Family Cap and Nonmarital Fertility: The Racial Conditioning of Policy Effects

Using an experimental design, this research examines the effect of the nation's first family cap on the births, abortions, and contraception use of over 8,000 women receiving public assistance in New Jersey. The family cap denies additional cash benefits to children conceived while the mother is receiving public assistance. Our research shows that a targeted welfare benefit manipulation does influence fertility behavior; however, the effect is conditioned by race. We find that Black women in the experimental group have a 21% lower birth rate and a 32% higher abortion rate than Black women in the control group. We do not find a birth effect for Hispanic or White women. We discuss the policy implications of the effects of a segmented family cap.     

Economic Penalties and Rewards of Family Formation,Gender and Education in the Low‐income Sector in Germany1

This article examines the differential effects of changes in family formations on men's and women's economic vulnerability. The motivating question is whether investments in education provide sufficient resources to escape the risk of poverty in the low‐income sector or if changes in household characteristics are more important determinants of one's living standard. Changes in household characteristics are defined in terms of partners' entry into and exit from households and partners' different labour market profiles. The analysis focuses on households in the low‐income sector in Germany, a population that is at high risk of poverty in a social welfare state that is expected to mitigate the effects of changes in family formation independent of gender. Findings from panel regression analysis demonstrate that women, in contrast to men, benefit economically as much as or more from investing in traditional family formations than in their own labour market position. This is especially the case for women with lower levels of education.     

Leave policy in the Nordic welfare states: a ‘recipe’ for high employment/high fertility?

Predicted population decline and labour shortages in European welfare states are directing attention to policy strategies that might increase women's employment and fertility rates. In this context, the Nordic welfare states’ blend of high female employment rates and relatively high fertility levels stands out from others. These patterns are accompanied by comprehensive work–family policies indicating that policy reform is a main explanation. A core element in Nordic work–family policies is generous leave of absence arrangements for parents. In scrutinising leave policy in a Nordic context, the analysis in this paper emphasises that the current situation is a result of processes that have taken a long time to unfold, and that leave policy reforms interact with labour market developments and cultural institutions of family formation in shaping women's social practices.     

Changes in Wives' Income: Effects on Marital Happiness,Psychological Well‐Being,and the Risk of Divorce

We investigate the effects of increases in married women's actual income and in their proportion of total family income on marital happiness, psychological well‐being, and the likelihood of divorce. We use data from a sample of 1,047 married individuals (not couples) in medium‐duration marriages, drawn from a five‐wave panel survey begun in 1980 and continuing to 1997. Structural equation modeling is used to assess the impact of increases in married women's absolute and relative income from 1980 to 1988 on the marital happiness and well‐being of married men and women in 1988. Event history analysis is used to determine how these changes affect the risk of divorce between 1988 and 1997. We find that increases in married women's absolute and relative income significantly increase their marital happiness and well‐being. Increases in married women's absolute income generally have nonsignificant effects for married men. However, married men's well‐being is significantly lower when married women's proportional contributions to the total family income are increased. The likelihood of divorce is not significantly affected by increases in married women's income. Nevertheless, increases in married women's income may indirectly lower the risk of divorce by increasing women's marital happiness.     

Fertility and social change: the neglected contribution of men's approaches to becoming partners and parents

Attitude survey and interview data are mobilised to address neglect of men's contribution to low fertility and wider social change in families and relationships. Men's attitudes are as relevant as women's to understanding fertility behaviour. However, fertility behaviour can only be understood in the context of a package of changes in gender relations and family life. Data from a random sample of men aged 18–49 surveyed in the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey 2005/06 are combined with in‐depth interviews conducted in 2007 with 75 men aged 25–44 identified through the Scottish Household Survey as not living in co‐resident partnership arrangements. Both datasets encompass the age span conventionally associated with having children and men who were the potential partners of women delaying a first child until their 30s. They allow consideration of the impact of social contact with parents and children on men's fertility intentions and how the role of provider features in men's views about parenting. The interviews focus on men who have fallen out of, or have not entered, co‐resident partnerships and examine the relationship between partnering and parenting. In combination the data suggest how men act as a complementary or contradictory downward drag on women's fertility and that their role has been underestimated in understanding the package of family change of which low fertility is a part.     

