by 2030 for Azerbaijan.

This study contributes to the literature by conducting an empirical analysis in which other nations can emulate in measuring their relative progress on human capital investments and related UN SDGs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0137

The purpose of this research is to identify novel ways of tackling health inequalities of underserved populations. It explores the opportunities presented by the changes in health and social care legislation to employ historically underused services, such as police custody healthcare providers, in addressing health inequalities.

This research analyses the policy approaches to tackling health inequalities in the UK in the past 40 years with an emphasis on those experienced by the people detained in English police custodies. It analyses the current model of healthcare in police custody and proposes a novel integrated model of care and joint commissioning opportunities in funding it.

Policies to tackle health inequalities have largely failed, as they became entrenched. But recent changes in the health and social care legislation in England offer opportunities to address them by employing historically underused healthcare services, such as those operating in police custodies.

The research does not touch upon ethical considerations related to the patient privacy aspect of integrated care. Interventions by and interactions with police custody healthcare providers would be visible to all professionals with access to the patient’s health record. As with all novel interventions or innovative models of care, the effectiveness of such clinical interventions remains to be established by further research. It opens a new line of research on quality improvement through integration of care and explores understudied aspects of joint commissioning of integrated care.

It offers health commissioners and public health leaders the opportunity to employ police custody healthcare services in reaching their population health management objectives and meeting their health inequalities objectives at local level. It also gives police and crime commissioners the opportunity to address the health drivers of criminal behaviour that overlap with health inequalities. It offers funding opportunities presented by jointly commissioning services at lower costs to both police and health commissioners alike. It improves the health outcomes of historically underserved populations by facilitating access to health and social care services and facilities.

Reducing health inequalities and disparities in health outcomes can decrease the costs of the healthcare services over the long term and might contribute to reducing criminality by addressing inequities and some health drivers of criminal behaviour.

The paper explores understudied opportunities offered by the recent changes in health and social care legislation in England and includes underused resources to tackle health inequalities.

Traditionally, life cycle assessment (LCA) has focused on environmental aspects, but integrating social aspects in LCA has gained traction among scholars and practitioners. This study aims to review key social life cycle assessment (SLCA) themes, namely, drivers and barriers of SLCA implementation, methodology and measurement metrics, classification of initiatives to improve SLCA and customer perspectives in SLCA.

A total of 148 scientific papers extracted from the Web of Science database were used and analyzed using bibliometric and content analysis.

The findings suggest that the existing research ignores several aspects of SCLA, which impedes positive growth in topical scholarship, and the study proposes a classification of SLCA research paths to enrich future research. This study contributes positively to SLCA by further developing this area, and as such, this research is a primer to gain deeper knowledge about the state-of-the-art in SLCA as well as to foresee its future scope and challenges.

The study provides an up-to-date review of extant research pertaining to SLCA.

The study aims to examine the impact of intellectual and social capital in funding businesses.

The study made use of fixed-effects panel data models with a sample of 142 countries from the five continents during the period 1998–2018.

It was found that human capital (HC), relational capital, structural capital and social capital play a role in investors’ decisions to fund a business. The study revealed that investors’ funding decisions in low human development index countries are based mainly on education, while those in high human development index countries are based mainly on the creativity component of HC and on relational, structural and social capital.

The study needs to be replicated using firm-level data within each country. Moreover, the search for new proxies for intellectual and social capital (although the list of variables is exhaustive) both at the country and firm level, constitutes an interesting avenue for future research.

Countries should pay attention to intellectual and social capital to encourage business activity. In particular, low human development countries should strengthen HC, such as the school enrollment rate, with early entrepreneurial training and increase research and development investments, while high human development countries should continue to foster strategic alliances, protect intellectual property and maintain or increase the level of trust in the country.

The study contributes to literature by being the first to explore such a variety of intellectual and social capital variables from a country-level perspective.

El estudio tiene como objetivo examinar el impacto del capital intelectual y social en la financiación de las empresas.

Utilizamos modelos de datos de panel de efectos fijos con una muestra de 142 países de los cinco continentes durante el periodo 1998-2018.

Encontramos que el capital humano (CH), el capital relacional, el capital estructural y el capital social juegan un papel en las decisiones de los inversionistas para financiar un negocio. Encontramos que las decisiones de financiamiento de los inversionistas en los países con bajo índice de desarrollo humano se basan principalmente en la educación, mientras que las de los países con alto índice de desarrollo humano se basan principalmente en el componente de creatividad del CH y en el capital relacional, estructural y social.

