Measurement Error and the Effects of Unions on the Compensating Differentials for Fatal Workplace Risks

With essentially the same estimation methods and time period but using different UK data sets and risk measures, Sandy and Elliott (1996) found that nonunion male manual workers had a substantially higher fatal risk premium than union workers while Siebert and Wei (1994) found the opposite. This paper attempts to reconcile these conflicting results using the different measures of fatal risk employed in these two studies together on the same data set. The conflicting results are due to several types of measurement error. We find substantial miscoding in the employee-reported industry affiliation as well as larger errors-in-variables bias in the industry-based risk than in the occupation-based risk.     

The markers and rules of Scottish national identity

This article examines how people set about the task of national identity construction and maintenance in the context of a study of landed and arts elites in Scotland. With reference to our empirical material throughout, we outline the key national identity processes: claim, attribution and the receipt of claims and attributions. Central to these are identity markers and rules. Identity markers are those social characteristics presented to others to support a national identity claim and looked to in others, either to attribute national identity, or receive and assess any claims or attributions made. Identity rules are probabilistic rules of thumb, guidelines to how these identity markers are interpreted, combined or given precedence over others within these three processes. Particular attention is given to identity rules, and consideration of the contexts in which they are adhered to or transgressed.     

Tracking the Sexual Behavior-Specific Effects of a Foster Family Treatment Program for Children with Serious Sexual Behavior Problems

Few treatment programs exist for very young children with serious sexual behavior problems. Fewer still have produced data relating to their effectiveness, and the sparse data that have emerged have focused on global social adjustment or improvement rather than on sexual behavior- specific changes. This study tracked both frequency of problem sexual behaviors and care giver estimates of the propensity to re-offend of six initial clients referred to a treatment-intensive foster care program for sexually reactive children and pre-adolescent sexual offenders. A simple pre-post (basepoint-treatment) design was used, and in-treatment data gathered over a two-year interval are presented. Initial results indicate that the problem sexual behaviors of most of these youthful clients were effectively and immediately suppressed in the context of their treatment intensive foster placements, but that the program's impact on the clients' propensity to re-offend given the opportunity—a crude measure of treatment internalization—was much less immediate, less pronounced, and less predictable across clients. Recommendations based on these data are offered concerning the viability of foster care intervention for sexualized and offending children, as well as optimal durations for such treatments. The strengths and weaknesses of the novel progress tracking method are discussed.     

Still Lonely After All These Years

Sociological Forum -     

How do marital status,work effort,and wage rates interact?

How marital status interacts with men's earnings is an important analytic and policy issue, especially in the context of debates in the United States over programs that encourage healthy marriage. This paper generates new findings about the earnings-marriage relationship by estimating the linkages among flows into and out of marriage, work effort, and wage rates. The estimates are based on National Longitudinal Survey of Youth panel data, covering 23 years of marital and labor market outcomes, and control for unobserved heterogeneity. We estimate marriage effects on hours worked (our proxy for work effort) and on wage rates for all men and for black and low-skilled men separately. The estimates reveal that entering marriage raises hours worked quickly and substantially but that marriage's effect on wage rates takes place more slowly while men continue in marriage. Together; the stimulus to hours worked and wage rates generates an 18%-19% increase in earnings, with about one-third to one-half of the marriage earnings premium attributable to higher work effort. At the same time, higher wage rates and hours worked encourage men to marry and to stay married. Thus, being married and having high earnings reinforce each other over time.     

Family transitions in Young Adulthood

Using the first (1995) and third (2001-2002) waves of the Add Health survey, we examine women 's family transitions up to age 24. Only a third of all women marry, and a fifth of those marriages dissolve before age 24. Three out of eight women have afirst birth, with a substantial majority of those births outside of marriage: 66% for whites, 96% for blacks, and 72% for Mexican Americans. Cohabitation is the predominant union form; 59% of women cohabit at least once by age 24. Most cohabitations are short lived, with approximately one in five resulting in a marriage. We summarize the family and relationship experience of women up to age 24 in terms offour categories, each accounting for roughly a quarter of all women. Category 1 has the women who remain single nonparents. Category 2 has the early marriers, women whose marriage is not preceded by a first birth. Category 3 has those who become single parents. Category 4 has the women who cohabit at least once, but who do not marry or have a birth by age 24. The strictly ordered transitions of the 1950s are long gone and have been replaced by a variety of paths to adulthood.     

Consistent Estimation of the Structural Distribution Function

Motivated by problems in linguistics we consider a multinomial random vector for which the number of cells N is not much smaller than the sum of the cell frequencies, i.e. the sample size n . The distribution function of the uniform distribution on the set of all cell probabilities multiplied by N is called the structural distribution function of the cell probabilities. Conditions are given that guarantee that the structural distribution function can be estimated consistently as n increases indefinitely although n / N does not. The natural estimator is inconsistent and we prove consistency of essentially two alternative estimators.     

On the mode of administering a questionnaire and responses to open-ended items

Concurrently administered personal and telephone surveys are compared to measure differences between the modes for identical questions. Speed of questioning is found to be greater in telephone interviews than personal interviews. The faster pace of telephone interviews is linked to shorter answers to open-ended items on the telephone. The tendency to reduce such responses is disproportionately exhibited by younger, affluent respondents who tend to provide detailed responses in personal interviews.