Job characteristics of spouses and their work shifts

This study builds on an earlier finding from the May 1980 Current Population Survey that one-third of full-time dual-earner couples with children in the United States include at least one spouse who works other than a regular day shift. Using the same data source, the relevance of husbands’ and wives’ job characteristics (occupation and industry) on their shift work status are considered, and the nature of the association between husbands’ and wives’ work shifts is explored. Four alternative models are initially posed and tested with log-linear analysis; these models vary in the extent to which a spouse’s shift work status is contingent upon the job characteristics of a husband or wife. None of these models fit the data. A modification of the simplest of the four models (using forward selection) is the best fitting model. It is not symmetrical: the wife’s shift is contingent upon both her occupation and industry and that of her husband, but the husband’s shift is contingent only upon his occupation and industry. There is a relationship between husband’s and wife’s shift, the direction of which depends upon the occupations of both spouses. This study demonstrates the importance of taking a “couple” perspective on shift work among married persons, and the need for models that include interaction effects.     

A modification for use in destabilized populations of brass's technique for estimating completeness of death registration

The analysis of censuses for pre-industrial Europe has caused doubts about the supposed dominance of stem and joint family organization in earlier times. Using a hypothetical example of a nuclear family organization where extended composition is only found when widowed persons find shelter in the household of one of their children, we show that both the expected value and the variance of the estimated frequency of extended composition are high under demographic circumstances typical of pre-industrial Europe. This makes inferences about family organization based on data concerning family composition hazardous     

Reactions to the O. J. Simpson Verdict: "Mindless Tribalism" or Motivated Inference Processes?

The difference in opinion between White Americans and Black Americans as to whether O. J. Simpson is guilty of murder can be understood within the context of the literature on motivated inference. Both self-serving and group-serving motives can lead to bias in how people gather, interpret, and integrate evidence. The current study revealed that the relative salience of race and gender in women's self-concepts (measured by the Twenty Statements Test) was associated with different beliefs about Simpson's innocence or guilt. Although Black women were more likely than White women to believe that Simpson was not guilty, this was more true for Black women who spontaneously self-identified in terms of race. Similarly, when gender was an accessible aspect of identity, women were more likely to believe that Simpson was guilty. High need for cognition (i.e., the tendency to engage in effortful cognitive activity) actually magnified some of these differences.     

Nonparametric rank-based test procedures for non-additive models in the two-way layout I. no replications

One of the major unresolved problems in the area of nonparametric statistics is the need for satisfactory rank-based test procedures for non-additive models in the two-way layout, especially when there is only one observation on each combination of the levels of the experimental factors. In this paper we consider an arbitrary non-additive model for the two-way layout with n levels of each factor. We utilize both alignment and ranking of the data together with basic properties of Latin squares to develop rank tests for interaction (non-additivity). Our technique involves first aligning within one of the main effects, ranking within the other main effects (columns and rows) and then adding the resulting ranks within “interaction bands” corresponding to orthogonal partitions of the interaction for the model, as denoted by the letters of an n × n Latin square. A Friedman-type statistic is then computed on the resulting sums. This is repeated for each of (n?1) mutually orthogonal Latin squares (thus accounting for all the interaction degrees of freedom). The resulting (n?1) Friedman-type statistics are finally combined to obtain an overall test statistic. The necessary null distribution tables for applying the proposed test for non-additivity are presented and we discuss the results of a Monte Carlo simulation study of the relative powers of this new procedure and other (parametric and nonparametric) procedures designed to detect interaction in a two-way layout with one observation per cell.     

Bayes methods in the ecological fallacy cntext:estimation of individual correlation from aggregate data

The ecological fallacy is related to Simpson's paradox (1951) where relationships among group means may be counterintuitive and substantially different from relationships within groups, where the groups are usually geographic entities such as census tracts. We consider the problem of estimating the correlation between two jointly normal random variables where only ecological data (group means) are available. Two empirical Bayes estimators and one fully Bayesian estimator are derived and compared with the usual ecological estimator, which is simply the Pearson correlation coefficient of the group sample means. We simulate the bias and mean squared error performance of these estimators, and also give an example employing a dataset where the individual level data are available for model checking. The results indicate superiority of the empirical Bayes estimators in a variety of practical situations where, though we lack individual level data, other relevant prior information is available.     

