Family Publications Research

• Lundberg, S., (Forthcoming), Gender and Household Decisionmaking, Frontiers in Gender Economics, Bettio, F., Routledge.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S., (Forthcoming), Childbearing Decisions: Can Attitude Measures Play a Role in Causal Modeling?, Creating the Next Generation: Social, Economic, and Psychological Processes Underlying Fertility in Developed Countires, Booth, A.; Crouter, N.; Erlbaum, L..
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.; Choi, H.-j.; Joesch, J., (Forthcoming), Sons, Daughters, Wives, and the Labour Market Outcomes of West German Men, Labour Economics.
  
  We find a strong association between family status and labor market outcomes for recent cohorts of West German men in the German Socio-Economic Panel. Living with a partner and living with a child both have substantial positive effects on earnings and work hours. These effects persist in individual fixed effects models that control for correlation in time-invariant unobservables that affect both family and work outcomes, though the inclusion of length of marriage reduces the effects of children. Child gender also matters — a first son increases fathers' work hours by 100 hours per year more than a first daughter, and positive effects of sons on work hours and earnings are particularly strong for men with higher levels of education. There is evidence of son “preference” in the probability that a German man is observed to be coresiding with a son — men are more likely to remain in the same household with a male child than a female child.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R., (Forthcoming), Family Decisionmaking, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Durlauf, S. N.; Blume, L. E., Palgrave Macmillan.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.; Romich, J.; Tsang, K. P., (Forthcoming), Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Making Patterns Between Youth Adolescents and Parents, Journal of Research on Adolescence.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Ellis, M., Holloway, S. R., Wright, R., and M. East. 2007. The Effects of Mixed-Race Households in Residential Segregation. Urban Geography 28(6): 554-577.
  
  This paper investigates how household-scale racial mixing affects measurements of neighborhood-scale racial segregation. This topic is increasingly important as mixed-race households are becoming more common across the United States. Specifically, our research asks two questions: What is the sensitivity of neighborhood racial segregation measures to levels of household-scale racial mixing? And what is the relationship between neighborhood racial diversity and the presence of mixed-race households? We answer these questions with an analysis that uses confidential long-form data from the 1990 U.S. census. These data provide information on household racial composition at the tract level. The results show that racial mixing within households has meaningful effects on measurements of neighborhood segregation, suggesting that patterns of mixed-race household formation and residential location condition understandings of neighborhood segregation dynamics. We demonstrate that mixed-race households are a disproportionate source of neighborhood diversity in the least racially plural neighborhoods. This article also reflects on the complications that mixed-race households pose for the interpretations of neighborhood-scale segregation and cautions against drawing conclusions about residential desegregation based on racial mixing in households.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.; McLanahan, S.; Rose, E., (2007), Child gender and father involvement in fragile families, Demography, 44: 1, 79-92.
  
  In this article, we use data from the first two waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the effects of child gender on father involvement and to determine if gender effects differ by parents' marital status. We examine several indicators of father involvement, including whether the father acknowledges "ownership" of the child, whether the parents live together when the child is one year old, and whether the father provides financial support when the child is one year old. We find some evidence that child gender is associated with unmarried father involvement around the time of the child's birth: sons born to unmarried parents are more likely than daughters to receive the father's surname, especially if the mother has no other children. However, one year after birth, we find very little evidence that child gender is related to parents' living arrangements or the amount of time or money fathers invest in their children. In contrast, and consistent with previous research, fathers who are married when their child is born are more likely to live with a son than with a daughter one year after birth. This pattern supports an interpretation of child gender effects based on parental beliefs about the importance of fathers for the long-term development of sons.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R. A., (2007), The American Family and Family Economics, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2): 3.
  
  Gary Becker's path-breaking Treatise on the Family (1981) subjected individuals' decisions about sex, marriage, childbearing, and childrearing to rational choice analysis. The American family has changed radically in recent decades; we survey these changes as well as the ongoing effort to understand partnering, parenting, and care of the elderly as results of maximizing choices made by individuals. First, we describe the recent changes in the American family: the separation of sex, marriage, and childbearing; fewer children and smaller households; converging work and education patterns for men and women; class divergence in partnering and parenting strategies; and the replacement of family functions and home production by government programs and market transactions. Second, we examine recent work in family economics that attempts to explain these changes. Third, we point out some challenging areas for further analysis and highlight issues of commitment in two primary family relationships: those between men and women, and those between parents and children. Finally, we consider the effectiveness of policies to target benefits to certain family members (for instance, children) or to promote marriage and fertility.
  
  
• Magnuson, K. A.; Meyers, M. K.; Waldfogel, J., (2007), Public Funding and Enrollment in Formal Child Care in the 1990s, The Social service review, 81: 1, 47.
  
  Although the share of all 3- and 4-year-old children enrolled in center-based care and early education has grown steadily in recent decades, rates of enrollment for children from low-income families still lag behind those for children from families with high incomes. During the 1990s, growing public funding for compensatory preschool education and means-tested child-care assistance had the potential to increase the availability of free or low-cost formal child-care arrangements and thus the attendance of low-income children. This article analyzes repeated cross-sectional data on formal child-care attendance from the October Current Population Survey as well as data on state-level funding. The results indicate that increases in public funding are positively associated with the probability that low-income young children attended formal care. These results also suggest that gaps in formal care between low- and high-income families would have widened in the absence of public investments.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. D.; Garfinkel, I.; McLanahan, S. S.; Ku, I., (2007), The Impact of Child Support Enforcement Policy on Nonmarital Childbearing, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 26: 1, 79-98.
  
