Freedom of movement among blue collar workers

Freedom of Movement (FM) is seen in this study as the discrepancy between aspiration and personal achievement. Five hundred and sixtythree blue collar workers responded to a mail questionnaire specifically designed to assess FM. Sex, race, and income related monotonically to FM, with Blacks, women, and low income workers showing low FM. Age also related significantly to FM, but in a curvilinear fashion, with mid-age workers having the lowest FM. Implications of low FM (and anomie) are discussed in relation to homelessness, apathy, and other forms of social distress.     

An Art-Historical View of Social Disintegration

One hundred and one Fine Arts college students judged seventeen Western Master paintings of small groups spanning six centuries, using a semanticdifferential scale. It was hypothesized that the paintings would porlray a decreased sense of social cohesiveness, reflecting Riesman’s (1950) characterization of social changes from inner-directed to other-directedness. A factor analysis revealed that one of the two factors extracted, group solidarity, significantly related to century of painting, supporting Riesman’s thesis.     

Alternative Formulas for Distributing Parental Incomes at Divorce

The current study applied five formulas for distributing parental incomes at divorce to 414 court case records in Minnesota and evaluated which formulas and actual court orders provided sufficient incomes for male and female-headed households. The study further explored influences of pre-divorce gross income levels, household/genders, and lengths of marriage on the post-divorce income-to-needs ratios (ITN) produced by the five formulas and actual court orders, using MANOVA. Results were interpreted using distributive justice principles of equity, needs, and contributions. Males have higher ITN with each alternative, except the income-sharing formula. The actual court orders and the income-sharing formula produce the largest discrepancy between male and female ITN and the highest percentage of females living below poverty level guidelines.Kathrine C. Daniels, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55108-6140; e-mail: dani0022@umn.edu.Kathryn D. Rettig, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55107-6140; e-mail: krettig@che.umn.edu.Robert delMas, General College of the University of Minnesota, 354 Appleby Hall, 28 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455; e-mail: delma001@umn.edu.This paper originated from Kathrine Daniels’ doctoral dissertation entitled, alternative strategies of dissolving the economic partnership of marriage. Further, the research was funded by a grant from The McKnight Foundation to the Child Support Enforcement Division of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and a subcontract to the University of Minnesota Department of Family Social Science. Additional support was provided through a grant from, The University of Minnesota Center for Urban and Regional Affairs’ Faculty Interactive Research Program, as well as a project grant from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, Project 53–054, Decision-Making Integral to Relationship Transitions in Families, Kathryn D. Rettig, Principal Investigator.     

Perceptual indicators of family well-being

A resource exchange theory for the development of perceptual indicators of quality of family life is presented with empirical evidence to test the theory. The theory specifies six classes of resources: love, status, services, information, goods and money, as necessary to maintain some level of life quality. The first three are the most dependent on the particular people involved in the exchange relationship and the interpersonal exchanges of these resources offer opportunities for highest levels of satisfaction. It was hypothesized (1) that feelings about the particularistic resources received from family would significantly contribute to family life satisfaction for men and women; (2) that the order of resource classes on the particularism dimension would correspond to the order of their effectiveness in contributing to family life satisfaction. Results of the study support the theoretical model and hypotheses and suggest that further research with respondents of differing life circumstances is needed. The need for indicators of quality of family life in quality of life research is emphasized.     

Family life quality: Theory and assessment in economically stressed farm families

The purposes of this paper are to (a) describe a resource exchange theory which outlines the dimensions of life quality (Foa and Foa, 1974), (b) present a multidimensional measure of personal evaluations of family life quality based on this theory, and (c) report the results of a two-stage study in which the scale was used. The scale includes items representing love, status, services, information, goods, and money resources received from the family. Respondents evaluated the degree to which the receipt of these resources satisfied personal needs for: (a) love and affection, (b) respect and esteem, (c) comfort and assistance, (d) shared meaning, (e) personal things, and (f) money for personal use. Reliability, correlation, covariance, cluster, and factor analyses on data from 592 subjects provided information for reducing the number of items. A reduced version of the scale was administered to 331 of the same subjects one year later. The two stages provided evidence of construct validity and reliability for the scale.Research was supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station: Projects 52-054, 52-055, 52-058 Paper # 18,277 and the Minnesota Extension Service.     

Freedom of Movement Among Blue Collar Workers

Freedom of Movement (FM) is seen in this study as the discrepancy between aspiration and personal achievement. Five hundred and sixty-three blue collar workers responded to a mail questionnaire specifically designed to assess FM Sex, race, and income related monotonically to FM, with Blacks, women, and low income workers showing low FM. Age also related significantly to FM, but in a curvilinear fashion, with mid-age workers having the lowest FM. Implications of low PM (and anomie) are discussed in relation to homelessness, apathy, and other forms of social distress.