Standing on Their Own Two Feet: How the New Public Charge Rules Could Impact Non-European LPR Applicants

Population Research and Policy Review - In February 2020, the U.S. government began to implement a new Public Charge rule that greatly expands the definition of “public charge” when...     

Heteroscedastic Global Tests that the Regression Parameters for Two or More Independent Groups are Identical

Simulation results are reported on methods that allow both within group and between group heteroscedasticity when testing the hypothesis that independent groups have identical regression parameters. The methods are based on a combination of extant techniques, but their finite-sample properties have not been studied. Included are results on the impact of removing all leverage points or just bad leverage points. The method used to identify leverage points can be important and can improve control over the Type I error probability. Results are illustrated using data from the Well Elderly II study.     

Changing Frameworks in Attitudes Toward Abortion

For more than two decades, legal abortion has been the subject of heated political debate and adversarial social movement activity; however, national polls have shown little change in aggregate levels of support for abortion. This analysis examines how the determinants of abortion attitudes have changed between 1977 and 1996, using data from the General Social Surveys. While in early time periods, whites were more approving of abortion than blacks, that pattern had reversed by the late 1980s. After controlling for other factors, older people are more accepting of abortion throughout the two decades, while gender is generally unrelated to abortion views. Catholic religion weakens slightly as a predictor of abortion attitudes, while religious fundamentalism and political liberalism increase in explanatory power. The associations between attitudinal correlates and abortion approval also change over this time period. Religiosity becomes a less powerful predictor of abortion attitudes, while respondents' attitude toward sexual freedom and belief in the sanctity of human life increase in their predictive power. Support for gender inequality remains a weak but stable predictor of abortion attitudes. This pattern of results suggests that the public is influenced more by the pro-life framework of viewing abortion than by the pro-choice perspective.     

Becoming Custodial Dads: Exploring Parenting Among Low‐Income and Working‐Class African American Fathers

The authors use an ecological framework and grounded theoretical analysis to explore the circumstances in which working‐class and low‐income custodial African American fathers gain custody of their children, their transition from part‐time to full‐time parents, and the role of support networks in enhancing or inhibiting these men's parenting. Twenty‐four men from an impoverished Midwestern urban area participated in the study. The findings suggest that these men, and perhaps others sharing their demographic profiles, generally become parents by default and are often reluctant to take on a full‐time, single parenting role. Adaptation to the role seems to be enhanced by these men's use of extended kin support networks and shared living arrangements. However, low wages, a lack of sufficient assistance from public assistance programs, and informal custody arrangements often inhibit their fathering.     

Bankrupt Rhetoric: How Misleading Information Affects Knowledge about Social Security

Most citizens know little about politics. Scholars often attributepolitical ignorance to individual-level factors, but we concentrateon the quality of the information environment. Employing a combinationof experimental methods and content analysis, we code statementsfrom the 1998–99 debate over Social Security reform aseither misleading or not misleading. Then, using surveys conductedduring the debate, we examine the impact of individual- andenvironmental-level variables on political knowledge about theprogram’s future. We show that misleading statements aboutSocial Security’s future cause some citizens to get animportant fact about the program wrong. More precisely, manycitizens mistakenly believe that Social Security will run outof money because political elites occasionally use words thatlead to overly pessimistic assessments of the program’sfinancial future. Our findings have important implications forpolicymakers who are attempting to remake America’s largestfederal program, scholars who study citizen competence, andcitizens in a representative democracy.     

Determinants and Consequences of Social Trust*

This article provides an overview of social trust, examining its various aspects and components. Trust is best understood in a sociological sense by focusing on its important relational characteristic. Following this lead, the article discusses briefly how social trust relates to social capital and examines factors that shape the development of social trust, along with outcomes related to variations in trust, classifying them by analytical level (i.e., individual, community, group, organizational, and societal). The article concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and by identifying some important questions that have not yet been adequately addressed.     

How Welfare Policies Affect Adolescents' School Outcomes: A Synthesis of Evidence From Experimental Studies

Using data from 8 random assignment studies and employing meta‐analytic techniques, this article provides systematic evidence that welfare and work policies targeted at low‐income parents have small adverse effects on some school outcomes among adolescents ages 12 to 18 years at follow‐up. These adverse effects were observed mostly for school performance outcomes and occurred in programs that required mothers to work or participate in employment‐related activities and those that encouraged mothers to work voluntarily. The most pronounced negative effects on school outcomes occurred for the group of adolescents who had a younger sibling, possibly because of the increased home and sibling care responsibilities they assumed as their mothers increased their employment.     

Psychological Control and Autonomy Granting: Opposite Ends of a Continuum or Distinct Constructs?

This article explores the relationship between parental psychological control and parental autonomy granting, and the relations between these constructs and indicators of adolescent psychosocial functioning, in a sample of 9,564 adolescents from grades 9 to 12. Participants completed a comprehensive parenting questionnaire as well as several measures of psychosocial adjustment. Confirmatory factor analyses of the parenting items revealed discrete factors for psychological control and autonomy granting, suggesting that these are distinct parenting constructs rather than opposite ends of a parental control continuum. Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that these factors were weakly correlated and differentially related to adolescent internalizing symptoms. Findings have implications for future conceptualization and measurement of psychological control and autonomy granting, and for research examining their effects on adolescent development.