Expenditures on children by female-headed households

The 1982–84 Consumer Expenditure Survey data are used to analyze expenditures made by nonpoor female-headed households for child-related goods and services. These child costs are measured using Engel's (1895) food share equivalency methodology, previously used by Espenshade (1984) to analyze child-related expenditures in two-parent households. Results show that single, female-headed households on average spend about $112,000 to $142,000 in 1990 dollars to raise a single child to age 18. Findings are also compared with those of two other recently published studies of single-parent child cost estimates. Professor Douthitt's research interests include analysis of the effects of family composition on money and time expenditures. Professor Huh's current research interests include analysis of gender roles and family time use.     

Dynamics of earnings inequality among female-headed households in the United States

The labor market in the United States has gone through a number of noticeable changes, one of which is a rise participation of women in the labor force. A number of studies have investigated the consequences of these changes on wage, income, or earnings inequality in a static framework. This study investigated the consequences of these changes on earnings inequality over time. The earnings inequality among male- and female-headed households is compared. I further considered the factors that might have influenced the earnings inequality among female-headed households. Short-term and long-term inequality was measured from 1978–1986. It was found that short-term inequalities generally have a rising trend and contain transitory components; long-term inequalities declined in the early years because of a smoothing of transitory components; and within-group inequalities are the principle determinant of overall inequality. Education, race, age, and marital status were considered as possible contributors to the overall inequality. Education and race were shown to be the most influential factor explaining inequality among female-headed households and explained a third of the observed inequality. Earnings stability profiles reveal the existence of permanent and chronic inequality.     

Poverty and health: older minority women and the rise of the female-headed household

This analysis uses the 1984 Survey on Aging (SOA) supplement to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to compare the relative impacts of poverty and health on the propensity of unmarried older black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white women to live with family. The results reveal that for blacks and Hispanics, economics are more significant than health in determining whether a woman lives with her children. Our findings also show that black unmarried elderly females are more likely than similar non-Hispanic white women to head their households. The literature and our findings suggest that black and Hispanic older women have fewer options in living arrangements than non-Hispanic older women in the event of diminished health.     

American children in multiracial households

This study provides a demographic portrait of multiracial households, using children as the units of analysis. The authors conceptualize 3 dimensions for understanding multiracial qualities: 1) the racial composition of a household overall, 2) where in the household a racial difference exists relative to the household head, and 3) where in the household a racial difference exists relative to each child. Using microdata from the 1980 US census, the authors explore the 1st 2 of these dimensions and test 2 propositions about the links between racial diversity and other nonracial attributes of children's household environments. The finding is made, among other things, that the largest proportion of children live in Asian-white households, and that about 60% live in households headed by mixed-race couples. Support for the notion that attributes of multiracial households fall between those of their same-race counterparts was mixed. Nonetheless, there appears to be a link between location of diversity and some nonracial characteristics of household.     

Housing tenure,structure, and crowding among Latino households

This article examines the effect of federal housing and public assistance programs on the housing quality of different Latino households. The research tests models of crowding and housing tenure and structure for Latino households. The data for this research are from the 1990 Latino National Political Survey-Panel Study of Income Dynamics (LNPS-PSID). Findings reveal that housing and public assistance programs do help alleviate crowding among the Latino population, but they do not help Latino households achieve ownership of a single-family home. All the demographic variables in the model contribute to the explanation of crowding, and a majority also significantly explain housing tenure and structure. Significant differences are found among Latino subgroups in the explanatory variables for crowding, tenure, and structure. She is also the director of the Center for the Study of Aging at Illinois State. Her research interests include housing of minority households and congregate housing for the elderly. She received her Ph.D. from Iowa State University. Her research interests include housing needs of Latino households, resource management of female-headed Puerto Rican households, fertility decisions of Puerto Rican women, and student labor force participation. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.     

