Parents,Perceptions and Belonging: Exploring Flexible Working among UK Fathers and Mothers

This paper advances knowledge regarding how fathers and mothers perceive and experience flexible working opportunities. It does this through applying the theoretical concept ‘belonging’ to ‘Parsonian’ classifications of parenting and work. In so doing it makes transparent the misconceptions and inequities which exist among parents and their organizational environments. Focusing initially on a qualitative study of fathers’ experience of working flexibly, the paper shows how fathers felt marginalized from the possibilities of flexible work due to line managers’ assumptions that men belonged to an ‘instrumental’ economic provider group. The paper contributes a new angle to debate by articulating how fathers perceived employed mothers as belonging to an ‘expressive’ child‐oriented group, with privileged access to flexibility. However, drawing upon a study of maternity and flexible work we query fathers’ assumptions that flexibility was easily available to mothers, suggesting that fathers’ perceptions of maternal privilege were misconceived. While mothers were categorized as belonging within an ‘expressive’ group associated with childcare, they were nevertheless discouraged from accessing flexibility. Inequities between women and men (with regard to flexibility) thus appeared to be less significant than fathers supposed.     

Ultrastructural elliptical models

Dolby's (1976) ultrastructural model with no replications is investigated within the class of the elliptical distributions. General asymptotic results are given for the sample covariance matrix S in the presence of incidental parameters. These results are used to study the asymptotic behaviour of some estimators of the slope parameter, unifying and extending existing results in the literature. In particular, under some regularity conditions they are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. For the special case of the structural model, some asymptotic relative efficiencies are also reported which show that generalized least squares and the method of moment estimators can be highly inefficient under nonnormality.     

Nonparametric regression estimation at design poles and zeros

ABSTRACT In most treatments of nonparametric regression, it is assumed that the marginal density of the explanatory variables is strictly bounded away from zero and infinity. This note investigates the pointwise asymptotics for nonparametric regression when this assumption fails, that is, the marginal density of the explanatory variable has either an isolated zero or a pole at the point of interest.     

Using the EM-algorithm for survival data with incomplete categorical covariates

Incomplete covariate data is a common occurrence in many studies in which the outcome is survival time. With generalized linear models, when the missing covariates are categorical, a useful technique for obtaining parameter estimates is the EM by the method of weights proposed in Ibrahim (1990). In this article, we extend the EM by the method of weights to survival outcomes whose distributions may not fall in the class of generalized linear models. This method requires the estimation of the parameters of the distribution of the covariates. We present a clinical trials example with five covariates, four of which have some missing values.     

History of sexual abuse and parental alcohol misuse: Risk,outcomes and protective factors in adolescents

This study examined the school performance, suicidal involvement, disordered eating behaviors, pregnancy risk and chemical use of teenagers with a history of sexual abuse or parental alcohol misuse and found that they had higher rates of these adverse outcomes than among a comparison group of teenagers without such background risk factors. Adolescents with dual-risk background reported higher levels of suicide risk, disordered eating, sexual behaviors and chemical abuse than teenagers with only one background risk factor. Among index group members, protective factors against these adverse outcomes included a high degree of religiosity and the ability to discuss problems with family or friends. Risk factors that increased the likelihood of adverse outcomes included depression, perceived substance use in school and worries about family financial security.The first author was supported in the preparation of this article by a grant from the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund of New York.     

Testing a theoretical model of adolescent sexual behavior among rural families in poverty

This was a study of 357 adolescents, aged 13 to 17 years, who resided in a family receiving AFDC in 10 rural counties in Arkansas. The study had a twofold purpose: 1) to examine what elements of social control, social learning, and strain theories predicted 3 measures of sexual behavior; and 2) to test an integrated theoretical model with 2-stage least squares regression to see if it fit the data on the 3 measures of sex. The measures of sexual behavior were frequency of sexual intercourse in the past year, number of sexual partners in the past year, and number of sexual partners in lifetime. Bivariate analyses revealed that the consistent predictors of the 3 measures of sex were age, gender, attachment to mother, beliefs, parental supervision and punishment, family and friend support, frustration, and use of rationalizations. The theoretical model that fit all measures of sex showed that bonding influences sexual behavior through frustration, and that age, gender and rationalizations directly impact behavior.     

Estimation of long-term trends and variation in avian survival probabilities using random effects models

We obtained banding and recovery data from the Bird Banding Laboratory (operated by the Biological Resources Division of the US Geological Survey) for adults from 129 avian species that had been continuously banded for > 24 years. Data were partitioned by gender, banding period (winter versus summer), and by states/provinces. Data sets were initially screened for adequacy based on specific criteria (e.g. minimum sample sizes). Fifty-nine data sets (11 waterfowl species, the Mourning Dove and Common Grackle) met our criteria of adequacy for further analysis. We estimated annual survival probabilities using the Brownie et al. recovery model {St, ft} in program MARK. Trends in annual survival and temporal process variation were estimated using random effects models based on shrinkage estimators. Waterfowl species had relatively little variation in annual survival probabilities (mean CV = 8.7% and 10% for males and females, respectively). The limited data for other species suggested similar low temporal variation for males, but higher temporal variation for females (CV = 40%). Evidence for long-term trends varied by species, banding period and sex, with no obvious spatial patterns for either positive or negative trends in survival probabilities. An exception was Mourning Doves banded in Illinois/Missouri and Arizona/New Mexico where both males (slope = -0.0122, se = 0.0019 and females (slope = -0.0109 to -0.0128, se = 0.0018 -0.0032) exhibited declining trends in survival probabilities. We believe our approach has application for large-scale monitoring. However, meaningful banding and recovery data for species other than waterfowl is very limited in North America.