Predicting Material Hardship Among Former Welfare-to-Work Participants: An Income- and Resource-Packaging Model

ABSTRACT

Material hardship is of concern because it refers to physical deprivation related to meeting the basic needs of food, housing, utilities, and other items. This study tests a predictive income- and resource-packaging model of material hardship using survey data collected from 459 former welfare-to-work program participants. Logistic regression results show that receiving social support in the form of living rent-free decreased the odds for experiencing material hardship. The predictors of working in the informal economy, being sanctioned while on public assistance, having mental health issues, and having transportation problems all increased the odds for experiencing material hardship. The measures of formal employment income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families income, work-first program participation, sharing living expenses, monetary social support, and assistance from nonprofit organizations were unrelated to predicting material hardship experiences. Policymakers interested in improving conditions for needy families should question the use of sanctions and carefully monitor material hardship among those sanctioned. Future programs and future research should consider the extent to which low-income women participate in the informal economy to make ends meet, rely on social networks to live rent-free, and struggle with poor health and transportation problems.     

Births,debts and mirages: The impact of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and other factors on Australian fertility expectations

This paper uses survey data to examine the effect of the income-contingent charge mechanism, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), and other demographic and attitudinal variables on fertility expectations in Australia over the recent past. HECS requires former Australian students to fund some of the costs of higher education through the repayment of interest-free loans made by the Australian government. Its defining characteristic is that repayments only occur when and if students future incomes exceed a particular level. Since its introduction in 1989, media and other populist commentary has suggested that HECS has had unanticipated effects on behaviour. Most recently, attention has focused on the effects of HECS on fertility, with some arguing that university graduates are delaying births, and having fewer children, because of their HECS debts. This paper demonstrates that the introduction of HECS has had no discernible impact on Australian fertility rates, nor on the number of children that people expect to have. However, education, age and a number of attitudinal factors are associated with significant differences in fertility expectations.     

Foster children placed with or separated from siblings: Outcomes based on a national sample

This study examines a range of outcomes for children in foster care who have siblings, using a large, national U.S. database. Three types of sibling placements are defined: split (child has no siblings in the home), splintered (at least one sibling in the home), and together (all siblings in the home). The study analyzes records (n = 1701) from the National Study of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing, including Child Protective Services (CPS) and Long-term Foster Care (LTFC) samples. It contributes to the literature in its inclusive definition of siblings, use of three categories for sibling placement status, and use of outcome measures that include the perceptions of foster children. The study reports limited significant findings. Neither foster parents' nor youths' reports of behavioral problems differ by sibling placement status. As rated by teachers, academic performance in the group placed together exceeds that in both of the other groups. For children in kinship homes, teachers also reported less problematic internalizing and externalizing behavior for the splintered and together groups than for the split group. Children in the splintered group also responded more favorably than those in the split group to questions of closeness to the primary caregiver and liking the people in the foster family.     

Student homicidal violence in schools: an international problem

School homicides have been become a worldwide phenomenon. In the decade following the Columbine shooting there have been at least forty similar events in other countries. This article addresses the international scope of this problem and some of the complex conceptual issues that make student homicidal violence difficult to define and study. Meaningful research on risk and protective factors that can inform evidence-based preventive models is summarized.     

Like mother, (not) like daughter: The social construction of menopause and aging

In recent American history, the definition of menopause has shifted from a natural, developmental transition to an increasingly more medicalized perspective that emphasizes biological deficits of the aging female body. Using qualitative data from two generations of women, this essay explores how and why this redefinition has occurred and what effect it has had on women's attitudes toward health and aging. The physical experiences of menopause were remarkably similar across mother-daughter pairs; however, daughters (who represented a slice of the baby boom cohort) differed from their mothers in how they talked about menopause, how they defined and treated menopause, and how willingly they accepted or fought the changes associated with menopause. Major social institutions, including the media and pharmaceutical industry, have played a significant role in reshaping the cultural lens through which women experience issues of health, body, and aging. This essay emphasizes the baby boomers' desire to maintain control over their bodies and considers how this cohort of women, as a result, may experience late-life issues of body and health.     

Starting Behind: A Comparative Analysis of the Academic Standing of Students Entering Charter Schools*

Objectives. The purpose of this study is to assess if students enter charter schools at an academic disadvantage compared to students who make other types of school‐choice decisions, such as transferring between district schools, from a charter to a district school, or staying in the same school. We assess the demographic and academic characteristics of students prior to choosing to attend a charter school in comparison to students who made other types of school‐choice decisions and broaden the operational definition of a “disadvantaged” student when exploring differences between charter and district students to include academic achievement prior to entering a school. Methods. The analysis is conducted with student‐level panel data and a progressive series of ANCOVA models that were estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. This methodology allows for a comparison of the mean differences in academic achievement among students who made different types of school‐choice decisions while controlling for student‐level covariates. Results. Students who transferred from district to charter schools had the lowest levels of prior academic achievement compared to students who made other types of choice decisions. Conclusions. When Arizona charter authorizers face the deluge of renewal decisions that are approaching, the quality of education available to the next generation of charter school students is at stake. Renewal decisions will impact what choices are available going forward and, given the comparative academic disadvantage of charter school students prior to entering, those decisions should take into consideration the starting point for students entering charter schools.     

Embeddedness of Organizational Capabilities*

Managers must regularly make decisions on how to access and deploy their limited resources in order to build organizational capabilities for a sustainable competitive advantage. However, failure to recognize that organizational capabilities involve complex and intricately woven underlying processes may lead to an incomplete understanding of how capabilities affect competitive advantage. As a means of understanding this underlying complexity, we discuss how managerial decisions on resource acquisition and deployment influence capability embeddedness and argue that capability embeddedness has an incremental effect on firm performance beyond the effects from organizational resources and capabilities. To investigate these issues, we present a hierarchical composed error structure framework that relies on cross‐sectional data (and allows for generalizations to panel data). We demonstrate the framework in the context of retailing, where we show that the embeddedness of organizational capabilities influences retailer performance above and beyond the tangible and intangible resources and capabilities that a retailer possesses. Our results illustrate that understanding how resources and capabilities influence performance at different hierarchical levels within a firm can aid managers to make better decisions on how they can embed certain capabilities within the structural and social relationships within the firm. Moreover, understanding whether the underlying objectives of the capabilities that are being built and cultivated have convergent or divergent goals is critical, as it can influence the extent to which the embedded capabilities enhance firm performance.