Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Impact Of Social Capital On Employment And Marriage Among Low Income Single Mothers, Jennifer A. Johnson, Julie A. Honnold, Perry Threlfall

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, P. L. 104-93) called primarily on women to achieve two goals: work and/or marriage. For low income single mothers with limited access to capital, the PRWORA presents a quagmire in that the public safety nets previously guaranteed by the policies of the New Deal were abruptly supplanted by policies with obligations that require various forms of capital. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing dataset, we examine the impact of social capital on the chances of marriage and employment among single, unemployed mothers. We find …

Food Stamps And Dependency: Disentangling The Short-Term And Long-Term Economic Effects Of Food Stamp Receipt And Low Income For Young Mothers, Thomas P. Vartanian, Linda Houser, Joseph Harkness

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) remains one of the most widely used of all U.S. social "safety net" programs. While a substantial body of research has developed around the primary goals of the program- improving food access, nutrition, and health among lowincome families-less attention has been paid to the broader goals of hardship and poverty reduction. Using 38 years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we examine several immediate and longer-term economic outcomes of early adult FSP participation for a sample of3,848 young mothers. While FSP participation is associated with some negative outcomes in the immediate future …

Exploring The Well-Being Of Foster Children Of Parents With Substance Abuse Problems In Family Dependency Treatment Courts, Barbara M. Howes

Dissertations

The aim of this three-paper format dissertation is to explore how the well-being of foster children of parents with substance abuse problems is defined and promoted through Family Dependency Treatment Courts (FDTC) within the context of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). The benefit to the author of the three-paper method is the task of submitting the findings of the study for publication is eased as the dissertation contains three stand-alone articles. A drawback for the reader of the three paper method is that there is redundancy in reading the same sections in each paper. The reader is encouraged …

Society In Crisis: A Critical Perspective On Health Care And Distribution Ofhealth Status In The United States, Curtis D. Hosier

Dissertations

This research examines U. S. health status both internationally and domestically utilizing indicators infant mortality, life expectancy at birth, and maternal mortality data as comparison. This research compares U.S. health status data with OECD country data to ascertain U.S. rankings internationally. Also, this research examines the distribution of health status within and between sex, class, and racial groups in the U.S. to further the discussion that health status is unequally distributed in the United States. This research found the U.S. ranked in the lowest quartile in each of the health status variables examined internationally. This research found inequalities exist in …

From Reproduction To Consumption: The Economic Deterioration Of Families In The United States After World War Ii, Michael David Gillespie

Dissertations

The United State's “great recession,” beginning in December 2007, is the latest indicator of the economic decline of middle- and working-class families. This research questions why the economic condition of U.S. families deteriorated after World War II. To address this research question, social structure of accumulation theory is used to examine the changing role of the family as an institution in capitalist society.

First, a qualitative institutional analysis of federal welfare, labor, and financial regulatory policies from the New Deal to the present is conducted. This analysis shows that, initially, the family was vital to the capitalist economy as the …

Perspectives Of Employed People Experiencing Homelessness Of Self And Being Homeless: Challenging Socially Constructed Perceptions And Stereotypes, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, John R. Graham

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In a study that sought to identify the multiple factors resulting in homelessness from the perspective of 65 individuals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada who were both employed and homeless, we found that participants' perceptions of being homeless emerged as a major theme which impacts their entry to and exit from homelessness. Four sub-themes related to these perceptions were identified: (1) perceptions of self and situation; (2) impact of being homeless on self-reflection; (3) aspects of hope to consider; and (4) perspectives on having a permanent residence. Analytically, these findings help challenge present stereotypes about homelessness and usefully inform social service …

Work Characteristics And Family Routines In Low-Wage Families, Amanda Sheely

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The maintenance of routines is linked to positive outcomes in children and families. Role theory asserts that resources and constraints found in family and work environments will shape a parent's ability to successfully fulfill both roles. To date, there is scant research examining the maintenance of routines in lowincome families whose work environments are often characterized by temporary work, non-traditional shifts, and irregular hours. This study seeks to understand the relationship between employment characteristics on the maintenance of family routines in a sample of low-wage families. The results of this study support the findings of other researchers that low-wage families …

Family Characteristics, Public Program Participation, & Civic Engagement, Richard K. Caputo

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study tested for differences on the type and extent of civic engagement between use of visible programs such as Food Stamps and Medicaid and less visible programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit while accounting for family and socio demographic characteristics. Policy feedback theory guided the study which used data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys. Challenging prior research, means-tested Food Stamps, Medicaid, or EITC program participants were as likely as non-participants to devote time to activities aimed at changing social conditions. What social service agencies can do to enhance civic engagement is discussed.

