How well can we track cohabitation using the SIPP? A consideration of direct and inferred measures

Cohabitation is an alternative to marriage and to living independently for an increasing number of Americans. Still, research that explores links between living arrangements and economic behavior is limited by a lack of data that explicitly identify cohabiting couples. To aid researchers in using the Survey of Income and Program Participation's (SIPP) rich data to explore cohabitation issues, we consider direct and inferred measures of cohabitation. We find, first, that the use of inferred definitions (relative to direct measures) in the SIPP is likely to yield higher cohabitation rates in the United States by incorrectly coding roommates as cohabitors. Second, the SIPP (whether by direct or inferred measures) counts a significantly larger number of cohabiting couples than the widely used Current Population Survey (CPS). Third, spells of cohabitation occur less frequently and last longer when a direct measure of cohabitation is used than when either of the two inferred measures of cohabitation is used; ours is the first article to reveal this result.     

Attitudes To Marriage Among Young Tertiary–Educated Women

This study explores the attitudes to marriage and child-bearing held by women graduates born 1957–62. It is argued that this is a group of women for whom economic and cultural pressures to enter marriage are low, due to changes in social structures and the availability of a feminist philosophy that provides an alternative value system to patriarchy. With extrinsic pressures to marry so reduced, what factors determine the marriage and family decisions that they make? Interviews with a small sample of these women provide some strong pointers. Marriage at an appropriate age and to an appropriate partner was seen as providing substantially more benefits than costs. Delaying marriage until personal identity had been achieved was considered very important, with independent living, work and overseas travel contributing to identity formation. Supportiveness and egalitarianism were considered crucial qualities in a spouse, and those who were married had tended to marry men who were as or more ambitious for their wives than for themselves. An overall attitude of entitlement-with-organisation emerged. The increase in socioeconomic differences among women-in-their-own-right is discussed.     

‘The Bang’ and SNAP: Controversial Issues in Schools

Over the last few years there has been a series of ‘moral panics’ over the introduction of Peace Studies into educational institutions. This case study examines the recent public controversy over an educational play call The Bang presented in secondary schools in New South Wales, and the associated attacks on student interest groups called Students for Nuclear Awareness and Peace (SNAP). The case study raises questions about power relations in the social construction of ‘controversy’ and ‘objectivity’ and the strategic dilemmas these imply for progressive teaching about social issues in schools.     

PARADOX AND ORTHODOX: FOLIE À DEUX?*

In the recent family therapy literature, therapists have been cautioned to use paradoxical looking techniques as either a last resort, or else not to use such actions at all with specific problems. The paper argues that these stances arise from a rigid adherence to a set of orthodox views from which these actions appear contradictory. Similar to family systems, when such orthodox therapy systems do not question or alter their own premises in the face of contradiction, they tend to attribute either badness or madness to the action and either try to exorcise the badness, or banish the action. The literature which either prescribes “paradox as a last resort,” or which proscribes it altogether is reviewed and critiqued. Walter Buckley's process/adaptive system model is recommended as a positive alternative view from which such previously pardoxical actions may often be elected as a logical and effective first choice.     

Examining the link between social responsibility and decision styles

The paper examines the factors that influence socially responsible decision making by individuals. The study found four social responsibility styles: Playing it Safe, Weather The Storm, Problem to Solve, and Hope it Goes Away. These styles describe individuals on the basis of decision style, propensity for risk, and coping style. The styles explain why people with different values might come to the same decision in the same circumstances.