Academic economists behaving badly? A survey on three areas of unethical behavior

This article measures the degree to which academic economists have engaged in unethical behavior and the degree to which academic economists believe the profession as a whole engages in unethical behavior. Three main types of unethical behavior are examined: (1) falsification of research; (2) expropriation of graduate student research or including an undeserving co-author on a research paper; and (3) exchange of grades for gifts, money, or sex. Using a unique data set gathered at the 1998 American Economic Association (AEA) meetings, we find that there is a significant amount of misconduct, particularly in the second category.     

Changes in Parenting and Youth Adjustment Across the Military Deployment Cycle

This study examined how changes in at‐home parents' mental health and parenting practices related to changes in their children's adjustment throughout the course of a service members' military deployment. Participants included at‐home parents from 114 National Guard families who were interviewed at four different occasions across the deployment cycle. The results revealed changes across the deployment cycle among the following three indicators: parental warmth, depressive symptoms, and children's externalizing behaviors. Changes in parental warmth were associated with changes in children's adjustment. Overall, these findings indicate that during parental separation, at‐home parents' responses to children have important implications for children's adjustment.     

Lone Parents and Civil Law: Their Experience of Problems and Their Advice-seeking Behaviour

The percentage of dependent children living in lone‐parent families has more than tripled in Britain over the last 30 years. Though there is much diversity within this lone‐parent population, there are common experiences and characteristics. Lone‐parent families tend to be headed by women, to be poor, on benefits and experience problems with ill health and disability. This paper examines lone parenthood in the context of the experience of justiciable problems (problems for which there is a potential legal remedy), drawing upon a large‐scale survey of 5,611 people representative of the population of England and Wales. The survey included 223 lone parents, who were likely to be female, to be living in rented accommodation, to be on a low income, to be economically inactive and to be in receipt of benefits. Lone parents were significantly more likely than others to have experienced a justiciable problem. Lone parents sought advice for their problems more often than others, particularly from solicitors, even after controlling for problems experienced. Lone parents were more likely than others to receive legal‐aid funding. Lastly, lone parents found trying to resolve problems particularly stressful, though they tended to believe that their life had improved as a consequence of doing so.     

Social networks and support in social work

Following the recommendations of the Barclay Report for a move on the part of social work towards supporting helping networks in the community, it is necessary to look more closely at the components of ‘social support’ and to be clearer about which social networks social workers are being asked to support. It is suggested that sociology, although criticised for its remoteness from the daily experience of the social worker, could offer through social network analysis some useful measures of the support networks of social work clients.     

Educating Women: Gender Inequalities among Canadian University Graduates*

Dans le présent article, les auteurs proposent une analyse comparative des revenus et du chomage dliommes et de femmes diplômés universitaires entre 1978 et 1988. Les résultats montrent que le sexe continue d'exercer une influence importante sur ces données; le rapport global hommes-femmes est en effet passé de 84% a 91%. Seule une petite partie de l'écart des revenus peut s'expliquer par des différences entre les hommes et les femmes au regard du recrutement sur le marché du travail. Les auteurs considèrent ces résultats révélateurs de la ségrégation entre les hommes et les femmes, et que celle-ci mène à des différences dans les cheminements de carrière. De plus, pour l'avenir, ils prévoient que, tandis que l'écart des revenus continuera probablement de diminuer, les formes d'inégalité entre les diplômés seront peut-ôtre de plus en plus marquées, surtout que l'écart des revenus est en déclin parmi les cohortes récentes. This paper compares male versus female income and unemployment for three cohorts of university graduates between 1978 and 1988. Results show that gender became a weaker predictor of these outcomes, with the female-male earning ratio growing from 84% to 91% over this period. Nonetheless, a notable wage gap remained in later cohorts, and for one cohort income disparities widened with time in the labour market. Moreover, only a relatively small portion of the earnings gap could be attributed to male-female differences in market endowments. The authors interpret these results as illustrating gender segregation within occupations that result in disparate earning trajectories. Also, it is suggested that while the wage gap will likely continue to shrink, future patterns of inequality among graduates may become increasingly uneven, especially since real wages are declining among recent cohorts.     

Chivalry and solidarity in ultimatum games

We report the results of ultimatum game experiments designed to test for differences in the behavior of women and men. Women's proposals are on average more generous than men's, regardless of the sex of the partner, and women respondents are more likely to accept an offer of a given amount. A given offer is more likely to be accepted if it comes from a woman; we term this result chivalry . Women paired with women almost never fail to reach an agreement; we term this result solidarity . Age, earnings, and race also significantly affect proposals and the rates of rejection.