The Relationship Between Internet Access and Divorce Rate

The rise of the internet has affected the market for romantic partners, arguably lowering search costs. It has been claimed anecdotally that this has led to an increase in divorce. However, a more careful examination of theory suggests that, even if search costs have declined with the rise of the internet, this would not necessarily increase divorce propensity. To examine the issue empirically, this paper employs both state- and household-level data on family structure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey. A comparison of high and low internet penetration states, as well as a micro panel of initially married households with and without internet access, reveals no evidence that the rise of the internet has increased divorce.     

(Un)caring communities: Processes of marginalisation and access to formal and informal care and assistance in rural Russia

The marginality of rural life, understood in structural, economic, political and geographic terms, has been an underlying theme in both historical and contemporary studies of the Russian countryside. Much less attention has been paid to marginality as relational and the moral discourses of (un)belonging and (un)deservingness through which moral centres and peripheries are constructed within rural Russian contexts. This paper explores the ways in which both fixed, structural and constructed, personalised explanations of hardship are employed by rural people and how these relate to processes of integration into or exclusion from ‘caring’ and ‘moral’ communities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Burla village, western Siberia, in 2008-10, and focusing primarily on the activities of the Centre for Social Assistance to Families and Children located there, the paper discusses the ways in which affiliation with the ‘moral centre’ facilitates access to both formal and informal forms of care and assistance from which those at the ‘moral periphery’ are more often excluded.     

Accounting for Men’s Refusal of Heterosex: A Story-Completion Study With Young Adults

In the present study we bring together theory regarding the construction of heterosexuality and masculinities to understand the shifting and changing terrain of heterosexual sex (heterosex). We use inductive qualitative content analysis of story completion data to discover the different ways that heterosex is constructed by the male and female respondents in scenarios where women initiate sex and men, at first, refuse. The stories represented a spectrum of responses that reify and subvert dominant understandings of heterosex. Five major themes were generated from the current data (1) men should initiate sex, (2) he wants to take it slowly, (3) it is natural for men to want sex, (4) it is men’s job to look after women, and (5) coercion. We discuss in detail the dominant narratives described by women and men and how they may be shifting. The study thus provides a rich, experience-based representation of heterosexual sexual activity and suggests subtle shifts in how masculinity is managed within heterosexual relationships.     

Divorced Parents’ Qualitative and Quantitative Reports of Children's Living Arrangements

We use data from a sample of divorced parents in Wisconsin (N = 1,392) to examine how parents describe their children's living arrangements. When the children spend substantial time in both parents’ homes, both parents are less likely to use the phrase live with to describe living arrangements. When children spend most nights with their mother, mothers are more likely than fathers to state that the children live with their mother. Together, these findings suggest that family researchers no longer can rely on simple questions to capture complex living arrangements. We need clearer and more careful question wording and, in some instances, follow‐up questions to accurately describe where children live.     

The Diagnostic Home Visit: An Aid in Training and Case Consultation

The home visit has long been recognized as a useful vehicle for diagnosis and therapy. It has a potential for another useful function in that home observations can provide the teaching therapist and consultant with the vivid details of family interaction necessary to useful supervision. Parents may be poor observers and/or reporters of problem situations; they may also be reluctant to describe for various reasons. The student therapist may become bewildered, frustrated, and discouraged over the lack of material or inability to help. This report describes how supervisors can then use home observations as a source of fresh diagnostic hypotheses, and as a basis for reformulation of treatment goals or of technical approaches.