Direct Valuation of Personal Care by Households

This paper valued the quantity of child, sick, and elderly care provided by households using a new, direct measure. Such measures add to the literature that estimates the size of the contribution of non-market work by household members, particularly women, and to literature about valuation of childcare. This production remains unvalued in standard national income accounts. Traditional attempts to quantify this care multiplied care-giver hours by a wage rate, a method that suffers from several drawbacks, including omitting the contributions of anything but labor, the inability to handle joint production, and the use of an arbitrary wage rate. This study avoided these problems by valuing the amount of care with its market price based on data from a small urban area. The mean value was $3,547 annually (97 percent of it childcare) for all sample households and $9,610 for those providing care. The results afforded evidence of scale economies in parental childcare and quantified care furnished by different kinds of providers.     

Putting youth development into practice: learning from an innovative fellowship program

Professionals who work with youth can have a tremendous impact on the development and life trajectory of these young people. This article reports on an effort to provide support and professional development for those who work with youth during nonschool hours in a youth development fellowship program. Combining intensive residency workshops and a six-month coaching experience, the fellowship was designed to teach participants how to integrate youth resilience and youth development perspectives into their work. The evaluation collected data from the fellows and their coaches during the course of the program. The study offers insights into the types of benefits achieved through this type of focused intervention with youth workers, as well as the challenges of conducting such an effort.     

Attitudes affecting physical dating violence perpetration and victimization: findings from adolescents in a high-risk urban community

This study examines the associations between attitudes supporting physical dating violence against boys hitting girls and girls hitting boys and experiences with physical dating violence perpetration and victimization among youth in a high-risk community. Cross-sectional logistic regression analyses are based on data from the Youth Violence Survey, conducted in 2004, and administered to more than 80% of public school students in grades 7, 9, 11, and 12 (N = 4,131) in an urban school district. Findings show that attitudes supporting physical dating violence against boys and girls are significantly associated with physical dating violence perpetration and victimization. Prevention programs that seek to reduce physical dating violence among adolescents may benefit from including sex-specific attitude modification as part of a comprehensive violence prevention approach.     

Transitions in welfare participation and female headship

This study uses data from the 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1996 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how welfare policies and local economic conditions contribute to women's transitions into and out of female headship and into and out of welfare participation. It also examines whether welfare participation is directly associated with longer spells of headship. The study employs a simultaneous hazards approach that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in all of its transition models and for the endogeneity of welfare participation in its headship model. The estimation results indicate that welfare participation significantly reduces the chances of leaving female headship. The estimates also reveal that more generous welfare benefits do not directly contribute to headship but rather contribute indirectly to headship by increasing the chances that a mother will enter welfare and consequently remain a single mother for longer. More generous Earned Income Tax Credit benefits are associated with more stable arrangements for both headship and welfare participation. Other measures of welfare policies, including indicators for the adoption of welfare waivers and the implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, are generally not significantly associated with headship or welfare receipt. Better economic opportunities are estimated to increase headship but reduce welfare participation among unmarried mothers.     

WOMEN'S COMMUNITY SERVICE, 1940–1960: Insights from a Cohort of Gifted American Women

Americans who came of age during and immediately following World War II have recently become a central feature for more broadly understanding volunteerism, as well as civic participation, in the United States. Using data from the Stanford-Terman Study we examine women's community service participation and leadership over the period 1940–1960. The women studied moved in and out of community service over time, with patterns of participation showing a great deal of variability. Both the likelihood of involvement in community service and community service leadership peaked during midlife. Age-related patterns were largely accounted for by changes in correlated resources. Beyond age patterns, the marks of history are apparent in an increasing investment in volunteerism between 1940 and 1960 for this generation of American women. The findings of this study both support and extend a resource perspective on volunteering.     

Are salaried workers compensated for overtime hours?

I explore the difference in hours of work and compensation between workers who are compensated for overtime hours and those who are not. I find that workers not paid for overtime work significantly more than workers who are. No previous research has tested whether or not salaried workers who are not paid for extra hours of work are compensated for their additional hours. My results indicate that these salaried workers are compensated for their additional work by receiving higher salaries in both current and future time periods.     

Spot observation: Advantages and disadvantages for household time use research

The spot observation method of estimating time use is described in this article. Procedures for using this method in developing countries, where household activities are relatively easily observed, are contrasted with procedures used in countries characterized by very private living units and highly separated employment, educational, and household settings. Characteristics of various methods for collecting time use data are compared so that researchers can evaluate the trade-offs they can expect from selecting a particular method. A case example of using the spot observation method in a study of women's household and agricultural activities in the Njoro Region of Kenya is presented.Her research interests are household time allocation and women's economic status in developing countries.Her research interests include the time allocation of rural women and women in international development. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1995.The study of women's and children's time use reported in this paper was supported in part by the Center for African Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and by the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Egerton University, Njoro, Kenya.     

Correlates of partner abuse in male same-sex relationships

We investigated correlates of partner abuse in male same-sex relationships in a randomly selected community sample (N = 186). We included factors associated with abuse in heterosexual relationships, as well as factors of relevance to gay relationships. We assessed perpetration and receipt of partner abuse to examine whether variables were associated independently with abuse perpetration and/or receipt. Correlates of same-sex partner abuse were largely parallel to established correlates of heterosexual abuse. Income, education, and attachment orientation were associated with bidirectional partner abuse, and family violence and substance use were uniquely associated with victimization. Further, there were factors unique to same-sex partner abuse; HIV status and public outness were associated with bidirectional partner abuse, and internalized homophobia was uniquely associated with abuse perpetration.