Measuring Marital Satisfaction: A Comparison of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Satisfaction with Married Life Scale

Marital satisfaction has been psychometrically measured using many different instruments not soundly based on theory. The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS), consisting of 14 items, is commonly accepted by researchers and practitioners to measure marital satisfaction but was not specifically designed to measure marital satisfaction. The Satisfaction with Married Life Scale (SWML), consisting of five items, is a short scale specifically targeted toward measuring marital satisfaction. An online sample collected from 1,187 couples throughout the United States was used to compare these instruments' correlation (r = .782), factor structures, reliability (SWML, α = .958; RDAS, α = .943), theoretical foundation, and validity. These instruments are on parity with each other when measuring marital satisfaction; however, each instrument yields implications for practitioners and researchers desiring to measure marital satisfaction.     

The place of “think family” approaches in child and family social work: Messages from a process evaluation of an English pathfinder service

Findings are reported from a process study of an English multi-disciplinary team working with families with long standing and complex problems. The approaches and methods of the team are described and placed in the context of UK policy developments and of UK and USA research on professional practice with families facing multiple difficulties. Basic data are provided on all families referred in the first year and analysed with respect to the first 100 completed cases. A broadly ethnographic research approach is used for the observational study of the team interactions and decision-making on individual cases. For a one-third sub-sample of 33 cases, process and interim outcome data are analysed from information systematically extracted from case records. These are complemented by qualitative data from interviews with managers and caseworkers and by observation of ‘team around the family’ and professionals' meetings. The researchers conclude that the service succeeds in engaging a majority of the referred families who have been hard to reach or hard to change in the past and whose children are either ‘on the edge of care’ or likely to be significantly harmed without the provision of an intensive service. The researchers concluded that improvements were made in the life chances of children in 75% of the families. Aspects of the service identified as associated with more positive outcomes are: the allocation of two key workers (one for the child/ren and one for the parent/s); the centrality of relationship-based practice and flexibility of the approach rather than strict adherence to any particular practice model; the fact that the service is firmly embedded within the statutory children's services department, allowing for continuity of relationships with team around the family members when the intensive service ends; and flexibility about case duration and intensity.     

The Influence of Gaming Expenditure on Crime Rates in South Australia: A Local Area Empirical Investigation

Although there has been much speculation about the possible links between gambling and crime rates, relevant quantitative evidence has been practically non-existent in Australia to date. This paper reports the results of research that utilised a model designed to investigate the potential relationship between electronic gaming machine expenditures and property (income-generating) crime rates reported to police in local areas in South Australia in 2002–2003. The research found that the higher the expenditures on gaming machines in a particular local area per adult, the higher the income-generating crime rate in that area. No such relationship was found between gaming machine expenditure and non-income-generating crime rates. However, further research is required before any policy-relevant conclusions can be drawn.     

Pregnant women's attitudes toward the abortion of defective fetuses

A survey asked 190 pregnant women their opinions on whether a hypothetical other woman would be justified in having an abortion under ten different circumstances, four of which related to abnormalities of the fetus. They were then asked whether they would be justified in having an abortion under these same circumstances. Also assessed were these women's views concerning the justifiability of abortion for a specific group of fetal abnormalities, neural tube defects. Respondents were more likely to view abortion as justifiable for a hypothetical other than for themselves. However, there was no evidence that pregnant women's views about abortion are more conservative than those of the general public. The majority of respondents considered abortion of a defective fetus to be justified, both for themselves and for others. The best predictor of abortion attitudes was respondent's views about the ideal number of children in a completed family.This research was supported by a grant from Maternal and Child Health Research, Bureau of Community Health Services, DHHS. Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Ruth Faden at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Division of Health Education, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205.     

Malthus to modernity: wealth,status, and fertility in England, 1500–1879

A key challenge to theories of long-run economic growth has been linking the onset of modern growth with the move to modern fertility limitation. A notable puzzle for these theories is that modern growth in England began around 1780, 100 years before there was seemingly any movement to limit fertility. Here we show that the aggregate data on fertility in England before 1880 conceals significant declines in the fertility of the middle and upper classes earlier. These declines coincide with the Industrial Revolution and are of the character predicted by some recent theories of long-run growth.     

