Cohabitation and commitment: partnership plans of young men and women

Popular commentators on marriage and the family often interpret the increase in heterosexual couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and honour life‐long partnerships. Survey and in‐depth interviews with samples of 20–29 year olds living in an urban area of Scotland finds little support for the postulated link between growing cohabitation and a weakened sense of commitment to long‐term arrangements. Most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their ‘commitment’. Socially acceptable vocabularies of motive undoubtedly influenced answers but interviews helped to explore deeper meanings. Many respondents’ views were consistent with previous research predictions of a weakening sense of any added value of marriage. At the same time, some respondents continued to stress the social significance of the distinction between marriage and cohabitation, consistent with research interpreting cohabitation as a ‘try and see’ strategy part‐way to the perceived full commitment of marriage. The notion that ‘marriage is better for children’ continued to have support among respondents. While, on average, cohabiting couples had lower incomes and poorer employment situations than married couples, only very extreme adverse circumstances were presented as making marriage ‘too risky’. Pregnancy‐provoked cohabitation was not always in this category. Cohabitation was maintained because marriage would ‘make no difference’ or because they ‘had not yet got round to’ marriage. Most respondents were more wary of attempting to schedule or plan in their personal life than in other domains and cohabitees’ attitudes to partnership, including their generally ‘committed’ approach, do not explain the known greater vulnerability of this group to dissolution.     

Temporary Work,Underemployment and Workplace Accommodations: Relationship to Well‐being for Workers with Disabilities

This study examines whether employment status and workplace accommodations are associated with perceived well‐being among workers with disabilities. Data from the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey conducted by Statistics Canada were used to test the relationship between employment status, receipt of workplace accommodations and well‐being. Findings indicated that fully utilized permanent employees showed greater life satisfaction and less perceived disability‐related discrimination than either temporary workers or permanent workers who were underemployed. These findings support the theory that inadequate employment is associated with deleterious effects on employee well‐being due to inferior need fulfilment and reduced social status. Workplace accommodations were associated with higher levels of well‐being for all workers with disabilities and helped to mitigate the negative effects of temporary status and underemployment. These findings supported the theoretical extension of main effect and buffering models of workplace stress to the prediction of perceived workplace discrimination.     

Responsive Public Officials and Engaged Citizens: Myth or Reality? A Case Study of Water Rights Policy in Colorado

In the past decade nearly 20 Colorado communities have constructed kayak courses to provide recreational amenities and attract tourists. These projects were followed in some cases by applications for a new form of recreational water rights, which differs dramatically from traditional forms of water rights in Colorado. This paper investigates the role that citizens played in the legal and legislative battles that resulted in this policy change. Findings indicate that citizens demanded the construction of kayak courses across Colorado, to which local officials responded. Citizens generally were indifferent to water rights applications once kayak facilities were constructed, however. Government officials sought the water rights to protect their economic investment and their newfound tourist revenue.

Whither Risk Assessment: New Challenges and Opportunities a Third of a Century After the Red Book

Six multi‐decade‐long members of SRA reflect on the 1983 Red Book in order to examine the evolving relationship between risk assessment and risk management; the diffusion of risk assessment practice to risk areas such as homeland security and transportation; the quality of chemical risk databases; challenges from other groups to elements at the core of risk assessment practice; and our collective efforts to communicate risk assessment to a diverse set of critical groups that do not understand risk, risk assessment, or many other risk‐related issues. The authors reflect on the 10 recommendations in the Red Book and present several pressing challenges for risk assessment practitioners.     

A Specialized Inventory Problem in Banks: Optimizing Retail Sweeps

Deposits held at Federal Reserve Banks are an essential input to the business activity of most depository institutions in the United States. Managing these deposits is an important and complex inventory problem for two reasons. First, Federal Reserve regulations require that depository institutions hold certain amounts of such deposits at the Federal Reserve Banks to satisfy statutory reserve requirements against customers' transaction accounts (demand deposits and other checkable deposits). Second, some inventory of such deposits is essential for banks to operate one of their core lines of business: furnishing payment services to households and firms. Because the Federal Reserve does not pay interest on such deposits used to satisfy statutory reserve requirements, banks seek to minimize their inventory of such deposits. In 1994, the banking industry introduced a new inventory management tool for such deposits, the retail deposit sweep program, which avoids the statutory requirement by reclassifying transaction deposits as savings deposits. This is an interesting inventory problem for fungible items, where the conversion process is reversible. We examine two methods for operating such sweeps programs within the limits of Federal Reserve regulations, and we develop a stochastic dynamic programming model to implement one such method, the threshold method.     

Do gender differences in preferences for competition matter for occupational expectations?

Occupational segregation by gender is prevalent and can explain some of the gender wage gap. I empirically investigate a possible explanation for this segregation: the gender difference in preferences for competition, which in recent experimental studies has been found to affect economic outcomes. My findings suggest that women’s greater distaste for competition decreases educational achievement. It can also explain part of the gender segregation in occupational fields. Specifically, accounting for distaste for competition seems to reduce gender segregation in the fields of Law, Business & Management, Health, and Education.     

The Continued Importance of Quality Parent–Adolescent Relationships During Late Adolescence

The quality of adolescents' relationships with residential parents has been found to predict many different health and behavioral youth outcomes; strong associations have also been found between these outcomes and family processes, and between relationship quality and family processes. Data from Rounds 1–5 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 were used to examine hypotheses about the influence of the parent–adolescent relationship on subsequent adolescent mental well‐being and delinquency, as mediated by family processes. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the influence of a positive residential parent–adolescent relationship on better mental well‐being and fewer delinquency was entirely mediated by family routines, parental monitoring, and parental supportiveness, net of sociodemographic controls.     

Race–gender Differences in Risk and Protective Factors among Youth in Residential Group Homes

Analysis reported here examined youth in residential group home placements in order to better understand how sexual behaviors, drug use, and environmental experiences differ by race and gender subgroups. Data were collected from 336 youth aged 14–21 residing in one of 41 group homes in Maryland. Chi square and logistic regression analyses were done to determine differences on study variables among the race-gender groupings. Results demonstrate not only significant health concerns overall but notable differences were also found between race-gender subgroups. Findings suggest that found race-gender subgroup differences might be informative for tailoring programming for youth of residential group home settings.