Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources of Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reports the results of a telephone survey (n = 1,015 respondents) that aims to identify the perceived general family functioning and family resources of Hong Kong Chinese families and their linkage to each other in a rapidly transforming society. The perceived general family functioning of the respondents was average, and the five types of family resources—time, income, human capital, psychological capital, and social capital—of the respondents ranged from average to good. The following family resource domains, in descending order, have accounted for significant variance in perceived general family functioning: income, time spent with family, stress coping efficacy, religion, and satisfaction with the living environment. Our findings provide empirical support for policy formulation and social work practice.     

Exploring parent–child communication in the context of threat: immigrant families facing detention and deportation in post-9/11 USA

This paper explores whether and how documented and undocumented migrant parents communicate with their children about the threats posed by the intensified enforcement of 1996 and 2001 US immigration reforms; whether parents facing potential detention and deportation plan for the care of their children; and whether their children learn from other sources about detention and deportation. The focus of this paper emerged in the context of a multiyear participatory and action research (PAR) process as one effort to understand the multiple meanings and divergent perspectives on parental–child communication that arose among and between participants and coresearchers. The aim is to better understand, in parents' own voices, their embrace of and resistance to direct communication with their children about the threat of deportation. Data are triangulated from in-depth interviews with 18 Central American immigrant coresearchers (Study 1), responses of 132 Latino/a immigrant parents to a survey with open-ended questions (Study 2), and conversations in a series of community meetings and workshops. Findings confirm the importance for advocates, service providers, and researchers to understand migrant parents' decisions about communication within the context of family and community values; gender expectations; lived and psychological experiences of being criminalized; and strategies to manage daily challenges of living without documents while parenting US-citizen children.     

Rainfall Patterns and U.S. Migration from Rural Mexico

In many rural regions of developing countries, natural resource dependency means changes in climate patterns hold tremendous potential to impact livelihoods. When environmentally‐based livelihood options are constrained, migration can become an important adaptive strategy. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, we model U.S. emigration from rural communities as related to community, household and climate factors. The results suggest that households subjected to very recent drought conditions are less likely to send a U.S. migrant, but in communities with drought two years prior and with strong migration histories, emigration is much more likely. In regions lacking such social networks, rainfall deficits actually reduce migration propensities, perhaps reflecting constraints in the ability to engage in migration as a coping strategy. Policy implications emphasize diversification of rural Mexican livelihoods in the face of contemporary climate change.     

The effect of expansions in medicaid income eligibility on abortion

In this paper we examine the effect of expansions in Medicaid income eligibility on abortion, using individual-level data from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The results suggest that for unmarried nonblack women with less than a high school degree, expansions of income eligibility lowered the probability of abortion by two to five percentage points. Most of the impact of the Medicaid expansions on abortion occurred in the first round of expansions from approximately 45% of the federal poverty level to 100%. For black unmarried women with less than a high school degree, we generally find no effect of expansions in Medicaid income eligibility on abortion.     

The effect of pregnancy intention on child development

In this paper, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the empirical link between unintended pregnancy and child health and development. An important contribution of our study is the use of information on siblings to control for unmeasured factors that may confound estimates of the effect of pregnancy intentions on infant and child outcomes. Results from our study indicate that unwanted pregnancy is associated with prenatal and postpartum maternal behaviors that adversely affect infant and child health, but that unwanted pregnancy has little association with birth weight and child cognitive outcomes. Estimates of the association between unwanted pregnancy and maternal behaviors were greatly reduced after controls for unmeasured family background were included in the model. Our results also indicate that there are no significant differences in maternal behaviors or child outcomes between mistimed and wanted pregnancies.     

What do people want from urban forestry?—The European experience

The European public has a long tradition of interaction with, but has mixed emotions about forests. On the one hand they see forests as part of nature bringing peace and happiness to all. On the other hand there is a traditional memory of danger in forests, re-inforced by the modern use of under-policed forests for all kinds of criminal activities. Nevertheless, people will use forests very frequently (25% of visitors do so every day), mostly for gentle activities such as walking. Urban forests tend to be managed by traditionally-trained managers who do not understand the public's attitude to forests. The public re-acts to forests on a personal basis. They are not much concerned with ecological purity. Such misunderstandings underlie the high propensity to conflict. With increasing leisure and wealth the range of activities that people wish to carry-out in forests has increased enormously. Many of these activities are mutually incompatible and lead to conflict between users. The social sciences and the new science of environmental psychology can be used to elucidate people's real feelings about urban forests and to assist with overall design. Specific requirements of mutually-incompatible uses can be catered for in separate areas by finding-out and designing-in features which both attract and repel.     

一个早期的世界网络:欧亚宗教

横亘欧亚大陆大部分地区的宗教在公元前4000年到公元200年间得到了创造性的蓬勃发展,这一时期的思想、艺术、实践得以集中共享。由于历史原因,存在于西方文化长廊末端的基督教与东方佛教之间的联系在大约5-15世纪间开始大量减少,15世纪以后,这种关系进入了重建期。基督教和佛教这两种彼此“分离”的宗教看起来十分不同。尽管每种宗教都有其自身的历史,但就其本质而言,诸宗教之间则存在着许许多多的关联。信仰间的对话不是必须的,但欧亚宗教最好被视为一个错综复杂的网络,在这个网络里,制度化的“宗教”是这个复杂网络的服务器。宗教的“象征符号”可被视为某种类似于DNA解码序列的东西。     

THE CAREER ATTAINMENT OF CAUCASIAN AND ASIAN ENGINEERS

This article explores the influence of race and nativity on the one hand and assimilation, human capital, and market structure on the other to explain patterns of income and career transitions of Caucasians and Asians in the engineering profession. Multiple and logistic regression techniques are employed to analyze the career histories of 12,200 Caucasian and Asian engineers followed from 1982 through 1986. The objective is to determine how well Asians have performed in the American engineering labor market in terms of wages, occupational status, and promotion in comparison to Caucasians. The results indicate more racial disparity in managerial representation and upward mobility than in earnings, and more disparity in career attainment between foreign-born Asians and Caucasians than between native-born Asians and Caucasians. The data suggest that Asian engineers, except recent immigrants, have achieved earnings parity but have not yet attained occupational equality with Caucasians.