Is the Partner Who Decides to Divorce More Attractive? A Comparison Between Initiators and Noninitiators

Five hundred eighty divorced individuals from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland provided retrospective reports on the perceived similarities and differences between themselves and their former partner and on their own and their partner's attractiveness. Initiators and noninitiators were compared with regard to these different variables. Results demonstrated that most divorcees perceived themselves to be quite similar to their former partner. Initiating women were more likely than noninitiating women to perceive themselves as different from their former partner in personality, norms, and needs and to evaluate their former partner to be less attractive. Initiating men were more likely than noninitiating men to perceive differences with regard to the personality between themselves and their partners.     

Which Neuropsychiatric Disorder Is More Associated With Divorce?

The social disruption experienced by people with neuropsychiatric disorders may be pervasive and manifest in divorce. It has been estimated that 90% of marriages involving a partner with bipolar disorder culminate in divorce. To verify this information we studied the results of the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey. We found that the percentage of divorced residents was 7%. However, “lonesome” status (widowed, divorced, separated, never married, and single) was prevailing in 79% of residents. The rates of divorce were highest among bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic residents (18%, 12%, and 12%, respectively). Lonesome status was also highest among bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic residents (85%, 84%, and 83%, respectively). Never married status was highest among those with schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive residents, and bipolar patients (12%, 12%, and 11%, respectively). We conclude that shizophrenic and bipolar patients are very likely to never get married or to end up divorced.     

Is Working with Your Spouse Good for Business? The Effect of Working with Your Spouse on Profit for Rural Businesses

The goal of this article is to uncover more precise and unbiased estimates of the relationships between relationship satisfaction, a copreneurial business structure, and profit. Because of the suspected simultaneity between profit levels, the choice to be copreneurial and relationship satisfaction, a multivariate recursive probit is used to test for endogeneity between these variables. The results of the empirical analysis suggest that spouses self-select into a copreneurial business structure depending on the level of satisfaction they feel in their interpersonal relationships. Additionally, copreneurial businesses with high relationship satisfaction are more likely to have higher profit than if they were non-copreneurial.     

Abstinence-Only: Are You Not Working the Program or Is the Program Not Working for You?

Low retention rates are common in substance use treatment programs. The dominant model of service delivery in the United States is abstinence-only, a high-threshold service delivery model requiring abstinence. What “doesn’t work” for the client—from the client point of view—is an overlooked source of insight about client engagement and disengagement. We report client counter-narratives about the choice to disengage from abstinence-based services, shifting from a story of “dropouts” to one of self-respect. Understanding why clients choose to disengage from treatment can help us as practitioners to “meet clients where they are” and enhance engagement in substance abuse treatment.     

Is Bilingualism More Beneficial to Children?

Even though many studies have shown that learning two languages is a burden for children, especially when they are still young, all in all, the world seems to g...     

Is It Better for Older People to Live With Their Children?

EVER since there have been families in China, it has been traditional for the elderly to spend their later years living at home with their children; if the children have married and presented their parents with grandchildren, the household may consist of a large extended family in which three to four generations live under one roof. Nowadays, many elderly Chinese still fit into this mold. According to a sampling survey taken in 1995, among households with older members, 67.64 million seniors—or 74.73 percent of the total—lived with their adult children. Though some older people live apart     

Help to Family and Friends: Are There Gender Differences at Older Ages?

This paper uses recent data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (N = 5,220) to explore gender differences in the extent to which adults in their 50s and 60s provide informal help to their adult children, elderly parents and friends We find that both men and women report very high levels of helping kin and nonkin alike, though women do more to assist elderly parents and women provide much more emotional support to others than do men. Men provide more assistance than do women with "housework, yard work and repairs." As they retire from the workforce, married men become significantly more involved in the care of their grandchildren, virtually eliminating any gender difference by the time they are in their 60s.     

Policymaking in the Age of Internet: Is the Internet Tending to Make Policy Networks More or Less Inclusive?

Although many policy and political scientists have studied theInternet's role in electoral and organizational processes, thereis little work that examines the Internet's effect on policyprocesses. Has the Internet tended to make policy deliberationsmore inclusive? Has it affected patterns of influence reputationamong network participants? Has the Internet helped to bringnew organizations into policy debates? This study provides preliminaryanswers to these questions. Treating policy networks as a typeof interorganizational network, a "socialized" resource dependenceframework is developed. Deployment of the Internet is conceptualizedas an exogenous shock, where the shock alters the material resourcebase of a policy network and allows actors inside and outsidethe network to challenge structural power holders. Structuralpower holders attempt to "mold" use of the Internet to protecttheir position and its perquisites. To test this framework data were collected from two policy networksin "Newstatia"—one focused on adult basic education policyand the other on mental health policy. Both policy networksappear to have become more exclusive since the deployment ofthe Internet. Electronic central discussion networks (or "cores")were primarily populated by actors who were already entrenchedin positions of structural power within the network and possessedvery high influence ratings. Most Internet communication occursbetween members of the electronic core. At least preliminarily,the Internet appears to reinforce existing patterns of authorityand influence.     