Poverty, inequality, and populist politics in Iran

Despite nearly three decades of revolutionary government rule, poverty and inequality remain the central issues of political debate in Iran. The unexpected electoral victory of Ahmadinejad, the populist candidate in the 2005 presidential election, has been widely attributed to rising poverty and inequity. Using household survey data, I examine the trends in poverty and inequality for the last three decades and show that this thesis is not grounded in facts. Survey data show that poverty has substantially declined in recent years, and is low by international standards and in comparison with pre-revolution years. This finding is consistent with pro-poor policies of the Islamic government, mainly in provision of basic infrastructure such as electricity, safe drinking water, and health. However, the same policies have not been as effective in reducing inequality, which, after an initial decline following the Revolution, has remained basically constant in the post-Revolution period. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third Annual World Bank Conference on Inequality, Washington, DC, June 5–6, 2006. I wish to thank for comments Francisco Ferreira, Hojat Ghandi, Farrukh Iqbal, Essie Maassoumi, Branko Milanovic, Javad Shirazi, Vijayendra Rao, and two anonymous referees. For able research assistance I am grateful to Ali Hashemi and Marenglen Marku, and for access to survey data to the Statistical Center of Iran. All errors are mine.     

Gender preference,biased sex ratio,and parental investments in single-child households

This article investigates parental investments in single-child households. It shows that son preference triggers more parental investments in children and its effects are stronger on investments in sons. A rise in the sex ratio creates a marriage market squeeze. It, however, has ambiguous effects on investments in children, which depends on how strong these investments are as measures for influencing children’s marriage probability. A rise in the sex ratio may particularly raise investments in daughters and lower investments in sons, or vice versa, or it may induce more or less parental investments in both sons and daughters. If the sex ratio and preference of sons are correlated, then the effect of the preference for sons on investments in children is generally ambiguous. If the sex ratio is influenced by parental health investments, then son preference induces a higher sex ratio. However, the higher sex ratio has ambiguous effects on the subsequent parental investments before a child’s marriage. We also show that parental preference of child services over a child’s marital status may explain parental investments.

Financial management, coping and debt in households under financial strain

This study looks at how households cope financially with a budget under a certain financial strain (after the birth of a new baby), and particularly examines their financial management practices and debting behaviour. Other factors associated with debt status caused by financial strain — particularly psychological variables — are also examined. A number of indexes were calculated from questionnaire data and used to measure these variables. The results showed that being in debt was significantly associated with feelings of coping less well and with better financial management. Better coping was also significantly associated with being more ‘forwardlooking’ and having a more negative attitude towards debt. Better financial strategies were significantly associated with being less materialistic and having a more stable budget. The results confirm previous findings that psychological and behavioural variables have a considerable impact on being in or keeping out of debt, but also suggest that perceived poor coping and being in debt during a period of particular financial strain may actually lead to an improvement in financial management.     

Commuting between households: Multiple memberships,shifting boundaries

Recently, attention has been drawn in the social scientific literature and research to the effects of changes in family structure on the individual and family life cycle. With reference to the Italian situation, the author discusses the way in which in contemporary societies an increasing number of individuals go through different kinds of families/ households over their lives, commuting, during specific life phases, between different households and families on a more or less permanent basis. The phenomenon of commuting between households renders the boundaries of the family household less clear and more permeable, challenging the meaning of family membership and of family boundaries.     

Experiences of parents in contemporary communal households

There has been little large-scale systematic research on contemporary communal life, especially comparative research on the experience of families in communal households. The lack of research-based knowledge makes it difficult to advise, predict, or plan for future communally living families. Using data from a three-wave national sample of 60 representative urban communes located in six major cities in the United States, communes containing nuclear families in them were categorized according to familism context. Measuring satisfaction with the communal environment using behavioral, attitudinal, and ethnographic data, differences were found between families in different familism contexts. Families living in communes where they maintained centrality and control, governing the rhythms and focus of the household, were more satisfied with their communal living situations than were families whose daily family life was only incidental to the communal purpose.Based on a paper presented before the Society for the Study of Social Problems, September 1977. Portions of the research reported were funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (#MH 25525-02) to Benjamin Zablocki, Columbia University, and by fellowships to the author from the Danforth Foundation and the American Association of University Women. The author wishes to thank her colleagues on the Urban Communes Project, Columbia University, in particular, Angela Aidala, Ray Bradley, Peter Messeri, Charles Sprague, and Ben Zablocki. The author can be contacted, and reprints may be ordered from her, at the SYDA Foundation, Box 600, South Fallsburg, NY12779.     

