Diagnostics of age‐graded linguistic behaviour: The case of the quotative system1

This article presents a cross‐variety investigation of quotatives be like and go in apparent and real time. Distributional and attitudinal evidence points to a change in progress as the underlying process for the distribution of be like. However, there is also evidence of life‐span change (Sankoff to appear). The patterning of go across age is much less clear‐cut. It could be interpreted as age grading or as a change in progress. This paper discusses seemingly contradictory findings from U.S. and British English. It will be suggested that the distribution of go is due to unstable behaviour at both the individual and the community level. Furthermore, there is evidence that go has a latent presence in the linguistic repertoire and was picked up again after its frequency dipped due to the introduction of be like. This finding ties in with other reported cases of recycling of variables ( Dubois and Horvath 1999 ).     

Welfare Reform and Teenage Pregnancy,Childbirth, and School Dropout

This study estimates the effect of welfare reform on adolescent behaviors using a difference‐in‐differences approach. After defining the prereform and reform cohorts and considering the life course development of adolescent behavior by following each cohort from age 14 to age 16, we compare the welfare‐target and nontarget populations in the two cohorts. The difference‐in‐differences estimates are obtained using an event history model. Our analysis suggests that welfare reform has not reduced teenage fertility and school dropout. We find modest evidence that welfare reform is associated with higher risk of teenage births for girls in welfare families and higher risk of school dropout for girls in poor families. A combination of a difference‐in‐differences approach and a life course perspective can be a useful way to delineate the effect of societal‐level change on family phenomena.     

The persistence of variation in individual grammars: Copula absence in ‘urban sojourners’ and their stay‐at‐home peers,Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines)1

Recent work on phonological variation largely supports the apparent‐time construct, though some change across an individual's lifespan is possible. But how much change is possible in an individual's grammar? How much is grammar affected by extended absence in a new, urban speech community? Social dialect surveys traditionally exclude individuals who have left their community for an extended period of time, under the assumption that dialect contact causes levelling or restructuring of the linguistic system. However, our ongoing work in a Caribbean speech community suggests that the kinds of changes that can affect grammatical variables are more constrained than we might think. Raw frequencies of vernacular variants may fluctuate, but language‐internal constraints persist. Drawing on recordings from Bequia we compare the group norms for absence of copula/auxiliary be in three villages. We show that ‘urban sojourners’– Bequians who have spent an extended period overseas – may sound very different from their stay‐at‐home peers, but close examination shows only superficial restructuring of their grammars. Overall frequencies of be absence may be dramatically reduced but the ranking of language‐internal constraints remains largely unchanged. These results reaffirm the validity of modelling variable rules in a community grammar, rather than as an aggregation of idiolectal norms.     

Subsidizing “Stayers”? Effects of a Norwegian Child Care Reform on Marital Stability

Since January 1999, all parents in Norway with children aged 1 to 3 years who do not attend publicly subsidized day care are eligible for “cash‐for‐care” (CFC). One important purpose of the reform is to enable parents to spend more time with their children. We analyze whether the CFC reform has affected marital stability, using individual register data covering information on 130,265 observations of married couples. The results from both a natural experiment approach and from a matching procedure indicate that the CFC reform has reduced the likelihood of marital dissolution in the short run.     

Agents for Change and Changed Agents: The Micro‐politics of Change and Feminism in the Academy

This article explores gender politics and processes in the academy and investigates change from the perspectives of feminist academics. In particular, it explores the experiences of women academics attempting to effect change to the gendered status quo of their own institutions. Focusing on micro‐politics, the feminist movement is empirically explored in localized spaces of resistance and in the small but significant individual efforts at making changes in academic institutions. The analysis is based on interviews with female academics working in business and management schools and focuses on the challenges for change and how change attempts affect their personal and professional identities. The article explores the range of change strategies that participants use as they try to progress in their academic career while staying true to their feminist values and priorities through both resisting and incorporating dominant discourses of academic work. The analysis highlights such tensions and focuses on a contextualized, bottom‐up perspective on change that, unlike more totalizing theorization, takes into account mundane and lived experiences at the level of the individual.     

