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Background: The relationship between pitch volume and injury is well-represented within baseball literature. However, the impact of softball pitch volume on injury epidemiology is limited. Hypothesis: The purpose was to determine if increased pitch volumes in high school–aged softball pitchers are related to increased rates of subjectively reported pain/injury. We hypothesized that pitchers with increased volumes would have higher pain/injury rates. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Level of Evidence: Level 4. Methods: A total of 28 female softball pitchers (aged 14-18 years) completed an online survey of questions pertaining to pitching history, pitch volume, and subjective report of pain or injury in the back, shoulder, and elbow. An independent-samples t test was used to (1) compare pitch volumes in those who reported pain in individual body regions (shoulder, elbow, back) compared with those who did not; (2) compare pitch volumes in those who reported pain in 0 or 1 of the regions of interest compared with 2 or 3 regions; and (3) compare the reported percentage of the past year that players reported playing through pain in players who averaged >85 compared with <85 pitches per game. Chi-square analysis was used to compare those who pitched either >85 or <85 pitches per game with regard to frequency of shoulder pain, elbow pain, back pain, seeking of medical attention, and actual injury diagnosis. Type I error was set at α = 0.05. Results: Weekly and yearly pitch counts were higher in those reporting pain or injury (YES) than those who did not (NO) in the shoulder (pitches per week: NO = 219 ± 35; YES = 429 ± 101; P = 0.027) (pitches per year: NO = 8876 ± 946; YES = 19,195 ± 4944; P = 0.022) and back (pitches per week: NO = 188 ± 16; YES = 426 ± 90; P = 0.014) (pitches per year: NO = 8334 ± 793; YES = 18,252 ± 4340; P = 0.027). Similar results were observed for those with pain or injury reported in 2 or 3 regions compared with 0 or 1 regions (pitches per week: NO = 220 ± 38; YES = 414 ± 95; P = 0.039) (pitches per year: NO = 8765 ± 1010; YES = 18,661 ± 4623; P = 0.028). Those reporting shoulder pain or injury also reported higher pitch counts per game (NO = 71.4 ± 5.2; YES = 83 ± 4; P = 0.049), and those reporting back pain also reported playing more games per week (NO = 2.7 ± 0.2; YES = 5.2 ± 1.1; P = 0.034). Those with pitch counts of >85/game were more than twice as likely to see a physician regarding pain/injury (P = 0.027) and reported playing through pain a higher percentage of the year (>85, 49.3% ± 10%; <85, 25.2% ± 6%; P < 0.05). Conclusion: High pitching volumes commonly prevalent in high school–aged softball pitchers may be associated with increased pain/injury and appear related to cumulative volume. Clinical Relevance: This study provides recommendations for cumulative pitch volume guidelines in softball pitchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helping behaviors are considered critical for business and societal recovery in light of economic crises and natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic that has both economic and health disaster elements. However, because the current COVID-19 pandemic has both of these elements, it is unclear how helping may be impacted. Economic crisis research suggests that such events are associated with less helping, whereas disaster research suggests that such events are associated with greater helping. We pair the event system theory (Morgeson, F. P., Mitchell, T. R., & Liu, D. (2015). Event system theory: An event-oriented approach to the organizational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 40 (4), 515-537) with these two logics (economic downturn and disaster) to suggest that health and economic threats within the COVID-19 pandemic operate with potentially opposing forces on helping-related outcomes. To test these ideas at a macro-level, we examined internet search volume for recession, COVID-19, and interest in helping. At a micro-level, we examined the relationships between work- hour insecurity and perceived job-related COVID-19 risk—two salient COVID-19-related economic and health threats—and helping customers and coworkers. Consistent with economic crisis logic, macro-level concern about recession was negatively associated with interest in helping. Moreover, at the individual level, work-hour insecurity negatively predicted helping coworkers. Consistent with disaster logic, at the individual level, perceived job-related COVID-19 threat was positively associated with helping coworkers and negatively associated with helping customers. These findings suggest that the specific feature of the COVID-19 event system (economic versus health) and the target (organizational insiders versus outsiders) matter for shaping helping behavior. These findings have implications for helping during crises that involve economic and/or disaster elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Most measurement research that addresses work-life conflict (WLC) has been conducted with higher wage professional workers or mixed samples of workers; little research has focused specifically on low-wage workers. The aims of this study were to (a) evaluate a bidirectional WLC scale that uses established measurement items to determine its applicability among low-wage workers using a national data set, and to (b) test the consistency and validity of this scale using a second nationally representative sample of low-wage workers. Method: We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using 2 samples of low-wage workers from the National Study of the Changing Workforce, a nationally representative sample of the U.S. workforce. Analyses were limited to hourly, nonexempt workers who were employed in low-wage jobs that paid less than $31,800 per year or $15.29 per hour (N = 672). Results: Using a bidirectional WLC scale, the 2-factor model showed excellent fit to the data. However, areas of misfit were still present and establish the need for further research to fully understand the meaning of WLC for low-wage workers. Conclusions: Model results, implications for practice, and areas for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on pay equity structure in the U.S. and discusses the working hour inequity faced by the low-wage part-time women workers in the U.S. It analyzes the part-time worker's place in the modern workplace and reflects on the frameworks regulating workplace fairness in the U.S. including Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It mentions the role of lobbying in filling the statutory gaps in workplace regulation.

