Poverty and the American Family: A Decade in Review

Because of dramatic levels of economic volatility and massive changes in welfare policies, scholars in this decade worried anew about whether our official poverty measure, adopted in the 1960s, is adequate. Poverty's causes continued to be debated, with demographic factors often pitted against policy and maternal employment changes. Some scholars focused on events that trigger spirals into poverty or poverty exits. The literature on consequences of poverty featured new techniques for identifying underlying processes and mechanisms. Researchers also explored “neighborhood effects” and focused on poverty deconcentration efforts. Finally, scholars produced a voluminous literature on the efforts to reform welfare and their subsequent effects.     

Attitudes about addiction: a national study of addiction educators

The following study, funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), utilized the Addiction Belief Inventory (ABI; Luke, Ribisl, Walton, & Davidson, 2002) to examine addiction attitudes in a national sample of U.S. college/university faculty teaching addiction-specific courses (n=215). Results suggest that addiction educators view substance abuse as a coping mechanism rather than a moral failure, and are ambivalent about calling substance abuse or addiction a disease. Most do not support individual efficacy toward recovery, the ability to control use, or social use after treatment. Modifiers of addiction educator attitudes include level of college education; teaching experience; licensure/certification, and whether the educator is an addiction researcher. Study implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Designing Lateral Organizations: An Analysis of the Benefits,Costs, and Enablers of Nonhierarchical Organizational Forms*

Twenty-first century organizations will require designs that enable them to cope with turbulent environments. Organizations have experimented with lateral organizational designs for this purpose, but research evidence concerning these forms is sparse. We analyzed data obtained from 512 employees within eight diverse organizations implementing flexible lateral organizations. Using a sequence comparison methodology, we were able to identify and categorize the major costs, benefits, and enablers associated with implementing these forms of complex organizations. Propositions for effectively managing lateral relations were tested and managerial implications were explored.     

Dads, disease, and death: determinants of daughter discrimination

Existing evidence suggests that girls are differentially affected by income shocks and changes in bargaining power. Most studies, however, ignore household production and confound differential opportunity costs with changes in income or bargaining power. I disentangle these determinants of gender discrimination??preferences, income and time allocation??by comparing households with varying degrees of parental involvement. Results indicate that, controlling for household fixed effects, reducing the time available for household production has a disproportionately negative effect on daughters. But, for a transitory income shock, daughters?? education is less income-elastic. Increasing mothers?? bargaining power is most effective in narrowing the gender gap.     

Material hardship and depression among low‐income households in South Korea: Differences by household type

With the recent trend of growing poverty in South Korea, low‐income households, particularly elderly‐ and single‐headed households, are at high risk of experiencing material hardship and depression. However, less is known about the association between material hardship and depression by household type in Korea. Using data (N = 2,913) from the Korean Welfare Panel Study and employing several methodological approaches to address the omitted variables bias, this study examined: (i) the association between material hardship and depression among low‐income households, and (ii) whether the association differed by household type. We found that experiencing material hardship was associated with a higher likelihood of being depressed. In addition, we also found that the association between material hardship and depression differed by household type. The magnitude of the association was most pronounced in single‐ and elderly‐headed households. Policy implications to improve well‐being among low‐income households were discussed.     

The impact of quasi-markets on processes and factors affecting the costs of contracting

The aim of this paper is to ascertain the impact of quasi-markets on contracting processes and factors affecting the costs of contracting in Finnish health care in the specific case of laboratory services. By means of a comparative case analysis, we ascertained the changes in organizational contracting practices and identified the actions affecting the transaction costs of contracting in the case of an autonomous municipal enterprise laboratory compared with the same laboratory as a hierarchically run municipal unit. The research was conducted during the years 2007–2011. The results suggest that introducing quasi-markets into laboratory services increased the cost factors of contracting; and had a negative impact on the laboratories’ willingness to create new market relationships.     

Access Barriers to Mental Health Services for Older Adults from Diverse Populations: Perspectives of Leaders in Mental Health and Aging

This project is based on the results of telephone surveys with 52 local, state, and national informed respondents including policymakers, county leaders, planners, and advocates in mental health and aging with a particular focus on the states of California and Florida. This article addresses challenges to access to mental health services for diverse older adults including barriers related to race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, location, age, gender, immigrant status, language, sexual orientation, and diagnosis. The article also highlights broad themes that emerged including (1) the importance of outreach and transportation tailored to diverse elders, and (2) recruitment of diverse staff and training related to diversity. The article concludes with policy and practice recommendations to reduce these disparities in access to mental health services for diverse populations of older adults.     

Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources of Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reports the results of a telephone survey (n = 1,015 respondents) that aims to identify the perceived general family functioning and family resources of Hong Kong Chinese families and their linkage to each other in a rapidly transforming society. The perceived general family functioning of the respondents was average, and the five types of family resources—time, income, human capital, psychological capital, and social capital—of the respondents ranged from average to good. The following family resource domains, in descending order, have accounted for significant variance in perceived general family functioning: income, time spent with family, stress coping efficacy, religion, and satisfaction with the living environment. Our findings provide empirical support for policy formulation and social work practice.     

THE FEMA TRAILER PARKS: NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF AVOIDANCE

In recent years, negative media attention has fostered the impression that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) parks are social wastelands filled with criminal elements and other undesirables. FEMA parks have subsequently come to be viewed by some as a major threat to the safety and quality of life of the local communities in which they are situated. This analysis addresses attitudes toward FEMA trailer parks in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina among Baton Rouge residents. Drawing on the Locally Undesirable Land Use/Not in My Backyard (LULU/NIMBY) literature, the contact hypothesis, and a broad paradigm of social status and social control, we hypothesize that spatial proximity, contact, and social status will influence negative perceptions of the parks, while these same factors along with the negative perceptions will influence avoidance behaviors. The results indicate that living near a FEMA park is associated with less negative perceptions, while actually seeing trailer park residents is associated with more negative perceptions and a greater odds of avoidance, particularly changing driving routes. Whites are particularly concerned about crime associated with the parks, but interracial trust reduces negative perceptions of the parks and the likelihood of avoidance. Those who are likely to end up in a FEMA park if they were in the same situation are more friendly toward the parks and less likely to use avoidance techniques, and negative perceptions themselves are strong predictors of avoidance behaviors. We conclude with a discussion of directions for future research.     

The effect of expansions in medicaid income eligibility on abortion

In this paper we examine the effect of expansions in Medicaid income eligibility on abortion, using individual-level data from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The results suggest that for unmarried nonblack women with less than a high school degree, expansions of income eligibility lowered the probability of abortion by two to five percentage points. Most of the impact of the Medicaid expansions on abortion occurred in the first round of expansions from approximately 45% of the federal poverty level to 100%. For black unmarried women with less than a high school degree, we generally find no effect of expansions in Medicaid income eligibility on abortion.