Construction and Initial Validation of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory

This study was conducted to develop and initially evaluate the psychometric properties of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI), which aims to assess skill in using chance events to develop career opportunities. After item generation and exploratory factor analysis, 130 original items were reduced to 25 items across 5 factors (5 items for each corresponding factor). Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of this 5‐factor structure, and the goodness of fit showed an adequate fit to the observed data for both women and men. Results showed that PHCI subscales correlated moderately and in expected directions with career preparation, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, and career stress. These findings suggest that the PHCI, which assesses 5 dimensions of career‐related planned happenstance skill, shows promise as a useful tool for facilitating understanding of the influence of chance events on career choice behavior.     

Welfare Reform and Asset Accumulation: Asset Limit Changes,Financial Assets,and Vehicle Ownership*

Objective. Over the past decade, federal and state governments have substantially liberalized asset limits in welfare. This article examines whether this policy change promotes asset accumulation among the target population of actual and potential welfare recipients. Methods. Utilizing household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics as well as state data, this study employs a difference‐in‐difference approach in order to determine whether state asset limits affect the target population's financial and vehicle asset accumulation. This study develops a new policy measure that considers the time period following the adoption of liberalized asset limits. Results. Analysis results suggest that increased asset limits may have successfully encouraged the target population's asset accumulation. The earlier a state raised its asset limit, the more likely welfare recipients were to accumulate financial assets and to possess bank accounts. Conclusion. It is recommended to liberalize asset eligibility rules to promote long‐term economic advancement of poor households.     

A network analysis of international migration: Longitudinal trends and antecedent factors predicting migration

Building on previous research, this study investigates the international migration network and its changes from 1990 to 2017. The findings suggest that certain core countries play pivotal roles in shaping global migration by providing economic opportunities or political refuge. Community detection identified nine groups of nations in 2017, indicating regionalization. The study also examined the networks of antecedent factors that reflect both structural factors, such as geography, language, colonial history, political stability and economic differences, as well as transnational interactions, including student flow, trade, Internet flow and remittance, in relation to the international migration network. Applying multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure, it was found that these networks constituted approximately 11% of the migration network's distribution when chain migration was excluded, and 16.5% when it was included.     

Comparing the Survival of Two Groups with an Intermediate Clinical Event

Consider a subject entered on a clinicaltrial in which the major endpoint is a time metric such as deathor time to reach a well defined event. During the observationalperiod the subject may experience an intermediate clinical event.The intermediate clinical event may induce a change in the survivaldistribution. We consider models for the one and two sample problem.The model for the one sample problem enables one to test if theoccurrence of the intermediate event changed the survival distribution.This models provides a way of carrying out non-randomized clinicaltrial to determine if a therapy has benefit. The two sample problemconsiders testing if the probability distributions, with andwithout an intermediate event, are the same. Statistical testsare derived using a semi-Markov or a time dependent mixture model.Simulation studies are carried out to compare these new procedureswith the log rank, stratified log rank and landmark tests. Thenew tests appear to have uniformly greater power than these competitortests. The methods are applied to a randomized clinical trialcarried out by the Aids Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) which comparedlow versus high doses of zidovudine (AZT).     

Small-dollar children's saving accounts and children's college outcomes by race

This is paper three of four in the Small-Dollar Children Accounts series that studies the relationship between children's small dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. The series uses different subsamples to examine three important research questions: (a) Are children with savings of their own more likely to attend or graduate from college? (b) Does dosage (no account, only basic savings, savings designated for school of less than $1, $1 to $499, or $500 or more) matter? And (c) is designating for school more predictive of college enrollment or graduation than having basic undesignated savings alone? Using propensity score weighted data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its supplements we created multi-treatment dosages of savings accounts and amounts to answer these questions separately for black (n = 404) and white (n = 453) children. White children's savings are not significantly related to their college outcomes. Differently, compared to black children without savings accounts, black children are three times more likely to enroll in college when they have school savings of less than $1 and six times more likely when they have school savings of $1 to $499. Further, black children with school savings of $1 to $499 are four times more likely to graduate from college and black children with school savings of $500 or more are three-and-a-half times more likely to graduate from college, compared to those with no savings account. We suggest Child Development Accounts (CDAs) may be a promising tool for helping black children get to and through college.     

The Economic Value of Career Counseling Services for College Students in South Korea

This study investigated college students’ perception of the monetary value of career counseling services by using the contingent valuation method. The results of a multivariate survival analysis based on interviews with a convenience sample of 291 undergraduate students in South Korea indicate that, on average, participants’ expressed willingness to pay (WTP) for such services ranged from U.S. $10.22 to $10.54 per hour of individual career counseling. Self‐stigma and attitudes toward counseling had positive effects on their WTP, whereas the year in college and social stigma had negative effects. The results provide policy makers with preliminary evidence of the monetary value of career counseling.     

The Effects of Depressive Symptoms on Work Activities and Welfare Exit of Welfare Recipients in Korea1

The purpose of this research is to examine the link between depressive symptoms of welfare recipients and their work activity and welfare exit using a secondary dataset, entitled the Korean Welfare Panel Study. In 2000, the National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS) was introduced to (i) ensure a basic standard of living for households in poverty, and (ii) promote work activity and welfare exit of the recipients. A considerable body of literature has reported that the policy outcome of the NBLSS is not a success. However, the reason for the low success rate is unclear. In contrast to studies in the USA, few studies in Korea investigated the effect of depression on welfare‐to‐work transitions. To bridge the gap in the literature, we examine the association between depression, work activity, and welfare exit using a logistic regression analytic method. The analytic results show that the level of depression (total score on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale) was negatively associated with welfare recipients’ work activity and welfare exit, suggesting that depressive symptoms may be a significant barrier to promoting economic self‐sufficiency. Implications of the study findings are further discussed.     

Underlying and multiple causes of death related to smoking

Although smoking has been linked to various causes of death, there is no systematic account of the underlying and multiple cause-of-death distributions associated with various smoking statuses. We analyze such patterns by age and gender for the USA in 1986. Our study is based on a one-percent random sample of decedents 25 and over in the USA for whom survey data from informants were linked to death certificate data. Smoking is related to several underlying causes of death, the most common being circulatory diseases. Lung cancer is less prevalent than circulatory diseases or other cancers among ever smokers. Multiple medical conditions are common for both smokers and nonsmokers, but particular combinations vary among persons with different smoking statuses. Former smokers who quit soon before death and were under frequent medical care are most likely to have had lung cancer. Amount of smoking is tied to variations in cause-of-death patterns. Differences by age and gender are not substantial, although other cancers appear frequently for both smokers and non-smokers among women. The distribution of medical causes of death for ever smokers is not radically different from that of never smokers. However, differences in cause patterns are seen when smoking statuses are detailed by amount of smoking and timing of quitting. These similarities and differences in cause patterns must be related to the fundamental fact that the average smoker will die earlier than the average nonsmoker. Such findings should especially influence programs for diseases whose links to smoking have been underestimated.