A marriage trichotomy and its applications

This paper promotes research methods specific to men, the new focus of fertility and family planning studies (especially in sub-Saharan Africa). I propose a novel marriage categorization based on married men’s intentions to take another wife. The three marriage groups are currently monogamous men who intend to remain so, currently monogamous men who intend to become polygynous, and currently polygynous men. The first analysis demonstrates that typical marriage analyses may misclassify men who intend to become polygynous. Applications of the marriage trichotomy illustrate that men with varying marital intentions have differing desires regarding fertility and family planning.     

Why the rise in adolescent fertility rates in the Dominican Republic in the 1990s?

Despite concern over high pregnancy rates and levels of risk for sexually transmittedinfections, adolescent fertility rates in the Dominican Republic have not changed substantially since the early 1980's, and actually increased during the early to mid 1990s. The present study was undertaken to assess the factors contributing to the recent rise in fertility among Dominican adolescents. The findings suggest that although contraceptive use among adolescents and young adults has increased, this has been more than offset by ominous trends on other determinants of fertility. Among these are declines in mean age at first sex and first marriage/union without a commensurate decline in mean age at first contraceptive use, and stubbornly high discontinuation rates for oral contraceptives andcondoms. There is also some evidence that rates of induced abortion among adolescents may have increased, without which adolescent fertility rates would have been even higher. Demand for children among Dominican adolescents remains strong, suggesting that efforts to reduce the current high prevalence of risky sexual behaviors need to influence social norms in order to be successful.     

The role of coping and problem drinking in men's abuse of female partners: test of a path model

This article examines the relationship of coping and problem drinking to men's abusive behavior towards female partners. While previous research has demonstrated a consistent association between problem drinking and male abuse of intimate partners, virtually no studies have assessed the role of coping in relation to men's violence. Furthermore, multivariate studies have not examined how these factors operate together to increase risk for abusive behavior. An ethnically diverse sample of 147 men in a court-mandated program for domestic violence offenders completed questionnaires at the first session. Path modeling was conducted to test the extent to which coping and problem drinking predicted both physical and psychological abuse. In addition, the relationships of problem drinking and physical abuse to injury of the men's female partners were examined. Results indicated that both the use of avoidance and problem-solving coping to deal with relationship problems were related indirectly to abusive behavior through problem drinking. Greater use of avoidance coping strategies was more likely among problem drinkers. By contrast, men who used higher levels of problem-solving coping were less likely to be problem drinkers. Avoidance, but not problem-solving coping also was directly and positively related to physical and psychological abuse. Men identified as problem drinkers were more likely to use both physical and psychological abuse. Finally, greater use of physical violence was strongly related to higher levels of injury among female partners, and served to mediate the relationship between problem drinking and injury. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to the identification of risk and protective factors for men's violent behavior toward intimate female partners and implications for developing intervention strategies.     

Misattributions to crowding: Blaming crowding for nondensity-caused events

Three field studies and a laboratory experiment investigated the effects of disconfirmed expectations and unattained goals, varying independently of density, on attributions to crowding. Studies 1 and 2 found that positively and negatively disconfirmed time expectations elicited greater attributions to crowding than confirmed time expectations. The second field study also showed that students not attaining their course registration goals made stronger crowding attributions than students who obtained their desired courses. The expectancy disconfirmation results were replicated in a laboratory experiment. Disconfirmed performance expectations, whether positive or negative, produced stronger attributions to crowding than confirmed expectations. The final study in this series demonstrated that crowding attributions can occur despite the presence of other plausible environmental and nonenvironmental causal factors. Taken together, these results show that factors operating independently of density can influence crowding attributions in high-density environments.     

Know thy self,know thy leader: Contributions of a pattern-oriented approach to examining leader perceptions

This study investigated how patterns of traits in self and ideal leader profiles were related to one another, beyond the individual effects of each trait. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify and describe profiles of self leader and ideal leader perceptions. Four profiles for self leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Narcissistic, Anti-Prototypical) and four profiles for ideal leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, Anti-Prototypical) were identified. Additional analyses examined the association between self and ideal leader profiles; gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were added to the model as predictors of that association. Prototypical and Laissez-Faire self leaders tended to prefer an ideal leader who was similar to themselves, whereas Narcissistic and Anti-Prototypical self leaders had more diffuse preferences in ideal leaders. Gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were only associated with self leader profiles. Results support, yet contribute beyond, previous findings for the similarity hypothesis.     

Redistributing Income and Relative Efficiency

This article considers the relative efficiency of marginally redistributing income from high- to low-income households. Additional spending on a negative income tax is compared with spending on an earnings or a wage subsidy. One set of reforms imposes the same burden on the nonpoor, and another set redistributes the same net benefit to the working poor. Additional spending on a negative income tax is more efficient than spending a similar amount on an earnings subsidy (the Earned Income Tax Credit), for some reforms and parameters. The wage subsidy is the most efficient, independent of parameters or type of reform.     

Polygyny and African couple research

Fertility and family planning research has recently begun to focus on couples, rather than solely on women. High levels of polygyny in sub-Saharan Africa create two interesting problems for couple analyses. First, some men match with multiple wives in a given sample. Hence observations of a dependent variable that are a function of the responses from a polygynous man are not statistically independent. To correct for this, we propose that researchers use the method of generalized estimating equations. The second problem occurs when survey questions do not properly account for men having multiple partners. Variables constructed from such questions may contain error. Until better data are available, we propose that researchers randomly select a wife for each polygynous man to reduce the effects of this error. We illustrate these ideas by studying the determinants of couples having innovative family planning behaviors and attitudes in Niger.     

THE EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED AND ACTUAL FINANCIAL LITERACY ON FINANCIAL BEHAVIORS

A combined measure of financial literacy that includes both a test score of actual financial literacy and a self‐rating of overall financial literacy is used in this study. We find that the combined measure appears to provide greater understanding about how financial literacy affects financial behaviors. A large national survey of U.S. adults and households (n = 28,146) was used to investigate how this overall financial literacy is likely to change financial behaviors across five financial topics: credit cards, investments, loans, insurance, and financial advice. For each topic, we include 4–5 financial behaviors (22 in total) to demonstrate the consistency of the findings within and across topics. Although we are unable to identify a causal relationship, the results from the probit analysis show that both actual and perceived financial literacy appear to influence financial behaviors and that perceived financial literacy may be as important as actual financial literacy. (JEL D14, G00)