Wal‐Mart and County‐Wide Poverty*

Objectives. This study seeks to identify the independent effect of Wal‐Mart stores on changes in U.S. family‐poverty rates at the county level. We draw on the contributions of a number of disciplines to enhance our understanding of the broader forces that influence poverty. Methods. A key innovation is that we estimate a two‐stage regression model, in which an instrument is created for new Wal‐Mart stores from a location equation; this reduces any potential endogeneity bias in the poverty‐change equation. In addition, we use spatial econometric methods to correct for spatial dependence bias. Results. After controlling for other factors determining changes in the poverty rate over time, we find that counties with more initial (1987) Wal‐Mart stores and counties with more additions of stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced greater increases (or smaller decreases) in family‐poverty rates during the 1990s economic boom period. Conclusions. Wal‐Mart creates both benefits and costs to communities in which the chain locates. These benefits and costs need to be weighed carefully by community decisionmakers in deciding whether to provide public subsidies to the chain.     

Mexican Immigrant Self‐Employment Along the U.S.‐Mexico Border: An Analysis of 2000 Census Data*

Objective. This study explores the entrepreneurial tendencies of Mexican immigrants in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) on the U.S. side of the Mexican border vis‐à‐vis the U.S. interior. Methods. Using 2000 Census data available in the 5% Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, we empirically analyze the self‐employment rates and earnings of Mexican immigrants residing in U.S. cities near Mexico versus those in nonborder MSAs. Results. Our findings indicate that Mexican immigrants in MSAs along the U.S.‐Mexico border have significantly higher self‐employment rates (but lower earnings) than their counterparts in the rest of the United States and non‐Hispanic whites in border cities. Explanations for these findings include the existence of trade opportunities in U.S. border cities as well as intense labor market competition that crowds a greater share of immigrants into self‐employment. Conclusion. Immigration reform that curtails the immigration flow from Mexico might hinder small business formation and economic development on the U.S. side of the Mexican border.     

Metropolitan Earnings Inequality: Union and Government‐Sector Employment Effects*

Objective. This study examines the effects of union density and government‐sector employment on earnings inequality in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States. Methods. Data on 167 MSAs from the 2000 Census are analyzed using standard regression techniques. Four measures of Atkinson's index (e=0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0) are used as the measure of earnings inequality for full‐time, year‐round workers. Results. MSAs with greater union density and greater government‐sector employment have lower earnings inequality. The progressive effect of union density is strongest for earners in the middle of the distribution and less beneficial for workers at the bottom of the distribution. Government employment is generally associated with lower levels of earnings inequality, but state and federal government employment have the strongest effects. Conclusion. Even in the late 1990s, unions and government‐sector employment remain effective at reducing earnings inequality.     

It's More Than an M‐shape: The Political Economy of Female Non‐Standard Workers in the Republic of Korea

This study examines the re‐entrance of female workers into the Korean labor market. We highlight that women in their 40s have the highest rate of employment among all female workers and that a large proportion of these women are entering into non‐standard employment. In approaching this question, we examine the political economy of this phenomenon by first discussing the demand side of the Korean labor market using the gendering of the varieties of capitalism argument and then the supply side with the work–life balance argument. When examining re‐entrance into the labor market, women with general skills with lower education and higher education both found it more feasible to re‐enter the labor market as non‐standard workers. While work–life balance is a prominent reason for women's choice of opting out of the labor market, work–life balance choice mattered less for women re‐entering the labor market as non‐standard workers in their 40s and 50s but instead firmly based skill formation mattered more. In addition, the retail service industry is suggested to absorb a large number of female workers with lower skill levels who would have had difficulties in re‐entering other male‐oriented companies.     

Self‐control,peer preference,and loneliness in Chinese children: A three‐year longitudinal study

The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal links among Chinese children's self‐control, social experiences, and loneliness, largely from a developmental cascades perspective (which postulates mechanisms about how effects within a particular domain of functioning can impact across additional domains over time). Participants were N = 1,066 primary school students in Shanghai, P. R. China, who were followed over three years from Grade 3 to Grade 5. Measures of children's behavioral self‐control, peer preference, and loneliness were obtained each year from peer nominations and child self‐reports. Results indicated that as compared with the unidirectional and bidirectional models, the developmental cascade model represented the best fit for the data. Within this model, a number of significant direct and indirect pathways were identified among variables and over time. For example, self‐control was found to indirectly contribute to later decreases in loneliness via a pathway through peer preference. As well, peer preference both directly and indirectly contributed to later increases in self‐control. Finally, loneliness directly led to decreases in self‐control from Grade 3 to Grade 4, but not from Grade 4 to Grade 5. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of self‐control for Chinese children's social and emotional functioning over time.     