Moving Out: Transition to Nonresidence Among Resident Fathers in the United States, 1968–1997

This article provides the first individual‐level estimates of the change over time in the probability of nonresidence for initially resident fathers in the United States. Drawing on the 1968–1997 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we used discrete‐time event history models to compute the probabilities of nonresidence for six 5‐year periods. Our sample consists of men (N = 1,388) who are coresident with their biological children at the time of birth. We found that the observed probability of nonresidence doubled over the three decades of the study period, but not linearly. The risk increased substantially in the 1980s and then stabilized in the 1990s. Our multivariate models show that the stabilization was due to changes over time in characteristics such as income; had these remained constant, the likelihood of nonresidence would have increased throughout the study period. Both fathers’ and mothers’ incomes reduce the likelihood of paternal nonresidence, as do mothers’ employment hours.     

Synchronic and diachronic variation in the use of spatial frames of reference: An analysis of Japanese route instruction

By focusing on everyday use of spatial ‘frames of reference’ (FOR) in route instruction, we propose some possible explanations for the seemingly contradictory trends observed in FOR‐based and deixis‐based spatial expressions in Japanese. We examined the data obtained in a series of longitudinal surveys conducted in Japan over 50 years (1953, 1972 and 2008). Our GoldVarb analysis confirmed what is called a ‘retrograde’ lifespan change. This indicates that, first, synchronically, the preference for External FOR (that is, based on North‐South‐East‐West) increases as community members grow older. This means they shift toward the local norm through ‘age‐grading’. Secondly, diachronically, the preference for Internal FOR (based on Right‐Left‐Front‐Back) has gradually increased over the past century. There is, therefore, a ‘generational change’ motivated by the linguistic marketplace. In contrast, as a community‐wide preference for Internal FOR expressions prevails, there is an accompanying gradual decrease in the use of deictic expressions such as ‘here/there/over there’. This indicates a partially complementary relationship between deixis and Internal FOR.     

Adolescent Transitions to Young Adulthood: Antecedents,Correlates, and Consequences of Adolescent Employment

The antecedents, correlates, and consequences of adolescent employment were investigated in a sample of 251 low‐income, African American youth that were followed since birth. The youth (age: M at preschool = 4.89, SD= .70; M at adolescence = 16.44, SD= .66; M at transition to adulthood = 19.36, SD= .76; and M at early adulthood = 27.67, SD= .75) were the firstborn children of African American teenage mothers who gave birth in Baltimore in the 1960s. Analyses examined the antecedents and correlates of age of entry into employment and stability of employment during adolescence. The associations of adolescent work experiences with subsequent adult education and employment outcomes also were considered. Findings indicate that among this sample of low‐income, African American youth, those who repeated a grade in school during middle childhood were more likely to enter the workforce at later ages than their peers who did not repeat a grade. The small subset of adolescents who never worked (n= 12) appear to be markedly more disadvantaged than their peers who worked. At the transition to adulthood, adolescents who entered the workforce earlier were more likely to complete high school than their peers. In addition, stable employment during the adolescent years had more beneficial effects on young men's chances of attending college than young women's postsecondary education. This pattern of findings is consistent with ethnographic accounts of adolescent employment among poor, minority, urban youth.     

Time for Each Other: Work and Family Constraints Among Couples

Little is known about couples' shared time and how actual time spent together is associated with well‐being. In this study, the authors investigated how work and family demands are related to couples' shared time (total and exclusive) and individual well‐being (happiness, meaningfulness, and stress) when with one's spouse. They used individual‐level data from the 2003–2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 46,883), including the 2010 Well‐Being Module. The results indicated that individuals in full‐time working dual‐earner couples spend similar amounts of time together as individuals in traditional breadwinner–homemaker arrangements on weekdays after accounting for daily work demands. The findings also show that parents share significantly less total and exclusive spousal time together than nonparents, though there is considerable variation among parents by age of the youngest child. Of significance is that individuals experience greater happiness and meaning and less stress during time spent with a spouse opposed to time spent apart.     

Chronic Presenteeism: The Multiple Dimensions to Men's Absence from Part‐Time Work

While there is considerable debate in the popular press about the changing roles of men and women, labour force statistics suggest that there has been little change in the work patterns of men and women. Despite the increasing availability of part‐time work, men in professional and managerial roles are not considering part‐time as an option for them. Rather, there are increasing organizational pressures for men to be working long hours in the paid workforce. In this paper, men's absence from part‐time work is considered from a multidisciplinary perspective. Factors operating at the individual, social and organizational levels are identified and explored in terms of their impact on men's working patterns. A model is presented that characterizes men's absence from part‐time work as a result of the mutually reinforcing nature of these factors.     

