Parenting Practices of Resident Fathers: The Role of Marital and Biological Ties

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,098) to examine differences in the parenting practices of four types of resident fathers, defined by their biological relationship to a focal child and their marital status with regard to the focal child's mother. Regression results suggest that biological and social (i.e., stepfathers or mothers' cohabiting partners) fathers differ significantly, and in some unexpected ways, on most measures of parenting. However, a considerable portion of these differences can be explained by variation in the background characteristics of the individuals and families in each group. Additionally, difference-in-difference analyses reveal a stronger link between marriage and higher quality parenting practices among social fathers than among biological fathers.     

Subsidized Housing and Household Hardship Among Low‐Income Single‐Mother Households

We investigate associations of housing assistance with housing and food‐related hardship among low‐income single‐mother households using data from the National Survey of America’s Families (N = 5,396). Results from instrumental variables models suggest that receipt of unit‐based assistance, such as traditional public housing, is associated with a large decrease in rent burden and modest decreases in difficulty paying rent or utilities and residential crowding. Receipt of tenant‐based assistance, such as housing vouchers or certificates, is associated with a modest increase in housing stability but also with modest increases in rent burden and difficulty paying rent or utilities. We find no associations between either type of housing assistance and food related hardship.     

Betwixt and between the market and the state: Israeli students' welfare attitudes in comparative perspective

Analysing comparable samples of students from the Cross-Cultural Variations in Distributive Justice Perception (CVDJP) project, we explore the multidimensionality of attitudes towards the welfare state in Israel compared with countries from liberal and social-democratic welfare regimes (the USA, Canada-Ontario, Sweden, Norway and The Netherlands). We derive six different attitudinal dimensions that constitute two distinct sets of opposing welfare ideological frames. The first set, market-based ideology, entails three coexisting criteria: individualism, internal attribution of inequality, and work ethic. The second set, welfare-statist ideology, entails three additional coexisting criteria: egalitarian redistribution, external attribution of inequality, and broad scope of welfare. Along with structural similarities, we find considerable variation in levels of aggregate attitudes across the different types of welfare regimes. Israeli respondents stand out because of their strongly ambivalent welfare attitudes. While scoring higher than respondents from the liberal regimes on market-based measures, they paradoxically record similarly high scores (comparable to social-democratic regimes) on state-based measures. On one criterion – attribution of inequality to external causes – Israeli respondents even score higher than respondents from both liberal and social-democratic regimes. We consider potential explanations for this ambivalence and suggest possible directions for further research.     

Agri-Food Restructuring: A Synthesis of Recent Australian Research

Abstract Globalizing tendencies within capitalism are leading to important alterations in the structure of agricultural production and the ways food companies are involving themselves in processing and marketing. Increasingly, finance capital and transnational agribusiness have sought ways to influence, and in some cases redirect, farming activities in Australia. The penetration of farming structures by corporate capital has been hastened by state deregulation. Rather than providing detailed empirical evidence, this paper presents a broad synthesis of recent Australian research with the aim of informing readers otherwise unaware of events in the Antipodes of the forms and impacts of agri-food change in Australia.     

Optimal Stopping Analysis of a Radiation Detection System to Protect Cities from a Nuclear Terrorist Attack

We formulate and analyze an optimal stopping problem concerning a terrorist who is attempting to drive a nuclear or radiological weapon toward a target in a city center. In our model, the terrorist needs to travel through a two-dimensional lattice containing imperfect radiation sensors at some of the nodes, and decides at each node whether to detonate the bomb or proceed. We consider five different scenarios containing various informational structures and two different sensor array topologies: the sensors are placed randomly or they form an outer wall around the periphery of the city. We find that sensors can act as a deterrent in some cases, and that the government prefers the outer wall topology unless the sensors have a very low detection probability and the budget is tight (so that they are sparsely deployed).