  The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives that encourage unwed motherhood. This suggests that more stringent child support enforcement creates incentives that reduce the likelihood of nonmarital childbearing, particularly among women with a significant chance of needing public assistance in the event of a nonmarital birth and their male partners. We investigate this hypothesis with a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44 before marriage and during periods of non-marriage following divorce or widowhood. The estimates indicate that women living in states with more effective child support enforcement are less likely to bear children when unmarried, especially if they are young, never-married, or black. The findings suggest that improved child support enforcement may be a potent intervention for reducing nonmarital childbearing.
  
  
• Romich, J. L., (2007), Sharing the Work: Mother-Child Relationships and Household Management, Journal of Early Adolescence, 27(2): 192-222.
  
  This manuscript reports on a study of how low-income employed single mothers and young adolescents manage household daily life. Analysis is based on longitudinal ethnographic data collected from families of 35 young adolescents over 3 years following the 1996 welfare reforms. Although mothers worked, young adolescents spent time unsupervised, performed household chores, and provided child care for younger siblings. Mother-youth relationships marked by mutual understanding acted as resources that enabled the families to successfully navigate daily life. Discussion focuses on how relationship quality moderates the impact of maternal employment and household work on young adolescent well-being. Implications for further research on children's household work are considered.
  
  
• Durfee, A. and Meyers, M.K. (2006). Who Gets What from Government? Distributional Consequences of Child Care Assistance Policies. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68:733-748.
  
  Given the fragmented structure of child-care assistance in the United States, it has been difficult to obtain accurate estimates of which families are assisted, through which mechanisms, and at what level. Making use of survey data from New York City, we analyze the distribution of several forms of public child-care assistance. Results suggest that about 40% of all families with young children receive some form of child-care assistance. Considering all forms of assistance, the distribution of child-care help is targeted in both expected and some unexpected ways. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of U.S. child-care policies governing access and benefit levels.
  
  
• Gee, G. C.; Takeuchi, D.; Chen, J.; Spencer, M. S.; See, S.; Kuester, O. A.; Tran, D., (2006), Social Support as a Buffer for Perceived Unfair Treatment Among Filipino Americans: Differences Between San Francisco and Honolulu, American journal of public health, 96(4): 677.
  
  Objectives. We examined whether perceived unfair treatment is associated with health conditions, whether social support moderates this association, and whether such relationships differ by location. Methods. Data were derived from the 1998–1999 Filipino American Community Epidemiological Study, a cross-sectional investigation of 2241 Filipino Americans living in San Francisco and Honolulu. Negative binomial regression was used to examine potential 2-way and 3-way interactions between support, unfair treatment, and city (San Francisco vs Honolulu). Results. Reports of unfair treatment were associated with increased illness after control for education, employment, acculturation, ethnic identity, negative life events, gender, and age. Furthermore, 2-way interactions were found between instrumental support and city, emotional support and city, and unfair treatment and city, and a 3-way interaction was shown between instrumental support, unfair treatment, and city. Conclusions. Local contexts may influence the types of treatment encountered by members of ethnic minority groups, as well as their resources. These factors in turn may have implications for health disparities and well-being.
  
  
• Gornick, J. C.; Meyers, M. K., (2006), L'egalite des sexes : un enjeu pour les reformes - Entre travail remunere et responsabilites familiales, le role des Etats providence - Un regard americain sur la prise en compte du care dans les politiques sociales europeennes, Revue franu’caise des affaires sociales. Cahier de jurisprudence. Emploi-travail., 60: 1, 187.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lau, A. S.; Takeuchi, D. T.; Alegria, M., (2006), Parent-to-Child Aggression among Asian American Parents: Culture, Context, and Vulnerability, Journal of Marriage and Family, 68(5): 1261-1275.
  
  We examined correlates of lifetime parent-to-child aggression in a representative sample of 1,293 Asian American parents. Correlates examined included nativity, indicators of acculturation, socioeconomic status, family climate, and stressors associated with minority status. Results revealed that Asian Americans of Chinese descent and those who immigrated as youth were more likely to report minor parental aggression; ethnicity and nativity were not associated with severe aggression. Indices of acculturation did not predict risk, but minority status stressors (perceived discrimination, low social standing) predicted risk of both minor and severe aggression. Affective climate differed markedly in families with minor versus severe aggression. Parental aggression in Asian American families may not be cultural per se, but stress associated with immigrant family context may heighten vulnerability.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K & Durfee A. (2006). Who Pays? The Visible and Invisible Costs of Child Care. Politics and Society, 24(1): 109-128.
  
  Although the majority of young children now spend time in nonparental child care, we know relatively little about who provides this care and how its costs are distributed among parents, government, and other family members. In this article we use data from a survey of New York City families with children younger than six to estimate the contribution of parental expenditures, government assistance, and the market value of "donated" caregiving time by family, friends, and relatives. We conclude that uncompensated caregivers provide a substantial share of child care that is "invisible" in conventional economic measures.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. and Jordan, L. (2006). Choice and Accommodation in Parental Child Care Decisions. Community Development, 37(2): 1-19.
  
  As women approach parity with men in their representation in the U.S. labor force, child care has become a critical concern both for families and for community development professionals. In this paper, wereview recent literature on parental child care decisions and on socio-economic differences in child care utilization. We contrast two bodies of theoretical and empirical research on the determinants of child care arrangements, comparing models of individual consumption choice with models of socially constructed or situated patterns of action. This research suggests that parental child care decisions may be best understood as accommodations-- to family and employment demands, social and cultural expectations, available information, and financial, social, and other resources--that often reproduce other forms of economic and social stratification.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Peck, L.R., Davis, E.E., Collins, A., Kreader, J.L., Georges, A., Weber, R., Schexnayder, D., Schroeder. D. and Olson, J.A. (2006). The Dynamics Of Child Care Subsidy Use A Collaborative Study Of Five States. In R. Cabera, R. Hutchens, and L. Peters (eds.), From Welfare to Childcare: What Happens to Young Children When Mothers Exchange Welfare For Work? Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Romich, Jennifer L. (2006). Randomized social policy experiments and research on child development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 27: 136-150.
  
