Growing rates of childhood obesity globally create concern for individuals’ health outcomes and d... more Growing rates of childhood obesity globally create concern for individuals’ health outcomes and demands on health systems. While many policy approaches focus on macro-level interventions, we examine how the type of stability of a family structure might provide opportunities for policy interventions at the micro level. We examine the association between family structure trajectories and childhood overweight and obesity across three Anglophone countries using an expanded set of eight family structure categories that capture biological relationships and instability, along with potential explanatory variables that might vary across family trajectories and provide opportunities for intervention, including access to resources, family stressors, family structure selectivity factors, and obesogenic correlates. We use three datasets that are representative of children born around the year 2000 and aged 11 years old in Australia (n = 3329), the United Kingdom (n = 11,542), and the United States (n = 8837) and nested multivariate multinomial logistic regression models. Our analyses find stronger relationships between child overweight and obesity and family structure trajectories than between child obesity and obesogenic factors. Children in all three countries are sensitive to living with cohabiting parents, although in Australia, this is limited to children whose parents have been cohabiting since before their birth. In the UK and US, parents starting their cohabitation after the child’s birth are more likely to have children who experience obesity. Despite a few differences across cross-cultural contexts, most of the relationship between family structures and child overweight or obesity is connected to differences in families’ access to resources and by the types of parents who enter into these family structures. These findings suggest policy interventions at the family level that focus on potential parents’ education and career prospects and on income support rather than interventions like marriage incentives.
Child problem behaviors have been linked to immediate and
long-term negative outcomes. Research h... more Child problem behaviors have been linked to immediate and long-term negative outcomes. Research has found that family and peer social capital have a strong influence on child behavioral outcomes. However, most research about social capital and child behavior problems has been conducted in Western contexts. Social capital may influence child behavior problems differently in non-Western sociocultural environments due to different family and peer dynamics. Methods: Using a sample from the Japan Household Panel Survey and Japan Child Panel Survey (N = 182), we expand this literature on various forms of social capital to the Japanese context with data that were collected between 2009 and 2014. We examine the relationship of family and peer social capital with children internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors using OLS linear regression. Results: Our results differ from what is commonly found in Western contexts. Whereas family and peer social capital are typically associated with both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in Western countries, we find that greater family social capital is associated with decreased externalizing problem behaviors but not internalizing problem behaviors in Japan, and peer social capital has no association on either type of problem behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings emphasize the importance of considering social and cultural contexts when exploring how social capital might encourage prosocial child outcomes.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Internalizing and externalizing behavior problems are associated with a variety of negative child... more Internalizing and externalizing behavior problems are associated with a variety of negative child outcomes, but these conclusions have been drawn from research that usually compares children in families with two biological, married parents to all other family types. We compare behavior problems across two-parent, single-mother, and single-father families, which allows us to explore competing gender theories as possible explanations for why child behavior outcomes may be different across these three categories. Results from analyses of the UK Millennium Cohort Study suggest that while children in both single-mother and single-father families initially look like they experience more behavior problems than those in two-parent families, controlling for physical and, especially, social resources explains potential differences. Similarly, when single mothers and single fathers occupy similar family environments in terms of physical and social resources, their children report similar behav...
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, May 22, 2012
Much of the literature on gender inequality in sport is devoted to media bias and conceptualizati... more Much of the literature on gender inequality in sport is devoted to media bias and conceptualizations of masculinity and femininity. In comparison, there is a paucity of empirical research on the sex pay gap. Our case study uses publically accessible data for professional tennis players ranked in the top 100 at the end of the 2009 season to determine to what extent a pay gap exists between men and women. We find that median earnings – both in 2009 and over a player’s career – are substantially higher for men than women in the sample. Net of various productivity measures, the average female player earned less than her male counterpart for every singles tournament won in 2009. We also find that while prize money for men and women is equal in prestigious tournaments such as Grand Slam events, women’s prize money is considerably lower in many of the less publicized tournaments. We submit that the sex pay gap among professional tennis players can be explained in part by productivity in 2009, as well as differential payouts for middle- and low-tier tournaments.
This article focuses on the effect of labor market restrictions on worker dignity during the recr... more This article focuses on the effect of labor market restrictions on worker dignity during the recruitment and hiring processes by examining a labor-market case study in which worker power is severely constrained through industry practices. Specifically, the authors study workers who attempted to gain employment in the National Football League to explore how artificially restricted labor markets limit workers' market power. Findings from extensive field notes, observations of player assessments, and semistructured interviews suggest that although workers possess elite skills necessary for employment, industry restrictions on employees' market power enable employers to demand painful and dehumanizing concessions that seriously challenge workers' dignity. The findings presented here extend previous studies of threats to worker dignity from shop floors and workplaces to labor markets and to elite, highly skilled workers.