Mother–Child Reminiscing About Peer Experiences and Children's Peer‐related Self‐views and Social Competence

This study examined mother–child reminiscing about children's experiences with peers and its relation to children's peer‐related self‐views and social competence. Sixty‐three mothers and their preschool‐aged children discussed at home two specific past events involving the child and his or her peers, one event being positive and one negative. The children's self‐views in peer relationships were assessed at school during individual interviews, and their social competence was rated by mothers. Both maternal and child participation in the reminiscing, in terms of reminiscing style and content, were uniquely associated with children's peer‐related self‐views and social competence. The results suggest the important role of family narrative practices in children's social development.     

Mothers' postdivorce earnings in the context of welfare policy change

We examined in this study the implications of divorce for mothers' earnings, comparing the 1990s and the 2000s, and illuminating developments in welfare policy for single‐parent families over those two decades. After the welfare reform of 2003, the economic autonomy of single mothers, established through a combination of welfare state‐based benefits and paid labour, was delegitimised, with a turn toward the marketplace. Using a unique data set created for this research by merging Israeli census files for 1995–2008, annual administrative employment records from the National Insurance Institute and the Tax Authority, and data from the Civil Registry of Divorce, we found that most mothers tended to increase their income from paid labor following divorce. However, they did so significantly more prior to the welfare cuts than after the cuts. The results can inform policy discussions about how mothers' postdivorce earnings might be affected by welfare policy shifts.     

Hard to reach and easy to ignore: the drinking careers of young people not in education,employment or training

Young people's drinking in the UK remains a matter of medical, social, media and political concern. The notion of transition and drinking styles in the move from childhood to adulthood and from education to employment has been central to understanding young people's drinking behaviour, but little is known about how the drinking patterns of those not in education or employment, both men and women, develop over time. This paper reports on research which aimed to examine the current drinking habits and drinking careers of young people not in education employment and training who are traditionally described as hard to reach. In‐depth qualitative interviews were undertaken with 23 young people: 15 women and 8 men aged between 14 and 23. The findings are presented with respect to three stages of drinking: starting, continuing or increasing, and decreasing or stopping. The conclusions indicate that for the majority of these young people, alcohol is a significant factor in their lives and that peers, gender, time and place combine to structure both their current alcohol use and drinking career. The paper argues that an understanding of young people's drinking career development and current alcohol use will help target effective social work and multi‐agency intervention.     

Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence

Kelley CGE, Kelley SMC, Evans MDR, Kelley J. Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 33–44 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. People have mixed feelings about paid employment for mothers with young children. This might reflect opposition to women's work per se or, instead, fear that children are harmed by the mother's absence from the home. To find out, we developed new questions differentiating support for or opposition to mothers working for pay depending on whether the employment is home‐based or outside the home. Data from a large representative national sample of Australia (n= 1,324) show that public support for employment is about 30 percentage points greater if the mother works at home. Structural equation analyses show social differences in levels of support. Thus work at home provides a way of increasing labour force participation and earnings for mothers (with the welfare benefits that implies), which is congruent with public opinion.     

Self‐report of emotional experience and peer nominations of expressivity: Predictability of change in teacher‐rated social behavior

We investigated individual differences in self‐reported emotional experience and peer‐perceived expressivity among children in mid‐ to late‐elementary school years. Specifically, we examined the constructs’ correspondence and temporal stability and also compared the degree to which each predicts change in classroom social behavior over 2 years. Participants were 199 children (Mage = 10 years, Time 1) and their classroom teachers who have participated in two times of assessment. We used self‐report of emotional experience and peer nominations of expressivity regarding happiness, anger, and sadness. Teachers rated children's social skills, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems. The correspondence was generally small in magnitude between self‐reported experience and peer nominations of expressivity. The stability of peer nominations of emotional expressivity was medium and comparable to that of self‐reported experience with the exception of happiness. The predictability of change in social behavior was more robust for peer nominations of expressivity than for self‐reported experience. We discussed the relevance of different dimensions of emotionality as well as informants in understanding the predictability of social behavior from emotionality. We also discussed the role of sociodemographic variables in emotional experience and expressivity and offered practical implications of peer nominations in the assessment of children's emotionality.     