  Randomized social policy experiments (SPEs) are an important methodology for investigating topics in child development. This article provides a framework for understanding how evidence from SPEs can add to knowledge about child development. The use of SPEs for child development questions to date is summarized and lessons from the applied economics and policy studies literature on the advantages and limitations of experimental data are reviewed. Four principles from the developmental psychology literature are presented with implications for the interpretation of experimental data. A framework for applying SPE evidence on child development must consider that development depends on proximal causes, that development is nonlinear, that processes vary across and within populations and that change has a developmental cost. Design considerations and trade-offs between ideal design and other stakeholder goals are discussed.
  
  
• Bainbridge, J., Meyers, M.K., Tanaka S. and Waldfogel J. (2005). Who Gets an Early Education? Family Income and the Enrollment of 3- to 5-Year- Olds from 1968 to 2000. Social Science Quarterly, 86(3): 724-745.
  
  Objectives. Has inequality in access to early education been growing or lessening over time?
  
  Methods. Using the October Current Population Survey education supplement from 1968 to 2000, we look at three-, four-, and five-year-olds' enrollment in early education—including center-based care, Head Start, nursery school, prekindergarten, and kindergarten.
  
  Results. Our analysis shows a strong link between family income and early education enrollment for three- and four-year-olds, especially when we compare the bottom two and the top two income groups. These differences remain even after controlling for a large variety of factors, including race/ethnicity, maternal employment, family structure, and parental education.
  
  Conclusions. Inequality in early education by income group varies by age of child: it is most pronounced for three-year-olds, who have been the least likely to benefit from public early childhood education programs; it has diminished in the past decade for four-year-olds, who have been increasingly likely to have access to public prekindergarten programs; and it has all but disappeared for the five-year-olds, who now largely attend public kindergarten. This pattern suggests a potentially important role for public policy in closing the gap in early education between children of different income groups.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. (2005). Sons, Daughters, and Parental Behavior. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 21(3), 340-356.
  
  The prevalence of son preference and its implications for family behaviour in developing countries have received a great deal of scholarly attention, but child-gender bias is believed to be empirically unimportant in wealthy, non- traditional societies. Studies by sociologists and psychologists during the past 30 years, however, have documented consistent discrepancies between the behaviour of parents of sons and parents of daughters—boys tend to increase marital stability and marital satisfaction relative to girls, and fathers spend more time with, and are more involved with, sons than daughters. In recent years, economists have begun to contribute to the child-gender literature, re-examining the effects of sons and daughters on family structure and parental involvement with larger samples and greater concern for possible sources of selection bias. Other economic outcomes, such as market work and earnings, have also been studied, and some investigators have exploited the randomness of child gender as a source of exogenous variation in parental behaviour. In general, recent results suggest that child gender does affect family stability and the time allocation of parents, but it is not clear whether these responses reflect parental preferences for boys rather than girls or differences in the constraints parents face.
  
  
• Lundberg, S.(2005). Men and Islands: Dealing with the Family in Empirical Labor Economics. Labour Economics. August: 591-612. (Presented as the Adam Smith Lecture, European Association of Labour Economists Annual Meeting, 2004).
  
  Recent research in family economics emphasizes the interdependence of men's decisions about work and family, and should prompt a reconsideration of the standard practice in labor economics of ‘controlling’ for marital status and children in the analysis of labor market outcomes. Several factors contribute to a concern about work-family simultaneity. First, married men behave very differently from single men, and fathers from non-fathers. Second, transitions into and out of marriage, cohabitation, and custodial parenthood respond to current economic conditions, and not just to fixed individual characteristics. Finally, demographic changes in developed countries have left marriage and parenthood optional, economically ambiguous, and relatively unstable. Labor economists need to recognize that a man's current partnership and parenting status are current choices that can change, that are expected to change, and that respond to the social, economic, and institutional forces that also condition labor market behavior.
  
  
• Romich, Jennifer L. & Jennifer Simmelink. (2005). Piecing it all together (teaching case). In H. B. Weiss, H. Kreider, M. E. Lopez and C. Chatman (Eds.), Preparing Educators for Family Involvement: From theory to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Gornick, J.C., and Meyers, M.K. (2004). Supporting a Dual-Earner / Dual- Carer Society: Lessons From Abroad. In J. Heymann and C. Beem (eds.) Societal Crossroads: Striving for Democracy and Equality in the Era of Working Families. New York: The New Press.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. (2004). "Investments in Sons and Daughters: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," (with Elaina Rose)., in Family Investments in Children: Resources and Behaviors that Promote Success, eds. Ariel Kalil and Thomas DeLeire, Erlbaum, pp. 163-180.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Magnuson K.A., Meyers, M.K., Ruhm, C.J., and Waldfogel J. (2004). Inequality in Preschool Education and School Readiness. American Education Research Journal, 41(1), 115-157).
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Rosenbaum, D., Ruhm, C., and Waldfogel, J. (2004). Inequality in Early Childhood Education and Care: What Do We Know? In K. Neckerman (ed.), Social Inequality. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  
  Inequality in income, earnings, and wealth has risen dramatically in the United States over the past three decades. Most research into this issue has focused on the causes— global trade, new technology, and economic policy—rather than the consequences of inequality. In Social Inequality, a group of the nation’s leading social scientists opens a wide-ranging inquiry into the social implications of rising economic inequality. Beginning with a critical evaluation of the existing research, they assess whether the recent run-up in economic inequality has been accompanied by rising inequality in social domains such as the quality of family and neighborhood life, equal access to education and health care, job satisfaction, and political participation.
  