Predictors of out-of-pocket medical expenditures in low-income households

From a sample of low-income households, out-of-pocket medical expenses are found to average about $25 per month. For each household, these expenses vary with annual income, type of insurance for medical care, priority of medical expenses, ethnicity, and number of ill family members. Expenses are reported for households with different socioeconomic characteristics and composition. Multiparticipation in insurance programs is shown. Fourteen percent of the survey participants say they have no insurance, public or private. Thirty-three percent participate in Medicaid.Flora L. Williams is an Associate Professor in Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University and includes family economic well-being, and financial problems and expenditures among her research interests.Amy Hagler received her M.S. from Purdue University in Consumer Sciences and Retailing.Mary Pritchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human and Family Resources at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854. Her Ph.D. was earned at Purdue and her areas of research focus on family economic well-being and economic socialization of adolescents.Marshall A. Martin is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. His research addresses agriculture and food policy, and economic assessment of emerging agricultural technology.William C. Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, 46227-3697. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University and focuses his research on economic psychology and health care cost.     

Allocation of resources in households: children's perspectives

This paper incorporates children's perspectives on the issue of resource distribution in households. It is part of a relatively new trend of sociological explorations into childhood. The paper aims to review earlier studies and literature on children's access to money, food, space and time. The data illuminates norms governing distributive justice between adults and children in families.     

Disability and work intensity in Italian households

Review of Economics of the Household - The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations clearly sets the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the labour market as a main goal. However, especially in care...     

Single female‐headed households,handgun possession,and the fear of rape

The influence of fear of rape, perceived risk of rape, and prior victimization on the presence of handguns in single female‐headed households is examined. On the basis of previous research, a causal model that includes a number of control factors is developed and tested. Prior criminal victimization of the household was the only factor that was a significant predictor of the presence of a handgun. Interestingly, fear of rape had a negative, although not statistically significant, association with handgun possession, indicating that the presence of the weapon may reduce fear. Further implications are also discussed. Data were collected using a mail survey of Louisiana residents.     