The Cost of Instability: The Effects of Family,Work, and Welfare Change on Low‐Income Women’s Health Insurance Status

The number of uninsured Americans has risen substantially over the last decade. Despite the availability of Medicaid, low‐income women are at particularly elevated risk of having no or inadequate health insurance. How does continuity of work, family, and welfare affect low‐income women’s health insurance status? A multinomial logistic regression analysis of 1,662 low‐income women from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three‐City Study provides evidence of the consequences of life changes on access to health insurance from 1999–2005. The results show that compared to those with stable welfare, work, and family attachments, new full‐time employment actually increases low‐income women’s risk of being uninsured as does being underemployed, on welfare, or single for extended periods of time. These findings illustrate how health‐care reform must adequately address the complexity of low‐income women’s lives—including the ways labor market, state, and family factors interact to create barriers to health insurance—in order to improve access to care under the current U.S. health insurance model.     

Collocating FQHC and addiction treatment at Damian

If leaders of substance use treatment programs that work with at‐risk children and families have often seen themselves at cross‐purposes with child welfare and criminal justice agencies, there is growing evidence of greater cooperation. The director of an innovative women and children's treatment program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made a pitch for coordinated and family‐centered care in a webinar presentation last week, using her agency's experience as an example.     

Family formation among women in the U.S. military: Evidence from the nLSY

Although female employment is associated with lower levels of completed fertility in the civilian world, we find family formation rates among U.S. military women to be comparatively high. We compare enlisted women with civilian women using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,547), the only data set to measure simultaneously the nuptiality and fertility of both populations. Using propensity score matching, we show that the fertility effect derives primarily from early marriage in the military, a surprisingly “family‐friendly” institution. This shows that specific organizational and economic incentives in a working environment may offset the more widespread contemporary social and economic factors that otherwise depress marriage and fertility.     

Women's Voices: Explaining Poverty and Plenty in a Rural Community*

Abstract This paper explores how a multiclass sample of white rural women in an economically depressed, overwhelmingly nonfarm community explain both their own families' economic circumstances and those of the most disadvantaged families in their community. All women in the sample—even those with a history of economic instability and welfare receipt—articulate an ethic of family self‐sufficiency. They uniformly believe that anyone who can work should work, although they vary in their definition of who “can work.” In general, the lower the social class, the greater the understanding of the social processes that precipitate and perpetuate poverty. Both working‐class and poor women clearly recognize the limitations of the local market for labor. Sample women are ambivalent about welfare receipt and welfare reform. Although they believe that families should be self‐supporting, many recognize the necessity of welfare for the survival of some families in the community.     

WHAT DETERMINES FAMILY STRUCTURE?

We use data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate the effects of policy and labor market variables on the demographic behaviors that determine children's family structure experiences: union formation and dissolution, and fertility. Male and female wages have substantial effects on family structure for children of black and Hispanic mothers. The tax treatment of children also affects family structure. Welfare reform, welfare benefits, and unilateral divorce had much smaller effects on family structure for the children of this cohort of women. Trends in wages and tax rates explain only a small share of the observed changes in family structure in recent decades. (JEL J12)     

Single and the City: State Influences on Intimate Relationships of Young,Single, Well‐Educated Women in Singapore

Low fertility rates and an aging population challenge the city‐state of Singapore. The Singaporean government therefore encourages singles to marry and have children. Using ethnographic data and interviews (N = 28), collected between August and December 2012, this explorative study examined the relationship between government interference and the love lives of young, well‐educated, single women in Singapore. Getting married is expected not only by the state, friends, and family members but also by singles themselves. The author examined how young women view and experience these social ideals in their daily lives. Foucault's (1982, 1984) idea of governmentality and Budgeon's (2008) idea of couple culture were used to investigate how government policies intervene in the romantic relationships of individuals through various channels, such as the housing policy, matchmaking initiatives, and social norms. The government may effectively affect individuals in certain ways, whereas at other times individuals may act in a manner that is opposite to what the government expects.     

