Child Care Use and Parental Desire to Switch Care Type Among a Low-Income Population

This study investigates the use of and satisfaction with child care among low-income families, who are those likely to be affected by recent changes in public policy that emphasize increased work effort. Data from the Survey of Wisconsin Works Families portray differences in the use of center-based care depending on whether or not the family received a child care subsidy. A multivariate analysis of a measure of parental satisfaction, whether a parent would switch child care sources if all care were available at no charge, suggests that parents tend to be more satisfied with center-based care than with alternative forms of care. The analysis also suggests that mothers who received a child care subsidy were significantly more likely to have their children in center-based care.     

Work and Care Strategies of European Families: Similarities or National Differences?

This paper examines the work and care strategies chosen by full‐time working families with children in Finland, Italy, Portugal and the UK. It asks whether European families in different countries, facing the same problems of balancing employment and childcare responsibilities, respond to their situations in similar ways. An increase in dual‐earner families where both parents work full‐time represents a general employment trend in today's Europe. Also, within families with children, such employment patterns are now more common than they were previously. National differences may therefore not any longer be as marked as often indicated by country‐based surveys. The qualitative data from the SOCCARE Project offer a way to examine this issue. The focal point of the paper is to make a comparative analysis of couples in similar work and care situations. Using their working hours as the common denominator, this paper analyses their daily childcare arrangements and how these are impacted by gender roles, working schedules, flexibility of workplace, income levels, parents’ educational background and availability of care facilities. The paper concludes that European families’ work and care strategies have many similarities whereby national differences may not be as marked as often indicated by contemporary research.     

我国廉租房制度建设中的问题及对策探讨

从认识层面、制度层面、操作层面指出了目前我国廉租房制度建设中存在的问题,分析了问题产生的深层次原因,并从认识、制度、操作三个层面探索了适合我国国情的廉租房制度建设的对策和建议。     

On additive and multiplicative damage models and the characterizations of linear and logarithmic exponential families

Rao (1963) has formulated a damage model which we call an additive damage model. A suitable damage model, which we call a multiplicative damage model, has been considered by Krishnaji (1970) for income-related problems. In these models, an original observation is subjected to damage, e.g., death or under-reporting, according to a specified probability law. Within the framework of an additive damage model, with a special form of damage, characterizations of the linear and logarithmic exponential families are formulated using regression properties of the damaged part on the undamaged part. The characterizations of the gamma and Pareto distributions that have been found of some use in the theory of income distributions, are obtained as special cases. Similar results are investigated within the framework of the multiplicative damage model.     

Family policy in Korea

In Korea, family policy as a public policy gained interest in the 1980s, when the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (since January 1995 the Ministry of Health and Welfare) renamed the Maternal and Child Bureau the Family Welfare Bureau. This paper first presents a brief overview of the traditional family system and values in Korea and examines changes in economic and social indicators, changes in family functions and roles, and changes in attitudes toward family that have occurred following industrialization and urbanization. The paper then briefly explains some of the problems Korean families face today. It next examines the Family Planning Program and its results. Finally, it turns to an examination and critique of the policies and programs administered by the Family Welfare Bureau.Yeonoak Baik is a Family Advocacy Therapist for the 8th U.S. Army c/o Commander, 43rd Surgical Hospital (MA), ATTN: EAMC-SH-FAP, Room D-108, Unit #15190, APO AP, 96271-0126. She works in Korea with U.S. military soldiers and their dependents. Her research interests include child welfare, single-parent families, and domestic violence. Her MSW was received from the School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Her research interests include children of divorced families, social welfare policy, and social work administration in Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare at Seoul National University in Korea.     

Live-in Foreign Domestic Workers and their Impact on Hong Kong’s Middle Class Families

This paper discusses the impact of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) on parental roles and family dynamics of Hong Kong’s middle class families. The increase in married women’s labor force participation in Hong Kong has led to a greater demand for childcare, which has been filled by FDWs. Based on interviews with 15 dual-earner couples in middle class nuclear families employing FDWs, how FDWs affect the mother’s gender role and family dynamics is discussed. Boundary work is used by parents in their daily interaction with their children and their FDWs so as to reconcile the perceived indispensability of these workers on the one hand, and the challenges they pose to the definition of parenthood on the other. This research was funded by a Lingnan University Social Sciences Program Research Grant RES/SOC010/978. I am grateful to the guest editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.     

Child day care and the employment of AFDC recipients with preschool children

In the context of recent federal initiatives to increase the affordability, accessibility, and quality of child care for the working poor, this article examines the degree to which expanding the supply of publicly subsidized child care in local communities may promote, through employment, the independence from welfare and economic self-sufficiency of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients with preschool-aged children. In a telephone survey of a random sample of 232 AFDC recipients who participated in a larger federally sponsored demonstration project in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, many respondents reported the lack of available child care as a barrier either to employment or to the attainment of a preferred job. Although it is concluded that increases in the availability of subsidized child care should be a component of any strategy to increase the level of employment participation, continuity, and success for this population, the results underscore the need for a multi-faceted intervention strategy to reduce the welfare dependency and to increase the economic self-sufficiency of these parents. Implications for further research are suggested.The data for this investigation were collected under Authorization No. 89-3-WR-NC-008 to the North Carolina Department of Human Resources from the Division of Program Evaluation, Office of Family Assistance, Family Support Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Additional support was provided under Grant No. 5-44232 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University Research Council, Office of Research Services. The views and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the North Carolina Department of Human Resources.He received his Ph.D. in Family Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1981. He is a specialist in work and family linkages, policy analysis and evaluation, and survey research methodology. He served as principal investigator on the child care evaluation study that is the basis for this article.He received his Ph.D. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. He is a specialist in evaluation and research methodology, information dissemination and use patterns in public sector agencies, and welfare policy and initiatives. He served as project director for the study described in this article.     

Mexican American Fathers' Occupational Conditions: Links to Family Members' Psychological Adjustment

To examine the implications of fathers' occupational conditions (i.e., income, work hours, shift work, pressure, workplace racism, and underemployment) for family members' psychological adjustment, home interviews were conducted with fathers, mothers, and two adolescent offspring in each of 218 Mexican American families. Results underscored the importance of acculturation as a moderator. Fathers' income was negatively associated with depressive symptoms in highly acculturated families but not in less acculturated families. In contrast, fathers' reports of workplace racism were positively associated with depressive symptoms in less acculturated families but not in more acculturated family contexts. These findings were consistent across all 4 family members, suggesting that the "long arm" of the jobs held by Mexican American fathers extends to mothers and adolescent offspring.     

Household Debt and Marital Instability: Evidence from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study

Korean society has recently experienced rapid increases in household debt and divorce rates. This study investigates whether household debt and debt ratios lower marital stability and increase the probability of divorce among Korean families. Six-year panels from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) household surveys were used for analysis. The effect of household debt upon the probability of divorce was estimated through pooled and population-averaged Logit models. The results suggest that household financial strain measured by the amount of household debt and the debt-to-income ratios does not significantly affect the probability of divorce. This finding contradicts the widespread notion that households’ excessive borrowing has been partially responsible for the recent increase in divorce rates in Korea.

An Application of EM Algorithm to a Change-Point Problem

We consider the problem of change-point in a classical framework while assuming a probability distribution for the change-point. An EM algorithm is proposed to estimate the distribution of the change-point. A change-point model for multiple profiles is also proposed, and EM algorithm is presented to estimate the model. Two examples of Illinois traffic data and Dow Jones Industrial Averages are used to demonstrate the proposed methods.