bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Influence of Precollege Factors on Students' Predispositions Regarding Diversity Activities in College
Authors: Milem Jeffrey F , Umbach Paul D
Published: February 2007

This study builds upon earlier research on personality types,
educational outcomes of diversity, and school and community desegregation
to explore how students' plans for involvement in diversity-related
activities in college varied by racial background and personality type
and how students' exposure to diversity prior to college affected these
plans.
Women's Views of the Factors That Encourage and Discourage Classroom Participation
Authors: Salter Daniel W , Persaud Anita
Published: February 2007

Using Jungian constructs as a lens, we examined the "chilly" classroom
dynamic. One hundred forty-two upper-class women, majoring in either
education or engineering, responded to two open-ended questions about
classroom characteristics that encouraged or discouraged participation. To
"take the temperatures" of these classroom climates, the Salter
Environmental Type Assessment (Salter, 2002)was used to group their
responses as either feeling or thinking. A content analysis of those
comments suggested that instructors play a pivotal role in creating
a positive climate for women. Suggestions for improving educational
environments are offered.
Career Development, Lesbian Identity Development, and Campus Climate Among Lesbian College Students
Authors: Tomlinson Merideth J , Fassinger Ruth E
Published: February 2007

In this study we examined the relationships among lesbian
identity development, perceptions of campus climate, and vocational
development of 192 undergraduate lesbian women. Results indicated the
combination of lesbian identity development phases and campus climate
accounted for significant variance in two measures of vocational
development. Implications for practice and research are given.
Information and Communication Technologies and the Global Digital Divide: Technology Transfer, Development, and Least Developing Countries
Authors: Rice Mitchell F
Published: February 2007

This article examines the global digital divide-and discusses conditions and circumstances that have
contributed to its creation. An important issue this article explores is
whether there is a convergence, absolute convergence, divergence,
or relative divergence in the application and diffusion of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) between developed
countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and if so, which
of these will continue. A second issue addressed by this
article involves the basic conditions required in a country to
facilitate technology transfer, application, and diffusion of ICTs. This
article draws on several highly respectable data sources and an
extensive body of literature to provide a fairly clear picture of how
the ICT revolution is shaping up globally. For a number of reasons,
mostly related to data availability, data timeliness, and data
accuracy, the article does not pretend to be a full assessment of the ICT
global situation between countries.
Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?
Authors: Bianchi Suzanne M.
Published: February 2007

Despite the rapid rise in mothers’ labor force participation, mothers’ time with children has tended to be quite stable over time. In the past, nonemployed mothers’ time with children was reduced by the demands of unpaid family work and domestic chores and by the use of mother substitutes for childcare, especially in large families. Today employed mothers seek ways to maximize time with children: They remain quite likely to work part-time or to exit from the labor force for some years when their children are young; they also differ from nonemployed mothers in other uses of time (housework, volunteer work, leisure). In addition, changes in children’s lives (e.g., smaller families, the increase in preschool enrollment, the extended years of financial dependence on parents as more attend college) are altering the time and money investments that children require from parents. Within marriage, fathers are spending more time with their children than in the past, perhaps increasing the total time children spend with parents even as mothers work more hours away from home.
Demographics of dumping ii: a national environmental equity survey and the distribution of hazardous materials handlers
Authors: Davidson Pamela , Anderton Douglas L.
Published: February 2007

Using a national survey of facilities governed by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), we examine the sociospatial distribution of a much larger group of hazardous materials handlers than did previous environmental equity studies. Overall we find that RCRA-governed facilities are more likely to be sited in working-class neighborhoods with lower percentages of minority residents. We do not find evidence of stark environmental inequities. RCRA facilities, however, are close to neighborhoods with a higher percentage of minority residents. And in nonmetropolitan areas, they are slightly more likely to be located in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of black residents.
The spatial separation of the poor in Canadian cities
Authors: Fong Eric , Shibuya Kumiko
Published: February 2007

We used the 1991 Canadian census to examine the extent of spatial separation of the poor in Canadian cities. Although there were no extensive areas of blight, decay, or housing abandonment, we found high spatial separation of poor visible minorities in the selected cities. The index of dissimilarity indicates high segregation of poor blacks and moderate separation of poor Asians from the nonpoor population. We tested the effects of three major structural factors—racial and ethnic segregation, income segregation, and urban redevelopment—and found that racial and ethnic residential patterns are related strongly to the spatial separation of poor persons. The relationship between income segregation and spatial separation of the poor is not significant, however. We also found that the relationship between urban redevelopment and spatial separation of the poor pertains only to blacks. These findings suggest that blacks are vulnerable in the process of urban redevelopment.
Understanding the sex ratio in India: A simulation approach
Authors: Griffiths Paula , Matthews Zoë , Hinde Andrew
Published: February 2007