Fertility,education, and social change

Level of education in India affects the age at marriage, the role of women, the desire to maintain and raise the standard of living, mobility , and cultural values all of which contribute to a couple's motivation to practice birth control. A review of differential fertility studies carried out in different parts of India indicates that generally the level of education and fertility are inversely related. However, the conclusions showing mean fertility at different levels of education are not uniform and this suggests that there is a critical level of education above which self-motivation, the conscious effort at family limitation on the part of the couple, determines the fertility level. Couples with less education may be inspired to practice birth control after reaching a certain parity. In India, level of education, by raising the age of marriage, widening the non-familial role of women, raising the desired standard of living, increasing geographical mobility and inculcating the small family norm, either directly affects fertility or induces the need for a small family. These variables are a direct result of education and operate most effectively upon couples educated at the level of professional and post-graduate degrees. The small family norm can also be instilled in couples with secondary and college levels of education and family planning will be practiced after the desired number of children is reached. Both self-motivation and sustained motivation are almost absent in couples with only primary or less education. Studies indicate that this section of the population will practice birth control only at high parity levels with outside encouragement.     

THE EFFECTS OF SINGLE MOTHERS' WELFARE USE AND EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS ON CHILDREN'S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

We examine the effects of single mothers' welfare use and employment decisions on children's short‐run cognitive development, as measured by their preschool standardized math test scores. We control for three mechanisms through which these decisions might affect children's outcomes: direct monetary benefits, parental time invested in the child, and nonpecuniary benefits from in‐kind transfer programs such as Medicaid. We employ a correction function approach and control for state‐fixed effects to address the endogenous nature of welfare participation and employment decisions. Our estimates suggest that although each additional quarter of either mother's employment or welfare use results in only a small increase in a child's standardized math test score, the total effects after several quarters are sizable. We allow mothers' decisions to have varying effects on attainment by children's observed innate ability and by the intensity of welfare use and employment. A child who has the mean level of observed innate ability with a mother who simultaneously worked and used welfare in all 20 quarters after childbirth experiences an 8.25 standardized‐point increase in standardized scores. The positive impact is more pronounced for the more disadvantaged children, who tend to be born to mothers with low Armed Forces Qualification Test scores, or have lower birth weights. We also examine the effects using timing of employment and welfare use, as well as children's maturity and gender. (JEL I3, J13, J22)     

Race‐Ethnic Differences in Nonmarital Fertility: A Focus on Mexican American Women

We use the National Survey of Family Growth to identify race‐ethnic differences in nonmarital fertility, paying particular attention to Mexican American women. On the basis of a sample of 9,054 White, Black, and Mexican American women, we use event history methods to explore the role of family background, a woman’s own employment and school enrollment, and cohabitation on nonmarital fertility. We additionally determine whether these relationships vary by socioeconomic background. The above factors are all significantly related to the risk of a nonmarital birth and reduce Mexican American–White differentials. Interestingly, higher fertility within cohabiting unions among Mexican American women, despite lower levels of cohabitation, contributes to their higher nonmarital fertility relative to White women.     

Anthropological Perspectives on the Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation

Abstract The sexual exchange of girls and women embodies deep cultural practices and is historically embedded in many family and kinship systems. Contemporary trafficking operations transform traditional bride wealth and marriage exchanges (prestations) by treating women's sexuality and bodies as commodities to be bought and sold (and exchanged again) in various Western capitals and Internet spaces. Such operations are also global with respect to scale, range, speed, diversity, and flexibility. Propelling many trafficking exchanges are political economic processes, which increase the trafficking of women in times of stress, such as famine, unemployment, economic transition, and so forth. However, the disparity between the global market operations, which organize trafficking, and the late nineteenth century social/public welfare system of counter‐trafficking suggests why the latter do not effectively address women's risks and may even expose them to increased levels of violence and stress. Drawing on historical accounts, anthropological theory, and ethnographic work in Viet Nam and Bosnia and Herzegovina, this essay examines how specific cultural practices embedded in family and kinship relations encourage and rationalize sexual trafficking of girls and young women in times of stress and dislocation. The essay also analyses how technologies of power inform both trafficking and counter‐trafficking operations in terms of controlling women's bodies, sexuality, health, labour, and migration. By analysing sexual trafficking as a cultural phenomenon in its own right, such an analysis seeks to inform and address the specific situations of girls and young women, who suffer greatly from the current migration regimes.     

