Robust designs for ratio and regression estimation

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a class of robust designs to be used with ratio estimators and extend them to regression estimators. Robustness is to be achieved against departures from a model for which the estimator is ‘optimal’. Practical implementation of the design is indicated both for large and small samples.     

How many names are enough? Identifying network effects with the least set of listed contacts

How many names are enough to reveal network effects using a name generator for network analysis? We analyze network data from two large organizations varying in complexity. We ask how much the network association with achievement is strengthened by adding another name to the recorded list of each person's sociometric citations. We conclude that five names is the cost effective number of sociometric citations to record. The network association with achievement weakens quickly with fewer names, especially in the more clustered network.     

农村学前儿童家长教育观念调查与分析

家长的教育观念对儿童的成长具有深远的影响。本研究从儿童观、教育观、成才观三个方面对甘肃省某农村地区学前儿童家长的教育观念进行了调查与分析。结果显示,农村学前儿童家长的教育观念在逐渐向科学和正确的方向转变。但是仍有一部分农村家长的教育观念相对落后,存在不科学的认识,有待于进一步转变和提升。对此,社会和政府要完善外部支持系统,托幼机构应加强对农村家长的教育和引导,家长自身也应主动学习提升自身素质。通过多方共同努力,使农村学前儿童家长树立科学的教育观念。     

A Diverging Trend in Marital Dissolution by Income Status

Was the divorce plateau of the 1980s experienced by people of all incomes? Using the 2001 and 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study (N = 13,131) examined if there was a significant income class difference in marital dissolution within 10 years of first marriage and if this difference increased from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The findings indicated that there was a significant income class difference in marital dissolution and that the difference was growing during the study period. Whereas the dissolution rates of higher income women had gone down, the rates for women with the lowest incomes had significantly increased, especially for Black women after the 1980s, indicating a diverging trend in marital dissolution by income status.     

When Women are Right: THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER,WORK AND VALUES ON EUROPEAN FAR-RIGHT PARTY SUPPORT

Far-right political party support in Western Europe has been examined primarily in terms of the men who constitute the majority of party membership. However, few have examined why women are less likely than men to be drawn to these movements. This article attempts to bridge the quantitative–qualitative divide and assess what brings women to support the far right. Looking at five European countries using the 1999–2002 World Values Survey, results indicate that men have a slightly higher propensity to vote for the far right. This gender gap cannot be explained by value differences, but is partially a result of differences in men's and women's occupational location. Thus, this article provides some support to Mayer's contention that women's support of the far right is largely to do with their being less likely than men to be employed in blue-collar work.     

Coresidence and Geographic Proximity of Mothers and Adult Children in Stepfamilies

Children who live with or near a parent provide more care and receive more help from parents than geographically distant children. Stepfamily ties may be weaker than ties between biological kin, but little is known about the geographic proximity of step‐ versus biological kin. The authors used data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 13,239 mothers and 45,675 biological and stepchildren) to show that stepchildren and stepmothers are less likely to live together, less likely to live nearby, and less likely to move closer than biological children and mothers. When mothers have only stepchildren, they are less likely to have a coresident child or a child nearby than mothers with both step‐ and biological children. Coresidence and geographic proximity are lower in stepfamilies formed after divorce than after widowhood. The findings are consistent with a legacy of conflict and strain and the likely competing needs of biological and stepmothers.     

Combining Parallel and Exploratory Factor Analysis in Identifying Relationship Scales in Secondary Data

Common methods used in the literature to identify factors within exploratory factor analysis have been shown to be potentially problematic. This brief report illustrates a state of the art approach in identifying factor structure by adding parallel analysis before exploratory factor analysis. Parallel analysis enables researchers to have a high degree of confidence of the number of factors to extract before exploratory factor analysis. The procedure is illustrated by using items from the National Survey of Families and Households used to identify relationship scales.     

Child maltreatment dynamics among immigrant and U.S. born Latino children: Findings from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW)

Latino children are the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States, and the proportion of child maltreatment victims who are of Latino ethnicity has been growing since 2000. However, our knowledge of the characteristics, maltreatment patterns, and risk factors associated with maltreatment among immigrant and U.S. born Latino children and their families has been incomplete. The goals of this study are to establish the national prevalence of immigrant and U.S. born Latino children who come to the attention of child welfare systems in the United States; to expand our knowledge regarding the role of nativity in child maltreatment patterns among Latinos; and to determine if disparities in child maltreatment patterns and risks exist among Latino families using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being. Despite considerable risks, data indicate that immigrant Latino children are slightly underrepresented among children who present to child welfare systems when compared to the general population. Moreover, no significant differences were observed between immigrant children and U.S. born children with regard to substantiation patterns. However, significant differences emerged between the two groups in risk factors and maltreatment type, warranting further investigation.     

American Community Survey overview and the role of external evaluations

In 2010 the U.S. Census Bureau will achieve its goal of eliminating the long form sample from the decennial census and will produce its first set of five-year data products from the full sample American Community Survey (ACS). This paper provides an overview of the call for change that prompted the Census Bureau to pursue the development of a new approach to collecting socioeconomic and housing data. The paper details the evolution of the ACS from its earliest origins to its current design and describes that design in detail. The current design has benefited from external debate and consultation. Work such as that described later in this journal exemplifies the key role that external users and advisors have played, and will continue to play, in the evolution of the ACS. Over the past 10 years, the Census Bureau has undertaken research and testing to demonstrate operational feasibility and to assess survey quality. Research has also compared ACS and Census 2000 data. ACS staff are involved in survey improvement efforts and continue to confront survey challenges. In the next few years the ACS will give priority to developing user tools to aid all users in the correct interpretation of multi-year estimates. The ultimate validation of the ACS is, however, in the hands of users. Continued input from the people who are responsible for administering and evaluating programs, identifying local needs, and planning for the future will allow the ACS to grow in value and utility.     

Cash support vs. tax incentives: The differential impact of policy interventions on third births in contemporary Hungary

Following steep falls in birth rates in Central and Eastern European countries during the economic and institutional restructuring of the early 1990s, governments made substantial efforts to stop or at least reduce the fertility decline. In Hungary, parents with three or more children could benefit from specific new policy measures: the flat-rate child-rearing support paid from the youngest child's third to eighth birthdays (signalling recognition of stay-at-home motherhood) and a redesigned and upgraded tax relief system. However, the success of these policy measures, if any, is difficult to detect in aggregate statistics. Analysing data from the Hungarian Generations and Gender Survey, we rely on event history methods to examine the policies’ effects on third birth risks, especially among different socio-economic groups. The results indicate that while the child-rearing support increased third birth risks among the least educated, the generous tax relief had a similar effect for parents with tertiary education.