Cross-national variation in the subjective wellbeing of youth in low and middle income countries: the role of structural and micro-level factors

ABSTRACT

Subjective wellbeing (i.e. life satisfaction and happiness) impacts youth's social, economic and political participation. Prior studies have documented cross-national variation in subjective wellbeing of adults but there is a lack of data on the prevalence and correlates of subjective wellbeing among youth in low and middle income countries. This paper utilizes data from an international dataset – Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys to assess the influence of structural and micro-level factors on the subjective wellbeing of youth (ages 15–24) in 29 countries or regions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. We find that within countries, global life satisfaction and happiness are associated with age, education attainment, place of residence, marital status, household wealth and exposure to mass media. Significant interactions between age, gender and education are observed. However, none of the country level development indicators account for cross-national variation in youth's SWB although there is some indication that income inequities between countries may influence youth's SWB. The findings underscore the need for objective measures of subjective wellbeing to understand the conditions in LMICs.     

Zanzibari Social Entrepreneurs and Poverty Alleviation Strategies: Understanding Efforts to Build Local Community Sustainability

ABSTRACT

Poverty throughout Zanzibar, Tanzania encourages social entrepreneurs to think strategically about methods of human capital development, promoting economic sustainability and asset building. Local women social entrepreneurs are successfully active in (a) building the educational opportunities for girls and low income women, (b) evolving in business to meet change and economic growth, and (c) empowering vulnerable populations and people living with disabilities. This qualitative study interviews 15 women social entrepreneurs in the rural area of Jambiani and the urban area of Stone Town. Their ventures are alleviating poverty and social workers can support these local creative initiatives in diverse ways.     

Minority Stress,Emotion Regulation,and the Parenting of Sexual-Minority Youth

ABSTRACT

Despite increasing societal acceptance of sexual-minority individuals, there are still gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) adolescents who experience negative mental health outcomes. Minority stress theory posits that stigma-related stress associated with sexual-minority status drives increased risk among GLB individuals. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that minority stress impacts emotion regulation (ER), identified as a particularly important risk factor for sexual-minority youth (SMY). Current research has identified some aspects of parenting contribute to GLB youth's mental health. We review the literature in these areas, and also integrate research from the broader developmental field on families and emotion socialization in order to identify the need for studies of parenting that go beyond existing data on parental acceptance and supportiveness of youth's sexual orientation. Limitations of the current literature and directions for future research are discussed, with specific focus on implications for interventions with SMY and their families.     

Parents' perceptions of juvenile probation: Relationship and interaction with juvenile probation officers,parent strategies,and youth's compliance on probation

In the past several years, there has been a growing movement toward family-driven initiatives in many child-serving agencies, including the juvenile justice system. These initiatives underscore the importance of parental involvement in successful rehabilitation of at-risk and offending youth and highlight the unique role of parents to influence and inspire their child's behavior. Despite a growing consensus on the importance of parental involvement in juvenile justice processes, little empirical research has explored the nature of parental involvement in the juvenile justice system. This study examined parents' (n = 87) perceptions of relationship quality and interaction with probation officers, parenting strategies, and how these factors related to youth's compliance on probation. Findings revealed that parents generally had positive relationships with probation officers characterized as supportive, fair, respectful, and helpful toward youth. Most parents also employed practices such as use of reminders and encouragement to promote youth's compliance on probation. Parents' perceptions of probation officers' helpfulness toward youth were associated with decreased used of parenting practices that encourage probation compliance. However, parents' perceptions of supportive, respectful, and fair relationships with probation officers were associated with increased use of parenting practices that promote probation compliance. Supportive, fair, and respectful relationships with probation officers were also linked to fewer counts of technical violations of probation, but not new delinquent offenses, among offending youth. Implications for research, practice, and policy around the potential of collaborative relationships between parents and probation officers in facilitating successful probation outcomes are discussed.     

Promotion of Sexual Health in the United States

Abstract

The United States has been experiencing a severe sexual health crisis in the last decade. This paper reviews these sexual health challenges and discusses a major initiative and a “Call to Action” that was launched by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2001 to promote sexual health. This led to several initiatives to overcome obstacles that were preventing the development of a sound, scientifically based public health policy to promote sexual health. This paper specifically outlines the components of the Sexual Health Program housed at the Morehouse School of Medicine's National Center for Primary Care, including the National Advisory Council and the National Consensus Process.     