Sugerimos replicar el estudio utilizando datos a nivel de empresa dentro de cada país. Por otra parte, la búsqueda de nuevos indicadores de capital intelectual y social (aunque nuestra lista de variables es exhaustiva) tanto a nivel de país como de empresa, constituye una vía interesante para futuras investigaciones.

Los países deben prestar atención al capital intelectual y social para fomentar la actividad empresarial. En particular, los países con bajo desarrollo humano deberían fortalecer el CH, como la tasa de matriculación escolar, con una formación empresarial temprana y aumentar las inversiones en investigación y desarrollo, mientras que los países con un alto nivel de desarrollo humano deberían seguir fomentando las alianzas estratégicas, proteger la propiedad intelectual y mantener o aumentar el nivel de confianza en el país.

El estudio contribuye a la literatura al ser el primero en explorar tal variedad de variables de capital intelectual y social desde una perspectiva a nivel de país.

This study aims to re-examine the corruption and sustainable development nexus in Africa and offer a contemporary analytical review and analysis of that relationship in the region.

Drawing on the available and accessible relevant data from credible sources, this work quantifies, outlines and analyses the nexus between corruption and sustainable development, as it applies primarily to sub-Saharan Africa. It uses the relevant disaggregated data and also complements that with the results of reliable empirical studies to further cross-reference and demonstrate the corruption and sustainable development nexus.

It is shown that corruption in Africa continues to be negatively associated with sustainable development objectives and that, in turn, will continue to affect the continent’s progress in achieving sustainable development. Undoubtedly, corruption is very damaging to economies across all nations and regions. However, in Africa, this impact on sustainable development has been particularly severe and ongoing. Consequently, the views expressed several decades ago of corruption being able to grease the wheels and potentially contribute to economic development is not valid and, in fact, has been severally discredited over the years.

The main value of the paper is the insights it provides, and with cross-reference to the empirical literature and time series data, on the corruption and sustainable development nexus in Africa.

Although women have advanced in the economic sphere, the gender pay gap (GPG) remains a persisting problem for gender equality. Using Acker's theory of gendered organisations, this study strives to gain a better understanding from a macro and micro approach, how family and work-related policies, especially family-friendly measures (FFMs), and their uptake, contribute and maintain the GPG in Malta and specifically within the Financial and Insurance sector.

Two research instruments were used. National policy documents were analysed through the gender lens, followed by structured interviews with HR managerial participants within this sector.

Findings suggest that at a macro level, family and work-related policies could be divided into two broad categories: A set of family-friendly policies that contribute to the GPG because of their gendered nature, or because the uptake is mostly taken by women. These include make-work pay policies, which initially appear to be gender neutral, but which attracted lower educated inactive women to the Maltese labour market at low pay, contributing to an increase in the GPG. Second, a set of policies that take on a gender-neutral approach and help reduce the GPG. These include policies like the free childcare and after school care scheme that allow mothers to have a better adherence to the labour market. At the micro level within organisations, pay discrepancies between women and men were largely negated and awareness about the issue was low. Here, “ideal worker” values based on masculine norms seemed to lead to covert biases towards mothers who shoulder heavier care responsibilities in the families and make a bigger use of FFMs. Because men are better able to conform to these gendered values and norms, the GPG persists through vertical segregation and glass ceilings, among others.

Since not all the companies in the Eurostat NACE code list participated in this research, results could not be generalised but were indicative to future large-scale studies..

At the macro and policy level, some FFMs take on a clear gendered approach. For example, the disparity in length between maternity (18 weeks) and paternity leave (1 day) reinforces gender roles and stereotypes, which contribute to the GPG in the long run. While some FFMs like parental leave, career breaks, urgent family leave, telework, flexible and reduced hours seem to take on a more gender-neutral approach, the uptake of FFMs (except childcare) seems to generate discriminatory behaviour that may affect the GPG. When considering the make-work pay policies such as the “in-work benefit” and the “tapering of benefits”, this study showed that these policies attracted lower educated and low-skilled women into the labour market, which in turn may have further contributed to the increasing GPGs. On the other hand, the childcare and after school policies relieve working mothers from caregiving duties, minimising career interruptions, discriminatory behaviour and overall GPGs.

This study confirmed that organisations within the Financial and Insurance sector are gendered and give value to full-time commitment and long working hours, especially in managerial roles. Managerial positions remain associated with men because mothers tend to make more use of FFMs such as parental leave, reduced, flexible hours and teleworking. Mothers are indirectly penalised for doing so, because in gendered organisations, the uptake of FFMs conflict with the demands of work and ideal worker values (Acker, 1990). This maintains the vertical segregation and widens the GPG within the Financial and Insurance sector.