Ideology, culture, and ambiguity: The revolutionary process in Iran

Conclusion To varying degrees, polysemous appeals are a feature of nearly all political coalitions and negotiations. But they are especially important in revolutions in which mass protests accompany a sudden collapse and elimination of the old regime state. In such a situation, it is not the case that a few coalition planks are ambiguous in an otherwise institution-alized political structure; instead, even the main outlines of how politics will operate in a new regime is undetermined. Given the chaos and uncertainty, revolutionary unity necessarily focusses upon rejection of the regime itself, and revolutionaries appeal to widely familiar cultural images (as in the appeal to Islam) whose durability within the society has depended on a degree of flexibility in interpretation and application. There is neither time nor reason for the opposition coalition to settle upon a detailed post-revolutionary program.Ambiguous (i.e., polysemous) ideology is an essential component of revolutionary unity and sets the stage for the struggle over the meaning of the revolution, after the fall of the old regime. Different factions struggle over the particular meaning of the images and concepts that had united the revolutionary coalition as a whole. However, this ambiguity makes quite probable an outcome in which revolutions eat their children; the initial revolutionary unity cannot possibly survive, as the construction of a new revolutionary state will necessarily reject some interpretations of the meaning of ambiguous revolutionary ideology.Particularly astute revolutionary leaders - Khomeini or Lenin, for instance - can take advantage of such a situation to create a new revolutionary state in their own image, before many of their potential adversaries fully understand what is happening or how most effectively to resist. In such a case, there often is no obvious, specific program that could truly represent the coalition as a whole, or even a majority of it. The faction that defines the ideology of the revolution by taking control of revolutionary state formation and suppressing alternatives may forever remain a minority. To take one illustration, while both the Bolsheviks and the Islamic Republican Party redefined political discourse, in both cases voting patterns suggested their minority status even after the seizure of power. The Bolsheviks, outpolled by the Socialist Revolutionaries, remained a minority in the voting for the Constituent Assembly after the October Revolution, and thus disbanded the assembly. As the Islamic Republic was institutionalized as a theocracy, voting participation steadily declined. There remains broad opposition to the clerical regime among many initial supporters of the revolution.Nevertheless, while revolutions are situations in which ambiguity is likely to be especially significant, there are different kinds of revolutions; ambiguity will matter more or less depending on exactly how the revolutionary crisis emerges and plays itself out. (Thus the following discussion is partly a response to Skocpol's call for a closer examination of the different revolutionary circumstances that allow ideology to have different kinds of effects.)In some revolutions (though the exception more than the rule) unifying revolutionary ideology will be more specific than the connotative images and concepts that unified the Iranian opposition to the Shah. This is especially likely when there is a revolutionary group poised to implement a program (after the fall of the old regime) because it has a history as an organized, clearly dominant opposition, with an identifiable program and a mass following. This fact may explain why Poland, benefitting from the earlier establishment of Solidarity, at least initially seemed more directed than some of its neighbors in establishing a new political and social order after the collapse of communist states in 1988–1989.Solidarity, then, is an example of the fact that the more time there is for the identity and intentions of a revolutionary group to become known, the less likely that such a group can hide behind an ambiguous program. Protracted civil war is another context that will generally clarify the ideologies of the adversaries, though those adversaries may have initially been united by an ambiguous ideology. And the context of civil war will place great pressure on all organized political groups to choose one side or another.However, sudden revolutionary crises may involve some political floundering for some time, in cases where there is not a long-standing, organized opposition and there do not emerge leaders with a coherent revolutionary vision and the strategic skill to take advantage of the ambiguous ideology and uncertain outcome of revolutionary situations. In the absence of leaders willing or able to negotiate through such unknown terrain, to construct a new state on the basis of a new program - without turning allies into adversaries too quickly - the ultimate meaning of the revolution may be contested for some time. In the case of Madero's anti-reelection revolution in Mexico, for example, mass mobilization and sudden victory over the Diaz regime was followed by the absence of any coherent program, and a subsequent slide into chaos and civil war. A different version of this scenario may be developing in much of Eastern Europe today. Clearly the nations of Eastern Europe experienced sudden state collapse precipitated by mass mobilization. Participants experienced the ectasy and unity of opposition to, and sudden success against, the old regime. But it quickly became unclear what was to be done next. In some cases, there was an apparent commitment to a free-market ideology, but there was little commitment to the details and difficulties that a free-market program would actually entail. While free-market advocates initially appeared dynamic and exciting, their ultimate success may prove superficial. In other cases, as in the former Czechoslovakia, there seemed to be less a post-revolutionary program than an uncertain pattern of continued dismantling of the past, with no obvious replacement offered to guide the future.In such cases, where dominant factions do not commit themselves to a coherent program, Goldstone's explanation of the rise of nationalism may be quite relevant. He argues that nationalism becomes the rallying cry, to a large extent, because revolutionary leaders are unable to deliver on initial promises about economic rejuvenation. Nationalism has of course been one of the primary ideological developments in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Goldstone's schema also helps explain revolutions in which no faction attempts, or is able, to implement a coherent program soon after the fall of the old regime. For example, in cases where the initial crisis weakens but does not eliminate the old regime state, and elites and masses do not both emphasize total elimination of a hated regime, the revolutionary crisis can initiate a protracted process of increasing revolutionary mobilization best explained by Goldstone's approach. Such would be the case in the French Revolution, for example, where none of the main revolutionary players initially advocated what ultimately became the program of the revolution. Still, even in such cases, ambiguous propositions can be a powerful aspect of unifying ideology: Goldstone notes that, in the heady early days of the French Revolution, the will of the people was the one principle that all accepted for the resolution of conflicts.... One could add to Goldstone's observation that this unifying principle was a very ambiguous one.There are additional factors that may be relevant to the role of ambiguity in revolutionary process and ideology, and whose significance is worthy of further inquiry. For example, it seems likely that some significant degree of shared cultural or political identity is necessary for an ambiguous ideology to serve as a point of unity at all. Thus, while ethnic divisions in Iran were certainly significant in the revolution, the main revolutionary proponents thought of themselves fundamentally as Iranians and, usually, as Shiites. However, to unite ideologically all the societies of the former Soviet Union, after the August 1991 failed coup, would have required such extensive ambiguity as to be unworkable. While the images and concepts that unite a diverse revolutionary coalition can be quite general in nature and subject to diverse interpretations, they do have to be shared and strongly felt.The Iranian Revolution demonstrated how significant shared but unspecified revolutionary ideology can be; and Ayatollah Khomeini and the clerical radicals demonstrated what new ideological directions a revolution can take as a result of the perilous and uncertain struggle to define the new regime of meaning that is a crucial aspect of revolutionary states.     