Differences in Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender*

Objective. The literature on gender and technology use finds that women and men differ significantly in their attitudes toward their technological abilities. Concurrently, existing work on science and math abilities of students suggests that such perceived differences do not always translate into actual disparities. We examine the yet‐neglected area concerning gender differences with respect to Internet‐use ability. In particular, we test how self‐perceived abilities are related to actual abilities and how these may differ by gender. Methods. We use new data on web‐use skill to test empirically whether there are differences in men's and women's abilities to navigate online content. We draw on a diverse sample of adult Internet users to investigate the questions raised. Results. Findings suggest that men and women do not differ greatly in their online abilities. However, we find that women's self‐assessed skill is significantly lower than that of men. Conclusions. Women's lower self‐assessment regarding their web‐use skills may affect significantly the extent of their online behavior and the types of uses to which they put the medium. We discuss the implications of these findings for social inequality.     

Drinking: Another glass ceiling? Social drinking and alcohol use among women in Korea

Korean society is experiencing a rapid increase in alcohol consumption among women. Research on women's alcohol use has focused mostly on problems and pathological symptoms associated with alcohol use. Focusing only on problems of alcohol use risks overlooking some important social phenomena where alcohol use is a medium. We examined the association between marital status, childcare responsibility, employment status and social drinking behaviour. Our aim was to examine how these factors influence women's alcohol consumption in order to provide an empirical explanation of how the traditional division of labour limits women's social drinking practices. Findings show that women are structurally excluded from social drinking behaviour due to domestic responsibilities (as a wife and a mother). In other words, social drinking has become another glass ceiling for women. Key Practitioner Message: ● Attention should be given to structural influences on women's alcohol use; ● It is important to consider gender inequality in both formal and informal domains.     

Understanding the Self Through Siblings: Self‐awareness Mediates the Sibling Effect on Social Understanding

This study addresses the role of sibling influence on social understanding in the second year of life, in a sample of families living in New Zealand who identify as Pacific Island (N = 43). We tested toddlers at 20 and 26 months on social understanding tasks, as well as their levels of self‐awareness on the Stipek self‐concept questionnaire. We hypothesized that the presence of siblings provides a rich resource from which to learn about the mind. There were significant differences in children's social understanding and self‐awareness as a function of having older siblings. Further analyses revealed that the relation between older siblings and social understanding was mediated by toddlers' level of self‐awareness.     

The quest for sustainable employment: Challenges faced by young people during the job‐search process

Young people who are unable to find and sustain employment are at risk for long‐term social and economic exclusion. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) addressing the problem of youth unemployment have focused on building the employability skills of young job seekers to expand their employment opportunities. Yet research exploring how young people navigate the job‐search process is limited. Drawing on interviews with young Australian job seekers and their employment consultants, this article addresses the questions of how young people navigate entry into employment through the job‐search process and what challenges they face. The study revealed three common frustrations experienced by the young people during their job‐search: employers' expectations of relevant work experience in the young person's preferred occupation, being required to apply for jobs not aligned with their career aspirations, and the impact of personal factors on their ability to confidently present themselves to prospective employers. The findings highlight the need for ALMPs and employers to facilitate positive employability support mechanisms that will build a stable platform from which young people can build a trajectory towards sustainable employment to reduce long‐term youth unemployment.     

Three‐year cross‐lagged relationships among adolescents’ antisocial behavior,personal values,and judgment of wrongness

The current study examines reciprocal relations among adolescents’ values, antisocial behavior (ASB), and judgment of the wrongness of ASB over 3 years. Four hundred seven (M _age = 14.36 years; SD = .72; males = 56.8%) ninth grade students in Italy completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire, a self‐reported ASB scale, and a questionnaire aimed to evaluate how wrong they judged it to be to violate a set of moral and social rules. Responses were obtained again after 1 and 2 years. We analyzed separate cross‐lagged models for each of the higher‐order value dimensions according to Schwartz's model (conservation, openness to change, self‐enhancement, and self‐transcendence), using structural equation models. Self‐transcendence and conservation values fostered more negative judgments and less ASB over time whereas self‐enhancement and openness to change values had no effects. The mediating effect of judgment on the relationship between values and ASB was significant. Moreover, ASB mediated the effects of conservation on subsequent judgments. The results highlight the role of self‐transcendence and conservation values as protective factors against ASBs in adolescence.     

“I can be a mum or a professional,but not both”: What women say about their experiences of juggling paid employment with motherhood

Past research has identified the salience of the notion of “good motherhood” in countries such as Australia, where women are expected to invest significant time and energy, often through self‐sacrifice, to raise their children. We analysed free‐text comments provided in response to an open‐ended question from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) to examine whether the discourse of “good motherhood” played any role in how women articulate their experiences of juggling paid employment with motherhood. Eighty women from the cohort born 1973–78 were included, providing 223 comments. “Good motherhood” underpinned many of the accounts about combining motherhood with paid employment. Women reported life as stressful and hectic as they attempted to juggle the demands of childcare with paid employment and domestic chores. Although some identified “good motherhood” as an unachievable ideal, most were largely unable to disengage with this discourse. Broader social structures, such as inflexible working conditions, were found to reinforce and support this ideal, contributing to the strength of the discourse.     