The highly masculine sex ratio in India has increased substantially in the twentieth century, in contrast to most other countries in the world. Competing arguments alternatively posit underenumeration, highly masculine sex ratios at birth, or excess female mortality throughout the life course as the factors underlying the level of the overall sex ratio; these arguments have not been resolved. Based on population projections that simulate population dynamics, our findings show that small differences in mortality at young ages, persisting over a long period, as well as a sex ratio at birth of 106 males per 100 females, result in a highly masculine population sex ratio.
The mechanisms mediating the effects of poverty on children’s intellectual development
Authors: Guo Guang , Harris Kathleen Mullan
Published: February 2007

Although adverse consequences of poverty for children are documented widely, little is understood about the mechanisms through which the effects of poverty disadvantage young children. In this analysis we investigate multiple mechanisms through which poverty affects a child’s intellectual development. Using data from the NLSY and structural equation models, we have constructed five latent factors (cognitive stimulation, parenting style, physical environment, child’s ill health at birth, and ill health in childhood) and have allowed these factors, along with child care, to mediate the effects of poverty and other exogenous variables. We produce two main findings. First, the influence of family poverty on children’s intellectual development is mediated completely by the intervening mechanisms measured by our latent factors. Second, our analysis points to cognitive stimulation in the home, and (to a lesser extent) to parenting style, physical environment of the home, and poor child health at birth, as mediating factors that are affected by lack of income and that influence children’s intellectual development.
Diverging fertility among U.S. women who delay childbearing past age 30
Authors: Martin Steven P.
Published: February 2007

In this paper I examine the evolving association between educational attainment and the timing of births. In the late 1970s, women with four-year college degrees had lower first birth rates before age 30 than women with less education, but rates of first births were similar for the two groups after age 30. From the 1970s to the 1990s, first birth rates decreased before age 30 for all women, but increased after age 30 only for women with four-year college degrees. Parity 2 birth rates also increased for college graduates with a first birth after age 30. These results document widening educational differences in fertility timing between 1975 and 1995, which may reflect period changes at later ages in women’s work and family lives.
Marital protection and marital selection: Evidence from a historical-prospective sample of American men
Authors: Murray John E.
Published: February 2007

Whether marriage causes people to live longer or whether healthier people select into marriage is an open question. In this study I followed a sample of men from age 18 to first marriage and ultimately to death. Health in early adulthood was represented by height and weight around age 20. The probability of ever marrying and the conditional probability of marriage in a given time period were lower for smaller men and greater for larger men. Marriage significantly lowered mortality risk even after controlling for health in early adulthood. Thus I found support both for selection into marriage and for protective effects of marriage.
Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data—or tears: An application to educational enrollments in states of India
Authors: Filmer Deon , Pritchett Lant H.
Published: February 2007

Using data from India, we estimate the relationship between household wealth and children’s school enrollment. We proxy wealth by constructing a linear index from asset ownership indicators, using principal-components analysis to derive weights. In Indian data this index is robust to the assets included, and produces internally coherent results. State-level results correspond well to independent data on per capita output and poverty. To validate the method and to show that the asset index predicts enrollments as accurately as expenditures, or more so, we use data sets from Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nepal that contain information on both expenditures and assets. The results show large, variable wealth gaps in children’s enrollment across Indian states. On average a “rich” child is 31 percentage points more likely to be enrolled than a “poor” child, but this gap varies from only 4.6 percentage points in Kerala to 38.2 in Uttar Pradesh and 42.6 in Bihar.
Variance effects in the bongaarts-feeney formula
Authors: Kohler Hans-Peter , Philipov Dimiter
Published: February 2007

Bongaarts and Feeney have recently proposed an adjusted total fertility rate to disentangle tempo effects from changes in the quantum of fertility. We propose an extension to the Bongaarts and Feeney formula that includes variance effects: that is, changes in the variance of the fertility schedule over time. If these variance effects are ignored, the mean age at birth and the adjusted total fertility rate are biased. We provide approximations for these biases, and we extend the TFR adjustment to fertility schedules with changing variance. We apply our method to the Swedish baby boom and bust, and show that variance effects are important for evaluating the relative contributions of tempo and quantum effects to the fertility change from 1985 to 1995.
The density of social networks and fertility decisions: Evidence from South Nyanza district, Kenya
Authors: Kohler Hans-Peter , Behrman Jere R. , Watkins Susan C.
Published: February 2007