  Marcia Meyers and colleagues find that many low-income mothers cannot afford market-based child care, which contributes to inequality both at the present time—by reducing maternal employment and family income—and through the long-term consequences of informal or low-quality care on children’s educational achievement. At the other end of the educational spectrum, Thomas Kane links the growing inequality in college attendance to rising tuition and cuts in financial aid. Neil Fligstein and Taek-Jin Shin show how both job security and job satisfaction have decreased for low-wage workers compared with their higher-paid counterparts. Those who fall behind economically may also suffer diminished access to essential social resources like health care. John Mullahy, Stephanie Robert, and Barbara Wolfe discuss why higher inequality may lead to poorer health: wider inequality might mean increased stress-related ailments for the poor, and it might also be associated with public health care policies that favor the privileged. On the political front, Richard Freeman concludes that political participation has become more stratified as incomes have become more unequal. Workers at the bottom of the income scale may simply be too hard- pressed or too demoralized to care about political participation. Social Inequality concludes with a comprehensive section on the methodological problems involved in disentangling the effects of inequality from other economic factors, which will be of great benefit to future investigators.
  
  While today’s widening inequality may be a temporary episode, the danger is that the current economic divisions may set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of social disadvantage. The most comprehensive review of this quandary to date, Social Inequality maps out a new agenda for research on inequality in America with important implications for public policy.
  
  
• Pettit, Becky. (2004). Moving and Children’s Social Connections: Neighborhood Context and the Consequences of Moving Low-income Families. Sociological Forum, 19:285-311.
  
  Using data from an experimental housing relocation program, this research compares social connections of children in families that move with those of similar children who do not move. Qualitative interview data are used to examine what factors influence the formation of social connections after moving. Results show the impact of moving on children's social connections is influenced by neighborhood context, financial resources, and children's age at the time of the move. Studies of moving during childhood need to pay closer attention to the factors that influence where, when, and why families move.
  
  
• Bainbridge, J., Meyers, M.K. & Waldfogel, J. (2003). Child Care Policy Reform and the Employment of Single Mothers. Social Science Quarterly, 84(4), 771-791.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Gornick, J.C. & Meyers, M.K. (2003). Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  
  Balancing work and family life is a problem affecting a large share of Americans today. Families That Work is a significant contribution to a growing literature on this subject. Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers, both professors of public policy, say the U.S. continues to lag behind other industrialized western nations that have institutionalized social and labor policies that promote an equal division of labor between parents juggling work and family responsibilities. As the structure of the American family continues to change, the authors say, private solutions to solving conflicts between work and family life are no longer tenable. Their book illustrates how the U.S. falls short compared to Canada and many European countries on critical quality-of-life indicators including wage losses associated with working part-time, gender inequality in the labor market and at home, family poverty, and child well-being. In their comparative analysis, they make a strong case for an expanded role by the U.S. government to help decrease the time squeeze on employed parents, enhance the well-being of children, and promote increased gender equity in the workforce and at home.
  
  
• Gornick, J.C., and Meyers, M.K. (2003). Welfare Regimes in Relation to Paid Work and Care. In J.Z. Giele and E. Holst (eds.) Changing Life Patterns in Western Industrial Societies. Netherlands: Elsevier Science
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Dick Startz and Steve Stillman (2003). The Retirement Consumption Puzzle: A Marital Bargaining Approach. Journal of Public Economics, May:1199-1218.
  
  Evidence from several countries reveals a substantial drop in household consumption around the age of retirement that is difficult to explain with life- cycle models. Using food consumption data from more than 550 households from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the years 1979-1986 and 1989-1992, we find that married couple households decrease their expenditures on both food consumed at home and away from home by about 9% following the retirement of the male household head. No significant decrease in consumption is found for single households, either in a sample of males or a pooled sample of single males and females. These results are consistent with a model of marital bargaining in which wives prefer to save more than their husbands do to support an expected longer retirement period, and relative control over household decisions is affected by control over market income. The pattern of the consumption decline, which is increasing in the age gap between husband and wife, lends further support to this interpretation.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Elaina Rose (2003). Child Gender and the Transition to Marriage. Demography, May: 333-349.
  
  We estimate the effect of a child's gender on the mother's probability of marriage or remarriage using data from the PSID Marital History and Childbirth and Adoption History Files. We find that the birth of a son speeds the transition into marriage when the child is born before the mother's first marriage. A competing-risks analysis shows that the positive effect of a son is stronger for marriages to the child's biological father than for other marriages. We find no significant effect of child gender on the mother's remarriage probabilities when the children are born within a previous marriage. These results are consistent with a marital-search model in which sons, more than daughters, increase the value of marriage relative to single parenthood.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Robert Pollak (2003). Efficiency in Marriage.Review of Economics of the Household. September: 153-167.
  
  Economists usually assume that bargaining in marriage leads to efficient outcomes. The most convincing rationale for this assumption is the belief that efficient allocations are likely to emerge from repeated interactions in stationary environments, and that marriage provides such an environment. This paper argues that when a current decision affects future bargaining power, inefficient outcomes are plausible. If the spouses could make binding commitments-in effect, commitments to refrain from exploiting the future bargaining advantage-then the inefficiency would disappear. But spouses seldom can make binding commitments regarding allocation within marriage.
  
