Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
75
result(s) for
"Edwards, Mark Evan"
Sort by:
Paradoxes of Providing Rural Social Services: The Case of Homeless Youth
Economic and demographic changes in rural areas continue to introduce big-city problems in small towns. These communities' ability and willingness to respond are likely to be influenced by the geography, culture, and array of organizations in rural places. But how these characteristics of rural places shape local response is hard to predict and as yet unexplored. This article reports data from interviews with social-service providers and homeless youth in a rural county in the northwestern United States, drawing insights from both groups about the challenges of providing social services in rural places. Findings about drug use, sexual abuse and prostitution in rural communities illustrate how aspects of a rural context can influence the way small towns address social problems.
Journal Article
Restricted opportunities, personal choices, ineffective policies: What explains food insecurity in Oregon?
This study examines the extent to which household demographics, local economic and social conditions, and federal food security programs explain the likelihood of household food insecurity in Oregon. Between 1999 and 2001, Oregon had the highest average rate of hunger in the nation and ranked in the top five states with respect to food insecurity. Statistical analyses using a multivariate logit model reveal that food insecurity is influenced by much more than demographics and individual choices. County-level factors such as residential location (urban versus rural) and housing costs significantly affect the likelihood that families will be food insecure.
Journal Article
IDENTIFYING FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE STATE-SPECIFIC HUNGER RATES IN THE U.S.: A SIMPLE ANALYTIC METHOD FOR UNDERSTANDING A PERSISTENT PROBLEM
An existing measure of food insecurity with hunger in the United States may serve as an effective indicator of quality of life. State level differences in that measure can reveal important differences in quality of life across places. In this study, we advocate and demonstrate two simple methods by which analysts can explore state-specific contributions to state-specific hunger rates. Using existing survey data and the U.S. Department of Agriculture measure of household food insecurity with hunger, we illustrate how comparing group-specific hunger rates within states and how the demographic method of standardization can both be used to assess how a state's population and local characteristics influence hunger rates and other quality of life indicators associated with hunger.
Journal Article
Occupational Structure and the Employment of American Mothers of Young Children
Explanations for the increase of employment for American mothers with young children have focused on women's motivations and skills or on increased wages. Instead, this analysis considers how access to professional and managerial occupations may explain this employment trend. Relying on Current Population Survey data (1968-1995), the study reports that growing availability of these occupations explains less than 1/4 of employment growth. The percentage of full-time employed newer mothers in professional and managerial occupations, while having grown substantially over time, remains relatively small. Part-time employment does not explain the trend. Relatively high rates of full-time work, even for low-prestige occupations, affirm existing research emphasizing family economic need and validate questions about the structure of work for accommodating family obligations. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Journal Article
Uncertainty and the Rise of the Work-Family Dilemma
Existing research argues that women's wages, consumerism, and changing attitudes dismantled the male bread-winner system. Families' economic need is dismissed with the suggestion that mothers' rhetoric of \"need\" was a smoke screen to defend against social stigma for working mothers. Drawing on biennial data from 1965 to 1987, I suggest that consumptive certainty of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to economic uncertainty in the 1970s and beyond. Economic uncertainty provided impetus, legitimacy, and justification for young families to adopt new work-family arrangements. Hence, economic uncertainty is conceptualized as a real circumstance that substantiates families' reasonable perceptions of need.
Journal Article
Education and Occupations: Reexamining the Conventional Wisdom about Later First Births among American Mothers
Using biannual Current Population Survey data, this paper reexamines the question of how education and occupations led to the postponement of first births among American mothers in the 1970s through 1990s. Analytical methods in earlier investigations predispose researchers to favor an \"investment\" model of education's effects, but an alternative method used in this analysis suggests that college attainment's major effect on age at first birth is primarily the result of years spent childless in college. Mothers-to-be in higher prestige occupations did delay motherhood longer than did those in other occupations. This study extends earlier research by examining whether or not conclusions drawn about all women (with and without children) apply to the majority of women-those who become mothers. The expansion of higher education, higher prestige occupations, and their impact on work and family decisions are discussed.
Journal Article
Institutional Barriers to Taking Good Advice: A Comment on \Authorizing Family Science\
Edwards identifies three categories of social organizational influence on the communication practices that Knapp identifies in a previous article, suggesting reasons why researchers fall into these practices and illustrating how this array of institutional pressures makes it hard to take his advice. He argues that the status quo in family science writing is maintained by the position of family science in the academy relative to other sciences.
Journal Article
Do Attitudes and Personality Characteristics Affect Socioeconomic Outcomes? The Case of Welfare Use by Young Women
Objective. We estimate a model of social‐psychological determinants of entry into Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the primary cash welfare program in the United States until 1996. Methods. Using information from the youngest cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we estimate logit models of the probability of ever participating in AFDC and hazard models of the timing until first use of AFDC. Results. We find strong associations between welfare use and several attitudes and personality characteristics, but with two exceptions, most of the associations are not robust to the inclusion of exogenous background characteristics. There is consistent, strong evidence that positive attitudes toward school lower the likelihood of using welfare and increase duration until first receipt. Family background and social environment characteristics show strong robust effects. Conclusions. Our results point to relatively weak evidence for the hypothesis that individual attitudes in adolescence have a significant impact on initial welfare receipt.
Journal Article