The term "gold digger" is often applied to women and to the younger spouse in marriages with unconventional age diffferences. While this follows the view that women derive their class position from their husbands, the status gain or loss in age heterogamous studies has not been empirically tested. To examine status gain or loss in these marriages,…

Public enforcement of private child support obligations transfers income from nonresident parents to resident parents (mostly mothers) or, if the mother is receiving welfare, to the state. This paper reviews and synthesizes existing literature on the effects of this transfer of income and presents new empirical evidence on the effects of stronger…

This study analyzed why child poverty rates were so much higher in Great Britain than in Western Germany during the 1990s, focusing on why child poverty exit rates were lower and child poverty entry rates were higher in Great Britain. Researchers used a form of decomposition analysis comparing cross-nationally the prevalence of events that…

This study investigated changes in marital relations during the transition to parenthood, including changes in the stability and quality of the relationship and in marital support. Subjects were 95 families studied from the beginning of the mother's pregnancy until the children were 10-12 months old. Parents differed in previous parental…

Unemployment and the resulting financial hardships which occur are among the most difficult circumstances imposed upon families. A study was undertaken to identify the sources and degree of stress experienced by families affected by economic displacement through unemployment. A sample of unemployed families (N=146) responded to components of the…

The Goodman technique of log linear analysis is ideal for family research, because it is designed for categorical (non-quantitative) variables. Variables are dichotomized (for example, married/divorced, childless/with children) or otherwise categorized (for example, level of permissiveness, life cycle stage). Contingency tables are then…

The social reform and opening-up in Chinese society in the last three decades have resulted in overall changes in almost every aspect of social life of its people. As an important indicator in these changes, English has become an important tool in education for students to move ahead to a higher level of schooling, and better jobs in the…

The Gini index of household income indicates that, after rising for the past 2 decades, the inequality of income distribution in the United States stabilized between 1987 and 1991. This paper examines this apparent stabilization to determine whether other measures can corroborate the Gini index and to identify any changes in underlying factors…

This study explored the assumption of age-related differences among two groups of Irish women regarding their reported assessment of the value of family and marriage related tasks experienced in young adulthood. Six of Havighurst's tasks for young adulthood relate to marriage and family. These are: (1) selecting a mate; (2) learning to live with a…

This paper presents an economic model of the relationship between time allocated to learning activities at home and achievement in school. The model is contrasted to four alternative models of the home-school relationship. Data from a 1975 survey of the parents of 887 elementary school children from one New York State school district are used to…

Executives on the move are not the only groups interested in incorporating school enrollment into their decisions about housing choices. This paper examines this question and three others involving (1) types of families considering school enrollment in making housing decisions; (2) the criteria entering into parents' decisions; and (3) the…

Over 11,000 parents of pre-high-school-age children from the Archdiocese of Washington (D.C.) rated the importance of eight factors which influenced their decisions to send their children to Catholic schools. The sample included about 2,000 non-Catholic parents with children in Catholic schools and about 1,700 Catholic parents with children not in…

Using 1975 and 1976 data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study examines the significance of the 1975 recession for families with children under 18. This study attempted to ascertain what families with children were most susceptible to having an unemployed breadwinner in 1975 and why some family heads were more susceptible to…

This paper examines changes in the distribution of family income over 30 years, estimating the effect of parental resources on college education, and noting the fact that families at the bottom of the income distribution were much poorer in the 1990s than the 1970s, while the opposite was true for families in the top quartile. Data came from three…

Extensive economic changes may be brought about by divorce. In an attempt to demonstrate that the degree of financial dislocation following divorce depends on three factors--custody arrangements, wife's employment, and social class--data on men's and women's employment, income, and support payments were gathered for 222 divorcing families. Total…