A child's day: trends in time use in the UK from 1975 to 2015

This paper examines change in school‐age children’s (8–16 years) time use in the United Kingdom between 1975 and 2015. Over this period, concerns for children’s safety, technological change, and increased emphasis on success in school are widely argued to have altered children’s daily lives, leading for example to less time outdoors, more time in screen‐based activities, and more time focused on education. Using data from three national time use surveys collected in 1974–5, 2000–01 and 2014–15, this paper explores the extent to which these arguments reflect actual change in how children spend their time throughout the day. The results show that between 1975 and 2015 children increased their time at home, and spent more time in screen‐based activities and doing homework. Decreases in time in out‐of‐home activities were concentrated in time in unstructured play, partially offset by increased time in sport. A decomposition of trends revealed that, despite a narrowing of the gender gap in time in housework, gender remains a significant factor determining many aspects of children’s time use. In contrast, the significance of age declined in most leisure activities, with the exception of screen‐based activities where significant age differences emerged in 2000 and widened further in 2015.     

Love is Not All You Need: A Revolutionary Approach to Parental Abuse

This case story is a composite of similar family situations where the parents were at risk of harm from their teenage children and commonly the father/step‐father has moved out of home leaving the mother to parent the children on her own. Several of these cases involved physical threats to the lives of the parents. These referrals occurred in a Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Service and a Family Therapy NGO between 1985 and 2005. This approach is offered as a complement to the widely published ‘non‐violent resistance’ approach of Haim Omer and his colleagues. We hope it goes some way to address what Lavi‐Lavavi et al ( 2013 , Journal of Systemic Therapies, 32(4), 79–93). describe as ‘the mother's plight’:

The plight of the mother continues to present a major challenge… We are also seeking ways to allow the mother more breathing space, help her to disengage from abrasive conflicts, acknowledge her contribution and sacrifice, and provide her with vantage points that may help her recognize and enhance small improvements. Hopefully, these measures will enable women to evolve from unacknowledged victims to pillars of the family’ (p. 92).

     

THE EFFECT OF ABORTION LEGALIZATION ON CHILDBEARING BY UNWED TEENAGERS IN FUTURE COHORTS

This article examines the long‐term impact of legalized abortion on childbearing by unwed teenagers in the United States. I find that the 1970 legalization of abortion in the repeal states led to about a 6% reduction in unwed childbearing rates for white women aged 15–20 who were born in these states immediately after abortion became legal. I find a larger long‐term impact for African‐American women of the same ages: a 7.5%–13% reduction in unwed childbearing. My estimates are smaller and not as precise for the effect of Roe v. Wade. This outcome is not surprising given that I am able to estimate only a potential lower bound of the effect on unwed childbearing rates. On the other hand, when I estimated a Difference‐in‐Difference regression for the non‐repeal states assuming that there was no national trend that affected the childbearing behavior of the treatment age groups and their respective control age groups separately, I found that the true effect of Roe v. Wade on childbearing by unwed teenagers was about an 11% and 3% reductions for white and African‐American teenagers, respectively. (JEL J13, I18)     

Co-Constructed Space and The Power of Presents

Abstract

This paper draws on qualitative visual research with 26 teenagers and their parents in East and North London to explore negotiated aspects of domestic space in teenage bedrooms. In addition to examining how collaboration and compromise had helped to shape these spaces, it focuses especially on a key component that contributed to teenagers’ material culture at home: that of presents and present-giving. Gifts were a ubiquitous feature of the study’s teenage bedrooms. Engaging with the reflexive accounts of teenagers and their parents, as well as the extensive literature on gifts, the article asks how, and to what effect, presents contributed to these material and social worlds. The article argues that in the individualized space of the teenage bedroom, presents can be seen as vectors of co-construction, which, together with other evidence of collaboration, help support less atomized and more relational conceptions of personal identity and selfhood.     