Demographers have argued increasingly that social interaction is an important mechanism for understanding fertility behavior. Yet it is still quite uncertain whether social learning or social influence is the dominant mechanism through which social networks affect individuals’ contraceptive decisions. In this paper we argue that these mechanisms can be distinguished by analyzing the density of the social network and its interaction with the proportion of contraceptive users among network partners. Our analyses indicate that social learning is most relevant with high market activity; in regions with only modest market activity, however, social influence is the dominant means by which social networks affect women’s contraceptive use.
Racial intermarriage pairings
Authors: Fu Vincent Kang
Published: February 2007

Most studies of racial intermarriage rely on the prevalence of intermarriage to measure the strength of group boundaries, without scrutinizing the nature of intermarriage pairings. Examination of intermarried couples’ characteristics reveals (1) that intermarriages and endogamous marriages follow different patterns, and (2) that intermarriage pairings for some groups reflect a generalized racial status hierarchy. According to evidence from the 1990 U.S. Census PUMS, patterns in blacks’ and Mexican Americans’ marriages with whites suggest that a generalized racial status hierarchy disadvantages members of these minority groups. For marriages between Japanese Americans and whites, however, crossing the group boundary does not affect couples’ characteristics.
A cross-national comparison of the impact of family migration on women’s employment status
Authors: Boyle Paul , Cooke Thomas J. , Halfacree Keith , Smith Darren
Published: February 2007

In this paper we consider the effects of family migration on women’s employment status, using census microdata from Great Britain and the United States. We test a simple hypothesis that families tend to move long distances in favor of the male’s career and that this can have a detrimental effect on women’s employment status. Unlike many previous studies of this question, our work emphasizes the importance of identifying couples that have migrated together, rather than simply comparing long-distance (fe)male migrants with nonmigrant (fe)males individually. We demonstrate that women’s employment status is harmed by family migration; the results we present are surprisingly consistent for Great Britain and the United States, despite differing economic situations and cultural norms regarding gender and migration. We also demonstrate that studies that fail to identify linked migrant couples are likely to underestimate the negative effects of family migration on women’s employment status.
Women’s health and pregnancy outcomes: Do services make a difference?
Authors: Frankenberg Elizabeth , Thomas Duncan
Published: February 2007

We use data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey to investigate the impact of a major expansion in access to midwifery services on health and pregnancy outcomes for women of reproductive age. Between 1990 and 1998 Indonesia trained some 50,000 midwives. Between 1993 and 1997 these midwives tended to be placed in relatively poor communities that were relatively distant from health centers. We show that additions of village midwives to communities between 1993 and 1997 are associated with a significant increase in body mass index in 1997 relative to 1993 for women of reproductive age, but not for men or for older women. The presence of a village midwife during pregnancy is also associated with increased birthweight. Both results are robust to the inclusion of community-level fixed effects, a strategy that addresses many of the concerns about biases because of nonrandom program placement.
Black-White Unions: West Indians and African Americans compared
Authors: Model Suzanne , Fisher Gene
Published: February 2007

In this research we use 1990 PUMS data to compare the propensity for unions between African Americans and native whites with the propensity for unions between British West Indians and native whites. In addition, we distinguish women and men. Descriptive statistics indicate that West Indians, with the exception of men who arrived as adults, are more likely than African Americans to have white partners. After the introduction of controls for several correlates of intermarriage, however, West Indian men of any generation have lower exogamy rates than African American men, while exogamy rates are higher among West Indian women who arrived as children or who were born in the United States than among African American women. Thus we find no consistent evidence of greater exogamy for British West Indians than for African Americans.
Long-Run convergence of ethnic skill differentials, revisited
Authors: Borjas George J.
Published: February 2007

In my original study, “Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials,” I concluded that the ethnic differentials introduced by the Great Migration seemed to persist into the second and third generations. Alba, Lutz, and Vesselinov argue that my study contained a number of conceptual and data problems, and conclude that the correlation between the skills of the first and the third generations disappears when these problems are taken into account. My reanalysis of the Alba et al. data, however, documents a stronger link between the skills of the first and the third generations than suggested by those authors.
Sibling, peer, neighbor, and schoolmate correlations as indicators of the importance of context for adolescent development
Authors: Duncan Greg J. , Boisjoly Johanne , Mullan Harris Kathleen
Published: February 2007

