Family cap provisions and changes in births and abortions

As part of welfare reform efforts in the 1990s, 23 states implemented family caps, provisions that deny or reduce cash assistance to welfare recipients who have additional births. We use birth and abortion records from 24 states to estimate effects of family caps on birth and abortion rates. We use age, marital status, and completed schooling to identify women at high risk for use of public assistance, and parity (number of previous live births) to identify those most directly affected by the family cap. In family cap states, birth rates fell more and abortion rates rose more among high-risk women with at least one previous live birth compared to similar childless women, consistent with an effect of the family cap. However, this parity-specific pattern of births and abortions also occurred in states that implemented welfare reform with no family cap. Thus, the effects of welfare reform may have differed between mothers and childless women, but there is little evidence of an independent effect of the family cap.     

WHEN TRAUMA HITS HOME: PERSONAL TRAUMA AND THE FAMILY THERAPIST

This paper discusses the immediate and long-term psychosocial consequences of traumatic events that can affect psychotherapists, including family therapits. Traumatic events invade both work and personal life and can create both opportunities and dangers. These will be discussed from a traumatological perspective. including how traumatic reactions may affect a family therapist's work.     

The Role of Joint Control in the Manded Selection Responses of Both Vocal and Non-vocal Children with Autism

In the present study, joint-control training was applied when teaching manded selection responses to children with autism. Four vocal children with autism participated in the first experiment, two males (ages seven and eight) and two females (ages seven and nine). The results showed that it was only after object-word naming was trained under joint control that the symmetrical performance of manded selection responses appeared with no additional training. Four non-vocal children with autism participated in the second experiment, two males (ages six and seven), and two females (ages twelve and thirteen). These results also showed that it was only after the joint tact/self-mimetic/sequelic control training that the symmetrical performance of manded selection responses appeared with no additional training.     

Public Opinion and The Politics of Gambling

This paper examines the relation between the attitudes of the public toward gambling and recent changes in gambling laws. The nineteenth century wave of antigambling sentiment found expression in many state constitutions. Consequently, legalization or decriminalization of gambling became unusually difficult among that class of activities often referred to as "victimless crimes." Renewed interest in gambling as a revenue source, in the last few decades, has produced a number of surveys dealing with attitudes toward gambling and has required statewide votes on some 45 separate gambling items. Public attitudes are compared, along several dimensions, for results of a national survey and results of voting on particular gambling proposals. Attitudes are consistent between survey data and voting data, particularly as they pertain to administrative and regulatory form. Also, in one state, demographic variables discriminating favorability in the survey data predict voting outcome on a lottery proposal.     

Assimilation or exclusion? Japanese and Mexican Americans in California

This paper argues that the current socioeconomic positions of ethnic groups reflect in part the historical processes that differentially allocated labor market opportunities by ethnicity. With historical and current data, we illustrate the usefulness of this approach by investigating two ethnic groups at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum—native-born Japanese and Mexican American men and women in California. We first document the structural context facing these two immigrant groups when they entered the U.S., describing how early experiences shaped their occupational concentrations. Using 1980 Census data we then show how the current occupational distributions of these ethnic groups resemble those of their immigrant ancestors, and how this occupational concentration now affects earnings attainment, relative to whites. The evidence on gender differences suggests caution in generalizing from the experiences of male ethnics—the occupational and earnings attainments of female ethnics differ notably from those of their male counterparts.     

Childlessness Among Older Women in the United States: Trends and Profiles

In the last 2 decades, the United States has seen an increase in childlessness and first births at older ages. Using the National Survey of Family Growth, we focus on women aged 35 – 44 who are voluntarily childless (expect no children and are fecund or contraceptively sterile). We compare these women to those who are involuntarily childless (fecundity impaired) and to those who are temporarily childless (expect children). Voluntary childlessness grew from 1982 (5%) to 1988 (8%), was stable up to 1995 (9%), and fell slightly in 2002 (7%). Voluntarily childless women have the highest income, prior work experience, and lowest religiosity compared to other women. This has been true since 1982, the earliest time point examined.     

The use of the dream in the promotion of ego development

Two functions of dreams, described but not stressed by Freud—the dream as a way of remembering early childhood experiences and the dream as an attempt to master painful stimuli—are considered in this paper in terms of their significance in the treatment of patients whose preoedipal developmental difficulties have resulted in distortions or deficiencies in psychic structure. By providing access to that period of life before semantic communication a time of profound developmental import, certain dreams can illuminate critical experiences of that period. They may lead to the discovery of positive experiences which can be utilized as a starting point for the fostering of more positive object representations or they may lead to the understanding of early traumatic experiences which can be dealt with retrospectively in the therapeutic situation.     

Changing College Students’ Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior through Seminar Participation

This pilot study examined the influence of Credit Wise Cats, a financial education seminar presented by Students in Free Enterprise, on the attitudes, knowledge, and intentions toward financial responsibility of college students (N = 93). Findings suggest that the seminar effectively increased students’ financial knowledge, increased responsible attitudes toward credit and decreased avoidant attitudes towards credit from pre-test to post-test. At post-test, students reported intending to engage in significantly more effective financial behaviors and fewer risky financial behaviors. Finally, demographic factors (e.g., gender and employment status) predicted students’ financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. These results suggest that a seminar format may be useful in reaching a wider audience of college students and, thus, warrants future longitudinal evaluation.