We review messaging within automobile advertisements that normalizes and glamorizes reckless driv... more We review messaging within automobile advertisements that normalizes and glamorizes reckless driving behavior. Our content analysis of video advertisements illustrates the use of the automobile in ways that are both illegal and dangerous. Advertisements with hazardous driving images occur more often in our sample than all other types of marketing strategies. Messages include deviance from distributional norms (atypical vehicle use); illegal or immoral driving behaviors that put others at risk; and questionable judgments on the part of manufacturers that use advertisement imagery to increase sales while assuming little of the public costs associated with accidents, injuries, and preventable fatalities on roadways.
Voluntary job separation, or quitting, occurs for a variety of reasons. Although it is often a po... more Voluntary job separation, or quitting, occurs for a variety of reasons. Although it is often a positive move, it may also lead to periods of unemployment. Studies suggest that one factor that may be implicated in the likelihood of quitting is illicit drug use: Adult drug users may not only quit more frequently but also have a heightened probability of unemployment following a quit. Yet, prior research has not taken a sufficient longitudinal perspective, considered contemporary research on job mobility, nor examined gender differences. We assessed the association using longitudinal data on 8,512 individuals followed from 1984 to 1995. The results indicated that marijuana and cocaine use were associated with a higher probability of quitting. Moreover, marijuana use among males, but not females, was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment following a quit. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding gender-distinct patterns of drug use and occupational trajectories.
Studies imply that family and school resources independently affect delinquency. Yet research has... more Studies imply that family and school resources independently affect delinquency. Yet research has not developed a conceptual or analytic framework for exploring how these variables may interact to affect delinquent behavior. The authors propose that certain family and school variables may serve as substitute or complementary forms of capital in equations designed to predict delinquency. In particular, school capital may substitute for low family capital to decrease involvement in delinquent behavior. Using data from the 1990 National Educational Longitudinal Study and the 1994–1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), the authors find that high-quality school environments serve as substitutes for poor parental attachment and a lack of parental involvement in children's schooling, especially among adolescents who experience low academic achievement or report a lack of academic values. Hence, school-based social capital attenuates involvement in delinquency partly by compensating for high-risk family environments.
ObjectiveThe objective of this research is to determine whether children born to single parents b... more ObjectiveThe objective of this research is to determine whether children born to single parents benefit academically if their parents marry.BackgroundChildren born to single parents have on average worse educational outcomes than peers who live with married parents, but transitions to a married parent family are not well understood.MethodWe use the U.S. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 to create two groups of children born to single parents: children who remain in a stable single‐parent family (n = 220) and children whose single parent marries (n = 392). We examine differences in reading and math test scores in context of potential confounding variables.ResultsInitial findings suggest that children born to single parents whose parents marry perform better than do their peers in stable single‐parent families, but this effect disappears when controls for financial and human capital, race, and stress are included.ConclusionFinancial and human capital resources explain the perceived benefit of parent marriage, suggesting benefits of marriage accrue due to selectivity factors among parents more likely to marry. Other factors, such as stress, race, and number of siblings, play a role.ImplicationsDetermining the nature of the link between parental marriage and educational outcomes has important policy implications as to whether marriage should be promoted as an educational benefit to children.
... A November 15, 1994, Nike ad using Reggie White as endorser is a classic example of body diss... more ... A November 15, 1994, Nike ad using Reggie White as endorser is a classic example of body dissection and resulting ... In a more recent study, Wilson and Sparks interviewed black and nonblack youths concerning television commercials starring professional ath-letes and found ...
Growing rates of childhood obesity globally create concern for individuals’ health outcomes and d... more Growing rates of childhood obesity globally create concern for individuals’ health outcomes and demands on health systems. While many policy approaches focus on macro-level interventions, we examine how the type of stability of a family structure might provide opportunities for policy interventions at the micro level. We examine the association between family structure trajectories and childhood overweight and obesity across three Anglophone countries using an expanded set of eight family structure categories that capture biological relationships and instability, along with potential explanatory variables that might vary across family trajectories and provide opportunities for intervention, including access to resources, family stressors, family structure selectivity factors, and obesogenic correlates. We use three datasets that are representative of children born around the year 2000 and aged 11 years old in Australia (n = 3329), the United Kingdom (n = 11,542), and the United States (n = 8837) and nested multivariate multinomial logistic regression models. Our analyses find stronger relationships between child overweight and obesity and family structure trajectories than between child obesity and obesogenic factors. Children in all three countries are sensitive to living with cohabiting parents, although in Australia, this is limited to children whose parents have been cohabiting since before their birth. In the UK and US, parents starting their cohabitation after the child’s birth are more likely to have children who experience obesity. Despite a few differences across cross-cultural contexts, most of the relationship between family structures and child overweight or obesity is connected to differences in families’ access to resources and by the types of parents who enter into these family structures. These findings suggest policy interventions at the family level that focus on potential parents’ education and career prospects and on income support rather than interventions like marriage incentives.