  To investigate the efficiency of bargaining within marriage when choices affect future bargaining power, we consider the location decisions of two- earner couples. Initial location decisions are transparent and analytically tractable examples of choices likely to affect future bargaining power, but the logic of our analysis applies to many other decisions. For example, decisions about education, fertility, and labor force participation are also potential sources of inefficiency.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. & Gornick, J. C. (2003). Public or Private Responsibility? Inequality and Early Childhood Education and Care in the Welfare State. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 34(3), 379-411.
  
  Although early childhood education and care provision (ECEC) is increasing in all the industrialized welfare states, institutional arrangements for providing and financing services still vary substantially across countries at similar levels of economic development. These policies have potentially important implications for the reduction of income and labor market inequalities. In this paper we document variation in the institutional arrangements for ECEC in fourteen industrialized countries. Institutional variation is associated with equally varied levels of public responsibility for the care of young children across countries, and between age groups within some countries. The extent to which care is socialized has implications for the reduction of several forms of social inequality.
  
  
• Pettit, Becky, and Sara S. McLanahan. (2003). Residential Mobility and Children’s Social Capital: Evidence From an Experiment. Social Science Quarterly, 84 (3):632-649.
  
  Objective. This article examines the effects of residential mobility on social connections that are likely to affect children's well-being.
  
  Methods. We use data from a survey of participants in a housing experiment in Los Angeles, California to examine whether families that moved from public housing projects to other neighborhoods suffered short-term losses of social capital.
  
  Results. Results indicate that residential mobility is associated with a reduced likelihood of parents talking with the parents of their children's friends. However, the effects of residential mobility on social capital are sensitive to adjustments for poverty levels in destination neighborhoods and factors that influence the probability of moving.
  
  Conclusions. Our results suggest that at least some of the negative effects of moving shown in previous studies may be due to negative selection. That is, families that move may be less successful at developing social ties than families that do not move. This finding suggests that future research on residential mobility needs to pay closer attention to factors that influence why and where families move.
  
  
• Plotnick R. with Inhoe Ku. (2003). Do children from welfare families obtain less schooling?" Demography, 40(1): 151-170.
  
  In this study, we analyzed whether parents' receipt of welfare affects children's educational attainment in early adulthood, independent of its effect through changing family income. We used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with information on parents' welfare receipt over the first 15 years of childhood. Cross-sectional results show that greater exposure to welfare is significantly associated with children's poorer educational attainment. Family fixed-effect regressions also indicate a negative effect of exposure to welfare, but its overall pattern is less consistent. Although exposure to welfare in early childhood has no effect, in adolescence and, to a lesser degree, in middle childhood, its effect is often negative.
  
  
• Abe-Kim, J., D. Takeuchi, and W. Hwang. (2002). Predictors of helpseeking for emotional distress among Chinese Americans: Family Matters. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 70 (5): 1186-1190.
  
  Using data from the Chinese American Psychiatric Epidemiological Study, the authors examined longitudinal predictors of help seeking for emotional distress in a community sample of 1,503 Chinese Americans. Specifically, they assessed the relative contribution of family relational variables (e.g., levels of family support and family conflict) in predicting help seeking for medical, mental health, and informal services. After traditional need, predisposing, and enabling factors were controlled for in hierarchical logistic regression analyses, family conflict predicted both mental health and medical service use, whereas family support was not predictive of help seeking. In addition to family conflict, mental health service use was predicted by negative life events, emotional distress, and insurance coverage. Implications of the findings for assessing and treating Asian American clients are explored.
  
  
• Almgren G., Yamashiro G, and Ferguson M. (2002). Beyond Welfare or Work: Teen Mothers, Household Subsistence Strategies, and Child Development Outcomes. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 29 (3), 125-149.
  
  There is probably no aspect of the work versus welfare debate that is more contested than the effects of welfare use on child development outcomes. Liberals tend to emphasize the detrimental effects of poverty and welfare stigma on children, while conservatives cite the negative socialization that occurs regarding the value of work within welfare dependent families. However, large scale longitudinal studies that have been used to address this question only indirectly measure critical influences on child development such as maternal mental health and do not consider the effect that a range of economic strategies that low-income mothers might undertake may have on their children. In this analysis, we employ data from a longitudinal study of 173 teen-mothers to assess the relative effects of maternal characteristics and economic strategies on the developmental outcomes of their children at time of school entry. Two principal findings emerge. First, over the period from their first teen birth to the reference child's entry into school, the sample subjects used a variety of household economic strategies aside from the simple welfare versus work dichotomy that is commonly used to depict the choices of teen-mothers. Second, while maternal depression appears linked to the prevalence of problem behaviors in early childhood, the particular economic strategies used by the mothers in the sample do not explain any variation in either the prevalence of problem behaviors or in children's learning preparation for school entry. These findings support the perspective that the influence of teen mothers' parenting qualities on child development cannot be assessed through an analysis of their labor force participation, use of welfare, or other strategies of household subsistence.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Elaina Rose (2002). The Effect of Sons and Daughters on Men’s Labor Supply and Wages. Review of Economics and Statistics, May:251-268.
  
  In this paper, we estimate the effects of children and the differential effects of sons and daughters on men's labor supply and hourly wage rates. The responses to fatherhood of two cohorts of men from the PSID sample are examined separately, and we use fixed-effects estimation to control for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that fatherhood significantly increases the hourly wage rates and annual hours of work for men from both cohorts. Most notably, men's labor supply and wage rates increase more in response to the births of sons than to the births of daughters.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Heintze, T. & Wolf, D. (2002). Child Care Subsidies and the Employment of Welfare Recipients. Demography, 39(1), 165-179.
  