Comparing Two-Stage Segmentation Methods for Choice Data with a One-Stage Latent Class Choice Analysis

Market segmentation is a key concept in marketing research. Identification of consumer segments helps in setting up and improving a marketing strategy. Hence, the need is to improve existing methods and to develop new segmentation methods. We introduce two new consumer indicators that can be used as segmentation basis in two-stage methods, the forces and the dfbetas. Both bases express a subject’s effect on the aggregate estimates of the parameters in a conditional logit model. Further, individual-level estimates, obtained by either estimating a conditional logit model for each individual separately with maximum likelihood or by hierarchical Bayes (HB) estimation of a mixed logit choice model, and the respondents’ raw choices are also used as segmentation basis. In the second stage of the methods the bases are classified into segments with cluster analysis or latent class models. All methods are applied to choice data because of the increasing popularity of choice experiments to analyze choice behavior. To verify whether two-stage segmentation methods can compete with a one-stage approach, a latent class choice model is estimated as well. A simulation study reveals the superiority of the two-stage method that clusters the HB estimates and the one-stage latent class choice model. Additionally, very good results are obtained for two-stage latent class cluster analysis of the choices as well as for the two-stage methods clustering the forces, the dfbetas and the choices.     

Connecting the Dots in Public Management: Political Environment, Organizational Goal Ambiguity, and the Public Manager's Role Ambiguity

This article is a systematic effort to study a key theoreticalquestion from the vantage point of public sector organizationalbehavior. Most political science models, with a primary interestin democratic control of bureaucracy, study the political influenceon the bureaucracy from an agency theory perspective. Organizationbehavior literature, on the other hand, is focused largely onthe study of individual-level phenomena in private organizationsand does not incorporate political context as part of explanatorymodels. This article proposes a middle-range theory to "connectthe dots," beginning with disparate sources in the polity influencingorganizational goal ambiguity, which in turn is expected toincrease managerial role ambiguity. An empirical test, usingdata collected from a national survey of managers working instate human service agencies, supports this theoretical model.We find that certain types of political influence have an impacton organizational goal ambiguity, which in turn has a directeffect in increasing role ambiguity and also an indirect effectin increasing role ambiguity through organizational structure.     

Intergenerational service-learning: an innovative teaching strategy to infuse gerontology content into foundation courses

This article provides an overview of intergenerational service- learning, an experiential pedagogy that involves students in learning outside the traditional classroom while providing a needed service in the community. Examples of intergenerational service-learning projects are presented that have been successfully utilized by the authors. These projects demonstrate the importance of using reflective practice assignments to help students deconstruct and reconstruct images, beliefs and paradigms about older adults. In addition, problems and opportunities in developing service-learning projects in urban and rural settings and with the Hispanic community are described, as well as some of the types of learning that may result from implementing service-learning experiences in various social work foundation courses.     

Giving HOPE and minimising trauma: An intervention to support women who are separated from their babies at birth due to safeguarding concerns

Whatever the circumstances, the separation of infants from their mothers at birth is a traumatic experience for all concerned. The paper reports on a study designed to improve practice in this highly sensitive area. An analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews with 38 mothers who had experienced removal at birth identified four common themes: isolation and unacknowledged support needs; shame, stigma and the failure of others to acknowledge their maternal identity; acute trauma, immediate downturn and disenfranchised grief following infant removal; and strategies to mitigate their pain and grief. These last themes included the use of artefacts both as transitional objects to help mothers come to terms with the permanent loss of a baby, and as a means of keeping maternal identity alive and connecting with an infant who might eventually return home. In response to these findings, and in collaboration with a group of women with lived experience, HOPE boxes were designed to ameliorate the trauma and psychological burden borne by women in this situation. The contents of the boxes have been chosen to reflect the changing experiences of the women's journeys but also the range of possible potential outcomes. The intervention has considerable potential to minimise the trauma of this painful experience.     

Multiscale drivers of amphibian community occupancy in urban ponds

Urban Ecosystems - Urbanization has driven the loss of natural aquatic habitats while concurrently increasing the abundance of artificial urban ponds. Urban ponds are not typically designed for...