Division of Domestic Work: Is There Adjustment Between Partners when One is Unemployed?

Coming back to the main models of division of work within the couple, the aim of this article is to analyze the possible transfers of domestic chores between partners facing an external shock. We test it by studying the allocation of domestic time on couples facing unemployment on the French time-use survey. Are domestic chores transferable between partners? Controlled for many covariates, bivariate tobit regressions on indicators of time, variety and number of activities show that domestic tasks performed by unemployed people, either men or women, increase. Despite the inertia due to couple’s specialization, the hypothesis of versatility is partially checked. “Dominantly Feminine tasks” are the more transferable tasks. Unemployment involves a new division of labor between spouses.     

Implementing a smoking ban in an acute psychiatric admissions unit

In contrast to general medical hospitals, psychiatric hospitals often allow patients to smoke cigarettes. In addition to obvious health concerns, smoking can also interfere with clinical assessments and therapeutic activities, Implementation of a smoking ban on an acute male admissions unit did not result in any increase in aggressive behaviors. In addition, staff attitudes following the ban improved, and most staff members believed the ban was both ethical and beneficial to patients. Our research indicates that banning smoking on an acute admissions unit is feasible and well tolerated by patients and staff, although it may require extra vigilance for smoking-related contraband.     

Psychiatric nursing recruitment. Roles for educators and nursing staff

Recruiting new nurses to a relatively unpopular specialty in the midst of a nursing shortage is challenging. However, the literature offers educators and clinical nursing staff important insight regarding the promotion of student interest in psychiatric nursing. Clearly, a collaborative effort is needed. Educators and clinicians should work together to provide students with a satisfying psychiatric nursing experience. Through a combination of effective, intellectually stimulating classroom instruction and positive, welcoming clinical experiences, educators and clinical nursing staff may increase the number of nursing graduates who pursue this rewarding specialty.     

Life Planning Services: Helping older placed children with their identity

Life Planning Services for Older Children is a time-limited and intensive approach for working with youngsters who are or have been in the American foster care system. The program is designed to help children and adolescents explore the way in which their life experiences influence their selfimage as well as to examine the availability of family membership for the present and the future. The program staff work to strengthen existing family connections or to help youngsters look at alternatives. After examining the impact of identity on placement, the author describes some of the methods used by Life Planning Services staff to help placed children meet the challenges of adolescent identity development.Sheila Merry, Kay Donley, and Betsy Cole are thanked for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Disability and Attitudes to Family Care in Britain: Towards a Sociological Perspective

Attitudes to family care are critical to the quality of community support offered to people with physical and mental handicaps. Yet despite their importance, they have attracted comparatively little social research. This paper examines the 'hotchpotch' of material which is available through the eyes of psychology and sociology. The potential of the psychologist's four-part anatomy of attitudes is recognised: the perceptual, evaluative, affective and behavioural components. However, attention is drawn to the narrow, consensual framework within which these components are often placed, and an alternative sociological or structural model is developed for family care, where the attitudes of disabled people and their relatives are seen as products of the family's socio-economic role. The conclusion discusses some of the policy implications.     

Explaining trends in child support: Economic,demographic, and policy effects

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.