Institutionalization,Romanian Adoptions and Executive Functioning

The impact of a traumatic environment during early childhood is linked to short-term and long-term difficulties in adoptees. This study, utilizing a non-random, cross-sectional analysis of 123 children adopted from Romania, focused on executive cognitive functioning. One-third of the sample had not been institutionalized while the other two-thirds had been institutionalized for varying lengths of time from 1 month to more than 3 years, resulting in a “natural experiment” that allowed us to compare these two groups. Information from parents and teachers was obtained regarding their perception of the child’s executive functioning. Results indicate that, after many years in their adoptive families, 40% of the adoptees had physical challenges and 36% were in at least some special education classes. The best predictor of parental perception of current executive functioning was parent perception of the current parent–child relationship and not preadoptive history.     

A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts on the Acquisition of Intraverbal Behavior in a Six-Year-Old Boy with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - A comparison of textual and echoic prompts was conducted to determine which form of prompts was more effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to a 6-year-old...     

Cohabitation in the Philippines: Attitudes and Behaviors Among Young Women and Men

We examine data from a national survey of 15 – 27 year olds in the Philippines to assess attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation, and we analyze the marital and nonmarital union experiences of 25 – 27 year olds. We find that attitudes toward cohabitation remain quite conservative among young Filipinos, although men view cohabitation more favorably than do women. We also find that men’s socioeconomic status affects their ability to enter unions, particularly marriage, whereas women’s union formation patterns are influenced by the family in which they grew up, their participation in religious services, and to some degree by their place of residence. Both men and women who hold more liberal attitudes on a range of issues are more likely to have cohabited than are individuals who do not share those views. For now, however, we do not expect cohabitation to become a widespread substitute for marriage in the Philippines.     

Gender and the socioeconomic gradient in mortality.

Despite considerable evidence documenting a strong and persistent relationship between socioeconomic position and mortality, recent research suggests that this association may be weaker among women. In our examination of gender differences in the socioeconomic gradient in mortality, we argue that this inconsistency arises from the failure to consider the ways in which gender is a fundamental constituent of socioeconomic position. The data used are from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Respondents, including all household heads and their partners, aged 29 years and older in 1972 (N = 5,665; 56% female), were followed until 1991, death, or attrition. Discrete time event history analysis was used to examine the predictors of death between 1972 and 1991. Of the key socioeconomic predictors, years of education was measured at baseline, while earned income was a time-varying covariate. We find no gender differences in the effect of respondents' own socioeconomic positions on their mortality risk. However, increasing spousal income raises men's odds of dying, while the opposite is true for women. Our results raise questions about the prevailing view that the socioeconomic gradient in mortality is weaker among women. Moreover, gender differences in the effects of spousal earnings on mortality risk suggest that their labor market rewards have fundamentally different meanings for women and men.     

Testing the association between health status amd an environmental index

The design and analysis of a study to examine the association between a time series response collected on n subjects and an index are presented. Applications of this methodology to environmental health studies such as investigations into the relationship between air pollution levels and daily respiratory symptoms are indicated     

Reconceptualizing Women's and Men's Undeclared Work: Some Results from a European Union Survey

Recognizing that the current conceptualizations of men's and women's undeclared work derive almost entirely from a limited range of small‐scale studies of specific localities, sectors and occupations, this article begins to resolve this dearth of evidence by reporting the findings of an extensive cross‐national survey of undeclared work conducted in 2007 across 27 European Union (EU) nations. The outcome is fresh and extensive EU‐wide evidence that extends existing conceptualizations of the gender differences in terms of participation, sector, contract type and pay. However, the recognition that undeclared work is conducted for closer social relations and sometimes for motives other than financial gain, is shown to apply not only to women, as previously contended, but to men as well and to constitute most of the undeclared work in the EU. The result is a call for a fundamental reconceptualization of the nature of undeclared work that recognizes the heterogeneous work relations involved.