Child problem behaviors have been linked to immediate and
long-term negative outcomes. Research h... more Child problem behaviors have been linked to immediate and long-term negative outcomes. Research has found that family and peer social capital have a strong influence on child behavioral outcomes. However, most research about social capital and child behavior problems has been conducted in Western contexts. Social capital may influence child behavior problems differently in non-Western sociocultural environments due to different family and peer dynamics. Methods: Using a sample from the Japan Household Panel Survey and Japan Child Panel Survey (N = 182), we expand this literature on various forms of social capital to the Japanese context with data that were collected between 2009 and 2014. We examine the relationship of family and peer social capital with children internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors using OLS linear regression. Results: Our results differ from what is commonly found in Western contexts. Whereas family and peer social capital are typically associated with both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in Western countries, we find that greater family social capital is associated with decreased externalizing problem behaviors but not internalizing problem behaviors in Japan, and peer social capital has no association on either type of problem behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings emphasize the importance of considering social and cultural contexts when exploring how social capital might encourage prosocial child outcomes.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Internalizing and externalizing behavior problems are associated with a variety of negative child... more Internalizing and externalizing behavior problems are associated with a variety of negative child outcomes, but these conclusions have been drawn from research that usually compares children in families with two biological, married parents to all other family types. We compare behavior problems across two-parent, single-mother, and single-father families, which allows us to explore competing gender theories as possible explanations for why child behavior outcomes may be different across these three categories. Results from analyses of the UK Millennium Cohort Study suggest that while children in both single-mother and single-father families initially look like they experience more behavior problems than those in two-parent families, controlling for physical and, especially, social resources explains potential differences. Similarly, when single mothers and single fathers occupy similar family environments in terms of physical and social resources, their children report similar behav...
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, May 22, 2012
Much of the literature on gender inequality in sport is devoted to media bias and conceptualizati... more Much of the literature on gender inequality in sport is devoted to media bias and conceptualizations of masculinity and femininity. In comparison, there is a paucity of empirical research on the sex pay gap. Our case study uses publically accessible data for professional tennis players ranked in the top 100 at the end of the 2009 season to determine to what extent a pay gap exists between men and women. We find that median earnings – both in 2009 and over a player’s career – are substantially higher for men than women in the sample. Net of various productivity measures, the average female player earned less than her male counterpart for every singles tournament won in 2009. We also find that while prize money for men and women is equal in prestigious tournaments such as Grand Slam events, women’s prize money is considerably lower in many of the less publicized tournaments. We submit that the sex pay gap among professional tennis players can be explained in part by productivity in 2009, as well as differential payouts for middle- and low-tier tournaments.
This article focuses on the effect of labor market restrictions on worker dignity during the recr... more This article focuses on the effect of labor market restrictions on worker dignity during the recruitment and hiring processes by examining a labor-market case study in which worker power is severely constrained through industry practices. Specifically, the authors study workers who attempted to gain employment in the National Football League to explore how artificially restricted labor markets limit workers' market power. Findings from extensive field notes, observations of player assessments, and semistructured interviews suggest that although workers possess elite skills necessary for employment, industry restrictions on employees' market power enable employers to demand painful and dehumanizing concessions that seriously challenge workers' dignity. The findings presented here extend previous studies of threats to worker dignity from shop floors and workplaces to labor markets and to elite, highly skilled workers.
We review messaging within automobile advertisements that normalizes and glamorizes reckless driv... more We review messaging within automobile advertisements that normalizes and glamorizes reckless driving behavior. Our content analysis of video advertisements illustrates the use of the automobile in ways that are both illegal and dangerous. Advertisements with hazardous driving images occur more often in our sample than all other types of marketing strategies. Messages include deviance from distributional norms (atypical vehicle use); illegal or immoral driving behaviors that put others at risk; and questionable judgments on the part of manufacturers that use advertisement imagery to increase sales while assuming little of the public costs associated with accidents, injuries, and preventable fatalities on roadways.