  Changing patterns of maternal employment, coupled with stronger work requirements for welfare recipients, are increasing the demand for child care. For many families, the cost of child care creates a financial burden; for mothers with low incomes and those who are former welfare recipients, these costs may be an insurmountable barrier to employment or economic self-sufficiency. Despite increased public spending in this area, the receipt of any child care subsidy appears to be a relatively rare and uncertain event. In this study, we use data from a sample of low-income single mothers (current and recent welfare recipients in California) to estimate the probability of their receiving child care subsidies and the effect of this probability on labor market activity.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. & Lee, J.W. (2002). Working but Poor: How Are Families Faring? Children and Youth Services Review, 25(3), 177-201.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Almgren G and Marcenko, M. (2001). Emergency Room Use Among A Foster Care Sample: The Influence of Placement History, Psychiatric Diagnosis, Chronic Illness and Care Factors. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Journal, 1(1).
  
  Despite the physical, mental, and social health risks of foster children, relatively little attention has been paid to how they interact with emergency medicine. To address the need for more empirical research on this topic, we tested whether demographic characteristics, chronic health conditions, psychiatric disorders, and placement factors predicted ER use among children in Washington State's foster care system in fiscal year 1999. Medicaid claim records and Child Welfare administrative records for 8,716 children were used to extract data on the dependent variables of interest. Contrary to findings with general pediatric samples, the results showed that psychiatric conditions were the strongest predictors of ER use, followed by some chronic health problems. Children diagnosed with personality disorders or depression were 9.5 and 5.4 times more likely to be seen in the ER than children without a psychiatric diagnosis. Possible explanations for these findings are explored and implications for the health care and child welfare systems are discussed.
  
  
• Kemp S., Almgren G., Gilchrist L and Eisinger A. (2001). Serving "the Whole Child": Prevention Practice and the U.S. Children's Bureau. Smith College Studies in Social Work. June: 475-499.
  
  Social work's early contributions in the domain of prevention are explored through an examination of the United States Children's Bureau campaign to prevent infant mortality in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The article brings into sharper focus the distinctive amalgam of ideology, research, and practice activities at the core of the Children's Bureau prevention paradigm, and presents evidence for the effectiveness of this approach in preventing infant mortality. In conclusion, the implications of this contribution and its legacy are discussed in relation to the shape and direction of social work's investments in contemporary prevention science. At the beginning of this century, as at the beginning of the last, there is increasing interest in prevention as a focus of social work practice and research (Bloom, 1996; Fraser, 1997; Smokowski, 1998; Whittaker, 1996). Social work's rich legacy in prevention practice is however largely overlooked in current prevention discourse. As the profession positions itself as a core discipline in contemporary prevention science, it is both timely and instructive to revisit this legacy, which encompasses prevention as both a philosophy of practice and an empirically driven approach to intervention.
  
  
• Lau, A. and D. Takeuchi. (2001). Cultural values in helpseeking for child behavior problems: value orientation, affective responding, and severity appraisals among Chinese American parents. Journal of Community Psychology, 29:675-692.
  
  This study explored the relationships between cultural values, appraisal of child behavior problems, and associated help-seeking intentions among Chinese-American parents. Questionnaires were administered to 120 Chinese-American parents of elementary-school-aged children. Parents were asked how they might respond if their child displayed the behavioral problems depicted in a hypothetical vignette. Influences of Chinese value orientation, severity appraisal, and affective reactions on help-seeking intentions were examined using regression analyses and structural equation modeling. The study examined three hypotheses regarding the nature of the influence of cultural value orientation on help-seeking intentions: (a) a direct effect model, (b) an indirect effect through cultural differences in severity appraisal, and (c) an indirect effect through cultural differences in affective responding. Results supported the hypothesis that cultural value orientation exerted an indirect effect on help-seeking intentions through its influence on affective responding. Those parents who had more traditional Chinese values responded with more feelings of shame to child behavior problems and, in turn, reported lower intentions to seek help. Findings are discussed with reference to the literature on help-seeking among Asian Americans.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Robert Pollak. (2001). "Bargaining and Distribution in Families," (), in The Well-Being of Children and Families: Research and Data Needs, ed. Arland Thornton, University of Michigan Press, pp. 314-338.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Han, W.J., Waldfogel, J., & Garfinkel, I. (2001). Child Care in the Wake of Welfare Reform: The Impact of Government Subsidies on the Economic Well-Being of Single Mother Families. Social Services Review, 75(1), 29-59.
  
  Using microsimulation techniques to estimate the impact of welfare reform in New York, we find that 5 years after federal and state reforms child-care use and costs will rise substantially and families will bear most of these costs. When family incomes are adjusted for child-care costs, most single-mother families will continue to be poor even with greater earnings, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and food stamps. The distribution of child-care costs between government and families, and the implications for poverty, will depend on the extent to which government subsidizes the child-care costs of single mothers.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. & Gornick, J.C. (2001). Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC): Cross-National Variation in Service Organization and Financing. In S. Kamerman (ed.) Early Childhood Education and Care: International Perspectives. New York: Columbia Institute for Child and Family Policy, New York NY.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., & Gornick, J.C. (2001). Gendering Welfare State Variation: Income Transfers, Employment Supports, and Family Poverty. In N. Hirschmann and U. Liebert (eds.) Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. with Maureen Waller (2001). Effective child support policy for low-income families: Lessons from street level research. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 20(1): 89-110.
  
  Since 1984, policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to reforming the child support system. Despite this attention, the child support system has often failed to increase the economic security of single-parent families. This article analyzes findings from recent qualitative studies to explain why the child support system breaks down for so many low-income families. This research suggests that parents often prefer informal arrangements of support and do not comply with child support regulations they perceive to be unfair, counterproductive, or punitive. It also suggests that there is a mismatch between the premises and goals of child support policy and what low-income parents desire from the system. This mismatch impedes low-income parents' willingness and ability to comply with existing policy, even when they wish to do so, and will make reform difficult.
  