Welfare reform and changes in the economic well-being of children*

Since the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in late-1996, welfare rolls have declined by more than half. This paper explores whether improvements in the economic well-being of children have accompanied this dramatic reduction in welfare participation. Further, we examine the degree to which the success or failure of welfare reform has been shared equally among families of varying educational background. We analyze data from the March Current Population Surveys (CPS) over the years 1988 through 2001. Specifically, we link data for families with children who are interviewed in adjacent years and determine whether their economic circumstances either improved or deteriorated. We use two alternative approaches to address this general issue: a variety of regression models and a difference-in-differences methodology. These approaches provide consistent answers. In a bivariate framework TANF is associated with higher incomes; but this association becomes insignificant in the presence of business cycle controls. We also determine that children who were poor at an initial time period benefit differently, depending on their parents' educational attainment level. Poor children with parents who do not have a high school degree are significantly worse off in the TANF era, relative to the era prior to welfare reform, than are poor children of more educated parents.     

Education, sex and leisure: ideology, discipline and the construction of race among South African servicemen during the Second World War

During the Second World War (1939-1945), South African military authorities employed various regimes to mould white South African soldiers as citizens of a particular type. These coincided broadly with traditions of racial statehood identified by David Goldberg, and included attempts at ideological control – through the liberal Army Education Scheme, a compulsory adult education project – as well as disciplinary interventions, which concentrated on soldiers' sexuality. The ways that ordinary soldiers responded to these divergent discourses reminds us that whiteness in a racial state was elaborated not just from above, but also below. This observation raises some cautionary points for the writing of 'post-social' history, and just as it demands that ordinary servicemen's actions, experiences and ideologies need to be related to the state and other modes of power, it reaffirms Geoff Eley's appeal for a 'new history of society'.Lines of investigation that explore attempts to educate, discipline and control white soldiers begin to challenge some of the conventional periodizations of SA history, particularly the notion that South Africa's 1940s represented an optimistic 'world of possibilities'.     

The topology aware file distribution problem

We present theoretical results for large-file distribution on general networks of known topology (known link bandwidths and router locations). We show that the problem of distributing a file in minimum time is NP-hard in this model, and we give an O(logn) approximation algorithm, where n is the number of workstations that require the file. We also characterize our method as optimal amongst the class of “no-link-sharing” algorithms.     

The rise of a 'social development' agenda in New Zealand

Since 1999 New Zealand has seen the election of a series of Labour-led governments committed to a social policy framework of social development. This article outlines the background to the emergence of social development, tracing its antecedents in the neo-liberal administrations of the 1990s. The social development framework consists of commitments around economic development, human capital development, family development and politico-administrative redevelopment. Taking the position that reforms must be seen as concrete policy mechanisms and as discursive cues and conceptual apparatus, the article offers a comparison and critique. First, it identifies the continuities and contrasts with the previous neo-liberal framework of minimal social policy; and second, it begins the process of critically interrogating the potential citizenship implications of social development.     

Older people within transnational families: the social policy implications

Given that more people 'permanently' migrate today than in the past, migration has taken on a heightened profile internationally. Such mobility raises fundamental social policy questions of entitlement and (re)negotiation of caregiving obligations and arrangements. Social policy has traditionally approached problems and developed responses within the confines of the nation-state and faces difficulties in recognising and addressing issues arising from mobility. Migration contributes to family being 'stretched' beyond national boundaries to become dispersed, global or transnational families. This article focuses attention on one dimension of transnational living – older people as members of transnational families. The combination of increasing population mobility and the elongation of new post-retirement life-stages is resulting in a set of pressing social policy issues. It explores immigration, pension eligibility and portability, and social services and caregiving issues. To illustrate these issues the article draws on New Zealand's diverse transnational family forms and experience.