By using the gender lens and taking a wider and more holistic approach from the macro and micro level, this study highlights how interlinking factors lead to and sustain the GPG in the Financial and Insurance sector in Malta.

This survey explores the application of real options theory to the field of health economics. The integration of options theory offers a valuable framework to address these challenges, providing insights into healthcare investments, policy analysis and patient care pathways.

This research employs the real options theory, a financial concept, to delve into health economics challenges. Through a systematic approach, three distinct models rooted in this theory are crafted and analyzed. Firstly, the study examines the value of investing in emerging health technology, factoring in future advantages, associated costs and unpredictability. The second model is patient-centric, evaluating the choice between immediate treatment switch and waiting for more clarity, while also weighing the associated risks. Lastly, the research assesses pandemic-related government policies, emphasizing the importance of delaying decisions in the face of uncertainties, thereby promoting data-driven policymaking.

Three different real options models are presented in this study to illustrate their applicability and value in aiding decision-makers. (1) The first evaluates investments in new technology, analyzing future benefits, discount rates and benefit volatility to determine investment value. (2) In the second model, a patient has the option of switching treatments now or waiting for more information before optimally switching treatments. However, waiting has its risks, such as disease progression. By modeling the potential benefits and risks of both options, and factoring in the time value, this model aids doctors and patients in making informed decisions based on a quantified assessment of potential outcomes. (3) The third model concerns pandemic policy: governments can end or prolong lockdowns. While awaiting more data on the virus might lead to economic and societal strain, the model emphasizes the economic value of deferring decisions under uncertainty.

This research provides a quantified perspective on various decisions in healthcare, from investments in new technology to treatment choices for patients to government decisions regarding pandemics. By applying real options theory, stakeholders can make more evidence-driven decisions.

Decisions about patient care pathways and pandemic policies have direct societal implications. For instance, choices regarding the prolongation or ending of lockdowns can lead to economic and societal strain.

The originality of this study lies in its application of real options theory, a concept from finance, to the realm of health economics, offering novel insights and analytical tools for decision-makers in the healthcare sector.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is regarded as a region with one of the worst cases of armed conflict and climate risk. This paper examines the interactive effect of armed conflict and climate risk on gender vulnerability in SSA.

The difference and system generalised method of movement (GMM) were used to examine the relationship between the variables using annualised data of 35 SSA countries from 1998 to 2019.

The paper found strong evidence that armed conflict and climate change are positive predictors of gender vulnerability. The impact of climate change on gender vulnerability is found to be more direct than indirect.

The direct and indirect positive effect of armed conflict and climate change on gender vulnerability implies that climate change drives gender vulnerability through multiple channels. This underscores the need for a multi-disciplinary policy approach to addressing gender vulnerability problem in SSA.

The study contributes to the climate action debate by highlighting the need for climate action to incorporate gender inclusive policies such as massive investment in infrastructure and safety nets that offer protection to the most vulnerable girls and women affected by armed conflict and climate change. Societies should as a matter of urgency strive to structural barriers that predispose girls and women to biodiversity loss.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0595

The purpose of the paper is to present an integrated methodology for identifying trends in a particular subject area based on a combination of advanced text mining and expert methods. The authors aim to test it in an area of clinical psychology and psychotherapy in 2010–2019.

The authors demonstrate the way of applying text-mining and the Word2Vec model to identify hot topics (HT) and emerging trends (ET) in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. The analysis of 11.3 million scientific publications in the Microsoft Academic Graph database revealed the most rapidly growing clinical psychology and psychotherapy terms – those with the largest increase in the number of publications reflecting real or potential trends.

The proposed approach allows one to identify HT and ET for the six thematic clusters related to mental disorders, symptoms, pharmacology, psychotherapy, treatment techniques and important psychological skills.

The developed methodology allows one to see the broad picture of the most dynamic research areas in the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapy in 2010–2019. For clinicians, who are often overwhelmed by practical work, this map of the current research can help identify the areas worthy of further attention to improve the effectiveness of their clinical work. This methodology might be applied for the identification of trends in any other subject area by taking into account its specificity.

The paper demonstrates the value of the advanced text-mining approach for understanding trends in a subject area. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, text-mining and the Word2Vec model have been applied to identifying trends in the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapy.