The Living Arrangements of Single Mothers with Dependent Children

Abstract . Despite the rapid increase in families headed by single mothers, sufficient attention has not been paid to the living arrangements of these families. Most prior research has generally relied on Bureau of the Census definitions as household head and subfamily head to categorize single mothers' living arrangements. This two part grouping, however, obscures the actual diversity of living arrangements undertaken, including cohabitation with unrelated males. This paper moves beyond the standard two part grouping of single mothers and instead provides a detailed taxonomy of single mothers' living arrangements using data from the Current Population Survey. Among the findings, the economic status of families headed by single mothers varies tremendously by living arrangement, a fact which has been entirely overlooked in earlier research.     

Family Arrangements and Children's Education Among Migrants: A Case Study of China

As China is experiencing an urban revolution with massive rural-to-urban migration, millions of children are profoundly affected by their parents’ migration and their decisions about family arrangements. With the discriminatory hukou system and harsh living conditions in cities, the dilemma migrant parents face is whether they should take their children with them to the city or leave them behind. This decision determines the household, school and community environments that children live in, which, in turn, shape their well-being. With a unique strategy of comparing ‘left-behind children’ to ‘migrant children’ and a gendered perspective, this article examines how different family arrangements among migrants and consequent housing conditions and gender dynamics affect children's educational well-being. Our findings demonstrate the complex impact of family arrangements on children, which is conditioned by wage income and the gender of the absent parent and the child. We find that children from less favorable socio-economic backgrounds benefit more from moving to cities. Children living with both parents and those living with their mother or grandparents tend to do better. While the effect of housing conditions is marginal, family arrangements have a gendered effect on children. Related policy recommendations are provided.     

The Self-concept of Black and White Women: The Influences Upon Its Formation of Welfare Dependency, Work Effort, Family Networks, and Illnesses

Abstract . The concept of “self-efficacy” is used to test the hypothesis that the negative self-concept of welfare recipients coniributes to long term psychological and material dependency on such assistance. Self-efficacy focuses on the extent to which people are able to produce and regulate events in their lives and is associated with self-imposed performance expectations. The extent to which the minority status which Blacks occupy in this society decreases self efficacy relative to Whites is examined, using information generated from structured interviews with 290 low income Black and White women. Operationalizing the concept of self-efficacy with appropriate controls for socioeconomic status, family composition and other factors results in finding no racial differences in sense of self-efficacy between Black and White women. Observed differences in patterns of receipt of public assistance are found to be more directly related to the persistence of structural barriers to upward mobility that have differential impacts on Blacks and Whites. Long term receipt of public assistance is found to adversely affect both self-worth and work orientation/perceived efficacy for all women.     

Housing Preferences of Temporary Migrants in Urban China in the wake of Gradual Hukou Reform: A Case Study of Shenzhen

In the wake of the recent announcement by the State Council concerning the provision of public rental housing across China, and the gradual reform of China's household registration system (hukou), this article explores how potential adjustments in government housing policies (namely access to public rental housing) influence the housing preferences of temporary migrants who are currently residing inside the chengzhongcun (urban villages) of Shenzhen. The results indicate that dissatisfaction with rental cost and living conditions in these urban villages are the key reasons for migrants wishing to move into public rental housing if it is offered to them — and not the fact that they are treated differently within the hukou system. Public rental housing is welcomed in particular by newly arriving migrants who live outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and migrants who have decided to remain in Shenzhen for the foreseeable future. By contrast, dissatisfaction with urban villages is the sole contributor to housing preferences for those residing inside the SEZ.     

An Economic Analysis of Teenage Fertility

Abstract . The relationship between the probability of a teenage birth and various independent variables representing fecundity, attitudes, resources, and the economic opportunities for a sample of teenage females drawn from the 1980 census is examined. A theoretical framework, based on Becker's model, is employed to describe the birth-decision process and tested using a logit technique. The findings suggest that receipt of public assistance income and perceived economic opportunities are more important in explaining fertility probabilities among older (18–19 years old) teenagers. Among younger teens, accessibility to family planning and abortion services, and religious attitudes toward family planning ate more important predictors of fertility.     

Market Structure and Racial and Gender Discrimination:

The Annual Equal Employment Opportunity Reports and Current Population Survey files are used to examine employment and earnings by race and gender in the telecommunications industry following changes in the industry's affirmative action guidelines and following the divestiture of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Nonblack minority men were the only underrepresented group to experience marked employment gains as managers and professional. The relative employment probability of other underrepresented workers remained similar to the levels experienced during the implementation of affirmative action guidelines. Earnings differentials did decline for minority men and white women in the telecommunications industry. However, this finding is only unique to black men as the earnings pattern for white women and nonblack minority men mirror that found for these groups nationally.     

The Spatial Pattern of Residential Mobility in Guangzhou,China

In urban China, residential mobility behaviors have changed fundamentally in recent decades. While research has been undertaken on the trends and causes of residential relocation for different population groups, less attention has been paid to micro‐level processes of residential change, yet the latter underscore urban dynamics. This study addresses this through a survey conducted in Guangzhou in late 2012, which analyzes the spatial flows of residential shifts within and between three distance zones—inner core, inner suburbs and outer suburbs—to reveal complex mobility trends. In particular, hukou or household registration status, socio‐economic status, the nature and rank of employment, and tenure were found to have varied effects on the probability of inward and outward shifts. More specifically, while outward shifts in recent years mainly involved local hukou holders, families with higher education levels, a higher socio‐economic status or those working for government departments and public institutions were found to be more likely to settle in high‐rise commodity housing in the inner core. The majority of non‐hukou migrants, by contrast, moved within the same street or between adjacent streets within the same suburban area, while age, socio‐economic status and homeownership were found to increase an individual's chance of an inward shift.     

Non-cooperative Households and the Size and Composition of Public Expenditure

This paper presents a model in which the composition and size of public spending are determined through a political process. Agents differ in wage rates, and live in households positively sorted by wage; household production benefits both partners but the partners interact non-cooperatively, hence the laissez-faire equilibrium is inefficient. There are three policy tools, a labour income tax rate, a cash transfer and an in-kind transfer. The latter can be combined with household production to generate a household public good. All agents agree on some form of public intervention to remedy the inefficiency, but low-wagers prefer high taxes and cash transfers, while high-wagers prefer low taxes and in-kind provision. Under the empirically plausible assumption that voting participation is positively correlated with income, the equilibrium policy will be of the sort preferred by voters with above-mean income. This effect is accentuated by increased inequality.A previous version of this paper has been presented at the 2004 EPCS conference in Berlin; we thank our discussant Stanley Winer, as well as two referees of this journal, for insightful comments     

International Comparisons of Public Sector Performance

Abstract

Measuring and comparing the overall performance of countries' public sectors requires agreement on definitions and objectives of government. I argue that such an agreement is about finding a consensus rather than about finding better definitions. Measuring government requires a number of leaps of faith, where certain definitions, assumptions and statistics are accepted as good enough for measurement and comparison. The political science and economic research community have a different tradition of dealing with such agreements and leaps of faith, and this is reflected in their approaches to measuring and comparing the performance of public sectors. The implications of these traditions are particularly visible in the usefulness of measurement and indicators for policy makers.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Forester, John 1993: Critical theory, public policy and planning practice: toward a critical pragmatism. Gilbert, Alan 1993: In search of a home: rental and shared housing in Latin America. Helms, Hans G. (ed.) 1992: Die Stadt als Gabentisch. Beobachtungen der aktuellen Städtebauentwicklung (zwischen Manhattan und Berlin-Marzahn). Mathey, Kosta (ed.) 1992: Beyond self-help housing. Sonenshein, Raphael, J. 1993: Politics in black and white: race and power in Los Angeles.     

Policy innovation in isolation?

Abstract

Innovations in public policy are difficult to realize if decision-making arrangements are not scrutinized at the same time. Rigid institutional arrangements often hinder the realization of policy breakthroughs. Consequently, in the day-to-day practice of public administration, more and more experiments with innovative arrangements towards realizing groundbreaking policy decisions are being seen. Two rather different examples of such arrangements in the Dutch context are transition arenas and pilot projects (proeftuinen). In this article we describe these arrangements from an innovation management perspective and evaluate their functioning by focusing on their approaches to two dilemmas: the dilemma between diversity and closedness within the innovation plans and the dilemma between openness and closedness of the plan in relation to its context, the outside world. From their comparison we can learn about the context-specific application of different innovation plans and the results of different ways of handling these innovation dilemmas.     

Forensic Economics and the Wrongful Death of a Household Producer: Current Practices, Methodological Biases and Alternative Solutions of Losses

Abstract . A new frontier in forensic economics has emerged: expert testimony on the loss of earning capacity due to the wrongful death of a household producer not in the labor force. Forensic economics—the application of economic analysis by an expert witness—in this area is at an early stage of development. While several methods have been developed for estimating the value of household production, one method, in negligence cases, dominates in the courtroom: replacement cost. Reliance upon a single methodology seems unwise in light of the newness and complexity of research in the area of household production. There are promising alternative methods which could be used. Opportunity cost, family profile and value of service flows methodologies are good candidates. Potentially, the use of alternative methodologies could help provide a consistency check on the reasonableness of any one particular methodology. Presently, several constraints frustrate the task of refining the state of forensic economics in this area. However, progress can be made by, among other things, subjecting forensic economics in these cases to more thorough unbaised professional review such as is common in an older area, antitrust cases.     

THE LIMITS OF INFRASTRUCTURE: Public Transport in a Post-colonial City

Since the 1940s, the people of the neighbourhoods (kampungs) around Surabaya's derelict Ngagel industrial estate have made a living by repurposing the remains of what was once one of Asia's most modern road, rail and industry networks. The remains—in the form of leftover fuel, labour and factory parts—are used to rebuild and repair improvised transport vehicles like bicycle-taxis (becak), minibuses (bemo) and motorbike-taxis (ojek). The repurposing happens at the limits of a capital-intensive heavy infrastructure of factories, trams and buses. The limits are those points where such infrastructure fails and a household-funded mosquito-fleet of light vehicles succeeds. Repurposing gives those who do it a right to infrastructure by providing the city with much-needed public transport. In Surabaya, public transport begins at its limits through the improvisations of people who live in the productive remains of capital-intensive heavy infrastructure. These people live in Surabaya's deindustrialized urban core, where life is made in the ruins of infrastructure through the breaking-down of it, the reworking of it, the right to it, and the leakage of it—the means through which rank-and-file people rather than states and corporations forge infrastructure.     

Trends in residential segregation by race: 1960–1970

The study examines trends in the level of residential segregation by race in U.S. metropolitan areas. It finds that the majority of housing markets experienced an increase in segregation between 1960 and 1970. Established racial patterns were typically maintained, with black population growth accommodated by the peripheral expansion of minority areas. This general pattern of development occurred in both high- and low-income neighborhoods, and typically left the average black with fewer whites as neighbors. Although the average white was at the same time exposed to a slightly higher proportion of blacks, the vast majority of urban whites continued to live in racially segregated neighborhoods.     

RECEIPT OF INFORMATION AND INFLUENCE OVER DECISIONS IN HOSPITALS BY THE BOARD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND MEDICAL STAFF

This article examines relationships between receipt of internal administrative information in hospitals, influence over general management decisions, and the extent to which certain organizational characteristics predict the receipt of information by each of the three major groups in hospitals: the board, the CEO, and the medical staff. Using a US national sample of 287 non-profit community hospitals, CEOs were found to receive the greatest amount of information and had highest influence while medical staffs were lowest on both measures. of five major organizational characteristics, hospital size emerged as the single strongest predictor of receipt of information for both boards (beta =?0.28, p 0.001) and medical staffs (beta =?0.42, p 0.001). Overall, the five dependent variables explained 18 per cent of the variance in receipt of information by boards and 28 percent of the variance for medical staffs.     

Determinants of the rate of home ownership of black relative to white households

This paper investigates the reasons for the lower rate of home ownership of black households compared to white households in urban areas. A model of the demand for owner-occupancy by blacks relative to the demand by whites is formulated and econometrically estimated.The principal finding is that a percentage increase in the mean level of black household incomes produces a larger increase in the relative rate of blacks' home ownership than an equivalent reduction in the price of owner-occupied housing which they face. Although significant effects of within market discrimination against blacks as reflected in higher prices of owner-occupied housing to blacks are found, attempts to associate this price premium with measures of residential segregation were unsuccessful.     

The effect of household characteristics on living standards in South Africa 1993–1998: a quantile regression analysis with sample attrition

This paper examines whether the dismantling of apartheid has resulted in an improvement in the standard of living for the vast majority of South Africans. The study is based on a panel data set from the Kwazulu‐Natal province. We use weighted quantile regressions to examine the distribution of standards of living, which corrects for the potential bias arising from non‐random sample attrition. Our results show that there has been a significant increase in the spread of the distribution of household expenditure of the non‐white households residing in Kwazulu‐Natal province. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北京市市域内人户分离观察

通过分析北京市城市内部人户分离现象发现,20%以上的户籍人口处于人户分离状态,其中以中青年为主;50%的人户分离人口从城市功能核心区到城市功能拓展区居住,且将长期分离下去。认为人户分离是社会经济发展和现行管理制度不相适应的结果,只有制度改革创新才是治本之策。     

Cultural and Family Effects on Fertility Decisions in Taiwan, R.O.C.: Traditional Values and Family Structure Are as Relevant as Income Measures

Abstract . Ever since Becker's 1960 article on fertility, the economic approach has posited that the wife's wage rate and household income play predominant roles in fertility decisions. This study attempts to relate some social and cultural factors, including traditional value concepts and complexity of the family structure to the demand for children. Empirical findings with family survey data taken from Taiwan, the Republic of China, tend to support the view that fertility is better explained by a framework with a family structure and a sector dummy than one without. For public decision makers, findings of this kind suggest that preference heterogeneity, family structure complexity as well as the rural urban development trends should be explicitly taken into account in demographic policies aimed at family planning and overall quality of life enrichment.