We use nationally representative data to calculate correlations in achievement and delinquency between genetically differentiated siblings within a family, between peers as defined by adolescents’ “best friend” nominations, between schoolmates living in the same neighborhood, and between grademates within a school. We find the largest correlations between siblings, especially identical twins. Grademate and neighbor correlations are small. Peer-based correlations are considerably larger than grademate and neighbor correlations but not larger than most sibling correlations. The data suggest that family-based factors are several times more powerful than neighborhood and school contexts in affecting adolescents’ achievement and behavior.
Immigrants’ welfare use and opportunity for contact with co-ethnics
Authors: Hao Lingxin , Kawano Yukio
Published: February 2007

In this article we examine the relationship between immigrants’ welfare use and their social capital, using the 1990 census. We measure community social capital using contact with co-ethnics and coethnics’ economic inactivity, and examine the use of AFDC and SSI in two subpopulations: single-mother families and elderly units. Major findings are that the effects of social capital differ between immigrant single-mother families and elderly units; the effects of social capital differ between the young-at-arrival elderly and the old-at-arrival elderly; and the process of AFDC use is similar for immigrants and for natives, whereas the process of SSI use is more complicated for immigrants than for natives.
Immigration and males’ earnings inequality in the regions of the United States
Authors: Reed Deborah
Published: February 2007

In this paper I investigate the impact of recent immigration on males’ earnings distributions in the major regions of the United States. I use six counterfactual scenarios to describe alternative regional skill distributions and wage structures for the population of natives and long-term immigrants in the absence of recent immigration. I find that immigration over the last three decades can account for a substantial portion of the variation in inequality across the regions. Recent immigration has contributed moderately to national growth in males’ earnings inequality, primarily by changing the composition of the population.
Differences in the locational attainment of immigrant and native-born households with children in New York City
Authors: Rosenbaum Emily , Friedman Samantha
Published: February 2007

In this paper we use a data set created especially for New York City to evaluate whether the locational attainment of households with children, as indicated by the context of the neighborhoods in which they live, varies by their immigrant status. In addition, we evaluate whether the relationship between immigrant status and neighborhood conditions varies by the householder’s race/ethnicity. Overall, when compared with native-born households with children, immigrant households with children live in neighborhoods of lower quality, characterized by higher teenage fertility rates and higher percentages of students in local schools scoring below grade level in math and of persons receiving AFDC, but lower rates of juvenile detention. Further analyses, however, revealed that race/ethnicity is far more potent than immigrant status per se in predicting where households with children live.
Is breast-feeding a substitute for contraception in family planning?
Authors: Rous Jeffrey J.
Published: February 2007

Using data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, I disentangle the complex interrelationship between breastfeeding, postpartum amenorrhea, and choice of contraceptive method. I find evidence that women substitute breast-feeding for contraception. Further, endogeneity bias, if not controlled, would cause the relationship to be slightly overstated. In addition, the results suggest that although increased education and income result in decreased breast-feeding, any effect on fertility will be offset by changes in contraceptive use.
The developmental paradigm, reading history sideways, and family change
Authors: Thornton Arland
Published: February 2007

The developmental paradigm, reading history sideways, and cross-cultural data have converged to exert a profound influence on social scientists and ordinary people. Through the use of these tools, social scientists of the 1700s and 1800s concluded that family patterns in northwest Europe had undergone many substantial changes before the early 1800s. These conclusions were accepted until the last several decades of the 1900s, when almost all were seriously challenged; many were declared to be myths. Further, the developmental paradigm, reading history sideways, and the conclusions of generations of social scientists created a package of ideas—developmental idealism—that subsequently became a powerful influence for family change in many parts of the world during the past two centuries. This developmental idealism has been a substantial force for changing living arrangements, marriage, divorce, gender relations, intergenerational relationships, and fertility.
A dynamic analysis of the effect of child care costs on the work decisions of low-income mothers with infants
Authors: Baum Charles L.
Published: February 2007

Child care costs reduce the net benefit of working and consequently influence mothers’ decisions to work. They affect the employment of low-income mothers in particular because they represent a larger portion of these mothers’ earnings. I used a hazard framework to examine a mother’s decisions about work and hours of work after childbirth. I focused on low-income mothers with infants because they are the ones who may be most affected by child care costs. The results showed that child care costs are a barrier to work that is larger for low-income mothers than for non-low-income mothers. Further, child care costs have large negative effects on hours of work.
Population momentum for gradual demographic transitions: an alternative approach
Authors: Goldstein Joshua R.
Published: February 2007