Voluntary job separation, or quitting, occurs for a variety of reasons. Although it is often a po... more Voluntary job separation, or quitting, occurs for a variety of reasons. Although it is often a positive move, it may also lead to periods of unemployment. Studies suggest that one factor that may be implicated in the likelihood of quitting is illicit drug use: Adult drug users may not only quit more frequently but also have a heightened probability of unemployment following a quit. Yet, prior research has not taken a sufficient longitudinal perspective, considered contemporary research on job mobility, nor examined gender differences. We assessed the association using longitudinal data on 8,512 individuals followed from 1984 to 1995. The results indicated that marijuana and cocaine use were associated with a higher probability of quitting. Moreover, marijuana use among males, but not females, was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment following a quit. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding gender-distinct patterns of drug use and occupational trajectories.
Studies imply that family and school resources independently affect delinquency. Yet research has... more Studies imply that family and school resources independently affect delinquency. Yet research has not developed a conceptual or analytic framework for exploring how these variables may interact to affect delinquent behavior. The authors propose that certain family and school variables may serve as substitute or complementary forms of capital in equations designed to predict delinquency. In particular, school capital may substitute for low family capital to decrease involvement in delinquent behavior. Using data from the 1990 National Educational Longitudinal Study and the 1994–1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), the authors find that high-quality school environments serve as substitutes for poor parental attachment and a lack of parental involvement in children's schooling, especially among adolescents who experience low academic achievement or report a lack of academic values. Hence, school-based social capital attenuates involvement in delinquency partly by compensating for high-risk family environments.
ObjectiveThe objective of this research is to determine whether children born to single parents b... more ObjectiveThe objective of this research is to determine whether children born to single parents benefit academically if their parents marry.BackgroundChildren born to single parents have on average worse educational outcomes than peers who live with married parents, but transitions to a married parent family are not well understood.MethodWe use the U.S. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 to create two groups of children born to single parents: children who remain in a stable single‐parent family (n = 220) and children whose single parent marries (n = 392). We examine differences in reading and math test scores in context of potential confounding variables.ResultsInitial findings suggest that children born to single parents whose parents marry perform better than do their peers in stable single‐parent families, but this effect disappears when controls for financial and human capital, race, and stress are included.ConclusionFinancial and human capital resources explain the perceived benefit of parent marriage, suggesting benefits of marriage accrue due to selectivity factors among parents more likely to marry. Other factors, such as stress, race, and number of siblings, play a role.ImplicationsDetermining the nature of the link between parental marriage and educational outcomes has important policy implications as to whether marriage should be promoted as an educational benefit to children.
... A November 15, 1994, Nike ad using Reggie White as endorser is a classic example of body diss... more ... A November 15, 1994, Nike ad using Reggie White as endorser is a classic example of body dissection and resulting ... In a more recent study, Wilson and Sparks interviewed black and nonblack youths concerning television commercials starring professional ath-letes and found ...
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Papers by Mikaela J. Dufur
long-term negative outcomes. Research has found that family and peer social capital have a strong influence on child behavioral outcomes. However, most research about social capital and child behavior problems has been conducted in Western contexts. Social capital may influence child
behavior problems differently in non-Western sociocultural environments due to different family and peer dynamics. Methods: Using a sample from the Japan Household Panel Survey and Japan Child Panel Survey (N = 182), we expand this literature on various forms of social capital to the Japanese context with data that were collected between 2009 and 2014. We examine the relationship of family and peer social capital with children internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors using OLS linear regression. Results: Our results differ from what is commonly found in Western contexts. Whereas family and peer social capital are typically associated with both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in Western countries, we find that greater family social capital is associated with decreased externalizing problem behaviors but not internalizing problem behaviors
in Japan, and peer social capital has no association on either type of problem behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings emphasize the importance of considering social and cultural contexts when exploring how social capital might encourage prosocial child outcomes.
long-term negative outcomes. Research has found that family and peer social capital have a strong influence on child behavioral outcomes. However, most research about social capital and child behavior problems has been conducted in Western contexts. Social capital may influence child
behavior problems differently in non-Western sociocultural environments due to different family and peer dynamics. Methods: Using a sample from the Japan Household Panel Survey and Japan Child Panel Survey (N = 182), we expand this literature on various forms of social capital to the Japanese context with data that were collected between 2009 and 2014. We examine the relationship of family and peer social capital with children internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors using OLS linear regression. Results: Our results differ from what is commonly found in Western contexts. Whereas family and peer social capital are typically associated with both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in Western countries, we find that greater family social capital is associated with decreased externalizing problem behaviors but not internalizing problem behaviors
in Japan, and peer social capital has no association on either type of problem behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings emphasize the importance of considering social and cultural contexts when exploring how social capital might encourage prosocial child outcomes.