Expediting youth's entry into employment whilst overlooking precariousness: Flexi‐employability and disciplinary activation in Hong Kong

With an emphasis placed on supply‐side interventions such as skills training and incentives enhancement, active labor market polices (ALMPs) are strongly promoted by international organizations and widely adopted across different welfare regimes to boost employment rates. This article first presents the under‐examined relationship between ALMPs and employment precariousness, which has posed a challenge to the neoliberal notion of employability and activation. Youth‐focused employment policies tend to speed up employment entry whilst downplaying the risk of precariousness and the importance of job quality, and thus further reinforcing the belief that engaging in precarious employment is tolerable if not inevitable. The article then examines the case of Hong Kong, which illustrates that its relatively low rate of youth unemployment may conceal the unfavorable employment conditions confronted by youth. It is argued that the service‐led employment policies and short‐term vocational training define the employability of young workers in terms of labor flexibilities. The coined phase of “flexi‐employability” is characterized by promoting youth's readiness for, and adaptability to, the volatilities and changing demands of the labor market. Arguably, the disciplinary approach to youth activation would only strengthen the work‐first principle by enforcing young people to take up jobs available and leave welfare as soon as possible, but without thoroughly addressing the risks and insecurities generated by the labor market in undermining their well‐being.     

Negotiating motherhood: women with troubled upbringings and their self‐conceptions as mothers

This paper examines how women who experienced severe adjustment problems during adolescence, and who had troubled childhoods in families with high levels of conflict, construct their self‐conceptions as mothers. Applying data from a 30‐year‐long follow‐up study, this paper examines how participants with troubled upbringings experience social norms of motherhood. Two overall themes emerged along with their associated subcategories, and these are identified as significant findings. The first theme is the stigmatizing gaze, exemplifying how the intervention of the child welfare service is recognized as essential to the women's self‐conception; its three subcategories are prejudiced motherhood, predestined motherhood and self‐critical motherhood. The second theme is significant relationships, exemplifying the mothers' personal bonds and contributing greatly to their self‐conception; its three subcategories are the other half, next of kin and disturbed relations. The findings reveal that the way these women view themselves as mothers cannot be separated from the way that others view them, and in addition, they must negotiate their positions as mothers through the normative discourses of motherhood. The findings apply to both theoretical and practical social work, addressing the need for an understanding of motherhood within the field of child welfare.     

Cross‐Border Earnings of U.S. Natives Along the U.S.‐Mexico Border*

Objective. This study explores whether the earnings of U.S.‐born cross‐border workers differ from those of their U.S.‐employed counterparts. We also analyze whether the cross‐border/non‐cross‐border wage differential changed during the 1990s—a decade when U.S.‐Mexico trade intensified and the maquiladora industry expanded. Methods. Employing decennial U.S. Census data from 1990 and 2000, this article estimates earnings functions and uses wage decomposition analysis to study changes in the earnings of U.S.‐born Hispanic and non‐Hispanic cross‐border workers. Results. The number of U.S.‐native cross‐border workers, while relatively small, increased significantly between 1990 and 2000, as did their earnings. A closer examination reveals that this cross‐border earnings premium only developed among non‐Hispanics. Conclusions. These findings indicate that some U.S. natives find lucrative employment opportunities on the Mexican side of the border, which might be diminished by additional restrictions for U.S.‐born residents to easily cross back and forth into Mexico.     

Dashed Hopes,Dashed Selves? A Sociometer Perspective on Self‐esteem Change Across the Transition to Secondary School

The transition from primary to secondary school challenges children's psychological well‐being. A cross‐transitional longitudinal study (N = 306; mean age = 12.2 years) examined why some children's self‐esteem decreases across the transition whereas other children's self‐esteem does not. Children's expected social acceptance in secondary school was measured before the transition; their actually perceived social acceptance was measured after the transition. Self‐esteem and Big Five personality traits were measured both pre‐ and posttransition. Self‐esteem changed as a function of the discrepancy between children's expected and actually perceived social acceptance. Furthermore, neuroticism magnified self‐esteem decreases when children's ‘hopes were dashed'—when they experienced disappointing levels of social acceptance. These findings provide longitudinal support for sociometer theory across the critical transition to secondary school.