The consequences of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Africa on mothers,children, and orphans

Orphanhood is a sad and unique problem of the HIV pandemic, compared with other epidemics, for generally both parents will be infected and will tend to die during young adulthood, leaving behind young children. The rising morbidity and mortality of HIV-infected mothers and fathers threaten to decrease the care and resources spent on children and to increase the prevalence of orphanhood. However, the extent and impact of orphanhood due to HIV/AIDS are not known. This paper presents two aspects of HIV infection and its impact on women and children in sub-Saharan Africa: the results of two analyses of the HIV-attributable mortality of mothers and the orphanhood of their young children.     

A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.     

The university budget process: A case study

In the past, contingency theory has been used by researchers to explain what factors influence the design and implementation of budget systems. However, little of this research has been conducted in the context of nonprofit organizations, especially private universities. Previous research on university budgeting has focused on resource allocation issues, and most of these studies have involved state institutions, which differ in significant ways from private universities. This article presents the results of a case study of the budgeting systems within three schools of a private university. Using a contingency approach, it describes the characteristics of the schools' environments that appeared to affect the types of budget systems used by the three schools studied: a law school, a liberal arts school, and a school of management.     

The Relationship Between Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Inventoried Vocational Interests

It has generally been assumed that a linear relationship exists between vocational interests and self-efficacy. Bandura (1986) suggested, however, that persons require some amount of reasonable challenge in activities to sustain their interest, and that the relationship of interest to self-efficacy thus may be curvilinear. This research extended and remedied previous literature and tested explicitly Bandura's concept of a threshold. Results suggest general support for a linear relationship between interest and self-efficacy (rs are .62–.68), although curvilinear self-efficacy terms contributed significantly to two of three regression equations. Contrary to predictions, plots suggest interest may be stable at lower levels of self-efficacy and may increase linearly at higher levels.     

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL MEASURE OF RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

This article describes the confirmation and validation of a multidimensional measure of religious involvement using data from the National Survey of Black Americans (N = 2,107). This model was developed through a multistep strategy of confirmatory factor analysis and structural-equation modeling. First, a three-dimensional factor structure comprising organizational, nonorganizational, and subjective religiosity was confirmed for twelve religious indicators. This measurement model was found to exhibit excellent overall fit; it compared favorably to alternative models: and all hypothesized factor loadings were strong and statistically significant. Second, several constructs identified by prior research as correlates of religious involvement (gender, age, education, region, and urbanicity) were found to exhibit significant associations with one or more dimensions of the model. All analyses were conducted in LISREL 8.03, using maximum-likelihood estimation and a strategy of split-sample replication.