In this article, I derive a simple formula for approximating the ultimate size of a population that undergoes a gradual transition to replacement fertility. I model the fertility transition by specifying a linear frontier on the Lexis surface across which a change in fertility is instantaneous. Gradual transitions result from variations in the slope of this frontier. This framework can be used to reproduce and understand previous studies of population momentum and gradual transitions.
Low birth weight, social factors, and developmental outcomes among children in the United States
Authors: Boardman Jason D. , Powers Daniel A. , Padilla Yolanda C. , Hummer Robert A.
Published: February 2007

We used six waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Data (1986–1996) to assess the relative impact of adverse birth outcomes vis-à-vis social risk factors on children’s developmental outcomes. Using the Peabody Individual Achievement Tests of Mathematics and Reading Recognition as our outcome variables, we also evaluated the dynamic nature of biological and social risk factors from ages 6 to 14. We found the following: (1) birth weight is significantly related to developmental outcomes, net of important social and economic controls; (2) the effect associated with adverse birth outcomes is significantly more pronounced at very low birth weights (< 1,500 grams) than at moderately low birth weights (1,500–2,499 grams); (3) whereas the relative effect of very low-birth-weight status is large, the effect of moderately low weight status, when compared with race/ethnicity and mother’s education, is small; and (4) the observed differentials between moderately low-birth-weight and normal-birth-weight children are substantially smaller among older children in comparison with younger children.
Education and fertility in sub-Saharan africa: Individual and community effects
Authors: Kravdal Øystein
Published: February 2007

Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys for 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, I show that the average educational level in a village or a community of a similar size has a significant depressing effect on a woman’s birth rates, net of urbanization and her own education. According to simulations, average fertility for these countries would be 1.00 lower if education were expanded from the current level in the region to the relatively high level in Kenya. The exclusion of aggregate education from the model leaves a response of only 0.52. A considerable aggregate contribution is estimated even when several potential determinants of education are included. This finding illustrates the need to consider aggregate education in future assessments of the total impact of education.
Stability across cohorts in divorce risk factors
Authors: Teachman Jay D.
Published: February 2007

Over the past quarter-century, many covariates of divorce have been identified. However, the extent to which the effects of these covariates remain constant across time is not known. In this article, I examine the stability of the effects of a wide range of divorce covariates using a pooled sample of data taken from five rounds of the National Survey of Family Growth. This sample includes consistent measures of important predictors of divorce, covers marriages formed over 35 years (1950–1984), and spans substantial historical variation in the overall risk of marital dissolution. For the most part, the effects of the major sociodemographic predictors of divorce do not vary by historical period. The one exception is race. These results suggest that the effects associated with historical period have been pervasive, simultaneously altering the risk of divorce for most marriages
Nonmarital childbearing: Influences of education, marriage, and fertility
Authors: Upchurch Dawn M. , Lillard Lee A. , Panis Constantijn W. A.
Published: February 2007

We examined the determinants of nonmarital fertility, focusing on the effects of other life-course events: education, marriage, marital dissolution, and marital fertility. Since these determinants are potentially endogenous, we modeled the processes that generate them jointly with nonmarital fertility and accounted for the sequencing of events and the unobserved correlations across processes. The results showed that the risk of nonmarital conception increases immediately after leaving school and that the educational effects are less pronounced for black women than for other women. The risk is lower for previously married women than for never-married women, even controlling for age, but this reduction is significant only for black women. The more children a woman already has, the lower her risk of nonmarital childbearing, particularly if the earlier children were born during a previous marriage. Ignoring endogeneity issues seriously biases the estimates of several substantively important effects.
Adjusting period tempo changes with an extension of ryder’s basic translation equation
Authors: Yi Zeng , Land Kenneth C.
Published: February 2007

We show that the observed changes in the period tempo of fertility are biased and derive a new formula for adjusting such bias. We present illustrative applications of our proposed method to the cases of the United States and Taiwan. We then describe the relevance of adjustments of observed period fertility tempo for evaluating family planning programs aiming at delaying and reducing births to slow down population growth in developing countries. The work reported in this article also can be regarded as an extension of Ryder’s basic translation equation. The extension provides a set of formulas expressing relationships of quantum-tempo between cohorts and periods under specified assumptions.
How well can we track cohabitation using the sipp? A consideration of direct and inferred measures
Authors: Baughman Reagan , Dickert-Conlin Stacy , Houser Scott
Published: February 2007