Preferences,constraints or schemas of devotion? Exploring Norwegian mothers' withdrawals from high‐commitment careers1

Despite decades of focus on gender equality and work–family balance, parenthood still affects mothers' and fathers' careers differently. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with Norwegian mothers who are relinquishing high‐commitment careers of law and consultancy, this paper questions the adequacy of established explanations emphasizing constraints vs. individual preferences. Our sample of female professionals living in a well‐developed welfare state is particularly apt to explore the processes and mechanisms upholding the statistically gendered pattern of women reducing their work commitment after childbirth. These doubly privileged mothers might be considered to have the best odds for combining career and work commitment with motherhood. Thus, we argue that the approach emphasizing practical constraints does not sufficiently account for the withdrawal from high‐commitment careers among these female professionals. Nevertheless, we are not content with the claim of Preference Theory that this shift in commitment is merely a matter of ‘not‐so‐dedicated’ women discovering their ‘genuine’ preferences. Rather, in order to understand why and how this shift occurs, we explore the culturally constructed rationalities and schemas of both work and family devotions. We specifically examine the circumstances, mechanisms and steps in a seemingly individual process of making the shift in commitment from a promising career to a family‐friendly job. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how generous parental leave arrangements designed to enhance gender equality and work–family balance by simply reducing practical constraints may have limited – or even counterproductive – impact within high‐commitment occupations where the ‘irreplaceability’ of workers is taken for granted. Our findings indicate that unless the culturally (re)produced discourses, demands and expectations of both work and family are exposed and challenged, even intentionally gender neutral work–family policies will continue to facilitate mothers' career withdrawals, expressed as modified individual preferences.     

Is there a wage cost for employees in family‐friendly workplaces? The effect of different employer policies

This article assesses the wage impact of different family‐friendly employer policies: in‐kind or in‐cash child‐related benefits and flexible work schedule arrangements. We use French matched employee–employer data with a rich set of indicators of family‐friendly benefits, and we pay attention to the possible endogeneity of worker–employer matching. Our results show that the provision of in‐cash or in‐kind benefits is associated with higher wages for women, while flexible work schedules have no significant effect on wages. Our results lead us to reject the hypothesis of compensating wage differentials: women do not appear to face a trade‐off between wages and a better work–life balance. Our findings are more in line with the enhancing productivity theory: in‐kind benefits reduce the time devoted to household activities and alleviate conflict between professional life and family life, thereby improving women's work effort and productivity. This is not the case for flexible work arrangements, which may be perceived as negatively related to workers’ commitment to their job.     

Having It All? Women in High Commitment Careers and Work–Life Balance in Norway

The question if, or how, women can 'have it all' — high commitment career, partner and children — is regularly debated in popular media internationally. Drawing on qualitative research, this article examines work–life balance (WLB) for women in high commitment careers as politicians and non‐executive directors on corporate boards in Norway. Norway is lauded as one of the most gender equal countries in the world and in theory at least it is therefore a highly enabling environment for women to combine career and family. The article considers the WLB challenges women politicians and directors encounter and what types of WLB support — national, workplace and household level — are important for them in order to mitigate the potential strain caused by work–family conflict. This article's contribution is in highlighting the competing and sometimes contradictory policies, practices and discourses at multiple levels that surround WLB and the gendered social expectations of women in Norway who apparently 'have it all'.     

Families and family study in international perspective

Many changes are occurring in the world's families. Some observers feel that the changes are destructive, whereas others see them as leading to new opportunities and understanding. Issues in international family studies include regional limitations and the various aspects of doing research cross‐culturally. Knowledge regarding certain categories of families, inheritance, and the social psychology of families is incomplete. There are, however, some universals and universal or worldwide changes, including movement toward individual partner choice, more divorces, lower fertility, and greater opportunities for women.     

The Europeanization of Nordic Gender Equality: A Foucauldian Analysis of Reconciling Work and Family in Finland

In this article, we analyse the case of reconciling work and family as a particularly illuminative example of the effects of soft Europeanization. We focus on one particular policy instrument of the EU, namely projects co‐funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), which have sought to develop family‐friendly arrangements in Finnish workplaces. Our analysis suggests that this soft law instrument can result in significant changes in member states, even in cases where the member state's own policy is well entrenched. Theoretically, our contribution is to connect soft Europeanization to the Foucauldian theory on power, and the literature on Analytics of Government specifically. From this perspective we argue that the ESF development projects function as Foucauldian ‘technologies of involvement’. We find that by stabilizing and normalizing project techniques and managerial rationalities untypical for previous gender equality and work–family policies in the country, the ESF projects in our case partly challenge some established principles of Nordic welfare policies, such as universalism and state responsibility for welfare measures. Moreover, as ESF projects have managed to involve mainly female‐dominated organizations and women as participants, we pose the question whether this kind of soft‐law instrument that trusts the self‐regulation capacities of actors can bring about change in gendered conventions.