Lesbian and Gay Youth's Aspirations for Marriage and Raising Children

ABSTRACT

One hundred and thirty-three lesbian and gay youth were interviewed about their interests in long-term relationships, same-sex marriage, and becoming parents. One-third of the males and one-half of the females considered future long-term relationships extremely important; 61% of the males and 82% of the females expected such relationships to be monogamous. One-third of the males and two-thirds of the females said they would very likely marry. Only 14% of the males and four females were disinterested in raising children. Counselors working with lesbian and gay youth should explore youth's expectations for relationships and for child-rearing.     

Micro-Enterprise Development: A Response to Poverty

Summary

All over the world, micro-enterprise development initiatives are demonstrating that they are a viable response to poverty. This paper discusses a field study of 40 slum-dwellers, 17 of whom had taken out a loan for a micro-enterprise, conducted in Calcutta in 1995. This study helps demonstrate the crucial elements of the Gra-meen model of micro-lending. Findings show there is a significant difference in income of borrowers versus non-borrowers, and that micro-enterprises create a culture that has rippling effects on the community. Lessons learned are relevant for social workers promoting micro-enterprises for community economic development in the United States.     

Historical Trends in Concerns About Social Issues Across Four Decades Among U.S. Adolescents

This study examined adolescents’ concerns about social issues and how these concerns have changed over historical time. Separate cohorts of U.S. high school seniors (N = 110,953; 51.1% female) reported their worries about four social issues (crime/violence, economic problems, hunger/poverty, race relations) every year from 1976 to 2015. Youth were most concerned with crime/violence, followed by economic problems, hunger/poverty, and race relations. Adolescents’ social concerns varied by demographic characteristics and cohort, paralleling specific historical events and appearing responsive to the political challenges of the time. Initiatives seeking to engage youth within the political process may benefit from providing opportunities for teens to participate in civic activities aimed to address these issues.     

Caregiver perceptions of empowerment and self-efficacy following youths’ discharge from residential care

ABSTRACT

Residential care is one of the most restrictive out-of-home care settings; however, this is a temporary placement and youth eventually reintegrate into the home and community setting. Reintegration presents many challenges, and aftercare becomes critical for maintaining youth gains and promoting family stability. Aftercare programs and supports should align to individual family needs that entail understanding individual and familial characteristics. Previous studies have explored characteristics related to family functioning, mental health, behavior, and perceptions of need during reintegration; yet little is known regarding how affective characteristics (i.e., self-efficacy, empowerment) factor into reintegration, or the implications this may have for providers. The purpose of this study was to address this gap by exploring empowerment and self-efficacy in caregivers (N = 120) who had a child return home within 1 month of departing residential care. Overall, caregivers reported high levels of empowerment and self-efficacy during the initial transition period. Significant differences for empowerment and self-efficacy were present in characteristics such as race, income, number of children in the home, and free/reduced lunch status.     

Conditional Families and Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, and Queer Youth Homelessness: Gender,Sexuality, Family Instability,and Rejection

Existing research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth homelessness identifies family rejection as a main pathway into homelessness for the youth. This finding, however, can depict people of color or poor people as more prejudiced than White, middle‐class families. In this 18‐month ethnographic study, the author complicates this rejection paradigm through documenting the narratives of 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The author examines how poverty and family instability shaped the conditions that the youth perceived as their being rejected because of their gender and sexuality. This rejection generated strained familial ties within families wherein the ties were already fragile. Likewise, the author shows how being gender expansive marked many youth's experiences of familial abuse and strain. This study proposes the concept of conditional families to capture the social processes of how poverty and family instability shape experiences of gender, sexuality, and rejection for some LGBTQ youth.     

Uneven Development and Local Inequality in the U.S. South: The Role of Outside Investment,Landed Elites,and Racial Dynamics

This paper develops a historically contingent understanding of patterns of uneven economic development in the U.S. South. We conceptualize spatial variation in economic development and its consequences for inequality to be embedded in both local and international dynamics. The character of local economic development, it is argued, reflects the organizational base and heterogeneity of local elites, the divisions and relative power of nonelites, and the embeddedness of the local political economy in national and world systems of politics and production. These ideas are developed and made historically and spatially specific through an analysis of uneven development in one Southern state, North Carolina. Our findings suggest that contemporary patterns of uneven development and the resulting income deprivations and inequality reflect conditional interactions between elite economic projects and racial divisions within the working class. We find that outside investment seems to reproduce rather than disrupt local patterns of inequality and poverty.     

Addressing multiple dimensions of gender inequality: the experience of the BRAC Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) programme in Bangladesh

Recent analyses have highlighted that poverty reduction in Bangladesh has been accompanied by growing inequality in society, measured by household income. This article considers what the implications are for development actors who are concerned with empowering the poor in society, and who understand poverty from a gender and women's rights perspective. We draw on experience from BRAC's work to address these issues, focusing on the Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) programme. A focus on women's self-employment alone does not result in challenging the structures of patriarchal inequalities. Gender inequality and its link to economic inequality needs to be much more centrally positioned than it currently is in development discourse. Currently economic empowerment is widely seen as a potential route to gender equality, but the GQAL programme shows work to challenge gender inequality is necessary as an entry-point to ensure effective economic empowerment.     

