Using Multiple Methods to Provide Prediction Bands of K-12 Enrollment Projections

Population Research and Policy Review - Often, demographers charged with projecting enrollments for school districts are asked to provide a range of future enrollments, as point estimates are not...     

Foster Care: How We Can,and Should,Do More for Maltreated Children

Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial concerns remain about the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system. The most recent effort to reform foster care, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, attempts to both reduce the use of foster care and increase the quality of care. In this report, we review how policy has shaped the experiences and outcomes of children in foster care, where policy has succeeded, and where it falls short of achieving its goals. We then identify opportunities for federal and state policy to better support the safety, health, and well-being of children in foster care.     

The functional patterns of adolescent mothers leaving foster care: Results from a cluster analysis

Few studies have explored the outcomes of adolescent mothers leaving foster care, especially using person‐oriented methods. The current study employed a cluster analysis to identify unique patterns of functioning among adolescent mothers aged 19 (n = 777). Data from the National Youth in Transition Database and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System were utilized. Findings revealed five subpopulations characterized by distinct constellations of outcomes at age 19. The largest group (43%) exhibited competent functioning across all the domains studied—its members were connected to school and/or employment and did not experience homelessness, substance abuse referrals, or incarceration during the past 2 years (i.e., “resilient”). A relatively small group (12%) exhibited challenges across all the above‐referenced domains, whereas the remaining groups presented challenges in some domains, but not in others. Follow‐up analyses revealed that adolescent mothers classified as resilient at age 19 had the lowest rates of congregate care placements and the highest rates of nonrelative foster care placements at age 17. Moreover, they had lower placement instability and higher rates of extended foster care as compared with members of the other clusters. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

Differential Recovery Migration across the Rural–Urban Gradient: Minimal and Short-Term Population Gains for Rural Disaster-Affected Gulf Coast Counties

Places affected or threatened by extreme environmental disturbances confront a number of significant issues, including whether their populations will stay the same or change through migration. Research on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shows some displaced residents returned to their disaster-affected communities once the built environment was restored, new migrants settled in affected places as part of the rebuilding effort, and the regional migration system grew more urbanized and spatially concentrated during post-disaster years. Research also shows that not all disaster-affected places recovered their populations. Our study examines whether differential recovery is systematically patterned along the rural–urban gradient. Using U.S. Census Bureau estimates and IRS county-to-county migration data, we investigate whether the 2005 hurricane season differentially exacerbated or altered previous migration trends across a rural–urban gradient that incorporates proximity to metropolitan areas and disaster-related housing loss. We find a rural–urban differential in Gulf Coast recovery migration: The disaster boosted migration among non-metropolitan counties, yet these increases were smaller and short-lived compared to the patterns found for metropolitan counties, most especially high loss metropolitan counties. Our findings encourage theories of environmental migration to incorporate spatial differentiation and scenarios of environmental changes to account for differential impacts on settlement patterns across the rural–urban continuum.     

“We're the Normal Ones Here”: Community Involvement,Peer Support,and Transgender Mental Health

This article uses ethnographic methods to explore how peer support and community involvement influence the mental health and well-being of transgender (or, trans) people in the southeastern United States. The study builds on existing research that suggests that trans community involvement and peer support among trans people enhance mental health experiences and moderate the effects of stigma and discrimination on health outcomes. Through qualitative analysis of 158 hours of participant observation and 33 in-depth interviews with members of a trans community organization in the U.S. Southeast, this paper identifies three key processes through which peer support and community involvement enhance the mental health and well-being of trans people: (1) the normalization of trans identities and experiences; (2) the creation of a social support network; and (3) the empowerment of trans people.     

Parenthood and Well-Being: A Decade in Review

Understanding social aspects of parental well-being is vital because parents' welfare has implications not only for the parents themselves but also for child development, fertility, and the overall health of a society. This article provides a critical review of scholarship on parenthood and well-being in advanced economies published from 2010 to 2019. It focuses on the role of social, economic, cultural, and institutional contexts of parenting in influencing adult well-being. The authors identify major themes, achievements, and challenges and organize the review around the demands-rewards perspective and two other theoretical frameworks: the stress process model and the life course perspective. The analysis shows that rising economic insecurities and inequalities and a diffusion of intensive parenting ideology were major social contexts of parenting in the 2010s. Scholarship linking parenting contexts and parental well-being illuminated how stressors related to providing and caring for children could unjustly burden some parents, especially mothers, those with fewer socioeconomic resources, and those with marginalized statuses. In that vein, researchers continued to emphasize how stressors diverged by parents' socioeconomic status, gender, and partnership status, with new attention to strains experienced by racial/ethnic minority, immigrant, and sexual minority parents. Scholars' comparisons of parents' positions in various countries expanded, enhancing knowledge regarding specific policy supports that allow parents to thrive. Articulating future research within a stress process model framework, the authors show vibrant theoretical pathways, including conceptualizing potential parental social supports at multiple levels, attending to the intersection of multiple social locations of parents, and renewing attention to local contextual factors and parenting life stages.     

Income Inequality across the Rural-Urban Continuum in the United States, 1970–2016*

The growth in macro-level income inequality in the United States is well established, but less is known about patterns of inequality at subnational scales and how they vary between and within rural and urban localities. Using data from the Decennial Census and American Community Survey, we produce estimates of within-county income inequality from 1970 to 2016 and analyze differences in inequality levels, the persistence of high (low) inequality, and populations' exposure to high (low) inequality across the rural-urban continuum. We find that income inequality has historically been higher in non-metropolitan than metropolitan counties, but inequality levels converged by 2016 due to growing inequality in metropolitan counties. Additionally, levels of inequality were generally persistent within counties over time, except that counties characterized by low inequality in 1970 were unlikely to remain as such in 2016. Third, non-trivial shares of the metropolitan population resided in low-inequality contexts in 1970, but virtually none of the U.S. population resided in such places by 2016. Residence in high-inequality counties is normative in rural and urban America. This statistical analysis provides an updated portrait of income inequality across the rural-urban continuum, and should spur additional research on stratification in rural America during an era of growing inequality.