Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of family background measures Across all 6 studies, the strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills A meta-analysis of the results shows that early math skills have the greatest predictive power, followed by reading and then attention skills By contrast, measures of socioemotional behaviors, including internalizing and externalizing problems and social skills, were generally insignificant predictors of later academic performance, even among children with relatively high levels of problem behavior Patterns of association were similar for boys and girls and for children from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds

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School Readiness and Later Achievement

During the past two decades, the public health community’s attention has been drawn increasingly to the social determinants of health (SDH)—the factors apart from medical care that can be influenced by social policies and shape health in powerful ways. We use “medical care” rather than “health care” to refer to clinical services, to avoid potential confusion between “health” and “health care.” The World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health has defined SDH as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age” and “the fundamental drivers of these conditions.” The term “social determinants” often evokes factors such as health-related features of neighborhoods (e.g., walkability, recreational areas, and accessibility of healthful foods), which can influence health-related behaviors. Evidence has accumulated, however, pointing to socioeconomic factors such as income, wealth, and education as the fundamental causes of a wide range of health outcomes. This article broadly reviews some of the knowledge accumulated to date that highlights the importance of social—and particularly socioeconomic— factors in shaping health, and plausible pathways and biological mechanisms that may explain their effects. We also discuss challenges to advancing this knowledge and how they might be overcome.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00333549141291S206

The Social Determinants of Health: It's Time to Consider the Causes of the Causes:

This report builds on a highly valued predecessor, the 1994 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report entitled Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders: Frontiers for Preventive Intervention Research. That report provided the basis for understanding prevention science, elucidating its then-existing research base, and contemplating where it should go in the future. This report documents that an increasing number of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems in young people are in fact preventable. The proverbial ounce of prevention will indeed be worth a pound of cure: effectively applying the evidence-based prevention interventions at hand could potentially save billions of dollars in associated costs by avoiding or tempering these disorders in many individuals. Furthermore, devoting significantly greater resources to research on even more effective prevention and promotion efforts, and then reliably implementing the findings of such research, could substantially diminish the human and economic toll.

Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities

This book presents a review and synthesis of current research that addresses the potential for various forms of early childhood intervene to improve outcomes for participating children and their families.

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Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise.

List of Figures List of Tables Preface List of Acronyms 1. Introduction Our Approach Organization of the Book 2. Background Brief History of Federal Welfare Policy Policy and Program Changes during the 1990s Welfare-Related Outcomes in the 1990s 3. An Economic Model AFDC and the Standard Economic Model Financial Work Incentives Requirements for Work or Related Activities Time Limits Summarizing the Predictions 4. Methodological Issues Methods of Causal Inference in Studies of Welfare Reform Measuring the Policy Environment Data Sources for Welfare Outcomes Summary of Studies Included in the Analysis 5. Welfare Use and Welfare Payments Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Observational Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle Estimates of the Effect of the Economy Summary 6. Employment, Labor Supply, and Earnings Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Observational Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle Estimates of the Effect of the Economy Summary 7. Income and Poverty Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Observational Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle Estimates of the Effect of the Economy Summary 8. Family Structure Theoretical Framework and Methodological Issues Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms on Marriage Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle on Marriage Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms on Childbearing Observational Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms on Childbearing Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle on Childbearing Summary 9. Child Outcomes Theoretical Framework and Methodological Issues Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Observational Estimates of the Effects of Specific Reforms Estimates of the Effects of Reform as a Bundle Summary 10. Theory, Evidence, and Policy Trade-offs Summarizing the Empirical Evidence Welfare, Labor Market Behavior, and Income Marriage, Childbearing, and Child Outcomes Welfare Reform as a Bundle What We Don't Know about Welfare Reform Appendix A. Sources for Experimental Study Results Appendix B. Methodology for Summary Figures in Chapter 10 References Index

Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decade of Change

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2003/RAND_WR135.pdf

Transitions to self-employment at older ages: The role of wealth, health, health insurance and other factors

This title looks at the likely evolution of the U.S. workforce and workplace over the next 10 to 15 years, focusing on demographics, technology and globalization.

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The 21st Century at Work: Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States

There is increased interest in California and other states in providing universal access to publicly funded preschool education. In considering such a program, policymakers and the public focus on the potential benefits and costs of such a program. This study aims to inform such deliberations by conducting an analysis of the economic returns from investing in high-quality preschool education in the state of California.

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Lynn A. Karoly

Papers

Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise.

Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decade of Change

Transitions to self-employment at older ages: The role of wealth, health, health insurance and other factors

The 21st Century at Work: Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States

The Economics of Investing in Universal Preschool Education in California