Homelessness,housing instability,intimate partner violence,mental health,and functioning: A multi-year cohort study of IPV survivors and their children

Abstract

Homelessness and housing instability frequently accompany intimate partner violence and can negatively impact health and functioning. When children are exposed to homelessness or housing instability their ability to develop and function is compromised. The purpose of this study is to examine the differential impact of homelessness and unstable housing on health and functioning of women and their children over a 2-year period. Two hundred and seventy-seven mothers reporting intimate partner violence (stalking, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner) were asked about housing stability, abuse, risk for murder, mental health, employment/wages, and their child's functioning over a 2-year period. Outcomes of mothers reporting homelessness and unstable housing were compared to mothers reporting stable housing. Over one-third (36%) of the mothers reported at least one episode of unstable housing over the 2-year period and 11% reported homelessness. Measures of maternal mental health and child functioning were worse for both unstably housed and homeless women, compared to stably housed women, with a higher risk for sexual abuse and risk for murder for homeless women. New models of rapid rehousing are needed that address not only the housing problems of women who have experienced intimate partner violence but also the mental health and safety issues that the women and their children face.     

Information Poverty and the Latino Community

Abstract

Social work education can help students to reach a higher understanding of the impact of information poverty on the Latino community by systematically integrating this content into social work curriculum areas of information society, information poverty, and Latino communities. The authors examine the prospects for poverty and inequality in the Latino community as the United States emerges into the information economy and suggest that the Latino population may continue to be at risk for poverty in the information age. This article reviews indicators such as education, access to computers and network communications that may influence access to the emerging economic order and offers technology-based practice strategies, such as community net works and e-commerce, to create local empowerment. It provides recommendations for curriculum development.     

Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment

SUMMARY

This article contributes to the development of a critical social theory of youth empowerment which emphasizes collective efforts to create sociopolitical change. It draws upon analysis of four youth empowerment models, and upon findings from a participatory research study which identified key dimensions of critical youth empowerment: (1) a welcoming, safe environment, (2) meaningful participation and engagement, (3) equitable power-sharing between youth and adults, (4) engagement in critical reflection on interpersonal and sociopolitical processes, (5) participation in sociopolitical processes to affect change, and (6) integrated individual- and community-level empowerment. It concludes with discussion of the measurement of outcomes, and the challenges and opportunities for empowerment in youth organization.     

Mass Poverty,Slow Economic Growth and Redistribution

Abstract

Policy-makers in South Africa prefer to tackle poverty indirectly through promoting growth, and allowing benefits to trickle down to the poor, rather than reducing poverty directly through redistributing income. In the long run, economic growth is the only way to reduce poverty. But the benefits of growth take a long time to mitigate poverty, especially in conditions of high inequality or high unemployment – both of which characterise South Africa. The poor benefit more through a more directly redistributive strategy even if overall growth is lower than it would otherwise be. Modelling the effects of different rates of growth, public works programmes and different redistributive strategies (including a basic income grant and expanded child support grants) shows that the poor benefit most from a directly redistributive basic income grant.     

The Power of Peer Support: The Development of the Empowerment Center

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the events and influences that led to the author’s contribution to the development of a mental health consumer-run organization, The Empowerment Center in Mount Vernon, NY. The author traces some events that influenced him personally and the evolution of the Empowerment Center from an organization that provided advocacy services (to those with mental health problems who were hospitalized) and community-based support services to people in mental health recovery, to an organization focusing on economic empowerment and economic development for the community of those in recovery. The transition of the Empowerment Center into an organization focused on economic empowerment underscores the importance of economic independence for people in recovery and the consumer-run organizations that support them. The Empowerment Center endeavors to demonstrate that mental health consumer-survivors can take control of their economic health as well as their physical and mental health.     

Assessment of China’s Poor County Program

ABSTRACT

China made remarkable progress in rural poverty alleviation. A major policy instrument is the County Level Poverty Alleviation Program, which has vast policy support but is also criticized for targeting errors, misuse of funds, and making poverty both shameful and attractive. Whether this program, or the country’s economic growth in general, is the main force in poverty reduction is the question addressed in this article, analyzing data for the 592 poor counties. The response to the economic growth–policy alleviation conundrum is that a push for social wellbeing and empowerment is needed together with economic growth to achieve major poverty improvements.