Using microdata from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this study takes a cross-national perspective to investigate the division of household labor among older couples (aged 50 years or more). Across nine continental European countries, the authors find considerable variation in the overall distribution of…

This newsletter issue focuses on the basic sliding fee child care program, outlining the need for child care assistance, explaining how the program costs less than public assistance, examining the effects on families waiting for the program, providing an overview of how the program currently works with a county-by-county analysis (a 2-page chart…

Can the contemporary family's problems be solved in ways that seemed effective in the past? The extent to which the family has changed argues in the negative. The American family has been stripped of two of its traditional social functions: serving as a unit for economic production and as a school for the vocational training of children. The first…

The Australian Family Income Transfer Project (AFIT) is designed to examine the impact of government policies on the economic wellbeing of Australian families. The AFIT Project uses published national statistics as well as data and information collected by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (the project's sponsor) in its own studies and…

This document presents data on the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the Hispanic origin population in the United States obtained through the March 1991 supplement to the Current Population Survey of the Bureau of the Census. Differences are highlighted in selected characteristics of Hispanic Americans compared between March…

The United Nations International Year of the Family 1994 will give policymakers the opportunity to bring together threads of social life that have previously been treated separately. The danger in talking about the concept of "the family" lies both in its abstractness and in its emotional, religious, and political overtones. To avoid…

Those who could most benefit from adult education are the least likely to participate in it, according to data from a 1991 large-scale, nationally representative field test of the educational activities of adults in the United States. The National Household Education Survey data showed that 38 percent of adults age 17 or older participated in some…

The rapid increase in the number of families with two wage-earners has contributed significantly to changes in family structure and function in the past three decades; a current belief holds that wives who share the income-earner role have a right to expect more assistance from their husbands with such family tasks as meal preparations, cleaning,…

Changes in participation in five U.S. Department of Education student financial aid programs were assessed for 1974 and 1981. These programs are the National Direct Student Loan (NDSL) program, the College Work Study program, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) program, the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program, and the Pell or…

Addresses the need for a national parental loan program proposing that loans up to the amount of the total expected contribution less that portion which can reasonably be expected out of current disposable purchasing power be offered as part of a total financial assistance package. (JT)

This study analyzes Census data which indicate the following U.S. poverty trends for 1988: (1) the gap between rich and poor is wider than at any point in the post World War II era; (2) the poverty rate showed no improvement and remains higher than the most severe recession years of the 1970s; (3) the share of the national family income going to…

One aspect of the general rise in the number of single parent households is the high proportion of them that are headed by black women. Black families headed by women tend to be larger and are more likely to be impoverished. Contrary to popular belief, many black single mothers considered poor are employed women, not recipients of welfare. An…

This report outlines findings and recommendations of a committee study of whether the State of Missouri is in need of welfare reform. The major finding is that Missouri's current welfare system is substantially deficient and requires correction of laws, policies, practices, and resource allocation. Three major themes are the following: (1) welfare…

Results of the 1985 Cooperative Institutional Research Program survey of entering college freshmen are presented. Of the 279,985 responses, 192,435 questionnaires from 365 two- and four-year institutions were used to compute the 1985 national norms. Findings indicate that the proportion of new freshmen planning to major in computer science and…

In 1985, mean after-tax household income increased faster than inflation for the fourth consecutive year. Mean household income after taxes was $22,650 in 1985, up by 0.9 percent over the 1984 figure. Mean household income before taxes ($29,070) increased by 1.3 percent after adjusting for inflation. The mean after-tax incomes of both White…