Socioeconomic Differences in Having Living Parents and Children: A U.S.‐British Comparison of Middle‐Aged Women

This article examines the relationship between socioeconomic status and having living children and parents among 55‐ to 63‐year‐old women in the United States and Britain. The goals are to quantify the outcomes of slightly different demographic regimes on close kin networks and to assess the potential implications of policies that in both countries increasingly emphasize family responsibility. In the cohorts examined, U.S. respondents are substantially more likely to have living parents and children, but the pattern of socioeconomic effects is similar across countries. Higher socioeconomic status is associated with having fewer children and, less consistently, is associated with a higher probability of having living parents and being childless. However, higher‐status women are more likely to have both living parents and children.     

A comparative assessment of public opinion toward immigrants and immigration policies

"This article is part of a larger study of public attitudes toward immigration in seven countries that historically and currently have had different policies and practices vis-a-vis immigration. The countries involved are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the United States. The time frame for which most of the public opinion data will be reported is from 1970 through 1995. The data have been collected from national surveys that were conducted in each of the countries."     

State policy decisions in the 1990s with implications for the financial well-being of later-life families

This study explores trends and patterns in states' policy decisions affecting the economic well-being of later-life individuals and families in the United States in recent decades, focusing on the 1990s. Rules were selected from the areas of inheritance, estate taxes, homestead exemptions, Medicaid eligibility, estate recovery, and filial responsibility. Results indicate an increasing use of a broad definition of family, one implying that spouses, the nuclear family, extended kin, step-relations, and sometimes in-laws constitute an ongoing collective whose members share economic resources and risks over their lives and beyond. Despite this global trend, states varied in their rules addressing intrafamilial financial obligations and families' accountability to states. While some seemed interested in facilitating the conservation of familial resources, others seemed willing to minimize public assistance while coercing kin into accepting financial responsibility for one another. Research was suggested to answer questions raised by this study.     

Will you (still) love me tomorrow: Pro-Americanism and the China factor in Asia

This study seeks to investigate how amiable attitudes toward the United States as an ideal development model can be decreased by a predisposition toward accepting China as a favorable regional power. The empirical results from performing regression analysis of survey data in 13 Asian countries show that a positive evaluation of China in terms of its democratization level and having good influence in one's own country negatively correlate with a liking of the United States. The middle class is less likely to be pro-American. Higher national income leads to a lower evaluation of the importance of the United States, probably revealing a self-congratulatory tone in public opinion. This study concludes that the United States is not loved wholeheartedly by the public opinion of this region. Neither is China sought after as a development model. For most Asians, Japan appears to be a popular choice, besides choosing one's own country.     

An Exploratory Study on Attitudes Toward Persons with Disabilities Among U.S. and Japanese Social Work Students

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study was conducted to understand and compare attitudes among social work students in the United States and Japan toward people with disabilities. The Modified Issues in Disabilities Scale (MIDS), designed to measure attitudes toward people with physical disabilities, was implemented on convenient samples of 92 U.S. and 73 Japanese social work students. The findings suggest that social work students in both countries hold moderately positive attitudes. Other similarities as well as differences among the sampled students from the two countries, and their implications to social work education, will be discussed in this paper.     

God,Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes

Moral attitudes justifying economic inequality are often embedded within conservative religion and politics in the United States, even as traditional Christian values assert the need for compassion toward the poor. Using the Baylor Religion Survey, we assessed the role of religion in influencing partisan attitudes about poverty, finding that Republicans not only oppose federal policy aimed toward redistribution of wealth but also articulate less of a personal moral obligation to help the poor. However, Republicans who believe in a highly engaged God are strikingly similar to Democrats on these economic justice issues, suggesting that some types of religion do make conservatives more “compassionate.”     

Parenthood,Gender and Work‐Family Time in the United States,Australia, Italy,France, and Denmark

Research has associated parenthood with greater daily time commitments for fathers and mothers than for childless men and women, and with deeper gendered division of labor in households. How do these outcomes vary across countries with different average employment hours, family and social policies, and cultural attitudes to family care provision? Using nationally representative time‐use data from the United States, Australia, Italy, France, and Denmark (N = 5,337), we compare the paid and unpaid work of childless partnered adults and parents of young children in each country. Couples were matched (except for the United States). We found parents have higher, less gender‐equal workloads than nonparents in all five countries, but overall time commitments and the difference by parenthood status were most pronounced in the United States and Australia.     

Conversations with Women Policy-Makers in the USSR

The article, drawn primarily form unusually frank conversations with Soviet women in major policy-making positions (Moscow, 1979), describes the kinds of policy-making positions available and indicates the numbers of women who hold them. Although access seems easier than it us in the United States, Soviet women are kept from top positions by attitudes toward responsibility for child and home care. The declining birth rate among ethnic Russians may lead to additional pressures on potential female policy-makers to produce more children and devote additional time to domestic life.     