Chat-Room Voices Of Divorced Non-Residential Fathers, Pauline Irit Erera, Nehami Baum

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study uses postings by divorced fathers to an unmoderated Internet chat room to sound and analyze their voices. The findings show that the posters expressed an acute sense of powerlessness with respect to their status as non-residential fathers, the imposition of child support, the mothers of their children, the family courts, and lawyers and helping professionals. Although most of their grievances have already been reported in the literature on non-custodial post-divorce parenting, the anonymous postings allow us to hear an intensity of feeling that comes through much more faintly in studies based on interviews or focus groups. Since the …

African American Grandmothers Providing Extensive Care To Their Grandchildren: Socio-Demographic And Health Determinants Of Life Satisfaction, Dorothy Smith-Ruiz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The article explores the relationships between grandmothers' socioeconomic and health characteristics in relation to life satisfaction. Reasons for caregiving, assumption of the caregiver role, and grandmothers'attitudes and experiences in custodial caregiving were discussed qualitatively from data gathered in detailed interviews of a convenience sample of 99 custodial African American grandmothers caringf or one or more grandchildreny ounger than 18 in North Carolina. Most grandmothers in this sample reported mixed feelings toward custodial caregiving, both as a burden as well as a blessing. They also reported a weak support system and relied on their faith more than family and friends to …

Supporting Divorcing Parents In Japan, Akemi Kishimoto

Masters Theses

The purpose of this current study was to investigate the level of acceptance among professionals in Japan for initiatives and services for families experiencing divorce. Questionnaires were mailed to 1963 professionals. Seventy questionnaires were returned from Family Court Officers (n = 3), Counselors at the Family Problem Information Centers (n = 8), family law attorneys (n = 2), university faculty (n = 53), and unspecified (n = 4). Results are summarized as follows: laws and rules about divorce in Japanese society, including historical aspects; focusing on children's interests; visitation and postdivorce relationships; educating the public, parents, and high school students; …

This Journey Is Not For The Faint Of Heart: An Investigation Of Challenges Facing Transgender Individuals And Their Significant Others, Emily Lenning

Dissertations

This study investigates the challenges imposed on transgender individuals and their significant others as a result of the deviant labels that have been used to stigmatize non-traditional expressions of gender. Using webbased surveys and an on-line focus group, the themes of language and its limitations, psychological trauma, and social challenges are explored and analyzed using discourse analysis. With a total of 311 subjects, 254 transgender individuals and 57 significant others, this research challenges the utility of gendered language as it is currently constituted, addresses the importance of significant others in understanding the transgender experience, and identifies the various social, psychological …

Essays On Intrahousehold Allocation And The Family: Fertility, Child Education, And Nutrition, Alemayehu Azeze Ambel

Dissertations

Understanding the constraints that households face when making decisions on fertility, education, and health is beneficial for effective interventions aimed at enhancing investments in human capital, promoting gender equity, and reducing poverty. This dissertation consists of four essays that analyze the nature, performance, and determinants of fertility, child education, and nutritional status in a developing economy.

The first essay identifies peculiar constraints, including gender preference and income uncertainty that households face when making fertility and schooling choices. The underlying assumption in the theoretical analysis is that in the absence of formal risk and capital markets, households may revert to informal …

Incarceration And Unwed Fathers In Fragile Families, Charles E. Lewis Jr., Irwin Garfinkel, Qin Gao

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Criminal justice policies have resulted in millions of Americans being incarcerated over the past three decades in systems that provide little or no rehabilitation. This study uses a new dataset-The Fragile Families Study-to document poor labor market outcomes that are associated with incarceration. We find that fathers who had been incarcerated earned 28 percent less annually thanfathers who were never incarceratedT hese previously incarceratedfa thers worked less weeks per year, less hours per week and were less likely to be working during the week prior to their interview. We also found that fathers who had been incarcerated were more likely …

Economic Mobility Of Single Mothers: The Role Of Assets And Human Capital Development, Min Zhan

