How low can it go? declining black-white segregation in A multiethnic context

We extend research on whites’ neighborhood contact with blacks, population composition, and prospects for desegregation by developing a new measure of the floor of racial residential segregation under conditions of low black-white contact. The measure incorporates the way in which multi ethnic contexts further constrain levels of black-white segregation. The results show that black-white desegregation is likely when the black population is small, but is unlikely otherwise. Yet, when multiple ethnic groups are sufficiently large, a moderate level of black-white segregation is necessary for whites to maintain low neighborhood contact with blacks, even when the proportion of African Americans is small.     

Contraceptive use in South Africa under apartheid

In this paper, patterns of contraceptive use among black South African women in the late 1980s are examined. Multilevel logit models are used to evaluate the extent to which segregation of the African population into homelands gave rise to uneven patterns of contraceptive use; how this pattern was shaped by variations in family-planning acceptability; and the way in which the system of male labor migration and social and economic inequities across communities affected women's use of contraceptives. Results show that variation in contraceptive use across homeland areas diminished with the addition of community controls for development and migration. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity indicated that localized conditions could offset the advantages or disadvantages of living in a former homeland.     

The future of U.S. private sector unionism: Did George Barnett get it right after all?

V. Conclusion George Barnett has the unenviable reputation of making one of the most ill-timed, inaccurate forecasts in the history of industrial relations. Only six months after predicting trade unionism would further decline in the U.S., union organizing swept over the nation in mid-1933 and union density jumped nearly three-fold in the course of a decade. While Barnett's forecast was wildly at odds with the course of unionism in the shortmedium run, viewed over the long run (i.e., the remainder of the twentieth century) it appears more prescient. When he made his prediction, private sector union density stood at roughly 12 percent; seventy years later it is at 9 percent.     

Psychosocial moderators of substance use among middle school-aged adolescents.

Recent statistics show a decrease in the overall use of drugs and alcohol in the general population [1]. In sharp contrast to this trend is the indication that adolescents' use of drugs and alcohol is increasing [2]. Because the use of drugs and alcohol can have serious implications for adolescents' physical, emotional, and social development, it is important that human service practitioners working with them understand those factors that influence their substance use, in order to develop effective interventions to deal with this growing problem. This article reports the findings of a study of drug and alcohol use among a sample of 779 adolescents who attended middle schools in a large urban city in the southwest United States. The study examines the relationships between substance use, social support, and a variety of other psychosocial factors. The implications of those relationships for human service practice and research are discussed.     

Gender role attitudes and college students’ work and family expectations

Work and family issues are becoming increasingly important for both women and men. This study examines college students' plans and attitudes concerning work and family, gender differences in attitudes and expectations, and the effect of gender role attitudes on future expectations. Findings indicate that a majority of men and women expect to marry, have children, and work full-time. While men expect to work more hours at a job, there are no gender differences in ideal work hours. Women who hold more egalitarian gender role attitudes are less definitive in their plans to marry and have children. Egalitarian men expect to work fewer hours and are more willing to stay at home than their traditional counterparts. Her research interests include gender, family, demography, aging, and the life course. She is currently working on a study of fathers' experiences with work-family conflict and adaptive strategies for balancing the two domains, which is being funded by the American Sociological Association.     

The determinants of strikes over time and across industries

This paper presents a pooled time-series, cross-section analysis of strike activity across 27 major industry groups over the years 1970–1980. While numerous studies have analyzed the time-series behavior of strike activity and fewer studies have analyzed the cross-sectional pattern of strikes, little work has been done to combine both perspectives into one empirical analysis. This paper improves on this by incorporating variables into one regression model that is capable of explaining both dimensions of the variation in strike activity. The regression results suggest that strikes over time and across industries are affected by a wide range of economic, organizational, institutional, occupational, demographic, market structure, political, and other variables.     

Labor’s inequality of bargaining power: Changes over time and implications for public policy

A major justification for enacting the Wagner Act and encouraging collective bargaining was that in the wage-determination process individual workers suffer from an inequality of bargaining power vis-á-vis employers. This critical review of this justification examines the analytical meaning of the concept of an inequality of bargaining power, the factors responsible for this inequality, the change that has taken place in labor’s disadvantage since the 1930s, and the implications for national labor policy. It is concluded that some employers continue to have significant market power over wages but that the extent and degree of labor’s disadvantage in bargaining has diminished substantially since World War II. The implication is that the Wagner Act’s protection of the right to organize remains in the social interest but that the bargaining power of labor unions should be further circumscribed to preserve a balance of power in wage determination. The author thanks Paul Swiercz for helpful comments.     

Dealing with a shifting paradigm.

In 1970, T. S. Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argued that scientists work by creating a comprehensive model--a model he called "a paradigm." A paradigm, Kuhn said, is an encompassing world view that tells us what facts to pay attention to and what to ignore. He contended that, although we may think that we consider all the facts and ask all the questions, there is always some ordering and selection going on, and we must first be prepared by our paradigm to make sense of what we see. He stated that one of the first signs that a paradigm is shifting is the discovery of facts that seem significant and indisputably true but cannot be explained by the current model. The essential elements, according to Kuhn, that are required for a paradigm to shift are a strong stimulus, a rapidly changing environment, and the realization that whether the change is good or bad is essentially of no significance. The parties most closely involved are frequently the last to appreciate that the shift has occurred.     

Coping Strategies and Caregiving Outcomes Among Rural Dementia Caregivers

We studied the coping styles by which family caregivers living in rural areas of Alabama deal with the demands of caring for an older relative with dementia. Data were obtained from a sample of 141 caregivers through the random-digit dialing telephone survey. Two coping styles were identified: deliberate coping and avoidance coping. Deliberate coping was related to higher life satisfaction scores and, avoidance coping was related to lower life satisfaction scores and higher caregiver burden scores. Avoidance coping appeared to moderate the effects of caregiver health on caregiver burden. Social workers should pay greater attention to caregivers with dysfunctional coping styles.     

Reproductive control in apartheid South Africa

Since its inception in 1974, the South African family planning programme has been widely believed to be linked with white fears of growing black numbers. The programme has been repeatedly attacked by detractors as a programme of social and political control. Yet, in spite of the hostile environment, black women's use of services has steadily increased. Using historical and anthropological evidence, this paper delineates the links between the social and political context of racial domination and individual fertility behaviour. It is argued that the quantitative success of the family planning programme is rooted in social and economic shifts conditioning reproductive authority and fertility decision-making. State policies of racial segregation and influx control, ethnic 'homeland' politics, and labour migration of men transformed opportunities and constraints for black women and men, and altered local and household expectations of childbearing. Women came to manage their own fertility as they increasingly found themselves in precarious social and economic circumstances.