Teenage Pregnancy and Female Educational Underachievement: A Prospective Study of a New Zealand Birth Cohort

This paper examines the relationship between teenage pregnancy and educational underachievement in a cohort of 520 young women studied from birth to 21 years. Results showed that young women who became pregnant by the age of 18 years were at increased risk of poor achievement in the national School Certificate examinations, of leaving school without qualifications, and of failing to complete their sixth‐form year at high school. In addition, pregnant teenagers had lower rates of participation in tertiary education and training than their nonpregnant peers. Subsequent analyses showed that the links between teenage pregnancy and tertiary educational participation were largely noncausal and reflected the earlier academic ability, behavior, and family circumstances of young women who became pregnant. In contrast, antecedent child and family factors only partially explained associations between teenage pregnancy and high school participation and achievement. After adjustment for these factors, significant associations remained between teenage pregnancy and educational achievement at high school. An examination of the diverse life histories of young women who became pregnant revealed that for the majority of young women, pregnancy occurred after they had left school before finishing. These findings suggest that rates of teenage pregnancy might be elevated among young women who leave school early, rather than rates of early school leaving being elevated among young women who become pregnant during their teenage years.     

Ultimate concerns in late modernity: Archer,Bourdieu and reflexivity

Through a critique of Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, this paper explores the theoretical contribution of a Bourdieusian sociology of the subject for understanding social change. Archer's theory of reflexivity holds that conscious ‘internal conversations’ are the motor of society, central both to human subjectivity and to the ‘reflexive imperative’ of late modernity. This is established through critiques of Bourdieu, who is held to erase creativity and meaningful personal investments from subjectivity, and late modernity is depicted as a time when a ‘situational logic of opportunity’ renders embodied dispositions and the reproduction of symbolic advantages obsolete. Maintaining Archer's focus on ‘ultimate concerns’ in a context of social change, this paper argues that her theory of reflexivity is established through a narrow misreading and rejection of Bourdieu's work, which ultimately creates problems for her own approach. Archer's rejection of any pre‐reflexive dimensions to subjectivity and social action leaves her unable to sociologically explain the genesis of ‘ultimate concerns’, and creates an empirically dubious narrative of the consequences of social change. Through a focus on Archer's concept of ‘fractured reflexivity’, the paper explores the theoretical necessity of habitus and illusio for understanding the social changes that Archer is grappling with. In late modernity, reflexivity is valorized just as the conditions for its successful operation are increasingly foreclosed, creating ‘fractured reflexivity’ emblematic of the complex contemporary interaction between habitus, illusio, and accelerating social change.     

The Stability of Same‐Sex Cohabitation,Different‐Sex Cohabitation,and Marriage

This study contributes to the emerging demographic literature on same‐sex couples by comparing the level and correlates of union stability among 4 types of couples: (a) male same‐sex cohabitation, (b) female same‐sex cohabitation, (c) different‐sex cohabitation, and (d) different‐sex marriage. The author analyzed data from 2 British birth cohort studies: the National Child Development Study (N = 11,469) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 11,924). These data contain retrospective histories of same‐sex and different‐sex unions throughout young adulthood (age 16–34) from 1974 through 2004. Event‐history analyses showed that same‐sex cohabitations have higher rates of dissolution than do different‐sex cohabiting and marital unions. Among same‐sex couples, male couples had slightly higher dissolution rates than did female couples. In addition, same‐sex couples from the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts had similar levels of union stability. The demographic correlates of union stability are generally similar for same‐sex and different‐sex unions.     

Explaining the Early Development and Health of Teen Mothers’ Children1

The transmission of social disadvantage from teenage mothers to their children is well established, but when and why do these disparities emerge in the early life course? Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort, this study investigated the relationship between teen childbearing and children’s cognition, behavior, and health from infancy through preschool. Developmental disparities between teenage mothers’ children and others were largely nonexistent at nine months but accumulated with age. Having a teenage mother predicted compromised development across several domains by age four and a half. Our conceptual model expected preexisting disadvantage, ongoing resource disadvantage, and compromised parenting quality to explain the association between teen childbearing and child outcomes. Preexisting social disadvantage accounted for much of this relationship. Financial, social, and material resources in the child’s household partially or fully explained each of the remaining significant relationships between teenage childbearing and child outcomes. Parenting quality explained a smaller proportion of these relationships than did resources, and these factors’ influences were largely independent. Because children of teenage mothers with a modest set of resources were not predicted to have compromised development, resources provided in early childhood may have the potential to reduce developmental disparities for teenage mothers’ children.