How Changes in Sending Countries Influenced Patterns of Interracial Families Through Intercountry Adoption

The racial characteristics of children adopted from abroad by American parents have fluctuated sharply over time in response to changing legislation and attitudes toward intercountry adoptions in the United States and the sending countries. This study investigates how the likelihood of parents adopting a White versus non-White child varies by the characteristics of the adopted child, the parents, and the household. Our analyses, using the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, show that parents consider the child's age, sex, and health; the presence of adopted and biologically related children in the household; and shifts in the availability of children across major sending countries.     

Gender Inequality in Authority and Autonomy in the Workplace in Japan,Britain, and the United States*

Abstract This study examines gender inequality in the distribution of various aspects of autonomy and authority in the workplace in Japan, Britain, and the United States. In all three societies, there are clear gender gaps in access to autonomy and authority relations, but the distributions are most unequal in Japan. The main part of this study involves the testing of four hypotheses which attempt to explain gender differences in autonomy and authority. The first hypothesis, which focuses on family responsibilities, receives limited support from the Japanese and British data. Japanese and British women are disadvantaged in obtaining managerial positions and supervising other employees by the presence of children. The human capital explanation of gender inequality in the workplace appears to be supported to some extent in Japan and Britain because gender gaps are reduced when we controlled for Render differences in education, tenure and work experience in these countries. The differential access to managerial positions is an important source of gender inequality in workplace social relations in all three countries. Nonetheless, significant gender gaps remain. especially in the United States. When all these factors (family responsibilities, human capital and managerial positions) are taken together, gender gaps are reduced substantially in Japan. In contrast. persistent gender inequality is found in the United States.     

Taiwanese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada and Transnational Social Space

This article explores the migration of Taiwanese immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada and their transnationalism. Their presence in Canada is documented and described with statistical data on their demographic characteristics, human capital, and economic capital. An assessment of their transnationalism is provided by primary qualitative data gathered through in‐depth interviews. Overall, the review of the literature on Taiwanese migration to various countries, and their transnationalism, indicates that research has primarily been conducted in Australia and the United States, while it remained understudied in Canada. The article makes a case for contextualizing Taiwanese entrepreneurial migration in terms of a global immigration marketplace and the specific business migration programmes in Australia, United States, and Canada. Further, the article argues for the appropriateness of conceptualizing these Taiwanese entrepreneurs as operating within the theoretical framework of transnational social space. The findings on transnational social space include the importance of transnational familial networks, transnational business circuits, and transmigration. Transnational familial networks constitute a form of “capital” as the dispersal is a “resource”. The transnational business circuits include three types: (1) Asian production‐North American distribution; (2) retail chains; and (3) import‐export, all spatially distributed with their multiple national sites. In selected areas of the presentation and discussion of the data the policy implications of the findings are explored. These include discussion of the implications of this transnationalism on Canadian policies such as immigration, multiculturalism, business development, international trade, economic development, and citizenship. There is clearly a lack of harmonization among migration policy and other social and economic policies in Canada. While Canadian multiculturalism policy facilitates transnationalism, Canadian citizenship policy is shown to conflict with and discourage transnational practices.     

Public Perceptions about Food Safety in the United States and Japan1

Abstract Consumer concerns over pesticide residues and food additives have been growing in industrialized societies, including the United States and Japan. However, little comparative research has been carried out to determine which household characteristics may be significantly associated with these heightened concerns, and whether or not the same factors are useful for understanding variation in these worries in more than one society. This paper examines food safety attitudes in Seattle, Washington, and Kobe, Japan, and discovers that while the absolute level of expressed concern is higher in Kobe, the predictive power of household characteristics in explaining attitudinal differences within countries is similar. Implications for rural areas and future research on family structures in capitalist societies are discussed.     

Children's Affection Toward Fathers: A Comparison between Japan and the United States

Abstract Previous studies on fatherhood have focused primarily on the extent of paternal involvement from fathers' point of view and the impact of such involvement on children. These studies report that the level of paternal involvement varies depending on such factors as the fathers' ages, and the mothers' employment hours and income, and that the active participation by fathers has a positive impact on children's emotional and cognitive development. The current study not only focuses on paternal involvement but also on questions rarely addressed in the previous studies. How do children perceive the extent of fathers' involvement with them? Are their perceptions highly correlated with the report made by fathers? Further, how does paternal involvement influence children's affection toward fathers? In this paper, these questions are examined using a cross-national data collected in Japan and the United States. The major findings of the survey indicate that the levels of paternal involvement perceived by children and fathers are not as strongly correlated as were expected both in Japan and the United States. In both countries, children who spend more time with their fathers and who are younger and girls express more affection toward fathers. A cross-national difference was found with respect to the impact of social network on children's affection toward fathers.     