  
• Lukemeyer, A., Meyers, M.K. & Smeeding, T. (2000). Expensive Kids in Poor Families: Out of Pocket Expenditures for the Care of Disabled and Chronically Ill Children and Welfare Reform. Journal of Marriage & the Family, 62(2), 399-415.
  
  A significant minority of poor families care for children with disabilities and chronic illnesses. This study is among the first to explore private costs resulting from children's disabilities among low-income families. We find that almost half of the sample of California AFDC families with special-needs children incurred some direct, out-of-pocket expenses in the preceding month, and about 20% incurred total costs exceeding $100. We also estimate lost employment income among low-income mothers caring for children with disabilities. We conclude that both out-of-pocket expenses and foregone earnings represent a substantial burden for many low-income families with special-needs children, and we discuss the policy implications of these findings.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Elaina Rose (2000). Parenthood and the Earnings of Married Men and Women. Labour Economics, November: 689-710.
  
  We use longitudinal data to examine the relationship between parenthood, wages, and hours worked for married men and women. We find evidence of negative selection into parenthood, substantial child-related reallocations of time within the household, and heterogeneity in the effects of children on household behavior. In households in which the wife experiences an interruption in employment, mothers' wages and hours worked fall, while fathers' hours and wages increase. In households in which the mother remains continuously attached to the labor force, however, there is no evidence of a wage decline for mothers, and the hours worked by fathers decrease substantially.
  
  
• McLoyd, V., A.M. Cauce, D. Takeuchi, and L. Wilson. (2000). Marital processes and parental socialization in families of color: A decade review of research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62:1070-93.
  
  Research published during the past decade on African American, Latino, and Asian American families is reviewed. Emphasis is given to selected issues within the broad domains of marriage and parenting. The first section highlights demographic trends in family formation and family structure and factors that contributed to secular changes in family structure among African Americans. In the second section, new conceptualizations of marital relations within Latino families are discussed, along with research documenting the complexities in African American men's conceptions of manhood. Studies examining within-group variation in marital conflict and racial and ethnic differences in division of household labor, marital relations, and children's adjustment to marital and family conflict also are reviewed. The third section gives attention to research on (a) paternal involvement among fathers of color; (b) the relation of parenting behavior to race and ethnicity, grandmother involvement, neighborhood and peer characteristics, and immigration; and (c) racial and ethnic socialization. The article concludes with an overview of recent advances in the study of families of color and important challenges and issues that represent research opportunities for the new decade.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Gornick, J. & Ross, K. (2000). Public Child Care, Parental Leave and Employment. In D. Sainsbury (ed.) Gender Policy Regimes and Welfare States. Oxford University Press.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K., Brady, H. & Seto, E. (2000). Expensive Children in Poor Families. San Francisco, California: Public Policy Institute of California.
  
  Although disabilities affect children of all income groups, poor children are far more likely to suffer from them. In this study, Marcia K. Meyers, Henry E. Brady, and Eva Y. Seto provide important new estimates of the private costs and public effects of childhood disabilities among welfare recipients. Based on over 2,000 interviews with household heads in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Joaquin, and San Bernardino Counties, their estimates cover direct expenditures by families and indirect costs due to employment reductions. They also examine participation rates in public assistance programs and estimate the likelihood that families with disabled children will exit these programs to independence. They conclude that public assistance may be an essential part of an income-packaging strategy for many of these families.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. (2000). "Economic security for families with children," in The Child Welfare Challenge: Policy, Practice and Research, 2nd edition, Peter Pecora, James Whittaker, Anthony Maluccio, and Richard Barth, with Robert Plotnick, Aldine de Gruyter Publishing, pp. 95-127.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. with Maureen Waller. (2000). A failed relationship: Low-income families and the child support enforcement system. FOCUS (Newsletter of the Institute for Research on Poverty), Spring 2000, pp. 12-17.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. (1999). "Family Bargaining and Retirement Behavior," in Behavioral Dimensions of Retirement Economics, ed. Henry Aaron, Russell Sage/Brookings, pp. 253-272.
  
  The abstract for this article is not available.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Daniel Klepinger and Robert Plotnick. (1999). How Does Adolescent Fertility Affect the Human Capital and Wages of Young Women? Journal of Human Resources, Summer: 421-448.
  
  We estimate the relationship between teenage childbearing, human capital investment, and wages in early adulthood, using a sample of women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a large set of potential instruments for fertility-principally state and county-level indicators of the costs of fertility and fertility control. Adolescent fertility substantially reduces years of formal education and teenage work experience and, for white women only, early adult work experience. Through reductions in human capital, teenage childbearing has a significant effect on market wages at age 25. Our results suggest that public policies which reduce teenage childbearing are likely to have positive effects on the economic well-being of many young mothers.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. & Heintze, T. (1999). The Performance of the Child-Care Subsidy System. Social Service Review, 73(1), 37-64.
  
  Government funding has increased substantially in recent years for child- care subsidies targeted on the poor. Given the importance of child care for the achievement of public policy goals, including the promotion of families' economic self-sufficiency outside the welfare system, the performance of the child-care subsidy system deserves scrutiny. We use data from household- level surveys to compare the target efficiency, coverage adequacy, and equity of the child-care subsidy system for low-income and welfare-recipient families in California. The results suggest serious limitations in the system as of the mid-1990s. Low-income families in which mothers were employed or in education and training programs were very likely to be regularly paying for child care, and very few were receiving public subsidies targeted explicitly to the poor. These findings have important policy implications for new state child-care and welfare programs.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. with Maureen Waller (1999). Child Support and Low-Income Families: Perceptions, Practices, and Policy (), San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.
  