Radical Changes in the Muslim World: Turkey,Iran, Egypt

This piece engages with contemporary revolutions from the perspective of religion. Religion has played a significant role in mobilizing peoples in Turkey, Iran, and even Egypt. I examine the Arab spring by suggesting that these movements point to radical changes in the Muslim World by paying close attention to revolutions in Turkey, Iran, and Egypt. I argue that religion has acted as resource of mobilization in Muslim societies by showing that systematically through Turkey and Iran. However, with the Egyptian revolts we see a challenge to the dominance of that resource and a desire to seek other resources as forces of mobilization. The article concludes by offering a provocation to the Muslim insurgents and the entire Muslim world: to rekindle the legacy of the great Muslim philosophers and social-political thinkers, and to connect it with the aspirations of contemporary democratic thought and practice.

Esta pieza se ocupa de las revoluciones contemporáneas desde una perspectiva de la religión. La religión ha jugado un papel importante en la movilización de personas en Turquía, Irán e incluso en Egipto. Yo analizo a la primavera árabe, mediante la sugerencia de que estos movimientos apuntan a cambios radicales en el mundo musulmán, prestando mucha atención a las revoluciones en Turquía, Irán e incluso en Egipto. Sostengo que la religión ha actuado como un recurso de movilización en las sociedades musulmanas demostrándolo sistemáticamente a través de Turquía e Irán. Sin embargo, con las revueltas de Egipto, vemos un reto a la dominación de ese recurso y un deseo de buscar otros recursos como fuerzas de movilización. El artículo concluye con la oferta de una provocación de los insurgentes musulmanes y el mundo musulmán entero: para reavivar el legado de los grandes filósofos musulmanes y pensadores sociopolíticos, y para conectarse con las aspiraciones del pensamiento democrático contemporáneo y la práctica.

本文将宗教视点与当代革命结合了起来。宗教在土耳其、伊朗和埃及等国家的群众动员方面扮演着重要角色。我考察“阿拉伯之春”,指出这些运动通过对土耳其、伊朗和埃及革命的密切观察,指向了穆斯林世界的激进变革。我通过系统地剖析土耳其、伊朗两国案例,认为宗教在穆斯林社会中作为一种动员力量发挥了作用。然而,通过埃及的反叛,我们看到了对宗教作为支配力量的挑战和希望寻找其他资源作为动员力量的倾向。本文以向穆斯林反叛者和整个穆斯林世界提出诘问作结,即重新利用伟大的穆斯林哲学家和社会政治思想家们的遗产,再将之同当代民主思想与实践的追求连接起来。