Cohabitation is an alternative to marriage and to living independently for an increasing number of Americans. Still, research that explores links between living arrangements and economic behavior is limited by a lack of data that explicitly identify cohabiting couples. To aid researchers in using the Survey of Income and Program Participation’s (SIPP) rich data to explore cohabitation issues, we consider direct and inferred measures of cohabitation. We find, first, that the use of inferred definitions (relative to direct measures) in the SIPP is likely to yield higher cohabitation rates in the United States by incorrectly coding roommates as cohabitors. Second, the SIPP (whether by direct or inferred measures) counts a significantly larger number of cohabiting couples than the widely used Current Population Survey (CPS). Third, spells of cohabitation occur less frequently and last longer when a direct measure of cohabitation is used than when either of the two inferred measures of cohabitation is used; ours is the first article to reveal this result.
Are black workers missing the connection? The effect of spatial distance and employee referrals on interfirm racial segregation
Authors: Mouw Ted
Published: February 2007

I use data on the hiring practices and spatial location of firms in four cities to model the process of interfirm racial segregation. When I control for the spatial location of the firm, the use of employee referrals reduced the probability of hiring a black worker by 75% in firms that are less than 10% black. Among all firms, the results suggest that employee referrals are just as important as the geographic location of the firm in generating employment segregation: both increase the predicted level of interfirm racial segregation among blue-collar workers in the cities studied by about 10%.
Fertility and development: evidence from Brazil
Authors: Potter Joseph E. , Schmertmann Carl P. , Cavenaghi Suzana M.
Published: February 2007

Using microdata from the Brazilian demographic censuses of 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1991, aggregated into 518 consistently defined spatial units called microregions, we estimated fertility and mortality and constructed indicators of development and living conditions in the rural and urban areas of the microregions in each census. We then estimated cross-sectional and fixed-effects models to answer questions about the degree to which changes in these indicators are associated with changes in fertility and whether the relationship between fertility and development shifts through time. We found strong and consistent relationships between the decline in fertility and measurable changes in social and economic circumstances.
Diversity and change in the institutional context of immigrant adaptation: California schools 1985–2000
Authors: Van Hook Jennifer , Balistreri Kelly Stamper
Published: February 2007

This article brings attention to a structural dimension of the schooling context that may affect the incorporation of immigrant youths. Using administrative data about students in California public schools, we found that Spanish-speaking, limited English-proficient (LEP) children have become increasingly more likely to attend schools with low-income, minority, and LEP students than other non-LEP and LEP groups. Nearly all the change in school composition can be attributed to statewide shifts in the composition of the school-aged population. But compositional changes have disproportionately occurred in schools attended by Spanish-speaking LEP students as a result of district-level patterns of segregation by income, race/ethnicity, and language.
Explaining trends in child support: Economic, demographic, and policy effects
Authors: Case Anne C. , Lin I-Fen , Mclanahan Sara S.
Published: February 2007

We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine trends in the receipt of child support (and the determinants of trends) between 1968 and 1997. The findings suggest that political, demographic, and economic forces all exerted downward pressure on child-support payments during this 30-year period, with inflation, the shift to unilateral divorce, and declines in fertility and men’s earnings being more important during the earlier years and decreases in men’s earnings being more important during the later years. These negative forces were offset by the passage of new child-support legislation in the 1980s and 1990s, including numeric guidelines, universal withholding, and genetic testing.
Parental leave: The impact of recent legislation on parents’ leave taking
Authors: Han Wen-Jui , Waldfogel Jane
Published: February 2007

We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of leave entitlements on unpaid leave usage by men and women after the birth of a child from 1991 to 1999. The results indicate that legislation providing the right to unpaid leave has not affected men’s leave usage. The results for women are mixed: in some specifications, leave entitlements are associated with increased leave taking or longer leaves, but the results depend on how we define leave coverage. Our results point to the limited impact of unpaid leave policies and the potential importance of paid-leave policies.
The joint effects of marriage partners’ socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce
Authors: Jalovaara Marika
Published: February 2007

This study investigated the joint effects of spouses’ socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce in Finland. For couples in which both partners were at the lowest educational level, the risk of divorce was lower than could be expected on the basis of the previously documented overall inverse association between each spouse’s education and the risk of divorce. Women who were employed or were homemakers, and who had employed husbands, had comparatively stable marriages; couples in which the husband, the wife, or both partners were unemployed had an elevated risk of divorce. A husband’s high income decreased the risk of divorce, and a wife’s high income increased the risk at all levels of the other spouse’s income, but especially when the wife’s income exceeded the husband’s.
Do children from welfare families obtain less education?
Authors: Ku Inhoe , Plotnick Robert
Published: February 2007

