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Background With the availability of mobile smart devices, many adolescents have developed the habit of being online and connected with other users almost all the time. Objective The aim of this paper is to provide a definition of being permanently online (PO) and permanently connected (PC) and to explore students’ current PO/PC behaviors. Methods An online survey was conducted with 178 university students in Germany to explore the intensity of their PO/PC behaviors in various social situations, the differences in being PO and being PC, students’ feelings about a possible loss of Internet access, and their online responding behaviors. We also shed some light on the associations between being PO/PC and various aspects of well-being, as well as between PO/PC and demographics and lifestyle. Results Smart device usage behaviors at night and behaviors in various social situations during the day indicate that PO and PC behaviors are occurring frequently. The results show that being connected to others (PC) seems to be more relevant to the participants than browsing the web (PO). Moreover, the participants expressed strong emotional responses about a temporary loss of Internet access. Coping behaviors in response to increasing number of incoming messages and permanent availability are reported. Conclusion This exploratory study demonstrates the relevance of the concepts of being PO and PC to students, and points out further research gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A growing body of literature aims to improve understanding of the operations of drug trafficking markets through conducting interviews with dealers and traffickers. Insight into how these individuals conduct business can provide evidence to inform the efforts by policy makers, law enforcement and practitioners to disrupt illicit markets. This paper aims to make a contribution to this evidence base by extending the number of European countries in which interviews have been conducted with incarcerated drug dealers and traffickers.Methods: It draws on interviews with 135 men convicted of offences related to the distribution or sale of heroin or cocaine and imprisoned in Italy, Slovenia and Germany. The research was conducted as part of the Reframing Addictions Project (ALICE-RAP) funded by the European Commission. The sample was diverse. It included a range of nationalities and some individuals who were members of organised crime groups. The majority of the interviewees were dealers who sold at the retail and street level, but there were some who were importers and wholesalers.Findings: Most dealers in each of the three countries reported having more than one regular supplier, and were able to respond to periods of over and under supply without losing customers. Supply arrangements varied in terms of frequency and quantities bought. Dealers engaged in repeated transactions and their relationships with customers were based on trust and reputation. Dealers aimed to sell to regular customers and to provide drugs of good quality. While dealers sought to maximise their profits by cutting drugs with cutting agents, the quality of drugs that they sold could affect their reputation and thus their profits and position in the market. Lastly, while there are some significant differences in the approach between those involved in organised crime groups and those who are not, and between street dealers and those operating at higher levels of the market, there were striking similarities in terms of the day-to-day operational concerns and modes of relationship management.Conclusions: Interviewees' arrangements for securing supplies of drugs provide support to the notion that drug markets are resilient and flexible. Our findings correspond with other empirical research in relation to the centrality of trust in the practical operation of supply and sale of drugs. The research highlights some differences, but important similarities between dealers who were part of organised crime groups and those who were not; dealers all faced some common challenges and adopted some common responses to these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cannabis prohibition can generally be regarded as the main driver for home growing of marijuana. In this paper, I discuss the impact of drug prohibition on cannabis cultivators from the three German-speaking countries: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In particular, this refers to the questions; how illicitness influences motivations for growing; which precautionary measures are taken against the risk of discovery; how penal consequences differ in the three countries and how these aspects are linked to each other.Methods: The results come from a sample of 1578 respondents from the German-language online survey conducted following the International Cannabis Cultivation Questionnaire (ICCQ). The survey was carried out in late 2012 and early 2013.Results: While most of the reasons for growing cannabis relate to avoiding negative consequences of prohibition, the illicitness of cannabis also plays a major role for concern about the cultivation activities as well as measures to avoid negative consequences. Swiss growers are less worried about their activity compared to respondents from Germany or Austria.Conclusion: The results confirm the notion that the illicitness of cannabis is the main drive for the private cultivation of the plant. At the same time, prohibition is the principal reason for concern regarding the growing activity. The severity of possible sentences seems to be linked to the degree of concern and precautionary measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the average effects of firm-provided workplace health promotion measures on labour market outcomes of the firms' employees. Exploiting linked employer-employee panel data that consist of rich survey-based and administrative information on firms, workers and regions, we apply a flexible propensity score matching approach that controls for selection on observables and time-constant unobserved factors. While the effects of analysing sickness absenteeism appear to be rather limited, our results suggest that health circles/courses increase tenure and job stability across various age groups. A key finding is that health circles/courses strengthen the labour force attachment of elderly employees (51-60), implying potential cost savings for public transfer schemes such as unemployment insurance or early retirement schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the health effects of retirement. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit financial incentives in the German pension system for identification, I find that retirement improves subjective health status and mental health, while also reducing outpatient care utilization. I explore a wide range of health behaviors, time use, and effect heterogeneity as potential mechanisms. Relief from work-related stress and strain, increased sleep duration as well as more frequent physical exercise seem to be key mechanisms through which retirement affects health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of immigration on health. Specifically, we merge information on individual characteristics from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009) with detailed local labour market characteristics, and we then exploit the longitudinal component of the data to determine how immigration affects the health of both immigrants and natives over time. We find that immigrants to Germany are healthier than natives upon their arrival (the healthy immigrant effect) but that immigrants' health deteriorates over time. We show that the convergence in health is heterogeneous across immigrants and occurs more rapidly among those working in more physically demanding jobs. Because immigrants are significantly more likely to work in strenuous occupations, we investigate whether changes in the spatial concentration of immigrants affect the health of the native population. Our results suggest that immigration reduces the likelihood that residents will report negative health outcomes. We show that these effects are concentrated in blue-collar occupations and are stronger among low-educated natives. Improvements in natives' average working conditions and workloads help explain the positive effects of immigration on the health of the native population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the impact of the length of maternity leave on children's health outcomes in the long-run. My quasi-experimental design evaluates an expansion in maternity leave coverage from two to six months, which occurred in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979. The expansion came into effect after a sharp cutoff date and significantly increased the time working mothers stayed at home with their newborns during the first six months after childbirth. Using this cutoff date as a source of exogenous variation, I exploit German hospital registry data, which contains detailed information on the universe of inpatients' diagnoses from 1995-2014. By tracking the health of treated and control children from age 16 up to age 35, this study provides new insights into the trajectory of health differentials over the life-cycle. I find that the legislative change generated positive long-term health effects: My intention-to-treat estimates show that children born after the implementation of the reform experience fewer hospital admissions and are less likely to be diagnosed with mental and behavioral disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]