The Volunteer Citizen After Welfare Reform in the United States: An Ethnographic Study of Volunteerism in Action

In the United States, neoliberal strategies for social, economic, and state organization have been accompanied by frequent calls for volunteers to solve serious social problems. A case study of a community mobilization of middle-class volunteers to provide one-on-one support to families in poverty shows both possibilities and limitations. Volunteers provide social support to families in poverty, thus alleviating social isolation. Volunteers learn about systemic forces that cause poverty, its effects on families and communities, and about themselves and their capacities to engage in poverty work. However, social isolation is but one of many problems associated with poverty, and even a more knowledgeable amateur volunteer corps cannot take the place of substantial social, economic, and political change.     

What’s happening to the age at first birth in the United States? A study of recent cohorts

This paper analyzes cross-cohort trends in the age pattern of women at first birth in the United States. The analysis involves fitting the Coale-McNeil marriage model to the age distribution of first birth frequencies for a number of recent white and nonwhite cohorts. Methodologically, the results (a) provide support for the application of the Coale-McNeil marriage model to first birth data, and (b) demonstrate the ability of the model to accurately project first birth fertility for cohorts which have yet to complete their childbearing years. Substantively the results indicate (a) that the proportion of women who will never have a first birth is increasing across cohorts and can be expected to be as high as .25 and .20 for recent white and nonwhite cohorts respectively; (b) that recent nonwhite cohorts have an appreciable number of first births at earlier ages than their white counterparts, as well as a lower mean age at first birth and increasingly less dispersion (across cohorts) in their age at first birth; and (c) that the mean age at first birth and the proportion of first births occurring between ages 25 and 34 is increasing across cohorts of white women but is stable across cohorts of nonwhite women.     

Information Science in the Education of Social Work Students

Information science stands as a bridge between the practitioner facing clients in a day-to-day world and the mountain of relevant and not-so-relevant information that the social sciences have accumulated. This paper reports one school's attempts to encourage effective utilization of scientific knowledge through experimentation with (1) a computer-based retrieval system, (2) a specialized library of information tools that permits precise retrieval of current materials, and (3) an educational program that stresses the importance of having the best available knowledge as a guide to practice, and provides training in obtaining it.     

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks

Uncertainty appears to jump up after major shocks like the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the OPEC I oil‐price shock, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This paper offers a structural framework to analyze the impact of these uncertainty shocks. I build a model with a time‐varying second moment, which is numerically solved and estimated using firm‐level data. The parameterized model is then used to simulate a macro uncertainty shock, which produces a rapid drop and rebound in aggregate output and employment. This occurs because higher uncertainty causes firms to temporarily pause their investment and hiring. Productivity growth also falls because this pause in activity freezes reallocation across units. In the medium term the increased volatility from the shock induces an overshoot in output, employment, and productivity. Thus, uncertainty shocks generate short sharp recessions and recoveries. This simulated impact of an uncertainty shock is compared to vector autoregression estimations on actual data, showing a good match in both magnitude and timing. The paper also jointly estimates labor and capital adjustment costs (both convex and nonconvex). Ignoring capital adjustment costs is shown to lead to substantial bias, while ignoring labor adjustment costs does not.     

The Cost of Low Fertility in Europe

We analyze the effect of fertility on income per capita with a particular focus on the experience of Europe. For European countries with below-replacement fertility, the cost of continued low fertility will only be observed in the long run. We show that in the short run, a fall in the fertility rate will lower the youth dependency ratio and increase the working-age share, thus raising income per capita. In the long run, however, the burden of old-age dependency dominates the youth dependency decline, and continued low fertility will lead to small working-age shares in the absence of large migration inflows. We show that the currently very high working-age shares generated by the recent declines in fertility and migration inflows are not sustainable, and that significant drops in the relative size of the working-age population should be expected. Without substantial adjustments in labor force participation or migration policies, the potential negative repercussions on the European economy are large.     

The Environmental Geochemistry and Bioaccessibility of Mercury in Soils and Sediments: A Review

There have been many studies of mercury geochemistry in the environment and its bioconcentration/bioaccumulation through the aquatic food chain. However, there is a dearth of information regarding the bioaccessibility of mercury in human receptors exposed primarily by soil ingestion. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge of mercury bioaccessibility and speciation in soils, and the utility of speciation methods to estimate mercury bioaccessibility. We conclude that additional research is necessary to determine: (1) whether analytical measurements can adequately determine the bioaccessibility of mercury in sediments and soils; (2) the accuracy of in vitro analyses in assessing mercury bioaccessibility; (3) the ability of mercury to cross tissue membranes of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and the small and large intestines; (4) the speciation and distribution of mercury in biological fluids; and (5) mercury bioavailability using an in vivo animal model relevant to human gastrointestinal tract conditions.