  Child support has become a pressing policy concern in California. The shortcomings of the state’s child support system have prompted both a new state department and numerous proposals for reform. This study poses a key question: why does the child support system break down for so many low-income families? Part of the answer lies in the mismatch between child support policy and the experiences of many low-income parents. As a result of this mismatch, many poor parents prefer informal arrangements to full compliance with regulations that they perceive to be unfair, counterproductive, or punitive. The authors, Maureen Waller and Robert Plotnick, conclude that child support policy should honor both the need for effective enforcement and constraints on low-income families.
  
  
• Plotnick, R. with Laurie Deppman. (1999). Assessing child abuse prevention and intervention programs using benefit-cost analysis. Child Welfare, 78(3): 381-407.
  
  Benefits and costs are discussed when child abuse prevention and intervention programs are proposed and evaluated, but systemic benefit- cost analysis as developed by economists has not been applied to such programs. This article presents the case for using benefit-cost analysis to structure evaluations of child abuse prevention and intervention programs.
  
  
• Gornick, J.C., Meyers, M.K., & Ross, K.E. (1997). Supporting the Employment of Mothers: Policy Variation Across Fourteen Welfare States. Journal of European Social Policy, 7(1), 45-70.
  
  Despite their broadly similar political and economic systems, the rates and patterns ofmothers' employment vary considerably across industrialized countries. This variation raises questions about the role played by government policies in enabling mothers to choose employment and, in turn, in shaping both gender equality and family economic well-being. This paper compares fourteen OECD countries, as of the middle-to-late 1980s, with respect to their provision of policies that support mothers' employment: parental leave, child care, and the scheduling of public education. Newly gathered data on eighteen policy indicators are presented; these indicators were chosen to capture support for maternal employment, regardless of national intent. The indicators are then standardized, weighted, and summed into indices. By differentiating policies that affect maternal employment from family policies more generally, while simultaneously aggregating individual policies and policy features into policy "packages", these indices reveal dramatic cross-national differences in policy provisions. The empirical results reveal loose clusters of countries that correspond only partially to prevailing welfare state typologies. For mothers with preschool-aged children, only five of the fourteen countries provided reasonably complete and continuous benefits that supported their options for combining paid work with family responsibilities. In the remaining countries, government provisions were much more limited or discontinuous. The pattern of cross- national policy variation changed notably when policies affecting mothers with older children were examined. The links between these findings and three sets of outcomes are considered. The indices provide an improved measure of public support for maternal employment and are expected to help explain cross-national differences in the level and continuity of women's labor market attachment. Prior findings on women's labor supply provide initial support for this conclusion. These indices are also useful for contrasting family benefits that are provided through direct cash transfers with those that take the form of support for mothers' employment. Cross- national variation in combinations of transfers with employment supports is found to correspond to differences in child poverty rates. Finally, these policy findings contribute to the body of scholarship that seeks to integrate gender issues more explicitly into research on welfare state regimes. This study suggests that the country clusters identified in the dominant regime model fail to cohere with respect to the subset of family policies that specifically help women to combine paid work with parenting.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Robert Pollak and Terry Wales. (1997). Do Husbands and Wives Pool Resources?: Evidence from the UK Child Benefit. Journal of Human Resources, Summer: 463-480.
  
  Common preference models of family behavior imply income pooling, a restriction on family demand functions such that only the sum of husband's income and wife's income affects the allocation of goods and time. Testing the pooling hypothesis is difficult because most family income sources are not exogenous to the allocations being analyzed. In this paper, we present an alternative test based on a "natural experiment"-a policy change in the United Kingdom that transferred a substantial child allowance to wives in the late 1970s. Using Family Expenditure Survey data, we find strong evidence that a shift toward greater expenditures on women's clothing and children's clothing relative to men's clothing coincided with this income redistribution.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Robert Pollak (1999). Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage. Journal of Economic Perspectives. Fall: 139-158.
  
  The standard economic model of the family is a 'common preference' model that assumes that a family maximizes a single utility function and implies that family behavior is independent of which individuals receive income or control resources. In recent years, this model has been challenged by game- theoretic models of marriage that do not impose 'pooling' and are, therefore, consistent with empirical evidence that income controlled by husbands and wives does have different effects on family behavior. In this paper, the authors review a number of simple bargaining models and relevant empirical evidence, and discuss their implications for distribution within marriage.
  
  
• Lundberg, S. with Robert Pollak. (1993). Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market. Journal of Political Economy, December: 988-1010.
  
  This paper introduces the "separate spheres" bargaining model, a new model of distribution within marriage. It differs from divorce threat bargaining models (e.g., Manser-Brown, McElroy-Horney) in that the threat point is not divorce but a noncooperative equilibrium within marriage; this noncooperative equilibrium reflects traditional gender roles. The predictions of our model thus differ from those of divorce threat bargaining models; in the separate spheres model, cash transfer payments to the mother and payments to the father can--but need not--imply different equilibrium distributions in existing marriages. In the long run, the distributional effects of transfer policies may be substantially altered by changes in the marriage market equilibrium.
  
  
• Meyers, M.K. (1993). Child Care in JOBS Employment and Training Programs: What Difference Does Quality Make? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55(August), 767-783.
  
  Under the provisions of the Family Support Act of 1988, AFDC recipients in JOBS welfare-to-work programs are entitled to child care assistance during their education and job search activities. Data from a 1-year panel study of a JOBS program indicate that participants increased their use of substitute care and their use of licensed day care homes and centers, after beginning job readiness activities. The care they obtained was highly variable in terms of convenience and program quality, however, and compromises in the adequacy of care or in the congruence of care with parents' preferences increased participants' odds of dropping out of the program without completing education and job search activities.