Postretirement earnings relative to preretirement earnings: gender and racial differences

As the social security program comes under increasing financial pressure in the coming decades, the federal government will encourage elderly people to continue to work. Data from the Social Security Administration indicate that earnings are already a sizable component of retirement income. But there is public concern about how women and minorities will fare economically in this changing policy environment. To what extent can women and minorities keep earning money after they reach retirement age? This article presents the results of a study that investigated the postretirement earnings, relative to the preretirement earnings, of women and minorities, and compared the results with those for men and whites. The major finding, based on regression analyses, was that women's postretirement earnings, relative to their preretirement earnings, were greater than those of men. Furthermore, the regression results indicate that nonwhites' postretirement earnings could not be predicted by their preretirement earnings or by any of the independent variables used in the study, including age, gender, education, marital status, number of children, occupation, and preretirement earnings.     

Maternal Frontal EEG Asymmetry and Chronic Stressors Moderate the Link between Child Conduct Problems and Maternal Negativity

Frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry is associated with individual differences in positive/negative emotionality and approach/avoidance tendencies. The current study examined the moderating role of maternal resting frontal EEG asymmetry on the link between child behavior problems and maternal harsh parenting within the context of differing degrees of chronic family stressors (father unemployment, single parenthood, caring for multiple children, and household chaos). The sample included 121 mother–child pairs. Results showed that stressors and frontal EEG asymmetry together moderated the link. Child problem behaviors were moderately associated with greater maternal negativity for mothers with right frontal asymmetry, or mothers who experienced more stressors. However, no association existed between child behavior problems and maternal negativity for mothers with few stressors and left frontal asymmetry. The findings implicate transactions between household stress and a psychophysiological indicator of maternal emotional reactivity and mothers' approach/avoidance tendencies in the etiology of parental negativity toward challenging child behaviors.     

Hidden trauma victims: Understanding and preventing traumatic stress in mental health professionals

Mental health professionals, including social workers, are often exposed to the traumatic experiences of clients in their work with victims of violence, crime, and disaster. Given their empathetic engagement with traumatized victims, they may experience severe emotional reactions such as terror, grief, and rage. Empirical evidence identifies these emotional reactions as “traumatic stress” including burnout, Traumatic Countertransference (TC), Vicarious Trauma (VT), and Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS)/Compassion Fatigue (CF). In this study, the history and definition of each traumatic stress are examined, and differences among them are explored. Preventive strategies for reducing traumatic stress in mental health professionals are discussed.     

The Practice-Teaching Parallel in Educating the Micropractitioner

Social workers have long perceived the worker-client relationship as a dynamic process through which systems change occurs. The interaction between teacher and student in the micropractice classroom also represents a dynamic process for change. Drawing on common precepts from microlevel social work practice, the author examines the parallels in creating a context for change between the worker-client interaction and the teacher-student exchange, and also explores the application of practice skills, knowledge, and techniques in the classroom setting. She concludes that theories, skills, and the techniques for working with clients can be applied to the teaching of students because the dynamics of human change are the same and because, like the dynamic worker-client interaction, the teacher-student relationship is the medium through which active learning takes place.     

Moving Beyond Tokenism: Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the Election of Women to State Legislatures*

Objective. State legislative bodies that contain more than a token level (15 percent) of female representatives provide these lawmakers with a greater sense of self‐efficacy and opportunities for wider policy influence than those where women number under 15 percent. The objective of this study is to determine the set of factors that carry states across this critical threshold, with a particular emphasis on the political mobilization effects of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratification drive. Method. This study used event‐history analysis methods on state‐level data collected from 1972–2000. Results. I find that states that ratified the ERA, but not states that ratified only later to rescind, had a higher likelihood of crossing this token threshold as compared with states that never ratified at all. These results obtain even after controlling for the social eligibility pool of female candidates, the political opportunity structure, the social context of each state, and preexisting levels of female representation. Conclusions. The ERA ratification campaign during the 1970s and early 1980s created long‐lasting, state‐level effects in electing women through its role as a political education tool as well as through its symbolic power.     

Long‐Term Memory for an Emotional Interpersonal Interaction Occurring at 5 Months of Age

We examined infants' long‐term retention of a single unique emotional experience into early childhood. Twenty‐month‐olds who had participated in a still‐face procedure at 5 months (experience group) fixated the face of the person who had instigated the still face significantly less than the faces of 2 other novel persons. Control 20‐month‐olds (no‐experience group) looked longer overall and fixated the target person equally or more than the 2 novel persons. In short, children who interacted with a stranger in the laboratory under both natural and anomalous social conditions just once when they were infants apparently retained a specific memory of that person and the experience into toddlerhood.     

THE ESTIMATED EFFECT OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT ON CHILDREN UNDER MANDATORY AND NON-MANDATORY EMPLOYMENT CIRCUMSTANCES

Maternal employment's association with young school-age children's academic and behavioural outcomes was examined in a sample of families currently or recently receiving welfare. The sample comprised 1,197 African-American mothers and their preschool-age children who were randomly assigned either to the ‘human capital development’ (HCD) programme, the ‘labor force attachment’ (LFA) programme or to the control group in the Atlanta site of the Child Outcomes Study, a substudy of the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS). Once observed selection effects were controlled, maternal employment — regardless of whether obtained under mandatory or non-mandatory circumstances — was largely unrelated to contemporaneous measures of five to seven year olds’ academic school readiness and behaviour. There was one exception: maternal employment secured through Atlanta's HCD programme significantly predicted fewer and/or less frequent antisocial behaviours even after observed selection factors were controlled. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Who Institutionalizes Institutions? The Case of Paternity Establishment in the United States

Objective . Many researchers have cited the importance of institutional legacies to explain why legislators resist transferring tasks from one agency to another but leave undefined exactly what constitutes these legacies. This analysis concretely defines institutional legacies as organized interests who shape the range of options available for programmatic implementation. Methods . Using a pooled, time-series ordered probit model for the U.S. states from 1988 to 1995, this article focuses on the transition from court-based systems to administrative agencies in making paternity determinations. Results . Lawmakers are less likely to move to administrative systems in states where there are family courts, elected judges, and a large number of lawyers organized into the American Bar Association. The presence of women legislators, however, can mitigate these legacy effects and move the process of innovation onward. Conclusions . Institutional legacies are best conceptualized as strong, organized interests who resist relinquishing any part of their authority, even when confronted with more effective ways of achieving policy goals.