Children's well-being,adult poverty,and jobs-of-last-resort

This article addresses the failure of the 1996 welfare reform act (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act [PRWORA]) as an anti-poverty program demonstrated by the fact that approximately half of all ‘welfare leavers’ have fallen back into poverty within a year or two of their exit. The proximate cause is that, because of “barriers to work” or insufficient demand, leavers end up working too few hours over the course of a year. To address this failure, we propose a program of jobs-of-last-resort, called Promise of a Job (POJ), based on an examination of the design, costs, and results for a large number of transitional-job and welfare-to-work programs. In this article, we estimate POJ's costs per participant and overall costs of implementation, as well as the impact such a program would have on reducing adult and, particularly, child poverty. We find, in examining past data, that had POJ been applied to just those Americans who were on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996, it would have raised almost 7 million children above the poverty line. We argue that this result (and similar results from any other program) should appeal across the political spectrum, to conservatives and liberals alike, because of the documented general agreement that child poverty is inconsistent with a widely held American value: the provision of equal opportunity for all.     

Organisational Factors,Job Satisfaction and Intention to Leave Among Newly Qualified Social Workers in England

Satisfaction with different organisational elements and aspects of work contributes markedly to overall levels of job satisfaction and intention to leave. For newly qualified social workers (NQSWs), especially immediately after graduation, self-perceived competence and their confidence in their educational preparation are also important. This article reports on a longitudinal study following 280 social work students into social work employment in England using data collected as students and six months after graduation. We focus on their experiences as NQSWs, thus only including those working in social work jobs, reporting the relative importance of their satisfaction with different work elements, such as supervision and job engagement. These are used to construct a model of NQSWs' overall satisfaction and intentions of leaving their social work jobs. The model incorporates NQSWs' perceptions of how well their degree courses prepared them for their current social work jobs in addition to personal, organisational and specific role characteristics. Using statistical techniques of factor analysis and regression modelling we highlight the complexities of how job satisfaction is constructed and we argue that the data reveal the importance of team support and self-efficacy in relation to whether social workers are thinking about leaving their current social work jobs.     

‘The status quo is not an option’: Community impacts of school closure in South Taranaki,New Zealand

This paper explores the impacts of proposed school closures on families in rural communities in the South Taranaki region of New Zealand. We situate this instance of educational restructuring in a critical policy context and present an account of its regional unfolding through drawing on local media coverage. We then interpret narratives gathered during an interview-based study of the proposed changes undertaken in 2003–2004. Our analysis highlights the impact of school closure for rural settlements in terms of affect as well as effects. More generally we reflect on the place of schools in the experience of place itself, as well as their contribution to social cohesion and the broadly defined health of a community.     

“Like Parent, Like Child?”: The intergenerational transmission of nonmarital childbearing

Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 11,180) are used to examine the intergenerational transmission of nonmarital childbearing for US men and women. Findings suggest that being born to unmarried parents increases the risk of offspring having a nonmarital first birth, net of various confounding characteristics. This intergenerational link appears to particularly operate via parents’ breaking up before offspring are age 14 and offspring’s young age at first sex. While the link across two generations in nonmarital childbearing is not accounted for by parents’ socioeconomic status (measured as fathers’ education), several mediating factors vary by socioeconomic background. Gender and race/ethnicity also moderate the intergenerational transmission of nonmarital childbearing. This research sheds light on the prevalence of, and process by which, nonmarital childbearing is repeated across generations, which has important implications for long-term social stratification and inequality.     

Immunization documentation practices and vaccine-preventable disease surveillance capacity among institutions of higher education in Indiana

Objective: Complete and accurate documentation of immunization records and surveillance of disease transmission are critical to the public health response to outbreaks of communicable disease in institutions of higher education (IHEs). This study aims to describe immunization documentation practices and disease surveillance capacity among IHEs in Indiana in order to inform public health action. Methods: IHEs in Indiana were identified and included in the study if they offered on-campus housing and had a dedicated student health center. Phone surveys were administered in September 2015 to each institution, inquiring about current immunization documentation policies and practices, disease surveillance capacity, and use of statewide electronic reporting systems. Additionally, IHE websites were searched to identify immunization documentation requirements for matriculating students. Results: Surveys were completed for 33 of 38 eligible IHEs. Twenty-three (70%) IHEs reported that student immunization records are entered into an accessible electronic system or database. Matriculating student immunization requirements were identified for 32 institutions. Of these, 22 (69%) required a physician-signed proof of immunization. No IHEs reported documenting historical immunizations in the statewide electronic immunization system and three IHEs (9%) reported utilizing the state electronic disease surveillance program. Conclusions: Immunization documentation practices vary among IHEs in Indiana and use of statewide immunization and disease reporting systems is minimal. Robust utilization of immunization and disease surveillance systems has been shown to improve public health response to communicable disease outbreaks. Improving mutual understanding of policy and practice between health departments and IHEs could improve the ability to respond to public health challenges.     

Nursing-Home Resident Quality of Life: A Longitudinal Case Study Approach

Longitudinal quality-of-life (QOL) research incorporating multiple perspectives can add to knowledge about how nursing home residents experience QOL, but these methods are seldom used. This study employed interviews and participant observation to conduct multiple-perspective, longitudinal case studies of six residents. Close, reciprocal relationships with staff members, staff knowledge of residents, and autonomy were fundamental to QOL. Autonomy was experienced through choice and self-advocacy. Changes in QOL over time related to changes in resident health status, acclimation to the setting and family member availability. Study results may have implications for staffing and staff training.     

Bootstrapping unit root tests with covariates

We consider the bootstrap method for the covariates augmented Dickey–Fuller (CADF) unit root test suggested in Hansen (1995 Hansen, B. E. (1995). Rethinking the univariate approach to unit root testing: Using covariates to increase power. \ Econometric Theory 11:1148–1171.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) which uses related variables to improve the power of univariate unit root tests. It is shown that there are substantial power gains from including correlated covariates. The limit distribution of the CADF test, however, depends on the nuisance parameter that represents the correlation between the equation error and the covariates. Hence, inference based directly on the CADF test is not possible. To provide a valid inferential basis for the CADF test, we propose to use the parametric bootstrap procedure to obtain critical values, and establish the asymptotic validity of the bootstrap CADF test. Simulations show that the bootstrap CADF test significantly improves the asymptotic and the finite sample size performances of the CADF test, especially when the covariates are highly correlated with the error. Indeed, the bootstrap CADF test offers drastic power gains over the conventional unit root tests. Our testing procedures are applied to the extended Nelson and Plosser data set.     

Puke Ahu: articulating a place-based,university campus identity

Universities in Aotearoa New Zealand are public institutions established on lands purchased or acquired by government since 1869. As particular sites in the built landscape, they each carry a history and geography. A project at Massey University’s Wellington campus seeks to open-up diverse identifications with the ‘place’ of the campus and has produced resources, established fora, and built relationships that differently recognise aspects of place and identity. The Pākehā authors reflect on the theoretical frameworks that have influenced their work on the project including geography, critical pedagogy, and discourse theory. As Pākehā academics engaging with the indigenous history of the land through which they work, the authors discuss the implications of this knowledge and the difficulties and responsibilities of working in a project that seeks emancipatory outcomes.