Search Results:

This article analyses the situation of the Home Care Service in the two European cities of Madrid and Stockholm. There are significant differences in the development of this service in these cities which can explained by their diverse welfare models.  At the same time, they also show similar trends, such as an ageing population and new demands by the elderly. The text focuses on the evolution of the service in three different dimensions: governance, working conditions and the tendering/monitoring system. The analysis is based on qualitative research, showing the predominant discourses among the key actors involved in the design and provision of the service. The results reveal the urgent need to redefine this service to respond to the new demands of the elderly as well as the changing regulatory frameworks.

The article carries out a brief analysis that relates the development of long-term care in Spain in recent years with the initiatives developed in different territories. It is framed within the deliberation and reflection processes regarding the reforms of public care policy in Spain in a post-pandemic context, reflecting the interest in policy methods and practices with a community approach organized from different territorial realities. Two specific experiences from Latin America and a comparative analysis with Sweden are also addressed, with all cases intended to contribute to the review of different territorial approaches to innovative practices in long-term care.

Ugo Fratesi ‘s “Regional Policy: Theory and Practice” represents a significant contribution to the field of regional development studies, offering what is perhaps the first comprehensive treatment of regional policy that bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementation. Published by Routledge, this ambitious volume addresses a notable gap in the literature by providing a systematic examination of regional policy’s conceptual underpinnings, operational mechanisms, and evaluation frameworks.

The study presents an approach to assess the vulnerability of nature-based tourism in Risaralda, Colombia, to climate change. An environmental reference model is adapted to the tourism sector. The results reveal high vulnerability at the municipal level, conservation areas, ecosystems and tourism supply, especially in high mountain ecosystems. This underlines the importance of adaptive tourism management and measures to reduce vulnerability, such as avoiding concentration of tourism supply, since some of the most vulnerable tourism destinations are paradoxically the most competitive in terms of sustainability. This approach is applicable to other tourism destinations.

The provision of care services can reduce gender labor gaps. As care-related economic activities are highly feminized, strengthening care services can increase women’s share of total employment. Care services can also reduce the unpaid care burden and promote women’s employment in other sectors, which could change sectoral gender segregation. We explore these relationships for Colombia through a regional urban analysis. We classify cities into three regions using their level of competitiveness as a broad measure of labor market dynamics. Using a fixed effects model, our results show that an increase in the importance of the care sector boosts women’s labor force participation and sectoral segregation; however, we emphasize the importance of urban and regional contexts in determining the role of care provision on gender equality.

This study investigates the spatial patterns of crime in Ecuador and their driving factors, paying special attention to the judicial system’s impact. Drawing on data from 218 cantons between 2015 and 2021, we applied exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial econometric models for cross section data and panel data. Our analysis revealed discernible clusters of both high and low crime rates, as well as isolated areas of crime (islands of crime) and safety (islands of non-crime). The findings offer a detailed overview of the crime situation in Ecuador and emphasize the significance of geographic elements in formulating effective crime prevention measures. The analysis also identifies the shift in crime dynamics over time, indicating that cantons typically experiencing low crime rates can evolve into higher crime areas, hinting at a contagion effect within spatial clusters. The study further underscores the critical influence of the judicial system on crime prevalence, where systemic inefficiencies such as case backlogs and a high proportion of unsentenced inmates are associated with rising crime. For policymakers, these insights underscore the necessity of tailoring interventions to the specific contexts and dynamics of each region, considering both the local conditions and the broader surrounding crime environment.

Far from presenting a univocal face, in Latin America, the public aspect of social policies and support for reproduction and care has been characterized by its ambivalence. Sometimes absent, sometimes present; operating remotely, marginally or arbitrarily; generating assistance support, focused or administered by intermediaries; with a benefactor but also criminalizing, authoritarian and patriarchal countenance. Reproduction in the State appears through agencies and agents that often operate in the same period under different and even contradictory logics. It is accompanied by private social work and other actors. The emergence of the community in the family, the neighborhood, the commune or the organization, as form of pressure on the public and simultaneously as an (relatively) autonomous construction of conditions of survival, reveals complex and changing resource articulations for the popular sectors. This text explores the applied logics of the public, the private and the common in the life of a street waste picker and her son with a health problem from birth. Through biographical interviews, I explore the multiple appearances and meanings that these areas acquire for the reproduction of health in relation to a life punctuated by precariousness and adversity. Inspired by the concept of expanded reproduction and the perspective on the margins of the State, I analyze the journey of class, gender and race of Mrs. Beatriz and her son.

This research explores the impact of armed violence and corruption on the economic growth of Colombia’s departments from 1991 to 2017. Using models of spatial panels, statics and dynamics, we detect positive space-time indirect effects on departmental growth, including evidence of beta-convergence. Specifically, fiscal corruption exhibited a significant negative impact on short-term economic growth. Moreover, corruption primarily affected growth at the local level, with limited spillover effects observed from neighboring regions. Interestingly, our analysis did not yield statistically significant evidence regarding the impact of armed violence on economic growth.

This article aims to investigate the effects and potential that the creation of community and the promotion of bridging social capital can have on the adherence of the elderly population to projects aimed at improving their quality of life. To this end, it is based on the analysis of two practical projects carried out in the city of Zamora and which form part of the research on a model of quality of life in old age: the promotion of physical capacity and the tackling of unwanted loneliness through volunteering. The results are based on information from each of the experimental programmes and testimonies obtained from the researchers of each of these projects, fieldwork teams and participants (beneficiaries). the results show that activities that involve people in the pursuit of a common goal are effective ways of fostering social bonds and the idea of community.

The restructuring process of the Spanish banking sector initiated after the Great Recession of 2008 has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of bank branches. This paper analyzes the impact of branch closures on GDP per capita, labor productivity and employment per capita of the Spanish provinces in the period 2008–2018. The results show that bank branches have only a weak impact on employment, and no effect on productivity and GDP per capita. Therefore, if consumption and investment decisions of families and firms are affected by branch closures, the impact is not transferred to aggregate regional performance.