One parent or two? The intertwining of American marriage and fertility patterns

Marriage and fertility in the United States have become less firmly entwined as more women bear children without marrying and more couples with children divorce. Today a sizeable number of children are expected to spend a portion of their childhood in one-parent households. Despite the trends in illegitimacy and divorce, the actual effect of out-of-wedlock childbearing on the living arrangements of children has not been fully explicated. Using the National Survey of Family Growth Cycle III, this paper estimates the probability that children aged 0–13 in 1982 are living in two-parent households, controlling for their mothers' marital statuses at their births. We find that marital status at birth is an important predictor of household structure at later ages for both white and black populations; however, the childhood environment is actually quite elastic as women marry, divorce, remarry, and redivorce.     

Working children: the health and safety issue

Recent evidence has emerged that in Britain, like the US, many children below the official minimum school leaving age, are working. In many cases, the work is illegal. Research in the US suggests that many working children risk accidents and other hazards to health. Evidence from Britain on the health and safety aspects of child labour is of a more fragmentary nature, but enough exists to suggest a need for greater vigilance.     

The experience of sole mothers balancing paid work with care for a child with a disability

There are increasing numbers of families in Australia headed by sole parents, but little is known about the experiences of those who also care for a child with a disability. Additional caring responsibilities have previously been shown to impact on the work participation of parents. This study involved qualitative analyses of interview data conducted with sole mothers with school‐aged children with disability (N = 11). Thematic analysis revealed four themes that enabled and supported participation in the workforce: social support; managing appointments; characteristics of the workplace; and the role of the school. Results suggest the importance of practical help from family and friends in facilitating participation in paid employment. Additionally, the importance of flexible appointment scheduling on the part of service providers was highlighted, as well as the importance of workplace flexibility and supportive workplace cultures. Such factors were important in supporting sole mothers to balance work with care, with important implications for personal and family wellbeing.     

Preference for realistic art predicts support for Brexit

Following the UK’s EU referendum in June 2016, there has been considerable interest from scholars in understanding the characteristics that differentiate Leave supporters from Remain supporters. Since Leave supporters score higher on conscientiousness but lower on neuroticism and openness, and given their general proclivity toward conservatism, we hypothesized that preference for realistic art would predict support for Brexit. Data on a large nationally representative sample of the British population were obtained, and preference for realistic art was measured using a four‐item binary choice test. Controlling for a range of personal characteristics, we found that respondents who preferred all four realistic paintings were 15–20 percentage points more likely to support Leave than those who preferred zero or one realistic paintings. This effect was comparable to the difference in support between those with a degree and those with no education, and was robust to controlling for the respondent’s party identity.     

The Effect of Evaluator Masculinity on Dyadic Hiring Decisions

Gender Issues - Research examining gender disparities in the workplace tends to focus on individual behavior rather than the behavior of teams or dyads, yet important workplace decisions such as...     

The recruitment and selection of hospital medical consultants

Abstract

The literature on selection has been dominated in recent decades by the ‘prediction’ paradigm. Such an approach requires a substantial number of positions to be filled in order to compute validity coefficients. There are other approaches, using a different paradigm, when concentrated on adjusting the organization and the employee. Here careful analysis of job demands is essential. This article describes such an analysis, taking the medical consultant as an example. The method can be used in an iterative way. It is useful when one has to work with small numbers of positions.