In this study, we analyzed whether parents’ receipt of welfare affects children’s educational attainment in early adulthood, independent of its effect through changing family income. We used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with information on parents’ welfare receipt over the first 15 years of childhood. Cross-sectional results show that greater exposure to welfare is significantly associated with children’s poorer educational attainment. Family fixed-effect regressions also indicate a negative effect of exposure to welfare, but its overall pattern is less consistent. Although exposure to welfare in early childhood has no effect, in adolescence and, to a lesser degree, in middle childhood, its effect is often negative.
Cohabiting and marriage during young men’s career-development process
Authors: Oppenheimer Valerie Kincade
Published: February 2007

Using recently released cohabitation data for the male sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, first interviewed in 1979, I conducted multinomial discrete-time event-history analyses of how young men’s career-development process affects both the formation and the dissolution of cohabiting unions. For a substantial proportion of young men, cohabitation seemed to represent an adaptive strategy during a period of career immaturity, whereas marriage was a far more likely outcome for both stably employed cohabitors and noncohabitors alike. Earnings positively affected the entry into either a cohabiting or marital union but exhibited a strong threshold effect. Once the men were in cohabiting unions, however, earnings had little effect on the odds of marrying. Men with better long-run socioeconomic prospects were far more likely to marry from either the noncohabiting or cohabiting state, and this was particularly true for blacks.
Educational attainment and the transition to first marriage among Japanese women
Authors: Raymo James M.
Published: February 2007

I use data from a large nationally representative survey to examine the relationship between women’s educational attainment and the timing of first marriage in Japan. The results indicate that later marriage for highly educated women primarily reflects longer enrollment in school, that university education is increasingly associated with later and less marriage, and that the trend toward later and less marriage is occurring at all levels of educational attainment. These findings are consistent, albeit weakly, with the argument that higher education should be negatively associated with marriage only in countries in which gender relations make it particularly difficult for women to balance work and family.
Social security, age of retirement, and economic well-being: Intertemporal and demographic patterns among retired-worker beneficiaries
Authors: Haveman Robert , Holden Karen , Wilson Kathryn , Wolfe Barbara
Published: February 2007

We examine the economic status of a sample of new recipients of social security retired-worker benefits shortly after their first receipt of benefits (1982) and 10 years later (1991). The probability that these retired-worker beneficiaries were poor or near-poor is positively and strongly associated with their acceptance of early retired-worker benefits. Early retirees, women who remained single, and women who lost their spouses experienced large declines in economic status over the decade following their first receipt of benefits. Although both women and men who first received benefits at younger ages had lower economic status than did those who became beneficiaries at older ages, this retirement age-related disadvantage increased over the decade for women but not for men.
Women’s status and domestic violence in rural Bangladesh: Individual- and community-level effects
Authors: Koenig Michael A. , Ahmed Saifuddin , Hossain Mian Bazle , Mozumder A. B. M. Khorshed Alam
Published: February 2007

We explore the determinants of domestic violence in two rural areas of Bangladesh. We found increased education, higher socioeconomic status, non-Muslim religion, and extended family residence to be associated with lower risks of violence. The effects of women’s status on violence was found to be highly context-specific. In the more culturally conservative area, higher individual-level women’s autonomy and short-term membership in savings and credit groups were both associated with significantly elevated risks of violence, and community-level variables were unrelated to violence. In the less culturally conservative area, in contrast, individual-level women’s status indicators were unrelated to the risk of violence, and community-level measures of women’s status were associated with significantly lower risks of violence, presumably by reinforcing nascent normative changes in gender relations.
The reporting of sensitive behavior by adolescents: A methodological experiment in Kenya
Authors: Mensch Barbara S. , Hewett Paul C. , Erulkar Annabel S.
Published: February 2007

Does audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) produce more valid reporting of sexual activity and related behaviors than face-to-face interviews or self-administered interviews? This analysis, based on data collected from over 6,000 unmarried adolescents in two districts of Kenya—Nyeri and Kisumu—indicates substantial and significant differences in reported rates of premarital sex across interview modes, although not always in the expected direction. Our assumption that girls underreport sexual activity in face-to-face interviews by comparison with ACASI is not confirmed by the Nyeri data, but our results from Kisumu are considerably more promising. As for boys, who we believe exaggerate their level of sexual activity in face-to-face interviews, a more nuanced set of expectations regarding the reporting of sensitive behaviors was offered; our results from Kisumu, although not always significant, by and large conform to expectations.
How an earnings supplement can affect union formation among low-income single mothers
Authors: Harknett Kristen , Gennetian Lisa A.
Published: February 2007

