Child-custody reform and the division of labor in the household

We investigate whether the adoption of joint-custody laws affects the amount of time that married mothers and fathers devote to market and household work. Our findings suggest that custody reform induces a reallocation of time within marriage, with mothers working more in the market and fathers working more in the home. However, fathers lower their labor-force-participation rates in response to custody reform. The patterns in the data are most easily reconciled with models that emphasize shifts in bargaining power to one household member, which is likely the father in the case of joint-custody reform.     

A varying coefficient approach to estimating hedonic housing price functions and their quantiles

The varying coefficient (VC) model introduced by Hastie and Tibshirani [26 T. Hastie and R. Tibshirani, Varying-coefficient models, J. R. Statist. Soc. (Ser. B) 55 (1993), pp. 757–796.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] is arguably one of the most remarkable recent developments in nonparametric regression theory. The VC model is an extension of the ordinary regression model where the coefficients are allowed to vary as smooth functions of an effect modifier possibly different from the regressors. The VC model reduces the modelling bias with its unique structure while also avoiding the ‘curse of dimensionality’ problem. While the VC model has been applied widely in a variety of disciplines, its application in economics has been minimal. The central goal of this paper is to apply VC modelling to the estimation of a hedonic house price function using data from Hong Kong, one of the world's most buoyant real estate markets. We demonstrate the advantages of the VC approach over traditional parametric and semi-parametric regressions in the face of a large number of regressors. We further combine VC modelling with quantile regression to examine the heterogeneity of the marginal effects of attributes across the distribution of housing prices.     

A weighted Harrell–Davis distance test with applications to censored data

Consider the standard treatment-control model with a time-to-event endpoint. We propose a novel interpretable test statistic from a quantile function point of view. The large sample consistency of our estimator is proven for fixed bandwidth values theoretically and validated empirically. A Monte Carlo simulation study also shows that given small sample sizes, utilization of a tuning parameter through the application of a smooth quantile function estimator shows an improvement in efficiency in terms of the MSE when compared to direct application of classic Kaplan–Meier survival function estimator. The procedure is finally illustrated via an application to epithelial ovarian cancer data.     

The Impact of the Physical Home Environment for Family Carers of People with Dementia: A Qualitative Study

Background: The majority of people with dementia are cared for by their families at home. This study aimed to elicit family carers' perceptions on home environmental aspects and strategies with the view to identify barriers and facilitators when caring for a person with dementia at home.

Design and methods: Thirteen co-resident family carers were engaged in semi-structured in-depth walking interviews. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Home environments can pose a number of challenges and opportunities. Aspects of the architectural and interior environment (e.g. size, condition, layout and accessibility, familiarity) are perceived as important (Theme 1) as well as a plethora of environmental strategies that encourage independence and comfort at home (Theme 2). Carers' scepticism, timing, costs, property characteristics and mistrust to services are some barriers to implementing environmental strategies (Theme 3).

Conclusions: Carers improvised solutions via trial and error and need further education on strategies to create an enabling and comfortable home environment.     

The FARSEEING real-world fall repository: a large-scale collaborative database to collect and share sensor signals from real-world falls

Background

Real-world fall events objectively measured by body-worn sensors can improve the understanding of fall events in older people. However, these events are rare and hence challenging to capture. Therefore, the FARSEEING (FAll Repository for the design of Smart and sElf-adaptive Environments prolonging Independent livinG) consortium and associated partners started to build up a meta-database of real-world falls.

Results

Between January 2012 and December 2015 more than 300 real-world fall events have been recorded. This is currently the largest collection of real-world fall data recorded with inertial sensors. A signal processing and fall verification procedure has been developed and applied to the data. Since the end of 2015, 208 verified real-world fall events are available for analyses. The fall events have been recorded within several studies, with different methods, and in different populations. All sensor signals include at least accelerometer measurements and 58 % additionally include gyroscope and magnetometer measurements. The collection of data is ongoing and open to further partners contributing with fall signals. The FARSEEING consortium also aims to share the collected real-world falls data with other researchers on request.

Conclusions

The FARSEEING meta-database will help to improve the understanding of falls and enable new approaches in fall risk assessment, fall prevention, and fall detection in both aging and disease.

     

Being disabled,being a manager: ‘glass partitions’ and conditional identities in the contemporary workplace

This article critically explores the working lives and views of disabled senior staff working in UK organisations. The qualitative research at the core of the article establishes that some disabled people are confounding established notions of disabled people only working in peripheral employment roles by exploring the working lives and perceptions of disabled managers. The findings do, however, point to continued barriers to what disabled staff in senior positions can be seen to do and be organisationally. Here both practical and ontological risk inheres in organisationally induced change, openness about impairment and risky identities. Such ideas, it is argued, present limits to further promotion and workplace inclusion for some disabled managers.     

How do changes in income,employment and health insurance affect family mental health spending?

Using eight two-year panels from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data for the period 2004 to 2012, we examine the effect of economic shocks on mental health spending by families with children. Estimating two-part expenditure models within the correlated random effects framework, we find that employment shocks have a greater impact on mental health spending than do income or health insurance shocks. Our estimates reveal that employment gains are associated with a lower likelihood of family mental health services utilization. By contrast employment losses are positively related to an increase in total family mental health. We do not detect a link between economic shocks and mental health spending on behalf of fathers.

     

Play in Mexican‐American mothers and toddlers is frequent,multimodal, and rich in symbolic content

Play offers rich opportunities for toddlers to develop motor, social, cognitive, and language skills, particularly during interactions with adult caregivers who may scaffold toddlers to higher levels of play than toddlers achieve on their own. However, research on play has narrowly focused on children from White, middle‐income backgrounds, leaving a dearth of knowledge about dyadic play in diverse cultural communities. We videorecorded 222 Mexican‐American mothers playing with their 2‐year‐old toddlers with a standard set of toys. Play behaviors were coded as nonsymbolic or symbolic (play type) and as expressed through manual, verbal, or multiple channels (play modality). Play between toddlers and mothers was frequent, high in symbolic content, and toddler play closely corresponded with mother play in type and modality: Toddlers’ nonsymbolic play related to mothers’ nonsymbolic play; toddlers’ symbolic play related to mothers’ symbolic play; toddlers’ manual play related to mothers’ manual play; and toddlers’ multimodal play related to mothers’ multimodal play. Play in Mexican‐American mothers and toddlers is frequent, multimodal, and symbolically rich, offering new directions for future research and practice.