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines the economic mobility of single mothers. It highlights the relationships between single mothers' financial assets and human capital development (educational advancement, job training, and work hours) with their economic mobility. Analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) indicates that assets may help improve upward economic mobility. Assets, however, have differential impact on single mothers with different income levels. In addition, human capital development mediates the positive link between assets and the economic mobility for mothers living between the 100% and 200% federal poverty. These results support asset building as an investment strategy to …

Altruism Or Self-Interest? Social Spending And The Life Course, Debra Street, Jeralynn Sittig Cossman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The primacy of self-interested individuals is often regarded as the appropriate basis for US social spending decisions. One thread of this argument has advanced age-based self-interest and politically powerful elderly to explain why Social Security and Medicare have thrived in a policy environment that has seen retrenchment in other programs. We argue that crude self-interest and individual programs considered in isolation are insufficient to understand social spending preferences. We use General Social Survey data to contrast conventional and critical explanations for understanding the role of age in preferences for social spending. Factor analyses demonstrate that social spending preferences cluster into …

Examining The Structural Covariates Of Methamphetamine Use: A Social Disorganization Perspective, Justin Smith

Masters Theses

There have been many anecdotal accounts describing the characteristics of individuals involved in methamphetamine use, trafficking and production. However, prior to the current study there was yet to be a macro-level analysis of methamphetamine use. The extant macro-level literature on drug use has suggested that areas with high levels of social disorganization experience high rates of drug use. It was expected that school-districts with low SES and high rates of ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability and family disruption will experience high rates of methamphetamine use. In addition, it was expected that rural school districts would show higher rates than urban and …

From Self-Sufficiency To Personal And Family Sustainability: A New Paradigm For Social Policy, Robert Leibson Hawkins

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Current social policy that affects welfare recipients focuses on the concept of "self-sufficiency" where leaving welfare for work is the goal. While this approach has reduced welfare rolls, it has not necessarily helped low-income people improve their economic, educational, or social outlook. This paper suggests that the concept of Personal and Family Sustainability (PFS) may be a better way to evaluate and direct social policy. A definition of PFS is developed from the environmental and community development roots of sustainability and four domains for creating PFS indicators are introduced.

Aging And Family Policy: A Sociological Excursion, Jason L. Powell

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The contemporary focus on family policy and old age has become increasingly important in social discourses on aging both within the discipline of Sociology and social policy practices of welfare institutions that attempt to define later life. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, sheds light on wider current trends associated with aging in United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. Social welfare is a pivotal domain where social discourses on aging have become located. Narratives are 'played out' with regard to the raw material supplied by family policy for identity performance of older people. Therefore, grounding developments in 'narrativity' …

Family Structure Effects On Parenting Stress And Practices In The African American Family, Daphne S. Cain, Terri Combs-Orme

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The predominant approach to African-American parenting research focuses on disadvantages associated with single parenthood to the exclusion of other issues. The current research suggests that this does not represent the diversity in family structure configurations among African-American families, nor does it give voice to the parenting resilience of single mothers. We argue that rather than marital status or family configuration, more attention needs to be given to the inadequacy of resources for this population.

In the current study, we examined the parenting of infants by African- American mothers and found that mothers' marital status and family configuration did not affect …

Engendering Citizenship? A Critical Feminist Analysis Of Canadian Welfare-To-Work Policies And The Employment Experiences Of Lone Mothers, Rhonda S. Breitkreuz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Like other liberal-welfare states, Canada, in a climate of balanced budgets and deficit reduction, has been active in developing policies intended to move welfare recipients into employment in order to achieve selfsufficiency. The purpose of this paper is to employ a critical feminist analysis to examine the extent to which these policies, developed under the ideological umbrella of neo-liberalism, are gender sensitive. Literature on the economic and non-economic impacts of welfare-to-work policies is reviewed to evaluate whether these initiatives, while mandating lone-mothers into employment, recognize the gendered nature of work, employment and poverty. Gaps in current research are identified and …

The Peculiarities Of Men Aging: A Collection Of Anecdotes, Robert Blundo, Tamara Estes

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Men are reticent to share with others the slow realization that with age they begin to confront a world that they had not expected. They had not expected to grow old. Now that this is happening, men have few relationships that permit them to share their thoughts and moments of recognition. The anecdotes that men share are revealing in that they demonstrate basic human uncertainties about the later part of life's cycle.