Using data from an experimental evaluation in two Canadian provinces, we found that offering an earnings supplement to single mothers in place of welfare altered rates of marriage and cohabitation, but that the direction of the effects varied by province. Our findings suggest that research on the relationship between women’s economic well-being and marital decisions at the national level is likely to mask important variation at the local level. After eliminating several explanations for the opposite effects in the two provinces, we propose that local labor markets and local policy contexts are potentially important mediating characteristics of marriage and cohabitation.
Selective gender differences in childhood nutrition and immunization in rural India: The role of siblings
Authors: Pande Rohini P.
Published: February 2007

This article examines the role of the sex composition of surviving older siblings on gender differences in childhood nutrition and immunization, using data from the National Family Health Survey, India (1992–1993). Logit and ordered logit models were used for severe stunting and immunization, respectively. The results show selective neglect of children with certain sex and birth-order combinations that operate differentially for girls and boys. Both girls and boys who were born after multiple same-sex siblings experience poor outcomes, suggesting that parents want some balance in sex composition. However, the preference for sons persists, and boys who were born after multiple daughters have the best possible outcomes.
Early origins of the gradient: the relationship between socioeconomic status and infant mortality in the United States
Authors: Finch Brian Karl
Published: February 2007

Although relationships between social conditions and health have been documented for centuries, the past few decades have witnessed the emergence of socioeconomic gradients in health and mortality in most developed countries. These gradients indicate that health improves, although decreasingly so, at higher levels of socioeconomic status. To minimize problems with reverse causality, I tested competing hypotheses for observed socioeconomic gradients for infant mortality outcomes. I found no support for the income-inequality hypothesis and negligible support for the occupational-grade hypothesis. The results indicate that absolute material conditions are the most important determinants of socioeconomic effects on the risk of infant mortality and that while poverty has the most pronounced effect on risk, income is decreasingly salutary across the majority of the mortality gradient.
Rethinking the “early” decline of marital fertility in the united states
Authors: Hacker J. David
Published: February 2007

In this article, I rely on new estimates of nineteenth-century mortality and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to construct new estimates of white fertility in the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike previous estimates that showed a long-term decline in overall fertility beginning at or before the turn of the nineteenth century, the new estimates suggest that U.S. fertility did not begin its secular decline until circa 1840. Moreover, new estimates of white marital fertility, based on “own-children” methods, suggest that the decline in marital fertility did not begin in the nation as a whole until after the Civil War (1861–1865).
Modeling momentum in gradual demographic transitions
Authors: Schoen Robert , Jonsson Stefan Hrafn
Published: February 2007

The analysis of population momentum following a gradual decline in fertility to replacement level provides valuable insights into prospects for future population growth. Here, we extend recent work in the area by applying a new form of the quadratic hyperstable (QH) model, which relates exponentially changing fertility to the resultant exponentiated quadratic birth sequence. Modeling gradual transitions from an initial stable population to an ultimate stationary population indicates that such declines in fertility increase momentum by a product of two factors. The first factor is a previously noted continuation of stable growth for half the period of decline. The second is a not previously appreciated offsetting factor that reflects the interaction between the decline in fertility, the changing age pattern of fertility, and the changing age composition of the population. Numerical examples using both hypothetical and actual populations demonstrate that for declines of any length, the product of the two factors yields momentum values that closely agree with the results of population projections. The QH model can examine monotonic transitions between any two sets of constant vital rates. As a generalization of the fixed-rate stable model, it has great potential value in numerous areas of demographic analysis.
Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus
Authors: Stewart Columba
Published: February 2007

Evagrius Ponticus (ca. 345-399), practitioner and theologian
of monastic prayer, brought his deep knowledge of both Hellenistic
philosophy and Christian thought (especially the work of Origen) to
bear on his tracing of the human journey back to perfect union with
God. His several writings on prayer, and particularly his teaching
about "imageless prayer," must be situated within that philosophical
and theological framework. The emphasis on imageless prayer creates a
tension with the Christian and monastic focus on biblical texts. Examining
Evagrius' theories of mental operation and biblical exegesis helps in
understanding both the imperative of imageless prayer for Evagrius and
its problematic aspects.
Religio in stagno: Divinity, and the Christianization of the Countryside in Late Antique Italy
Authors: Barnish S.J.B.
Published: February 2007

This article explores the ways in which Christians in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages might see nature as charged with religious significance. It does this first by examining the context and implications of the conversion of a pagan sacred spring in southern Italy to a baptistery; then by studying the subtle and allusive letter ( Variae 8.33) in which Cassiodorus describes the site and the fair and religious festival held there.