Child Care Use and Parental Desire to Switch Care Type Among a Low-Income Population

This study investigates the use of and satisfaction with child care among low-income families, who are those likely to be affected by recent changes in public policy that emphasize increased work effort. Data from the Survey of Wisconsin Works Families portray differences in the use of center-based care depending on whether or not the family received a child care subsidy. A multivariate analysis of a measure of parental satisfaction, whether a parent would switch child care sources if all care were available at no charge, suggests that parents tend to be more satisfied with center-based care than with alternative forms of care. The analysis also suggests that mothers who received a child care subsidy were significantly more likely to have their children in center-based care.     

Third Shift Women in Business-Owning Families

Using data from the 1997 National Family Business Survey (NFBS), this study identifies factors associated with married women’s employment involvement in business-owning families. While focusing on married women in a third shift situation—working for the family business, for the marketplace, and for managing the household—this study compares business and family characteristics by women’s employment status. The results of multinomial logit regression analysis indicated that family cash flow problems, presence of children age under 6, age of women, business assets, age of business, home-based family business, establishment of business, and industry type were significant predictors of women’s employment decision. The results of the study have further implications for women in a third shift situation among business-owning families.Yoon G. Lee, Utah State University, 2905 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-2905, USA; e-mail: yoonlee@cc.usu.edu.Gong-Soog Hong, The Ohio State University, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1295, USA; e-mail: ghong@hec.ohio-state.edu.Barbara R. Rowe, Utah State University, 2949 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-2949, USA; e-mail: browe@ext.usu.edu.     

Journal Access Initiatives: Where Are They? Why the World Health Organization? and What Is HINARI?

The move from print to online journal publishing has allowed the proliferation of journal access programs aimed at poor countries. These programs offer access to online journals on very favorable terms to developing country institutions and readers and are based on the premise that developing world scientists can contribute significantly to ameliorating the conditions of life in their countries. The authors give a brief overview of the environment in which these programs emerged, discuss different orientations of the major programs, examine the case of the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), consider why the World Health Organization (WHO) runs a journal access program for developing countries, and conclude with the accomplishments of HINARI.     

Child support guidelines: Economic theory and policy considerations

Federal legislation has mandated that all states develop numeric guidelines for child support awards in divorce and paternity suits. The purpose of this article is to review the theoretical models currently used in guidelines development and to present an analysis of issues pertinent to the development and use of guidelines. A familiarity with the principles underlying child support guidelines will assist family scientists who may be called upon to provide expertise on this public policy issue.Barbara R. Rowe is Family Resource Management Extension Specialist, College of Family Life, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-2949. Her research interests include the economics of divorce and at-home-income-generation. She received her Ph.D. from Oregon State University.     

A critique of ‘new’ rural local governance: The case of gender in a rural Australian setting

Over the past decade rural social scientists have demonstrated significant interest in documenting the new forms of governance emerging in rural and regional areas. However, little attention has been given to examining the gendered aspects of these new arrangements. This paper takes up the issue of gender and governance in rural areas by reporting on the establishment, membership and practices of a new governing organisation in a local government area in a small rural township in Australia. Men hold almost all positions on the 19-member board of this institution charged with facilitating development in the shire. This is not surprising, given women's exclusion from the male-dominated networks from which appointees are selected. While this numerical dominance is important, it is not just the presence of men's bodies that is of concern to this paper. Also of interest is the way in which hegemonic discourses of masculinity are privileged by board members. This includes an emphasis on competition, entrepreneurialism, and aggression, and a focus on economic concerns over and above social issues. In conclusion, there may be a lot that is ‘new’ in the governance of contemporary Western rural nations, but what is not is that these forms of governance are gendered, just as the traditional state has always been, in a way that excludes women and feminine subjectivities.     

The Visibility of Feminist Thought in Family Studies

We assessed feminist visibility in family journals by tallying the feminist content of articles in Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, and Family Relations. There was an increase in feminist visibility from 1972 to 1992, at which point the growth of visibility stalled. From 1992 to 2002, almost 1 out of 4 articles appeared to be influenced, at least minimally, by feminist scholarship when including in our tally a measure of articles' mentioning of gender in its abstract or title without a detectable feminist perspective in the article. Only about 6% of articles, however, involved an explicit feminist analysis. We offer explanations for this apparent glass ceiling for feminist visibility and make suggestions for future research.     

Gender,marital status,and body weight in older U.S. adults

Marital terminations are life transitions that may lead to changes in diet, activity, and body weight. This investigation examined how marital status was associated with relative body weight, underweight, overweight, and obesity among men and women in the United States using cross-sectional nationally representative data from the 1992 HRS cohort age 51–61 and the 1993 AHEAD cohort age 70 and older. Results in the HRS cohort revealed that even when adjusting for demographic and behavioral variables, widowed women were significantly more likely to be obese than married women, while men who were never married, divorced, or separated were more likely to be underweight. Results in the AHEAD cohort showed few significant associations between marital status and weight for either men or women when demographics were controlled. Clear gender variations appeared to exist in how marriage is related to body weight among unmarried older adults, with widows in their 50s being obese and divorced/separated/never married men being underweight. However, marital status differences in weight were not present among much older adults of either gender. Jeffery Sobal is a asociologist who is an associate professor at the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. He has studied food systems, food choice, and is currently examining social aspects of body weight and obesity, particularly marriage and body weight. Barbara S. Rauschenbach is a sociologist who is a research associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. She has studied food insecurity and food assistance, and is currently examining marital status and body weight.