Grandfathers And The Impact Of Raising Grandchildren, Karen Bullock

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Objectives. As grandparents are continuing to take on the responsible of raising their grandchildren in the absence of parents much attention in the literature is given to women. Little is known about the adjustment that older men make in these families. This study explored the experiences of grandfathers raising grandchildren.

Methods. Data were gathered by semi-structured interviews in a rural community in southeastern North Carolina and analyzed using a qualitative content analysis mode. Twenty-six men, age 65+, who were responsible for the care of at least one grandchild, participated.

Results. Eighty-one percent (N = 21) reported that their perception of …

The Benefits Of Marriage Reconsidered, Barbara Wells, Maxine Baca Zinn

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper suggests that analyses of marriage experience take into account both structures of inequality and context. Although marriage is widely viewed as producing economic well-being and family stability, this analysis of a sample of White rural families finds the likelihood of realizing these benefits to be closely related to social class position. Marriage failed to produce these benefits for many working class and poor families. Although gains in economic self-sufficiency are viewed as an explanation for White women's perceived retreat from marriage, the limited opportunity structure for women in this rural place provides a context in which women continue …

Adoption In The U.S.: The Emergence Of A Social Movement, Frances A. Dellacava, Norma Kolko Phillips, Madeline H. Engel

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Adoption Movement, which has been evolving in the U.S. since the late 1970s, is now fully formed. As a proactive, reformative social movement, adoption has reached the organizational, or institutional, stage. Evidence is seen in the roles assumed by government and voluntary agencies and organizations, as well as other systems in society, to support adoption, and in the extent to which adoption has been infused in the American culture, making it a part of our everyday landscape. Implications of the adoption movement for the helping professions are discussed, as is its impact on increasing cultural and racial diversity in …

The Welfare Myth: Disentangling The Long-Term Effects Of Poverty And Welfare Receipt For Young Single Mothers, Thomas P. Vartanian, Justine M. Mcnamara

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study investigates the effects of receiving welfare as a young woman on long-term economic and marital outcomes. Specifically, we examine if there are differences between young, single mothers who receive welfare and young, single mothers who are poor but do not receive welfare. Using the 1968-1997 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, our findings suggest those who receive welfare for an extended period as young adults have the same pre-transfer income over a 10 to 20 year period as those who are poor but do not receive welfare as young adults. While we found some differences between the two groups …

Review Of Social Identities Across The Life Course. Jenny Hockey And Alison James. Reviewed By Marvin D. Feit., Marvin D. Feit

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Jenny Hockey and Alison James, Social Identities across the Life Course. New York: Pagrave Macmillan, 2003. $75 hardcover, $24.95 papercover.

Supportive Communities, An Optimum Arrangement For The Older Population?, Miriam Billig

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The preference of older people to stay in their own natural environment requires a reassessment of the approach in dealing with this population group. This exploratory study examines a program conducted in Israel called the "Supportive Community", that provides an emergency call service and other essential services at the homes of older people. A case study was performed in two such supportive communities. Interviews conducted with those who operate the programs and with its members seem to indicate that supportive communities provide a satisfactory solution to the needs of older people who continue to live in their natural environment. Many …

Taiwanese Female Counselors’ Experiences Of Managing Work And Family Roles And Responsibilities, Joy Yuyin Huang

Dissertations

Mental health professionals work in emotionally demanding environments when they work with clients who have emotional problems and interpersonal conflicts. Self-care and managing family and work responsibilities are concerns of great importance for mental health professionals to maintain quality in their services. This is of special concern for Asian female counselors who play important supportive roles for their families. As a result, Asian female counselorsnot only work with clients but also assume heavy family responsibilities, yet there is a dearth of literature on this specific group (Leong, 2002; Saso, 1999; Lee, 1998).

This qualitative study using grounded theory methods explored …

Controversial Maternal Roles Of Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse Cases, Rhonda Elliott Mcgee

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine Child Sexual Abuse case files, to determine which "maternal role": (a) protector, (b) co-victim, (c) co-perpetrator/conspirator, or (d) perpetrator was the most common in court cases studied in this research. The researcher also sought to find: (1) The most dominant maternal role in reference to percentage; (2) The effect, if any, of certain "role types"; (3) And the consequences and/or effects of selected variables (e.g. age, race, and gender) had in family court decisions and adjudications.

The target population consisted of forty-one cases of Child Sexual Abuse cases, adjudicated by the Family …