Downshifting to care: The role of gender and care in reducing working hours and consumption.

The relationship between working hours and sustainability has attracted research attention since at least the early 2000s, yet the role of care giving in this context is not well understood. Focusing on Australians between 40 and 60 years who have reduced their working hours and income, we explore the relationship between working hours, care giving and consumption. Data from the national census (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016c) were analysed to contextualise patterns in paid working hours, income and carer roles for men and women aged between 40 and 60 years. Findings from a national survey on informal carers (ABS, 2016a) were also consulted. Taken together, the two sources of national data showed that two thirds of all informal carers are women, that the likelihood of assuming informal carer roles increases with age, and that men and women in carer roles work fewer paid hours per week and have a lower weekly income than non-carers of the same age. To gain qualitative insights into these patterns in Australian national data, and the likely implications of carer roles for household consumption, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten households who subsequently recorded details of their consumption-related expenses over a seven-day period. The interview data showed the strong connection between carer roles, reduced income and paid working hours and its strongly gendered dimension. We argue that women primarily 'downshift' to undertake care rather than for sustainability motivations and that there is consequently a need to connect scholarship on gender and care with that on downshifting. The link between reducing paid working hours, care-giving and household consumption appeared to be less straight forward and varied between households. Our findings suggest that a complex relationship exists between environmental and social welfare concerns that has policy implications and warrants further exploration.

Understanding farmers' strategic decision-making processes and the implications for biodiversity conservation policy.

The conservation of biodiversity is an important issue world wide and in Australia the maintenance of native biodiversity on farms makes an important contribution to overall conservation objectives. This paper seeks to explain Australian farmers' rationale for maintaining biodiversity on their farms for personal as opposed to business reasons by developing a decision-systems theory from in-depth interviews. This difference has implications for policy development. The decision-systems theory is divided into two main sections. The first section contains five parts. (1) A hierarchy of motivation stories, (2) the concept of suitability and availability of opportunities, (3) a hierarchy of three decision-systems, (4) the concept of personal career paths, (5) the concept of Lenses. The second section contains one part, a policy classification system called 'boxes of influence' that suggests how policy developers can use the information in the first section to develop new biodiversity conservation policy. The paper suggests that decision-systems theory could be used to shed new light on current trends in agriculture and become an important investigative tool for policy development concerning the conservation of biodiversity on farms.

Genetic information leaflets: influencing attitudes towards genetic testing.

PURPOSE: This article explores how a "neutral" genetics information leaflet influenced people's attitudes to be more positive toward predictive genetic testing. This is of concern, given the desire within clinical genetics and population based testing to provide information that informs choice without directing toward, or against, testing. METHOD: Four studies are reported. The first two investigated presentation (glossy and colored vs. black and white), and method of reading (read only vs. read followed by probing questions). The second two investigated content, using "think aloud," "card sort," and delayed recall tasks. RESULTS: Those receiving a glossy leaflet expressed more positive attitudes and more interest in undergoing testing than those receiving a black and white leaflet, and those who were asked questions about what they had read were more positive about genetic testing than those who only read the leaflet. Recall one week later varied from 72% to 28%, depending on type of information. Information that described the advantages of genetic testing or discussed genes and genetic testing in relation to disease were well recalled and rated positively. Attitudes toward information ranged from 100% positive (e.g., what diseases genetic tests are available for) to 0% positive (e.g., the meaning of a positive result). CONCLUSION: These results show that quite small changes within a leaflet can change attitudes toward genetic testing. This is of concern, given the association between attitudes toward a behavior and undergoing that behavior. The form, method of presentation, and content of genetic information leaflets should be evaluated for impact on attitude and decisions before they are used clinically.