Is More Truly Merrier?: Mentoring and the Practice of Law

Cet article examine deux questions sur le mentorat. D'abord, qui est le plus susceptible de bénéficier de services de mentorat au cours de sa carrière? Ensuite, comment le mentorat influence‐t‐il les carrières des professionnels? En utilisant une enquête longitudinale sur des avocats, les auteures évaluent l'incidence des postes et des aspirations en début de carrière sur les chances de bénéficier de services de mentorat. Elles mesurent les bénéfices du mentorat au moyen des récompenses de carrière intrinsèques et extrinsèques, pour découvrir que le contexte organisationnel et les attributs individuels constituent d'importants prédicteurs de qui bénéficiera de mentorat. Les professionnels ayant de multiples mentors se sont avérés les grands gagnants, en ce qu'ils obtiennent des récompenses de carrière plus importantes et plus diversifiées que ceux n'ayant pas de mentor. This paper addresses two questions regarding mentoring: First, who is most likely to receive mentorship during their career? And second, how does mentorship shape the careers of professionals? Using a longitudinal survey of lawyers, we evaluate the impact of early career positions and aspirations on the chances for mentorship. We assess the benefits of mentorship across extrinsic and intrinsic career rewards. We find organizational context and individual attributes are important predictors of who receives mentorship. Professionals with multiple mentors were the big winners in that they obtain greater and more diverse career rewards over those with one or no mentors.     

Resource Dependence In Non-profit Organizations: Is It Harder To Fundraise If You Diversify Your Revenue Structure?

This article explores how fundraising efficiency is affected by changes in diversification of revenues in non-profit organizations. It uses random effect regression and Arellano–Bond models to study this phenomenon in a sample of 10358 US non-profits during the 1997–2007 period. We find a negative impact on fundraising efficiency when NPOs alter their locus of dependence and change their pattern of diversification. This effect is impacted by organizational size and industry. Previous studies have suggested that income heterogeneity is associated with organizational stability and financial strength. Using a change (versus level) model of funding diversity, our work shows that increased diversification leads to a higher operational inefficiency that could be penalized by potential donors.     

What's Your Story? Listening to the Stories of Mothers from Multi-Problem Families

The use of a narrative approach in research and treatment enables a close-up view of the world of the client from his/her point of view. This approach opens a door to a differential understanding of states of distress and is particularly relevant with regard to distressed populations for whom verbal communication is the natural means of expression and much richer than any more formal means. The following article offers narrative analyses of stories of three women, mothers of multi-problem families, whose children's development is at risk. The stories were recorded during a research project which studied the responses of the participating women in an intervention program called Yachdav. The narrative analysis reveals the women's subjective perception of their situation of stress and of the methods of assistance available to them. The article examines the contribution of the narrative approach to the understanding of the point of view of the distressed segments of the population as a means of creating an alliance in assistance reception relations.     

What Are You Doing Here? 'Non-disabled' people and the disability movement: A response to Robert F. Drake

There appears to be a growing move amongst 'non-disabled' people, who research and work in our area, to justify their involvement. In my view, however, their attempts at justification are doomed to failure. The relation between 'non-disabled' people and the disability movement is very difficult, if not impossible. This is not said in anger or despair but rather this is a political statement. Obviously 'non-disabled' people have a role to play in so far as the aim of the disability movement is to remove disabling social and environmental inequalities. 'Non-disabled' people are going to have to change if we want to succeed and end the reality of our oppression. But this necessarily means that the relation of 'non-disabled' people to the disability movement involves a degree of exclusion.     

Does Institutional Trust Increase Willingness to Pay More Taxes to Support the Welfare State?

We evaluate the effect of institutional trust on the willingness to pay more taxes to support the welfare state. We found a positive effect of institutional trust on the willingness to pay more taxes to support the welfare state irrespective of the empirical approach used. Our instrumental variable analysis shows that causality run from institutional trust to welfare state support. A one-unit increase in institutional trust leads to a 15 percentage point increase in the willingness to pay more taxes to help the needy. Similarly, a one-unit increase in institutional trust leads to a 16 percentage point increase in the willingness to pay more taxes to support public health care and education. Consequently, institutional trust should be viewed as one of the most important mechanisms that protect the welfare state from dismantling and retrenchment. We also found a stronger effect of support for more universal programs such as public health care and education than for helping the needy.     

What if the Custodial Parent Refuses to Cooperate With Child Contact Decisions?

This article considers the failings at present of the judicial system in not being even handed in providing justice for the noncustodial parent, who has for whatever reason been ousted from the relationship and has poor, if any, contact with his or her children. The advice being provided by the current psychologist dealing with such cases is for the judiciary to adopt a much firmer approach. This will lead to the judiciary being respected rather than being considered unjust. The article is concerned with severe parental alienation and provides a solution to the situation to prevent further emotional abuse of children against an absent parent. The author encourages mediation to commence with and then continue when making decisions as to who should have custody of the children who have been emotionally abused via an alienating parent.     

Are COVID fatalities in the US higher than in the EU,and if so,why?

Review of Economics of the Household - The COVID crisis has severely hit both the United States and Europe. We construct comparable measures of the death toll of the COVID crisis suffered by US...