Promoting Fathers' Engagement With Children: Preventive Interventions for Low‐Income Families

Few programs to enhance fathers' engagement with children have been systematically evaluated, especially for low‐income minority populations. In this study, 289 couples from primarily low‐income Mexican American and European American families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions and followed for 18 months: 16‐week groups for fathers, 16‐week groups for couples, or a 1‐time informational meeting. Compared with families in the low‐dose comparison condition, intervention families showed positive effects on fathers' engagement with their children, couple relationship quality, and children's problem behaviors. Participants in couples' groups showed more consistent, longer term positive effects than those in fathers‐only groups. Intervention effects were similar across family structures, income levels, and ethnicities. Implications of the results for current family policy debates are discussed.     

Patterns of pollinator turnover and increasing diversity associated with urban habitats

The role of urban expansion on bee diversity is poorly understood, but it may play an important role in restructuring pollinator diversity observed in rural regions at the urban perimeter. We studied bee communities in two habitats essential for pollinators (residential gardens and semi-natural areas) at 42 sites situated at the edge of greater Montreal, Canada. Bee species richness, abundance and functional diversity all increased with urbanization in both habitat types, but gardens and semi-natural areas supported distinct bee communities with unique responses to urbanization in terms of species turnover. Compared to semi-natural sites, residential gardens supported bees that foraged from a greater number but a lower proportion of available plant species. Bees did not discriminate between exotic and indigenous plant species in either gardens or semi-natural sites and were attracted to flowers in either habitat irrespective of their origins. Protecting semi-natural ruderal areas and providing residential garden habitats for pollinators are both effective means of promoting regional bee diversity in urbanizing regions.     

Influence of Proximity to Kin on Residential Mobility and Destination Choice: Examining Local Movers in Metropolitan Areas

A growing body of research has examined how family dynamics shape residential mobility, highlighting the social—as opposed to economic—drivers of mobility. However, few studies have examined kin ties as both push and pull factors in mobility processes or revealed how the influence of kin ties on mobility varies across sociodemographic groups. Using data on local residential moves from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1980 to 2013, we find that location of noncoresident kin influences the likelihood of moving out of the current neighborhood and the selection of a new destination neighborhood. Analyses of out-mobility reveal that parents and young adult children living near each other as well as low-income adult children living near parents are especially deterred from moving. Discrete-choice models of neighborhood selection indicate that movers are particularly drawn to neighborhoods close to aging parents, white and higher-income households tend to move close to parents and children, and lower-income households tend to move close to extended family. Our results highlight the social and economic trade-offs that households face when making residential mobility decisions, which have important implications for broader patterns of inequality in residential attainment.     

Metropolitan Heterogeneity and Minority Neighborhood Attainment: Spatial Assimilation or Place Stratification?

Using geo-referenced data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in conjunction with decennial census data, this research examines metropolitan-area variation in the ability of residentially mobile blacks, Hispanics, and whites to convert their income into two types of neighborhood outcomes-neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood socioeconomic status. For destination tract racial composition, we find strong and near-universal support for the "weak version" of place stratification theory; relative to whites, the effect of individual income on the percent of the destination tract population that is non-Hispanic white is stronger for blacks and Hispanics, but even the highest earning minority group members move to tracts that are "less white" than the tracts that the highest-earning whites move to. In contrast, for moves into neighborhoods characterized by higher levels of average family income, we find substantial heterogeneity across metropolitan areas in minorities' capacity to convert income into neighborhood quality. A slight majority of metropolitan areas evince support for the "strong version" of place stratification theory, in which blacks and Hispanics are less able than whites to convert income into neighborhood socioeconomic status. However, a nontrivial number of metropolitan areas also evince support for spatial assimilation theory, where the highest-earning minorities achieve neighborhood parity with the highest-earning whites. Several metropolitan-area characteristics, including residential segregation, racial and ethnic composition, immigrant population size, poverty rates, and municipal fragmentation, emerge as significant predictors of minority-white differences in neighborhood attainment.     

Inside the blogosphere: A taxonomy and framing analysis of abortion weblogs

This study analyses weblog abortion-related content sampled via a search and snowball method. When weblogs located inside of established media Web sites and other weblogs are compared, they are equivalent in the use of advocacy versus objectivist frames. Media weblog posts contain a political frame more frequently than non-media weblog posts do. In terms of diversity of frame, media weblogs employ more frames in their stories. Various explanations for these findings are offered in the context of current abortion-related content patterns.     

Models and estimation for systems with recurrent events and usage processes

This paper considers settings where populations of units may experience recurrent events, termed failures for convenience, and where the units are subject to varying levels of usage. We provide joint models for the recurrent events and usage processes, which facilitate analysis of their relationship as well as prediction of failures. Data on usage are often incomplete and we show how to implement maximum likelihood estimation in such cases. Random effects models with linear usage processes and gamma usage processes are considered in some detail. Data on automobile warranty claims are used to illustrate the proposed models and estimation methodology.     

Residential segregation of West Indians in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area: the roles of race and ethnicity

"To assess the relative roles of race and ethnicity in shaping patterns of residential segregation, this article utilizes indices of segregation and a geographic mapping strategy to examine the residential patterns of West Indian blacks in the greater New York City area. The socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods occupied by West Indian blacks are also examined and compared to those of areas occupied by African Americans. The results indicate that, on one hand, West Indians are largely denied access to residential areas occupied predominantly by whites and are confined to areas of large black concentrations. On the other hand, West Indians appear to have carved out somewhat separate residential enclaves within these largely black areas...."     

Covariates and Random Effects in a Gamma Process Model with Application to Degradation and Failure

The gamma process is a natural model for degradation processes in which deterioration is supposed to take place gradually over time in a sequence of tiny increments. When units or individuals are observed over time it is often apparent that they degrade at different rates, even though no differences in treatment or environment are present. Thus, in applying gamma-process models to such data, it is necessary to allow for such unexplained differences. In the present paper this is accomplished by constructing a tractable gamma-process model incorporating a random effect. The model is fitted to some data on crack growth and corresponding goodness-of-fit tests are carried out. Prediction calculations for failure times defined in terms of degradation level passages are developed and illustrated.     

A critique of arguments supporting disability avoidance

Many prominent bioethicists argue that positive consequences follow from avoiding disability in offspring by preconceptual, preimplantation or prenatal means. This paper critiques two variants of these positions: ‘Open future’ arguments that avoiding disability is in the interest of the persons who will be affected by it if born and ‘non‐person‐affecting’ claims that failures to avoid disability in offspring are wrong for reasons independent of their effect on affected offspring. Difficulties with both person‐affecting and non‐person‐affecting accounts are discussed in support of the charge that these arguments do not show that positive consequences follow from disability avoidance.     

Metropolitan influences on migration into poor and nonpoor neighborhoods

Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and three decennial US censuses are used to examine the influence of metropolitan-area characteristics on black and white households’ propensity to move into poor versus nonpoor neighborhoods. We find that a nontrivial portion of the variance in the odds of moving to a poor rather to a nonpoor neighborhood exists between metropolitan areas. Net of established individual-level predictors of inter-neighborhood migration, black and white households are more likely to move to a poor or extremely poor tract rather than to a nonpoor tract in metropolitan areas containing many poor neighborhoods and a paucity of recently-built housing in nonpoor areas. Blacks are especially likely to move to a poor tract in metropolitan areas characterized by high levels of racial residential segregation and in which poor tracts have a sizeable concentration of blacks. White households are more likely to move to a poor than to a nonpoor tract in metropolitan areas that have comparatively few African Americans.