The demands of today’s workplace—long hours, constant availability, self-sacrificial dedication—do not match the needs of today’s workforce, where workers struggle to reconcile competing caregiving and workplace demands. This mismatch has negative consequences for gender equality and workers’ health. Here, the authors put forth a call to action: to redesign work to better meet the needs of today’s workforce and to redefine successful work. The authors propose two avenues for future research to achieve these goals: research that (a) builds a more rigorous business case for work redesign/redefinition and (b) exposes the underlying gender and class dynamics of current work arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to knowledge regarding determinants of happiness by examining the independent role played by having discretion over one's working time, using data pooled from two years of a nationally representative US survey. Controlling for a worker's income bracket and work hours duration, having work schedule flexibility in the form of an ability to take time off during the work day and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to vary starting and quitting times daily, are both associated with greater happiness, whereas an ability to refuse overtime work is weak at best. The associations are generally stronger among workers paid by the hour than by salary. Worker utility functions thus may be enhanced by including the timing and flexibility of working time. Policies and practices that promote more employee-centered flexible working time may not only help workers alleviate work-life time conflicts, but also promote worker well-being generally, especially among hourly-paid workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public and nonprofit sectors are known for providing enhanced employment opportunity to women, persons of color, and parents. The authors ask whether the same is true for workers without college degrees, examining sectoral differences in access to jobs offering fringe benefits, full-time hours, and schedule flexibility. The authors find that the influence of sector and union representation on job quality varies by type of benefit. For example, among public and for-profit employees, union representation is positively associated with benefits availability. Nonprofit employees of either union status have less access to full-time hours, and schedule flexibility is comparably available to all but unionized for-profit workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A compelling, but unsubstantiated, argument for paid sick leave legislation is that workers with leave are better able to address own and family member health needs without risking a voluntary or involuntary job separation. This study tests that claim using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and regression models controlling for a large set of worker and job characteristics, as well as with propensity score techniques. Results suggest that paid sick leave decreases the probability of job separation by at least 2.5 percentage points, or 25%. The association is strongest for workers without paid vacation leave and for mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women often face trade-offs in fulfilling both employment and household responsibilities. One indicator of this is commute time, a compromise between the stresses of longer work journeys and potentially expanded job options. Women spend less time commuting than men and thus may have fewer work opportunities. While prior research finds a link between commute time and women's disproportionate household responsibilities, it does not examine in detail the potential role of job quality. Using employee data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, this study examines how fringe benefits, scheduling flexibility, wages, and full-time hours relate to commute time and mediate relationships between sex, household responsibilities, and commute time. This study finds that for women, orientation toward traditional gender roles is associated with shorter commute times, though access to benefits is related to longer commutes. The association between wages and commute time is similar between women and men, and men's commute times are not tied to their household roles or attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pregnant women may be exposed to nicotine if they smoke or use tobacco products, nicotine replacement therapy, or via e-cigarettes. Prenatal nicotine exposure has been shown to have deleterious effects on the nervous system in mammals including changes in brain size and in the dopaminergic system. The genetic and molecular mechanisms for these changes are not well understood. A Drosophila melanogaster model for these effects of nicotine exposure could contribute to faster identification of genes and molecular pathways underlying these effects. The purpose of this study was to determine if developmental nicotine exposure affects the nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster, focusing on changes to brain size and the dopaminergic system at two developmental stages. Results: We reared flies on control or nicotine food from egg to 3rd instar larvae or from egg to adult and determined effectiveness of the nicotine treatment. We used immunohistochemistry to visualize the whole brain and dopaminergic neurons, using tyrosine hydroxylase as the marker. We measured brain area, tyrosine hydroxylase fluorescence, and counted the number of dopaminergic neurons in brain clusters. We detected an increase in larval brain hemisphere area, a decrease in tyrosine hydroxylase fluorescence in adult central brains, and a decrease in the number of neurons in the PPM3 adult dopaminergic cluster. We tested involvement of Dα7, one of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits, and found it was involved in eclosion, as previously described, but not involved in brain size. Conclusions: We conclude that developmental nicotine exposure in Drosophila melanogaster affects brain size and the dopaminergic system. Prenatal nicotine exposure in mammals has also been shown to have effects on brain size and in the dopaminergic system. This study further establishes Drosophila melanogaster as model organism to study the effects of developmental nicotine exposure. The genetic and molecular tools available for Drosophila research will allow elucidation of the mechanisms underlying the effects of nicotine exposure during development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study surveys legal firms in the state of New South Wales and assesses the provision of Work/Life Balance options and the factors that predict their uptake. The paper addresses four research questions; does a greater range of WLB options offered by a firm lead to a higher take up rate by employees?; how important is top management support for WLB in influencing employee uptake?; how important is top management support for equal reward and promotion of employees using WLB options in predicting its use?; how does the level of support in an employees' personal life affect their perception of the value of WLB options. Top management support for WLB and the equal treatment of employees who use WLB options were found to be positively correlated in line with findings from earlier studies. However, the range of WLB options on offer and perceptions of personal support outside of work were not found to be positively correlated. These findings are discussed within the context of earlier, more broadly based studies and reasons for the contrasting results are proposed., Introduction and Background Work /life balance (WLB) is an area of human resource (HR) management that has achieved increased attention in the last decade as employers seek to attract and [...]