It Takes a Village (Perhaps a Nation): Families,States, and Educational Achievement

Research in the United States has shown that children growing up in 2‐parent households do better in school than children from single‐parent households. We used the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data to test whether this finding applied to other countries as well (N = 100,307). We found that it did, but that the educational gap was greater in the United States than in the other 13 countries considered. Results from 2‐level hierarchical linear models demonstrated that international differences in the educational gap were associated with several indicators of national policy and demographic contexts. No single policy appeared to have a large effect, but several policy combinations were associated with substantially reduced educational gaps between children from different family structures.     

Gender roles,marriage, and residential independence

This article examines the effects of gender role attitudes on leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence among young men and women in the United States in the 1980s. The choice to leave home for unmarried independence is associated with two major changes in family relationships: the shift in parent-child interaction from a traditional emphasis on children's obedience toward a greater stress on independence, and the shift toward more egalitarian definitions of gender roles in both work and family spheres. We ask the following: What is the effect of holding more modern gender role attitudes on gender differences in leaving home for marriage? Does holding more modern gender role attitudes influence patterns of leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence differently for men and women? We examine these questions with data from sophomores in the High School and Beyond Survey.     

Comparing Child Poverty Risk by Family Structure During the 2008 Recession

Children in nonmarried families are at greater risk for poverty and especially so during a time of macroeconomic recession. Using carefully harmonized data, the authors analyze child poverty among nonmarried families before and during the 2008 recession in five liberal welfare states: Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although having similar demographic compositions, the authors document wide cross‐national variation in poverty risk based on marital status and gender of the household head. Through the recession, child poverty in Canada and the United Kingdom declined while it increased in Australia and Ireland and was largely unchanged in the United States. Decomposing changes within countries over time, family benefits in the form of income transfers play a major role in reducing poverty for nonmarried families. In all countries, children in cohabitating families were less protected from market instability.     

Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce, 1974–2002: Evidence for an Educational Crossover

This article examines trends in divorce attitudes of young adult women in the United States by educational attainment from 1974 to 2002. Women with 4‐year college degrees, who previously had the most permissive attitudes toward divorce, have become more restrictive in their attitudes toward divorce than high school graduates and women with some college education, whereas women with no high school diplomas have increasingly permissive attitudes toward divorce. We examine this educational crossover in divorce attitudes in the context of variables correlated with women's educational attainment, including family attitudes and religion, income and occupational prestige, and family structure. We conclude that the educational crossover in divorce attitudes is associated most strongly with work and family structure variables.     

Long-Term Changes in Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex in the United States: Reexamining the Role of Cohort Replacement

Attitudes toward premarital sex in the United States have changed considerably since the 1970s. However, it is unclear whether these changes are due to cohort replacement, broader changes within cohorts, or a combination of the two processes. We examined within- and between-cohort changes in attitudes toward premarital sex in the United States from 1975 to 2008 using hierarchical age-period-cohort models based on data from the General Social Survey. We used a religious plausibility structure framework to examine several possible mechanisms for within- and between-cohort variation in premarital sex attitudes over time, including changes in religious participation, marital patterns, and family structure. The results provided mixed support for our hypotheses. Attitudes toward premarital sex became more permissive over time in the United States in part because of the process of cohort replacement, but the level of permissiveness peaked with the baby boomer cohorts. This cohort effect is due in part to differences in rates of religious service attendance and educational attainment. However, the overall increase in permissive attitudes toward premarital sex is also due to period effects that are not captured by the measures included in our analyses.     

Comparing public attitudes toward providing for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies: Germany and Japan

Using an ordered logit model on representative survey data, we study attitudes about who should provide for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies—Germany and Japan. We find that in both countries, those with higher income are more inclined toward the private option, whereas age has the opposite effect. Part-time work status negatively (positively) affects the inclination toward a government-based pension system in Japan (Germany). Other significant influences are the pensioner status of the respondents in Japan and specific left-wing party support in the case of Germans.     

Elementary School-age Children's Attitudes Toward Children in Same-Sex Parent Families

As numbers of families with same-sex parents increase in the United States, children are more likely to encounter diverse family structures. Given that young children can demonstrate in-group bias, prejudicial attitudes, and social exclusion, it is important to understand how children perceive their peers in diverse families. To our knowledge, no studies have assessed elementary-school-age children's attitudes about same-sex parent families. Here, 131 elementary school students (M_age = 7.79 years; 61 girls) viewed images of same-sex (female and male) and other-sex couples with a child and then were asked about their perceptions of these families, particularly the children. Results indicated participants' preferences toward children with other-sex versus same-sex parents. Developmental and practical implications about children's attitudes toward sexual minority parent families are discussed.